PREACHING TO THE CHOIR

Until recently, before starting this blog, I published a community newspaper in the Galveston Bay-Clear Lake area of Texas (near the Johnson Space Center) of the same name “Where Did It Go?” It was originally in reference to our youth but evolved into being about our country. In an effort to contribute to the cause, I volunteered to do an occasional article for the Clear Lake Tea Party newsletter and was assigned Immigration. From the beginning I felt that we were sort of wasting time preaching to the choir and not winning any new hearts nor votes. I have recently decided to do something about it.

While researching information on Immigration I came upon Marco Rubio's keynote speech to HLN. I gave a copy to some leftie acquaintances who are very sympathetic to the plight of immigrants and very opposed to “hard-hearted” Republicans. Surprisingly I received a very positive response. As I began to analyze why this response was positive when normally it would automatically be negative from a Republican V-P contender, it dawned on me that these people have been brainwashed and lied to so often that they have actually come to believe all the ugly untruthful things they've been told about Republicans, conservatives and Tea Partiers.

As a long time conservative I still find it hard to understand how people have come to feel so strongly and even viciously about the Tea Party when I've attended at least six rallies and never witnessed the slightest racist, homophobic, women or elderly hating behavior at any time. I have observed only nice, well-behaved citizens concerned about what's happening to their country.

I am sure you have seen Cher's recent tweet, “If ROMNEY gets elected I don’t know if i can breathe same air as Him & his Right Wing Racist Homophobic Women Hating Tea Bagger Masters.” I thought “Don't sugar coat it, Cher. Tell us how you really feel.”

She apologized for the rant while still declaring that that is how she really feels. The key question is,”Why does she feel that way?” The answer to that is because that's what she's been told and she travels in a circle of friends who believe the same thing so she is not likely to hear anything different from them or to seek out the truth for herself.

Unlike Cher, however, Pulitzer winning playwright David Mamet decided against being a “brain-dead liberal” after some friends encouraged him to read some conservative authors like Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek. While it might be difficult to get people to read entire books, I do believe the answer to winning them over is to subtly educate them and introduce them to the truth a little at a time.

Name calling doesn't work. I know. I've tried it. I also don't believe that Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity are going to convert them. Even though I am a fan and believe they mostly speak the truth, their rhetoric and demeanor creates an instant rejection of their ideas and opinions with most liberals.

My conclusion is that the problem with many liberals is ignorance of what conservatism really is. Therefore, our first objective should be to educate them and attempt to win them over to our way of logical thinking through logical, subtle persuasion. Ask questions regarding their beliefs, determine their motivations and then try to respond with intelligent, truthful answers. This isn't about ideology, it's about common sense.

I am starting a series of essays on several of the subjects for which conservatives are criticized; once again will try to define the true objectives of the Tea Party movement and generally try to disseminate the message that we all really mostly care about many of the same things. We also need to convey how and why the conservative means of accomplishing them makes more sense.

Maybe we can influence a few of those people who think they are better, kinder, more compassionate people because of their liberal leanings but don't realize the unintended consequences of voting for liberal politicians whose only real concern for minorities, the poor and the oppressed is to get their vote.

OBAMA POLICIES SLOW IMMIGRATION

Net Migration from Mexico Falls to Zero—and Perhaps Less

Not Because his Immigration Reform Policies are Effective but because his Economic Policies Stink so Bad that More Immigrants are going the other way at the Border for Better Opportunities.

The largest wave of immigration in history from a single country to the United States has come to a standstill. After four decades that brought 12 million current immigrants—more than half of whom came illegally—the net migration flow from Mexico to the United States has stopped—and may have reversed, according to a new analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center of multiple government data sets from both countries.

The standstill appears to be the result of many factors, including the weakened U.S. job and housing construction markets, heightened border enforcement, a rise in deportations, the growing dangers associated with illegal border crossings, the long-term decline in Mexico’s birth rates and changing economic conditions in Mexico.

The report is based on the Center’s analysis of data from five different Mexican government sources and four U.S. government sources. The Mexican data come from the Mexican Decennial Censuses (Censos de Población y Vivienda), the Mexican Population Counts (Conteos de Población y Vivienda), the National Survey of Demographic Dynamics (Encuesta Nacional de la Dinámica Demográfica or ENADID), the National Survey of Occupation and Employment (Encuesta Nacional de Ocupación y Empleo or ENOE), and the Survey on Migration at the Northern Border of Mexico (Encuesta sobre Migración en la Frontera Norte de México or EMIF-Norte). The U.S. data come from the 2010 Census, the American Community Survey, the Current Population Survey and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Among the report’s key findings:

