Co-opted Republican Ideals and Accomplishments.

This photo is from the Time 100 Gala - read ho...

Elizabeth Warren

In watching the great Native American leader (NOT) Elizabeth Warren speaking at the Democratic National Convention I heard a statement that caused me to think and say out loud, “What a lie!”. Actually, there were several. But the one of which I write came at a time when she was reciting a list of accomplishments she claimed to be Democratic Party accomplishments. On behalf of Democrats she took credit for Child Labor Laws in the U.S.

It seems Ms. Warren not only has challenges in telling the truth about her ancestry, having secured employment at Harvard University by claiming Native American ancestry that didn’t really exist; but now the Massachusetts Senate candidate needs American History lessons too.

English: "Glassworks. Midnight. Location:...

Republican Teddy Roosevelt is the single individual most responsible for bringing to national attention the plight of child workers as well as other abuses of labor. Twenty times while in the New York Legislature he championed different legislation addressing child labor. The National Child Labor Committee was created in 1904 during his Presidency. And Roosevelt’s hand chosen successor, President William Howard Taft signed into law the act creating the United States Children’s Bureau in the Federal Department of Labor. All this work laying the groundwork for the eventual passing of the Keating-Owen Act in 1916 prohibiting the buying or selling of goods manufactured or processed by child labor.

Anyone paying attention knows this isn’t the first time the Democratic Party has co-opted Republican ideas and accomplishments and claimed them as their own.

Democrats are always presenting themselves as the sole reason for the freedom and civil rights enjoyed in our country today by blacks and other minorities. Such false claims ignore the fact that the Civil War was fought almost entirely over the issue of slavery and the election of

English: Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth Presid...

Republican President Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was the first-ever Republican President. It was a party formulated out of the former Whig party and included abolishment of slavery as its primary plank in its platform. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation made it real. The Presidential Proclamation was given Constitutional backing thanks to the Republican Party and the passing of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.

When President Lynden Johnson needed help passing the 1964 Civil Rights Act it wasn’t his fellow Democrats he turned to. Southern Democrats were blocking the legislation. Johnson got this and the Voting Rights Act passed through the support of Republicans in Congress. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Democrat James Eastland opposed the bill and wouldn’t give it a hearing in his Committee. Then after some parliamentary procedures, that would cause Harry Reid to turn his head, the bill was sent to the Senate floor for a vote but blocked by a Democratic filibuster. It was the Republicans who broke the filibuster, passing the most significant Civil Rights legislation since Republicans passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.

Years later after blacks had won their voting rights and many other rights in the segregated south it was Boston, Massachusetts, Liberal and Democratic Boston, Massachusetts, where the largest opposition to intra-racial freedom occurred. Boston is where the stiffest opposition to school desegregation busing took place.

There are other issues too.

Democrats are the champions of the environment, right?

Well it was Republican President Richard Nixon who signed the Clean Water Act into law in 1972.

Richard Milhous Nixon, 37th President of the U...

Richard Milhous Nixon, 37th President of the United States

Nixon also was responsible for THE major Amendments to the Clean Air Act in 1970 that greatly expanded the federal mandate by requiring comprehensive federal and state regulations for both stationary (industrial) pollution sources and mobile sources.

What about continued claims that Democrats are peace-loving and Republicans are war mongers? Really?

It was Nixon who opened China after 25 years of isolation, and three Democratic Administrations.

Nixon also negotiated the SALT treaty with the Soviet Union, creating the Anti-Ballistic Missiles Treaty.

Republican Ronald Reagan negotiated with the evil empire and its last leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It was because of Reagan’s leadership and under Republican President George H.W. Bush that the Soviet Union came crashing down without a shot, or a missile being fired after more than 70 years of reigning terror over Europe and Asia.

Democrats did none of this.

Is there more? Certainly. Ever heard of the G.I. Bill? The Serviceman’s Readjustment Act, as it was formally called, was originally written by former National Republican Party Chairman Harry W. Colmery on the back of a napkin at the Mayflower Hotel in 1944. The bill was championed in the U.S. Senate by Republican Warren Atherton and Democrat Ernest McFarland. The G.I. Bill provided returning servicemen with low-cost mortgages, loans for starting businesses; paid for college tuition and more.

