By Mande Wilkes || “Everything old is new again.”

Espousing principles that are at once classic and contemporary, Ron Paul is revolutionizing Americana by reminding us both of democracy’s power and its limits. Indeed, Paul’s political legacy will be as much about his victories as his ultimate defeat – and make no mistake, he will lose the presidential nomination. And when he does, and when then America elects as president another tepidly-minded politician, Paul’s message will linger and reverberate: Contain the beast, or it will contain us.

That’s why I’m thrilled to vote Ron Paul for president.

Mande Wilkes
Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Who are you voting for? And why? Submit your 250-300 word letter by clicking here …

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Dear Editor,

I’m voting for Ron Paul because our government has gotten so out of control that a status quo administration does not have the ability or fortitude to reign it in. I see Ron Paul as a non partisan candidate in that he can drum support from both/all parties and most importantly, the American people. His dedication to the Constitution is proven and the farther away we get from our Constitution the farther down the tubes this country goes.

Ron Paul believes in a strong national defense. It is reported he wants to weaken the military, but his plan would actually strengthen it from a defense perspective. This is in line with the Constitution. The military should be used to defend our country rather than for offensive tours and aggression. If we were to be attacked now with our military spread so thin and the $1Trillion cut in military spending, we would be ill prepared to defend our nation.

Ron Paul is also the only top-tier GOP candidate left in the running who can beat Obama. He will get lots of independent and crossover votes that the other candidates (with the exception of Huntsman who is not even on the ballot in all states and is not top tier) cannot get. 2,300 people in NH wrote in Ron Paul in the democrat primary. If the GOP would get behind Paul, he’d win the general in a landslide election. That is to say if the RNC doesn’t screw up his campaign. Romney cannot beat Obama. Independents don’t support him and he will receive no crossover votes. A majority of republicans don’t even like him.

Romney has the same financial backers as Obama. Paul’s primary backers are soldiers and civilians – individuals – Americans who want to see this country great again and for patriotism to be restored in the hearts of all Americans.

It is reported Paul wants to legalize drugs but I believe that is a misunderstanding. He simply doesn’t see drug enforcement as a function of the federal government but rather states and local governments.

I support Ron Paul because I believe in states’ rights. And I believe a Ron Paul administration will once again make representatives accountable to the people that elect them.

I have so much more I can’t get it all in in 350 words or less.

Thank you,

Martie Streit
Lexington, S.C.

Who are you voting for? And why? Submit your 250-300 word letter by clicking here …

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Dear Editor,

I’m voting for Ron Paul in the South Carolina primary because he represents a current within the Republican Party and the Right in general in the United States that has largely been forgotten or misrepresented.  Many Americans have short memories and too often suffer from the “arrogance of modernity,” failing to fully question how it is that we got from where we were in history to where we are today, and consider whether we could have done better.  Many in the Republican Party who call themselves “conservatives” are really unwitting defenders of an earlier version of liberalism (circa the 1960s/Cold War era) from the current, even crazier “politically correct” liberalism that first struck its present hegemonic stride in the 90s.  Ron Paul’s candidacy reminds us of our fundamental roots on the Right, and raises issues that the elites would rather keep silent.  Slick establishment commentators often accuse Ron Paul of “blaming America first,” but they miss a key distinction: it is not “America” that is to blame for certain failed policies (overseas or at home)—it is the government in Washington, DC that is entirely blameworthy.  And that regime is the furthest thing from “American” that one can get.  Ultimately, Ron Paul’s candidacy holds a mirror up to the nation and invites us to partake of two important lessons: 1) to learn who it is that really holds power in a society, ask who it is that you’re not allowed to criticize, and 2) to discover which candidates for office represent true, positive change, look at which ones the media howls and shrieks about the loudest.

Thanks,

Paul Fallavollita
Former Precinct Captain for the Bachmann for President Campaign
Greenville, South Carolina

Who are you voting for? And why? Submit your 250-300 word letter by clicking here …

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… in a political climate in which buzz words like “hope,” and “change” are so casually tossed around as to be meaningless, Congressman Paul offers our nation the only hope for real change. Our nation is mired in three foreign wars that Dr. Paul warned against, remains in the midst of an economic collapse that Dr. Paul predicted, and our liberties are continuously being eroded by an enlarging security apparatus that Dr. Paul opposed. The ever expanding welfare/warfare state that Dr. Paul has consistently opposed and that mainstream politicians in both major political parties have enlarged now faces a debt crisis that can only be corrected by returning federal government to its constitutionally defined roles. These are the key issues of the 2012 campaign and no candidate in either party offers credible (or even fantastical) solutions to address them other than Ron Paul. While Rome burns, the Neros in both political parties are fiddling away with their tired and empty rhetoric about what tax rates should be and who should pay them and completely ignore the root causes of our current predicament. If the United States is to emerge from our current woes as a stronger and more prosperous nation, the status quo must be rejected and the only candidate challenging the status quo is Congressman Ron Paul.

