One time I was asked a question that made me think. The question was: “If Christianity was outlawed, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” I had to think long and hard to determine if the answer was yes or no. I came up that my answer had to be a yes, because I leave a very clear path to show that I am a Christian.

But, I would like to modify that question today just a little. If freedom was outlawed, would there be enough evidence to convict you of supporting freedom? Since I blog and write frequently about freedom in its many forms, the answer for me would be yes. But, do I always support freedom or just when it is convenient? Do I support freedom for those that I disagree with or do I only support freedom for my side? Now, I have made the question much tougher to answer in the affirmative.

All of us support freedom for those we agree with. That position is easy because if you agree with someone, that person is not a threat of any kind. The hard question is whether I support freedom for those that I disagree with. As a kid I learned a statement that I used frequently. It was: “I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” I have always tried to live by that ideal. When I see someone obviously trying to do harm to the country I love, it is sometimes hard not to want their freedom of speech or assembly curtailed.

An example of wanting someone’s speech curtailed is when I hear Barack Obama tell lies about what is in the subprime healthcare bill. I want someone to come up to him and say that he cannot tell lies about the bill in the House or Senate. But, he has the right to tell lies about what he believes if that is the only way he can sell it to the public. It is the job of the public to find out the truth. They should not just rely on the words of politicians that will often distort the truth to fit certain groups. Wanting his speech curtailed would be a restriction on freedom of speech and is beneath me. Therefore, I allow and even encourage others to speak in opposition to what I believe.

In watching and listening to the news and blogs, it is clear that one side in this debate believes in freedom and one side does not. One side speaks about what they believe and tries to bring out arguments to rebut the arguments of the other side. The other side generally cannot win in any debating situation, so they generally try to curtail the free speech of the person or group that is giving them trouble. The people arguing from the right are the ones that provide arguments and allow the other side to have their say. The people on the left are the ones that generally call for a law or some other infringement on the right of the opposition to speak.

Another example of this playing out is the response to the subprime healthcare bill. With all the opposition to the bill, the Democrats are saying that the people protesting do not have the right to protest or that they are using Nazi tactics. When Democrats were doing far worse in protesting against everything George W. Bush was doing, that was just fine. Republicans generally did not appreciate the protests against George W. Bush, but accepted them as part of the price of freedom. Republicans did not call for restrictions on the right of the protesters to protest. Look at the contrast with the Democrats and the subprime healthcare debate.

We, as Americans, should celebrate freedom in its many forms. That some Americans object to other
Americans voicing their opinions, it is wrong. That is the problem with many of the bills coming out of this Democrat led Congress, they generally try to curtail one freedom or another. This subprime healthcare debacle is trying to restrict an entire bunch of freedoms at one time. That is why people are protesting. When Democrats were cutting them off one at a time, people did not always notice. By doing it a bunch at a time, people are noticing and objecting. It also takes the mask off of the Democrats at the same time. That is why it is so great to see it finally come to pass. Democrats are being shown for what they are instead of what they pretend to be. They pretend to be the friend of the people and are the friend of the powerful. We can hope that this continues and the unmasking continues.

The Trojan Horse Bill has been agreed to by the Democrats in the House, Senate and White House. There is nothing to stop this Trojan Horse Bill from being signed into law. The Democrats like to call it a stimulus bill because that way they can claim this is an emergency. This bill is not a stimulus bill and should be treated as any other bill that comes before the House and Senate. Since the Democrats refuse to call it what it is, the bill is being treated as an emergency bill and will be signed into law as soon as it is approved. The only way it could be stopped would be for the three turncoats in the Senate to suddenly grow a backbone. That is unlikely to happen. They are liberals at heart and are only Republicans when it suits their purposes, like when they want to win elections.

This bill will effectively end America as it has been known for 240+ years. We have been gradually moving towards this end for the past 70 years. Franklin Roosevelt started us on this slippery slope and we have now reached the bottom where our freedom is now lost. It will not disappear in a flash when the bill is signed. It will disappear gradually as the plan for socialism is implemented. Within four years we will realize that we have lost our freedom and will scream. By then, it will be too late. It could still be repealed, but the information will have been gathered and that would be a tremendous database for the Democrats to mine for dirt. The odds on the database ever being destroyed is virtually zero. In fact, the chance of getting rid of Democrat socialist programs is zero. We still have them from the Great Depression.