• In the five-year period from 2005 to 2010, about 1.4 million Mexicans immigrated to the United States and about 1.4 million Mexican immigrants and their U.S.-born children moved from the United States to Mexico.
• In the five-year period a decade earlier (1995 to 2000), about 3 million Mexicans had immigrated to the U.S. and fewer than 700,000 Mexicans and their U.S. born-children had moved from the U.S. to Mexico.
• This sharp downward trend in net migration has led to the first significant decrease in at least two decades in the number of unauthorized Mexican immigrants living in the U.S.—to 6.1 million in 2011, down from a peak of nearly 7 million in 2007. Over the same period the number of authorized Mexican immigrants rose modestly, from 5.6 million in 2007 to 5.8 million in 2011.
• Mexicans now comprise about 58% of the unauthorized immigrants living in the United States. They also account for 30% of all U.S. immigrants. The next largest country of origin for U.S. immigrants, China, accounts for just 5% of the nation’s stock of nearly 40 million immigrants.
• Apprehensions of Mexicans trying to cross the border illegally have plummeted by more than 70% in recent years, from more than 1 million in 2005 to 286,000 in 2011—a likely indication that fewer unauthorized immigrants are trying to cross. This decline has occurred at a time when funding in the U.S. for border enforcement—including more agents and more fencing—has risen sharply.
• As apprehensions at the border have declined, deportations of unauthorized Mexican immigrants—some of them picked up at work or after being arrested for other criminal violations—have risen to record levels. In 2010, nearly 400,000 unauthorized immigrants—73% of them Mexicans—were deported by U.S. authorities.
• Although most unauthorized Mexican immigrants sent home by U.S. authorities say they plan to try to return, a growing share say they will not try to come back to the U.S. According to a survey by Mexican authorities of repatriated immigrants, 20% of labor migrants in 2010 said they would not return, compared with just 7% in 2005.
• Looking back over the entire span of U.S. history, no country has ever sent as many immigrants to this country as Mexico has in the past four decades. However, when measured not in absolute numbers but as a share of the immigrant population at the time, immigration waves from Germany and Ireland in the late 19th century equaled or exceeded the modern wave from Mexico.
  

Marco Rubio on Immigration – Part 2

Keynote Speech at Hispanic Leadership Network conference in Miami
Friday, January 27, 2012

Now, if you solve the issue of the guest worker program, you solve the issue of the illegal immigration system that you have that needs to be reformed and modernized, you’re left with between nine and eleven million people who are in this country undocumented. They came for different reasons. They found themselves in this predicament in different ways, and it’s a real challenge for our country.

On the one hand there is not political support for the notion of basically granting eleven million people citizenship or a path thereto in the United States. It’s just not there. On the other side, it’s not realistic to expect that you’re going to deport eleven million people. It doesn’t work, we can’t do it, and it would offend American sensibilities and rightfully so. What’s the solution to it? There is no magic solution to it—that’s why it’s so complicated. And that’s why the politics makes it more complicated.

Now these young people that stood up a moment ago, I think one of the reasons why they’re here is because they’re concerned about young people. Let me say: I’m confident in what I have said throughout my political career and especially during my campaign for the Senate, that there is broad support in America for the notion that for those children that were brought here at a very young age, by their parents through no fault of their own, who have grown up here their entire lives, and now want to serve in the military or are high academic achievers and want to go to school and contribute to America’s future, I think there is broad bipartisan support for the notion that we should somehow figure out a way to accommodate them. Figure out a way to accommodate them in a way that does not encourage illegal immigration in the future.

Unfortunately some of the legislative proposals that are out there today go too far and there’s not support for those either. But I think we can solve that problem. And I hope that we, as Republicans and as conservatives take the lead in solving it. Because it’s not just the right thing to do, it speaks to our hopes and dreams as a nation. And it’s critical for our economic future.

How about everybody else? I don’t have a magic answer for you. This is a difficult issue, and sometimes those of us in public service need to stop pretending like difficult issues have easy answers. They don’t. It’ll require an open conversation across this country about what we want to do. How can we create and deal with this issue in a way that both honors our legacy as a nation of immigrants but also honors our legacy as a nation of laws? How do we balance those two things? Well that’s at the core of this issue. And it must be confronted because the status quo is unsustainable.

This issue is a deeply personal one for so many people in this room. I know it is for me. A few months ago—you may have read about it, maybe you didn’t it—I got some dates wrong in my parents’ immigration history. And it created some difficult, you know, uncomfortable days. It was a blessing in disguise. You know what it made me do? It made me do something that we don’t do enough of. And that’s go back and discover who our parents were when they were our age. What were their hopes and dreams? What did they want out of life? Where did they want to go and what did they want to do with themselves? I had a chance to do that. And from the tattered pages of passports and the yellowed papers of olden documents, from across five decades, I clearly heard the voice of people I never really met.

