It was recently reported that a poll had been conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University’s “Public Mind Poll”, seeking to determine the number of people within the United States who felt that one, an armed revolution would be “necessary” in the next few years,  two, that some people,  i.e. the government is hiding the truth about the Sandy Hook School shooting, and three,  is there a need for government to pass more gun laws to protect the public from gun violence.

The reported intention of the poll was to determine the cause for the growing political divide between Democrats and Republicans. The poll seems to suggest that the division on these three questions is demonstrative of the larger divide of the nation’s two major parties.

On the need for more gun laws to protect the public from gun violence,  73% of Democrats polled feel the need for more gun laws, while 65% of Republicans polled do not feel that more laws are needed. Over-all registered voters are split on the need for more legislation.

On the question of whether the public is being lied to about the facts of the Sandy Hook School shooting, it again is suggested, by the poll,  that there is a partisan  divide on who believes  the government is lying to the public.

Over-all, 25% of Americans believe that the public is being lied to about the shooting with another 11% unsure.  The poll shows that 32% of Republicans surveyed feel  the truth is being suppressed. While only 20% of Democrats feel the facts are being suppressed.

There is no real surprise in these numbers in my opinion. We know that historically the GOP and its voters have been resistant to more laws in general, and vehemently opposed to new gun laws in particular. While Democrats have historically been in favor of such growth of government’s role in managing the personal rights of the citizens. So I am not shocked by these numbers. Neither am I shocked that more Republicans distrust government in general.

The numbers that do shock me however, and quite frankly, cause me great concern, are the numbers concerning the need for an armed revolt in the next few years.

The poll finds according to its methodology, that 29% of Americans believe that an armed revolt will be necessary in the next few years to protect our liberties, with another 5% unsure.

Once again the poll breaks down the results along party lines. The poll finds that only 18% of Democrats feel the need will arise for an armed revolt, while 44% of Republicans feel that armed revolt will be necessary in the next few years, and 27% of independents believe the need will arise. The poll also finds that education may play a role in how one answers these questions, finding that those with only a high school education are more likely to believe that the government is lying about Sandy Hook and that there is no need for more gun laws, and that there will be a need for armed revolt.

Granted this is a small polling of Americans, only 863 registered voters, and as with any poll one has to wonder at the intention behind it, why was this poll put into the field? let’s face it, anytime there is a poll put into the field, there is an intended result sought. One has to wonder what that intention was here?

Putting that aside however, my concern is that 29% of the people polled answered that they feel that armed revolt will not only be possible, but that they feel it will be necessary!

The fact that they answered in the affirmative to the use of the word necessary, means that they feel that armed force is the only way left to us to solve our problems and to protect our Liberties. In my view, this means 29% has either given up on our representative republic form of government, or  they never understood it to begin with.

We can assume that of this 29% who answered yes to the need for armed revolt, that there are a number who may simply feel that the current mood of the nation will lead to armed revolt, I might acknowledge this myself. However, the real concern here should be the question of, within the 29%, how many of those people are actively seeking armed revolt? How many feel not only will it ultimately be necessary, but that armed revolt is preferable to working within our system of government, the system that our Founders laid forth for this great nation so long ago?

Is it 20%? 15%? Even if it is only 5% of those polled who would actually welcome such an armed revolution, might they not be the spark that ignites our nation into an all out confrontation? Might they, in seeking to start that which they see as inevitable, not commit acts to create the situation that would lead to even larger confrontations?

Imagine if the Oklahoma City bombing took place today, in the current anti-government mood that we see now.  Instead of pulling a nation together, might it not have splintered the nation into warring factions? Which was its intentions, lest we forget.

Who are these 29%? What has led them to abandon faith in this great experiment of freedom? To believe that only armed force can solve our problems, is to admit, that we as a nation have failed.

We know that there are groups and organizations that have co-opted the GOP message, but who are actively working to destroy the party from within. Might they be the people who would also answer yes to armed revolt?

We know that there are radical factions within both parties that see this nation as a failure, with different views of what success and failure look like of course. But these radical factions of both parties may make up the 29% for different reasons. This of course only means that there is actually more likelihood that armed confrontation may break out between the two and thus draw the nation as a whole into their battle.

