Reason: John Blundell: Margaret Thatcher, Meryl Streep and The Iron Lady: Fact vs. Fiction

Source:The Daily Post

I saw the Iron Lady, the Meryl Streep bio movie about former United Kingdom Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher back in May. And I was expecting a great movie about one of the most important world leaders, in at least the last thirty years. And I was disappointed, I don’t believe this movie was intended for political junkies. Or even people who love history such as myself, whether its American history or world history. This movie was intended for people who love movies and feel the need to be entertained.

That consider the idea of learning about important historical events and people as not interesting enough to watch that type of thing or read about it. So they see a movie and hopefully its more dressed up for them and comes off as more and I hate this term to describe things like this, but as sexy. One credit I would give the Iron Lady and something that I was pleasantly surprised by, was that this movie didn’t try to make Maggie Thatcher look like some type of Conservative fool. Who was interested in selling out the interests of the country to private business interests and didn’t care about the needy and was always looking to go to war. I think Meryl Streep did a very good job of playing Maggie Thatcher as the person she was. And not some Hollywood Leftist vision of her.

To me, what stands out about Maggie Thatcher, who had about a twenty year career in the British Government in the UK Parliament, as Leader of the Opposition and then of course as Prime Minister, is all the important things in her career that they didn’t cover. They didn’t cover much of her as Leader of the Opposition and how she rose from that to be Prime Minister or. Her interactions with the UK Prime Minister. I believe they showed one Question Time performance, or her relationship with President Reagan, or, how she dealt with the Soviet Union. They covered a little bit of the Falkan Islands conflict with Argentina in 1982 and her attempts to cut the British debt and deficit. But about an hour of this movie was about her life post-Prime Ministership. Even though it’s as Prime Minister where she really made her impact, not only in Britain, but the world as well.

I thought that Meryl Streep did a very good job of playing Maggie Thatcher with the material that was given her. As far as what aspects of her life they covered. But no offense to Prime Minister Thatcher, this movie as far as appearances has a similar issue as the movie Game Change had with Sarah Palin. Except that I believe that Meryl Streep is too attractive, too cute and beautiful to play Maggie Thatcher. Whereas in Game Change, Julianne Moore is not attractive enough to play Sarah Palin, at least as far as I’m concern.

Reason Magazine: Matt Welch Interviewing Yaron Brook: Ayn Rand vs. Big Government

Source:FreeState Now

Even though Ayn Rand didn’t describe her own politics as libertarian, Libertarians love her because she was always talking about the importance and need for individual freedom. And we as individuals should be free to live our own lives and worry about ourselves. As well as the dangers of coercion, especially from government. That government shouldn’t be forcing people to do things. Just punish people when they hurt innocent people. As a Liberal I love the idea of individual freedom, as long as someone is not using that freedom to hurt innocent people.

That government shouldn’t be in the business of protecting free adults from living their own lives, as long as they don’t get in the way of other free adults in living their own lives. And they aren’t hurting innocent people along the way either. But as a society that we also have a responsibility not to take care of each other, but to help people who can’t take care of themselves. Empower those people to be able to have the freedom to take care of themselves and live their own lives. This is a big difference between me and Libertarians as well as Ayn Rand. Who would simply just say this is not the business of government, that private charity should be handling this themselves.

Freedom works best when as many people as possible have it and where we aren’t hurting innocent people with our freedom. And when we are empowering people who don’t have that freedom, because they don’t have the skills to take care of themselves, get those skills so they can take care of themselves. Freedom doesn’t work very well when we have a high concentrated population of poor people, compared with the rest of the country.

Take parts of Mexico to use as an example. Where some people there have so little freedom in their own country, that they feel the need to leave their homeland to live in a country where they can get freedom. Emigrating to America to use as an example, or in this country where our poverty hasn’t gotten that bad yet. But where some Americans become so desperate, that they do things that they wouldn’t otherwise do, just in order to survive. Because they don’t have enough money, or food to use as examples and end up going to jail.