Sincerely,

James Bernheimer
Baltimore, Maryland

Who are you voting for? And why? Submit your 250-300 word letter by clicking here …

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U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) wants an audit of the gold in Fort Knox – assuming there’s any in there.

Paul – a 2012 presidential candidate and chairman of a House subcommittee on domestic monetary policy – wants to know whether the gold contained in the U.S. Bullion Depository is real. To find out, he’s requiring testimony from officials at the Treasury Department regarding the authenticity of the gold – and demanding that the purity of the 700,000 bars examined as well.

According to the U.S. Mint, 147.3 million ounces of gold is stored in the famous government vault – which is a “classified facility” that is not open to the public. In fact, a spokesman at the Mint told CNBC that no member of Congress has even toured the facility in nearly four decades.

Nonetheless, Treasury officials have assured Paul that they have “personally observed the gold reserves located in each of the deep storage compartments.”

“The only gold removed has been very small quantities used to test the purity of gold during regularly scheduled audits,” the U.S. Mint says on its website. “Except for these samples, no gold has been transferred to or from the Depository for many years.”

Internet conspiracy theorists disagree – and the government is fanning the flames by refusing to allow members of the media to film the gold. They’re also attempting to scare off an audit by claiming that it would take 400 people six months to inspect each one of the gold bars – costing taxpayers $15 million.

Hmmmm …

Paul has repeatedly called for a return to the gold standard – which U.S. President Richard Nixon abandoned in 1971. He’s also called for the government to sell its gold reserves and rebate the money to taxpayers.

“(Gold) has to be in the hands of the people,” Paul said recently. “We should legalize its use as legal tender. Government doesn’t have to hold it. If an individual gets into trouble they might sell their stocks, their CDs, their assets to pay their bills. Why can’t a country do that?”

While not as famous as Fort Knox, the Federal Reserve’s underground vault in Manhattan holds 160.8 million ounces of gold – although some of that massive stockpile is held in trust for other countries, banks and international organizations. The Manhattan depository was the subject of the 1995 action film Die Hard With A Vengeance.

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In commenting on the latest economic output numbers for the Palmetto state, Clemson University economist Bruce Yandle (above) offered his thoughts on what South Carolina leaders can do to make our state more competitive.

While Yandle didn’t specifically embrace any of the tax, spending, academic or structural reforms that this website has been pushing (for years), he did offer a generically-useful 30,000-foot critique on how all the new state spending we’ve seen hasn’t improved government’s ability to perform its most basic functions.

In discussing our state’s exceedingly high violent crime rate and elevated number of highway fatalities, Yandle suggests that “state government should assign a high priority to fulfilling the basic purpose of government, which is to protect life and property.”

Of course such a common sense pronouncement is anathema to our state’s “Republican” leaders.

While they blow hundreds of millions of dollars on unnecessary pork, these glad-handers force our state’s cops and judges to come crawling on their hands and knees for the money that they need to perform core government functions. Meanwhile, they invariably attempt to tie any funding increases for cops and judges with higher fees and fines on South Carolina taxpayers.

“Going beyond protecting life and property, governments are organized to provide infrastructure and capital improvements that are often beyond the ability of private parties to undertake,” Yandle adds – citing highways and harbors.

Once again … you don’t have to look any further than our state’s refusal to accept private dollars to help expand the Port of Charleston and build a port in Jasper county to see that we’ve dropped the ball on this count, too.

“Before taking on new activities, government should first take care of the basics,” Yandle concludes.

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves …

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U.S. taxpayers have spent more than $3.6 million over the last decade getting monkeys high on PCP, meth, cocaine, heroin and other drugs, according to CNS News.

Conducted at the University of Minnesota, this “study” was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In addition to observing the monkeys’ responses to these different drugs, researchers also examined how drug use impacted the menstrual cycle of female primates.

Hmmmm …

First funded in 2001, the program received its latest grant for $386,907 in March of this year.

“Four rhesus monkeys were trained to smoke cocaine-base under a progressive ratio (PR) schedule with ten smoking trials available each day,” researchers wrote in one report. “Subjects quickly learned to suck or inhale on the smoking tube.”

So … the next time you see an example of unnecessary government and say to yourself “they might as well be spending our money on teaching monkeys how to smoke crack,” don’t worry … they are.

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Meet Logan.

He and his family are from the island of Lamotrek in the outer islands of Yap State, Micronesia. Logan is a Habele scholarship winner who needs your support.

