I hate politics. I really do.

There are people who know me, who when reading this would say, "Ah, that's bull! You're a political animal!"

No one who might say that knew me before 9/11, or knew me well. I was politically pretty naïve before then. The truth is I love my country more than I hate politics.

It’s not the idea of participation in Government I find distasteful; it’s the lying, the deceit, the manipulation, the misrepresentation, the special deals, and the corruption that I despise. Make no mistake—there is corruption on both sides. For every Randy “Duke” Cunningham, I'll show you a William "Cold Cash" Jefferson, who by the way is neither a war hero, nor a “Legend of Air Power”. Not only that, Jefferson has so far eluded prosecution. For every Mark Foley, I'll show you a Gerry Studds, who has never been held to account for his crime of sexual relations with a minor. And for every Dick Cheney hunting accident, I’ll show you a Ted Kennedy drunk driving accident in which a young lady lost her life after he delayed reporting the accident for over nine hours, and he has never had to answer charges for that incident.

I’m not justifying bad behavior by pointing at more bad behavior. I’m saying it is hypocritical for anyone from either side to say the other is more corrupt. In particular, Howard Dean is a L-I-A-R when he says “Republican culture of corruption.” Most people simply don’t hear about Democrat crimes and foibles, because we have a news media that is in bed with our enemies and friendly to Democrats. Dan Rather interviewing the late Saddam Hussein and then foisting forged documents on an unsuspecting public to influence a Presidential election? Diane Sawyer talking to Mahmoud Ahmedinijad about what he listens to on his iPod?

When I learned that there are people at work trying to destroy my country through its internal politics, I realized I had to get smarter about what was going on. There are many Americans all too willing to help them, and many millions of others who seem to be oblivious, both to what these people are doing, and to the very real and very deadly threat of Islamo-fascism.

Charlie Daniels had a hit song in 1980 called In America (in response to the Iran hostage crisis). Part of it went like this:

And we may have done a little bit
Of fightin' amongst ourselves
But you outside people best leave us alone
'Cause we'll all stick together
And you can take that to the bank

That’s the America that I love. I don't know where that America has gone, and I'm worried about her.

I had no political loyalty when I predicted in December 2000 that Democrats would blame President Bush for what I knew then was an already deepening recession. I was looking only at the economy and the stock market that was by then already down significantly. It was education that showed me who was lying or just gullible when a relative whom I sent that email to did not recall it six months later when he complained that George Bush had destroyed the economy. Short memories and selective memories…

But when I say such things, some people say things like “Spoken like a true Republican!” Other times I’m just called a “right wing wacko.” Those aren’t my labels—they belong to someone else. I’m actually registered Independent, because the Republicans all too often have their heads in a dark place as well. In my view, that’s a DC condition, not a Republican or Democrat condition.

I really don’t care for the labels:  right, left, liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican… I hate politics! I really just care about doing the right thing. I grew up poor, and by rights, I should be a Democrat, condemning big business, big oil, “tax cuts for the rich,” and looking to Uncle Sam for a handout. In that world, staying in poverty is somehow more honorable than getting an education and working hard to make a good, honest living, (...staying in poverty, even while blaming “the rich” for keeping them down—It’s like a kind of insanity).

Instead I decided that I wanted a better life, and that I wanted more for my kids than I had. The way to prosperity is education, sacrifice, and hard work. There are many roads to education, and there are no obstacles save for those we put in our own way.

Let’s be clear—just because I believe George Bush was a better choice than John Kerry, doesn’t mean I like everything about him. He leaves a great deal to be desired by true Conservatives. By contrast, I’ve never met a Democrat who would criticize a single thing about Bill Clinton, Al Gore, or John Kerry (well, maybe one Democrat—and he was a U.S. Marine). Many Democrats say the same in reverse, but I challenge any of them to tell me one criticism of Bill Clinton’s Presidency, OTHER than the Lewinsky scandal—That’s just too easy of a target.

I remember hearing on the news in April 2000 that stocks were down because people were selling stocks to pay their taxes (and no one asked, “Maybe their taxes are too high?”) It made no sense to me then, but it came back to me later when I began to learn that the major news media had an agenda. Now I believe their purpose for that story was to deny/try to explain the fact that the boom was over, and that it had ended on Bill Clinton’s watch, contrary to many later claims continuing to this day. Those who perpetuate this lie have an agenda, and millions who believe it know little to nothing about how even to do the research to prove or disprove it—they just take it at face value. When confronted with facts to the contrary by someone like me, their response will be something like, “All I know is my 401(k) was doing great under Clinton, and it went to hell under Bush.”

The forces at work trying to destroy this country have successfully dragged both major parties further to the left than most people realize. I think if we were all honest, people like Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan would join the Communist Party.

The Democrats would rename themselves the Socialist Party.

The Republicans would rename themselves the Democratic Party.

The true Conservatives left over from any party would form a new Republican Party.