So what we should be doing is building a liberal democracy where people have the individual freedom to live their own lives. As long as they aren’t hurting any innocent people with their freedom. Where government isn’t trying to protect people from themselves. But where everyone has the opportunity to freedom, because they can get themselves to not only live in a free country, but have the skills to be free in a free country.

Associated Press: New York Debates Proposed Ban On Sugary Drinks

Source:FRS FreeState

Another example of blogging on a slow news day, I'm probably just a step away from bloggers block if there's such a thing. And if there isn't, I just invented it and I know I covered this back in June, but New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg apparently has had some vision that he knows how New Yorkers and perhaps Americans in general, how they should live better than the people themselves. He has the classic one size fits all to governing, that if this works for him or other people, that it must work for everyone.

In 2008 the prospect of Mike Bloomberg running for President as an Independent, didn't bother me. He seemed like a classical Northeastern Republican, "get big government out of our wallets and bedrooms" Republican. But now he seems not only believe that big government should be in our wallets, like calling for all of the Bush tax cuts to expire on everyone, including the middle class, New Yorkers even that can't afford a tax hike right now, New Yorkers even that can't afford a new tax hike to go on top of high NYC taxes, to go on top of the high cost of living in New York, but Mayor Bloomberg also wants big government down our throats. Telling us what we can drink and how much we can drink, he's becoming a hero in today's so-called progressive politics.

What New York is attempting to do with soft drinks is another example of prohibition. If New Yorkers can't get large sodas in the city, then they go to Long Island, North Jersey or Connecticut, someplace where people have the freedom to decide how much they can drink and eat. Of course as long as they have the money to pay for it and then if that jurisdiction has a sales tax, they'll end up paying taxes on those products that they buy. Which will go to help that jurisdiction pay for schools, roads, hospitals everything that communities need to be vibrant. 

Tax money that could've otherwise been spent in New York helping them to pay for those services in New York. That's what Progressives have never figured out about prohibition, that just because you tell people they can't do something, doesn't mean they stop doing it. It's just done in other ways and in other areas.  If you think people are living unhealthy and you believe that this unhealthy living is somehow negatively affects the rest of society as a whole and you want to correct that bad behavior, what you should do is incentivize people to correct that behavior. Have them pay a price for living unhealthy. Short of putting them in jail and have them pay a financial cost for living unhealthy. Like taxing soft drinks extra than what you would tax water or milk.

Antony Davies: If Government Ordered Your Lunch

Source:Real Life Journal

This idea that a group of people centralized in one big city, even a city that I love, can direct the lives of a country of 320M people, that’s a continental nation that’s between two large oceans, is crazy. People who I call Statists or political nannies, (whether they are female or male) have this idea that a certain lifestyle that they live, must be able to work for everyone, no matter how large the country, or how diverse it is. Because this lifestyle works for them and if you don’t conform with it, there’s something wrong with you. You are ignorant in some way, sort of how the establishment treated Hippies in the 1960s and 70s. But this type of thing is still going on today, from the Left and Right. To be blunt about it, the Far-Left and Far Right. People who have this idea of what it means to be an American. From the right because this is how it use to be. And from the Left this is how its done in other countries, it seems to work there, so this is how we should be living as a country.

Thats not the role of government to direct how its people live. But what they can do with agencies like FDA is inform Americans on the dangers and benefits of doing this, or that. Put out all the credible info available, but not try to force people to live that way. Because they know that they can’t. The War on Drugs, or organized gambling, are excellent examples of this. And then to make suggestions on what activities are healthy and what aren’t and what are the benefits and minus’ of doing such activities. Suggesting that people eat balance diets and exercise everyday, knowing that they can’t force people to do those things.

