His name is Lance Baxter, better known as the "Geico: fifteen minutes can save you 15% or more on car insurance" guy.  Well, he was.  Unfortunately, Lance drank the Keith Olbermann Kool-Aid a few too many times and decided to call and leave a disgusting message on the answering machine of FreedomWorks - an organization involved in the tea party movement.  His message entailed much of the nonsense heard nightly during primetime on MSNBC: that tea partiers are "mentally retarded" and prone to violence.  But then Baxter did something incredibly ignorant.  So ignorant in fact, you could say that even a caveman wouldn't do it: he left his name and phone number in the message.

FreedomWorks got his message out to millions of Americans - many of whom might have been in the market for car insurance - and the company very quickly cut ties with the leftist Baxter.

I don't feel any sense of jubilation over the fact that Mr. Baxter lost his job.  Indeed, given what our current leadership has done to our economy, rejoicing in someone being fired is particularly cruel.  But this event does give more validation to the increasingly obvious reality that the tea party message of free markets, low taxes, smaller government, and fiscal responsibility is a runaway freight train that the impotent left is powerless to stop.  They have used their timeless tactics: they have misled, they have deceived, they have smeared, slandered and demonized...and they've come up woefully short.

As Baxter demonstrates, in the end they are the ones who end up looking like radical nuts.  It reminds me of a quote I shared with a crowd of a few hundred at a tea party event in Huntington, Indiana.  Mahatma Gandhi once said of dealing with ideological enemies, "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

Could these words be any more accurate in describing the left's assault on tea party patriots?  When this movement started just one year ago, it was like pulling teeth to get anyone in the media to pay any attention.  The same liberal broadcast journalists who found it newsworthy when twelve anti-war activists joined Cindy Sheehan outside George W. Bush's ranch in Texas had no interest in covering gatherings of thousands of American citizens frustrated with their irresponsible government.  But despite being ignored, the movement continued to grow.

In response, the left kicked it into full mockery mode.  Nancy Pelosi derided the movement as being "Astroturf" - a concoction of the Republican Party meant to distract people from her and Obama's serious work.  And just like the obedient lapdogs they are, the complicit mainstream media picked up the meme and ran with it, poking fun at all the freaks wearing their Paul Revere outfits in public.  Yet despite being laughed at, the movement continued to grow.

And now, having utterly failed to derail the tea party message, the left has declared an all-out war on the tea partiers themselves.  They have attacked them as racist, bigoted, homophobic and violent radicals, hoping their smears will stick and people will shy away from joining such a vile movement.  But the sheer stupidity of their claims is so blatantly obvious that their attacks are backfiring.

While unhinged liberal Bill Maher calls the events "Klan rallies," and members of the Black Congressional Caucus claim they were called racist names by the protestors, not one has been able to produce a single piece of video or audio to support their outrageous accusations...this despite a $100,000 prize offered by Andrew Breitbart to anyone who can.

While Bill Clinton warns that the anti-government sentiment of these events (it's not anti-government by the way, it's anti-irresponsible big government) might turn violent, the only demonstrable hostility to take place was when liberal union thugs beat up a black tea partier named Kenneth Gladney at a St. Louis town hall meeting.

While Rachel Maddow, who uses her pseudo-intellectualism to mask her slander, cautions that the tea parties will soon produce the next Tim McVeigh, mainstream press like the Christian Science Monitor are forced to admit that these events are so peaceful that police around the country are relaxing their security and protocol for such public protests.

And while Keith Olbermann compares the movement to the Selma violence of the civil rights era, the fact remains that after nearly 10,000 tea parties in over a year, few if any arrests have been made.

So take heart, tea partiers: they have ignored you, they have laughed at you, they are now fighting you.  And in November, you win.

Sometimes one word can make a world of difference.  And though admittedly it's probably an oversimplification, much of my angst and frustration with the current direction of our leadership in Washington, D.C. comes down to one simple word.

There is absolutely no doubt in listening to the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama that they firmly believe in an unalienable right of happiness for every individual.  In other words, if government is not ensuring that every individual American gets what they want (or even what they feel they need), then that government is failing its true purpose as outlined in our glorious charter, the Declaration of Independence. 

That's why they battle for a "living wage" - a government forced wage that all businesses must pay their employees so they can live "comfortably."  It's why they felt obligated to cram through stage-one in the march to government run healthcare despite the overwhelming opposition of the American people.  And it's why they are now pursuing a federal government mandate forbidding all airline companies from charging us for carry-on bags.  They believe they are meant to ensure our happiness...and surely paying extra for a carry-on, making less than $15 an hour, or having to provide for our own health insurance doesn't make us happy, they reason.

