If you’re on Twitter, post your answer there and include the #ifelected hashtag. I’ve got a few in there already, but it’d be more fun if somebody else was playing with me! Make it funny, serious and/or insightful… just don’t be bland. (And make sure you’re following hashtag on Twitter if you want yours included in their index.)

Anybody who’s trying to get a handle on the current economic free-for-all should check out The Real Great Depression, which does a great job explaining how the depression of 1873 mostly happened because too many banks approved too many bad mortgages in the commercial real estate sector, and so it’s a better analog to what we’re seeing today.

More generally, the Ludwig von Mises Institute put together a collection of articles to help you understand the bailout and everything related to it (Freddie Mac, short-selling, etc.). Lew Rockwell put together a similar collection of “I told you so” articles.

That’s it—only one question long! So what’s your answer?

(HT: Adventures in Legal Land)

“And ye, O peoples, to whom God gave the liberty to choose your own magistrates, see to it, that ye do not forfeit this favor, by electing to the positions of highest honor, rascals and enemies of God.” — John Calvin

So according to John Calvin, you forfeit your God-given freedom to vote if you elect anyone but Ron Paul.

I also can’t help but notice that a far greater proportion of my posts focused on Gemstone Publishing’s Disney comic books. Nowadays I’m far more likely to talk politics. (Hey, I found it interesting!)

But you know what I found even more striking? Back then, I would tend to just post a quote from a book, article or sermon. You know, the way Josh Sowin likes to blog. These days I tend to feel guilty if I don’t inject some of my own commentary.

But tough noogies, Travis! Because as part of my plan to celebrate these past three years of blogging, I’m going to goof around get back to my roots with Quotes Week! “What is Quotes Week,” you ask? Silly human! Each day I’ll post a quote (maybe a couple if they’re closely related) and very little personal commentary. You will then be led to marvel at the intelligence of others, rather than marveling at my own intelligence (which, let’s face it, is what typically happens around here).

Hopefully y’all don’t notice this is a dumb excuse to not write much enjoy it as much as I do!

Ooh! Ooh! And there’s a special, secret surprise in the works! I don’t want to reveal too much about it right now, but something super-fun will be happening on April 10th! So mark your calendars, folks! You heard it here first… primarily because nobody else knows about it.

I feel extra goofy all of a sudden. I wonder if it’s more from the lack of sleep, the Benadryl, or the giddiness that is writing whatever the heck I want to!

Woo-hoo! Go, diphenhydramine, go!

It’s looking cleaner (and easier to manage) all the time!

Now to get Giuliani to give it up…

Don’t tell me Ron Paul doesn’t stand a chance!

My personal take on polls like this is that the sorts of web enthusiasts who gravitate toward the open-source community tend to feel like Paul “gets” them more than the other Republican candidates. Those types of people are also far more likely than the average American to do their own “independent investigation” of Presidential candidates, instead of relying solely on traditional sources like newspapers, radio or television network news.

News outlets such as ABC News really do a disservice to this country’s citizens when they focus more on a candidate’s perceived chances of winning than on that candidate’s political beliefs and philosophies. This shouldn’t be a popularity contest–we’re talking about electing the nation’s President, not a high school Class President!

So here’s my suggestion to Mr. Langer: instead of these “who do you think won last night’s debate” sorts of polls, do some research and compile a list of 10-12 congressional votes, public statements or other applicable insights into each candidate’s mind, and begin a series of polls focusing on them. Inform your audience, and then poll your audience on how they feel about the information you provided.

See, then you’d be seen as responsible and mature, and you probably wouldn’t feel the urge to quote 12-year-olds in your defense.

While L. Jesse Bane coasted to an easy victory for the Democratic nomination for sheriff, the Republican results were less clear. Cochran and Price were virtually deadlocked and barely ahead of four challengers. It could take a week for election officials to count absentee and provisional ballots and determine a winner.
— Baltimore Sun, Wagner loses as old county names falter

You can get the latest results at the Harford County’s election results page. It looks like there’s a definite gap between Cochran/Price and Tritt/Benedetto, but you never know what may turn up during recounts and such.

