It was in 1983 in Paris that I met my first Russian dissidents. They were rabidly Anti-Communist and passionately argued for freedom and democracy for Russia. Impressed, I nonetheless put them to the test. “What about the other internal colonies of the Soviet Union?” I asked. “I take it that you all advocate freedom and democracy for, say, Ukraine, as well, right?”

My inquiry went through them like a jolt of angry electricity. “Ukraine is a part of Russia!” they exploded. “Ukraine has been a part of Russia for centuries! Ukraine will always be a part of Russia!” I couldn’t resist smiling and informing them: “Not for long…”

I subsequently made a number of trips into Soviet Ukraine in the 1980s to meet with the leaders of Rukh, the emerging democracy-resistance movement -- Mykhailo Horyn in Lviv and Vyacheslav Chornovil in Kiev. These meetings were arranged by a dynamic young Ukrainian-American lady in the Human Rights section of the State Department named Kathy Chumachenko.

With a fledgling economy the focus of the 2012 presidential campaign, there has been one glaring omission from the debate so far: the failure of our current trade policy, particularly with China. Trade policy affects national security by putting the safety of our people and their jobs at risk.

Between 2000 and 2010, the United States ran an aggregate trade deficit in goods of $6.8 trillion. This is one measure of how much money went to support production and job creation overseas rather than here at home.

Last year, the trade deficit in goods was $635 billion. The import share of the domestic economy has grown very rapidly in textiles, machinery, computers, electrical equipment and motor vehicles. We buy a third to a half of these products from overseas, leaving American factories idle and American people jobless.

One-third of the trade deficit in goods over the past decade was with communist China. Our 2011 trade deficit with Beijing is on track to hit a record $300 billion. In their new book, "Death by China," University of California at Irvine economists Peter Navarro and Greg Autry calculate that this deficit has cost America 10 million jobs over the past decade.

The consensus of film critics is that three of the four best Western movies ever made were those starring John Wayne: Stagecoach (1939), Red River (1948), and The Searchers (1956). (The fourth is Gary Cooper’s 1952 High Noon.) Many critics consider The Searchers to be one of the greatest movies, period, and has been the subject of numerous academic seminars. It is a lesser known John Wayne Western, however, that contains an important lesson for our relations with the Moslem world.

Directed by John Ford, made in 1948, entitled She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, it stars Wayne as Capt. Nathan Brittles as a retiring Cavalry officer facing an Indian attack (The New York Times’ review at the time called Wayne’s performance “Oscar-caliber”). The memorable line is the advice he gives to a junior officer. It’s listed by Guinness as one of the top 100 film quotes of all time:

Never apologize, son. It’s a sign of weakness.

Between now and Election Day, President Obama will have to create 8 million jobs just to tie for last place with the previous worst recovery since the Great Depression. Meanwhile, Americans are rightly demanding dramatic overhauls to get this country back on its feet.

What does the president do? He doubles down on his philosophy of continuing the beatings until morale improves.

My fellow presidential candidates, to varying degrees, have been tinkering around the edges. With all due respect, you don't prune weeds - you pull them out at the roots.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's 160-page, 59-point plan has "faculty lounge" written all over it. It protects most of the current tax code. Looking for an executive summary, I flipped to the appendix. Frankly, Mr. Romney lost me after his first two points: "Maintain current tax rates ..." and "Maintain current tax rates. ..." Are those rates really worth maintaining?

Leave it to a politician to start with the current tax code and then move a step or two in the right direction. Leave it to a real businessman to start with what is right and get there immediately.

One of the more fascinating features of To The Point is the Users Forum, where TTPers share their insights and expertise.  An excellent example is the recent (9/26) thread initiated by "Spartan" - Van Kottis - in commemoration of his 1,000^th (!) TTP post.

He asks for suggestions on what TTP can do to help the TeaParty movement focus its opposition to Zeroism.  I have two.

The first is to offer specific language that explicitly defines what conservatives are for (not simply against) government-wise.   I.e., we stand for not simply "limited government" but constitutionally limited government.

This means we want to restore constitutional limitations on central government.  It means to go on the constitutional offensive against laws Congress has no authority to pass and regulations the federal bureaucracy has no authority to enforce.

The second is to form a movement to repeal 1913.

Just between you and me (can you keep a secret?), it's actually a movement to repeal progressivism, repeal the entire liberal-left agenda, but we need a specific target to focus upon.