And this is what alcohol, tobacco and I would add marijuana can do to you, instead of trying to outlaw those things and trying to protect people from themselves. The United States is simply to large and vast of a country for an elite group in Washington, or anywhere else to try to control a country that is this large. But what it can do, is inform people on what activities are healthy and unhealthy in life and make suggestions. About certain things in what Americans should do with their lives based on credible research not ideology

John Stossel: Politically Incorrect Guide (2008)

Source:Real Life Journal

John Stossel, is someone I respect, not someone who I agree with very often, but someone who’s very honest with what he thinks and who is very provocative. And political correctness is one area where we agree on. To me, political correctness should never be a substitute for telling the truth. That the fear to offend someone or some people, shouldn’t be an excuse for not speaking the ruth. It’s not the truth that’s the enemy of civil society, but the lack of truth, or ignorance that can be.

Once you put all the facts on the table and do it in a timely way, you give yourself an opportunity, whether the truth is good news, or bad news to respond to the truth in an appropriate way. Political correctness, goes against that because it says, “you know what we can’t say that. Because some people, especially people we care about, may be offended by it.” Political correctness, is also a problem with our education system. Students every year get promoted to the next grade, because educators fear that holding that student back, or sending them to summer school, for fear you may hurt the students self-esteem.

It’s all part of the so-called self-esteem movement, making people feel as well as possible. Whether they deserve to feel that well, or not. Self-esteem, is not the answer to having a civil society nor are politicians from any party. We get out of life what we put into it, no one politician can save our country and they especially can’t. Save us from ourselves as much as they’ve tried and over hyping politicians is just an invitation for being disappointed.

President Obama, is a perfect example of that who was built as the savior of America that was going to save our country. As so-called Progressives built him as. Now forty-two months later or so, he’s now seen as a disappointment to so-called Progressives and Independents. Because we are still dealing with the same problems as a country that we were dealing with when he became President. Not recognizing that the challenges that he faced were so huge and complicated and that they weren’t going to be solved in just four years.

And no Barack Obama is not a God and he’s also made some mistakes in his first term as well. Truth is never the enemy of civil society and politicians are never the saviors of society, at least by themselves. Its how we respond to all the facts on the table and how we learn them and when we learn them, that will best determine how we function as a country. Rather than holding back certain information for fear it may hurt the feelings of others. But what we should do is report all the facts and then respond to them as best we can.

David Von Pein: WFAA-TV News: JFK Assassination First Coverage

Source:The Daily Press

I saw a documentary about the JFK assassination about three years ago. I’ve seen several documentaries about the JFK assassination before. Most of them have been conspiracy theories relating to other people being involved in this 1963 assassination of a United States President. Ranging from the Italian Mafia being involved in it, because of U.S. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy’s involvement in trying to bring down organized crime in America.

As well as the CIA and U.S. Military being involved in the JFK assassination, because they didn’t like President Kennedy’s national security policy. The most warped conspiracy theory I’ve heard so far was that Vice President Lyndon Johnson ordered this assassination, because of how badly he wanted to be President. There’s no credible evidence to any of these conspiracy theories that I’ve seen, except for the organized crime connection. And in LBJ’s case, no evidence at all, but the documentary about the JFK assassination that I saw on the History Channel, wasn’t a conspiracy theory at all and was much different.

Because it was about the media coverage of the JFK assassination, with limited commercial interruptions and about three hours long, with no outside commentary. They just showed the media coverage of the JFK assassination from 1963, up till the JFK movie from 1991. What made this media coverage more interesting was that it was the first ever of a U.S. presidential assassination that was broadcasted live on TV. So all the TV news anchors and reporters who were reporting this story, were covering something for the very first time not only in their careers, but in American history.

With no precedent to fall back on. All they really had was their knowledge of how to cover big stories and what you saw were people who were doing a very good job. Under heavy pressure and having to do it live, with no retakes and you got to see some of these people as they were actually were. How they actually react on live TV. With CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite actually choking up during a CBS Special Report reporting that President Kennedy was dead. Which was made this JFK documentary even better because of how clever and unique it was.

I liked this documentary of the JFK assassination so much that I recorded on DVD the first time I saw it. Because the preview of it looked so good and with Jack Kennedy being a political hero of mine. I expected I would want to see it again and again which I have. You even get to see things like Jack Ruby killing Lee Oswald as it happen and coverage of the 1978 U.S. House hearing on the JFK assassination and is something that anyone whose interested in this story should check out.

