Newtown Shooting

The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, CT is a horrific, unimaginable evil.  I cannot imagine the grief and utter despair of the families who lost their young children. I can also not fathom the depth of psychosis that would lead anyone to commit such a heinous act. My prayers go out to all those who were affected by this tragedy.

In times such as these, emotions across the nation run high as we collectively grieve for the victims and their families. We want to know how this could happen...why would someone ever want to harm the most precious and innocent among us...our children. We want to feel safe...that this could never happen to us, or any of those we love. We are angry, and righteously so. We want someone to blame for letting it happen. We want assurance that steps are being taken to prevent a recurrence. We feel helpless and afraid.

We must look for real, workable solutions and not, as is done too many times in our society, simply actions that soothe our emotions and assuage our fears.

This is all understandable.  It's a natural reaction to such an unfathomable and terrible event.  But in our grief...in our anger, we must be careful not to let emotions rule.  Already the media talking heads with their anti-gun agendas are calling for stricter gun laws.  This appeals to our fears and insecurities.  After all, if no one had guns, this couldn't have happened...right?  Well, solutions based on fear and insecurity are seldom wise, and usually don't achieve the desired goals.  We must look for real, workable solutions and not, as is done too many times in our society, simply actions that soothe our emotions and assuage our fears.

First of all, lets look at some hard realities:

No one can ever make you completely safe.

This is indeed a hard truth.  We want to feel safe in our homes, schools, shopping malls, etc.  But life is fragile and easily disrupted or destroyed.  This can be through accidents, natural disasters, disease or malevolent actions by others.

While it is certainly logical to try to reduce risk in life, safety comes with trade-offs.  You must make judgments everyday, in every part of life on what you are willing to give up to feel safer.   You can choose to race around in a sports car that you really enjoy...or safely obey every speed limit and traffic law in boxy soccer mom car with the highest safety ratings, and lowest fun ratings...or not drive at all because the Center for Disease Control (CDC) identifies motor vehicle injuries as a "leading cause of death for people age 5-34"...higher than suicide, homicide and cancers.  The vast majority of us fall between Speed Racer and Soccer Mom.  We wear a seat belt and drive reasonably safely, but most of us bend the traffic laws and try to drive something we like.

Guns don't kill people.

I know...this is a controversial one, especially in the wake of the Newtown tragedy.  But, it's more than a NRA cliche...it happens to be true.  A gun is a tool...like many other tools we have in our world.  Guns can be used for sport...for defense...or offensively...just like cars.  On the CDC's National Vital Statistics report (December 23, 2009), in a List of 113 selected causes of death, firearms related deaths do not appear until #100-Accidental Discharge of Firearms...under #1-Samonela,  #96-Motor Vehicle Accidents, and #99-Accidental Falls.  Others include: #105-Suicide by Firearm, #106-Suicide by other means, #107-Homicide by firearm, #108-Homicide by other instrument, and #113-Complications of Medical Care.

So are firearms dangerous?  Absolutely.  When used carelessly or with malicious intent, they are deadly like many other tools of mankind.  Keep it in perspective, though.  If a criminal, terrorist, or psychotic wants to inflict mass causalities they can do it without a gun.  Just a few examples are:

• September 11, 2001 - Of course everyone remembers when more than 3000 people were killed by terrorists who crashed planes into the World Trade Center twin-towers, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field.
• April 19, 1995 - Oklahoma City Bombing.  Domestic terrorists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, along with other accomplices killed 168 people and injured 680 others with a truckload of fertilizer chemicals.
• March 25, 1990 - Happy Land fire. Unemployed Cuban refugee Julio González killed 87 people at the Happy Land social club with a plastic container of gasoline and two matches.

Recently, a knife wielding man in China injured 20 elementary school children. The UK Daily Mail reports that "There were six similar attacks in just seven months in 2010 that killed nearly 20 people and wounded more than 50." Knives are also tools that can be used to kill or injure.  In these cases, they injured many in one spree.

So what do we do?  

Surely it's not all hopeless.  We certainly don't have to just lay down and accept that we're all just helpless prey for psychopaths and criminals.  Wouldn't gun laws help to reduce the risk of such tragedies happening again?  I believe the answer is a resounding NO.

"During the years in which the D.C. handgun ban and trigger lock law was in effect, the Washington, D.C. murder rate averaged 73% higher than it was at the outset of the law, while the U.S. murder rate averaged 11% lower."

