For many in the militant libertarian wing within the GOP (and outside of it), Ron Paul has emerged as Moses come to lead the American people out of the land of big spending liberal statists and hair-trigger Neocon Pharaohs. They see Paul as an outsider on the inside, despite having first entered politics when I was nine years old. To his loyal cadre he has remained steadfast in his libertarian belief that can be boiled down to two central notions.

On the international front, the United States is the great aggressor of the world (and 9/11 is what a nation gets for such aggression) and that harmony is the natural state among nations and all we need do is close our bases, pull our troops out and we can find common ground with anyone from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Hugo Chavez. On the domestic front, government is always the problem, is never the solution and the invisible hand of free markets will eventually solve all ills from healthcare, to parcel delivery to policing our streets.

I’ll leave foreign policy aside for another article. What prompted this writing was a recent discussion with Paul supporters whose ardor for him eerily reminds me of the blind emotional devotion of Obamanauts of 2008.

I pointed out to them that if Paul is such an outsider, if he is so much the anti-government/free-marketeer, how is it that in 2011 Paul was one of only four Republicans to request earmarks? $138 million worth in fact. A whopping $398 million in 2010. Here is this year’s laundry list that Paul attached to various bills to bring government money (which one would think is not needed as there should be a free market for these things) back to his district to fund his pet projects. [Source: Paul’s Website]

·$8 million from federal taxpayers for Recreational Fishing Phase Piers.

·$2.5 million from taxpayers for “new benches, trash receptacles, bike racks, decorative street lighting.”

·$2.5 million from taxpayers to modify medians and sidewalks for an “Economically Disadvantaged” area.

·$2.5 million from federal taxpayers for a “Revelation Missionary Baptist Community Outreach Center.”

·$38 million in multiple requests for literacy programs to “encourage parents to read aloud to their children.”

·$18 million from federal taxpayers for a Commuter Rail Preliminary Engineering Phase (light rail).

·$4 million from federal taxpayers for the “Trails and Sidewalks Connectivity Initiative.”

·$11 million from federal taxpayers for a “Community-Based Job Training Program.”

·$2 million from federal taxpayers for a “Clean Energy” pilot project.

·$5 million from federal taxpayers in order to build a parking garage.

·$1.2 million for a “Low-income working families Day Care Program”

·$4.5 million from federal taxpayers for a new Youth Fair facility.

Paul’s answer to this, and duly parroted by his acolytes so much in his camp now that he could be revealed to be the anti-Christ and they wouldn’t care, is this: he supports the concept of earmarks out of principle because that is the transparent manner in which government should spend money rather than in large lump appropriations. It is instead the level of government expense that he objects to. But, hey, if they are going to give it to him, he’ll take it.

The principle of the earmark is our responsibility. We’re supposed to — it’s like a — a tax credit. And I vote for all tax credits, no matter how silly they might seem. If I can give you any of you of your money back, I vote for it. So, if I can give my district any money back, I encourage that. But, because the budget is out of control, I haven’t voted for an appropriation in years — if ever. …

He may not have voted for any bill yet Paul was happy to take the money from riders he attached to bills that others voted for. What about as a principled gesture not accepting the allocations but rather putting it towards the deficit he is so adamant will destroy us? (The answer: the man likes to get re-elected). He goes on with more dissonance:

I don’t think the federal government should be doing it. But, if they’re going to allot the money, I have a responsibility to represent my people. If they say, hey, look, put in a highway for the district, I put it in. I put in all their requests, because I’m their representative.

Notice how Paul plays a clever game whereby he requests earmarks and then turns around and votes against the bills. This way if the bills do pass, he can dutifully bring the pork back to his district while maintaining that he has “never voted for earmarks.”

Yet the more philosophical question remains, how is it that a true libertarian, one who sees that the less government the better and for whom the private sector is the sole artery through which goods and services ought to be channeled, can ever justify his request that the federal government to fund sidewalks, piers, parking garages, even a Baptists community outreach center (any libertarians care to explain how this jibes with their desire for church/state separation)? Are there not private companies that can perform these tasks. And should there not be a market to support them on their merits as economic investments rather than as public works?

Some Paul supporters weakly echo him by offering that all their man is doing is bringing confiscated tax money back to the tax-payers from whom it was taken. I remind them that Texans are not the only Americans who reluctantly pay into the federal coffers. (And unlike most of the rest of us, Texans pay no state income taxes, which one would think unfair as these federal expenditures are for parochial intersts). Still, is that very allocation process not the essence of what hard-core Paulites would rail against as coercive government – the enumerated power to tax and spend?

Taxpayers pay taxes into the central bin and then their representatives allocate them as they deem necessary. It is a messy, inefficient, often corrupt process and to me, a conservative, the best way to reform it is to de-centralize the power of government and reduce (not raise) federal receipts so there is less to distribute to special interests, lobby groups, and, ahem, pork-barreling libertarians (is that not an oxymoron?)

For Ron Paul, a strict construction Constitutionalist, somehow park benches and piers and outreach centers in his home district are quite necessary to “provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty.” And are we to presume that such necessary projects could not exist without government funding? If so then that raises yet another question: would not a true libertarian offer that if they can only exist with government money they they should not exist at all? Aren’t they the most vocal proponents of the mantra “no market, therefore no need”?