Hey, even if Dave doesn’t make it, he can always run as an Independent… right?

Apparently that last post was too much of a downer; I got the lowest daily traffic in a long time! (Hmm… or maybe a Narus 6400 just decided my blog was too unpatriotic for the general public to access. Stranger things have happened!) Anyway, I wanted to lighten the mood a bit, so here’s some short videos from iFilm for you!

It’s amazing to see such solidarity! Amazing! I have to hand it to FOX News — it’s rare that you find such likemindedness outside of a group of cheerleaders. Like, so rare it’s… impossible.

That’s great, Jack, but tell us how you really feel! (I’m not familiar with the Cafferty file, but this seems like a CNN segment I might actually like!)

C’mon, Georgie, baby…stop treating the Constitution like it’s set in stone! The acting in this thing is a tad wooden… almost as if these guys were born before acting lessons became popular. (Must-see surprise ending!)

I guess on the bright side, this whole crisis isn’t bad enough to keep us from laughing at it? I’d like to (once again) commend the folks in the MSM who are looking into matters we’re too busy to be bothered with.

We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.

This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box.

— Edward R. Murrow, in a speech to the Radio and Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) convention in Chicago (15 October 1958).

Nicole and I watched Good Night and Good Luck on Friday night, and I highly recommend the film! (This isn’t a review, though; there are plenty of those around already.) It’s incredible how many parallels can be drawn to current events… I don’t think the release could have been any more timely.

Have you heard yet? We’re living in a time where the United States has a President who thinks he’s an emperor: this nation was founded on the Rule of Law (“Lex Rex”), but George W. Bush claims the “Divine Right of Kings” every time he refuses to comply with the laws enacted by Congress—as he has been doing for at least the past four years. To top it all off, anyone who opposes him (no matter the reason) is labeled a “lover of terrorists’ rights.”

May I ask you, do you “love this land”? Do you want to consider yourself patriotic? Then prove it: read the Constitution; read the Federalist Papers; read Max Farrand’s Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. (Then repeat at least five times.) If you remain ignorant of what America was intended to be, then all your flag-waving and cheerleading amounts to nothing but hatred and contempt for what our Founding Fathers fought for.

It’s amazing just how much Pres. Bush’s administration resembles McCarthyism. Yesterday’s “Communists” have been replaced by today’s “Al Qaeda,” and the nation in general is just as complacent as it was in the 1950s. And just as with yesterday, we need men like Edward R. Murrow who are willing to stand up to this usurper.

Earlier, the Senator asked, “Upon what meat does this, our Caesar, feed?” Had he looked three lines earlier in Shakespeare’s Caesar, he would have found this line, which is not altogether inappropriate: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

[...] His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between the internal and the external threats of Communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.

This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy’s methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn’t create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it — and rather successfully. Cassius was right. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

Good night, and good luck.

— Edward R. Murrow, from the March 9, 1954 “See It Now” television broadcast on Senator Joe McCarthy.

If this man is not stopped; if this nation is not restored to the Constitutional Republic it began as; I see no reason to believe we will leave the next generation with anything but a Dictatorship… or perhaps an ash heap.

“The Aegis recently called the sheriff’s race the most important election this fall. I almost agree with them (for the first time ever). Honestly, I did not know who our sheriff was until about a year ago when Derald Guess was murdered. I was not impressed with Golding back then when he attempted to play down the tragedy by saying that gang activity was in its infancy. Come on man. A family man was just shot in the head in a gang initiation. That is not infancy.”

The more I hear about Harford County’s present law enforcement situation, the more it sounds like it’s time for a change in the Sheriff’s Department.

(BTW: GOPO, if you’re reading this, feel free to use that image!)

“All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” — United States Constitution, Art. 1, §1

“Legislative Powers” refers to “the power to create laws” (Dictionary.com, “legislative” entry), so the very first statement of the body of the Constitution is that all law-making power is held by Congress.

Is the Supreme Court a part of Congress? No. The “Congress of the United States… shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”

So it’s simple, really: Roe v. Wade isn’t law. Regardless of whether you think it conforms to law (which is the most a court ruling could ever possibly do, and which I’m convinced this ruling fails to do), only someone entirely ignorant of the Constitution would claim a court decision as law.