Realistically, the best we can hope for is to strangle the program to make it ineffective. Democrats would scream bloody murder if that was to happen, but it would be better than funding it and having it destroy lives. The best thing would be to completely remove all the socialist programs from the federal government list of programs. That would greatly reduce the amount of debt that we would have to finance and increase the freedom in this country. The programs have been around for so long that there is little or no chance of ever getting rid of them.

The one thing this Trojan Horse Bill actually has accomplished is get the House Republicans some backbone. The House Republicans played the bill perfectly. By playing it perfectly, the support for the bill has gone down about 10% per week since the bill was introduced. That is another reason the Democrats want it passed right away. If they wait too long, nobody will want it at all.

We are being lied to by Obama, Pelosi and Reid. They all claim there are no earmarks in the bill. The entire bill is one giant earmark. It is just a collection of earmarks tied up in a bow. The Democrats called it something other than earmarks and so that is why they can claim that it is not earmarks. Democrats are great at changing the words or the meaning of words. In this case, they changed what they called everything so that it would not be called an earmark. Then, when they claim that there are no earmarks in the bill, there is nothing in the bill called an earmark. There are lots of things that are earmarks by definition, but nothing called an earmark. You have to understand how the Democrat mind works to get around that one.

Where do we go from here? All we can do is play the part of the loyal opposition. The House and Senate Republicans have to continue to show that they have backbones. Backbones need to be found for the three Benedict Arnolds that have so stripped the Senate Republicans of any power. This bill will be paying its evil dividends by 2010 and the time will be ripe to pick up a lot of Democrat seats. There may even be Republican majorities in the House and/or the Senate. That would be a terrific block on any further erosion of our freedoms by Barack Obama and his minions. It might even be early enough to derail the socialized medical board that the Trojan Horse Bill contains. Let us hope that we can get some power in time.

Today, the big government liberals in the Senate passed the Trojan Horse Bill, otherwise known as the Emergency Pork Spending Bill or the Stimulus Bill. This Senate bill is different than the bill that passed the House. That means there will be a conference between the Senate and the House to iron out the differences. The new bill will most likely take the worst parts of both bills and call it good.

The official vote had all Democrats voting for the bill and three RINO’s voting with the Democrats. The three RINO’s were Specter (PA), the two Senators from Maine, Snowe and Collins. The three RINO’s voting with the Democrats will give Obama some cover when the bill falls flat on its face. He can claim that the bill was bipartisan in nature. That is not the truth at all, but Obama has not been restrained by the truth since he took office. He seems to have caught the same bug that Al Gore has.

At a Town Hall meeting today, Obama took questions from the audience. They were the usual Democrat whiners with no jobs or poor jobs. Obama told them that the bill would help them get whatever they desired. That was a bald faced lie, but since he said it with compassion it is so good.

The economy is too big and too varied to be controlled by government. The Democrats acted out of haste for two reasons. One, they wanted to act before the economy recovered on its own. And two, they wanted to push through their socialist agenda in one bill as an emergency measure. They were sure that nobody would read it, especially the liberal Republicans. People have read it and are hopping mad about the bill. Calls are 100-1 against the bill in Washington. The public opinion polls have only 37% support for the bill and that support is dropping rapidly. The only ones who support this bill will directly benefit from it. Everyone else opposes the bill because it does nothing to help America and lots to hurt America.

Obama has succeeded in fundamentally changing America from a free country into a socialist country in one fell swoop. Most people in the US do not realize it yet as the chains have not taken hold. When the chains are fully in place, people will howl with pain and the Democrats will laugh. By then they will have succeeded in putting 20-30 million new Democrat voters on the rolls by making the currently illegal immigrants, legal. This will insure that Democrats get elected far into the future. It will insure that America is no more. The America that our Founding Fathers fought and died for is gone when this bill is signed into law. My father and many generations before from the Revolution to WWII fought for the United States, to keep it free. In my generation, we gave it away to the socialists without as much as a whimper.