This perception of Paul as a principled crusader who serves only the Constitution is at odds with his wholehearted embrace of typical pork-barrel politics – especially considering the House Republicans’ voluntary ban on earmarks last year. But tell this to Paul supporters and you will be jeered as a either a neo-con propagandist, a shill for the status quo powers that be, or one who simply doesn’t understand that when their favorite libertarian warrior dips his arms elbow-deep into the public till he is doing it out of one of the following “principles”: 1) earmarks are transparent; 2) he never actually votes for them, he just requests them; 3) all he is doing is re-claiming confiscated money on behalf of those from whom it was robbed. When a conservative or, heaven forbid, a liberal politician brings home the bacon to his constituents, he/she is a symptom of the disease of money in Washington against which Dr. Ron Paul will inoculate the entire political system when he gets in the White House. When Paul does it, well…well so what?

“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me.… Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful—that’s what matters to me.”

R.I.P Steve Jobs. He was the patron saint of entrepreneurs. Newton once reflected that if his vision extended farther than others’ it was because he stood upon the shoulders of giants. One of the giants has left this iWorld a much more interesting place.

Others will write volumes on this incredible man’s achievements.  I do not possess the eloquence to encapsulate so amazing a life nor his impact on the way we live today and will in the future.

All I can say from a personal standpoint is that Steve Jobs, through Apple and Pixar, represented to me what possibilities exist in this great country when brilliance, vision, chutzpah and a whole lot of confidence in one’s own assessment of what the public desires combine into one formidable force.

As the days pass the pantheon of memories of Mr. Jobs legacy will also include, rightfully, some failures as well as his many undeniable successes.  Eli Lehrer points out a few: The Apple III was bug-infested.  The Lisa was prohibitively expensive.  The Apple G4 Cube sold poorly and he never made a mark in the applications software arena.

Still, as any creative person knows, and certainly those in business will tell you, the road to ultimate success is often paved by initial failures, so long as they are viewed for what they are: a treasure trove of valuable lessons.

As Thomas Edison so famously (allegedly) replied to a New York Times reporter’s question re: the incandescent light-bulb and about how it felt to fail seven hundred times: “I have not failed seven hundred times.  I have not failed once.  I have succeeded in proving that those seven hundred ways will not work.” One can imagine Jobs saying the same thing as he rolled up his sleeves and dived into the task of, as he told John Sculley, changing the world.  Mission accomplished.

I am happy to have lived in that world after Steve Jobs left his mark upon it.  It was a lot more boring before he came along.  And it is a little more so again, now that he is no longer with us.  But I think his vision will continue.  As another great entrepreneur, R.J. Reynolds, said as he was dying: “I have written the book.  All you need do is follow it.”

There is a difference between being post-racial and racially blind. Herman Cain’s resume is as long as my driveway. He is highly intelligent and energetic, a mathematician and Navy man who exudes positivism and confidence and has accomplished much. He will tell anyone who listens that he owes much of his success to the opportunities afforded him by the USA. This is a someone who has expressed no residual anger against the USA for the stains of the racist past, ones which Mr. Cain, as a Black man growing up in Jim Crow Georgia, surely experienced first hand. Instead he has chosen to base his message on America’s best todays rather than its worst yesterdays.

Now, he has been reluctantly pulled into a controversy over an offensive word that was reportedly etched on a rock outside of a hunting ranch leased by Governor Rick Perry. Apparently the word “Niggerhead” was what it read, until painted over after some time in the early 1980s by Perry. Still, Cain has been repeatedly asked, what does it say about his opponent for the nomination?

I heard him asked such questions by Sean Hannity, who is certainly no enemy of the Tea Party or Rick Perry. So, coming from a sympathetic interviewer (Hannity and Cain have been friends for over a decade) exactly how is Cain supposed to approach this question?

If he doesn’t address it, he comes across as dishonest or even a GOP shill, after all he is Black and that word, as Cain has said, carries with it universally charged disgust among Blacks no matter their politics, be they Al Sharpton or Larry Elder. He must have some feelings about it, even if in mere passing.

Yet, if he does answer it then Rush Limbaugh and his army of ‘dittoheads’ come down on him for exploiting his race and smearing Perry thus playing into the MSM narrative of a racist Republican party.

So again I ask, what is he supposed to do? Well, he is supposed to answer it honestly and forthrightly. In other words, exactly how Mr. Cain answered it. He said it was insensitive but that he does not think that makes Perry a racist.

There are those on the right who are tweeting that they are “ex-Cain supporters” now because he played the despised race card. Oh give me a break! He was asked a question and answered it. And I am sure it was a rather awkward subject for him as he is a candidate of ideas, not identity.

Well then I am here to willingly step in and take one of the ex-Cain supporter places and announce I am an ex-non-Cain supporter.

As I said before, being post-racial as Mr. Cain is does not mean being racially blind. Mr. Cain is to me, among many things, a man who also happens to be Black just as I also happen to be White. In his case, I think his positive attitude towards, indeed his enthusiastic love of his country given his race is that much more a reason to garner my support.

He is no stranger to prejudice. He had to take drinks from “colored only” water fountains so he brings an American experience to the White House that many cannot. He just chose not to let it get in his way of his success. I would never vote for or against a man based on his race. But if his views align with mine in many other areas, if he happens to strike me as my kind of guy while also bringing that Black experience and credibility of a man who truly overcame much to get to where he is, more power to him. Put another X in the asset column.

What Tea Partiers need to understand, and indeed conservatives like myself who are so sensitive to being called racist every time I disagree with Obama, is that it is not up to Whites to decide what racial topics should or should not be off-limits for discussion but rather Mr. Cain.