Which begs the question: Do we want to be governed by people who are ignorant of the one thing they’re sworn to uphold?

The Administration’s humiliation of Congress

Since the NSA scandal began, one of the most bizarre aspects of the story is that the Administration has been claiming that Congress authorized it to eavesdrop in violation of FISA, but the Congress which is said to have done so had no idea that the Administration was engaged in warrantless eavesdropping and had no idea that it had authorized eavesdropping in violation of FISA. Beyond that fact, the actions of the Congress throughout 2002 make undeniably clear that Congress was not only completely unaware that the Administration was eavesdropping outside of FISA, but also that Congress was deliberately misled by the Administration into believing that FISA continued to govern the Administration’s eavesdropping activities.

I highly recommend bookmarking Glenn’s blog. He’s putting the pieces together…

Black women are three times as likely to have abortions as their white counterparts. Blacks and Hispanics are about 25 percent of the population, yet they account for 57 percent of all abortions. Aside from the fact that abortion is murder, there are two very important reasons why black people should be represented in great numbers at the March for Life rally: [continue @ townhall.com]

On Sunday, John Piper preached a sermon on specifically regarding the unborn as our “neighbors.” To quote Dr. Piper,

“The people who own and operate and work there are real people. Above all, they need Christ. What might God be pleased to do if 4,000 concerned Christians committed ourselves to pray daily that Christ would manifest his saving grace in those places? What divine encounters of compassionate involvement might God create? Let there be no violence from our side. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes. If the owners and administrators and employees of these [six] clinics met the living Christ and were saved, would abortion be offered in [Maryland] any longer? There is more that you can do. But this much I ask you to do. Pray regularly that the owners, administrators, and employees of [Planned Parenthood, Gynemed Surgi-Center, Hillcrest Clinic of Baltimore, Baltimore Women's Medical Center, Seneca Women's Health Care, and Femi Care Surgery Center] would be saved.”

Good. There’s a reason the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution was put there, and it wasn’t for a President to just ignore whenever he felt like it.

And no, the ends don’t justify the means. This nation is supposed to be one which follows the Lex Rex principle: “The Law is King.” George W. Bush is a servant of the citizens of the United States (not vice-versa), and he is only allowed to serve in the manner defined in the Constitution. Said Constitution clearly states,

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Any president who violates his oath to uphold the Constitution (of which the Fourth Amendment is a part) ought to be removed from office. Period.

While not officially affiliated with the Constitution Party, Michael Peroutka was the CP’s presidential candidate in last year’s election. The “American View” of law and government, as Mr. Peroutka and co-host John Lofton put it, is this:

1. There is a creator God,
2. our rights come from him, and
3. the purpose of government is to protect, secure and defend those God-given rights.

Personally, I like ‘em because they seem to cut through the hogwash of politics with a breath of commonsensical fresh air.

Still, it’s pretty insulting that these folks are only using the “community website” as a ploy to get more business. Now, don’t get me wrong; there’s nothing bad about getting business as a side effect of a venture like this. The problem is when that is your primary motive.

For instance, if I talk about a book here, I’ll link to Amazon via my Associate ID. If you follow the link and purchase the book, I get a (very) small referral fee from them. But making money is not why I have this blog! And Lord willing, it never will! I hope someone wrings my neck if I ever stick a Google AdSense sidebar on here.

People are coming to learn that we can have community without advertising. The folks in industries like real estate and insurance sales may be some of the last to “get it,” though. They’re so used to the “what do I get out of it” mentality that they don’t seem to understand the concept of offering something to others with no strings attached.

Now, hopefully this isn’t descriptive of Mr. Ronald Annesley, Mr. Stephen MacDonald, Mrs. Kathleen F Beadell, or Mr. John E Kessler (who, BTW, bears a passing resemblance to John Piper). Still, you are known by the company you keep, and they seem to be keeping company with folks who only see you as a source of income. Here’s hoping they prove me wrong, (which is why I’m linking to their site at all).