We also know that there are a number of groups within the TEA movement that believe that another American revolution is inevitable. These are the people who are the most vocal and strident supporters of the 2nd Amendment. They speak of the need to protect themselves from their government, they speak of the need to be prepared to defend hearth and home from tyranny. They use words such as traitor and treason. They speak endlessly of their love of the Constitution and the need to protect it at all cost?

While I share their love of the greatest governing document ever created, might they also be those who make up the 29%?

There are groups who have a romanticized vision of what a revolution is about. They have visions of George Washington crossing the Delaware, of lofty speeches by our Founding Fathers. Of bells cracking as they ring out the news of our Liberty! They see themselves practicing close order drills in “Cooper’s Field”, and some of these groups actually do practice close order drills.  They hold meetings to prepare for the coming confrontations, they talk of it as if the outcome is foretold.

These same people who profess to love this nation and its system of government, would cast it aside and turn it asunder, simply because they have lost an election. Simply because 100% of this nation’s people do not agree with them, simply because 51% of the nation’s citizens do not agree with them. Because they cannot communicate their views well enough to convince enough Americans to vote for their candidates, they would take up arms against their fellow Americans.

These people have no idea of what a revolution would do to this nation. Do they really think that after the cannon fire has subsided, after brother has shot brother, that we will survive in the same form as before? This nation beat the odds once and survived a civil war, though we were changed forever, some for the better and some for the worse. I do not think we could survive another.

There is a hatred growing in this nation. It is not a hatred of any one thing, it is a hatred that grows and feeds itself. It is a hatred of the government, a hatred of people who do not think like ourselves, a hatred of people who do not look like us, a hatred of people who do not speak our language, a hatred of people who do not pray as we do, though we are all the children of Abraham. I have to wonder, is this 29% who feel that armed revolt will be necessary in the next few years, the same people who call local talk radio and say things like, “the body of the dead Boston bomber should be covered in pig’s blood and fed to the sharks?”

I have read much about the Founding of this nation, I hold the highest respect for our Founders and the principles that this nation was founded upon. I believe the two greatest documents ever created are the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. I believe that our representative republic form of government, was and is, the freest form of government. I still believe that if the voters are engaged and informed, that we can right the ship. Our greatest weapon against tyranny is our right to vote, to be represented by those who we elect. The danger is that those who fail in their attempts to win through the process, will resort to the weapons of death and destruction, and then we have failed our Founding Fathers, because we will be saying that we could not sustain that which they created.

Many will say that our Founders resorted to armed revolution to throw off tyranny and that they stated in the Declaration of Independence that it was right to do so. The difference being, our Founders were fighting a King, in which they had no say over. Our Founders gave us, through their blood, that say in our governance. It is up to us to voice our views at the ballot box, and if we fail in an election, then we should work harder. But to resign ourselves to the inevitability of armed revolt is to disgrace the blood of our Founding Fathers.

Click to read the poll.

                        Liberals Only Seem to Care When Kids Are Killed By Bullets

President Obama receives reports that 20 children and 6 adults have been murdered at the Sandy Hook Elementary School and decides the country needs national standards for gun accessories to protect our children. Limit ammunition capacities for rifle magazines. Outlaw triggers and stocks on rifles that look like pistols. Push for legislation requiring all law-abiding citizens to go through background checks and have the information stored for future reference.

We all know these measures will not keep criminals from acquiring weapons, but President Obama and many Democrats say, “it’s a good start” and we must “remember Sandy Hook” and “do something.”

Many Americans agree. 48 percent are disappointed the senate gun control bill didn’t pass. Of course, 47 percent are happy that it didn’t pass, according to the Washington Post — Pew Research Center poll.

This is a president who wants to “do something” when tragedy strikes… or is he?

On trial right now in Philadelphia is an abortionist accused of murdering babies born alive and conducting late term abortions that are illegal in Pennsylvania.

Workers have testified to finding a baby lying on a shelf, crying, along with jars, bags and jugs filled with human remains. The conditions were reportedly so filthy that women have contracted sexually transmitted diseases from the medical instruments, and painkillers administered by unlicensed, untrained employees resulted in the death of at least one woman.