The problem with this is that our Founders never said we were to be guaranteed happiness by our government.  Rather, the Declaration states explicitly that the government was to protect our right to pursue happiness.  That one word forges a monumental canyon between the goals and purposes of our modern statist leadership, and the intent of the architects of our Republic.

Our Founders wisely understood that even if they wanted to, there was simply no way that any government could guarantee happiness to all its citizens.  Why?  Because people are too different and unique.  What makes me happy might not be - and probably isn't - what would make you happy.  How then could any government possibly create a one-size fits all model that would not only pacify the masses, but bring them to the point of total pleasure and contentment?  It couldn't.

And so instead, they did something ingenious.  They decided to use government as an instrument to protect every man's right to pursue whatever happiness might mean to him individually.  Want a nice house?  Build it.  Want a cushy retirement?  Work hard now and save like crazy.  Want ten weeks paid vacation?  Start your own business, grow it into a magnificent success, and call your own shots. 

In other words, they unleashed the individual brilliance of man to a greater degree than had ever been seen before.  And the rest is history: the most blessed, prosperous, talented, advanced, and envied civilization in world history.  And why?  Because government got out of the way and let man pursue his dreams.

Yet despite this obvious reality, liberals and socialists go on touting the theoretical utopia of a government-planned society where no one wants for anything.  They are so drunk on the nectar of this fool's paradise that they end up admiring backwards countries.  Liberal scholar Tom Friedman is completely infatuated with China, evidently missing their oppression of political dissent and human rights violations.  Michael Moore hypes the miraculous government run healthcare system of Cuba, evidently missing the truckloads of refugees that risk their lives to escape to the United States.  And yes, I mean truckloads - they are so desperate to leave, they put floaties on a ?57 Chevy and try to sail it to Florida.  Ezra Klein, columnist for The American Prospect (which touts itself as "liberal intelligence"), jealously laments that France's government guarantees its workers 30 days of vacation time, unlimited sick days, and full child care.  Quick challenge to Mr. Klein: name the last medical marvel, technological gadget, or world-changing innovation to come out of France.  Exactly.

I understand why the left worries about giving people the right to pursue happiness.  It involves risk.  Anytime you give people the freedom to succeed, the freedom to fail is there too.  And that's what the left feels obligated to spare us from.  But by using government to prevent our businesses from collapsing, our investments from failing, our mortgages from foreclosing, and our lives from suffering setbacks, they necessarily prevent our success.  They strip us of our individuality, our autonomy, and our independence, and we become nothing more than chattel slaves...pawns in the hands of those running our lives for us.

That's a recipe for misery, not happiness.

Who knew the most pro-abortion president in the history of the United States would so effectively obliterate the deceptive front the abortion movement has been able to sustain for nearly 40 years?  But hats off to Mr. Obama for a job well done.

First of all, I have to admit that I find it appalling that we can be living in the 21st century, living in a country whose creed espouses the unalienable right to life for all people, living in a nation that has spent over 200 years struggling to extend the blessings of liberty to all men, and yet there are still those who are so backwards in their thinking and so void of moral conscience that they can actually advocate a supposed right to dismember infants in the womb. 

Scientifically, medically, constitutionally, morally and ethically, the case for abortion rights is so intellectually bankrupt, it is a national embarrassment that we take those who argue it seriously.  Moreover, the fact that any individual who espouses a right to kill children can not only escape the loony bin, but actually be elected to a position of authority in our society is a devastating commentary on our people's commitment to human rights.

Nevertheless, I must also admit to finding great satisfaction in finally being able to lay to rest one of the most offensive, hollow, and illogical arguments of the pro-abortion lobby.  The euphemistic label of not being pro-abortion, but rather "pro-choice" has plagued this debate for decades.  Intellectually speaking, this argument has always been beyond silly.  To say that you're pro-choice is absolutely meaningless unless you acknowledge what act you believe people should have a choice in doing.  The question has always been, "choice to do what?"

What's interesting is that through the years of engaging those that claim this label of "pro-choice," I've found that they are many times the most anti-choice people you could imagine.  Whether it is their insistence on carbon regulation that limits our travel choices, their forbiddance of private investment of our own Social Security deposits, or their refusal to allow school choice for those trapped in failing educational environments, if theirs is the face of choice, the word has no meaning.

Yet despite this reality, these anti-human rights activists on the left have been successful at tempering the inherent evil of their position by falsely representing themselves as fierce defenders of "a woman's right to choose."  No matter how many times this fraud was exposed, the myth perpetuated thanks to a complicit media that refused to acknowledge how barbaric one's mindset must be to - in this enlightened age - still believe in the savage ritual of human sacrifice.  But no more.