Of my father who came here as a young man and didn’t find instant success. He went to New York—it was too cold. He came to Miami—it was too hard. He went to Los Angeles—it was too California. He went back to Las Vegas the first time. He came back to Miami. He was discouraged. He struggled as a young man who grew up in poverty in Havana after his mom died and then he was struggling here too. He had hopes and dreams for himself. He wanted to own a business and he thought America was the place he could do it and he struggled. And he was discouraged, and he even made plans to go back to Cuba because of that.

I discovered this about my grandfather, who I thought I knew real well, but in fact he grew up in an agriculture family and as a young man he suffered polio. He lost the use of his leg—they sent him to school. He was the only one in his family who knew how to read and write. He got a good job running one of the railroad stations. His family lived comfortably—he had five daughters at the time. It was a heavy undertaking in that climate. And one day, from day to night, he lost his job. And instantly he was tossed, and his family was, into poverty and struggle. He was a disabled man in early twentieth century Cuba trying to find a way to feed his five—almost six—daughters. Struggling with that. My mother tells the story of how he would spend all day looking for work sometimes having to walk miles and come home at night his knees bleeding because he would trip and fall. Because he didn’t have the use of a leg. Tough life.

Why am I different than them? Am I better than them? Why have I had opportunities that they did not have? It was but for the grace of God. That’s true of all of us. I’ve been able to do things they didn’t because I’m here, in the single greatest society and the single greatest nation in all of human history. But it reminded me that their stories, although they’re gone, are still alive. They’re all around us. You find them in Home Depot when I drive up in my pickup truck, in the desperate look of faces of men that are looking for work. You find it in homes across this community and this country, where women work hard, long hours—sometimes without documents—to send money back home.

Of course there are people that abuse the system. But the enormous majority of the people that come here legally and illegally do so because they want a better life for themselves and more importantly for their children. And as we deal with this complicated issue I ask you: What if you were them? What if you lived in a country where your children had no hope and no future? Where your wife stayed up all night crying because she was afraid your son would join a drug gang. Where your children wept each night because you didn’t have enough food to feed them. What if you were there? Let me tell you—if I was there, there are very few things I would not do. There is no fence high enough; there is no ocean wide enough that most of us would not cross to provide for them what they do not have.

And that’s at the core of this issue and these people that we’re dealing with. Yes we have to have laws—they have to be respected. No we cannot legalize eleven million people. But they’re people. They’re human beings with real lives and real stories. And the complexity of the issue challenges the core and soul of our nation perhaps more than any other issue that we face. Because in the end, without immigration, there would be no America. And we would be just like everybody else. And the challenge of this century on this issue is how can we once again make this issue a source of pride, not a source of conflict. Something that unites us as a people, not divides us. Something that we brag about, not something that we fight over. How can we do that? Well that’s what I hope to be a part of. That’s what I hope events like this will be a part of. I hope never again that young people will have to stand up in an event like this and hold up a sign-- because the issue’s been taken care of, in one way or another.

That’s what we need to work towards. And it’s not easy, and it’s difficult, but it must be done. Because you see, throughout ages, even in the world today, most societies teach their people that who you are, is determined by who you come from. Who are your parents? What family were you born into? What neighborhood did you grow up in? What school did you go to, and what social circle do you run in? Because based on that is who you will be.

That’s the way it’s been for much of human history. That’s the way it is today in much of the rest of the world. And then there came America, where we said we didn’t care if your parents were poor, if your grandfather was disabled, or your dad was not connected. You can be anything you wanted - in fact we bragged about it, and we welcomed the world to come here and prove that anyone, from anywhere, can accomplish anything.

Today I took the liberty, it’s the only thing I wrote for today’s speech, well I printed it. I don’t have a (inaudible), I apologize. If you go to New York, there is a famous statue there, you may have heard of it, it’s called the Statue of Liberty. On it, is engraved the poem from Emma Lazarus, it’s called The Colossus, which speaks to our nation, and who we are. I’m not a big poetry fan, but this one, there’s nothing wrong with poetry. Now I’m going to get the poet people upset at me. You got to be careful, every vote counts.

This poem speaks to this battle between those nations who believe that who you are is determined by the circumstances of your birth, and us.

“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
And she says:
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, give me your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shores.
Send these, the homeless, the tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

This is who we were. For 225 years, this is who we’ve been. And the question now is, is this who we will remain? If we lose this, we lose ourselves. If we walk away from this, we walk away from what makes us different, and special, and unique from all the nations on the earth.

