Usually a bright fellow, Texas Senator John Cornyn has evidently learnt little from the debacle of 2006 and 2008. This should give us pause since he is the guy in charge of leading the Senate Republicans back to the majority in 2010. With libertarians simply abandoning the GOP in the last two cycles, young techies laughing at its utter ignorance of basic modern technology, and small government types shaking their heads, you would thick that the campaign chief of Senate Republicans will get a clue.

Well, think again. Having little to do other than run around aimlessly looking for good candidates, John Cornyn has come up with the brilliant idea to force Internet Service Providers of all kinds-even the smallest start up ones-to keep log in records for all their users for two years (right now it is 90 days). His reasoning for the so called Internet Safety Act? Well, to help law enforcement of course, never mind that no major national law enforcement organization has remotely called for it. Cheap popularity from the MADD kinds, a kind word or two from ultra feminist groups, free publicity, and a dangerous encroachment of civil liberties..that’s all the Cornyn bill does. It will also push up the cost of broadband access specially in rural areas, making the digital divide wider between Blue and Red America, and further turn off the tech savvy young crowd. Barack Obama is raising a toast to John Cornyn right now.

If  Cornyn keeps on pushing the bill, it is he who needs a challenger in the primary and deserves to get beaten and never be elected for any other job outside of the county commission in whichever county he resided in Texas.

Whatever party you belong to, please call your senator and ask him/her to vigorously oppose John Cornyn’s Internet Safety Bill of 2009. The government, even with all its noble intentions, does not need to know where you and I spend our hours surfing the internet. There are strong existing laws to track those down who would mean others harm, and prosecute them. Crafting fancy new laws that gut constitutional safeguards, do little to improve public safety, and serve as campaign props for lazy politicians and lazier prosecutors, is good for Senator Cornyn and bad for the Constitution.

When I was in college, the students could be divided into three broad categories:

1. Goal oriented: These were kids who had certain goals in life and knew college was a tool to accomplish these goals. They made short term sacrifices, as did their parents, to go to school, get decent grades, and look for jobs to become productive members of society afterwards. More often than not, such students would be found holding part time off campus jobs, living in very modest dwellings, and going about their temporary academic soujourn without the benefit of cable television, fancy cars, and spring break jaunts to Panama City.
2. College oriented: Amongst this group were students whose first and foremost reason for going to college was the freedom from the dictates of mom and dad…though such freedom was expected to be subsidized by mom, dad, and Uncle Sam. Decent guys and girls all, these were the folks who generally held cushy on-campus 10 hour a week jobs, had plenty of time to get involved in all sorts of campus activities, and enjoyed the luxuries of well appointed apartments, newer cars, and heady weekend parties. The lifestyle was so sweet and insulated from the realities of the actual world, many such students kept on changing majors and going for second and third degrees in dubious majors-again, thanks to the American taxpayer-so that they could postpone going to a productive life as long as possible.
3. Refuge oriented: Mostly in their thirties and forties, these were individuals who, suddenly tiring of their routine life or having made one too many absurd choices, decided that the ivy tower was proper refuge to hide while they decided what to do next. So they hopped from course to course, never an actual goal in mind other than ‘learning different stuff’, and joined much younger classmates in rabble rousing parties just to feel young again. Sometimes this sage lasted an year or so, sometimes significantly longer until the individual in question ‘found’ himself or herself. Of course, much of this searching and finding one’s soul is subsidized by your tax dollars.

 Going to college or graduate school requires sacrifice on part of the student and the student’s family. It is supposed to. “That which we achieve easily, we esteem lightly”, said Thomas Paine hundreds of years ago. You have to wonder why the college degree, once a marquee of basic accomplishment, is now considered as useless as a high school diploma. Standards for both benchmarks, for one, have been lowered to the point of non-existence. But I digress.