Those iconic placards carried by NARAL and Planned Parenthood agitators that proudly declared "My Body, My Choice" and "Keep Your Government's Hands Off My Body" must be officially retired.  Though it was always an empty, irrational argument (sure we all have a right to control our bodies - but not in a way that results in the slaughter of another human being), we can now know for certain that they never meant it anyway.  All the overblown rhetoric about privacy rights and how the government should never interject itself between a woman and her doctor was nothing more than a public relations cover for their true fascination.

How can we know?  Because the great champions of "choice" themselves - Obama, Pelosi, Boxer, Feinstein, et al - just crammed through a healthcare bill that intentionally thrusts the government directly between every woman (as well as man and child) and their doctor.  And they did this with the blessing of the criminally misnamed "choice" lobby!

ObamaCare opens the door to government access of your most personal medical records.  It mandates government-enforced purchase of government-approved health insurance that will cover government-permitted procedures.  It stands to take the most critical and private decisions about your well being and place them in the hands of a faceless bureaucratic board that is more concerned with cutting costs than extending your life.  They will determine whether you need the pacemaker, the bypass or the stent.  You, meanwhile, are left with no...choice.

So if nothing else, Barack Obama and company just accomplished proving something pro-lifers have been fighting to demonstrate for 40 years.  The abortion movement has never been about choice.  It's never been about privacy.  It's never been about personal liberty.  It's always been about a macabre obsession with advancing a legal right to kill kids for convenience.  That's pure, unadulterated evil.

The night ObamaCare passed, Nancy Pelosi bragged about how the Democrats in Washington were fulfilling the words of the founders as expressed in the Declaration of Independence.  I wholeheartedly agree with her, though undoubtedly for different reasons. 

After reading a thought-provoking column from Human Events author Connie Hair (one in which she highlighted a few of my forthcoming examples), I was inspired to read back through the commonly ignored portion of that pivotal document - the list of grievances against the King of England.  We typically regard this section as a recitation of complaints germane to the late 1700s, not something that's pertinent today.  But as Hair points out, tyranny is timeless.  Look at the words and see for yourself:

"He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures." 

ObamaCare creates 100 new bureaucracies through which all of your personal health decisions, costs, payments, and approval will be facilitated and managed.  Wish to complain?  Take a number and have a seat.

"He has erected a multitude of New Offices..."

The Obama administration has named at least 32 unelected czars...and counting.

"...and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance." 

Currently, the Justice and Education Departments are sending out hordes of new attorneys to begin an aggressive crackdown on what they deem "civil rights violations."  Meanwhile, with the passage of ObamaCare, the IRS is in the process of hiring at least 17,000 new stooges to find ways to fine and penalize people and businesses for their lack of compliance.

"He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation." 

Just days after the inauguration, Obama's administration gave signals that it was considering a move to place the United States under the authority of the International Criminal Court (allowing foreign governments to try Americans for what they consider "atrocity crimes").  And let's not forget Obama's determination to subject us all to some asinine international climate legislation.

"For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent."

Despite knowing that three-fourths of Americans opposed it, the Democrats pushed through a healthcare plan that will result in a truckload of new taxes.  And Obama specifically campaigned against many of the very provisions his healthcare bill creates - in other words, even those who voted for him didn't consent to this.

"Obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners..."

Up next for the Democrats in Washington: providing a path to citizenship for foreigners who have broken the laws of immigration and naturalization, thereby punishing those who have patiently and faithfully sought citizenship. 

"He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries."

Okay, maybe not judges.  But how much worse is it that after erasing decades of law that established debtor rights, Obama's administration has made huge portions of the auto and banking industries completely dependent upon his will for their tenure and salary?

"He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies..."

Though it hasn't yet been realized, here's Barack Obama from July of 2008: "We cannot continue to rely on our military...We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."

"Altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments. For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever."

From healthcare to education reform, the Democrats in Washington are committed to usurping power that was never intended for the national government, and instead reserved to the states.  By doing so, they fundamentally reshape the nature of our government to one the Constitution does not prescribe.

"In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury."

Could there be more perfect words to describe the feelings of millions of angry constituents who wrote, called, faxed, and begged their Congressmen to oppose ObamaCare?

The effort towards authoritarian control is timeless.  Does this mean it's time for armed resistance?  Of course not.  But it does mean that Americans should wisely recognize the uncomfortable reality that our government is increasingly coming to resemble not the kind our Founders established, but the one they pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to war against.