Reason Magazine: Matt Welch Interviewing Judge Andrew Napolitano- Gary Johnson and The 2012 Presidential Election

Source:FreeState Now

I'm sure that Gary Johnson has figured out by now that he's not going to be elected president in 2012. That even finishing a solid third where he's at least in double figures, would be a big victory for him. He's currently running at 5% nationally and that's according to his own campaign. He's running just 13% in his home State of New Mexico, where he was governor for eight years, where he's clearly a name there. Unless this entire State of two-million people were in a coma or vacationing in Pakistan or somewhere outside of New Mexico that entire time. So I'm sure that New Mexicans have gotten the message that their former governor from 1995-03 is currently running for president in 2012.

But that's not the point or the goal of the Johnson Campaign. The goal of the Johnson Campaign should be divide and conquer, but in the most positive sense. Not in the Karl Rove sense where you win elections by destroying the other side. 'We know you don't like us, but you should dislike the other side even more. And vote for us by default.' The way Governor Johnson should divide and c conquer, is by pulling Liberal Democrats such as myself and the few Conservative and Libertarian Republicans that are left in the Republican Party, to vote for him.

And of course the Johnson Campaign, should be courting with every single Libertarian that's alive and breathing and eligible to vote in the United States. To get up to 10-15% in the national polls and get Federal financing for the 2016 elections. And get into the presidential debates and put the Libertarian Party on the map in American politics to make it a major third-party that can compete with Democrats and Republicans across the country. Not just in the West where libertarianism is strong.

Reagan Foundation: 1980 Presidential Debate: Governor Ronald Reagan and President Jimmy Carter

Source:The FreeState

Even though the 1980 Presidential Election between former California Governor Ronald Reagan and President Jimmy Carter turned into a landslide, with Ron Reagan winning something like 47-49 Sates, and with around 56% of the popular vote. and with Senate Republicans picking up eleven seats and winning control of the Senate for the first time since 1952, (these stats coming from doing too much research) I now have some of them locked in my memory not that I'm going to release any. But it didn't have to turn out that way. The first Presidential Debate between Ron Reagan and Jimmy Carter, was an opportunity for Governor Reagan to convince voters especially Independents, that he's not crazy.

Reagan, not looking to go to war with the Soviet Union, or anything like that. That he was a cool in the political sense, calm intelligent man that had core classical conservative beliefs. But that conservatism wasn't crazy and neither was he. And it was an opportunity for President Carter, really his last opportunity to show Americans, when this election was still close and have a chance to beat Reagan and put himself in position of winning the election. By giving Americans an alternative vision of where he would want to take America in a 2nd term. The difference between front running politicians and underdog politicians when it comes to political debates, is that the frontrunner tends to take a positive approach to the debate and just tries to sell themselves. "This is what I'll do if you elect, or reelect me."

The underdog politician, the one who's trailing in the election, tends to take the opposite approach. And decides, "the voters clearly don't like me and so what I have to do, is to convince voters that they should like my opponent even less." And then win the election by default and thats exactly what this debate had. Ron Reagan was clearly in cruise control and tried to make this debate a referendum. "You should vote for me because I will take this country in a different direction, much different from where we are going now, which is clearly not working." Whereas President Carter was on the attack almost the whole debate and trying to make it about Ron Reagan. The famous line in this debate is of course Ron Reagan saying in his closing statement, "saying are you better of today, then you were four years ago. Is the cost of living lower, are jobs more secure, have the taxes gone up, or down?" That sort of thing. People clearly didn't feel better off in 1980 than they did in 1976 and Reagan was successful in making this election a referendum on President Carter.

Craig Rintoul: Conrad Black- The Invincible Quest- Richard Nixon Biography

Source:The FreeState

Richard Nixon, lived such a long, complicated and productive life with a lot of ups and downs, that writing one book about him, doesn't do him justice. Or the people justice who are interested in learning about him. Every time a new documentary, movie or book about Dick Nixon comes out, I at least look into them and a lot of times get a copy of them for myself. I have a few books about him and several documentaries about him as well.

