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QUOTATION: People often say that, in a democracy, decisions are made by a majority of the people. Of course, that is not true. Decisions are made by a majority of those who make themselves heard and who vote - a very different thing. - Walter H. Judd

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2004-10-11 - 11:52 p.m.

"Credibility is Like Virginity. You Can Only Lose It Once."

A special thanks to Ed for finding this site of thinking conservatives... conservatives in the true sense of the word. I haven't had time yet to read all of Charley Reese's columns, but so far I agree with almost all he's had to say. Here are three excerpts from some I've read:

The Truth Killers
By Charley Reese


The motivation of liars is easy to determine. They want something � agreement, consent, a vote, a sale or unearned approval � and they are willing to manipulate other people to get it. Nothing shows so much hostility and contempt for people than to lie to them. When you lie to someone, you are saying, in effect, I'm going to sabotage your God-given brain so that you cannot make a rational decision in your own interest, but will instead be tricked into making a decision that serves my interests.

I have often said that the people should consider lying an unforgivable sin by any politician. It is, after all, not an unreasonable demand that politicians at least tell us the truth as best they can determine it at the time. In my days as a political flack, I always told a new client upfront, "I will give you the best advice I can, but I will never lie for you." And I never did. Credibility is like virginity. You can lose it only once, but it's forever.


The Fiscal Recklessness of the Bush Administration
by Charley Reese

The fiscal recklessness of the Bush administration's economic policies, if you can dignify them with that name, presents a greater danger to the American people than terrorists.

Terrorism can always take a few individual lives, but a financial collapse can ruin the lives of millions. The Bush people have taken the country from a projected surplus of trillions of dollars to a projected deficit of trillions.

That multitrillion-dollar debt, coupled with the already enormous corporate and personal debt levels, represents a clear danger to the future of this country. The postwar generations don't know what an economic depression is, but their grandparents could tell them it makes our little recessions seem like boom times.

Being a country boy, I've always been suspicious of Wall Street financial gurus, but there is one area in which I at least respect them. That area is knowledge of high finance. And the really smart financiers are voicing genuine alarm at the direction the Bush administration is taking this country. Robert Rubin, President Clinton's Treasury secretary, and George Soros, the billionaire, are two. They are not academics who play games with computers; they are street-smart guys who learned from experience and made their fortunes in the toughest game in the world. Rubin, I should point out, is acting as an adviser to John Kerry.

Far from being the conservative he claims to be, President Bush has allowed discretionary spending to increase at a far greater rate than it did during the Clinton years. Bush has abandoned the pay-as-you-go principle and chosen to combine drastic tax cuts with fighting two wars. Lyndon Johnson tried the guns-and-butter route during the Vietnam War, and we paid for it with double-digit inflation and double-digit interest rates, followed by a severe recession. Bush is going the guns, butter and cream route, and the consequences will be bad, very bad.

The cruelest, most despicable form of theft is inflation � or, put another way, the devaluation of the currency. To hide its crime, the U.S. government periodically changes the base year on which inflation is measured. Even by its latest base year, inflation has robbed people of about 40 percent of their purchasing power. Not long ago, a dollar would buy one euro and some change; today, it takes $1.20 to buy one euro. That's not a good trend....

Vote for a Man � Not a PuppetBy Charley Reese

Americans should realize that if they vote for President Bush's re-election, they are really voting for the architects of war � Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and the rest of that cabal of neoconservative ideologues and their corporate backers.

I have sadly come to the conclusion that President Bush is merely a frontman, an empty suit, who is manipulated by the people in his administration. Bush has the most dangerously simplistic view of the world of any president in my memory.

It's no wonder the president avoids press conferences like the plague. Take away his cue cards and he can barely talk. Americans should be embarrassed that an Arab king (Abdullah of Jordan) spoke more fluently and articulately in English than our own president.


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