This is a great challenge but it’s one that must be confronted. For in the end, those of us in the conservative movement draw our strength not only from our laws of man, but from the laws of God. We believe that our nation was not just founded on spiritual principles, but that our adherence to them has caused great blessing upon us. We recognize that the Constitution and our laws are important, but we live our lives with the knowledge that there is a higher law yet, a law that commands us to feed the hungry, and clothe the naked, and be kind to the alien in search of home.

Because America has, I believe, God has blessed her. We are not just great because we’re great. We are great because we have been blessed. And with those blessings come responsibilities. Because we’re not just blessed so that we can have, we’re blessed so we can give.

And what we have given the world, on issue after issue, is a light. A light that shines upon the world, and says that all human beings are endowed by God their creator with rights. That the source of those rights are not your king, your president, your laws or your government, but that you’re born with them. And because of that, anything you want to do, you should have a chance to be. Doesn’t matter where you were born, or where you came from, or whether your last name ends in a vowel. That’s who we have been, and if this century is to be an American Century, we have to figure out a way to make sure that that is who we remain.

Senator Marco Rubio on Immigration - Part 1

One of my objectives in the next few months is to convince a few undecideds and even some Democrats that Conservatives are not the evil demons that they are often characterized as by the opposition and the media. Some of the adjectives seen regularly in the blog word and even mainstream news would lead you to believe that they are greedy fat cats who don't want to pay any taxes; they're racists and homophobes and conduct a war on women; and they want to cut off social security and welfare and let people die in the streets.  This is all pretty absurd when you think about it but many people (most of whom do not think but still have strong opinions) have been convinced to believe it anyway.  This is one reason I am presenting Senator Marco Rubio's speech on Immigration.  I think it demonstrates his sensitivity about this issue as well as some solutions.  Part 2 will be published in the next couple of days.

I am writing (actually compiling) weekly articles about Immigration for the Clear Lake Tea Party Newsletter (to which I encourage you to subscribe  www.clearlaketeaparty.com/ . )  This is the Keynote Speech at Hispanic Leadership Network conference in Miami - Friday, January 27, 2012 by marcod Rubio, a possible Republican Vice-President contender. 

*********

Obviously, when people talk about Americans of Hispanic descent the first issue that comes to mind is immigration, and rightfully so. Because for people in our community the issue of immigration is not a theoretical one, it’s not an issue of statistics, it’s not always even an issue of law and order. It’s an issue of their lives, and of the people that they love.

Whether you came here from another country yourself, whether your parents did, or whether you’ve been here generations, there is no one in the community of Hispanic Americans who do not love someone who has found themselves in limbo or in a situation. No one, it’s impossible to walk a block in Miami, in Los Angeles, in others, San Antonio, without running into somebody who is being deeply impacted by a broken legal immigration system.

And so when politicians and political figures speak about the issue of migration, they’re not just talking about a legal issue. They’re speaking about the real lives of real people that so many of us love and care for. And so it is an important issue, not just for our country, but in our community it’s a gateway issue.

The immigration issue is critical and it’s important because it’s a gateway issue to the number one issue on the minds of the people in this community, of all walks of life, and that’s economic empowerment.

Let me say, that there is no community in America that understands the American dream of economic empowerment better than ours. And the reason is that the number one issue in our community is the desire to accomplish your dreams and hopes and to leave your children and your grandchildren with opportunities that you yourself never had.

Every single day, people lived, obsessed, in this country with that notion. But no community is more obsessed with it than ours. It’s the reason why people come here. It’s the reason why they work two jobs. It’s the reason why your parents gave up their own hopes and their own dreams so that you could do the things they couldn’t, so you could be what they could not be, so you could go where they could not go, so the doors that were closed to them were open for you.

Which community in our country understands that better than ours, there is none. It typifies our life. It’s who we are, it’s why we’re here. And it’s what’s made our country great.

And I would submit to you that there has never been an economic system that provides the opportunity to do that better than the American free enterprise system. No economic system is perfect. But nowhere in the world have more people from all walks of life been able to empower their children and their grandchildren more than they were able to do here in the twentieth century in the American free enterprise system.

And I also submit to you that today it is under assault. That our country today is run by a President that’s as divisive as any figure in modern American history, who sadly has chosen the route of dividing Americans against each other for the purpose of gaining votes and political support.

His message is one that basically says to people, the way to protect your job is to raise your boss’ taxes. That the way for you to do better off is for someone else to be worse off. That the only way you can climb up the ladder is if we pull some people down.

Now let me tell you, that language is common all over the world. You find it often in the third world. But it’s never been who we are.