Why these facts demonstrating the Republican party’s compassion and leadership in matters of civil rights, environmentalism, peace and government benefit programs is not more widely known is a mystery. How can it be that the Democratic party has stolen credit for all these things and not been held accountable for having done so? I don’t know the answer. But I know to claim credit for something you didn’t do is a lie. And Americans don’t much like those who lie. Do we?

Thanks for visiting. Comments are welcome.

September 6, 2012
Categories: National Politics . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Michael Schuett . Comments: Comments Off on Co-opted Republican Ideals and Accomplishments.

Work Ethic- What it’s done for Me.

“Let us rather run the risk of wearing out than rusting out.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt

President of the United States Theodore Roosev...

Theodore Roosevelt

Work ethic, persistence, and a tremendous fear of failure has driven me my entire life to whatever level of success I’ve ever been able to achieve. I wonder how many people still understand that they too are where they are, wherever they are, due almost entirely to their work ethic and persistence.

“If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all.” ~ Michelangelo

I don’t believe my work ethic is that much more than many people. In fact, whatever it is compared to others is completely unimportant to me. On the other hand I believe my persistence can be something others can learn from. I can be quite stubborn.

“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.” ~ Abraham Lincoln

Cropped portion of Abraham Lincoln Photograph,...

Abraham Lincoln

I began my radio career making $600 per month, working 6 days per week in as tiny a radio market as you can imagine in Raymond, WA. Over seven years I moved up and through five different radio stations, constantly increasing my income, until I was on the verge of working in a major market, Seattle. Working in Everett, WA at the now defunct KWYZ Radio 123 taught me I was on the right track. I was a kid amongst radio luminaries. Every on-air person at the station had considerable work experience in Seattle, and other major markets. I was the exception. I had to put in long hours just to keep up, and not look like I didn’t belong. While still not even making $20,000 per year, I was happy.

“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” ~ Will Rogers


KWYZ went bankrupt in 1991. Radio 123’s business failure led me into a new career; sales. My wife was 8 months pregnant with our second child and I felt I couldn’t afford to stay on unemployment waiting for the next on-air gig to open that I may or may not land. I often feel our current recession has been made much worse by an unwillingness of many unemployed Americans to change careers like I did, because they were willing to take unemployment for 99 weeks. Starting over again, at the bottom of the barrel ended up leading me to higher income and higher living standards than before.

“I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’” ~ Muhammad Ali

English: Bust portrait of Muhammad Ali, World ...

Muhammad Ali

I made only $22,000 my first year in sales. But I made $30k in year two, $40k in year 3, $50,ooo in year 5 and more every year until year thirteen when I left someone else’s employ and started Total Broadcasting Service. Had I not persisted those first two years when my income was not high, the other higher income may never have come. And my beloved self-employment may never have materialized.

The difference between try and triumph is a little umph.  ~Author Unknown

Total Broadcasting Service made more revenue each of its first four years until the nationwide recession nearly sunk us in 2009. Since 2009 we’ve put together consecutive years of improved sales and nearly halfway through 2012 are on pace for our best year.

And in having taken that detour into sales for 13 years I was led back to the microphone. My voice is now heard regularly all over the country in the radio spots I write and produce, and the narrative I voice in the Total Broadcasting marketing videos we produce. My voice and my written words are now seen and heard by 10s of thousands, possibly 100s of thousands of people each week; far more than how many were aware of me before the necessary detour 20 years ago.

Like many Americans these days, we have struggled the past few years and built up too much credit card debt early in the recession which makes getting healthier and stronger more difficult. I am personally sick and tired of the struggle the past 3-4 years has been. But, not so sick and tired that I can’t persist.

When should YOU quit you may ask yourself in times of despair? Someone once wrote:

“Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you’re alive, it isn’t.” ~ Richard Bach

For me, and maybe for you too, it’s taking too long. But we’ll get there. We’ll persist and work our way through it, happily.

Thanks for visiting. Comments are welcome.

June 4, 2012
Categories: Business . Tags: , , , , , , , , , . Author: Michael Schuett . Comments: Comments Off on Work Ethic- What it’s done for Me.

It Takes a Village? What Crap!

Somewhere along the line a significant portion of our proud American populace got the wrong impression of what makes America great and what led us to becoming the world’s most powerful nation, and desirable destination. The wrong-headed philosophy is summarized in the abbreviated title to

The ghostwriter for Hillary Clinton's memoirs ...

