LIVE From Blogs 4 Life
We are here at Family Research Council in Washington, DC, which is being broadcast live on www.Blogs4Life.com.
8:50 Tony Perkins, President of the FRC, just addressed the audience as we kick off the 2009 event and Cole just took a picture with him!
9:00 Danny Glover, fellow blogger, will be up next. Danny just went up a bunch in my eyes, interjecting Pro-Wrestling in his presentation and using Lex Lugar’s nickname, The Total Package in his title; Total New Media Package.
Since this event is titled “Blogs” 4 Life, Danny is talking about new/social media and using apps lilke Twitter, Facebook and starting your own blog to talk about and connect with anything to do with the Pro-Life movement.
9:30 Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President of Americans United for Life and served as a Senior Advisor to Mike Huckabee during his Presidential campaign. Talking about how Barack Obama’s team harnessed the power of the internet and used it to their advantage. Our challenge we are facing is the question what do we do now? The House, Senate and White House are in control of Pro-Abortion forces, not to mention the mainstream media and academia.
Mentions that Planned Parenthood, who has a BILLION dollar budget to push abortions, and 1/3 of that is Taxpayer funded, is at the Capitol now looking for even MORE money.
9:50 BREAK: Preview of the movie 22weeks
10:00 Break is over and I am speaking next, so I will be back at about 10:30. Coming up after me is Amanda Carpenter, Senator Sam Brownback and Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers.
10:30 Just finished and Amanda Carpenter is speaking now and she just gave me a “shout out” about educating and informing her about Cole’s story. Amanda is pointing out how bloggers are a great resource to learn and blog about issues that can then make larger media resources aware of it and be forced to cover it and that could help change the minds.
Talking about the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act and how this is an issue that blogs can have a strong voice and help make people aware and we can call be a foot soldier in the Pro-Life movement.
10:50 Senator Sam Brownback is speaking now and talking about the challenges the Pro-Life movement faces with the opposition to “life” in the House, Senate and now the White House controlling things. After his speech, some audience members presented Senator Brownback with an award for his efforts. The organization was K.I.D.S., (Keep Infants with Down Syndrome).
Hey, it’s time to “March for Life”
“See” you when I get back to Jersey!
“Talking about how Barack Obama’s team harnessed the power of the internet and used it to their advantage. ”
The SAD, SAD, truth is that conservatives don’t contribute to their candidates.
They need to pry out their wallets and help these guys get elected. The GOP tries to sell stuffed elephants and other ‘tchochkies’ but the dems fork over money to protect their interests.
I think such a great deal of noise has been made over ‘business lobbying’ just to suppress conservative fundraising. Its working. Unions are well-organized, legal, grassroots fundraising machines, but white collar workers have no such mechanism. Then watch helplessly as their jobs are shipped overseas, and their companies taxed out of existance.
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:22 pmRivit:
I disagree.
The issue is not money, but ideas. Conservatives have not been articulating their ideas well, particularly during the Bush Administration. This is not surprising, given that Bush did so many things that contradict Conservative principles. It is not hard to understand why Conservatives have been afflicted with a form of political paralysis when Bush endorsed growth in government spending that would make some liberals blush, added a prescription drug benefit entitlement, and federalized educational standards in the No Child Left Behind Act co-sponsored by Ted Kennedy.
But just as the liberals no longer have Bush to kick around, neither do Conservatives. It is time for Conservatives to stand up and articulate uncompromising Conservative principles.
Anything less will lead to a long term Democratic majority, regardless of how much money is raised for Republican candidates.
To borrow a hackneyed political phrase, “it’s the ideas, stupid.” (No offense intended to Rivit).
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:18 pmEd,
I could not agree with you more!
I wish you would put out a solid list of Conservative principles and policies we could work from.
Would you please post that here?
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:34 pmVic:
Thank you for your kind words.
Devising a Second Contract With America is not something that I can just pound out in a half hour. Nonetheless, I will give you some preliminary thoughts and try to develop a more complete answer over the next few days. Thoughts and comments welcome.
First and foremost, we have to offer a different solution to the current financial crisis. It is by far the number one political issue right now, and will likely remain for some time so absent a devastating terrorist attack (and even then, I suspect it would remain near the top of public consciousness). If we do not have an alternative solution for it, the public will not hear anything else we have to say.
We need to oppose, on principle, any more bailouts and any alleged “stimulus” plans.