No laws will eliminate guns.  That genie is already out of the bottle.  There are millions and millions of guns in this country.  Stricter laws may get guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens, but will not make them impossible to obtain.  Criminals of all types will still have them...there will be a thriving black market for guns brought in from outside the country.  I heard former US Representative J. D. Hayworth say just this morning on the radio (and I'm paraphrasing): If stricter gun laws are passed in this country, of course the law abiding will follow the law.  But those with no compunction, no compulsion to follow the law...the lawless...will not.  How is it that we would be helping the law abiding citizens by abridging their rights to defend themselves against the lawless?  The result of stricter gun laws would be a citizenry that is defenseless against criminals, and there would still be many other methods for psychotics to use to commit mass mayhem.

It may feel good to think that a law can eliminate something you feel is bad for society, but tell me how that worked for the prohibition of alcohol...or illegal drugs.  If strict handgun laws worked to reduce crimes committed with a firearm, you would expect the cities and areas with the strictest laws would have the lowest crime...right.  In fact, the opposite is true.  Cities like Chicago, Baltimore, Washington  D. C. have, or have had some of the strictest gun control laws in the country.  They have also been the areas with the highest violent crime rates.  In fact, the Just Facts web site noted that, "During the years in which the D.C. handgun ban and trigger lock law was in effect, the Washington, D.C. murder rate averaged 73% higher than it was at the outset of the law, while the U.S. murder rate averaged 11% lower."

I hear you saying, "If stricter gun laws won't work, then where right back where we started...helpless, right?" Of course not.  That attitude is only a result of years and decades of being trained that the Federal government is the only source of solutions.  In fact, the government has very few real solutions.  No, the solutions lie with our local communities...with our States.  Since we cannot hope to get all guns off the streets...since we know criminals will continue to have guns...since we know that we can never be completely protected, not even by the police or government, we have to take matters into our own hands...not as individuals for schools and public places, but as communities, school districts, cities, counties and States.

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. ~ Amendment X, United States Constitution

I once heard the president of the National Rifle Association (NRA) say that when people ask him why he felt someone needed to be able to have firearms for personal protection, since that's why we have a police force, he would ask them if they should be allowed to have a fire extinguisher in their homes.  Most people say of course you should be allowed to have a fire extinguisher.  Why, he would ask, isn't that why we have fire departments?

The point is, when a violent crime is being perpetrated against individuals, families, group, or school children, the police cannot respond quickly enough to avert or reduce loss of life.  Just as a fire extinguisher in a home or public building cannot prevent a fire, but can help eliminate or contain it to save lives and property, so also a gun in the hands of a law abiding and trained private citizen at the scene of a violent crime can be used to end or contain a shooting incident.  The Just Facts web site notes that, "Based on survey data from a 2000 study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, U.S. civilians use guns to defend themselves and others from crime at least 989,883 times per year." That is almost a million incidents a year where the criminal would have came out on top and many lives would have been taken if these citizens would have been prevented, by law, from defending themselves.

"Based on survey data from a 2000 study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, U.S. civilians use guns to defend themselves and others from crime at least 989,883 times per year."

Policemen cannot be everywhere...just as firemen can't.  Policemen usually don't prevent violent crime, they show up after it's over to pick up the pieces...just like firemen with a fire.  We, as a society, feel no compunction against teaching citizens, from children to senior citizens, how to prevent and survive fires.  In fact, we feel compelled to do so.  We should likewise feel compelled to train our citizens to defend themselves and others from violent crime...to build a new local militia, of sorts, of trained and certified citizens who would be able to react to violent crimes quickly, because they would be everywhere throughout the community... legally armed and at the ready.  I'm not saying that we should create some kind of armed para-police organization, but simply citizens living their lives who could confront crime if it happens to them or those around them.

Over the past several years, with stories such as the Newtown shooting or deadly crimes in my local area, I have become more and more determined to to carry my legally procured and registered handgun with me as often as possible.  I pray that I will never have to use my guns in self defense, but I have decided that if such a crime would happen when I'm around, I will be able to act to save my own life, my family or other complete strangers.  I feel it is my duty as a husband, father, and member of society.    I know that there are many out there, like myself,  who have been willing to purchase the weapons and ammunition, to get training, and submit to background checks to become licensed to carry legally.  If more training were available, many like myself, would be willing to get it at their own cost.

But, what about the schools?