One thing anyone really paying attention to Mr. Cain’s answers can tell you, he did not “lash out” at Governor Perry nor is he attempting to exploit this issue but rather put it to rest. He offered he doesn’t know all the facts because he has more important matters to attend to. He has said that he does not think Perry harbors racist feelings. But he also said the blatantly obvious: if the word was left there, then that is insensitive. Period. If the Tea Partiers take umbrage to that even, if, as one tweeted the abandon Cain because he is no different, that “it is all about race with those people” then I think some introspection is in order as to why one would view them as “those people” at all.

The Tea Partiers cannot offer themselves up as so non-racial that even a subject so clearly offensive to any Black man as a sign that reads “Niggerhead” on a governor’s ranch cannot at least be broached.

Herman Cain did not break this story. The media did. Once they did, and it was out there, Cain’s hands were tied. He had to answer. And so Mr. Cain did just that…with dignity and honesty. And then he did what we should all do. He moved on. Maybe Rush should too, before he does real damage to his party’s already shaky image, whether it is fair or not.

Now let’s talk about this 9, 9, 9 Plan shall we?

Eli Lehrer misrepresents my intentions in his most recent piece. To be clear, my article was not making a case for buying gold going forward per se. Trading in commodities is a volatile and highly leveraged activity, and I would not presume to advise the general public on it. As I said in my previous article, I disapprove of celebrities offering investment advice for a fee.

However, the fact remains that Glenn Beck and other conservative commentators’ past recommendations of gold as an investment were the correct call at the time they were made. That is just an empirical fact. The charts don’t lie.

Mr. Lehrer may be right that gold has no intrinsic practical use, but does this mean it is only a worthless shiny rock? Mr. Lehrer seems to think so. But if Gold is worthless, then why has it never been treated as such in the history of modern civilization? Moreover, why have entire societies built their economies around this seemingly worthless shiny rock, and why has it been accepted as a unit of exchange for well over two thousand years?

I won’t rehearse the myriad examples of how gold has been an integral part of human history – that topic could fill libraries. The point is that practical use is not the same thing as value where human society is concerned. Of what practical use is silver, upon which the Spanish built an empire? What can you do with a diamond, or any precious stone for that matter? What is the practical use for a bouquet of roses? Value is not often a function of utility.

Gold’s value, however irrational its basis, is that which human beings have ascribed to it since the dawn of history. There’s no special reason why gold, rather than asphalt, shouldn’t be used to pave driveways, or why blood diamonds shouldn’t be used as paperweights. But, however irrationally, humans don’t use them for these purposes. We consider them too valuable – so much so that entire governments are willing to pay $1,650 per ounce of gold.

And because investment decisions are inherently based on what is, rather than what investors should be, that makes gold a valuable investment. And that is what matters in the here and now. The simple irrefutable fact is that gold has been a very good investment for over ten years.

Mr. Lehrer observes:

In times of economic uncertainty and malaise (whether it is now or the 1970s) Gold prices have indeed gone up rapidly…But these prices came crashing down in the 1970s and will again.

This in’t as useful a comparison as he thinks. How much like the 1970s is today’s worldwide recession? Do we think the global contagion or easy money will abate any time soon? Is a serious debt reduction plan in the offing in the halls of Congress yet to be revealed? Is there less uncertainty and chaos awaiting us down the road? These are hard questions to answer if you believe what Mr. Lehrer does.

Even so, let’s assume gold does come crashing down at some point. When, and from what price? $1700 per ounce? $2500 per ounce? And where will it fall to? $800? $500? I don’t know the answers to these questions. What I do know is that as an investor, I’m inclined to ride the trend until the market starts to look like it might go sour on gold.

And that, at the end of the day, is what my article was about. It can be distilled thusly: Rightly or wrongly, Glenn Beck went on the air and told people to buy gold. Those who listened would have seen their stock rise from between $700 and $900 to $1850. In other words, at the very least, the value of their stock would have doubled. Compared to that, the most recent 200 point drop is a blip, not a massive refutation of Beck’s proposed investment strategy. If having the value of your stock double is being hoodwinked, then we should pray the entire economy is so deceived.

Now, am I saying that gold will return to its bullish ways? I have no clue, but I don’t see any reason for it not to in the short term. It may be true that gold will fall as it did after the 1970’s, but it is, in any case, a good investment now. It may be true that gold cannot be eaten or used to fuel our cars, but I’m not going to base my investment decision on the hope that, after thousands of years of fighting wars over the stuff and indeed basing entire economies around it, the human race will finally wake up to its intrinsic uselessness.

Kenneth Silber recently called out Glenn Beck and others for their perpetual bullishness on gold. However, even a cursory glance at a gold chart shows that one would have been handsomely rewarded for following Mr. Beck’s advice.

From the time the Fed began its cheap money campaign back in 2001, the price of gold has increased from $265/ounce to a whopping $1650/ounce. In other words the dollar’s value has plummeted from 1/265^th of an ounce of gold to 1/1650^th. Even with the recent correction from it’s latest market high of $1,825/ounce , this represents a roughly 18% annual return on your investment in a decade that saw equities, real estate and other asset classes in turmoil and eventual decline.

I am not here to defend anyone who, presumably for a fee, uses their media influence to prompt their viewers/listeners into making this investment or that. [And for disclosure  I appear on Fox Business on occasion, usually with Judge Andrew Napolitano, mentioned in Mr. Silber’s article]. Ultimately such decisions should be left to the investor.