Hillary Clinton‘s 1996 book, “It Take’s a Village: And other Lessons Our Children Teach Us.” “It take’s a village” thinking has grown into what we see today from President Obama and Democrats everywhere. It’s the belief that if we are going to go forward we must all do so together. And I’m here standing shoulder to shoulder with John Adams, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and many other great leaders from our past saying such thinking is crap. At best, such thinking is misguided. And at worst such thinking is highly destructive.

According to our current Secretary of State, her book’s title derives from an old African saying. It’s full statement being: “It takes a village to raise a child.” Being a life long Democrat it’s not the least bit surprising that Mrs. Clinton would believe such a philosophy. The actual fact is it takes a family and whenever possible two parents.

But the mentality which now infects everything pursued by Barrack Obama

Official photographic portrait of US President...

started back in the 1960s with the advent and temporary popularity of communal living. The idea, championed by the hippies and drug culture, was that you could live together in a small community and collectively share food, water, living space, and philosophy. To determine the wisdom of such thinking I would simply tell you to ask yourself, how many of those 60s and 70s commune’s flourish today?. How many exist?

I’ll admit it’s an attractive philosophy that’s very tempting to embrace. It promises security, and friendship, and a sense of one-ness with others. All of which is good. Right? The problem is, like the philosophy espoused by

A portrait of Karl Marx.

Karl Marx

Karl Marx it doesn’t work. It’s a lie to think that we can all live equally.

President Obama said repeatedly in his 2008 election campaign that he wanted to fundamentally change America. I have no doubt he wants to do exactly that. But here is what must be understood. You must understand what America is and what the former Illinois Senator wants to change it from. You must understand from whence we came.

On the subject of security and comfort as promised by the “It Takes a Village” philosophy Benjamin Franklin wrote, “Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety.”

The great statesman Patrick Henry correctly noted “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.”

Restrain the people? The men who believed in Liberty and founded this country would never stand for such a thing. Over the course of more than 200 plus years our Government has continued to plague its people with increasingly more laws, rules, regulations and restrictions all in the name of need or necessity forgetting the words uttered by

William Pitt

William Pitt

William Pitt on the floor of the House of Commons in 1783 “Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” 

Sadly I know that too many look back on the words and writings of 18th Century heroes as quaint, but impractical for today’s living. In their minds the collective is far superior than the individual. Twenty years ago Russian author Tatyana Tolstaya observed in an issue of The New Republic:

Taken individually, in short, everyone is not good. Perhaps this is true, but then how did all these scoundrels manage to constitute a good people? The answer is that “the people” is not “constituted of.” According to [collectivists] “the people” is a living organism, not a “mere mechanical conglomeration of disparate individuals.” This, of course, is the old, inevitable trick of totalitarian thinking: “the people” is posited as unified and whole in its multiplicity. It is a sphere, a swarm, an anthill, a beehive, a body. And a body should strive for perfection; everything in it should be smooth, sleek, and harmonious. Every organ should have its place and its function: the heart and brain are more important than the nails and the hair, and so on. If your eye tempts you, then tear it out and throw it away; cut off sickly members, curb those limbs that will not obey, and fortify your spirit with abstinence and prayer.


 Hungarian immigrant Professor Tibor R. Machan summarized the “It Take’s a Village” philosophy in a 1993 essay called “The Fear of Individualism”. He referred to such thinkers as “collectivists”: 

“Members of society do have different roles; the economists speak convincingly of the benefits of the division of labor. The errors of the collectivists are (1) their presumption that they know better than the individuals involved which members of society are less important, and (2) they have the right to eliminate those members. But individuals are ends in themselves, not animals to be sacrificed on the altar of the collectivist state.”

Respecting individual capabilities, including the ability to fail, is the only way the United State‘s came to its great position of power and leadership in the world today. Do we really want to disrespect each and every individual by claiming “we know better”? George Orwell‘s “Animal Farm” captures THAT belief when the lead pig states, “Some are more equal than others.” With Democrats, Liberals, Progressives, and Obama…they’re the pigs.

Thanks for visiting. Comments are welcome.

April 10, 2012
Categories: National Politics, Uncategorized . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Michael Schuett . Comments: 4 Comments

The Democrat in Me.

