How We Can Win
Author: Ken Coman
•7:28 PM
On the eve of this grand election, there is much talk about which candidate will win. However, there isn't much talk about how we the people will win. How can we win? First, we have to know what we are fighting for. We are fighting for freedom, for liberty, for rescuing the individual dignity and worth inherent in all mankind. In essence, we are fighting for the unalienable rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. By "we" I mean all Americans of all parties.

As I view the current situation of our nation, relative to what we are fighting for, I must confess that even for the optimist in me, I see a great dilemma. I see that we are losing this fight. Why?

The evidence is clear. Why is it clear? Because Government is being called upon by the people of our nation to do more for our citizenry. They are having to step in and make regulations for Unions, for safety, for hours you can work in a week, for the minimum amount of money you can be paid per hour, to provide you food when you don't have any, give you money when you are out of luck, help you find a job, fund life saving research, provide you with protected time off to have a child or to get better from a debilitating illness, say that its illegal to sexually harass people at work, make guidelines for executive compensation and on, and on, and on. These kinds of laws and government involvement don't come as preemptive measures against some unknown problem yet to happen, but they come as the result of the abuse and inhumanity of mankind towards their brothers and sisters. And this is why we are losing. The Democrats didn't cause this. The Republicans didn't cause this. Individuals caused this. Those parties reacted.

I look at many of the aims of the Democratic Party as essentially well meaning and many of them are trying to help each other. The problem however is that they can never fix the problem these regulations and state mandated programs are seeking to fix. You can not enhance life by not protecting it. You cannot enhance freedom by taking it away. You cannot enhance personal liberty by creating an all-powerful state. You cannot enhance the pursuit of happiness by taking away the pursuit. And that is exactly what we have done and are doing by redistributing wealth, taking from those who have and giving it to those who have not earned it, removing the moral conscious of our people, and promising to be everything to everyone. Because of that, we are losing the fight and rather than have a stronger nation as a result of all of these "progressive" policies, we have a nation on the verge of moral, emotional, physical and financial bankruptcy.

We are losing the fight because the love of man has waxed cold. Our people have turned to material wealth and away from the wealth that matters: family, friends, and relationships. We are losing because our people are turning to self indulgence rather than self sacrifice. We are losing because people are turning to reliance on the state and not reliance on self. We are losing because our people are watching too many movies about super heroes and love instead of being heros and loving. We are losing because our people are turning to a world of no consequences for their actions rather than acting with conscience. We are losing because our people have chosen to live their lives on credit because they can't distinguish their wants from their needs. We are losing our fight because we have become ashamed of God. Instead, we should be ashamed of ourselves.

How can we win this war when it seems to be so far gone? The way is not to be found in the political process or in the parties. The way to win this fight is through the same means that caused it - the individual. If you and I seek out the two great commandments: to love God with all we are and have and to love our neighbors as ourselves, we will win this fight. I know that love is the way. The fruits of that will be a turing to the wealth that matters and will begin to raise up a good, productive generation that reverences God and respects their fellow man. It will be a society of caring for each other through sacrificing for others first. It will be a society of heros and family. It will be a society of choice and accountability with conscience. It will be a society based on true wealth. It will be a society that truly can say, "In God we Trust."

That's the America I believe in. God bless us to be that country. When we are, then we have won - all of us.
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What Happened?
Author: Ken Coman
•7:57 PM
As I sit back and think about the Republican candidate for President, I have to ask myself, "What happened?"

Four years ago in exit polls when voters were asked, "What was the number one issue on your mind that influenced your vote?" This answer was given more than others: "Values."

So, here we are - the party of supposed family values - with a candidate who doesn't really represent those values.

How is it that a candidate who neglected his injured wife and children and cheated on them with the woman he is now married to can look at the republican party and say that he will represent them? How is it that a candidate with a history of gambling, anger, and financial impropriety can say he represents change? How is it that a candidate that has been a member of the congress with the lowest approval rating in history can say he is going to change the way Washington works when the way he works is the same as Washington's way? How is it that he is going to represent the Republican Party?

He can't - and you know what, he said he won't. He said it himself when he accepted the party nomination: "I don't work for a party." As much as I dislike the two-party system you have to wonder if his approach is anything near fixing it.

So, the republicans not only have a candidate that doesn't represent the only thing that won them the election four years ago, they have a candidate that won't represent them if he were elected.

I don't think we should jump on the Rush Limbaugh band wagon and say, "Well, he isn't who I would have voted for but we have to get behind him now and help him win." Just because he is the party's pick doesn't mean you have to support him. There are other choices. Supporting someone you don't want as president just to keep the other person out of office is just as bad. That is band aiding the problem - hiding it - rather than healing it. It keeps a broken system perpetually broken. Voting for someone you don't want won't fix it - it will keep it broken. Let your voice be heard - however you feel. If you love McCain campaign for him. If you love Obama - campaign for him. If you don't - let yor voice be heard and find someone you do love. Republicans and Democrats say if you vote for a third party you are throwing away your vote. I say if you vote for someone you don't want in office you have thrown away your vote.

Rightfully did he pick Governor Palin as his VP candidate - she seems to be many things he is not. She has become a true political star. I worry though that her stardom is a problem for Americans. The light shouldn't be on her - it should be on him. Republicans should remember that they are Americans before they are Republicans and that this man, although the republican choice for president, may not be the best one for America. We have the duty to find out and to vote our conscience.
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The Media's Self Appointed Role: Guide the Election
Author: Ken Coman
•10:22 AM

Over four years ago I said to my wife, "You watch, Barack Obama will be the next Democratic nominee for President." It seemed obvious to me due to the high amount of press coverage he was getting at the time. As the years went on that guess became more and more right. What finally sealed the deal for me was a cover story of a prominent magazine (Newsweek if memory serves) a while ago with a photo of Barack Obama and the words "Barack Obama - the Next President."