But facts are facts and if Mr. Silber had heeded Beck’s and others’ calls to buy gold even as late as 2009 as he mentions was the case on Beck’s website, he would be much richer for his efforts. At the beginning of 2009 gold was trading at roughly $925/oz.  It currently stands at $1,650. That is a rate of return north of 20 percent, even with the inevitable correction along the way. Whatever his motives for pushing investment in gold, the fact is Mr. Beck and the rest were bang on as a matter of practical investment.

If those who followed Mr. Beck’s investment advice over the years no longer believe his warnings of impending hyperinflation just over the horizon, which is the underlying assumption behind his bullishness in metals, then they should liquidate now and take their extraordinary gains off the table. The after-tax windfall involved will surely be stunning.

The fact remains that all those who followed the advice of the so-called experts – who, by the way, still thought Bear Stearns was fine a week before its collapse – have experienced either losses or a paltry return on their investment relative to the gains those who bought gold have reaped. To get better results would have required almost supernatural abilities at predicting the market, as well as the rare ability to see through the groupthink among investors that leads them to buy and hold stocks. All the predictions about where wealth could come from, whether it was the real estate market, or commodities trading, have been either proven wrong or severely called into question.

The fundamental question prompted by Beck’s call for buying gold and other precious metals is this: in the coming years would you rather own gold or paper currency?  Legendary investor Jim Rogers offers one opinion. He said just three months ago: “We are going to have much higher prices. We are having serious inflation, which is going to get worse, and we have a government that is sitting down there spending staggering amounts of money, getting us deeper into debt.”

This is not to say that gold is perfect. As Mr. Silber points out, “Lately, as gold has fallen and the dollar has risen amid economic turmoil, some of the metal’s vulnerabilities as an asset have come to the fore.” True enough. Commodities are indeed volatile and not for the faint-hearted. But the reason gold can now fall by $300/ounce is because it is so very high to begin with. Gold’s drop of 15% as of this writing may seem like a steep number to most investors, but in commodities trading, this is all in a week’s work. It seems Beck still has the upper hand.

There is an old legend that Joe Kennedy knew it was time to get out of the market when his shoe-shine boy started offering stock tips. Perhaps Glenn Beck and others are today’s shoe-shine boys. Since I know what I don’t know, I am in no position to say. As far as I’m concerned their opinions are as informed (or uninformed) as most Wall Street “professionals’.” But if that enthusiastic boy had told old Joe K. to buy gold in 2009, he’d have been dead on. In trading, there is no bull side or bear side, only the right side. Glenn Beck may not know where gold is going in the future any more than I do, or Mr. Silber, or even Jim Rogers for that matter. But he was undeniably correct in 2009. And as those who profited from Beck’s calls to buy gold can tell you, when you’re right, you’re right.

A friend of mine has a sister who has been broke for years. Ten years ago he got heartsick over watching her struggle while his own career took off, so he began supporting her by supplementing her small income with his own money. He makes $300,000 a year and gives her $30,000 a year to help her out. This comes to roughly 20% of his take-home income after all of his taxes (federal, state, local) are taken out of his paycheck.

Now, in those ten years of supporting her, she has not used that money as a foundation to build herself a better more independent life contructed on sound financial footing. If anything, her situation now is even worse than it was a decade ago because she continues to make bad decisions.

She married an alcoholic husband (despite warnings from her family) and she then had a child with that husband who is now estranged, voluntarily putting exponentially more strain on her already stressful life. As of now, despite my friend having willingly given her $300,000 over ten years – money he could have put towards his kid’s college education, paying off his mortgage, or just socked away in the bank for a rainy day – she is no better off because the way she is running her affairs is still a disaster. She hasn’t learned a thing.

Still, he continues to pay her because he believes it is his moral obligation to give back to those in need, especially as he has done so well in life. He’s not thrilled about it, but he gets the concept and bucks up. Plus he genuinely cares for the down-trodden, realizing that a few bad decisions in his own life, a wrong fork in the road taken, and he could have been there with her. He made need help himself someday. Who knows what the future holds?

Now, the other day she came to him for her annual $30,000. But this time, because of new credit card debts accumulated, she asked him for $35,000. Her logic? He can afford it and she needs it.

But he balked at the increase. Her friends (who are also dependent on their siblings) rallied around her and called her “rich” brother selfish and “a whiner.” Awww, they mocked, poor rich guy brother has to pay an extra $5,000 more when he makes $300,000 a year. (This sarcasm was accompanied by fake violin motions.)

But here is his point: can he afford to pay more? Sure he can. Although he will then not have that money to do something fun with his own family, his quality of life will not be noticeably impacted. BUT, the bigger question isn’t whether he could pay her more, but whether he should have to pay her more.

After ten years and transferring $300,000 of his wealth to her, the very situation he’d hoped his income would go to improve has only gotten worse. The reason isn’t because his sister doesn’t have an income but rather she is incompetent with the money she does receive. She is, in fact, incapable of making proper decisions with her finances and indeed her life choices, no matter how much cash she receives.

The brother has reluctantly concluded that if he gives her 35k next year she’ll turn around and spend 40k. If he gives her 40k, she’ll spend 50k, etc. It will never end without her being first forced to work within her existing budget, even it means taking some pain. Let me be clear, if he thought it would do good, if he thought she would spend his money wisely to improve her life, he’d gladly give her twice as much if not more so because he can “afford” it. But he knows from her past that the more he gives her, the more she’ll waste.

So he prefers to keep his contribution at 30k and decide for himself how the 5k more she demands of him can best be put to use in his own life, or even for the greater good if he chooses to give it to a charity he knows from research will used it to make a real difference. For this he is labeled selfish. Go figure.

