The title of this diary was borrowed from the heading of the following excerpt in a previous diary I wrote at the beginning of the Primary season:

True Americans fight for honesty and search for the truth. If we can’t find a candidate with leadership that comes from the moral authority of living justly and judging righteously, then we are doomed as a nation. If a candidate with the leadership quality of moral authority can’t bring most of us along in the primary let alone the general electorate, then our nation is in need of some serious repentance.

I say let the field be wide and deep. Let the candidates declare their beliefs rather than attempt to convince us of their own ‘charismatic electability rating’ or the ‘fatal flaws’ of their opponents. Let the candidates understand that if their beliefs are challenged by the people they may have to burn a few bridges to somewhere {even if it means they lose their ‘shot’} to stand firm for what you believe in. Standing up for what you believe in and losing the primary isn’t something to be ashamed of, it just means it wasn’t your time. Either the people were not prepared to embrace the truth, or you didn’t do your homework enough to know the truth of the matter, and how to communicate it. You see it’s not about understanding what the people think they need. It’s about knowing what is needed and being able to communicate so effectively that you stir the hearts and minds of good people everywhere to stand with you.

This is why Reagan was so effective. He did his homework, he knew and understood good sound principles of governance because he was tenacious in understanding what was needed and how to communicate it. The right candidate knows the difference between winning an election vs. winning the heart and soul of the nation.

It bears a great deal of relevance at this time. We have 4 remaining Republican candidates. In an almost unholy manner have each of them attempted to draw some parallel of Reagan’s legacy to their own record and rhetoric. I’m curious as to Why? they feel the need to draw these parallels. Campaigning in these modern times is so intense, that there are entire teams dedicated to testing messages among crowds for their effectiveness.

I understand invoking the name of Reagan and underscoring his message among Republicans is the equivalence of gathering a group of devout Catholics, and quoting from the Pope. So that much isn’t lost on me… I get it… speaking about Reagan is good, showing your understanding of his legacy, and repeating his message ties an emotional response of “like” to the candidate speaking about those things. Yet, here is where I’m confused…

Why does the Republican electorate respond with admiration for candidates because of their recognition of Reagan’s legacy? Everyone knows that Republicans admire and love Reagan… so how is it that people buy in so much regarding one’s ties to that legacy?

So for me, here is where the GOP nomination race stands. We have 2 top tier candidates that are both sincere when talking about their own record, and insincere when talking about the other candidate’s record. Both are fighting to receive the nomination, and now their arguments are boiling down to who is being more honest, and who is more “establishment”. Then we have a very authentic and sincere candidate that ought to be given more consideration, but simply is ignored due to a spotty election record, and supported in the name of “compassionate conservatism” some big spending bills, but at least he is authentic, and sincere, and doesn’t spend a lot of time trashing the other candidates for personal issues. Finally the “other guy” is simply not tenable to any American that takes seriously our role as the “shining city on the hill” in the world, let’s just leave it at that.

Shear pragmatism tells me my choices are between Romney and Gingrich. Phooey. I can be for conservatism by focusing on candidates that understand that Reagan’s legacy isn’t about Reagan the man, it’s about how Reagan the man lived according to the dictates of his conscience, and not being tossed to and fro by every wind of electorate feet stamping.

I’m just a little tired of the opportunists. The folks that go about with levity and the wherewithal to denigrate the integrity of our candidates due to their preferences of conservative dogma…

It seems to me that there has been a great deal of weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth that is entirely the effect of less rational adults that never got passed their childish tantrums as a means to getting what they want. Just about every parent has experienced this phenomenon where the child often can’t see beyond their immediate wants to see that in the

Well I may not prefer Romney, and I may not prefer Gingrich… but I certainly don’t want Obama as a President. That alone is enough for me to face the reality that I can’t sit on the fence in the general. However for the primary, I’ve given up the hope that the conservative electorate of Republicans will have an opportunity to find a candidate that received the Mantle of Reagan by effectively communicating conservative principles, as opposed to opportunists that would like to co-opt a legacy to claim political superiority.

