THE MOUNTAIN OBSERVER

 Vol. 1                                      Issue 3                                            03/05/01

A FREEWHEELING CONSERVATIVE COMMENTARY DEDICATED TO THE DEFENSE OF FREEDOM.                                        READER DIALOG ENCOURAGED.

Produced occasionally when I'm good and ready, but probably at least 10 times a year.

J.E. Sohmer P O Box 129, Jefferson, CO 80456

Where the air is thin and the hunting and fishing are good

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SECOND AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES:  "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."

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CURRENT

Happy birthday to Ronald Reagan 02/06/1911.

02/06/01 Is also the day the Israeli people finally woke up at the last possible moment to save their country. I sense that Ariel Sharon is the right guy.  I wish Ariel Sharon, and Israel, well, and will keep a close eye on developments.  Benjamin Netanyahu, please continue to stand by.  There is a certain crowd in our country (Liberal-Statist Jews) that really needs to examine their priorities.  Their boy, Ehud Barak, who is a national fool, should be exiled to New York.  He would feel right at home.

Lesson: Palestinians need to be made to understand that Israel is not going away and Israelis need to consider shedding socialism, politically, culturally and economically.

BUSH SCORE CARD:

Top level appointments. Good to excellent, except that I have serious reservations about Elaine Chao.  It has to do with her past and present relationships with union thugs and foreign check writers.   I also have general concerns about the big government/ internationalist orientation of some of the group, but that is merely a reflection of the broader problem I have, as an American Nationalist Conservative with center leaning Republicans of whom George H.W. Bush (hereafter referred to as Bush 41) was typical.    We need to give George W. (Bush 43) a chance to demonstrate how much of this centrist posturing is politically tactical as distinct from a targeted strategic Conservative objective.  I am not optimistic.

            National Defense. He really has the right people in place and is     working the right priorities.

Foreign Policy. Preliminary indications suggest a vast improvement over the past 8 years, which were generally marked by crisis management in lieu of any identifiable policy at all except appeasement of terrorism and occasional bombings designed to manage the headlines away from personal embarrassments.   What will emerge under this administration will be a dialog, long overdue, about our proper roll in the post Soviet era. This dialog will reveal a split in the Conservative community focusing on NATO, the EU and the character of our international trade relations.  I will have a lot to say about these matters.  Also,“43” needs to cancel that silly executive order barring assassination as a legitimate foreign policy tool.

The Economy: We are in some trouble. Structural problems have been building for years, and ignored because of the prosperity.  But castles built on sand don't last forever. The biggest assets we have are the American people who produce product and the Reagan  tax cuts of the 80's  The immediate requirement in dealing with the current problem is another round of tax cuts, the bigger the better.   Bush 43 is off to an excellent start on this one.  In the longer haul we have to make the Federal Reserve irrelevant, and kill federal income taxes altogether.  Much discussion to come.

A decision not to review an EPA ruling by the prior Administration relating to tighter air quality regulations concerning diesel fuel and truck engine specs needs to be explained.

I was also pleased with the restoration of national policy to deny funding to the international kill a baby a day crowd.

I am not so pleased with the education initiatives or the proposal to orchestrate private/religious social hand holding groups out of the White House.  In both cases the causes and intent are excellent Conservative objectives, but once again the proposed fixes are top down D.C.  There is a Constitutional issue here in both cases, and all of this stuff should be worked at the State and local level.   All the supporting federal tax dollars should cease to be collected and put back into the hands of individuals to determine whether their money is best spent on these matters at the State or local level, or by private initiative.  Will this country ever learn that politicians and bureaucrats never hand out money without a quid pro quo, including our freedom?

MYTH BUSTING WISDOM

It is finally coming to the attention of the Glitteratti that there is a problem with the economy.  The conventional wisdom is that Al Gor (bachev) should have won hands down because of a "booming economy", and Liberals are confused about what happened. But ask those in the trucking industry which has been in a recession for at least a year. It has to do with soaring fuel prices in a climate of shrinking freight rates in a climate of runaway regulation.  (Stagflation ala Jimmy Carter, perhaps?).  Perhaps the conventional wisdom that the economy does matter did apply this time around too, and all the Glitteratti simply were not paying attention.  So it is now very clear that this national economic mess is part of the "OJ" Billy Boy legacy along with last minute pardons to people in a position to finance his retirement, and, perhaps, stroke his dong, irrespective of how they try to re-package that story.  Trashing the White House and Air Force One was just a final swipe at "rich Republicans".  No, "OJ" Billy Boy, it was a swipe at America.  For those of you political illiterates who were unable to see this gang of jackals for what they were in 1992, it is time to shut up and listen.