There is intrinsic value in higher education….for the individual. There is substantive benefit to society for certain kinds of higher education like those concentrated on the hard sciences, social services, engineering, information technology, and business management. Taxpayers being asked to partially support those serious students of engineering or criminal justice who sacrifice (along with their families) many of the comforts of a middle class life is reasonable. The same taxpayers being asked to subsidize perennial ‘enrollees’ who skip from major to major, discipline to discipline, college to college, just to enjoy a sheltered life with all the conveniences of suburban living, is unfair and unproductive. Rather, I suspect, those taxpayers would prefer spending that money on their own offspring or kin who want to learn a trade at a technical school or start a small business. Everyone doesn’t need a college degree, let alone a graduate school education, to be a productive and respectable member of society.  In fact, some of the more non-contributing members of society are folks with too many degrees in too many eclectic fields of knowhow that masquerade as academic disciplines. In a free society, they are certainly at liberty to pursue whatever learning they wish to so pursue; they just don’t have a right to be subsidized by the rest of us. More important, there is no inherent right for the higher education bureaucracy to be subsidized by taxpayers who have to work 12 months a year, five days a week while the ivy towers are content to put in 9 months a year at three to four days a week.  Formal learning is important and nurturing a learning environment is vital to the intellectual health of a free society, but not in absolute terms and not at any cost. 

Yes, I can hear the snickers of elitist readers who will immediately consider this to be the instinctive outpouring of some red state hick. Au contraire….this is the libertarian perspective of someone who has two graduate degrees, including an M.B.A. None of my degrees was earned with a dime of taxpayer money, but rather the sacrifice and toil of myself and my very middle class parents. Yes, that meant eating Ramen noodles at times and forgoing spring break jaunts to Palm Beach.

It was a pleasant surprise to see the rock solid unity of the House Republicans today, as every last one of them voted against the trillion dollar ‘stimulus’ of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid ruling clique. Not just that, they actually managed to get eleven Democrats to go along with the principled opposition to the biggest single public spending package in American history. Thus, in a twist of irony, the bipartisan support that the President had expected had actually translated into bipartisan opposition to his massive spending plan.

That is not to say that I doubt the President’s sincerity in reaching out to the GOP over the stimulus plan. In fact, it showed pragmatism and leadership when he asked the Congressional Democrats to strip the trillion dollar plan of its irresponsible 200 million dollar proposal for funding the extremist group Planned Parenthood. Not only did the Planned Parenthood proposal have nothing to do with economic recovery but was offensive to large segments of the population and Constitutionally suspect. That the President, a very strong ally of the Planned Parenthood and its racist policies, would lean upon equally radical Democrats like Pelosi to shelve the idea, is a credit to his desire for outreach.

On a different note…Michael Steele of Maryland for RNC Chairman!!

So now the hackster liberal Democrat Governor of Virginia Tim Kaine is the Messiah's choice for DNC chairman. It is a very shrewd political move since Kaine is, erroneously, considered a moderate, Catholic, pro-life governor of a southern state who happens to be a Democrat. This is, as Obamaniacs will point out, another indication how their Messiah is reaching out to all Americans and showing goodwill towards those millions who believe in God and the sanctity of life. I wish that were true. But true liberals need not be disappointed; rest assured that the national Democratic Party is not about to become tolerant of any voices that even meekly contradict the radical taxpayer funded abortion on demand-till-the-day-of-delivery principle that symbolizes the extremism of that party.

These days, in true political fashion of unprincipled hacksters, Governor Kaine simply uses the most disgusting, disingenuous, and dishonest line every invented by Roman Catholic politicians in America: "I am personally pro life but....". Yeah, I am personally against slavery but....or I am personally against theft but...do you ever hear liberal Catholics say that? I am no Roman Catholic but I can assure you on my last dollar that the Catholic Church is very much against slavery, theft, and racism. Yet, I don't see too many liberal Roman Catholics line up with false tears and affected agony on their faces to tell us that while they 'personally oppose racism, I cannot impose my views on others'.

Have these Catholic politicians no shame, no decency, no iota of honesty at all?

That Tim Kaine is a Roman Catholic is a matter to be decided between his bishop and himself. That he is pro life is an utter lie for all to see. And he should thank his lucky stars that he isn't the governor of, say, Nebraska or Colorado, because the bishops of Lincoln and Denver take a no-nonsense approach towards Catholic politicians trying to pull the "Personally I am against infanticide but..." horse manure.