This is a man that came from a loving home, but from basically nothing in Whittier, California, yet he ends up graduating from law school, having a good military record, Duke University, U.S. Representative by 33 in 1946 and famous in the House as a freshmen. U.S. Senator by 37, Vice Presidential nominee for Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 at 39. Vice President of the United States by 40, reelected Vice President in 1956. The first influential and important Vice President that Americans were actually familiar with. Republican nominee for President in 1960 at age 47, comes within 100,000 votes and Dick Daily in Chicago and LBJ in Texas of being elected President in 1960. Law partner in a major law firm after the Vice Presidency in the 1960s and Republicans turning him to run for President in 1967-68, after what he did for Congressional Republicans in 1966.

All of the chapters that I've mentioned about Dick Nixon's life, all are worth a book about them and his life. Nixon's life wasn't just about ups and downs and hot and cold, but about one of the most important figures that we've ever had in American history. His foreign policy dealing with our opponents so we can influence them and their people, instead of ignoring them. Like with Russia and China and was 15-20 years ahead of its time and considered mainstream today. Another fascinating thing about Dick Nixon, was it was very difficult to define his politics.

Somewhat liberal-progressive on economic Policy, pushing Welfare to Work over twenty years ahead of its time. The Affordable Care Act gets a lot of its roots from the Nixon health care bill in 1974. President Nixon was pushing energy independence in 1973 well before it became popular. A Conservative on national security and a Conservative Internationalist on foreign policy. Its hard to box him in. If you are going to try to write a bio about Richard Nixon, first you should try to get the whole story. Instead of trying to write the Defense of Richard Nixon or a hatchet job, which a lot of books about him are. And then if you want to write he whole story about Nixon, you should write a series about him. Otherwise you are looking at writing thousands and thousands of pages into one book, assuming you do an accurate job.

Governor Gary Johnson: End The War on Drugs

Source:FreeState Now

The United States is now sixteen-trillion-dollars in debt thanks to both Republicans and Democrats. But in the last ten years or so, the edge has to go to Republicans when it comes to borrow and spending. They are the fathers of supply side/borrow and spend economics. And two ways to get out of the fiscal black hole, that shopaholics couldn't even dream up in their wildest fantasy pipe dream of running up,iIs to get the Federal Government to do less. Get them out of our own lives as far as trying to run them. Stop punishing people for what they do to themselves.

And instead focus on how people abuse other people, as well as through economic growth. Less prohibition and instead lets start taxing and regulating how people live their own lives. Instead of trying to protect people from themselves, which is exactly what the War on Drugs is about. We meaning Uncle Sam, and perhaps Sam's wife, nieces and nephews, meaning the Federal Government, knows best how a country of 310M people, even though they haven't met 99% of them, how they should live their own lives. Better than the people themselves. That's exactly what the War on Drugs is about, protecting adults from themselves.

The War on Drugs is actually why Libertarian Party presidential nominee, as well as the Patriot Act and indefinite detention, are reasons why Gary has a shot at picking off some Liberal Democrats. Especially young voters. Liberals that are tired of the the Obama Administration's big government policies as it relates to these areas and see President Obama as not much different if at all from President Bush in these areas. We could be taxing and regulating marijuana and sending some of that money to the Federal Government to pay for things like public infrastructure and to help pay down the Federal debt.

As well as the savings that would generate from not prohibiting marijuana for adults, as well as releasing drug offenders who are in prison for simple drug possession or usage, who have clean prison records. As well as just decriminalizing cocaine and heroin, have people pay fines for simple possession, instead of locking them up. The way to handle addiction in America when it comes to marijuana, cocaine or heroin, is how we handle addiction for alcohol and tobacco. Is through drug rehab at the addicts expense. Instead of locking them up and hoping, more like praying they learn their lesson. Even though they'll have access to the drugs of their choice in jail or prison, something they wouldn't have in drug rehab.