Both Newt and Romney are guilty of going negative on each other, to them I would ask “Why should a conservative have hope in the future under your Presidency?” Sadly neither are answering that question, they’re more content claiming they’re better than the rest of our options.

It is our own fault for desiring “electability” over seeking the principled candidate. Let’s not waste time bemoaning the remaining arguments of electability or inevitability. Let’s not fool ourselves into believing one candidate is more or less “Establishment” than the other. (Is there a way to become a member of this Establishment? Can I donate to some fund and become a card carrying member that like the boogeyman can somehow by voodoo cause voters to accept MY candidate… if only I had that power, how I’d use it wisely! — see how stupid blaming an unidentifiable group of people for failure to win delegates in the nominating process is?).

Long and short, if Newt can’t survive Romney’s 5-1 spending in Florida, how will he survive Obama’s 10-1 spending in the general election, with an MSM that will lie, cheat, and bias their way to character defamation regardless of who our nominee is?

If Romney thinks that Newt’s being unrealistic about his criticisms… well good luck with trying to tell the Media how they’re wrong about their criticisms when you’re going up against Obama.

I’ve come to the conclusion that we must HEAL and HEAL quickly the divide once we have our nominee, we must like good sports congratulate the winner, and get behind them if we’re to defeat Obama.

In the mean time, conservatives of all stripes will need to focus on local/downticket elections, and support where they can. I don’t see anything wrong with taking sides with either of the remaining candidates in the POTUS race, but I also think we could be making more effective use of our time if we’re unhappy with the remaining candidates.

And just because this is so darn inspiring (29 Minutes of your life is worth it):

There are few things that create tension among mixed company like politics and religion. Both are deeply personal and are shaped over years of experience and observation. Every individual will at some point in their life make judgements regarding what is true and correct. While there are specific tenets in faith and politics that create divisions by faction or creed, there are intersections of laws both made by man and that of the eternities that will by necessity require the formation of relationships based on trust and ecumenical loyalties.

The stage for Economy is when two or more people are gathered to exchange values.
The stage for Politics is when two or more people are gathered to work out their differences by policy.
The stage for Security is when two or more opposing forces cannot work things out by politics.
The stage for Religion is when two or more are gathered to worship.

If any of these things were purely of an individual matter, we would not need discuss them, let alone spend an undue amount of time trying to prove the errors of ignorance, arrogance, envy, enmity, and all other antithetical behaviors to the supposed “virtuous path”. Our intuitive desire for higher understanding, the very desire that espouses the virtues of knowledge, humility, empathy, brotherly kindness, and love, is synthesized in social interaction. Without this desire, without curiosity, the world would we be an awful boring space for matter to occupy.

Exemplars, Heroes, Mentors, are sought after because it’s easier to subscribe to a set of principles and values than it is to come up with, and etch them on your own set of tablets. Subscribing does not require the follower to sacrifice as much in reputation and capital, until they become an active participant to the effect of leading in their own spheres of influence. The stakes for integrity, pure intent, and follow through are not nearly as demanding on the follower as they are for the leader. I suspect that each of us at some point in our lives will be challenged to take up our cause and become the leader where we stand at that time. Each of us will weigh the balance of what “is” and what “ought”, and what we can effect to “become”. Much of those experiences repeating in different circumstances will make up not just what we believe, but who we become. And thus we develop Character.

Those of us that know and understand the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, have a testimony that not only has a perfect exemplar lived and died, but that he lived again. That one life in presumably billions was able to rise above all things, and descend below all things, and then rise again, that He might judge with perfect judgement given to him by his Father.