FDR was truly a Socialist, but I think he would roll over in his grave if he could see Michael Moore next to Jimmy Carter at the Democratic National Convention. Sadly, many out there will either deny that Moore was there, or will claim that he also attended the Republican National Convention. I have heard them say so with my own ears.

People from either side of the aisle will say anything to get elected or re-elected. Yet even after being handed their own heads in the November ’06 election, many Republicans seem to be positively deaf to what we the people really want.

There is something about politics that seems to draw the most fervent misplaced loyalties and drives even reasonable, intelligent people to utterly suspend critical thinking and close their minds to dissenting views, even to hard facts. Politics drives smart people to throw facts and logic out the window. Just as the gravity of a black hole warps the fabric of space and time, politics can warp the fabric of man.

Politics creates for those elected to “serve” the public interest (i.e. those who stand to benefit from control of the public purse strings and from special interest perks), the motivation to lie, cheat, steal, connive, and manipulate. It’s like that old saying about the love of money being the root of all evil (well, almost all evil).

Politics causes people to have short memories and selective memories. They count on us forgetting that the Senator John D. Rockefeller (D) said the following during the buildup to the 2003 Iraq invasion:

“As the attacks of September 11 demonstrated, the immense destructiveness of modern technology means we can no longer afford to wait around for a smoking gun.”

Politics drives people to say “Bush lied and took us to war!” and to count on us forgetting that Bill Clinton said the following on December 16, 1998:

“Heavy as they are, the costs of action must be weighed against the price of inaction. If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors. He will make war on his own people.

And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them.”

They say Bush lied, but that when presenting the same information more than four years earlier, Bill Clinton did not lie. Taking action based on information does not make the information itself either true or false. Nor does taking action make the information a LIE, particularly because we only know now after taking such action, that the information was false.

When confronted with this inconsistency, politics drives people to respond with “But Bill Clinton didn’t take us to war!” and they count on us not knowing that there were 30 civilian deaths on the first day of air attacks that Bill Clinton ordered, in addition to many other inconvenient facts.

Politics drives ordinary Americans to blind loyalty to one party, and blind hatred of the other… I cannot comprehend this, especially at a time when we face an unprecedented threat to our very civilization from Islamic fascists who think there is no greater glory than to blow themselves up to kill us, or even to die in a blaze of American firepower.

Politics drives school teachers to refuse to salute the flag, not to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance, and to state in the school newspaper that they do so because they disagree with the President’s decision to invade Iraq.

Politics drives newspaper publishers to print exclusively one-sided content only from certain “journalists”, and from one particular mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, but not from other mothers of soldiers killed in Iraq, and to ignore facts which run counter to their agenda.

Politics drives politicians to invoke the name of revered ex-Presidents as they twist his words, in lies to their constituents about the intentions of a current President. At the same time, politicians from both sides conspire to over-tax we the people, spend the excess, and sell us a bill of goods that it is being kept in a “trust fund.”

Politics drives many Americans to say George W. Bush is “the worst President ever.” Those who believe so should brush up on their history:

Warren G. Harding
Andrew Johnson
James Buchanan

…and especially Franklin Pierce.

Politics drives people to say “The deficit is out of control!” and to count on us not knowing the truth:

“The federal government probably ran a deficit of about $250 billion in fiscal year 2006, which ended Sept. 30, the Congressional Budget Office estimated Friday. That's about $10 billion less than the CBO forecast earlier this summer and about $68 billion less than the $318 billion deficit recorded in fiscal 2005 Corporate tax receipts have continued to come in ahead of Expectations.”

Politics drives the mother of a son killed in Iraq to write in a comparison of George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler, about traveling back in time to kill the infant Bush.

We have a politician—a prominent Senator and former Presidential candidate openly joking on the Bill Maher show “I could have gone to 1600 Pennsylvania and killed the real bird with one stone.” To this the studio full of sycophants responded with delighted applause and laughter.

To the best of my knowledge, both of these people should have been visited by the Secret Service and arrested for these comments, but they get away with it.

This is not a partisan thing—I would be just as disgusted if someone made a similar joke about murdering Bill Clinton, but to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever done so in such a public manner, on national TV, and in particular not a US Senator and former candidate for the Presidency!

Politics drives Congress to waste the people’s time on senseless and useless endeavors… What is the deal with this non-binding resolution? Doesn’t Congress have some real people’s work to do, like fixing the mess they made with this Pension Protection Act, which is so poorly written because they were in such a hurry to get it through so they could go home last year? Now they’re wasting our time debating just how deeply to bury the knife with which they are stabbing our troops in the back!

What has happened to the America that Charlie Daniels sang about nearly 30 years ago?

I should have started this blog long ago. I spent way too many hours debating in other forums, with people who have simply closed their eyes to anything resembling a fact that runs counter to their beliefs. I also spent too many hours writing letters to editors of “newspapers.” They either never printed such letters, or they didn’t have the courage to print them without a rebuttal next to them full of yet more lies from the “journalist” to which I was responding. They can’t do that here, which is why they are trying their level best to squelch blogs, talk radio, and Fox News.