1)Dependency, consumption, and entitlement will continue seducing our society away from liberty, productivity, and responsibility as more sincere paths to happiness. “All sins tend to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is damnation”. W. H. Auden

2) The Democratic Party will continue making America more dependent on the least dependable thing in the universe – politicians. “No one is more of a slave than he who thinks himself free without being so.” Johann von Goethe

3)The Republican Party will continue pretending to reliably stand for something beyond power and cronyism. “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.” Abraham Lincoln

4) Obama will not continue to be President, but our weak, paralyzed, and special interest dedicated government will continue faltering at all levels. “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” Thomas Jefferson

5) Islamic extremists operating behind spiritual pretense will continue subverting freedom, hope, and peace in the middle-east – and exporting their chaos here. “Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury.” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

6) The importance of personal responsibility, creativity, knowledge, skills and initiative will continue growing as the luster of vanity diplomas and liberal indoctrination degrees fade. “The price of greatness is responsibility.” Winston Churchill

7) China’s systemic corruption and power agenda will continue, and, along with Europe’s slide and our own, take the world to harder places. “In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?” Saint Augustine

8)We will continue to agitate between the extremes of crony capitalism and crony socialism while ignoring the cogent solutions found in an honest free enterprise system. “Doing well is the result of doing good. That's what capitalism is all about.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

9)Opportunities, as always, will continue growing in matching proportion to miseries and, as always, best reward independent risk takers of courage, character, and conscience. “There is far more opportunity than there is ability.” Thomas A. Edison

10) Faith, simplicity, gratitude, and friendship will continue quietly recapturing our attention. “Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.” Kahlil Gibran

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Speculations on a third party are wasted. We already have one. The mumbling majority party is the greatest political force in America.

John Kennedy once offered a message of indictment to this defacto third party, “There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.”

If we don’t have the juice to keep our existing parties from floundering, it’s naive to believe we have the capacity to build a better new one. We have the parties we’re earning.

The first priority of all political entities, and indeed all organizations, is self-preservation. Minus safeguards, that dedication is toxic. One path to organizational health is the purposeful embrace of transparency, honesty, and accountability as core values. Very few groups have such courage or character. That’s especially true for governmental agencies, crony capitalists, subjugating socialists, and political parties. Even if a third party was established, per our current social model, it would immediately prioritize self-service.

American humorist Josh Billings prophetically summed up today’s Democratic Party, “Some people are so addicted to exaggeration that they can’t tell the truth without lying.” Donkey pitchmen replay their own propaganda so much they’ve lost touch with Mother Nature’s four cornerstones – reality, reason, responsibility, and right. Lose touch with those and you’re doomed to lose everything.

Obama’s promise of hope and change is nothing new. For years his party’s championed the idea that dependency on the least reliable force in the universe – politicians – is a good thing. This contaminated self-preservation tactic condemns the donkey to extinction.

Republicans were thoroughly stripped of their authenticity during the Bush years. Pretend conservatives squandered the opportunities found in holding the presidency, house, and senate for six years. W’s replacement was right about inheriting a mess, but conveniently forgets volunteering, promising the moon, and then making everything worse.

Salvaging the elephant rests on local Republican organizations making sure their party stands for something people can count on and publicly grading the match between their elected official’s words and actions. Anything less is fluff.

Attracting the mumbling majority is important, but not by compromising principles. Republicans libeled as right-wing extremists must remember Alice’s experience in Wonderland. In a crazy world, common sense can appear extreme. We serve America best by standing as an island of sanity sense in a sea of chaos. The muddled middle will swim for something they can count on.

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In marriage and international relations, dependency invariably leads to hostility.

America’s unconscionable dependence on Chinese products, credit, and benevolence has placed both societies in grave danger. We’ll one day regret having spent tomorrow’s defense dollars on today’s pretense of policing the world.

In a recent simulated fight with China over Taiwan, America lost. The imposing size of our aircraft carriers constructs exceptional targets for increasingly numerous and sophisticated Chinese missiles. Check the manufacturer on your computer for clarity on our vulnerabilities to Chinese military technology.