With a population of just 350, Lamotrek is located 600 miles away from the state capital of Yap Proper – home to over 6,000 people. Yap Proper is the center of economic, social and political activity in the state.

Logan’s family has sent him to Yap proper and he is attending the Yap SDA school. It’s ranked as one of the highest performing schools in the nation by the Micronesian Department of Education. Of course he would not be there today –and might not be able to enroll next year- without your support.

Logan is one of twenty 2010-11 Habele K-12 students who are reapplying for scholarships this coming school year. There are many new applicants as well from all across Micronesia. Logan’s parents have chosen the SDA School – and are seeking Habele’s support – because absent this assistance Logan’s educational prospects are dim. In fact, half of Micronesians over the age of 25 have not completed high school.

Habele hopes to issue twenty two scholarships this year, at an average of $390.00 each. That works out to almost 75% of the average tuition and fees charged to parents at the six private schools Habele students attend. That will require a total of $10,780. At this point, we are a third of the way toward reaching this ambitious goal.

In other words, we still need your help to keep Logan, along with Mavrick, Bradley, Jody, Glimmer, Nice, Aquinas, Marciana, Shelia, Maia, Myla, Joey, Orpha, Parky, Simon, Virginia, Deniaane, Annaliza, Ronal, Shania and Abraham enrolled in their schools.

Raising $6,691 in two months (we write scholarship checks the first week of August) doesn’t sound difficult. And for many charities it wouldn’t be. But Habele is a small, all-volunteer organization serving minority students in a part of the world that most people can’t even locate on a map.

You can help these children. Please make a donation to Habele right now. Habele’s postal address and Paypal link are on the right hand sidebar of the Fund’s website.

We also need your help in finding others who will support our work. Let your friends and family know about the students that Habele by sending them a link to our website.

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By Will Folks || I’m writing this post in the first person because I wanted to correctly apply a quote from Gone With The Wind.

Specifically, “I don’t know nothin’ bout birthin’ no babies.”

Well … not much. I’ve seen it happen, obviously, but that’s about it. Oh … and I clearly know how the process commences.

Anyway, if I wanted to enroll my kids in the Dry Creek School District in Roseville, California, I’d better brush up on my baby-birthin’ knowledge. Specifically, I’d need to know their date of birth, any chronic medical conditions they may have had and whether they had a vaginal or C-section birth.

Wait … what? A vaginal or C-section birth? Why the hell does the school district need to know that? Oh, and get this … if one of my kids was delivered via C-section, the school district wants to know why my wife and I opted for that procedure.

Sheesh …

According to the latest government figures, one out of every three live births in America is a C-section birth – up from one out of every five live births fifteen years ago. In fact, C-sections are now the most commonly-performed surgery in America.

Is that bad or good? I don’t really know – and I don’t have a vagina so I don’t really care.

Generally, it’s considered unwise to deliver your baby via a C-section if you don’t need to do so (given the additional health risks to the mother), but I’m not about to open up that can of worms … and if a woman chooses to have a C-section birth, that’s her decision.

Whatever she decides, though, it’s absolutely ridiculous – to say nothing of invasive – for a public school to demand that she (or her husband) cough up that information on a school enrollment form.

Of course this is modern-day America – where the government thinks it has the right to trample over our privacy and our civil liberties in any way it chooses.

That’s too bad …

Incidentally, the school district in question has failed to respond to numerous inquiries from parents – and media outlets – regarding the rationale for its invasive line of questioning.

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We were minding our business Monday night when one of our good friends from Charleston, S.C. forwarded us a YouTube clip starring one of her good friends …

Now? We’re far too distracted to work … and consumed by a sudden urge to … hula hoop?

The video in question (above) stars Lowcountry model/ artist/ photographer/ chef/ shot maven Abigail Marie, a renaissance woman if we’ve ever seen one.

Seriously … it’s like somebody put Andy Warhol’s brain in Lindsay Lohan’s body … albeit replacing Warhol’s celebrated celibacy with Lohan’s irrepressible bi-curiosity (a good trade in our book).

“My clients range from giant corporations to local businesses and individuals,” Abi notes on her website. “Every photography session is distinct; everyone expects and deserves something personal and unique.”

That diversity is reflected in her work. A trip through Abi’s journal includes stunning self-portraits, sports apparel shoots, rock concerts and yes … wet T-shirt contests.

It also includes recipes for other things our founding editor is not allowed to touch …

“Portraiture is my favorite genre of photography but I also enjoy shooting black and white images of the world around me,” she adds. “My work is my art and my passion for it drives me to continuously improve and grow as an artist.”

Passion … growing … we’re feeling you, girl. We’re feeling you …

(Click to enlarge)

Pics: Non Pareil Photography

UPDATE: Want more Abi? Visit her official site by clicking here …

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