Does this mean he would ever cut her off cold regardless of his frustration over her profligate spending and/or mismanagement of his money? Of course not. That would be downright cruel and he knows that without his supplemental income she would spiral into destitution. He cares too much to see that happen so long as he has the means to help prevent it.

But, he does feel that he should have a say in how much she needs and should demand to see real progress and discipline on her part before giving her yet more of his income without being ridiculed as selfish or worse. These labels are usually hurled by either the guilt-ridden super-rich who could live the lives of sultans on just a sliver of their net worth or by those who are bitter towards his modest success and feel his sister deserves whatever she can squeeze from him as a matter of social “justice.”

So I ask all those who are so pious and so discerning as to what he can “afford” to pay: is that brother selfish for not wanting to pay his sister more than he has been doing already? Or does he simply understand that to pay his sister more is to just throw even a large portion of his good hard-earned income down a bottomless hole with no prospect of it improving her deplorable state without her first dramatically changing her ways?

And who do you think is a better judge as to how his money can be put towards more productive ends: his sister or him? Finally, who really has the moral high ground here?

A video from Elizabeth Warren’s campaign tour in Massachusetts, has been circulating online. In it she justifies on moral grounds the need to raise taxes on “the rich”.

As her thin platform from which to launch a tax-the-rich clarion call, she refers to a hypothetical factory owner who must use roads ”the rest of us paid for” utilizing workers educated in schools “the rest of us paid for” and whose workplaces are protected by police “the rest of us paid for.”

Hold it! If that factory is in my state of New Jersey, the odds are that the owner in 2010 paid around 50 cents of every dollar he earned last year over to some form of government (in federal, state, or local property taxes, FICA, etc.) so I humbly submit his application to be a member of her fabled “the rest of us.”

The odds are that 50% of “the rest of us” did not pay any manner of federal income tax at all last year. Others paid for the roadways mostly as they used them via tolls, gasoline taxes, and other user fees and local taxes. They probably were useful for everyone and not just her hypothetical factory owner.

As for the schools, well my property taxes, from which a large part go to pay for our schools, are in the five figures annually so I guarantee you I am with “the rest of us” she refers to in this category as well.

And what of those police that “the rest of us” paid for? Again, I really wish she’d check out my tax returns before making such a crass statement. Still, as a conservative I have no problem paying taxes to “provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity” so I am not sure towards who her admonishments are even aimed other than a fringe hard-core purist libertarian movement of the GOP.

In fact (and this may come a shock to Ms. Warren) those who are actually bearing the brunt of the income tax burden in the country – that evil top 10% who cover 70% of the federal income tax tab (not the other 50% “rest of us” who actually pay zero in federal income tax) – are not opposed to the concept of taxation at all.

They tend to understand that the highways they drive on while F-16s fly top-cover don’t come for free. It is indeed, part of the social compact to pay one’s “fair share.” But whose definition of “fair share” then?

Therein lies the rub. Ask any liberal what exactly constitutes “fair share” and they will swiftly change the subject. In reality they have no clue themselves. Ms. Warren commends her hypothetical industrialist but then announces that he should keep, in her words, “a chunk” of what he makes. But how big of a chunk should it be?

What, exactly, does Ms. Warren believe one’s “fair share” to be? I mean, since I am not paying “enough” then she must have some idea of what is enough in order to make such a quantitative statement. So what is it then? What percent of my income (let’s call it X) does Ms. Warren decree that I should do without for the greater good? And how did she solve for X? And why is X -1% too little, but X +1% too much. What empirical data did she use? What methodology? And while we’re at it, why is $251,000 year in Manhattan where a two-bedroom apartment in Harlem starts at $2,400/month “rich” yet one who makes $249,000/year in Little Rock, where that same apartment rents $700/mo, not “rich”?

Good luck getting any of them to answer. Perhaps they have the same test as Potter Stewart did for pornography when it comes to identifying that elusive “fair share” level: they cannot define it, but know it when the see it.

Until liberal politicians can tell me in firm and tangible numbers what that “chunk” I owe the state should be, they have nothing worth saying that is anything but the very class warfare nonsense that people like Ms. Warren so mendaciously claim to be disparaging.

A final note, Ms. Warren emphatically declares that no one got rich “on his own.” She’s right, we do not sell products to ourselves after all. But, Ms. Warren, we do often take tremendous risks that most others (whose jobs we then provide) are unwilling to take upon themselves, often with our personal finances pledged to start our own business.

No bank will give a small business a loan without a personal guarantee in this day and age. How many in this world are willing to take so great a chance on their vision as to risk so much of what they have to brave the unknown? It is said that an entrepreneur will work 18 hours a day for him/herself so they do not have to work eight hours for someone else. Such effort, and the risks that attend them, should entail greater reward.

It should at least include equal access to the highways we pay for as much as “the rest of us” do, if not more so.

If you ask most Americans what was the bloodiest day in our history, you would probably get either 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, depending on the age of the responder. Neither would be correct.

In Western Maryland is a sluggish creek called the Antietam.

The scene is pastoral with rolling hills and farms dotted by occasional patches of woods. Nestled within these gentle ridges is the tiny hamlet of Sharpsburg. Stone monuments and bronze tablets dot the landscape. They seem strangely out of place here. Only some enormous event can explain their presence.

Almost by chance two great armies collided here. Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia was invading the North for the first time. The Union Army of the Potomac under Maj. General George B. McClellan was out to stop them. On September 17, 1862 the two forces fought the Battle of Antietam to decide the issue.

