Conservative Reading List

I was having a conversation with a friend recently  about kids going off to college and the liberal "indoctrination" that many colleges seem to put freshmen through.  I mentioned that when my younger sister went off to college, when I heard about the freshman class she was required to take, I immediately put together a few books and sent those to her with a "Conservative Reading List" so that she could counteract the liberal brainwashing that they were putting her through.

My friend asked me if I could send her what I considered to be my baseline reading list for Conservatives.  I thought I would take a few moments and share the list with my readers.

Conservative Declaration

It's been a while since I posted, but sometimes life has a way of keeping us from doing the things that we really want to be doing!  I saw this from the Heritage Foundation today, and thought it was worth sharing.  It is a great synopsis of Conservative thought.  Here is the original if you would like to sign with me!

With a record like this...

Some interesting numbers on how the economy has fared under President Obama.  Admittedly, there are some economic numbers that are better such as mortgage rates and the level of consumer debt, but the reasons that these are better are somewhat dubious...government bailouts and other government assistance have helped to improve these numbers artificially.

The stats:

Jobs	2008	2009	2010	2011	January 2012	April/May 2012
Unemployment rate	5%	7.8%	9.7%	9.1%	8.3%	8.2%
Broader unemployment rate "U-6"	9.2%	14.2%	16.7%	16.1%	15.1%	14.8%
White unemployment rate	4.4%	7.1%	8.7%	8.1%	7.4%	7.4%
Black unemployment rate	9.1%	12.7%	16.5%	15.7%	13.6%	13.6%
Hispanic unemployment rate	6.5%	10%	12.6%	12%	10.5%	11%
Total private-sector jobs	115.6 M	111 M	106.8 M	108.2 M	110.5 M	111 M
Total government jobs	22.4 M	22.6 M	22.5 M	22.2 M	22 M	22 M
Median weeks unemployed	9	10.7	20.1	21.7	21.1	20.1

Income	2008	2009	2010	2011	January 2012	April/May 2012
Disposable personal income per capita	$33,229	$32,166	$32,481	$32,667	--	$32,677
Personal bankruptcies	1,074,225	1,412,838	1,536,799	1,362,847	--	--
Poverty rate	12.5%	13.2%	14.3%	15.1%	--	--
People receiving food stamps	--	32 M	39 M	44 M	46 M	46 M

Federal government	2008	2009	2010	2011	January 2012	April/May 2012
Federal discretionary spending as percent of GDP	7.9%	8.9%	9.4%	9%	--	8.5%
Federal mandatory spending as percent of GDP	11.1%	15%	13.3%	13.5%	--	14.4%
Annual federal deficit	$458 B	$1.41 T	$1.29 T	$1.3 T	--	$1.33 T
Cumulative public debt	$5.14 T	$6.37 T	$7.81 T	$9.39 T	$10.45 T	$10.95 T

Based on these statistics, unemployment has jumped dramatically; disposable income has dropped; bankruptcies are up; more people are receiving food stamps than ever before; and the Federal Government is on an out of control spending binge!

It's time to bring back a political question that was used rather effectively several years back.....  Ask yourself, are you better off than you were four years ago?  The numbers would seem to answer with a resounding "NO!"

Great article on UN ATT

This article by former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton articulates very well why the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty should not be ratified.

To beat, or not to beat: that is the question!

The latest media over-hype is over whether Mitt Romney will pick Condoleezza Rice as his VP.  The buzz seems to be that if he does, social conservatives will stay home en masse, thus giving the election to President Obama.  I understand why social conservatives don't want Condoleeza Rice as the VP pick - she is pro-abortion and it signals that Romney is not nearly the conservative that he claims to be (that's a surprise?).  However, if we cut off our collective nose to spite our face and stay home because of this issue, we will have another four years of President Obama, and our country cannot afford that socially, culturally or fiscally.  Social conservatives need to pay attention to the big picture on this election.  Abortion is an abomination, but we risk seeing this country irreparably damaged if we let Barack Obama have four more years in the White House.

When conservatives say stupid things...

It drives me up a wall when I hear liberal commentators say idiotic generalizations about Republicans, tea-party members or conservatives in general, but what makes me even more crazy is when I see a fellow conservative make just as idiotic of a statement.  This weekend, one of my favorite conservative commentators, Michelle Malkin, did just that.  On Fox News, Ms. Malkin was drawing a comparison between Mitt Romney and his supporters and President Obama and his supporters.  Her purpose was to talk about which of the two candidates is "qualified" to handle the economy.  Ms. Malkin said this...

"The Romney types, of course, are the ones who sign the front of the paycheck, and the Obama types are the one who have spent their entire lives signing the back of them."

With all due respect to Michelle Malkin, this statement was just plain WRONG!  I understand the comparison she was trying to draw between the candidates.  I hope that she was trying to draw a comparison between people like the President who have spent most of their lives promoting government control over the economy and those such as Mitt Romney who have been in the private sector creating jobs.  Unfortunately, her comment ended up as a comparison between job creators and those who work for someone else.

Stooping to the level of class warfare is, in my opinion, never acceptable from a conservative.  So many people spend their time trying to paint conservatives as "elitist" or "rich" or whatever else, and when prominent conservatives make statements like this, it just feeds that stereotype.  The fact is, there are people on BOTH sides of the political spectrum who sign the front of the paychecks and I can guarantee that there are just as many conservatives as there are liberals who have spent their entire lives signing the backs of paychecks. (Personally, I have spent more time signing backs than fronts!)

Obama slaps business owners in the face

President Obama had his disdain for business owners and self-initiative on full display this weekend at a campaign event.  It absolutely amazes me that a sitting President would actually try to tell business owners that they don't deserve credit for building their business because they obviously did not do it on their own!  Every business owner in the U.S. should push to make sure this man does not get re-elected!

The quote speaks for itself:

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me -- because they want to give something back.  They know they didn’t -- look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.  You didn’t get there on your own.  I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart.  There are a lot of smart people out there.  It must be because I worked harder than everybody else.  Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.  (Applause.)
     If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.  There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.  Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.  Somebody invested in roads and bridges.  If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen.  The Internet didn’t get invented on its own.  Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
     The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.  There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own.  I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service.  That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.