Some thoughts on computers

I've been into computers since the card era.  Not the smartcard, RF card or adapter card era, but that era which featured paper cards with data grids on them that were either punched or had a reader that would accept pencil filled in rectangles... that you filled in with a pencil.  My first computer interface was a paper-fed terminal.  My first computer language that I learned the basics of in 7th grade was APL.  Yes, I've been around to see a few things change, and gone are the days when the teacher said that you only got so many sheets of paper to do your work per month... and then my dad would bring in boxes of used terminal paper from his workplace as they only used the lined and colored back part of the sheets.  Amazingly at the end of the month I was the only one still using the terminals.

From time-sharing on a mainframe to my first almost PC to the first PC and then through the 386/485/Pentium eras all the way to today's quad core, LED display monsters with terabytes of drive space and gigabytes of memory, I have been around the block a bit on computers.  I am not, of necessity, retro on my computer use but it is purpose driven.  Purpose driven use concentrates on certain aspects of computing, such as document creation or gaming.  Back in the day it was document creation that drove the early days of computing for office use, and the gamers had to adjust to the advances that getting simple work done on a computer drove as it was the marketplace.  That changed just around 2000 and now the gamers and, increasingly, entertainment use of computers drives displays, memory and storage.  This means that usability has gotten much, much, much better from the paper terminal days and the systems are pretty 'user friendly' and have been for awhile.  Yet, because I have limited uses for computers, mostly in the document creation and research areas, that means that a stock, out of the box computer or Operating System comes with all of the fun, glitzy, entertainment stuff turned on.

Growing up through the era of the early PC and early Internet means that there are some credos and maxims that exist for computers that haven't changed much, although a few have changed greatly.  I'll go over a few of those as a personal look at computers, overall.

The first great maxim of computers from the mid-1980's to just a bit after 2000 has been: the computer you want always costs $2,500.  Add in an extra $500-$1,000 if it was a laptop.  For a few short years between 2001 and 2005 that dropped to $1,500 and it was in this era that the gamers finally took the lead at high end computing and office document generation dropped off the screen.  For general office work without glitzy presentations, you can get a computer at $300 that will do absolutely everything one of its mid-1990's predecessors did and much, much more.  The only thing that would be the same with this $300 Nettop or sub-notebook is the screen size, but the resolution today is much higher and the color rendition much, much better... do note you would be dropping from a 14" CRT monitor to a 10-12" LED display in that transition.

The second great maxim of computers that still holds (and may for about 5 more years) is a simple one.  The greatest resource of your computer is the screen real estate space and this dates to the Windows Icon Mouse Point concept of interface.  Your screen real estate (even in 3D) is limited and, therefore, it is the most precious commodity of a computer since it is the one that allows you to interface with it to know just what it is you are doing.  There have been a number of proposed solutions to this, but they all involve creative ways to compress or otherwise shift the use of the screen real estate while presenting more on it.  Getting a larger screen is the first and best way to increase computer functionality for a desktop machine, and while it is a pricey option, there is nothing as valuable as an extra 4 square inches of screen real estate space.  This is mandatory because of the 1960's WIMP paradigm and will not change until the interface space expands beyond the screen and nothing delivers information in such dense amounts as visual interfaces.

From Jerry Pournelle, the man doing stupid things with computers so you don't have to, comes a few key and essential concepts of computer troubleshooting.  The main one is: if it isn't the cables its the memory, and if it isn't the memory its the cables.  Most computer problems can be solved by taking out and reseating the memory and the cables of a system.  If you need to ensure good electrical contacts, use Stabilant 22A and an eyedropper bottle I got in the early '90s is still going strong today.  Unfortunately for sealed devices or those where your ability to actually get to anything beyond the memory is limited, like laptops, nettops, etc. you either have to have the basic confidence to strip something down and get it back into original condition or send it to a shop... or buy a new one.  When I was more actively building computers this set of advice meant that I could easily find the problems on a system and then ID it.  Early on I had problems with cables, and not just the low-end cheap stuff, either... and that was in the early '90s.  By the end of the '90s I had a few bad memory sticks that showed up during the era of the memory wars for pricing.  Since then has been relatively trouble-free computing, but the few problems I have had are right back at cables and memory.