Their violent conflict shattered the quiet of Maryland’s countryside. When the hot September sun finally set upon the devastated battlefield, 23,000 Americans had fallen making this day the single worst act of mass killing of Americans in history. This single fact, with the heroism and suffering it implies, gives the markers and monuments their meaning. No longer do they presume upon the landscape, rather their mute inadequacy can only hint of the great event that happened here—and of its even greater consequences.

To comprehend just how terrible the killing was this day, we must consider that, though McClellan brought a host of 87,000 men to the battlefield to confront Lee’s mere 38,000 depleted ranks (from desertion or straggling), the Union commander only committed 50,000 of his men to battle. So the 23,000 losses in one day — roughly 12,500 Union and 10,500 CSA — represented over 25% casualties. (This was the same horrific attrition rate the 8th AF suffered in its disastrous raid on Schweinfurt in WW2).

At the end of the day a Confederate diarist recorded that in the confusion and chaos that “half of Lee’s army was off searching for the other half.” But he was lucky to be alive.

The consequences of this battle were as monumental as the scale of the losses suffered. Although tactically the battle was a draw as Lee did hold the field—though barely by a thread—when merciful darkness finally arrived to put an end to the killing, it was clear his grievously wounded army would have to abandon any invasion plans and limp back to Virginia. McClellan could claim a victory in that he ended Lee’s northern ambitions. But an abler general with his vast uncommitted reserves would have broken Lee’s army against the banks of the Potomac River at its back and ended the war.

Still the appearance of victory had far-reaching effects in the North’s favor. Throughout the summer of 1862 Lincoln, seeing the war in a higher moral and broader political vision than merely putting down an insurrection, was anxious to announce his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. His Secretary of State Seward, however, dissuaded him from doing so while the Union armies were being trounced by the Rebels on the battlefields of both the Eastern and Western theatrers, fearing it would appear to the world as “the last shriek on the retreat.”

Antietam changed all that. It gave Lincoln the victorious platform from which to transform the war from a war against rebellion to a war against slavery—in short, declaring in a proclamation what the fighting had always been about. The vocal objections of some libertarians, rogue historians, Lew Rockwell acolytes and Lost Causers notwithstanding, and regardless of Lincoln’s motives which ranged from moral enlightenment on one side to political opportunism on the other, the beginning of the end of the great crime of slavery and that “new birth of freedom” about which he would speak a year later, can be traced back to that brutal September day.

Antietam for all practical purposes ended the once very real prospect of European intervention on the parts of England and possibly France on the side of the Confederacy; these prospects were never so strong as in the summer of 1862. But Lee’s elusive quest for the Southern Saratoga would go unfulfilled that summer — and finally dashed completely upon the fields of Gettysburg nine months later.

The battle also brought to the North the first photographed images of what real war was all about. No colorful and stylized lithographs, but rather Matthew Brady’s New York City exhibit of photos of the battlefield’s aftermath which he simply called “The Dead Of Antietam.” Brady’s images, it was said, was as if he’d laid the corpses at the doorstep of every isolated civilian’s home, striking them with the gruesome harvest of the modern battlefield.

Although further disappointment awaited them at Fredericksburg (and to a lesser extent Chancellorsville) Antietam showed the Army of the Potomac, indeed Lincoln himself, that they could fight with the mettle of their vaunted Southern opponents. The seeds of Gettysburg and beyond were sown on the fields of Sharpsburg. It would only take proper leadership at the very top for the Union army to eventually prevail. When asked by a slave woman in Sharpsburg after the battle if he’d had a hard fight, a Rebel soldier replied: “Yes Aunty. The Yankees gave us the devil today. And they’ll give us hell tomorrow.”

But that tomorrow never came. Despite his army’s battered condition, or perhaps because of it, Lee chose to remain on the smoldering field on the 18th, daring his opponent across the creek to renew the assault. But McClellan was no Grant. Content with not losing, McClellan idled away the hours and eventually the day. He would allow Lee to escape that night back across the Potomac River to live to fight another day.

Lee’s most reliable general, James Longstreet, noted that at one point during the battle the situation for the Rebs was so precarious that in the height of the fighting, with his lines in disarray and fresh battalions of blue troops clearly visible on the bluffs east of the creek, he personally minded his staff’s horses so they could serve an artillery piece. His artillerist, Porter Alexander, would write: “Lee’s army was ruined and the end of the Confederacy was in sight.” But it would not end that day. Lincoln had picked the right man to organize his demoralized army, but the wrong man to take it into battle. Because of the hopelessly timid George McClellan, Antietam was the great missed opportunity to end the war.

In a way the sportsman in me likes that notion that the battle was a tie, so to speak. With such bravery and suffering, it seems a shame that one side should lose such a desperate fight. The South’s survival that day ultimately can be attributed to the exceptional skills of its high command: General Lee, and his two corps commanders, Jackson and Longstreet. Lee in fact, considered it his finest battle, believing his men had shown their best against the worst odds. From a military standpoint, Lee certainly never should have fought there. But for his opponent being George McClellan he probably would not have. Yet once the battle was joined, he moved his units back and forth over the field like a master chessman. But his efforts there and elsewhere would not be enough to stave off the inevitable that finally came to pass in April 1865. The South was never going to win the Civil War. That it did not end in September 1862 is a tragedy equal to the story of the the Battle of Antietam itself considering the casualty lists of the next two and a half years. But I like to think the legacy of generations of free men and women, whose chains began to dissolve that decisive summer day, gives the 23,000 dead and wounded sublime meaning after all.