Four counts of murder remain to be adjudicated at the time of this writing.

Until his arrest, Gosnell’s clinics in Pennsylvania and Delaware had not been inspected since 1993 despite complaints from third parties such as CHOICE, a nonprofit that connects the underinsured and uninsured with health services.

In 2011, it was reported that none of Pennsylvania’s 22 abortion clinics had been inspected by the government for more than 15 years.

In nearby Delaware, an unrelated Planned Parenthood abortion facility has also been closed due to complaints of multiple botched abortions.

Two women there quit their jobs, filing complaints that doctors performing abortions didn’t wear gloves or sterilize equipment.

Considering the Pennsylvania Department of Health reportedly had a history of refusing to investigate complaints, such as Kermit Gosnell performing an abortion on a 14 year-old girl who was 30 weeks pregnant, this, too is a time for President Obama to try to save lives by pushing for national standards.

Why doesn’t he?

Ideology.

Gun control is nothing new. Liberals have been pushing for gun control for decades. In 1993, New York Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan proposed taxing ammunition to the point where it would be unaffordable. Newtown was an opportunity for gun control legislation whether or not the laws would keep criminals from getting guns.

The only time the issue of abortion is important to liberals is when its availability is threatened, real or perceived.

If concern for the lives and health of children, teenage girls and women were truly free from this President’s ideology, the Gosnell trial would compel him to call for national standards and new federal laws for regulations and inspections of all abortion clinics, wresting control from Planned Parenthood and the states.

Instead, President Obama was scheduled to be the keynote speaker at Planned Parenthood’s biggest fundraiser of the year on April 24th.

On April 23rd, he decided to delay the address until Friday, after the dinner, and visit West, Texas, site of a devastating fertilizer plant explosion.

This decision follows massive protests from Right-To-Life groups asking him to step down from the keynote address in light of the Gosnell Trial.

The President’s decision also avoids any unsightly press photos of Mr. Obama smiling and being charming at the nation’s largest abortion industry fundraiser juxtaposed with same-page news coverage of abortionist Gosnell’s baby-murder trial.

It does not include any call to action to create national legislation and regulations designed to prevent filthy, deadly conditions in clinics.

Why no call for national standards for abortion clinics?

Ideology and campaign contributions trump all.

The current legislative session here in Delaware has been dominated by what can only be described as big-ticket items, what I have come to call marquee issues. These have included repeal of the death penalty, new and more intrusive gun laws, and what may well prove to be the most divisive, marriage equality, or the gay marriage bill.

One has to wonder, with unemployment always seeming to be hovering, around seven percent, or as the Democrats like to call it, “the new normal”, and with  so-called, sunset taxes, being made permanent, with ever more regulations being passed, that will only discourage new businesses from coming to Delaware, with millions of tax dollars being wasted, if not out right stolen from the tax payers by venture capital companies hand-picked by the Markell administration, and given to politically connected, so-called green energy enterprises such as Blue Water Wind, Fisker and Bloom Energy. One has to wonder if all of these other social issues have been nothing more than a distraction?

Let’s face it, it is easier to get people riled up about the social issues than it is to get them excited about jobs and the economy, especially if they have a job and are doing relatively well in their lives.

Of course if you don’t have a job, and are not doing so well, it is easier to get you excited about raising taxes  on those who pay for the so-called safety net programs. This has become a built-in constituency for the tax and spend Democrats.

So while groups such as the 912 Delaware Patriots are all up in arms about gun legislation, and the Delaware Family Policy Council is focused on gay marriage, the number of unemployed in Delaware in March was a whopping  32,323!

The conservative movement has become nothing more than a bunch of single issue sub groups that do not know how to pull together and work to defeat the real opposition, liberalism.

The real issue facing this state and the nation is whether we will continue to turn towards the left leaning ideology that believes, that taxing the most productive among us, and spending more and more on pie in the sky green energy programs along with never-ending safety net programs, is the right direction to take the state and the nation.