We need to explain to people that this is a government created crisis, created by the Democrats’ demand to manipulate the banks to make loans they would not make on a free market, all in the name of expanding homeownership to people who could not otherwise afford homes. It is most certainly not a failure of the free market.
To the extent private actors have been involved in the crisis, it is because government policies pushed them to act other than they would have if the government had not been interfering with the marketplace. Banks were pushed into making bad loans by the Community Reinvestment Act, and were bribed by having those bad loans purchased by government entities Fannie and Freddie. Those government entities in turn resold those bad loans to investors. So much for the government protecting the public in this crisis.
This crisis was not the result of deregulation, but overregulation. The financial markets are among the most regulated in the world. So are the markets for money and interet rates, which are highly regulated by the Federal Reserve (which failed miserably in its mission to prevent this kind of crisis). Government regulation is pervasive in this crisis. And it failed miserably.
All of the regulation by the SEC similarly could not prevent a fraud like Madoff. Regulation is simply not the answer.
Furthermore, regulation operates on the principle of “guilty until proven innocent.” That is not the American way, and Conservatives should oppose it. We should be in favor of strict prosecution for actual fraud, but not for preventive law through regulating businesses. If criminals are entitled to a presumption of innocence, businessmen certainly deserve the same presumption (and then some).
That is a somewhat long windered initial answer to what policy we need to advocate. We need to oppose any more bailouts, and we need to oppose government attempts to “stimulate” the economy. Both are improper and ultimately ineffectual uses of government power.
As for overarching policies, the theme I would stress is that we advocate individual liberty over government controls.
If I have not bored you too greatly with this long winded answer, I will try to supplement this in coming days with a more succint plan of action.
Thank you.
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:51 pm…a government created crisis, created by the Democrats’ demand to manipulate the banks to make loans they would not make on a free market, all in the name of expanding homeownership to people who could not otherwise afford homes.
This is a crock. Who is responsible for all the vacant million dollar homes that litter our suburbs? Were they marketed in the name of expanding homeownership to people who could not otherwise afford homes? Every time someone brings up these “McMansions” the topic is ignored. Are you claiming that the Democrats are behind these atrocities?
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:01 pmIt’s not a crock, but your point is valid, too. There were a lot of people who got themselves in over their head adjustable rate mortgages as well.
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:55 amActually, th e Clinton Administration’s interpretation of the CRA is responsible for all of those McMansions being built and marketed.
Banks were not allowed to lower their credit standards just for the high risk borrowers in allegedly redlined neighborhoods. Banks were told that doing so would be treated as racial discrimination in violation of CRA. The same credit standards had to be applied to everyone in order for the banks to comply with CRA. Therefore, the only way banks could comply with CRA was to lower credit standards for everyone, not just inner city people who could not afford any home at all.
In this way, the destruction of lending standards spread to the entire home mortgage market, not just the truly subprime borrowers that would have existed in a free market.
This is another example of how socialism does not raise the poor. Instead, it razes all values that come in its path.
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:02 amThe Community Reinvestment Act, the “Destruction of Lending Standards”, and Nigerian Email Fraud are no excuse for fiscal irresponsibility, a trait that is not distinctively characteristic of socialism. Ten points however for the homonym.
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:04 amFiscal irresponsibility is a distinctive trait of socialism. In contrast, the distinctive trait of laissez faire capitalism is fiscal prudence.
Under laissez faire captialism, there are no government bailouts, welfare payments or susbsidies of any kind. You are only entitled to what you have earned on a free market. If you are irresponsible with your money, you cannot turn to the government to bail you out. It encourages prudence.
Socialism, by contrast, rewards and encourages fiscal irresponsibility. Instead of providing individuals with benefits based on what they have earned (or lost), socialism rewards people on the basis of need. In so doing, it institutionalizes fiscal irresponsibility. The more irresponsible you are, the more needy you become – and the more benefits to which you are entitled. And conversely, the more fiscally responsible you are, the less needy you are – and the more that is taken away from you. Success is punished and failure is rewarded.
Systems that perversely mix capitalism with socialism (like America today) poison the capitalist element with the socialist element. America has a nominally capitalistic system, but with many socialist elements. All of the socialist elements encourage recklessness and reward failure. They hide behind the capitalist element, but the essence of the socialist elements is not changed by the fact that they enacted in a capitalist, mixed economy.
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