I was on Fox Business last night discussing TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline was proposed in 2008 as a 1,600 mile extension to an existing network. Its would tap into oil currently being extracted from Alberta’s controversial tar sands and ship it south to a storage facility at Cushing, Oklahoma and again to the Gulf Coast for distribution.

Because it enters the US from a foreign country, in order for the project to proceed, the White House must first approve its construction. As such the State Department must deem it to be in the national interest. A cursory Environmental Impact Statement has met the State Department’s satisfaction so a potentially favorable ruling for TransCanada could be imminent.

The prospect of the Obama White House approving the Keystone XL is drawing heated protests from left-wing environmental groups who would see this as a betrayal by an administration they counted on being more eco-friendly.

Ostensibly their concerns are the potential hazards of a spill somewhere along the massive trunk line. They point to last summer’s 800,000 gallon spillage in Kalamazoo, Michigan, as an illustration of the risks. But the issue is really about opposition to the tar sands extraction process itself because of the large carbon imprint it makes.

There is little debate that the planet is warming, the question is how much human activity plays a role. But even if, for sake or argument, it was proven that human activity was having some effect, the greater debate remains: what to do about it and how?

The burning questions are: how much should we alter (restrict) economic activity now to head off possible issues relating to carbon emissions down the road? How aggressive should we be if we inevitably find ourselves acting in a unilateral fashion vis-a-vis developing countries that have chosen economic growth over protecting its environment?

I could understand and respect the protesters’ concerns more if the issue was a proposed strip mining excavation within our borders in Utah where our own tar sands reside. The process of extracting heavy crude oil from the sands is messy and inefficient. Two tons of sands will yield a barrel of crude and it takes two gallons of water to extract a gallon of oil. The greenhouse emissions from the entire process to make one tank is anywhere from 5% to 20% more than traditional methods.

On the flip side, Canada’s fields are vast. The US Energy Information Administration estimates reserves of 178 billion barrels but Shell Canada estimates it to be as high as 2 trillion barrels, eight times Saudi Arabia’s proven reserves. If built the Keystone XL will transport 500,000 barrels a day. Oil we need access to if we are serious about weaning ourselves from Arab oil.

We can and should have a substantive and rational discussion about whether it is wise to tap into our own vast oil tar sands reserves. But, alas, the most vocal in this debate seem to be the proponents of either manic hyperbole or stubborn denial.

I think the economic and national security benefits of permitting TransCanada to lay their Kesytone extension to tap into Canada’s huge oil reservoir outweigh the potential risks of environmental impact. In this case, I believe the protesters of the new pipeline are being ideologically rigid, economically foolish, hypocritical and disingenuous. They are also taking a stand that is detrimental to national security.

The tar sands in question do not rest in the USA so even if the pipeline is not approved, the fields will still be mined, oil will still be extracted and the end product will still be pumped in trunk lines over hundreds of miles of North America. Ultimately the oil will be shipped in dangerous oil tankers destined for more than eager buyers in Asia. To resist the pipeline in the name of eco-friendship is irrational. The Canadians will develop this product and sell it with or without us as trading partners.

Is the issue for the environmentalists the inherent dangers of 1,600 miles of new trunk lines? There are over 2.3 million miles of lines in the US network that transport hazardous materials including natural gas and crude oil every minute of every day. When placed up against such numbers, their trunk line concerns ring hollow.

The clarion calls of “We don’t want your dirty oil” is really what they are all about. They simply are opposed to tar sands on principle.

As of this writing we still have no power in my neighborhood due to Irene’s pop-in visit. Some of us have generators, others don’t. To not take Canada’s offer is tantamount to someone turning down my offer of an extension chord from my generator because he opposes the carbon imprint of my gasoline-powered internal combustion engine. It matters little to me of course. I’ll just offer it to the guy in the next house over while you wait for the advent of solar powered generators that may or may not be developed in the next decade or so. It doesn’t help you now though.

The USA currently imports 50% of its oil. Fortunately much of it comes from friendly nations on our border like Canada and Mexico. But nearly 20% comes from OPEC nations. If the OPEC nations are not openly hostile, they are either unstable or certainly no friends of ours like Canada. The more energy we provide domestically, the more secure we will be, and the less need for costly and endless wars that make us many enemies and few if any friends.

Ironically I’ll wager that same self-righteous crew out on the streets protesting domestic energy initiatives will also be the first to scream “No Blood For Oil!” when we’re compelled to enter into yet another Mideast conflict to protect our energy supply. You can’t have it both ways.

There are two congruent paths that our national energy policy must follow. Short term: take advantage of resources on this continent in the form of sands, shale, coal, natural gas and biomass to wean us at least off those barrels we import from OPEC. Long term: create a healthy economic environment free of draconian regulations that lowers barriers to entry and will lay the proper foundations of profit incentives to be laid in green technology.

China (who will gladly take he 500k barrels off Canada’s hands if the White House passes) burns a lot of oil for today’s economy; they are also the global leaders in developing solar and wind power for the future hydrocarbon free world we all want. Why is it that we cannot do both as well?

I used to be a fan of Sarah Palin, but even I can see that the best thing for her to do now is to step aside.

When Sarah Palin first exploded on the scene at the 2008 Republican convention as John McCain’s running-mate, I was enthralled.  Yes, I admit, I thought she was terrific.  Here was this attractive, confident governor from a state as far away from the Washington D.C. beltway as one could hope for.