Testimony is a thing that is difficult to debate with those that do not have that testimony. Again it is something that is acquired through desire, faith, action, and experience. Doctrinal differences aside, all arguments for and against must be weighed by the experience of synthesizing what has been written and analyzed. This is where faith begins, it begins when a truth exists with or without a hypothesis. By curiosity, by desire, or faith, without any evidence that our action will be rewarded with a better understanding, we move forward with what we do know finding the path ahead lighted just enough for us to know we should continue forward. Now when this is so done, and the truth is uncovered, that which was learned has now become experience, and truth becomes not just faith, but knowledge by faith. Without faith, there could be nothing known, for without having knowledge of truth by our own experience, we are just borrowing information from others. Such an existence would be wholly dependent, and yet be isolated in ignorance. Which is why most of us take the truth to be hard when we’re unwilling to interact with others.

There are folks out there that may have good intent, but they’re just wrongheaded. Sometimes they draw their experience from foreign sources to illustrate the correctness of their anecdotal assumptions. These are not enemies to that which is true, but their ignorance is indeed the enmity between truth and the path to hell paved with good intentions. When Reagan quipped about the “trouble with our liberal friends” it was tongue in cheek, but the observation holds true to those that become frustrated when attempting to articulate the hypothesis, analysis, and the synthesis of the “trouble” that we share concomitantly, along with the proposed solution, to another that simply ‘doesn’t get it’.

Humility provides us the opportunity to re-evaluate what we know, and what we do with that knowledge. So much of what Conservatism is, as an ideology, requires personal study, personal experience, and personal sacrifice to stand up to populist movements that are driven by group-think. One mustn’t assume that Conservatism is wholly on the side of tradition when pitted against progress. Conservatism is more about starting with personal effectiveness.

Rather than dealing with outliers by moving the goal posts and skewing production in the name of equality and fairness. The more limited the government is in manipulating the outcome, or redistributing the harvest of producers, the more individuals are required to prosper on their own merits, or depend on the charity of others for their substance. When government provides a safety net for that gap, they promote dependency rather than self-sufficiency, and government grows. When government provides a safety net for that gap, they deprive the opportunity for producers to work by charity, and then government grows.

Not all will value all in parity. So how is it that we can claim that equality is promoted by redistributing the fruits of productivity? All men are created equal, but going forward it is their life and their liberty that allows them to determine their own path in the pursuit of happiness. Liberty without independence is dead being alone. The less dependent we are on others (including Government), the more we can create, innovate, illustrate, and educate. (i.e. contribute/produce). Contribution is always more effective in production than Confiscation and Re-Distribution of talents, and when we are speaking about the conditions of mankind at the individual level, progress will be found in personal effectiveness, not dependence on others for substance.

There is indeed a tension between our head and heart. But when peaceful emotions seem to harmonize both, we are given the rare gift of clarity in that very moment. It is when we have these moments that we can be confident in the desire, the action, the faith, and the knowledge obtained. I have a suspicion that the absence of this clarity isn’t a judgement upon our ability to reconcile the tension between head and heart, but rather a clue that quite possibly we’re being distracted from that which is most important and urgent in the pursuit of happiness from the eternal perspective.

Each of us “ought” to evaluate where we stand. We “ought” to lift and contribute in that place to the greatest execution of our capacity. However liberty dictates that we are free to choose our own personal effectiveness to our own purposes. And herein lies the confidence that can not be stripped by detractors, defamers, and distractions. When we do what is right, we remain free. Neither can we do wrong, and feel good about it. As long as we all remain free to choose for ourselves what we produce, and what we contribute, the more there will be of necessity, ideologies that compete. Therefore we must recognize that the expansion and contraction of these tensions during the expected lifetime of an individual are conditions of the perpetuity of social interaction. Some conditions may require compromise, some conditions may require absolutes. Thus the need to set goals with the direction and purpose in mind, as much as the consideration of the destination and achievement. I suppose that on the ladder of knowledge and experience that there is not any one of us that can jump too many rungs at a time, and hope to understand something where we have not tread foot.