 

GOP Florida Four - Caricatures

I’ll be voting in the Washington State Republican Caucus on Saturday. This will be only the second caucus I’ve participated in since I became eligible to vote before the 1984 Presidential election. If you’re wondering, “Why so few?”. You have to remember Washington State is so screwed up politically, and especially in the GOP party they can never seem to decide what they want to do. We’ve had lots of GOP Primaries, combined party primaries, and caucuses. Now its caucuses.

 

I can’t imagine what Democrats like about their party and about Barrack Obama.

 

English: Barack Obama Deutsch: Barack Obama

I really can’t. It eludes me. Why would anyone want to be part of a party whose soul mission in life seems to be to take down the successful, while defending the bad and sometimes morally corrupt behavior that leads to many being unsuccessful (and supported by the successful). I’ve heard Ann Coulter suggest Liberalism is a disease. I don’t think it’s that. I think it’s because they don’t like the Republicans and some of the stupid things Republicans do, not that they like Democrats so much. And I have to admit they’ve got a fair gripe.

 

The most annoying of their gripes is that Republicans are racist. It’s not true. And it’s counter to American History. It was Republicans in the Congress that passed

 

Portrait of President Lyndon B. Johnson Deutsc...

Lyndon Johnson‘s Civil Rights legislation over the objections of southern Democrats. It was The newly formed Republican party that opposed slavery and elected Abraham Lincoln who freed the slaves.

 

But in today’s world the few racists who are left in this country do tend to find their home in the Republican party versus the Democrats. It’s not reflective of the party as a whole, but it does taint the GOP and I believe prevent more well-intentioned Democrats from voting our way. Until we as a party go out of our way to recruit black votes and show black voters how the Democrats have failed them all these years, while simultaneously making racists uncomfortable within the confines of the GOP this false taint will continue to hover over the party.

 

Republicans greatest sin in the past twenty years was the persecution of Bill Clinton. And it was a persecution. I was no fan of Clinton; never voted for him. But the Kenneth Starr investigation

, United States Solicitor General from 1989 to...

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took years and millions of tax payer dollars and all he came up with was Clinton engaging in marital infidelity and then lying about it at a time after the Special Prosecutor had already been impaneled. It was a waste, it was embarrassing and it was a mark Democrats have held against Republicans ever since.

 

Clinton became President having received ONLY 43% of the popular vote in 1992. And I don’t think Republicans ever forgave him for that. Just like Democrats never forgave George W. Bush for winning the Presidency in 2000 by a mere 243 votes in florida. The Clinton win spawned the irrational persecution of the man. The impeachment spurred Democrat’s resentment. And the Bush narrow win made Democrats completely irrational.

 

I vote Republicans because I believe in smaller more limited government. From this standpoint Republicans talk a good game. But as Democrats correctly point out Republicans had control of Congress and the White House from 2001-2007 and did a lousy job walking-the-walk. They spent like they accuse Democrats of spending. Still, I’d rather have a politician who at least talks about limited government versus a Democrat who has no intention of limiting government. The point is Republicans have been hypocrites and Democrats are right to say so.

 

Lastly, Democrats think Republicans are mean and don’t care about helping the poor. Of course they’re wrong. Numerous studies have indicated that those who identify themselves as being Conservative give a far higher percentage of their incomes to charity, to help the less fortunate, than do those who identify themselves as Liberals or Progressive. And this in spite of Liberals having higher incomes than Conservatives, in recent decades.

 

But Democrats are right in having the concern because Republicans have done an absolutely lousy job of explaining how our positions and strategies and morals are far superior in helping the poor raise themselves from dependency to success. We’ve done a lousy job as Republicans of conveying our belief in our fellow human beings abilities to rise up. We have not property demonstrated how government entitlement encourages individual dependency, and that which the government provides will only keep us ALL poor. No entitlement program will make anyone rich. And none will enable the individuals to grow into more success. Their subsistence programs only. But they’re given to too many people.

 

Still I believe in Liberty. Look it up. I honestly believe most people don’t know its true meaning. If they did. They’d join me at the Republican caucuses Saturday.

 

Thanks for visiting. Comments are welcome.

 

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March 2, 2012
Categories: National Politics, Washington State . Tags: , , , , , , , . Author: Michael Schuett . Comments: 1 Comment