As I said in a speech at the end of last year, we have never been a nation of haves and have nots. We have always been a nation of haves and soon to haves, a people who have made it and people who believe that given the chance they will make it too. And if we lose that, we lose the essence of what’s made us great in terms of economics.

And so, when the choices that are put before us today are dangerous ones, because if we choose this path of pitting people against each other, if we buy into this notion that our economy really can’t grow fast enough for all of us to prosper so we’re going to have to somehow empower government to distribute the wealth of this country among us, we’ve chosen to become like everybody else. We’ve chosen to become like the countries that your parents and grandparents came here to get away from. And that’s a powerful message. And that’s the message that we need to deliver. And that’s the message we need to work on delivering. It’s a winning message, but it’s a difficult message to get to because the gateway issue of immigration stands in the minds of so many people who we live next to and love.

Our country has a broken legal immigration system. Its status quo is unsustainable.

We don’t have a functional guest worker program in a nation that knows that it has, especially in things like agriculture, a need for temporary workers who enter on a temporary basis.

Our nation has a complicated and burdensome visa process, where even if you wanted to enter this country legally, and you wanted to stay here legally, it costs so much money, it’s so complicated, so bureaucratic, that it’s difficult to comply with.

And by the way, the things I just outlined to you are things of massive, overwhelming support in our country. There is broad bipartisan support across the board for the idea that America needs a legal immigration system that works.

And that’s why I have challenged the Republican nominees and all Republicans to not just be the anti-illegal immigration party. That’s not who we are, that’s not who we should be. We should be the pro-legal immigration party. A party that has a positive platform and agenda on how we can create a legal immigration system that works for America and works for immigrants.

And I think you could find broad bipartisan support today for the idea that our legal immigration system is broken and needs to be modernized. That we need to take into account the needs and realities of the 21^st century and tailor a legal immigration system and a visa program that takes care of that.

I think you could find broad bipartisan support for the notion that our immigration laws need to be enforced, that we need some sort of electronic, low-cost, affordable verification system for employers. That we need increased border security and ways to protect our borders. That we need to invest in these technologies and make this possible.

I think you would find broad bipartisan support for the idea that we need a functional guest worker program. Where, from year to year, when there are indeed jobs, for workers from abroad to come into the United States because we need them for our economy to grow and prosper, so that food doesn’t rot in the farm fields, so that construction gets finished, or whatever the industry that year may be. A functional guest worker program, where people can apply in their home country, receive a tamper-proof identification card, enter the U.S., we know who you are, we know why you’re here, we know where you work, you’re here for a defined period of time and then you go home when it’s done. And by the way, they want that too.

You know why people overstay visas; you know why people overstay temporary, if they can get the temporary worker visas today? Because they’re afraid if they leave they’ll never be able to get back in, because it’s so complicated and burdensome and broken.

You can find broad bipartisan support for all of these ideas. So why haven’t they happened. Well they haven’t happened because the issue of immigration is a powerful one politically. And dividing people along the lines of immigration has proven to be rewarding to politicians on the left and on the right.

And so for those of us who come from the conservative movement, we must admit that there are those among us who have used rhetoric that is harsh and intolerable, inexcusable. And we must admit, myself included, that sometimes we’ve been too slow in condemning that language for what it is.

But, at the same time, on the left, there are those that are using this issue for pure politics. Creating unrealistic and unreasonable expectations among those in the Latino community across this country. Advocating that our country be the only one in the world that has no immigrations laws, and no mechanism for enforcing them. Both sides are guilty of using this issue to divide us. I think that needs to stop.

Marco Rubio served in the Florida House of Representatives from 2000 to 2008 and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010. His committee assignments currently include Commerce, Science and Transportation; Foreign Relations; Intelligence; and Small Business and Entrepreneurship. His name continues to be raised as a potential Vice President candidate.

JUST HOW UNIFYING IS THE PRESIDENT?

I have been critical of the President since before he was elected. I read both of his books and researched his voting record. His values are so diametrically opposed to mine that I foolishly didn't think he could get elected in “my” America. Yet I can try to understand how he did. He had a large majority of African-Americans looking for respect and I don't blame them. He also had a lot of other people, mostly young and idealistic, either assuaging their white-guilt or simply and realistically hoping for something new and refreshing. I'm not racist but I had to look within to personally reflect on whether his race had anything to do with my feelings and was convinced that was not so. It was simply his outlook and left wing ideology that put me off, not his color. After hearing Allen West and Herman Cain, I am comfortable with my self analysis. Obama certainly appealed to the gullible with his hope and change; post racial; post partisan promises but he has been the exact opposite of what he promised. What is most discouraging to me is that he is so dishonest and lies with such ease. I respect the office of the Presidency but I have to question whether he does. I was pondering about how to change people's minds for this election and planning to write about it when Jim Geraghty of the Morning Jolt saved me the trouble. Here is his article addressing much of the same issue. I will have more in the future.

