The Candid Conservative: Comfort food comes in many addictive forms

Fully 30 percent of Americans are obese. For comparisons, in Japan that figure rests at 3 percent. This obesity epidemic validates a cultural dedication to food as a primary source of comfort. On average we eat 156 pounds of sugar, 200 pounds of meat, and 85 pounds of fat each year. That’s a lot of comfort, and Mickey D’s management are not the only folks figuring out our addictive pattern. Most journalists, ministers, and politicians are following the same marketing scheme – giving us what helps us feel comfortable and pretending to serve our best interests. Our government, liberal media outlets, and many houses of worship function around our dedication to feeling good above all other motivations. That formula doesn’t fit everyone all the time, but it fits most of us much of the time. So while it’s obvious that the pursuit of comfort is making our fannies fatter, the same process is working on our heads, hearts, and spirits. Comfort food comes in many forms – all of which provide a temporary fix – none of which are consumed without consequence….

President Obama and other Washington leaders continue to accuse China, Inc. of undervaluing their currency. They’re absolutely correct. Lest we forget, however, China is a communist country, and communist countries manipulate everything. That includes truth, people, power, and, yes, money. Needless to say, China has blown off our criticism and they can afford to. Our own indebtedness, overreliance on their imports, and dysfunctional leadership leave us with limited clout, influence, and credibility. Of equal interest is our arrogance in criticizing others while we’re doing the same thing or worse. Qualitative easing is nothing more than a deceptive name for turning on the dollar printing presses. That’s a cheap and unethical way to compensate for systemic management failures in business, industry, government, and our own homes. If we print or electronically generate dollars out of thin air, over time we devalue the greenback. In doing so, we’re manipulating our creditors because the loans they’ve extended lose value. That’s red behavior unbecoming to a free nation. It carries shame and long-term consequence – and explains one reason China is quietly getting into solid assets and out of greenbacks.

Along time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader did battle for the hearts and minds of their solar system. Darth was the guy who had a thing for black outfits, central control, and ruling the universe. He was certainly a liberal. If that assumption is confusing, comparisons between liberal and conservative thinking might help. If a conservative doesn’t like guns, he doesn’t buy them. If a liberal doesn’t like guns, he wants them outlawed. If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn’t eat meat. A liberal wants meat banned. If a conservative is homosexual, he quietly leads his life. A liberal demands legislation. If a Conservative doesn’t like a talk show host, he switches channels. Liberals demand censorship.

One of the best ways to spot a liberal is their interest in being masters of their universe. Though “liberty” is supposed to be central to real liberalism, today’s “dark side of the force” progressives are all about dominance. Had he survived his own misguided mission, Darth would fit right in.

Like most threats, the single greatest danger to the future of America – our national debt – comes from our own hand. Though the effort was largely ceremony, several years ago Obama’s bipartisan budget-deficit commission made a courageous effort to “pop a cap” into the fanny of out-of-control spending. Democrat Erskine Bowles and Republican Alan Simpson were amazingly responsible in their management of a thankless undertaking. Though 11 of the 18 commission members signed off, 7 said no and along with a disinterested president relegated the document to a dusty shelf. Raising the social security retirement age, scrapping home interest deductions, containing entitlements, and capping military spending were “get real” proposals, but politics control Washington, not reality. A decade ago we were scared to death of a debt picture representing 60% of our gross domestic product – it’s now 100%. No country has historically maintained power and prosperity under that formula and America will not be an exception. We cannot consume our way to a better day anymore than we can eat ourselves into being skinny…

Conservative thinkers have a rational enthusiasm for the Second Amendment. We are good with the good guys having effective tools for protecting themselves from the bad guys. The second amendment to the U.S. Constitution is specific – “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Though it is abused by municipalities and states throughout the union, that second phrase indicates the value our founding fathers placed on assuring future generations had the means for self-protection.The second amendment remains under persistent assault by the left. Behind the guise of public safety, the mission of removing guns from private ownership is a defined platform of socialistic power brokers who apparently fear a well armed citizenry. It has been demonstrated that in communities where firearm liberties are supported, violent crime is reduced. In communities, like our nation’s capital, where the right to bear arms is infringed, violent crime is increased. History tells us that an armed citizenry is rarely the source of the murder and mayhem that decimates most cultures. That harm comes in the form of despots better armed than their people. They are thus able to make war on their own to retain control or engage in ill advised military adventurism that otherwise sacrifices the populace. Hitler enforced gun control in Germany behind the pretense of safety and thus had a free hand leading to the eventual deaths of sixty million people. Pursuing an abridgement of gun rights versus accountability for those misusing firearms reveals the lazy agenda of anti-gun lobbies. More importantly, it exposes a deeper and sinister intent to disarm the populace. Conservative men and women are concerned with conscience impaired criminals, our government’s dysfunction, and potential abuses by both. Anyone thinking that disarming America will ease crime or restrain that dysfunction is disarming their mind as surely as the liberties of others. The public should be no less able to protect themselves than police officers, public officials, or criminals. The level of security afforded most government buildings offers clues as to why.