Note on natural gas prices.  This nation is blessed with an abundance of natural gas (in the ground), so much so that environmentalists have focused on its use as the best (cleanest) "temporary” fossil fuel alternative pending the erection of a million windmills.  Thus a major push for natural gas as the fuel of choice for power generation in new and "up-graded" facilities. In the context of this general national political climate (I suspect the free market would prefer low sulfur western coal) we had California dictate to its utilities the purchase of power on the daily spot market as opposed to long term contracts. In this highly politicized climate producers, and the investors and lenders they depend on for the huge amounts of capital required, have been reluctant to invest in expanded capacity (new wells and pipelines) when they are dependent on the whims of politicians. Short of expanding supply capacity, the industry has to deal with an annual domestic depletion rate of about 20% and raise the required capital to do so.  Management's primary responsibility is fiduciary in nature, to its investors.   Producers have also had to consider the risks involved in shipping product to California utilities chained to controlled (political) retail prices to consumers, a condition that carries the potential of bankruptcy (inability to pay your bills). Thus the market, such as it is, is responding to a host of artificial (political) threats and risks and pricing its product accordingly. "Price gouging" (whatever that actually means) can only occur under monopoly conditions, and I see no such conditions in the production of natural gas.  Notice that California Governor Davis now recognizes the need to switch back to long term contracts albeit through a Soviet style mechanism.   Prior to "deregulation" these problems rarely arose because the market responded to those political conditions with high prices that were reflected through to the consumer.  The idea of deregulation is to deregulate, which in a truly free market atmosphere would gradually lower prices.   California never really did deregulate; it only changed the rules for the worst. The only regulation that is necessary in a utility market has to do with protecting the mechanics of consumer access to all available market supply choices, including power produced by coal, nuclear or banana peels.  The immediate supplier to a particular customer has to allow access by that customer to any supply source in exchange for a controlled access fee keyed to the cost of access.  Beyond that let the market work and the prices will come down. Someday California may figure this out.   Meanwhile, the situation in California (a major economy in the world) is impacting the rest of the country, and the prices we pay are subsidizing their political follies as well as the follies of environmentalists everywhere who refuse to consider all reasonable market options.   It illustrates economic illiteracy to confuse high prices necessarily with profits, somewhat like confusing hard work necessarily with productivity.

            Go invest in a gas stock.

"IN THE CONDUCT OF BUSINESS AFFAIRS, IT IS THE MORAL RESPONSIBILITY OF EVERY CAPITALIST TO CHARGE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE"                             JIM SOHMER

Liberals and the mush-heads in the middle may be politically (and morally) fungible but as a rule Conservatives are not.  Most Conservatives by nature are not activists, or government oriented. Indeed they instinctively flee from government.  Most worship God in their own way and are focused on their families, their jobs and balancing the family budget. They keep finding themselves in trouble with Washington D.C. because they like to assume their elected representatives are doing their

Constitutional duties. They keep finding themselves in trouble because they are, for the most part, nice and decent people.   Conservatives have been terribly naive, and if "OJ" Billy Boy has done anything positive, it has been to wake up Conservatives to the fact that America is crumbling beneath their feet.  It's the old story about cooking the frog alive by starting with cold water.  The battle has just begun. And so it is that I am concerned that George W. Bush and John Ashcroft still might be "nice guys".  The history of the Bush family in politics is not encouraging.   We shall see, but at least for now they are pointed more or less in the right direction, and we haven't seen that since 1988.

There are decreasing numbers of Americans who remember "tailgunner" Joe McCarthy and mostly he is remembered as evil incarnate.   In view of the Liberal treatment of John Ashcroft, perhaps this needs to be re-examined.  "Tailgunner" Joe had some personal and professional shortcomings, for which he was censured by the Senate, but we now know from files released subsequent to the fall of the Soviet Union, as well as our own domestic resources, that in terms of substance "tailgunner" Joe was largely on target.  So while the old Liberal trick of diverting attention from substance by demonizing personality worked well on "tailgunner" Joe in the '50's, it might just backfire in the contemporary political climate.  With a John Ashcroft, who, by all available accounts, is personally impeccable and professionally unimpeachable, Liberal Statists will be forced to deal with substance and are therefore standing in dung. This time around the political orientations of grillers and the grillees have been reversed and "McCarthyite" tactics will continue, ad nausium, with the approval and assistance of the leftist lapdog press, e.g. the New York Times.  The thinking public, however, may not be so easily suckered.  Attempting to demonize an accomplished white straight male for believing in Jesus Christ is going to be a tough sell for the Democratic Politburo to accomplish in "fly over" country.  But expect the commielibs to keep trying for as long as Ashcroft is in office.