Another Pournelle rule is that cruft builds up in the computer's disk system over time.  'Cruft' is left over parts of programs, bits that didn't uninstall or install properly, left over pointers in the registry that didn't go away properly, old drivers that interfere with new equipment, and the general slow scattering of data on a hard drive as bits and pieces of programs get fragmented due to poor disk maintenance on the part of the OS.  Every OS ever created has that problem, just that some have it to a lesser degree than others.  A system that slows down over time is due to cruft, and the cure is to either get a cleaning utility that will remove old parts of programs and clean up registry entries and then do a boot disk fragmentation on it, or get a back-up copy of your disk contents, wipe the disk and re-image the hard drive.  There are a plethora of things between those, including getting a new hard drive and ghosting the old one over to the new one with an optimization routine.  Depending on what you use your computer for cruft can start showing up in a few days (if you install and uninstall lots of software) or years.

Just after the beginning of the Internet era came ads.  Lots and lots of ads.  Mostly the 1-cent per click-through type that then dropped to tenths or hundredths or thousandths of a cent per click-through.  In the beginning there wasn't much to deal with, but as advertising for revenue increased the need for weeding out ads arose.  Why?  Simple: you own your computer, your screen and your screen real estate is the most precious part of your computer and if you don't want something on it then there must be a way to make it GO AWAY.  The Firefox browser has all sorts of nice add-ons for that, like AdBlock Pro and NoScript plus a few others to get rid of the tracking leeches and so forth that try to infest your browser. Users of MSIE have only recently gotten a semi-useful pop-up blocker that Firefox has had for some time, and unless you are using Avant as your MSIE shell, then you don't get much beyond that for blocking ads.  The alternative is to block the stuff before it gets to your browser via Privoxy, which has a plethora of geeky hand coding capabilities and a few free action scripts that you can modify to start getting rid of entire sub-domains of advertisements so you never, ever see them and they never, ever get to your hard drive.  For me Avant through Privoxy tends to be my main browser, but I use Firefox for a lot of work, and then things like Opera and Google Chrome to see if I can't get around user-hostile sites that don't like being weeded badly on the ad-side of things.  Basically, I don't see many ads... and when I do it is because I have temporarily gone to a direct connection or otherwise shut off the blocking capability so I can get to other content.  The moment I have the content (the wanted part) the rest goes back into place.

As I'm no longer in the gaming world of things (the rise of the FPS and the decline of my health basically leave me out of gaming now) I am not into the spinning, twirling and always there aspects of the modern OS that have started to become standard features.  Basically my computer screen real estate is devoted to simple document creation and, therefore, I don't want many features to clutter it up.  Thus there are no widgets or small apps infesting my screen real estate.  There are no transparencies enabled for the 'ooooo! neat!' of getting blurred material from around material I need to concentrate on.  I do not mind simple warnings from the status bar, and the clock there in simple text is useful.  The taskbar is small and permanent, I don't need it sliding around and out of the way or doing other fun things.  In fact I turn off anything that tries to fade in menus or otherwise do neat animations with them as when I want a menu I want it now, not in 3 seconds and when I get what I want it is to go away now, not in 3 seconds. 

As I can get around my hard drive pretty easily I have two directories I added after reading an article in PC Magazine back in the 1980's.  One is download and the other is TEMP.  When I download things I don't want an OS created place that you can't easily get to because they have decided to hide it on you, but one directly off the main drive (or data drive if I have one) called download.  Similarly if I need to expand or unzip material, or work on items they get a sub-directory in TEMP.  Over 95% of all my user generated material resides in TEMP.  And if I have to back up anything then that directory gets a priority as it is, by and large, data that I've created.  A final directory I have started to create is Programs Contained which are programs that do not get registered in the registry, run as standalones, and really should have a nice place to be contained so I can find them.  The first time I get one of those, I create Programs Contained to hold them.

I have witnessed people with their computing screen real estate taken up by documents.  Sometimes there are so many of them that it is hard to figure out where the important system level icons are.  There is a way to clean that up and it is by use of a desktop folder.  The best way is to store those documents in TEMP, of course, so they NEVER appear on the screen interface which needs to be clean so as to make it easy to use and not prone to click errors.  Simple desktop folders and saving to them would solve most of the problems, as would creating such folders and dragging and dropping the icons into them: problem solved.  But having a simple TEMP directory means you don't even have the folders to clutter your computing desktop.  And since so many documents seem to come from one or two applications, opening the application will be something that will have to be done and then finding the document you want from its place on the TEMP directory is an easier task... made easier by applications that keep a Most Recently Used list of the last 5 or 10 items you have most recently generated.  Mankind invented folders and filing cabinets for a reason, and even though I enjoy a physically messy desk, my computer desktop can be kept neat via a bit of forethought that I never have to think about again.

