Blog of the week

Freedom Fighters:
Be sure to vote for "blog of the week" at MKE.com. (link)

You can vote as many times as you want (pretend you're a democrat in Chicago) by entering a different e-mail address.

Thanks!

Bob T.

First Facebook Hate Message Ever...

The facebook has once again shown what it can do: it is good at connecting political foes.

Nathan Jung, a English Major, decided to take time out of his busy schedule (I am sure he does have a lot to read) to write a long message where he calls me a "douchebag", a "contrarian knob", and a "tool".

Well, thanks Nate, for the high level of intellectual vigor in your message. See, that is what is wrong with the anti-war liberals on this campus, they resort to these kind of tactics far too early in an argument. Instead of attacking the essence of the super-liberal article about me (which takes a couple hours of conversation, meetings, and e-mails and mulls it down into a couple dozen quotes and a short bio), he decided to use ad-hominin attacks. Nice job buddy!

To the frequent readers of this Blog, this is a common anti-war student on this campus: rude, inarticulate, and they have a tendency to resort to personal attacks when confronted with anything that is not in line with their world view.

It really says a lot for the marketplace of ideas on this campus. It seems that if anyone opens up a new shop with some new ideas, the liberals decide to firebomb it. Debate on this campus is limited to liberals and socialists while conservative thought is squashed out at every turn. Nate's message is an example of this systematic approach of attacking anything they don't understand nor want to understand.

He goes on to say " you come off as a total parrot" and " I am neither a "hippy", nor a "liberal", in your terms."

Nate, just know that because I am a good Christian, I still love you as my brother and like I would with my brother I am going to tell you the honest truth: you are a hippy-liberal; your message proves it. Thank you for being an example for the rest of your cause: out of touch with nothing to add to the debate.

One exception: At least Bill (a frequent poster), who is some kind of non-voting anarchist, doesn't resort to name calling.

P.S. If this was any other week, I wouldn't have posted on this, but it is exam week, and I am in a fightin' mood. I will post any future Nate-type messages in the comments section of this post.

P.S.S. Who the heck sends a facebook hate message anyway?

True Believers

Check out the Isthmus this week. Yours truely is featured in it! They call me a "pro-American zealot"...they pegged me on that one :). They don't have links to the story itself yet, when they do I will update this post.

Basically, they make my counterpoint, Rae, seem like a nice lady who bakes cookies and me as a right-wing nutjob with a small vocabulary. So, take the story with a grain of salt, but overall, it isn't horrible.



Update: Welcome GOP3.com readers!

Financial aid must be cut

Brad V. Over at LIB has a great post about the need to cut financial Aid to for college students.

How about this: the federal government - instead of spending $110 billion propping up financial aid programs and the bureaucracies required to run them - initially puts all of the funds and overhead toward outright reduction of the cost of tuition across the board at state universities.

Long term, this new paradigm would be sustained by massively increasing tax deductions to cover any contributions to a person's college education costs. The
elimination of financial aid programs at the federal level would eliminate the need for the tax revenue ultimately lost through the deductions. And state universities would gain the funds lost in elimination of financial aid through the increased personal contributions to students' educations.

Brad V. further suggests that the same "aid" the government gives students may be the cause of the raise in tuition. Jeff Jacoby, a columnist at Townhall.com has some reasons why.

Tuition and fees were up 10.5 percent at state colleges and universities last year. The year before that, they were up 14 percent. Every year for nearly a quarter-century -- since before most of today's college students were born -- higher education costs have raced ahead of inflation. And far from slowing this runaway train, government aid serves only to stoke the engine.

How could it do otherwise? Every dollar that Washington generates in student aid is another dollar that colleges and universities have an incentive to harvest, either by raising their sticker price or reducing the financial aid they offer from their own funds. Higher Education Act funds "are seen by colleges and universities as money that is there for the taking," observes Peter Wood, an anthropology professor at Boston University. "Tuition is set high enough to capture those funds and whatever else we think can be extracted from parents. Perhaps there are college administrators who don't see federal student aid in quite this way, but I haven't met
them." In 10 years of attending committee meetings on the university's annual tuition adjustment, says Wood, "the only real question was, 'How much can we get away with?'"

