How Critical is AZ-CD-8?

On January 8, 2011, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, former (D-AZ) reporesentative of Congressional District 8, was shot by a left-wing extremist. Though MSNBC and CNN originally tried to paint the shooter as a TEA Party member, his ideology was quickly revealed as formulated by left-wing writings to include Marx, Hitler, and Marcuse. In his schooling, he was a devotee of H. Zinn, who is known to write history "text books" with a decisive left-wing and anti-American slant.

Though a Democrat who supported many left-wing ideas and agenda to include Obamacare, Giffords also held to some core tenets such as Second Amendment rights. In those aspects, she is a typical Arizonan, and rather "moderate" on the current national scale of most members of the Democratic Party.

In Arizona Congressional District 8 (AZ-CD-8) campaigns, grassroots organizations, and voters are scrambling to conduct the special election to fill the seat left vacant by Giffords, who retired in order to concentrate on her long, brave recovery. The primaries for the election are past complete. The general election is just weeks away.

Since the major party candidates were announced, Jesse Kelly, the Republican nominee, requested three debates with the Democratic candidate, Ron Barber. Two debates were agreed upon, with issues limited to only those Mr. Barber would agree upon. The first debate was on the May 17 with the second scheduled on the 23rd. The winner of the debate on the 17th is held in high contention. Those who agree that the government has the obligation to confiscate more funds from hard-working, down-to-earth Arizonans and Americans in order to divide those funds among those not working favored Barber, stating his arguments were solid. Those who support Locke's ideals of individual, natural rights of life, liberty and property and the idea that one should keep what one earns to dispense with as he or she desires stated Jesse Kelly won hands down. In the topics debated, the reality is that the debate demonstrated a clear partisan division between the beliefs of our nation's forefathers and those of the "progressive" socialist left.

Despite Arizona's historically libertarian base of individual liberties, responsibilities, and merits, there is a growing segment within the population that seeks to create small cabals of divisive, collectivist activism. Though that statement may seem self-contradictory, it isn't. The idea  is to collect, group, and brand different segments of the population based upon "needs" that each group is assigned as a "special interest". Then the next step is to lobby on behalf of  special rules, protections, laws, tax breaks, and treatments for these groups. A look of Barber's campaign site is indicative of this divisive ideology with attempts to appeal to these cookie-cutter groups and their "unique" issues. He, of course, wishes to fight for the special medical rights of women. He thinks that it is perfectly fine to take money from a hard-working single man and give that hard-earned pay to groups like Planned Parenthood. Last I checked, strong, independent women didn't need the nanny-state to give them any special treatment. The last I checked, women's liberation was about being equal to men, not gaining special favors because of their gender. So, Barber's stance, when deconstructed, is actually an affront to women, claiming they are unable to make it on their own without the government stealing from the pockets of others to take care of them. There is a word for that type of thought in Webster's Dictionary:  Hypocrisy.

In these divisive, collectivist, socialist ideals, Ron Barber joins the ranks of other socialists. US Congressman from Arizona's Yuma district, Raul Grijalva is a former member of the racist group MEChA and community organizer for the Mexican Supremacist group, La Raza. In addition, there are several yet unproven allegations that Grijalva has connections to drug cartels and human traffickers. Running for the congressional seat in AZ-CD-9 is Kyrsten Sinema. Sinema is another stauch supporter of the oppressive PPACA (Obamacare) legislation. Her associations include members of several left-wing extremists to include Lynne Stewart. Sinema is even attributed to having made statements advocating violence and property destruction as part of socialist protests, stating that it would be foolish to even suggest to the groups not to entertain urging against such actions.

Now Barber's real number one selling point is that he once worked as a senior staffer for Gabrielle Giffords. He is using that point to campaign mostly on the platform that he is her best replacement. He would be if we really wanted more of the same socialism stealing our individual liberties as Obamacare and the tyrannic regulations of the EPA dictating how we live our lives while stealing our livelihoods.

For those unaware, when "Cap and Trade" failed on the congressional floor, the EPA stepped in and started creating its own laws, without legislation, under the guise of regulations and executive orders. For examples, you need look no farther than the attempt to force people to replace incandescent light bulbs with the more toxic "low-watt" fluorescent alternatives. They didn't do this by making it illegal to purchase these bulbs, but by making it against EPA regulations to manufacture or sell them after a certain date. Luckily, the EPA mandate was shot down as unconstitutional. Another example was the EPA's attempt to restrict farming and ranching due to "farm dust" and livestock's methane emissions (from intestinal gas, otherwise known as flatulence). Considering the number of ranches, vineyards, and orchards in Southern Arizona, these regulations and executive orders would further cripple the state's economy.

Ron Barber supports "Cap and Trade". He also supports increasing special subsidies and grants to renewable energy projects such as the failed Solyndra company or the Cococino County wind farms. These projects are throwing good money after bad in an attempt to use technology that is inefficient and incapable of meeting the required energy needs of Arizona and CD 8.

Jesse Kelly supports tax breaks for oil, coal, and natural gas production. While these seem to be "special interest" breaks, they are not. Oil, coal, and natural gas production already face special industry taxes and regulatory fees that so-called "green energy" projects do not have applied to them. In addition, those "green energy" projects not only get stimulus funding and other government subsidies, they receive special tax breaks and incentives. Those incentives and subsidies are intended to keep the prices artificially lower that the laws of supply and demand, production costs and overhead, and basic economics dictate in a free-market environment. The taxes and fees imposed upon coal, oil, and natural gas are intended  to restrict free-market trade and artificially decrease the gap in supply costs (and pricing due to the laws of supply and demand). It is a form of fascism. Ron Barber support the fascism while Jesse Kelly supports energy production to be closer to free-market capitalism.

One item of note is that the government makes more on taxes and levies, per gallon of gasoline, than the oil companies do. Oil companies make approximately 5 cents on every gallon in profit, while taxes and levies imposed by the federal government alone, throughout the stages of production, takes 68 cents on the gallon.

The estimated costs, per household, for the Cap and Trade legislation and un-legislated executive orders and regulation imposed by the EPA for Arizonans are about $1000 a year. That doesn't seem like much unless you are a household consisting of two retired, disabled war veterans. You average SSDI monthly handout is $1100. So, this proposal will take away a month's worth of handouts to one of those special collectives that Barber claims to support for acquiring special rights. Again, a word from the dictionary applies:  Hypocrisy.

Another cost, in days when workforce participation is shrinking towards an all-time low and unemployment remains above 8% on the misleading U3 scale (closer to 16% on the more accurate U6 scale), is 40,000 jobs for Arizonans. While this number may seem insignificant to over-populated metropolises such as New York City, Chicago, or Los Angeles, the numbers are huge considering  CD-8 is a largely rural area.