God bless Joe McCarthy for his service in touching the untouchable.  However he never met Tom Daschle and Jesse Jackson.  What Liberals really fear is full disclosure of the eight years of legal and Constitutional devastation in the Department of Justice in addition to their own associations in years past.  What I am watching for, as an American Nationalist Conservative, is a conscious correction of the collapse of law under the Constitution.  Sadly, I don't expect this will happen, which is the real reason for the creation of this newsletter.  "OJ" Billy Boy got impeached for perjury by a very principled House and allowed to get away with perjury by a gutless and irresponsible Senate.  In my world "OJ" Billy Boy should have had his neck stretched, in public.  Now the Democratic Politburo believes that if you are a qualified Statist Liberal, you have a license to do anything, including the solicitation of foreign fellow Statists for campaign funds in exchange for national secrets, or so it would appear. We shall see.                                                           

CONSIDERATIONS:

                We need to consider very carefully the process of political analysis.

When considering a thought or position, we need to be consciously aware of the premises assumed.  Classic errors include, but are not limited to:

1.) Judging the motives and actions of others by your own personal standards (or lack thereof).

Crooks and liars tend to assume everyone else is a crook and a liar without adequate supporting evidence, which means that Statist Liberals will continue to be confused by "43" who, it would seem, is an honest and fair-minded man.  Honest and fair-minded people tend to assume everyone else is honest and fair-minded, which means that Republicans tend to allow themselves to be snookered by members of the Democratic Politburo (Trent Lott/Hastertism).    A generally reliable way to judge the character and mindset of another person is to evaluate the available evidence for the assumptions they are making about you.  Also check for unscheduled swims at Chappaquiddick.

            2.) Judging history and historical figures by contemporary standards. 

This is known in some circles as "presentism".   I call it intellectual dishonesty generally inspired by ideological mischief.  Inspired by modern theories of education that indulge in intellectual and moral relativism, American history as been trashed in the schools, and degrees in the various social sciences today are generally worth squat.

3.) Failure to screen out conspiracy theories, or at least positively identify them for what they are.

It’s fine to posit theories, but without hard supporting evidence, they are of dubious value and most likely counter-productive. I will award anyone $1000.00 who can produce an alien from outer space or identify the murderer of Nicole Simpson who is not named "OJ".

            4.) Conscious misrepresentation of the facts which, by definition, is not an error. 

Developed to a high art form by "OJ" Billy Boy, and a necessary by-product of moral vacuum and secular hedonism.   This is the prototypical behavior of the Liberal Left and I would argue that the Clinton phenomena were a necessary logical conclusion.  Yes, character does matter. 

            5.) Failure to follow a thought through to its logical conclusion

Such as the failure to recognize the implications for freedom that accompany government “solutions”.

 INCOME TAXES: THE WAR AGAINST THE 16^th AMENDMENT

While most Americans today are not yet prepared to take this matter seriously, it is a high priority for American Nationalist Conservatives to legitimize the discussion.   Pending total elimination of the Federal income tax, we can certainly support a close examination of current “law”.   The quiet desperation of out-numbered American producers to survive in a collectivist culture demands as much.  It is necessary to destroy the ability of politicians to spend as much as possible.  The following initiatives have recently come to my attention and deserve examination.

Under the name “PROJECT TOTO” a national education process is directed at relevant professionals concerning the “true limited application of the income tax laws, to expose any operations of the IRS that are unauthorized by law, and to put an end to any illegal collection of taxes from people who do not owe them.”  There is a specific focus on the process of withholding taxes.  Contact:        

Thurston P. Bell

                 Executive Researcher and Founder

             National Institute for Taxation Education

             REF:  We The People Foundation For Constitutional Education, Inc.

             2458 Ridge Rd., Queensbury, NY 12804   

             www.givemeliberty.org     e-mail acta@capital.net

                 (518) 656-3578 FAX (518) 656-9724

CURRENT READING RECOMMENDATION:

        1.) THE GREEDY HAND: HOW TAXES DRIVE AMERICANS CRAZY AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

                        AMITY SHLAES

                        RANDOM HOUSE                      255 PGS           $22.95

            2.) THE VENONA SECRETS

                        HERBERT ROMERSTEIN, ERIC BREINDEL

                        REGNERY PUBLISHING            XXX                 XXX

            3.) HOW COMMUNISM SEDUCED THE AMERICAN FILM INDUSTRY IN THE 1930s AND 1940s

                        KENNETH LLOYD BILLINGSLEY

                        PRIMA PUBLISHING                 XXX                 XXX

PRO-STATIST ORGANIZATIONS:

      CHASE MANHATTAN BANK                  ANTI BOY SCOUTS

        LEVI STRAUSS                                       ANTI BOY SCOUTS

                        UNITED WAY                                           ANTI BOY SCOUTS

        BURGER KING CORP.                             ANTI IDITAROD

        PIZZA HUT                                              ANTI IDITAROD

        PFIZER                                                    ANTI IDITAROD

        COSTCO                                                 ANTI IDITAROD

 God Bless America

      JIM

                    JIM SOHMER

         AMERICAN NATIONALIST CONSERVATIVE

         JEFFERSON, CO 80456

IN GOD WE TRUST