What If?

What if?

What if America never existed?

Best selling author Dinesh D'Souza, whose recent work regarding the background, motivations  and misunderstood ambitions of President Obama has been compelling and spot on, teams with award winning producer Gerald Molen to bring us "America" The Movie, which hits movie theaters, appropriately, in approach of the July 4th holiday.  Take a look see at the trailer.



I believe our country was divinely inspired, with our founding fathers, brilliant men, risking their lives, fortunes and sacred honor, presenting us with a gift of liberty; lighting the flame of freedom. Throughout the history of our nation, we have certainly experienced a slew of growing pains. Our founders expected this, and expected the people to right the mistakes along the way.

As Ronald Reagan once said, this country was founded and built by people with great dreams and the courage to take great risks. 

George Washington, the indispensable man, was an exceptional individual who took many risks in the battles that helped give birth to our nation. What if Washington's armies failed in their effort to defeat the British?

In his new film, D'Souza examines that question among others.  Another question D'Souza pondered is whether American wealth based on theft and oppression?  D'Souza, as noted on his website, makes the moral case for capitalism.

Washington would have agreed, noting that a moral component "was a necessary spring of popular government".  Faith, hope and charity and the capitalist free market economic system, one which gives power to the people through liberty and freedom, is the heartbeat of our nation.

Reagan also said freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction.  It is not our by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it only comes once to a people.  Those who have known freedom and lost it never know it again.

As D'Souza noted, America is currently at a crossroads.  If America did not exist, terminated at any point along the way in our brief history, the world would be a very, very dark place with evil running roughshod.

America; imagine the world without her?  Check out "America" The Movie and find out!

Clock of the Heart

Last night,  I reported a major shark jump on the evening. It is not even Thanksgiving, and yet Rudolph is courting Clarice on CBS television. Good Grief!

 

The rush of engaging in the Christmas shopping season seems to have overtaken the real meaning behind each of the three holidays during this time period, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Day.

 

Thanksgiving was created by George Washington to give thanks to our creator, God, for the blessings we have received.  Christmas, of course, celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, as our Father gave his only Son to forgive us for our sins.  New Years represents a new beginning, an opportunity to redirect and eliminate the branches of evil that prohibit us from reaching our full potential.

 

We should give proper credence to the holiday of Thanksgiving, so important that the indispensable man George Washington thought it worthy of recognition. Thomas Jefferson found it so meaningful it required annual recognition, which is why our nation celebrates this day annually.

 

After we give thanks for the blessings we have been granted, we can move on to the celebration of Christmas and then seek the opportunity to reach redemption and make the new year better than the previous one. 

 

As a capitalist, I hope everyone can enjoy the shopping for gifts till your hearts content, but please remember the reason for the season and recognize the blessings and opportunities we have been given.

 

In closing, a memo to the national television networks.  Please give paramount consideration to the chronological order of these holidays, for this is a tradition we are not in favor of changing, even if it is the wish of our current First Lady.

External Government Obsolescence

The right of property is the guardian of every other right, and to deprive a people of this, is in fact to deprive them of their liberty --Arthur Lee of the Commonwealth of Virginia

On Tuesday, The Supreme Court of the United States will hear a case regarding property rights centering on government control over an owners right to maximize the productivity or utility of the property. Of course, the founding fathers regarded ownership of private property as the foundation of freedom and prosperity.

FOX News Shannon Bream, a Tallahassee native who earned Juris Doctorate with honors from The Florida State University College of Law, has a report. 


The Pacific Legal Foundation, the oldest and most successful public interest legal organization that fights for limited government, property rights, individual rights and a balanced approach to environmental protection, will be in front of the Supreme Court working with the Koontz family.  Here is more regarding the public sector shakedown that has handicapped the ability of the Koontz family to maximize return on and of the vacant parcel.




The Hoover Institution has weighed in, recognizing the case is central to property rights, something John Adams found integral to freedom.  In fact, most are unaware that before becoming the father of our country, George Washington was a surveyor and mapper.

The Orlando Sentinel had a front page story on the case, as interestingly enough, the property in question is about twenty minutes away, right here in Orange County, Florida just east of lovely downtown Orlando.  Please see the maps below of the parcel.