Schools are places with a special designation as "No Gun Zones."  The laws passed to create this designation were meant to protect our students and prevent gun violence on our campuses.  As we have seen from Columbine, to Virginia Tech, to Sandy Hook Elementary, these laws have no power to prevent a person, or group of persons from entering campus and killing students and faculty.  In fact, since everyone knows that no guns are allowed on campus, there is no one to defend against attack.  The laws have, as so many other such well-intentioned  pieces of legislation, had the opposite effect...they have made the schools targets.

While I don't think it is necessarily a good idea to just allow people to randomly wander onto school property with firearms.  We should take real steps that none-the-less help defend our children.  I propose the removal of the Gun Free Zone restrictions and allow facility and staff, once properly screened and trained, to carry hand guns on school grounds.  This should be a voluntary program and require both background and psychological screening.  These screenings should be periodic.  Training should also include gun safety, weapons retention, escalation of force doctrine,  as well as marksmanship and defensive shooting.  They should be taught concealment techniques so that no one, students or other staff members, ever even know they have a weapon.

Training and screening should be done by independent, non-governmental agencies to avoid political agendas.  Identities and numbers of teachers in each school who participate in the program should be kept private to the school district.  Some schools within a district may have high participation...some may have none. But, if the public doesn't know which school is which, this alone will be a deterrent to would be assailants who will not want to risk going into an area where there may be armed defenders.

Would this have kept the mentally unstable 20 year old from coming to Sandy Hook Elementary with guns?  Likely no.  Could it have stopped him before he took so many lives...could it have saved 20 children?  Very likely.  Only having armed personnel in place will stop a determined  murderer.  Waiting for police response is too little too late.  By the time the police show up, the damage is done and the assailant has escaped or committed suicide.

I believe this approach, along with other systems of lock-downs, security cameras, alarm and notification systems, and training of the children is the only hope to provide any real level of protection for our schools.

We must insist that our elected officials stop using such tragedies to further their own political agendas.  They must find effective and realistic solutions.  Gun laws do not work...it is proven in our cities...it is proven by the fact that Gun Free Zones don't work.  We must take the emotions out of the calculation and implement real-world, viable solutions.  Let's all take a breath, settle down and set about making schools truly safer.

Limited and Specific Powers

United States Constitution

Article I: Section 8. (The Enumerated Powers)

8.1 The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

8.2 To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

8.3 To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

8.4 To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

8.5 To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

8.6 To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

8.7 To establish post offices and post roads;

8.8 To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

8.9 To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

8.10 To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

8.11 To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

8.12 To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

8.13 To provide and maintain a navy;

8.14 To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

8.15 To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

8.16 To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

8.17 To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And

8.18 To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

Amendment X:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Aftermath

I'm a bit too shell shocked to go into any real analysis of the election, so I just wanted to get down some of my general thoughts:

• This is now the second presidential election in a row where the Republican party decided it was best to run a "nice" campaign.  They are so kowtowed by the threats of being called racist, that they would not deal directly and firmly with Obama's history and record.  They allowed the Democrats to continue to distort facts with very little response.  This is a complete lack of leadership and the Republican party deserved to lose.
• It seems to me that we have now become a country, as a whole, who is willing to follow Europe down the socialist debt hole toward insolvency.   Alexis de Tocqueville  is credited with saying, “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”  We seem to have reached this point.  We no longer ask what we can do for our country, but want only to know what our country can do for us.  We seem to be willing to sell our legacy for free health care, food stamps and Obama phones.
• The nation has reached a state of shallowness and vapidity from which I fear only truly hard times will shake us.  I saw polling information that said something like 43% of those responding to exit polling said that President Obama's handling of the hurricane Sandy disaster was "very important" to their decision.  This is absolutely astounding...and more than a little distressing...to me.  That someone could, after four years of broken promises, failed policy and nonexistent leadership, see the President acting "presidential" in a brief, staged photo-op after a storm and think that made him a good president is incomprehensible.  The fact that the response of the Federal government has been less than stellar since then means nothing to the Obama groupies with stars in their eyes.
• Half the country seems to be hopelessly invested in class warfare...just like the Russian people were before the communist revolution...or the Germans before the Nazi take over.  This has caused them to draw stark, black and white lines in their minds.  Corporations are always evil and Unions are always good.  Democrats always acts for the good of the people and tell the truth...Republicans are selfish liars who only care about what's best for them and their Corporate overlords.  The rich have stolen everything they have from the poor. They are blind to the fact that absolute power corrupts, absolutely...regardless of party, occupation or income.  They are easily fooled by 20 second sound bites and focus-group tested tag lines.
•  Facts and details mean nothing to many people.  They will not hear the truth that the largess they vote themselves is financed by trillions of dollars of indebtedness to our enemies.  They will not see that the policies of their chosen representatives have caused the financial woes we have been experiencing.   No discussion of corruption...no discussion of the rule of law moves them.  They mock, scoff at and ignore anything that does not agree with the approved party line...and this is on both sides of the political divide.  When confronted with hard issues, they do not answer them...they will only excuse, obfuscate or ignore them...but never deal with them.  If all else fails, they just blame Bush.
• There are no statesmen left...only power hungry politicians. 
• The Republicans are only marginally better than the Democrats...but we were unwilling to move even incrementally toward smaller, less intrusive government.
• I fear for our future.