A good keyboard is hard to find.  I use an old clicky style that should survive through Armageddon and still work on my main machine.  For other machines... there are keyboards that aren't bad on laptops... and there are keyboards that aren't all that good, either.  If I could get a custom clicky keyboard for laptops, I would, but I can't so I'm stuck with what the designers have put on those types of machines.  I can use a mouse, touchpad, arrow keys, joystick or trackball.  I prefer a trackball since it doesn't require much motion nor actual desk space.  Mushpads...errr... touchpads aren't bad but, like some keyboards, they aren't all that good, either.  If you get the idea I have a very modern monitor, old fashioned keyboard and out of step pointing device for my main desktop computer... you are absolutely correct.

If you get the idea that I don't have much on my desktop, you are right.  In general there are a few items of necessity that end up on the desktop and they include: My Computer or just a C: drive shortcut, browser icons, one spreadsheet I use constantly, a writer application, one calculator that can do a few math shortcuts, an alarm app, and a folder of Utilities.  Bluetooth puts a couple of shortcuts I can't move on the desktop, as well, so they stay there by default.  I used to use the Quick Launch area of the task bar a bit, but have found that it is more a short-short menu of items I use a bit less often.   That's it.  The rest is a pleasant blue with high contrast to it and the smallest icons I can use for the screen resolution.  The status bar is the equivalent of the computer items of interest and letting me know that the network is connected, battery or UPS system is OK, and a very few other things to let me know things are working well.  There are a total of 12 items there and if I got rid of the Bluetooth I could move that down to 10 items.

What I know is sacrilege to many is that I also don't listen to music much any more so there are no music apps, no background music and the speaker is muted at all times.  Anything that must get through from the OS can go through speaker for beeps, very simple. 

I also don't watch much video and it is usually short items from blog presentations and if I want it I will click on it.  And if it auto-runs, well, the speaker is muted... its almost like there was a plan, there.  I do have the free software tools to do all sorts of video but they sit on my main computer mostly unused with just enough skill to do some transcoding if I need to.

I don't need a weather app as I have this thing called a 'window' that I can look outside and see what is happening.  If I want more weather related information I can go to a website.  I don't need an app to tell me it is daytime or raining, I have that capability built into this thing called a 'house'.

I also have zero RSS feeds coming in.  Yes, zero.  None.  No one is saying anything important enough to cause me to want to subscribe to them and I don't need an app on my desktop for it.

I am also on zero social media sites.  Yes, zero.  Since I have no wall to deliver messages on, I don't have that to worry about.  No Facebook, no LinkedIn and no Twitter.  If you see someone using a hashtag related to me, its not me.  I do have a cellphone, I turned it on and made one call that was free to make sure it works.  I turned it off after that.  I turn it on periodically to check its charge.  It will probably go in my medical bugout bag.

In no way am I a Luddite, and I love computers and the capability they have with them.  They are, as with any firearm or any of the woodworking equipment I own, useful tools.  A well maintained computer should last you five years before something critical goes on it.  Often it will last much longer, but the Mean Time Between Failure has you on the decreasing half of continued function that is now below 50%.  Just like you can still find Edison bulbs from the 1900's dimly glowing here and there, the majority of them didn't make it this far and out of the thousands, tens of thousands, perhaps million or two of them produced you now have a few left and their MTBF still holds.  Like any tool it is best when it is suited to your purpose and requirements and does what you want it to do... not what some marketer decided would be a neat thing to put on your desktop.

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The Second Flight

Looks like things are getting shaken up in Republican Party Land!  It is like Candyland, save they are the ones bringing the Monopoly money over to get dibs on some of the best spots to land... the spots marked 'massive debt'.  It appears that the concept of Republican Party Establishment 'electability' that has gotten us such winners as McCain, Dole, and to a degree H.W. Bush is now taking it on the chin.  Getting to the headline thread at Hot Air sees that support in FL, where Romney has been campaigning for well nigh five years, has done a switcheroo after SC.  Remember now, Romney has saturated the airwaves, put out tons of robocalls (up to five a night in some households between the official campaign, the local campaign and the various PACs) and the man is now trailing... Newt Gingrich?  OK, it is alternate universe time as something is going on... and taking that to light here is what I wrote... given as is, barely getting breakfast finished and my first cup of coffee is STILL in front of me...

Now which alternate universe did I wake up in today?