Therefore I find myself in agreement with the principal(and principled) author of the Constitution when he said: “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. -James Madison“

When the Budget Control Act of 2011 was signed into law by President Barack Obama, most Conservatives viewed this as a D.O.A. answer to the Debt Ceiling Crisis. Why? Because we knew it was kicking the can down the road, and ceding to the Democrats the Pyrrhic victory (as long as we could say “We didn’t raise taxes”). Clearly the Democrats hoped to either get Republicans to raise taxes, and break the club for growth pledge, or they get Defense spending cuts that put Republicans that are lobbied by the military industrial complex to, well, get on the defensive, and attempt to roll back the act all together. In either case austerity loses, and this is precisely what the Democrats want.

In true Keynesian fashion, they believe that if you keep the money moving, you keep growth happening, and if you keep growth happening, you keep people in jobs, as long as you keep money moving which requires massive spending, and never paying off the debt. This is regressive in logic as well as in monetary and economic policy. But as long as you never question how far down the rabbit hole goes, you’ll be able to ignore the fact that you’re regressing infinitely and just lengthening the floating point scale.

So the inevitable happened with the “Super Committee”. So what? We hope to go on to change it as of January 2013 with a glorious victory with our soon to be nominee, right? Not so simple.

Do you remember what the “Crisis” was all about? That’s right the U.S. credit rating. There are generally 3 major credit rating agencies(Moody’s, Fitch, and S&P) that really signal to the world capital markets just exactly what you can expect when it comes to risk when buying treasury notes. The global finance markets aren’t based solely on the value of money aggregates, but money aggregates do determine the global money supply. When the U.S. Faces downgrade… it ripples in the World economy… and what is just a “few basis points” has a wide swath of wealth loss, and risk increase. In addition, when your liquid assets are traded in that particular currency, your buying value evaporates with the lowered value of that currency.

It appears to me, that the Fed Reserve is tight lipped on their tight money policy right now. Even though everything they’re doing would typically signal how loose they’re trying to make the money supply. I know that seems counter-intuitive if you follow money supply basics. Putting on my tin-foil hat with the genuine Luap Nor merchandise tag on the inside of the bill… It would seem that everything that the Fed is doing is attempting to control prices in finance to fix their asset pool, ignoring their own balance sheets. And they seem to be doing it on the back of tax payers, and investors the world over. Rather than fulfilling Keynesian policy of targeting inflation by presenting money velocity to increase nominal GDP. It would seem as though the opening up of their balance sheets for QE1 and QE2 were both meant to allow the U.S. Treasury to print more money. But then in turn Bernanke announces that they’re going to keep interest rates at ‘near zero’ until mid 2013. Why? The best I can figure is banks are still holding a lot of underwater capital assets, and they’re hoping through deflation to pass the balance of liquid loss to tax payers until they can raise rates again, and attempt to restore confidence in global capital markets.

Loose Money traditionally is a considered a punishment to those that save, because it lowers the value of the currency short term. I believe that most people that have money are not investing money, because there really is a lot of risk, so much so, that every policy coming from Washington seems to be that if you take big enough risks, we’ll assist you in spreading the losses to the tax payer, and to your fellow market participants, and prevent you from failing and causing big ripples in the middle class.

This undercuts any market from healing when it goes too far which is why most conservatives espouse Austrian economic philosophy. This mentality of “Too Big To Fail” is the epitome of embracing Booms and Busts. I think everyone knows that there are few markets that are in growth, and therefore, Jobs are not growing. Typically letting loose on the money, inspires borrowing and spending for growth. However, those that are currently in a position to borrow, aren’t doing so. They’re not borrowing because they’d rather bootstrap through their growth right now, than risk being indentured to a market that stifles growth by spreading losses. The free market capitalists would like to see more austerity from the Government on the spending side, so there may be more confidence in paying credit obligations, while ensuring that the dollar is on stable ground so as to get real growth happening again.

I think Bernanke and Obama have the same goal, but for different reasons. Demand for supply is suffering due to the dangers of risk and volatility. Growth can’t happen without demand. At the same time some production is becoming so productive in the process, it’s possible that it’s filling more of the demand gap with less producers, ergo less ‘real growth’.