While the conservative movement of sub groups has been distracted by the shiny objects of the death penalty, gay marriage, and gun laws, the Delaware Legislature and the Governor have been proposing a budget, even before the DEFAC numbers were available.

This is what one party rule has wrought here in the First State.  We have a shrinking work force even as the number of unemployed rises, causing the percentage of unemployed to rise, meaning that there are fewer tax payers to pay the cost of the also increasing demand for more and more government services and so-called safety net programs. Add in that the number one employer in the state is the state, and this becomes a downward death spiral. This formula cannot be sustained.

I have come to believe that the Democrats could care less about repealing the death penalty, or about passing more gun laws, and though I am sure they would like to play to one of their most loyal constituency groups, I don’t imagine they would lose much sleep over failing to pass gay marriage. Remember that on the left, often it matters just as much about the intention, as the results.

But what the Democrats in Delaware are serious about is retaining power, and the power is directly connected to the purse strings. He who controls the purse strings, controls the power, and the power is being re-elected. This is something that has been lost to the conservative movement, the realization that to be able to govern, you must first win. To win you must build coalitions of those single issue sub groups.

Instead, here in Delaware, we see single-minded, single issue groups working to defeat the very people who have the experience and know-how to win, and their only fault is, that they have won elections in the past.

What we must learn to understand is that the number one social issue facing any person, or family, is economics.

How will you buy that gun if you have no job?

What tears a family apart faster than gay marriage? Money problems and unemployment, that’s what.

This is not about fiscal verses social conservatives, at least it shouldn’t be. It’s not even really about  left verses right, it is about how best to get people back to work in the fastest way possible, how best to build new growth in the business sector. How best to provide a stable environment to raise children the way that parents see fit, without having to bow down to government so as to receive a monthly check.

If we want government out of our lives, then we must first become financially self-supporting. This goes for our personal lives as well as for our state and local governments. If we want control of the curriculum in our schools, then we must first be willing to swear off of state and federal funding and be willing to pay higher local taxes to support our schools without the strings that come attached  to that outside funding.

If we want less federal intrusion in our state, then again we must be willing to do without the funding that the federal government uses to blackmail the states into subservience.

To do these things we must first realize that the one party rule of either party will doom us to corruption and decline. We must also be willing to, as voters, acknowledge that the Democrats in Delaware have not led us out of our downward spiral, this means that registered Democrat voters must be willing to admit that their party of choice has failed not only them, but the entire state. They must be willing to listen to the message from the opposition and to not only listen but to hear.

The conservative movement must be willing to recognize that to win they must be able to attract voters from the opposition and the independents, not by changing the conservative message, but by finding a way to better deliver it. And to realize that the idealized “PURITY” that many of them seek, is not obtainable, and even if it were, it would further doom the conservative movement and the Republican Party to the ash can of history along with the Wig Party and the Federalist Party.

One common thread that should be able to unite many people, is economic sustainability, and personal success. We do this by creating jobs and business growth, and by reforming the tax code and by reminding people that  the so-called safety net programs were never intended to be hammocks. Once people are economically self-sufficient they will be in a better position to fend off the social evils that are causing so much trials and tribulations.

It’s okay for every sub group to want the ball, but we have to be able to see the entire field if we hope to score a victory.

Today I attended my second Delaware state GOP convention as a delegate.  Of course last year was an election year, and there was more to do as far as nominating candidates. I had thought that this year would be fairly straight forward, since all we were there to do, was to elect state-wide officers, and since there was only one race that was contested, you would think we could get that done in fairly short order. Not so fast my friends.

I actually had to ride eighty-four miles to Wilmington to attend what ended up being just another standard Sussex County monthly meeting.

Today was a microcosm of the problems facing the Delaware GOP. Of course there are those who will see today as some sort of victory, these are the same people who think winning a primary and losing the general election is a victory.

The major problem within the Delaware GOP is a tendency to have too narrow a view of the game at hand. Oh they can see the ball, but they can’t see the field. This I believe is a direct result of too many single issue groups vying for control of the party, to move a single issue agenda (the ball), rather than pulling together to win the game(the field).