Public and Private Universities alike are raising tuition BECAUSE THEY CAN, not because they have to. The administrators know that financial aid will increase and it will cover the gap. If tuition doubles in Wisconsin, financial aid packages for Wisconsin will increase, almost dollar for dollar.

Here is how it works. When a student fills out the financial Aid form, it comes up with an expected family contribution (EFC). Then that number is transmitted to the school which subtracts the EFC from the cost of tuition, room, board, and other costs at a school (15,250 for an in-state student at UW) and arrives at "needed aid". If tuition goes up 25 percent, the needed aid will also go up to cover that gap. If a majority of students are receiving aid, the University will reap the rewards...and the extra federal dollars.

So, to cut tuition, we have to cut financial aid greatly. Here are my recommendations:

1. Like Brad V. Recommended, allow a DOLLAR FOR DOLLAR tax credit for any taxpayer that pays for someone's tuition, puts money into a college savings account, or gives to a scholarship fund. So if my uncle pays 5000 dollars in federal taxes and he wants to help me pay tuition, he could give up to 5000 dollars and not have to pay taxes that year. Or a corporation could give 100,000 dollars to a merit based scholarship fund.

2. The federal government should provide some government dollars to increase or national security. So, the GI Bill will continue, ROTC scholarships will continue, and financial aid for the HARD Sciences, Engineering, and mathematics will be increased. Also, trade school funding will be greatly increased as well.

3. Standards for High Schools will be increased as well. Schools that do not perform (based on graduation rates, tests, drop out rates, AND college acceptance) will first get increased federal funding and if that does not work, every student in that school will qualify for vouchers or regional school choice. The goal has to be to make a high school degree worth as much as it did 20 years ago.

Many will be close minded to this idea, they will say that people will be priced out of an education, that is is a classist idea. Well, the current system sure isn't working. According to Chancellor Wiley, the average income of the families of UW Madison students has been increasing.

The median family income in Wisconsin is a little over $45,000/year. The median family income of this year's new freshmen at UW-Madison is nearly $90,000/year. Yet, the distribution of brains, talents, ambition, and creativity is independent of family income. We will ignore that fact and freeze out the children of average and low-income families at our great peril.

throwing more money at the problem won't help either. If financial aid is increased, tuition will raise to fill the gap, it is basic economics. It is time to make a bold move. Financial aid needs to be cut 60-70 percent AND the tax cuts listed above need to be instituted and we will start to see a difference. Without financial Aid, the University would be forced to keep tuition reasonable. Like a frequent poster on my blog said on Mark's site: "SMASH THE STATE! Revolution, not reform." Damn strait! We need a financial aid revolution, more money (reform) will not solve the problem.

HT: BV, BA

Anti-War Left on the Wrong Side of History

I found a great essay about the roots of the anti-war left.

During the Vietnam War the Left became synonymous with the anti war peace movement. Masquerading as a ‘peace’ movement allowed the left to avoid the scrutiny of its many critics. In reality the left’s ‘peace’ movement had very little to do with peace and much to do with an allegiance to a brand new world ruled by Marxism.

Same basic story as today. The anti-war folks are not as much anti-war as they are anti-capitalism and anti-American. They want Socialism where we have Capitalism, they want Anarchy, where we have a Republic.

More peasants were killed during the first 3 years after America’s withdrawal from Indochina then all 13 years of the anti Communist war. Millions were ripped from their homes and force marched to re-education camps. Untold thousands of men, women, and children either perished or suffered unspeakable brutality at the hands of the new communist regimes. Thousands of boat people drowned attempting to escape the horror and tyranny of the left’s beloved reformers. Vietnam became one of the most militarized, totalitarian countries in the world.

In neighboring Cambodia, Pol Pot and his regime emptied entire cities and forced millions of refugees into the countryside to perish for lack of food, shelter, and medical care. Millions were slaughtered in the name of a Marxist revolutionary utopia. To this day The Killing Fields of Cambodia stand out as a stark symbol of man’s inhumanity to man.