Lesson for Roman Catholic hackster politicians: "pro life" means defending the sanctity of all innocent human life, especially the most vulnerable amongst that life; integrity means that what you are 'publicly' is what you are 'personally'.

Dang, I am almost ready to call the Pope and ask him to immediately appoint Bishop Bruskewitz of Lincoln, NE to the archdiocese of Washington, DC.

Has been a very busy couple of weeks with travel, holidays and, unfortunately, the onset of the traditional flu epidemic that can get out of hand quickly. Hence the paucity of my blogs. Well, I hope everyone had a great new year.

Israelis and the people in Gaza Strip are not. Few words can describe the enormity of pain amongst the hapless civilians caught in the mayhem of the battle in Gaza Strip. These people have few earthly possessions and even those, not to mention their lives, are at risk every hour. The sooner the conflict is brought to an end, the better it is for all. And the only semi-permanent avenue I see to peace is the absolute destruction of the military capabilities of Hamas. Israel is to be commended for exercising restrain and warning civilians before strikes; one just hopes that the operation is concluded swiftly and surgically. Once Hamas (and similar groups like PIJ, al-Quds Brigades, and Hizbollah) are defanged, we can get back on track to a negotiated settlement where all the children of Abraham can live in mutual respect and tolerance as neighbors whose only 'battles' are on the soccer field.

Admittedly, KsReaganite has never been particularly fond of the so-called Holiday Season. The

The belabored family oriented atmosphere created by television stations, stores, and indeed in many homes themselves, smack of an attempt to portray what we feel we should be but are too chicken to admit we are not. We like to imagine ourselves as a society where children are taught right from wrong growing up in two parent families and nurtured by schools that impart education, churches that impart morals, and governments that help, rather than hinder, parents bring up children with their own values. Of course, none of that is exactly the case, no matter how much the neighborhoods are alight in Christmas illuminations and how many times we see fuzzy warm Christmas classic movies of the 1950s. The grand story of the birth of the Prince of Peace has been reduced, in true American style, to two catchy and annoying phrases that everyone utters to everyone on the streets, workplaces, and malls: “Are you ready for Christmas yet?” and “Finished all your Christmas shopping?”  Of course, I am not discounting the nicely appointed Lutheran, Episcopalian, and Methodist churches in the suburbs where trendy “Holiday” services take place the day before Christmas and well dressed men and women hum and haw as some guy or gal at the pulpit talks about ending the war in Iraq and saving the ozone layer.

Am I ready for Christmas yet? Well, as soon as they put Christ back in Christ-mas, I will be. Until then, let me limit myself to wishing all the readers a Merry Christmas.

KsReaganite has been on the road in snow covered Colorado for much of the weekend and week and hence little updating. And no, I am not auditioning for the Salazar seat. But I did want to take a few moments to share my praise for one Obama cabinet appointment. In selecting the former Democrat governor of Iowa Tom Vilsack as his agriculture nominee, the president elect has shown a rare spark of independence from the lobbyist-lawyer-feminist lobby which generally owns most liberal Democratic office holders in Washington. Few governors, and even fewer Democrat ones at that, have had the guts to take on the feminist-lawyer establishment on behalf of children whose homes have been broken by the selfishness of a parent or parents. Tom Vilsack is one such rarity. A lawyer himself, Gov.Vilsack pushed through legislation-against intense opposition from the bar association, radical feminists, social welfare bureaucrats, the entire state Democratic leadership, and even some Republicans-to establish the legal principle that children of divorce have a fundamental right to have both parents in their lives. Though the liberal dominated Iowa Supreme Court has watered down some of the provisions of that very important law, the principle it enshrined has given future generations a platform to fight more effectively for children's rights.

I only hope that Tom Vilsack will not lose his sense of fairness and common decency as he joins a cabinet that is dominated by men and women bought and paid for by the American Bar Association, civil servant labor unions, and radical feminists.

Here's raising a glass of the best bourbon (made of Iowa corn) to you Governor..er..Mr. Secretary.