It’s important to remember the Middle Kingdom remains a Communist country run by dogmatic despots. The gap between the people of China and the government of China is even greater than the gap between our citizens and Washington. There, like here, power, profit, patronage, and propaganda, not people, remain firmly in control.

China has embedded flaws and they lie about them. It doesn’t matter if it’s disaster deaths, poverty statistics, systemic corruption, a growing inability to feed their people, or melamine poison in baby formula. China’s economic miracle is not based on affordable labor and manufacturing expertise so much as easy money and booming real-estate speculation. Their bubble holds lethal potentials to pop our bubble too.

American greed has artificially empowered China. Did we really believe a Communist country championing sweat shops, women as second class citizens, and social pariahs in Iran, Korea, and their own government could be a reliable friend? Ask anyone doing business with China. Hurdles are growing, copyright laws are a joke, and trade rules remain steadfastly one sided. Ask Japan, Vietnam, and Tibet about territorial disputes. Napoleon, a first-string geopolitical thinker, got it right on China, “Let her sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world.”

A cautionary park sign, “Don’t feed the bears”, offers a way around our pending clash with China. Getting serious about fair trade, revitalizing our manufacturing base, legitimizing “Buy American” enthusiasms, living within our mean, separating defense from military adventurism, and reaffirming our commitment as the beacon of the free world begins the answers list.

Like a hungry bear, China tolerates a shallow affinity only as long as we feed her. While there’s still time, it’s important to remember who becomes the menu when the food runs out. Another sign outside China’s equivalent of NASA’s space center boldly declares their task and our test, “Without haste, without fear, China will rule the world.”

Today’s my birthday and illuminating donkey mischief is a great way to celebrate.

For starters Democrat powerbrokers do a splendid job of concealing their role as America’s socialist party. That’s what you are if you push legislation, regulation, and taxation that swells government and shrivels people.

Socialism plays to needs and entitlements. Aristotle taught us that in the real world responsibility and productivity are the keys to happiness. As the unraveling of his motherland reveals, there’s a difference in bait and food.

The Democratic Party is like the cigarette industry. They’re great at marketing, but offer a toxic product. In the real world smoke and unearned benefits are both carcinogens.

Donkey, Inc’s advertising campaign relies heavily on fear and other emotional appeals like, “Republicans hate clean air and poor people and want to take away grandma’s social security.” Voters, like smokers, are easier to maneuver when feeling good replaces thinking good.

Politicians, Republicans as surely as Democrats, are like teenagers. You can’t measure their status by words, charm or self-descriptions. Actions are the sincere yardstick. Voting records pin a stinging tale on this donkey.

There are eleven Democrats, one Independent, and zero Republicans currently serving on Asheville’s city and county boards. Voting records expose one indisputable fact – they’re all liberals. Apologies to those successfully hiding in the closet, but having a business bias or occasional conservative burp doesn’t make you a moderate or conservative anymore than citing a few scriptures makes you a preacher.

Eliminating all conservative representation isn’t smart for the same reason a car full of teens with a case of beer isn’t smart.

It’s amazing how so many voters with traditional conservative values, including minorities and older folks, support a political party diligently working against their core beliefs. Donkey pretenses of being for the little man are backed up by a capable propaganda machine, not truth. No one ever uplifted anyone by increasing their dependence on politicians.

My party deserves much of the credit for Democrat success. In failing to offer a reliable and principled option, the Republican Party power structure has detoured millions of Americans to that cliff on the left.

The Democratic Party has a fatal flaw. They’ve made too many promises they can’t keep and violated too many realities they can’t dodge. For those few Democrats still operating from conscience versus habit, I’d offer one more birthday indulgence – people make poor pets.

(398 words) Carl Mumpower is a practicing psychologist and a former U.S. congressional candidate and Asheville city council member. Contact him at drmumpower@thecandidconservative.com

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