Are Obama's 2008 Voters Getting What They Expected?

Morning Jolt. . . with Jim Geraghty

Yesterday's discussion of disillusioned Obama voters appeared to be greatly appreciated, with James Taranto, Melissa Clouthier, Moe Lane, and Rush Limbaugh adding to the discussion.

As we contemplate how to persuade wavering Obama voters, perhaps a good place to start is to ask them what they expected him to deliver. When they marked the box for him in 2008, where did they think the country would be in 2012?

The diehard Democrats will instantly respond, "He inherited a lot of problems, much worse than anyone expected. Bush had eight years to louse up this country; you can't expect Obama to clean up his mess in half the time. Obama would accomplish more if the Republicans hadn't obstructed him every step of the way. He can't be held responsible for the headwinds such as the tsunami in Japan, the European debt crisis, the slowing of the global economy, and ATMs' taking people's jobs."

Of course, none of these is an answer to the question above; they're defensive justifications for why Obama hasn't delivered what they expected. You've asked them, effectively, "When you voted for hope, what were you hoping for?" And if they respond by offering all the reasons they blame Republicans, you can conclude these Obama voters are not persuadable, and you can move on to others.

When you prompt non-diehard Obama voters to think of their expectations on Election Day 2008, they'll probably conclude that some, many, or all, are unmet. They'll probably talk about the epic economic anxieties that were gripping almost all Americans in the autumn of 2008. They'll probably express this in very personal terms, about the value of their home, the value of their 401(k) or other retirement savings, their ability to find a job or find a better job than the one they have now. Perhaps they'll remember the exorbitant gasoline prices from the summer of 2008. They may remember their incredulity at TARP, at watching the richest people they could imagine -- Wall Street bankers! -- coming to Congress and begging for billions and saying that if they didn't get it, the economy would collapse. Long-established businesses were declaring bankruptcy left and right: Lehman Brothers. Washington Mutual, IndyMac, Circuit City, Linens n' Things. The 2008 election occurred amidst an atmosphere of unequaled crisis. You almost can't blame late-breaking Obama voters for turning to a candidate who was running as a messiah figure.

Mind you, during all of these discussions with wavering Obama voters, we have to hold our tongues and resist expressing incredulity that they believed Obama could deliver an economic renaissance. In these conversations, for now, it is more important to listen than to talk; you're collecting data and intelligence on how these people reached their conclusion on whom to vote for and their hierarchy of values. No matter how naïve, ill-informed, stupid, unrealistic, or inane their reasoning is, you will not persuade them by calling them any of those labels. Nod sympathetically. The time to argue will come later. For now, you just want to get a sense of what they think is important in this decision.

My suspicion is that most Obama voters figured that by the spring of 2012, the United States would be in much better shape than it is now. They may not have had specific benchmarks in mind -- 8.3 percent unemployment, $3.82 per gallon gasoline, and so on. But they probably doubted that they would see the federal government fining them for not having health insurance. (Remember that Obama ran against the individual mandate in the Democratic primary.)

You also will probably hear a bit about Obama as a unifying figure. Look back to that 2004 convention speech, the first time most Americans saw him, and the sound bite from the speech most likely to be replayed over and over again:

There is not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America -- there's the United States of America.

Let's face it, you and I wouldn't disagree with that! It's a wonderful unifying sentiment. It's even an implicit rebuke of those who are most obsessed with racial divisions and ensuring every aspect of American life is sufficiently diverse -- the folks who prompted Bill Clinton to wag his finger and denounce as "bean counters" with "quota games." No wonder so many people felt warm and fuzzy feelings when they first saw him.

Of course, you and I look at the body of Obama's work and conclude that none of his noble-sounding sentiments mean much of anything to him when he sees a political opportunity. The sentiment in the convention speech is uniting, inspiring, idealistic, and elevating. And then he goes out and urges his supporters to "get in their faces" and "hit back twice as hard," urges his Latino supporters to "punish our enemies," refers to citizens who disagree with him as "teabaggers," and tells White House guests that he believes racism was a factor in the rise of the Tea Party.

But a significant number of voters saw that guy at the convention in Boston and believed that he meant what he said. What's more, like the old poster from the X-Files, they wanted to believe. And it's been a long, slow process of letting go of that idealistic vision.

So the first task is to contrast the prospect of Obama, the ideal that some of his voters expected, and what he has been and produced. If you can get an Obama voter to express disappointment in the man they voted for in 2008, well, you're halfway to getting that voter to A) vote Republican or B) not vote, which is almost as good for our purposes.