Is it the one where a staunch fiscal conservative is ahead in the polls in primary? Hmmm… no… a couple of government tweakers and streamliners lead…

Is it the one in which a candidate is looking to rollback government power? Hmmmm…. no… just a couple of good managers for an authoritarian State, each with their own little cubbyholes and idosyncracies.

Is it the one in which a candidate will actually look at the Constitution word by word, sentence by sentence, clause by clause as it is written and then put that into place as the restricted and enumerated powers that the federal government is granted? Ooooo… nope… still not in that universe… yet…

Is it the one in which the base has gotten fed up with the elites and have decided that 2010 was only the beginning and a kamikaze mission is needed at the highest level to wake everyone up from their dreamland of thinking that getting rid of Obama is the ONLY thing that needs to happen? Hmmmm… you know… hmmmm… COD, Whitman… hmmmm… why yes! What happens when a political party decides to ignore the warning signs in a major interim election that was clearly telling it that it must support candidates who will STOP THE SPENDING? Why a kamikaze du jour to start the break-up of the establishment’s power in the party, to shatter its aura making of ‘electability’, to remove the final shreds of its credibility of being able to lead a National party that actually will PROTECT the Constitution and the Nation.

Yes, that appears to be the universe I woke up in this morning.

2010 redux, the second flights of the kamikaze attacks as the Republican leadership and its supporters have been bashed over the head with a simple cluebat of STOP THE SPENDING and haven’t listened. And this time the attack is only tangentially going after the officially approved-of candidate: the real target is the facade of power of the old Rockefeller Republican section of the party. Their new and improved, yet old and indifferent 5 year running candidate is suffering the merest blow-by of the attack… he is as unprepared as the establishment is for this kamikaze attack. Gingrich isn’t winning because of anything more than his willingness to fight and he is being fueled because his direction, his bombast and his rhetoric will hit right at the old establishment heart of the party. Mind you, that doesn’t mean he gets the nomination or the election, but he will serve his purpose.

The Republican party has had 2 Years to clean up its act.

It didn’t do that.

Is anyone surprised at these results?

ajacksonian on January 23, 2012 at 7:58 AM

Elections, as they say, have consequences.

I would expound a bit more on that, but I was more or less just enhancing the fact that Newt Gingrich's support isn't coming because of his POSITIONS nor because of his POLICY outlook.  Nope, not much difference between Romney and Gingrich, and blessed little between those two and Santorum... Ron Paul is in another reality all together, and if he wants to make an impact on the party during the nomination process, he should concentrate on the place he will get traction which is economic policy.

Newt Gingrich is the happy kamikaze, and we had a lot of those in 2010, and they weren't the most electable, the most stable, the most pure of candidates.  Some 'lost' races that an Establishment Republican might have 'won', but they would then be representative of a the Establishment, not the party base.  You can't win for losing that way, so you might as well send in an expendable candidate.  And the secret is that sometimes those expendables will win, which doesn't make them perfect or even good, but they do drive a message home and if they decide to flip on policy they will find the next kamikaze is coming at them.

That is this time around: the Second Flight of the Kamikaze Attacks Upon the Republican Party.

The Party had two whole years to mend its ways.

It didn't do so and didn't even try, what with the internal spending and extravagances that went on pretty much flying in the face of those who wanted money frugally spent.  Apparently there is a faulty receiver system in the Republican Party, and because I once sent money to that benighted organization I get calls to send them more money... and my original $25 was ill-spent... so I let them know my money is staying home and going to worthy candidates.  Not through an organization that skims off the top for fancy retreats and expensive dinners.  If they flew coach, stayed at a Red Roof Inn and ate at McDonald's and didn't go to the swanky bars and strip clubs, they might have gotten the clue or at least put on appearances of same.  It is STILL a big spending party on the Establishment side.  And their happy holiday retreat on the party member's money is now getting a high level kamikaze attack headed their way.

No I don't support any of these guys.

But someone needs to get the message driven home and Newt Gingrich is, at least, generally on target although he is coming from a quarter that doesn't really work, at least he has a clue as to what the target is.

Fuel him up, give him another ton of bombast to carry, and send him on his happy way.

The rest of us will concentrate on putting a Counterweight in place.

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Dissatisfied Republicans

Yup, yet another in the series of comments turned quickie blog posts.  And, yet again, from Hot Air on the 58% of Republicans dissatisfied with the current field of candidates.