 

 

 

Find Law.com has a good overview of the lengthy goings on in the case, presented below:

Koontz proposed to develop 3.7 acres closest to Highway 50, back to and including the power line easement. In order to develop his property, he sought a management and storage of surface waters permit to dredge three and one quarter acres of wetlands. A staffer from St. Johns agreed to recommend approval if Koontz would deed the remaining portion of his property into a conservation area and perform offsite mitigation by either replacing culverts four and one-half miles southeast of his property or plug certain drainage canals on other property some seven miles away. Alternatively, St. Johns demanded that Koontz reduce his development to one acre and turn the remaining 14 acres into a deed-restricted conservation area. Koontz agreed to deed his excess property into conservation status but refused St. Johns' demands for offsite mitigation or reduction of his development from three and seven-tenths acres to one acre. Consequently, St. Johns denied his permit applications.

As PLF points out, the case asks whether the Constitution places limits on an agency’s ability to demand excessive amounts of money from a land use applicant in exchange for a permit to build on his property.

The American Farm Bureau Federation brilliantly summarizes the impact of the case to the agricultural community:  To strengthen landowners’ ability to obtain compensation when permitting authorities impose an arbitrary or disproportionate requirement of money or services as a land-use permit condition, or when authorities refuse to issue a permit based on the landowner’s refusal to agree to an unconstitutional exaction of real property

This case will have significant national impact.  Recently, we have been focused on the evil and restrictive policy issues surrounding Agenda 21, but the tentacles of this movement are very far reaching.  If an ever increasing oppressive government, who already has tremendous power through code enforcement and the permitting process, can shakedown owners seeking permits to develop their owned property through imposing arbitrary fees, penalties and or taxes as a condition of obtaining permits is an extension of extraction that is unethical and unconstitutional, as I hope we are all about to find out.

A decision in favor of the government will no doubt open the door for the government to demand extraction wherever and whenever it wants.  Be advised the government will utilize the decision to further seek the transfer of wealth and exponentially expand the globalist dreams found in Agenda 21, significantly reducing the freedom and liberty of property owners to see maximum return on and or their investment.  This will curb investment, reduce utility and value of property, lower tax revenue and limit choice for consumers as development is reduced due to increased costs.

As James Madison noted, Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist.

Find Light As Darkness Approaches

An honest broker. Our country has a great example of this in George Washington, the Indispensable Man. Honesty is vitally important as a virtue, but it is equally important in commerce, by individuals, corporations and market makers adhering to contract law.

When contracts are broken, it throws mistrust and uncertainty into the marketplace, creating chaos. Regrettably, the Obama administration, in their efforts to transform this divinely inspired nation, altered the rules of contract law right out of the gate upon taking office in the form of shortchanging the automaker bond holders during the auto bailout. And don't get me started on the sun-setting of the famed Pontiac brand of General Motors!!

While Congress has become seemingly irrelevant and scandals are mounting while the media cheers on the socialist agenda, the stock market, although having ups and downs, is higher than it was in the aftermath of the 2008 crash. With a 9%+ unemployment rate, small business getting clobbered, taxes and regulations increasing, restricted credit and market uncertainty, one has to wonder how the market remains so high.

During the Great Depression, folks with jobs made out fair to midland, but it was those on the outside looking in who suffered the most. Unlike that period, the FED has injected massive levels of cash into the system, and when coupled with governmental stimulus, corporations and unions on the inside have been able to maintain profitable revenue levels. But it is not real, for when the cash influx is removed, the true levels of markets will be identified, and those levels are far lower than present closing ranges.

Not only are the current market levels manufactured, but economic measures of employment, inflation and debt are fabricated. In addition, in part due to the crony capitalism, investors are uncertain of false market indicators, significantly increasing the risk associated with capital investment.