Debt Limit Looming...Again!

In July of 2011, I did a post with two videos arguing against raising the Federal debt ceiling.  Well, of course they did it...they raised the ceiling.  At that time, we were about to come up against a $14.2 trillion debt limit.  We were told we had to raise the debt ceiling or we would be in default...a lie.  Now, less than a year and a half later, Newsmax,com reports that, "The Obama administration said on Wednesday that the nation would hit the legal limit on its debt near the year's end..."  That's right, now the Central Spending Machine is only "$235 billion below the $16.4 trillion statutory ceiling on the amount it can borrow."  The Debt now exceeds the GDP of the entire country at just over $15 trillion.

In an October 2011 post, when we were a mere $14 trillion in debt, I tried to put the National Debt in Perspective.  In that post I said:

"In 2010, The US government spent more than $413 Billion on interest payments alone. This is more than was spent on The Department of Health and Human Services…The Departments of Transportation, Energy, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Homeland Security, Agriculture, Commerce…hold on, I’m almost done…The Department of Treasury, Department of Labor and the Small Business Administration …COMBINED. Just to service current debt. And, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the interest payments on the debt are projected to be $1.1 Trillion a year by 2021, a mere 10 years from now."

I also pointed out that then it would have taken 384 years to pay off the debt if government stopped spending any other money and just paid $100,000,000 a day on the debt.  That time frame has increased by 65 years to 449 years...in a year and a half.

Let me remind you that candidate Obama said of President Bush's addition of $4 trillion to the debt in eight years, "That's irresponsible. It's unpatriotic."  Which I agreed with.  Now Obama will have raised the debt by more than $6 trillion in four years.

The Debt ceiling has been raised 10 times in the last decade, from $5.9 trillion to $16.4 trillion. And now, the Treasury is already calling for another hike, "As we saw last summer, it is important that the debt limit is raised in a timely manner," said Treasury Assistant Secretary Matthew Rutherford.  

Our credit rating has already fallen.  Our spending is out of control.  We cannot continue to raise the debt ceiling.  We cannot continue to pass results of the current government's irresponsibility down to our children, grandchildren ..and great, great grandchildren.  We need to take responsibility.  We need people who do not allow their votes to be bought with government hand-outs.  We need serious adult leadership in government.  We need to reduce the size and scope of government...and we can't put it off.

Challenge Your Beliefs

Once upon a time, I was a confirmed Neo-Con.  Then I began to read history.  I studied  the founding fathers and principles.  I looked at the history of our government to the present day.  What I realized was that I had a lot of preconceived, and wrong, ideas.  I saw that the Republicans are almost as bad as the Democrats when it comes to big government, centralist policies and solutions.

I am much more of a libertarian or a classic conservative now.  I am not really happy with any party out there...the two major parties or the other, smaller parties.  Have you challenged your own long-held beliefs lately...or ever?  In the video below, Professor Jason Brennan challenges us all to question our beliefs and helps us to know How To Vote Well.

Obamanomics

Andrew Klaven provides another humorous and irreverent look at Obama's policies and understanding...or rather lack of understanding of how the economy works.

Klaven refers to James R, Otteson's article, An Audacious Promise: The Moral Case for Capitalism for The Manhattan Institute.   In this article, Otteson points out that while Obama said that "the market" or capitalism "doesn't work. It has never worked," this flies in the face of historical facts:

"Since 1800, the world’s population has increased sixfold; yet despite this enormous increase, real income per person has increased approximately 16-fold. That is a truly amazing achievement. In America, the increase is even more dramatic: in 1800, the total population in America was 5.3 million, life expectancy was 39, and the real gross domestic product per capita was $1,343 (in 2010 dollars); in 2011, our population was 308 million, our life expectancy was 78, and our GDP per capita was $48,800. Thus even while the population increased 58-fold, our life expectancy doubled, and our GDP per capita increased almost 36-fold. Such growth is unprecedented in the history of humankind. Considering that worldwide per-capita real income for the previous 99.9 percent of human existence averaged consistently around $1 per day, that is extraordinary. "

"What explains it? It would seem that it is due principally to the complex of institutions usually included under the term “capitalism,” since the main thing that changed between 200 years ago and the previous 100,000 years of human history was the introduction and embrace of so-called capitalist institutions—particularly, private property and markets."