I've been pointing out the mess the 2 party system has been since my first year of blogging.  It has only gotten worse.  Now I will drop a suggestion and rationale for it... and if you are a Republican and want to change things, I suggest that the top of the ticket or any running for federal office close to you are NOT the answer to the problem.  This is a symptom.

Now, on to my commentary, left intact with spelling and syntax errors for the amusement of the population.

= = =

What was that break-out I saw last night on BOR for political affiliation? D – 32, R – 27, I – 40.

Yes, Independents 40%.

Rewind to 2008 and it was something like 36/33/30, very close to being 1/3 each.

Today Independents have pulled 5% out of each of the 2 parties, pretty much equally.

What is fascinating about the trainwreck going on this year is that in four more years there will be problems having 2 parties as their affiliations in a few States where they have rigged very high registration numbers to BE on the ballot as a party will be threatened. Wherever you see I start to cross that 50% threshold and there is unequal party distribution, you will start to see 1 party States.

It isn’t surprising that 58% of R’s want more choices.

It is surprising that 42% are taking whatever is spoon-fed them by this horrific, archaic and biased towards the elite system.

This field was essentially set in NOV 2011 and there were very high levels of dissatisfaction then… not the majority, but that has GROWN since NOV 2011 – JAN 2012, where satisfaction was hovering much closer to the 50% mark. Another 2 months like that and the party may start to hollow-out, and while people will still want to vote Obama out, getting in will not be a mandate for anything WITHIN the party that nominated you. Thus the ‘winner’ will have a very first task of starting to address the major problems not just of the Nation (and they are massive) but of the actual party, itself. That means, yeah, those Tea Party people are still around and still dissatisfied with the R’s and if the elite don’t start to get out of the way or realize that they are on the line to extinction, one of the tottering parties will be the R party. The other will be the D party as those disgusted with Leftist/Liberal/Progressive ideas will walk from the party that only knows that and refuses to change when that ideology doesn’t work.

There is no satisfactory candidate in the wings, and a brokered convention will get you someone the SuperDelegates will be comfortable with (one of their own). So you don’t want a brokered convention because the system is catering to the elites who hold a swing block of votes if everything gets tied up… just like with the D’s last time around.

A movement by Republicans in the party at the lowest level to start petitioning their precincts and State machines to FIX THIS MESS OF A SYSTEM and neuter the RNC and other National organs will begin to address these problems and remove power from the top and start moving it down to the State bodies, thus making them important again. Do THAT and there is a REASON to start joining the party as you can make a difference once the elites can’t dictate from the top-down.

That is your choice as a Republican: keep taking the spoonfed elitist junk, or start the movement to reshape the party at the convention to something that must actually listen TO members and RESPOND TO THEM.

Stop bitching about what the process yields up.

Change the process.

ajacksonian on January 10, 2012 at 10:19 AM

= = =

I suggest you find your local Tea Party that is involved with trying to get into the State level apparatus through local precincts.

You want a better system?

Join with your fellow disaffected friends and make a better one.

That power is in your hands.

If you dare to use it.

And for those local precinct and ward leaders who can't figure this out, I suggest that you, as local members, apply the dictum: Fire Until Competence is Found.

It works, too.

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The three factions of the Republican Party today

I'm using my prior break-out of the factions within the Republican Party from back in 2008 to look at where things stand today with the candidates in the field.  I will be doing some re-posting of material from that and not going into the over-view of them within the current atmosphere of the pre-election cycle.

As they have broken out these three groups stand out, and they do have sub-groups within them but gain factional affiliation by their positions as sub-groups.

I)  First is the SecCons or Security Conservatives.  The strong position of the US to wage war in her defense was a vital concern during the Cold War and this faction was in ascendance then.  By putting military concerns first they were able to back a strong and final build-up against the USSR that covered decades and put the Soviet system which was always on the ropes down and out for the count.  These were the backers that won the equivalent of a World War without bringing on true nuclear conflict.  Their problems are in the realms of Fiscal, Social and Domestic policy outside of the military realm and with the draw-down from Iraq, the ongoing relatively low-level conflict against the Talibe in AFPAK and helping out a few other Nations in COIN (Philippines, Colombia, Kenya, Yemen) they are losing a strong position within the Republican Party.  While some of the candidates will support a continued level of military affairs, this faction has no backer who is first and foremost for the military.  Without the Soviets and with China now having its economy implode in bad debt, the lower threat of terrorism going nuclear is not one that pushes people to actively support the old style military structure.  The military, for its part, understands this and is adapting to the modern world, but it is a world with a lower need for capital intensive defense systems and without a large economic need the SecCons are being marginalized.

