Removal of the Confederate Flag and Confederate Monuments

Is it really prudent to remove the Confederate flag and Confederate monuments from public property?

Why are we only exposed to the one-sided, emotional argument? The one that says, "these are symbols of oppression and reminders of slavery and therefore must be removed!”

I think a more reasonable argument is to leave the monuments and flags up and have civil, mature conversations about what they actually mean or what they tell us about history.

Are they really symbols of oppression or do they symbolized how far this country has come in a relatively short period of time?  We outlawed slavery! A practice that is as old as human history. Something that is still practiced in many countries around the world to this day!

Or perhaps they symbolize state sovereignty and rebellion against an oppressive federal government that preferred to send over 600,000 Americans to their deaths rather than to allow a few states to secede from the Union.

That’s a conversation and debate worth having rather than weak-kneed politicians succumbing to public pressure from a loud minority of constituents unwilling to discuss or debate the merits of the monuments.

Great conversations on this topic from The Tom Woods Show - Southern Monuments Removed, Others Under Attack  and Brion McClanahan podcast Confederate Origins of Memorial Day.

Media Malpractice

Despite no evidence (as of this writing), the lamestream media continues to pound the table endlessly with accusations that President Trump colluded with the Russians to win the election.

This is the same media that ignored:

• The Monica Lewinsky scandal and made excuses for Clinton’s impeachment
• The weaponizing of the IRS, the EPA, the Bureau of Land Management, the NLRB, etc
• The Benghazi scandal and cover-up
• The Fast and Furious scandal
• The Obamacare lies
• The dreadful economy
• The burgeoning national debt under Obama
• The corruption of Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch
• Hillary’s indictable federal offenses
• Witness tampering by Bill Clinton with his tarmac meeting with Lynch during the Hillary investigation
• Obama's ransom paid to Iran for hostages
• The illegal international donations and the quid pro quo emanating from the Clinton Foundation
• Butcher Abortionist Dr. Kermit Gosnell
• The swelling welfare rolls
• The influence of Valerie Jarrett
• The real unemployment rate
• The idiocy of Joe Biden
• Obama’s Executive Orders
• The first ever credit downgrade of the United States
• The high unemployment rate among African-Americans
• The thousands of business-killing regulations
• Crony capitalism
• Van Jones
• The promise that if the Stimulus Bill was passed, unemployment would never climb above 8%.
• Jeremiah Wright
• "Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller."
• Bill Ayers
• The worst economic recovery since the Great Depression
• Kill lists
• The drop in real median income
• Backdoor amnesty for illegal immigrants
• Obama claiming to have visited 57 states during his 2008 campaign
• George Soros influence over the Democratic Party
• The Gibson Guitar raid
• General Motors bondholders getting screwed in the bailout
• The closings of GM dealerships owned by donors to the Republican Party
• The National Labor Relations Board’s treatment of Boeing
• The voter intimidation case against New Black Panthers
• The lowest labor participation rate in decades
• “Shovel ready wasn’t as shovel ready as we thought”
• Teen unemployment over 70%
• The pathetic GDP growth
• Obama’s speech advocating that we should “be our brother’s keeper” while his brother lives in a hut in Africa.
• Donna Brazile's feeding of debate questions to Clinton
• Rezko
• "After my election I have more flexibility"

How to Reform Health Care in America

How to reform health care in America - in order of importance:

#1 - Get the federal government out of the health care business!

#2 - Encourage/permit the purchase of health insurance across state lines.

#3 - Eliminate some of the regulations, licensing, and education requirements to become a medical practitioner. 

#4 - Eliminate the thousands of state mandates imposed on health insurance companies.

#5 - Encourage the purchase and issuance of guaranteed issue insurance policies.

#6 - Allow people to buy health insurance as a part of a group.

#7 - Allow individuals a tax deduction for health insurance premiums paid.

#8 - Allow doctors and/or medical corporations a tax deduction for all pro-bono work they provide. 

#9 - Encourage/permit unlimited tax deductible contributions to health savings accounts that are transferable to other family members.

#10 - Medical malpractice tort reform.

#11- Create high risk pools at the individual state level for people with pre-existing conditions.

Jimmy Kimmel, Pre-Existing Conditions, and the Federal Government

Jimmy Kimmel did us a favor by recently bringing up preexisting conditions when discussing his new-born son's recent heart procedure. He opened the door to having a conversation. The conversation goes something like this:

We live in a constitutional republic.

We have a operations manual that explains how the republic is to be run.

That manual is called the Constitution.

The Constitution granted a very limited set of powers to the newly created federal government. All other powers were left to the states.

None of the powers granted to the federal government included health insurance or health care.

Therefore, the federal government should not be involved in health insurance or healthcare. Period! End of story!

What is the alternative?

One alternative is to amend the operations manual through the constitutional amendment process.

Another alternative is for the individual states, if they so choose, to enter the healthcare game. 

Instead we have one of the two major political parties (the Democrats) whose sole purpose appears to be the attainment of as much power and control over the electorate as possible by granting them government handouts. The handouts are then use to garner votes by claiming that the Republicans are going to take them away.

Add to this a feckless, establishment national Republican Party that makes no effort to reign in the excesses of the Dems and we have a great country governed by a dysfunctional federal government.

The result is an unending list of unconstitutional powers accumulating in D.C. and less and less liberty for 300 million people.

Back to addressing Jimmy Kimmel: what are some market-driven, non-federal government intervention solutions? How about . . . .

• Guaranteed issue insurance policies.
• Policy portability.
• Tax deductible health savings accounts.
• Medical malpractice tort reform.
• Allow people to buy health insurance as a part of a group.
• Remove the 2,100 state mandates imposed on health insurance companies which will facilitate a la carte purchasing of insurance.
• Tax deductibility at the individual level of health insurance premiums paid.
• Encourage the purchasing of low-cost catastrophic policies.
• Allow the purchase of health insurance across state lines.
• Eliminate some of the regulations, licensing, and education requirements to become a medical practitioner. 
• Create high risk pools at the individual state level for people with pre-existing conditions.
• Allow doctors to deduct from their income taxes any pro-bono work they provide during the course of each year.

Any legitimate discussion about healthcare in America must NOT include the federal government!