The article goes on to show that, contrary to socialist propaganda, capitalism is actually the system that benefits the most people and is, in fact, the moral choice.  Some of his key points are:

• "(M)arkets allow us to 'serve' one another even when we do not love one another—even when we do not know of one another’s existence."
• "(V)oluntary exchanges that take place in the free-enterprise system are positive-sum, not zero-sum—meaning not that one person benefits only at another’s expense but rather that all parties to the transaction benefit."
• "Even if we do not all get rich at the same rate, we all still get richer."
• Rescuing hundreds of millions of people from grinding poverty is, however, nothing to sneeze at—and nothing to take for granted."

Otteson admitts that, "Capitalism is not perfect."  But, he points out that, "The benefits of the free-enterprise society are enormous and unprecedented; they have meant the difference between life and death for hundreds of millions of people and have afforded a dignity to populations that are otherwise forgotten. We should wish to extend these benefits rather than to curtail them."

"It would be all too easy for us, among the wealthiest people who have ever lived, in one of the richest places on earth, to disdain the institutions that have enabled us to escape the strictures of poverty and disrespect that have plagued humanity for the vast majority of its existence. Our crime today, however, would lie not in our inequalities but rather in our refusal to uphold the institutions that give humanity the only hope it has ever known of rising out of its natural state of destitution. The great and precious blessings of freedom and prosperity that we Americans have enjoyed, and that some, but not enough, others around the world have also experienced, deserve nothing less."

Do you really want a president who is so completely ignorant of how the economy really works?  I don't.

Enjoy the video, but don't miss it's point.

Electoral College Prediction

Okay...I'm going out on a limb and am going to predict a Romney win by 286 to 252 Electoral votes.  The map below, which I created from the Real Clear Politics Create Your Own Map tool, is how I'm calling it as of today.

Analysis from political science professors Kenneth Bickers of Colorado University (CU)-Boulder and Michael Berry of CU Denver actually gives Romney the win with 330.  Their analysis has been applied to all presidential elections back to 1980 and have accurately reflected the actual results of those contests.  Their model gives New Mexico, Colorado, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania to Romney, which I give to Obama...an additional 44 Electoral votes.

I believe that the anti-Obama vote has the most motivation...and the more people see of Romney, the more they like him.  In July, Gallup reported that Democratic voting enthusiasm is down sharply from the 2004 and 2008 election cycles.  In October, Forbes reported that one of Obama's biggest challenges was voter apathy.  The Forbes article points to analysis by NBC's Chuck Todd that showed "an ‘across the board’ advantage for Republicans in the enthusiasm race."

No one should take any of this for granted though.  It is highly dependent on voter turn out.  So, if you care about the future of your country:

GET OUT AND VOTE!

Top Priority? Really?

I always tell people in my business life that when everything is a priority...nothing is a priority.  Obama has done nothing positive for any of his many so-called "top-priorities."

Obama in his own words:

Retire the Debt Overnight?

For another way to look at the Federal debt, I thought it would be helpful to do a little thought experiment:

If the Federal debt of $16.2 Trillion were divided among all Americans, each of our more than 314 million citizens would owe in excess of  $51,000 to retire it.  Let's say that there was a way, through great effort and sacrifice by all of the patriotic people of the country, to collect this amount from every citizen and retire the debt ...maybe some would pay more than others...corporations would also contribute.  What if we could do this and erase the debt overnight?  Would you be in favor of this?

Think about it, all the problems that arise from such a large debt that I and others have chronicled...gone over night.  No more indebtedness to China...no more credit problems.  This would be great, right?  Well, the problem is that Federal spending exceeds revenue every year by about $1.1 Trillion at today's spending levels. This would mean that one year after the country went to extraordinary measures and sacrifice to retire the debt, each citizen would already owe an additional  $3,500 above their normal tax burden..that's every citizen, children, old, sick, handicapped, ...everyone. Additionally, with current programs and rates, there are future, unfunded liabilities for spending on things like Social Security and Medicare in excess of $61 Trillion...or more than $500,000 per household.   Of course this is not current debt, but gives a view of future debt.