Reason Magazine: Bikini Banners & Freaking Cops Cracking Down on Curse Words! The Nanny of The Month For June 2012

Source:Real Life Journal

Here’s more evidence that we overpay our politicians and don’t give them enough work to do. That they would actually take time, taxpayers time that is to look for new ways to restrict how the people who pay their salaries in how they live their own lives. That they would look for new ways to protect people from themselves. That individual freedom is too risky and some people might not know what to do with it and since they can’t take all of our freedom way from us and turn America into an authoritarian state, they look for new ways.

That nanny statists have to be clever and look for new ways to do this, without officially at least taking all of our freedom from us. Even risk violating the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution to do so. Which is what they are doing in Massachusetts by putting new limits on what people can say in public, the target of course of this being curse words. New Jersey trying to install crackdowns on what women can wear in public, meaning certain bikinis at their beaches. All they are doing there is just giving more men reason not to vacation in New Jersey. But they would be welcomed along with their women to come down to nearby Delaware and Maryland, where they wouldn’t have those restrictions.

These are just examples of what a nanny state looks like. Where the state takes it upon themselves to protect people from themselves. It ranges from speech, to what people can wear and say in public, to what they can eat, drink and smoke, to what they watch on TV, or listen to on the radio. All in an effort of course to protect people from themselves and to prevent us the people from doing things that they either don’t like, like cursing and certain forms of entertainment, which of course Neoconservatives of course hate and see these things as a threat to our national morality and even national security.

When I hear those arguments, I think they must be high on something they believe should be illegal for everyone else. Or hate speech that today’s so-called Progressives hate, because they are worried that it may offend people they care about who are too sensitive to deal with it by themselves in an adult way and need the State to protect them. But my Nanny of the Month for June, 2012 is New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is now the Mayor of the Nanny City. Thanks to his efforts to protect New Yorker’s from themselves, as it relates to junk food, soft drinks, marijuana and even pornography. And represents why the term nanny is even involved in American politics and why we have the term nanny state. Government’s that want to protect their people from themselves.

Reagan Foundation: Candidacy for Presidency: Ronald Reagan's 1979 Announcement of Candidacy For President

Source:The FreeState

You could make a case that when Ronald Reagan announced that he was running for President in November, 1979 that he won the 1980 presidential election and defeated President Jimmy Carter right there. Because of how different the message that he was giving. Then what was being delivered from President Carter. Carter constantly telling the country how bad the situation was. Reporting on from one disaster from another, especially economically and even telling the country that they were partially at fault for this. Living too well and that was contributing to the economic problems. The country feeling as bad, or if not worse than the President said we were doing.

Especially if Americans were unemployed, or have seen their income fall. And hearing Ron Reagan giving a much different message that was about, "the country is in bad shape, we can do better and we must do better. But we need a change in leadership and together we can get America moving again." Which is much different from hearing that things are horrible and we are the problem and we must sacrifice or things are just going to get worse. Which might not of been the intended message of President Carter, but thats how it came out as.

What you got with Ron Reagan whether you liked him or not, was a vision. "This is what the situation is. This is what's not working and why its not working and this is what we can do together to fix the problems." Thats the type of campaigner and leader he was. He wasn't interested in destroying his opponents, just explaining why their ideas and policies aren't working and why his is better. Which is very different from Republicans and even a lot of Democrats today, who are so interested in winning and having and gaining power. That they never stop campaigning, for fear that if they do, they may lose whatever power they may have right now.

Politicians today, don't want to lose an opportunity to gain more power in the future. And with today's politics its more about not just winning, but destroying the other side and even compromising when there's divided government like now, compromise is considered weak. I've been blogging for a couple of years now, that for the Republican Party to ever be the Grand Ole Party again, they have to get back to Goldwater-Reagan politically. Not just on policy and not be the big government party they have become, with Neoconservatives now running the party, but politically as well. "That our best days are still ahead, that even though we disagree with the other side, we want to beat them politically, but not destroy them." And they still have a long way to go.