Part of the marginalization is the comfort to social moderates and liberals, plus a willingness to spend heaven and earth for the latest equipment.  Our times are no longer ones that allow for such extravagance and socially the pendulum that started swinging in the 1890's with Progressivism has, apparently, reached as far as it can go on the other end of the cycle.

II)  Second are the FiCons or Fiscal Conservatives.  This part of the Republican Party has been part and parcel of the 'Rockefeller Republican' brand for decades.  It is this section of the party that is now breaking up due to the Tea Party movement that hadn't even been thought of in 2008.  Today there are two branches within the FiCons and they are currently the ones on the internal battle-lines for the party, itself.  Thus I will go into a bit of detail here.

1) Rockefeller Republicans - These are the 'Establishment Republicans', the guys with the money and many of the reigns via the control of the party leadership and their influence has withstood the Reagan Revolution with its SoCon underpinnings.  These are generally seen as the Big Business supporters for earmarks, subsidies, tax breaks and so on via budgetary work in DC.  It is this segment that overwhelming benefits from the K Street lobbyists who use their outside money and revolving door connections to get inside influence on the federal budget.  This is mirrored in the Democratic Party, to be sure, but in the Republican Party when anyone spoke of 'fiscal conservative' between 1950 and 1980, it was this cohort that was being referenced.  Do note that they are FOR tax breaks but not FOR cutting the size of government, therefore any short-term gain in political advantage from tax breaks is off-set by further erosion of personal liberty of the individual due to larger and more officious government.  While it was this faction that called out the problem of SSA and M&Ms, they are also the ones most notable for being unable or unwilling to get these programs reduced or on a road to being abolished as fiscally unsound.  At least two of the current candidates come from this faction (Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich) or are affiliated with it via their business and political outlooks, and while they are (apparently) at odds with each other on the campaign trail, they are both unwilling to do any wholesale revision of the US government.  Abolishing programs still leaves the apparatus to regenerate them in place, thus removing 'welfare' has allowed for other programs to flourish where there was once that single program and done at higher cost and less accountability.  No one who believes that individual liberty is the basis for society, the Nation, government and the State would ever espouse 'mandates' for anything upon individuals in the name of fiscal conservatism.

2) Tea Party FiCons - The largest faction of the Tea Party is in this sub-group within the FiCons.  Unlike the older cohort, this cohort sees small business and smaller government as the course to go for fiscal conservatism.  The argument that government is doing things it was never designed nor meant to do and not doing those things well or efficiently for the citizenry and, in fact, is infringing on individual fiscal concerns is one that is a 'Fusion' concept, of which I will talk more about later.  Unlike the RR-FiCons, the TP-FiCons are building a fundamental ECONOMIC case for the power of personal liberty to guide the economy that is not a RR-FiCon one.  Where the RR-FiCons are inherently Hamiltonian or Progressive in their outlook, the TP-FiCons are inherently Jacksonian and Traditionalist in their positions.  The inherent nature of an economy being made up of individual transactions at the lowest level seeking the most efficient means to enable such transactions and then allowing for a larger emergent phenomena  to take root based on those transactions is one that is immediately identifiable to TP-FiCons: it is not just Hayek but the nature of human liberty and its source that argues for this and argues against the intermediation of government in any meaningful positive (that is to say in the realm of positive liberty) way and only that it needs to exercise its negative powers granted by the people to safeguard the economy from aberrant actors who will not play by the set of rules for economic exchanges.  Government cannot make such low level decisions without huge negative impact on the overall economy and, no matter what other 'good' is generated, the lost value of human liberty to fully flourish is something that impoverishes rich and poor alike and makes it harder for the poor to advance.  This sub-group is aiming to remove the Establishment RR-FiCon death grip on the party via campaign donations: members directly donate to individuals running for office, not to the party.  This has only been going on, in a real sense, for less than 2 years and due to the economic times we are in and the failure of government to adapt to them (indeed it continues being the problem to the Nation, economically) the more the TP-FiCons will shift the RR-FiCons out of control of the party funds and the party system.

III) Social Conservatives -  In the prior work I broke this category up into the Christian Conservatives and the Traditionalist Conservatives, each with their own outlook on society and the role of government and the church in people's lives.  While not at logger-heads, they have not always marched to the same tune and it was only for a few short years under Ronald Reagan that both sub-groups had time together in-step and in-formation.  Today these two sub-groups are now getting a new blend via a third group made up of parts of each of them and the TP-FiCons: the Fusionists.