And then, there is the rule of law. The collapse of trading firm MF Global, whose CEO was former New Jersey Democrat Governor Jon Corzine, has lead federal investigators to uncover that the company seems to be missing about 1.2 billion on customer accounts. A Congressional Panel is seeking to question Corzine, who if the allegations prove true, should take up long term residency in the gray bar hotel. Although while Governor Corzine blew a huge hole in the wallet of New Jersey, few think he is dumb enough to get himself in this situation, which leads some to think this is an orchestrated hit.

One could think another Wall Street firm blowing up has little impact on the average American, but this well may. Much of the investor money is currently stuck as investigators sort through the wreckage, but investors may only get back about 40% of their potions and they are far from happy. While this is most unfortunate, far more significant issues concerning the lack of trust in the commodities market, where MF Global provided the market to hedge futures contracts, and the contagion to follow, could severely impact our capital markets.

Investors have signaled the lack of trust in the market, perhaps highlighted in a letter by Ann Barnhardt, a cattle commodities broker, who due to the lack of trust in the market place and an "abject lawlessness and contempt for humanity of the Marxist Obama regime and its cronies", ceased operations of her firm, Barnhardt Capital Management. Please read the letter that she wrote, as Barnhardt speaks a truth you are unaware of and need to be up to speed on.

Investors Business Daily does not care much for Corzine, and neither do I, but there is a much more serious problem brewing here. Trust in the capital markets is essential for investors, and without that you have inefficient markets at best. With the DOW artificially pumped, many thought the commodities markets were where realistic evaluations could be identified.

Not anymore. Perhaps this leads to a market crash, or maybe it is just another in a long line of birth pangs we have been having. If the allegations of malfeasance are true and investors are not made reasonably whole due to the theft by this firm and it's principals, most notably Obama crony Corzine, these folks need to become instant jailbirds.

If they don't, and the rule of law remains absent, the birth pangs will quickly turn into a contraction and the official birth of utter chaos in the US financial markets, something many contend is orchestrated from within the White House, will emerge. Serious as that is and factoring in the EURO fix that won't work, the FED is war gaming worst case scenarios with new stress test of our major banks forecasting potential unemployment levels of 13% and a DOW at 5600.

Reality is a mirage under this administration, and your investment dollars must be protected. As Ms. Barnhardt accurately pontificated, investment is most vulnerable under the socialist and evil regime running our country at present, and hopefully November 2012 will intercept us from the generations of darkness Ronald Reagan warned us about.

Pray we make it that far!

Happy Presidents Day

On this Monday, we celebrate Presidents Day. The day is a federal holiday in honor of George Washington. Abraham Lincoln was also born in mid February, so many link the birthdays of these two men together when thinking of Presidents Day.

Gallup took a pool released over the weekend indicated that Americans think Ronald Reagan was the greatest President in the history of the United States of America. Hey now!

Have you ever been contacted by a pollster? Yeah, neither have I.

Therefore, had I been asked, I would have presented the following three in order as my top US Presidents.

George Washington

Without question, Washington exemplifies everything you could ask for in a President. Few men have ever displayed such a level of leadership as Washington, no doubt our first field general. It is safe to say we may not have country if it were not for Washington, and his legacy is worthy as the founder of our country. As part of FOX News Glenn Beck's Founders Fridays, Glenn spoke with Andrew Allison, author of The Real George Washington and Earl Taylor regarding this great man.



Beck also interviewed Peter Lillback,author of Sacred Fire and David Barton regarding the faith of George Washington:



Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln stands tall, figuratively and literally in our history as a man of great principle and unwavering leadership. Lincoln presided over immense internal turmoil and stood tall. From Lincoln's second inaugural:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Ronald Reagan

With the country drifting without leadership, Ronald Reagan took the Presidency with a firm plan of sweeping action to bring America back. Not only did he succeed militarily, he put pride back in the middle class and gave them a the keys to a vehicle for optimism, free market capitalism. At the wheel, Reagan's economic policies unleashed a 25 year bull market, raising in large measure the standard of living of all. Reagan is as relevant today as he was then. After all, government is not the answer to our problem, government is the problem.

I got to thinking. Foghorn Leghorn would be better than Obama, but with each of my top three Presidents having February birthdays, I wondered if any of the Republican 2012 hopefuls had birthdays during the month of February.

Sarah Palin.