This mentality was on full display today on several levels. It began during the part of the convention where the several committees come back and render their reports, these being the credentials committee, the resolutions committee, and the rules committee.

One of the recommended rule changes was to allow the two elected officials who sit on the state committee to have votes, which up till now they have not had. The two elected officials would be one member from the House, and one from the Senate, and they would be the leaders, who at this time happen to be minority leaders. In this case they would be Senate Minority Leader, Sen. Gary Simpson, and House Minority Leader, Danny Short, both from Sussex County.

So who do you suppose stood in opposition to this rule change that would give Sussex County conservatives two more votes within the state committee? Was it those nasty up-state “liberal” Republicans? Those RINOs? Or even some misguided delegates from Kent County?

No! Of course not!  It was a delegate from Sussex County, Tom Jordan, the husband of Nelly Jordan who was challenging for the position of vice-chair with Rep. Ruth Briggs-King.

Now one would have to wonder why a delegate from Sussex would be opposed to even more representation for Sussex within the state committee. Well that is easy, it is because there is within the Sussex GOP, a group of people who have a knee jerk reaction to any and all elected officials and their participation within the party. In this particular case, Mr. Jordan rose to oppose allowing these additional votes from Sussex before considering the benefits to Sussex. A very narrow view, he could see the ball, but not he field. Thank goodness for Sussex the rules were changed to allow the elected officials to vote within the state committee. But only after a  contentious floor debate.

Many of the delegates who were opposed to this change expressed the fact that they simply felt that the elected officials should not have any say in deciding the direction of the party. My response was that they are members of the party as well as I, or any other member, and that they had as much or more incentive to see that the GOP won elections. Again far too many people within the GOP in general, and the Sussex GOP in particular feel that elected officials are all suspect. I truly have come to believe that some of these people will turn on anyone elected, even those who they work to elect, that is if they actually win general elections.

The second example of this tendency to have a far too narrow focus was the election of vice-chair of the Delaware state committee. As I said above, this race was between current 20th RDC Nelly Jordan and Rep. Ruth Briggs-King.

I was supporting Rep. Briggs-King and so I am disappointed that she was not elected. I am not disappointed that Nelly Jordan was elected, I am disappointed  that we as Republicans may once again, have missed an opportunity to make real gains in electing Republicans.

Once again because so many of the delegates took the narrow view of who would be the best person for the job, they chose to focus on the fact that Mrs. Jordan is a woman and a Hispanic. This was pointed out many times by Mrs. Jordan herself as a reason, actually as the only reason to consider her the best person for the vice-chair position. She felt, and I have to admit  that a majority of delegates felt, that because she is a Hispanic she can bring more Hispanics to the GOP.  This may be true, we definitely need to reach out to the Hispanic community, as well as the African- American community, and the Irish community, and the blue-eyed community, and the people with one ear community, and the people for the ethical treatment of mosquitoes community!

So instead of electing a person with proven record of being a great public speaker as well as someone who has experience in working on the national level as well, they chose to pander to one small group of people. I am sure Mrs. Jordan will work hard to bring more Hispanics into the party, I am sure she will be the best vice-chair she can be. She has proven to be a tireless worker at the RDC level. I just think that once again we have a missed opportunity. Rep. Briggs-King has the experience in campaigning that she could have passed on to other potential candidates.  She could have reached out to all people, and I am sure she will anyway. We can only hope that Mrs. Jordan will as well.

I would like to congratulate John Sigler as being re-elect as Chairman, Nelly Jordan as Vice-Chair, Bill Smith as Treasurer, and a special shout out to Sussex County’s own Carol Bodine for being elected as state committee Secretary.

We as a party must learn to broaden our view, to see not only the ball, but the entire field. To make moves and to support those moves that will have the greatest benefit to the entire state GOP. As long as we allow so-called “conservative grassroots organizations” to rule the day, we will never win anything beyond primaries in Delaware.  And so we will never govern as conservatives. We will be doomed to being nothing more than a sounding board for malcontents.

And yes this post is full of sour grapes, not only because the person I supported was unsuccessful, but because those who were successful may have no real ideas on what to do next. Only time will tell.

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