IT'S TIME TO GET INVOLVED

 I know, many people don't like politics but let's face it, if you're alive, have family, eat food and buy gas, you're already involved. The most important thing we can do for our country and ourselves is to make sure Barak Obama is not re-elected. We also need to get some new conservative blood into Congress, both the House and the Senate. Tea Parties are doing this on the local level now and were responsible for the November 2010 reversals suffered by the Democratic Party. We need to help continue that trend. I am going to be contributing articles to the Clear Lake Tea Party and urge you to donate or volunteer with your own local Tea Party. The following article by Robert Ringer explains how Obama's radical agenda led to the formation of the Tea Party concept. As much as I cannot stand Obama and his policies, I agree with Ringer that his being elected awakened a lot of people to the destructiveness of the Progressive movement.

I'm going to temporarily suspend this newsletter and concentrate on the Tea Party newsletter but I am saving all of your emails and will make sure you get updates from time to time.  Let's pitch in to win one for the Gipper.

Sign up here for the Clear Lake Tea party newsletter:  http://clearlaketeaparty.com/

                                                                                     Thanks for your support,
                                                                                             Gene Rutt

Negatives, Positives, and The Natural Law of Balance: Why Obama is Responsible for the Tea Party
By Robert Ringer - Tuesday, March 13, 2012

An interesting question from reader ...
Robert, I have been going back through your audio program Path to Power once again and would like to see you expand on a topic. In the program you make it very clear that every perceived negative has an off-setting positive, and yet we are all fighting hard to stop Barry and the leftists from taking over the country.
I find myself fighting discouragement over future prospects based on how this coming USA election goes, and yet, according to your Path to Power training, this really shouldn't bother me.
Your thoughts as to the "there is no such thing as a negative" as it specifically applies to our current leftist administration, please!
A fair question. It's absolutely true that for every (perceived) negative, there is an offsetting positive. Unfortunately, people are usually not enlightened enough to recognize the offsetting positives when something bad happens in their life.
I like to refer to this as the Natural Law of Balance, which is pretty much synonymous with Emerson's Law of Compensation. Simply put, the universe is in balance. We see it at work all around us: electrons and protons, night and day, male and female, hot and cold, life and death, two sides to a coin. Nothing is one way: For every positive, there's an offsetting negative; for every negative, there's an offsetting positive.
Back in 2008, I upset a lot of people by saying that those of us who want to live in a free country would be better off if Barack Obama won the presidential election rather than Mush McCain. Had McCain become president, it would be have been viewed by most conservatives as a positive. But they would have been wrong.
True, it would have kept Obama out of the Oval Office for at least awhile, but there is no doubt in my mind that McCain would have continued the RINOs' inexorable move to the left ... more slowly than Barack Obama, and thus more dangerously.
Early on, I knew that Obama was a Marxist. Everything about his past, his associations, his voting record, and his own written and spoken words all made that clear. I felt that if he could keep the public mesmerized long enough to be able to sneak into the White House through the side door, with his Marxist soul mate at his side, it would be like having Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven running the United States government!
To most libertarians and conservatives, this seemed like a result too horrific to contemplate. But guess what? Barack Obama's lightning-fast implementation of his radical agenda awoke the walking dead. Foolish independents, in particular, opened their eyes in horror and began asking, "What the hell is going on here?"
The result? The Tea Party was born. That's right, the Emperor of Envy gave birth to the Tea Party through his own words and actions. Now, instead of the frog being boiled slowly, Obama's election has brought the fight into the open. And the fight I'm referring to is the one between the roughly 50 percent of the public who work for a living and the 50 percent who vote for a living.
That, Glenn J., is your offsetting positive in Barack Obama's rise to power. Without him, we would have continued to drift slowly down the road to serfdom. Count me out. I'm tired of drifting to the left.
So when I say "there is no such thing as a negative," it's because words like negative and problem are just that -- words. It's all in how one perceives the facts in any given situation. The offsetting positive when a "problem" arises often leads us to say, sometimes many years later, "That turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me."
By the way, I never said that Obama's election should not bother you. It should bother you. It should bother you so much that you become motivated to join the fight to save what's left of our once-great country for your children and grandchildren.
In that vein, you say that you're fighting discouragement? Save your energy. Discouragement is not the enemy. The enemy is the far left -- the progressives, the socialists, the Marxists, and the communists. Forget about discouragement, and focus on defeating the enemy.