We are going to have to get used to the government telling us what to do and when to do it. If Obama manages to get re-elected, he will probably be President for life. He would probably suspend the Constitutional provisions on terms and even the length of terms to get what he wants. We would have a tyrant on our hands. If you have a gun, keep it in good working order. If you can get a gun, get one and learn how to use it. There may come a time to have an armed insurrection to claim our country back and it may happen in my lifetime. We have to teach our young people the importance of freedom and what it means. If enough understand, we may have a chance to claim our freedom back. The socialists will not want to give up their power and it will not be pretty or quick.

I listened to Michael Savage on the way home last night and he had a caller who was a retired Washington, D.C. policeman. The policeman’s opinion is that most of the people in the halls of power in Washington are corrupt. Michael Savage agreed with that assessment. I put in my second to the motion that most in Washington are corrupt. Michael Savage likened it to shoplifters now running the store. Something has to happen to break this chain of corruption. It has caused us to lose most of our freedoms. Let us hope that more people can see our loss of freedom and rise up together and stop this nonsense before it goes too far.

Dr. Thomas Sowell (one of my two favorite authors) wrote an interesting article today. The article highlights how liberals are not against freedom as a concept, but what they believe is against freedom in practice. He gives the example that Nazi’s were free to practice being a Nazi during the reign of Hitler in Germany. The rest of the populace was not “free” to express their beliefs.

The left feels that their ideas are superior to any other ideas. Therefore, they can make a demand that their ideas be followed on anyone. If anyone disagrees with an idea coming from the left, the person is obviously wrong and should be stopped. To someone on the left, that makes perfect sense. In their mind, they are promoting freedom by allowing leftist ideas to permeate society and keeping “evil” right wing ideas from society.

The last paragraph of Dr. Sowell’s article sums up the reasoning: “The essence of bigotry is refusing to others the rights that you demand for yourself. Such bigotry is inherently incompatible with freedom, even though many on the left would be shocked to be considered opposed to freedom.”

Dr. Sowell gives an example of universities that require a prospective student give time to “community service”. Now, “community service” is left undefined when it is used in the packets. It is assumed that the candidate will understand that the candidate is to donate time to homeless people or other leftist worthy cause. In my mind, military service is giving far more community service than any service in a homeless shelter. Therefore, a candidate should be able to get military training and it should count toward “community service”. Of course it would not count, because liberals do not think that military service is worthy of anyone’s service. In fact, they are trying to make it almost impossible for anyone to receive military training outside of the military academies. Even there, they would like to make military training off limits.

Freedom means allowing others to do things that you do not agree with. This is very difficult for most people to do. They feel that their way of doing things is the right way and doing things differently is wrong. Americans have been pretty good at allowing others to do things that they did not agree with. This has gotten us into a lot of trouble over the years. It has also enabled us to enjoy the best country in the world. There have been problems with accepting differences. Racial differences come to mind in that regard. But, we have improved greatly over what we were even 30 years ago. The problem with the left is that they want to return to the times where you cannot say nor do certain things. That is just un-American.

Every person in this country struggles at some time or other with accepting others doing things that we disapprove of. The degree to which we overcome this problem underscores how “free” we really are. Allowing others to do things we disagree with does not mean that we have to accept what they do as proper or correct. If you want to do things that will get you sick or killed, it is wrong and/or stupid. I have to allow you to do it, but that does not mean that I have to accept what you do as correct.

When someone protests something that I passionately believe in, I can believe that they are wrong and still allow them to do it. By doing that, I am exercising freedom and allowing others to exercise theirs. When I try to stop them from doing things that I disagree with, I might be becoming a bigot. If the person is breaking an existing law, then I do not have to put up with it at all. If it is legal, then I have to allow them to do it.

Liberals need to have more courage in their convictions. The only reason they cut off debate on their core issues is that they are afraid that they might be wrong. Since they might be wrong, they just stop you from questioning them. Then they are right and it does not matter what you think. Liberals think that this is freedom. It is not and never will be.