It seemed fishy to me then and it still does now.

In the presidential debates it is the media who can pick who can participate and which candidates can't. This gives more face time to the candidates the media prefers and little to no face time for the other candidates.

I recall when Romney won the caucus in Wyoming - the first one of the year - even before New Hampshire! - and how the media didn't even cover it! You couldn't find news of his win anywhere - but when John McCain won New Hampshire he was slated as sure to win because New Hampshire was the first primary - but McCain didn't get the first win - Romney did.

In short, the media picks the contenders and then advertises for the ones they want.

Finally, today when I saw this article I was aghast. The media's new role is to disprove arguments - but not for both parties.

They want Obama as president and there isn't anything you or I can do to change that. They will give him the coverage that he needs and will not give like treatment to McCain. You may think from this article that you know who I am voting for but you don't - not even I do. I just think it is wrong for the media to play an unequal role in politics. The government was not made for them - it was made for us. The media are here for us as well - not the other way around.

Here is the article:



By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer Wed Sep 3, 11:48 PM ET
ST. PAUL, Minn. - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases, the reproach and the praise stretched the truth.

Some examples:

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."

PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate."

THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.

Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.

He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.

THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state — by population.

MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.

THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."

THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.

FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right — change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."

THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.
___
Associated Press Writer Jim Drinkard in Washington contributed to this report.




Tell me, when have you seen anything like this on Barack Obama? You probably can't and you probably won't.
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The True American Dream
Author: Ken Coman
•9:54 AM
I believe in freedom and in its boundaries. When another person's freedom infringes on the freedom and rights of others, they have exercised their freedom in an unjust fashion. Such an exercise becomes a crime.

Regarding the boundaries of free exercise, I would like you to consider part of the original draft of the Bill of Rights for Pennsylvania's first Constitution. In that first draft it read:

"An enormous proportion of property vested in a few individuals is dangerous to the rights, and destructive of the common happiness, of mankind; and therefore every free state hath a right by its laws to discourage the possession of such property."

Is that true? Does the holding of an enormous proportion of property vested in a few individuals create a danger and destroy the common happiness of mankind? This isn't a question you should answer with your knee jerk as you may be inclined to do.

As I look in my minds eye at the vast expanse of humanity around the world, and knowing that the majority of wealth is owned by a minority of the earth's population, and knowing that wars are generally waged over wealth (i.e., gold, land, resources) and to get more of it either because the poor don't have it or the rich want more of it, and whereas wars cause so much misery to the people involved, and knowing that the lack of opportunities afforded to so many around the world is a factor in crime, social ills, disease and death, I can see the danger and destruction that the incredibly disproportionate distribution of wealth can create.

Does therefore the endless accumulation of wealth infringe on the rights of others? It may. It may cause people to be pressed into war who have no true interest in it. It may push others into poverty. It may keep people from basic services. It may cause so many of the ills we see and hear around us and in our world.

The endless accumulation of wealth was never meant to be the American Dream as so many think it is. The American Dream was about Freedom, Liberty, Justice, & the protection of Natural Rights. Let us never forget what our country was and should be really about - Liberty & Justice for all. We as a Nation have never been perfect at that but we have gotten better as we have looked to our foundation - the principles the founders aspired to. That foundation has continued to transform the way we have built & changed our society since 1776.

May Liberty and Justice for all continue to form how we look at the true American Dream versus the fraud so that our American home, and therefore our world home, can be one of freedom, justice and protection of natural rights for all mankind. And may each one of us consider again the question "Does the holding of an enormous proportion of property vested in a few individuals create a danger and destroy the common happiness of mankind?" and then live and act accordingly.
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New Proposal for Health Care
Author: Ken Coman
•11:51 AM
I have written before about Health care expenses and that one way to encourage more free market forces in the health care industry would be to eliminate the anti-trust protection afforded to the insurance industry. This was not very well accepted by our own Senator Orrin Hatch - you can read his letter to me below.

Another thought provoking idea is one created by Michael Cannon of the CATO Institute. In his paper, "Large Health Savings Accounts: A Step toward Tax Neutrality for Health Care," Cannon proposes making some changes to HSA's which would encourage more competition and therefore drive prices down to a competitive level. His proposals are as follows:

1. Increase HSA contribution limits dramatically. For illustrative purposes, assume the maximum annual contribution limits would be roughly tripled, from $2,850 to $8,000 for individuals and from $5,500 to $16,000 for families.
2. Remove the requirement that HSA holders be covered by a qualified high-deductible health plan. HSAs would be open to those covered by any type of insurance, as well as the uninsured.
3. Allow HSA holders to purchase health insurance, of any type and from any source, tax-free with HSA funds.

Cannon writes, "Restructuring the exclusion for employer-sponsored health benefits in this way would enable more individuals to obtain health insurance that matches their preferences, would increase efficiency in the health care sector, and could reduce inequities created by the exclusion. These changes also offer a means of limiting the currently unlimited tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health benefits that may be more politically feasible than past proposals. " He concludes: "Large HSAs could serve as a step toward a tax system that offers no preferred treatment to health expenditures, and thereby forces the health care sector to accomplish more with the resources devoted to it."

I personally liked his ideas and recommend that we look closer at them and invite our elected officials to look closer as well. What we need is not more government health care programs or forcing employers to purchase group insurance (which would just perpetuate and deepen the divide between the consumer and the prices) such as those being proposed by certain presidential contenders.

To read his full report, please click on the link below.

http://www.bepress.com/fhep/11/2/3/
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