Sound Familiar? What will the consequences be to a premature Iraq pull out? Well the left sure as hell does not care. They are greedy, they care about politics, not about people. They look beyond the fact that tens of thousands of Iraqis will die at the hands of terrorists if we pull out. The same people that are helping us rebuild the country will be hung in the streets. Like Cambodia, we will ignore the problem and the MSM will pretend like it never happened.

35 years removed, the anti war left still sees itself as heroic visionaries who battled oppression and sacrificed so much for a noble cause. In reality, most of the anti war radicals were pampered middle class college students with lots of time on their hands. They enjoyed freedom, liberties and a standard of living unequaled in history.

Very true! Too much free time. Tuition is too cheap at this University or something, these students have to either get a job or find a harder major, because I see the same students running around campus all the time. Mommy and Daddy pay for their tuition (out-of-state liberals, I am talking about you) and their housing so they can have time to be activists.

Open minded liberals...

Liberals at UCONN found it necessary to silence conservative firebrand Ann Coulter yesterday during a speech she gave there. (story)

Conservative columnist Ann Coulter gave up trying to finish a speech at the University of Connecticut on Wednesday night when boos and jeers from the audience became overwhelming. Coulter cut off the talk after 15 minutes and instead held a half-hour question-and-answer session.

Just another example of liberal hypocrisy on College Campuses where any opinion is valid, except conservative ones.

Freedom of speech only extends until liberals feel stupid, then they decide to quash it. Remember, the "heckler's veto" is only valid when a group is in the minority. On college campuses, the liberals OWN the ivory towers of education. This is an invalid use of free speech and these "open minded liberals" should tolerate other view points.

What would happen if Ann Coulter would come to Madison? Fire? Gun shots? I cringe to even think about it!

Stupid Comment of the month!

I almost forgot to announce the stupid comment of the month for November. Everyone remembers the winner last time: the fake Marine from New York City, who was pretending to be a Marine to make arguments but forgot details about his unit, his commander, and other important details.

This months winner is Bill for his comment on my "Chinese Spies at UW?" piece:

In part:

I think you should be required to take a course in the history of popular struggle against state oppression and Fascism. We could start with Mussolini & Hitler, their targeting of immigrants and left-wing activists, then talk about the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s and the struggle against Franco, move on to American expressions of Fascism like the KKK and the American Legion, and end with a discussion of real far-right racist groups that are active today, like the MinuteMen, the French National Front, and the British National Party. (emphasis added)

He thinks the AMERICAN LEGION is a fascist organization. Yes, he believes that an organization made up mostly of WWII and Korean War Veterans are fascist. Well, guess what Bill, they sacrificed more blood than you have ever seen. They lost more friends than you even have. They gave up their youth to defend this nation.

This comment is a new low for the radical anti-war left. But it is nothing new. Their anti-troop, anti-veteran, anti-ROTC campaign of terror thas been waging on this campus for a while. They hate people that are willing to die for a cause. Mostly, because the anti-war left don't have the guts to find a cause worth putting their life on the line for.

All the Bills in Madison look at soldiers and think they are smarter and more sophisticated. The Bills say that soldiers are "duped" into serving. Find me an ROTC cadet or midshipman that is only doing to for the money and I will delete this post. There is more to it than money. It is about America, about freedom, and it is about democracy.

Finally, NEVER compare the American Legion to the KKK ...you heartless idiot. Shave your beard, comb your hair, take a shower, go to the local American Legion Post and talk to the Veterans about what they went through. Go alone, let your guard down, have a few drinks, and see what the Greatest Generation did for our nation. Get a little culture in you, before I start calling you ignorant.

What does the Blogosphere say? Is Bill right? Is the American Legion a fascist institution on the same level as the KKK? Let me hear your thoughts.

I will buy a Poster with this on it!!!:

An English Pakistani text book had the following poem in it:

It is awesome!! From the news story:

The 20-line anonymous poem, The Leader, lists the qualities of "a man who will do what he must" and bears a passing resemblance to Rudyard Kipling's If.

Some of my favorite lines: Ever assuring he'll stand by his word...Tells it strait and means it too... Easy in manner yet strong as steel...Waiting for the world to join his firm stand.

You are damn strait. Seriously, if there are any marketers out there, I will buy a poster to hang up in my room! A lot of money could be made.