Copyright © 2012 Robert Ringer
ROBERT RINGER is a New York Times #1 bestselling author and host of the highly acclaimed Liberty Education Interview Series, which features interviews with top political, economic, and social leaders. He has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, The Tonight Show, Today, The Dennis Miller Show, Good Morning America, The Lars Larson Show, ABC Nightline, and The Charlie Rose Show, and has been the subject of feature articles in such major publications as Time, People, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron's, and The New York Times.

"It's Never too late to Start Something Great"

BEING CREATIVE IS ONE OF LIFE'S GREAT PLEASURES

It always surprises me how many people do not give themselves credit for being creative. They are usually thinking that they can't paint or compose music or write stories, so they must not be creative. Yet many (most) of these same people figure out unique ways to solve problems and accomplish objectives every day of their lives so we are really looking differently at how we define creativity. In his book Human Motivation, Robert Franken does so as follows:

• Creativity is defined as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems, communicating with others, and entertaining ourselves and others.

• Three reasons why people are motivated to be creative:
  1. need for novel, varied, and complex stimulation
  2. need to communicate ideas and values
  3. need to solve problems

• In order to be creative, you need to be able to view things in new ways or from a different perspective. Among other things, you need to be able to generate new possibilities or new alternatives. Tests of creativity measure not only the number of alternatives that people can generate but the uniqueness of those alternatives, the ability to generate alternatives or to see things uniquely does not occur by change; it is linked to other, more fundamental qualities of thinking, such as flexibility, tolerance of ambiguity or unpredictability, and the enjoyment of things heretofore unknown.
  So you don't have to be an artist, musician or author to be creative. We see it in the daily lives of housewives, parents, teachers, business people, plantworkers and just about everybody else. We're all creative in our own way. We have to be in order to accomplish anything and sometimes just to survive.
  However, if you feel you need to enhance your creative powers, study the following steps (to which I'll add a few notes in italics):

10 Steps for Boosting Creativity

by Jeffrey Baumgartner
1. Listen to music by Johann Sebastian Bach. If Bach doesn't make you more creative, you should probably see your doctor - or your brain surgeon if you are also troubled by headaches, hallucinations or strange urges in the middle of the night. You can find Bach and other inspirational music on YouTube. “Air on the G String” is one of my favorites.
2. Brainstorm. If properly carried out, brainstorming can help you not only come up with sacks full of new ideas, but can help you decide which is best. Brainstorming works best if done with more than one person. One person's ideas inspire thoughts in others. There is no corner on good ideas. They can come from the CEO or the janitor. Give everyone a chance
3. Always carry a small notebook and a pen or pencil around with you. That way, if you are struck by an idea, you can quickly note it down. Upon rereading your notes, you may discover about 90% of your ideas are daft. Don't worry, that's normal. What's important are the 10% that are brilliant. A small recorder is also a good tool to keep handy and can be found on many cell phones. Learn to use it with one hand.
4. If you're stuck for an idea, open a dictionary, randomly select a word and then try to formulate ideas incorporating this word. You'd be surprised how well this works. The concept is based on a simple but little known truth: freedom inhibits creativity. There are nothing like restrictions to get you thinking. The mind is very complicated and always open to ideas from any source.
5. Define your problem. Grab a sheet of paper, electronic notebook, computer or whatever you use to make notes, and define your problem in detail. You'll probably find ideas positively spewing out once you've done this. For some reason, the very act of focusing on the subject inspires creativity.
6. If you can't think, go for a walk. A change of atmosphere is good for you and gentle exercise helps shake up the brain cells. A nap or good night's sleep also enables your subconscious mind to work for you. Many problems have been solved while you sleep.
7. Don't watch TV. Experiments performed by the JPB Creative Laboratory show that watching TV causes your brain to slowly trickle out your ears and/or nose. It's not pretty, but it happens. I personally have to have a little TV fix but don't let it monopolize your time.
8. Don't do drugs. People on drugs think they are creative. To everyone else, they seem like people on drugs. I can't add much to this. I've never done any drugs but have written a few decent songs after a couple glasses of wine. At least I thought they were decent.
9. Read as much as you can about everything possible. Books exercise your brain, provide inspiration and fill you with information that allows you to make creative connections easily. Reading is a more active process than watching television which I believe is why it is more productive as a tool.
10. Exercise your brain. Brains, like bodies, need exercise to keep fit. If you don't exercise your brain, it will get flabby and useless. Exercise your brain by reading a lot (see above), talking to clever people and disagreeing with people - arguing can be a terrific way to give your brain cells a workout. But note, arguing about politics or film directors is good for you; bickering over who should clean the dishes is not. Reading, working puzzles, learning new languages or skills are all good brain exercise.

“REMEMBER IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO START SOMETHING GREAT.”

Get creative, you'll love it!

Gene Rutt