1) Christian Conservatives - Here the prior break-out of religious observation and moral law guidance that was the bastion of the Christian Conservatives is now finding that it can make an economic case, as well, which is uncharted waters for many Christian Conservatives.  Moral Law guidance is, itself, only secondarily economic and primarily about the duty of man to god and society to make both moral so as to get good government.  Thus, until the last 2-3 years, the idea that government could be used to promote a moral 'good' was an idea taken up by some candidates (Mike Huckabee in 2008, Newt Gingrich in this go around).  Yet this is fundamentally against moral teachings as government is the last, least and worst place to receive any moral teachings.  Anything that gets between you and God should be disdained, and yet the Progressive Era had slowly shifted Christian Conservative SoCons into this idea that government is the last refuge for the poor and needy to go... not to the actual people who make up the Nation as caring for the poor and needy is a directive to individuals, not to States nor Nations.  The idea that government can tell you when you can work, how long you can work, if you are worthy of 'retirement' benefits, and on and on have been a slow and steady erosion of the moral fiber of the Nation by assaulting the moral fiber of individuals inside and, increasingly, outside the realm of religiously observant Americans.  The moral line in the sand against abortion was the first sign that this erosion had gone too far, but that Christian Conservatives could only do this small portion of the work of protecting society and could not grasp the larger threat to the entire society on a moral basis that government was pushing.  The awakening of Christian Conservatives to the much, much deeper teaching of our rights being vested in us took over three decades to finally filter into this sub-group of SoCons, and the re-identification of not just Life but Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness being prime movers granted by God is now spreading amongst the Christian Conservative SoCons who used to just stick to their faction knitting but now find a way to express a much deeper moral and religious belief for society via economics.  Being conservative it is a slow to move group, but once in motion little will stop it, and if the line in the sand is but a starting line for repeal of the Progressive Era, then it will be the individual who couple God, Faith, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness as a continuous whole that will be the major part of the Fusionist sub-group.

2) Traditional Conservatives - These are the followers of Federalism, a society that treats its fellow citizens with respect, the builders of hearth and home (not just those who purchase one) and while religious to a large extent, it is the religion of conviction at home by the fireside with one's children and the role of man to build a good society for not just himself but for his fellow man, as well, as a great good and duty of man.  While this is the quietest faction of the SoCons they have been a part of the party since Lincoln, and have always understood respecting government but questioning its extent and growth.  For Traditionalists there is always an economic point to be made and it is centered on the family check book and how one spends money for oneself.  These are the individuals who uphold thrift, of neither a borrow nor lender be, paying back one's debts not just promptly but ending them as soon as possible, and for supporting the notion that a man cannot be free if he is in debt to any other man or institution via his finances.  This sub-group may be the first to fully Fuse with the TP FiCons as there are direct parallels (indeed very deep parallels) between household accounting and government accounting, and that if you owe someone then you are in their power due to your debt.  The case that man who is in debt is living on borrowed time and that his works are prone to failure and collapse (no matter if they last) is one that is understood deeply within the Traditionalist Community.   It is this community that is closest to the old Democratic Jacsksonian community (that left the Democrats in the late 1960's) and the amount of cross-over between the old trail blazers (Jacksonians) and the old first settlers (Traditionalists) have always made them able to get along on a social level.

IV) Fusionist Conservatives - Fiscal Conservatism has deep roots in not only societal good but the teachings from the Judeo-Christian heritage about duty to God and one's fellow man.  Unlike libertarians the Fusionists recognize that not all of man's liberties and rights are positive, as Nature gives us both equally (although not in equal amounts), so that the necessity of society to generate organs to watch over and stop the exercise of negative liberties and rights within society requires government.  Man is not wholly good nor evil, but has positive and negative rights and liberties which we can bias via moral teachings to curb the negative rights and liberties and enshrine the positive ones worthy of protection.  Government is to recognize that these positive liberties and rights are to be protected, not infringed upon, and the case for this comes not from legal proceedings but from moral teachings, upholding society, and holding government accountable for the negative powers we grant it to safeguard society and the individual.  This is a deeply libertarian approach, yes, but it is not made by modern libertarian channels but through ones of religious observance, religious teachings and understanding man's duty to God and his fellow man.  Fusionist Conservatism is, at once, deeply conservative and extremely expansive in this day and age as it is the naturally recognized antidote to tyrannical or despotic government.  When Barack Obama chided the people of Pennsylvania as grasping on to their guns, god and bible, he was mocking the very basis of what is the enemy of Progressivism and Socialism in all its forms.  These three, together, give the basis for personal liberty (guns), the originator of our liberty (God) and the written moral teachings of God (the Holy Bible) all in one swoop.  Throw in Gold and you have the result of protected personal liberty able to prosper with obedience to God and upholding moral teachings.  Gold is a result of these things, not a cause of them, and it is garnered through liberty ONLY.  Unwittingly Barack Obama named the Fusionist Awakening in these concepts and knows not the history of a debauched, debased and decadent society that adheres as leeches to government is dissolved by a devout people willing to undergo martyrdom for eternal salvation.  One laughs at these things at their peril, and in speaking of them the seeds that were already planted over decades were given final fertilizer and water to grow again.