She came to breathe new life into what was already a tired campaign. Finally, we had a vibrant GOP candidate who was not of the older white male variety to balance the ticket with the older white male.  Her convention speech was rousing, feisty, roll-up-your sleeve populism come to prime time.  And here was a woman who practiced what she preached on the social side of the ledger — which really got under the established feminists’ skin.  She presented herself as a happily married woman who had welcomed into her world with open arms a Downs Syndrome baby while her son was being shipped off to war to serve his country.

What a story!

But that was then.  They say familiarity breeds contempt, and for me it has been a long and reluctant decline from genuine enthusiasm for this (if I may) ‘rogue’ breed of Republican to dismay, and then irritation.  I am not sure when exactly Sarah Palin lost me as a serious White House contender.  It was not the Katie Couric hatchet job, or Charlie Gibson’s condescending Q&A. Having been in front of the camera myself under much less pressure than she, I understand that gaffes happen.  Plus, their desire to discredit the candidate with ‘gotchas’ at the outset was pretty transparent.  It wasn’t the satirizing by Tina Fey on SNL either.  Although I got a chuckle, I felt it somewhat unfair that many Americans came to view Fey’s caricature and the real Sarah Palin as one in the same,  interchangeable as Lego pieces.  (The real Sarah never said “I can see Russia from my house” for example.)  If anything, her being targeted so hard by the far left, their faux feminism aside, made her a-okay in my book.

So what was it then?  For me, there was no cathartic moment.  Rather, it was more gradual.  I pay attention to how people answer questions without the benefit of warning.  I think it says much about one’s command of the issues.  And I have found her wanting in this respect.  I noticed that she often answered serious questions by reciting what sounded like hollow and rehearsed platitudes.  It seemed that when she was asked what she would do as president, instead of substantive responses replete with policy initiatives, or even just a general underscoring of her overall economic and foreign policy philosophies, we got what amounted to a Chatty Cathy doll emitting the same rehearsed tag-lines, about which I have been so critical of the teleprompter-addicted Barack Obama:  “Well ya know, we need to go down there to Washington and quit kowtowing to the fat cats and special interests and, gosh darn it, roll up our sleeves and get big government out of our lives to help, ya know, the job creators.”

Okay, maybe I just pulled a Tina Fey here as she’s never said that exactly, but she has sounded like this in one form or another enough for me to finally, reluctantly, come to the conclusion that there was nothing there.  Just last week, when asked by Jake Tapper what she would do as president right now to stimulate the economy, this is what she had to say:

“I’d eliminate the uncertainty in the economy and let our job creators know that number one we’ll cut taxes, we’ll cut corporate taxes, every tax that congress would allow…”

These sound-bite answers to substantive questions have been her forte since 2008.  I was patient at first since, in all fairness, she was a relatively unknown governor from the hinterland suddenly thrust front and center into the bewildering arena of a national election and thus she had to get her political sea legs.  But she’s been in said arena for over three years now. This is ample time for her to demonstrate that she can put forth coherent arguments that do not sound like they’re ripped from a handbook of pithy Tea Party slogans.  After so much time, my patience with fluff answers from someone demanding to be taken seriously as a potential occupant of the highest office in the land has run out.

So I must conclude that Sarah Palin has become a side-show who still clings to center stage. While rolling around in her tour bus crashing GOP events (while not a declared candidate for dog-catcher) she seems to be craving relevance that her fans in the media on both sides (the right loves her and the left loves to hate her) are more than happy to provide.  Sarah sells.  That cannot be denied.

Her entertainment value aside, I cannot help but wonder if she is starting to do some damage to the GOP brand now that the hats are flying through the ring.  Why was she in Iowa, for example, other than to steal the legitimate candidates’ thunder and continue to alienate the 58 percent of Americans who, according to Quinnipiac, would never vote for her under any circumstances — and thus reject the Republican ticket were she the nominee?  Her Ames party crash has been labeled by some in the media as a “surprise trip to the Iowa state fair” (According to the Christian Science Monitor). A surprise to who exactly?  The big unexpected would be if she turned down this chance to scoop up yet more of the limelight.

If Mrs. Palin is not running for president (and as she’s smart enough to know she would lose a general election) then I think, if it hasn’t happened already, someone in the GOP needs to sit down with her and say most earnestly and respectfully: “Look, we know you’re selling a book and even more than that, a brand—yourself—and making gazillions, and that’s fine.  It’s a free country. And we’re grateful for all you’ve done in galvanizing a segment of this party that was disenchanted before your arrival.  But you’re now becoming Barack Obama’s best friend by marginalizing our stable of candidates in your tireless drive to be noticed.”

Sarah Palin has done admirable things and in many ways I believe (though not in enough ways for me) she was more qualified than candidate Obama, with his postage stamp-sized resume and zero executive experience, to be president.  But her shot at grabbing a set of White House keys, even through the back door of VP, has come and gone.  She remains relevant because the press corps makes her so and the 15 percent hardcore Sarahnauts will continue to support her and dutifully run interference in the hopes of seeing her attain something that can never be … her election as president.

I am a concerned conservative who believes the White House and Senate are in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats who maintain a fundamentally different vision as to what kind of nation we were meant to be and ought to be. The crucial election is fifteen months away and as such it is time for the GOP to get serious.  There are important issues facing this nation and Sarah Palin — popular, telegenic, representing some values to which I hold true while exposing the lie that feminism is the exclusive property of the left — can still do her part.  She can surrender the stage so that proper focus can be placed on those within the Republican Party who can win the general election and not just galvanize a spirited minority within the conservative movement.   Right now she is doing one of the political parties a huge favor by staying in the limelight but, unfortunately, that party isn’t the GOP.