Obama and the Democrats think they can save the world and save the jobs through spend, spend, spend policies, which will magically make growth happen (even if it is artificial) so they can continue to spend, spend, spend (nothing has changed for the Keynesians).

Growth is the long term goal for the Fed, but the short term is to shed the banking/finance industry’s toxic assets and spread the losses of some REALLY STUPID policies that generated ridiculously false demand which allowed that very same industry to get very bloated for a hell of a run since 1987 on that good ‘ole fashioned artificial growth that Keynesians embrace. The Fed needs a spend, spend, spend government to create demand (even if it is artificial) to buy the banking/finance industry time to rid themselves of the toxic underwater assets that are not backed by the value of a real dollar. Let’s face it, these guys are more concerned with the long term effects in money aggregates than they are of a short term confidence crisis, or the lowering of the value of U.S. Treasury notes.

Obama’s government could continue to print checks and send them to “Too Big To Fail” institutions via TARP, Omnibus Stimulus, GM Bailout, Cash for Clunkers, Dodd-Frank, Obamacare, etc. While making piss poor investments in green energy, and in driving out real growth markets for the sake of getting votes and seats. Eventually the interest payments to our creditors on all this borrowing and spending coming from Obama’s government, will heal and repair the balance sheets to healthier levels utilizing the velocity of money in the relationship to the money balance and nominal GDP against demand, long-term price inflation, and the overall global business cycle. Yes, eventually indeed, but on the backs of tax payers, and U.S. currency investors and participants. But, Why risk it?

Now cometh the supposed “Great Deleveraging”. In the European market global hedge funds have been falling over each other salivating at the prospects to find a fairly decent investment to get involved in since 2008. The politics of the European Union may cause a great deal of tension over their hopes to participate in the deleveraging of European Banks and their toxic assets. There is a hope to buy low and wait for the next boom, but where will the financing come from? Through larger banks and funds that have more solid liquidity of course. That is supposing that there isn’t some “off balance sheet” derivatives games going on that will cause a GIGANTIC STOP to money velocity. This is a VERY dangerous game, and there are a lot of people at the top of all of this being very cavalier with the strength of the middle class in both Europe and more especially in the U.S.

This is the kind of thing that leads to world wars, because someone has to take the blame.

There seems to be no safe place for investment for anyone that hedges in any market. There’s certainly no safety in stuffing devalued paper into the mattress. What used to be a relatively safe place was in the currency market, but with all this borrowing, spending, and printing going on, with credit downgrades… how does that sound now? What seems to be the safest place to be is to either own all your real assets outright, or have an indispensable skill set that few others maintain, or both.

Now, let’s come back to the Super-Committee’s Super Failure… I lay the blame squarely at the feet of Republicans in the House under the leadership of John Boehner, and Republicans in the Senate, that are sanguine to allow the House Republicans take the heat. The Super Committee was designed to fail. Everything else is posturing for the 2012 election. What was gained if anything? ‘Well at least we can say we ‘tried’ to compromise’?

These folks are either entirely ignorant and presume that their pompously important title entitles them to information that allows them to make better judgements than the rest of us regarding matters of economy and policy, or their entirely ignorant of what it means to rely on income that doesn’t come from a taxpayer.

The problem remains… The line has been drawn… There can be no fence sitters on this.

You either stop the spending, forcing investors to take their own losses… allowing the markets to grow/shrink/adjust how they may… knowing nothing of what the unintended consequences will be.

Or

You let them continue to play the very dangerous game… and hope that the ‘GIGANTIC STOP’ doesn’t ever happen.

The United States is only as good as it can be when it can make good on its debts, and remains fiscally sovereign.

By principle it should be very easy to see that somewhere someone threw principles out the window and started viewing this from a numbers perspective, and not by a people perspective. What’s next? Will the Fed start adopting Chinese monetary policy?