At the rate of change for the Republican Party and Conservatism as a whole, the next decade is one that will be fraught with danger and great promise.

Government will need to climb down from its Himalayan Mountain Range of debt.  It can be tossed off, with great social turmoil, or it can climb down by jettisoning the infringement of positive liberties and rights in the way of retirement, medical aid and the million and one other things done in the name of 'good' from environment to energy to agriculture to 'the humanities' to education, either via slow phase-out or wholesale cut-off.  Government so large, so officious and, at the same time, so incompetent creates a Law of Rules in which any person is probably in violation of some rule or regulation at any given moment in the day.  The Rule of Law is simple and easy to understand laws that are clearly defined and enforced without favor nor fervor, while the Law of Rules is all about favoritism and payoffs.  To do this requires and understanding of our fellow citizens that we, as man, have been living over the margin and near the edge of the abyss waiting for one ill moment to topple us into despotism or worse.  To get back from that edge the argument that our personal liberties, rights and freedom are our own salvation in this life and the next, and that passing them off to others (which is so very easy) means that we, as individuals, become cold and cruel to our fellow man because we refuse to recognize his circumstances and help him out of them.  Government cannot do that, indeed it MUST NOT do that as that is not its place as a part of society.  It is just an organ of society, and one that processes the identified problems and waste material and gets rid of them... which is not the brain, in case this has been missed.  No better argument for chasing appetites to constipation of debt can be rendered than is shown by our current government which has been eating so much in the way of the positive it can no longer accomplish its duties to us, as citizens, via its negative powers and responsibilities.

This is a hard argument to make as the Deadly Sin of Sloth is one that guides this age as no other.  Yet the problems of our fellow man are not for someone else to attend to, but for us, as individuals, to ameliorate.  One cannot sit back and let others take care of things, because becoming glued to one's sofa soon means that you can no longer remember how to move from it and become the very sort of problem you were unwilling to deal with in the first place.  The heart of charity is not taxation, which is the negative liberty of theft who's power we lend for government in a limited area of commerce, but in the heart of man who is willing to give time, effort, though, a helping hand and last and least is cash to his fellow man to create a better society.  To get a more cohesive society (albeit with stark and fun differences for that is the essence of liberty on the positive side) we cannot entrust government as a caretaker or the builder of a safety net as it is not only prone to corruption but inefficient and will seek to grant favor to the few via funds that are not available, so as to expand power over the many.  Government granted positive outlook is tyrannical at its core because it can couple the whip with the reward and break man to it.  To stop that require accountability on the fiscal side, first, so as to get rid of the unnecessary appendages of government that threaten liberty in the first place.  When there is no safety net, no tax breaks, no subsidies, we are then left to our own devices to find a good way to live without the costly help of tyranny.

The current field of candidates reflects those trying to grasp on to the old, and dying, those trying to muddle through and a few trying to chart a path to a better future with smaller government and enhanced liberty for man.

Four years will not alter the fundamentals changing America.  We may crash off the mountains into debt, but that is not oblivion as we then get to the end state in a few days, and with next to no government, to boot.

The trends cannot be changed.

What can be altered is the outlook of individual to embrace what is coming and help soften it and explain it, so that we can get to a better place as a society and a nation.

If you dare to, that is.

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The End in Iraq

My thanks to the men and women who have served our Nation in Iraq.

I send my deepest condolences and sympathies to the families and friends of the fallen.

I thank you all deeply for your sacrifice for our republic.

Victory has been hard won, now may others seek to win the peace.

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