What does this all mean?  Well, it's as I've said again and again, we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. Even if we got the revenue to retire the debt overnight, the government would be back in debt in no time.  With current spending, there's no way to get things in check.  Government is like an out-of-control teen with credit cards.  Even if they consolidate all of their cards,  they will just run them up again.  We have to take away the cards.  We must return to small, decentralized and limited central government as as was intended by our founders and is in fact law through the Constitution.  We must return our States to a place of prominence, where they can apply checks on the power if the Federal body.  We cannot sustain...cannot long endure...under the current, corrupted system.

This does not, regardless of what the desperate central planners would have you believe, mean that the poor would be left to live or die on  their own.  It does not mean old people would be forced to eat cat food to survive.  States could look after their own citizens as they see fit, without the burden of overhead caused by the huge Federal bureaucracy.  Each State, according to the wishes of their own electorate, can deal with these problems on their own terms.  If some states wish to pursue a "socialist-like" solution, they are able to...but with no bailouts from the Federal government if it fails.

With this arrangement, I believe States will quickly find viable solutions.  They will have to balance policies that keep and attract business for full employment with the needs of their less fortunate citizens.  They will have to compete for services and opportunity to keep people from moving to states that better meet their needs and expectations.  To do this with no bail-outs means they will have to do what works, and not engage in wild,  Utopian experiments.  They will only be able to provide safety nets to the "truly needy," as they define it in their own States.  In short, they will have to run their affairs like responsible adults and not spoiled kids.  This is the Utility of Federalism that I have posted about in the past.

Ask yourself, would you trust your money to an investment that created ever-increasing, crushing debt, no matter how much money you contributed?  An investment with huge overhead and red tape?  Of course not.  Why would you then trust our current government?  This may go against what you have always believed, but it is what the founders intended.  As for myself, I would rather stand with the learned, patriotic statesmen of the founding than the power-hungry, corrupt politicians of today.

Tax the Rich?

I know I have posted several Antony Davies videos, but he is very good at putting debt and deficit issues in very clear perspective.

One thing that Liberals, Keynesians, and Class Warriors of all stripes always ignore is that there are consequences to their policies.  Namely, that higher taxes are a disincentive to business and economic activity in general.  Davies points out that to balance the budget (not reduce the debt) you would have to raise the taxes of the top 5% of Americans to 88%.  This would reduce the average "rich household's" real income to about $36,000/year.  "Making the average rich household worse off than the average household."

Would you, or anyone, continue to work hard to make a lot of money if it were going to be taken from you, redistributed to the less productive, and make you worse off than someone with an average job?  History tells us no.  Whether the pilgrims of Plymouth Colony who became lazy and unproductive in their commune established by the Mayflower Compact, or the Soviet people who had a common saying that "as long as they pretend to pay us, we will pretend to work."  Socialism has never worked.  Taking from the rich simply makes the rich less productive...taxing corporations simply passes on the cost to the consumer, who buys less product.  Raising taxes on any activity reduces the activity...which reduces the tax revenue.  Many central planners have been surprised and dismayed, for example, that raising taxes on cigarettes has actually resulted in decreased revenue as some people stop smoking or cut back, and some find other, lower taxed sources.

Here is another great video where Professor Davies shows how ridiculous it is to continue to call for taxing the rich to deal with our deficit   The answer is to CUT SPENDING.  As he says in the last line of the video:

"The budget deficit is so large that there simply aren't enough rich people to tax to raise enough to balance the budget."

How Do We Balance The Budget?

Regardless of who wins the upcoming Presidential election, there are hard decisions to be made to avoid a financial disaster in our country.  Federal spending is out of control with no apparent end in site. At the time of this posting the Federal debt exceeds $16 Trillion.  That's:

$16,000,000,000,000

In past posts I have put this kind of debt in perspective (and that was in 2011 when the debt was only $14 Trillion)...I have shown that it is not a revenue problem, but a spending problem.  Raising taxes can't fix it, because you could tax corporations and everyone who is considered rich at 100% and still not have enough money to feed the government's spending habit.

Though everyone knows that we have an unsustainable debt problem...that our deficits continue to grow, government continues to expand programs...and therefore spending.  Not only that, but the government has been actively advertising and recruiting to get more people on the roles of programs like food stamps.  Today the Washington Times reported that "Overall, welfare spending as measured by obligations has grown from $563 billion in fiscal 2008 to $746 billion in fiscal 2011, or a jump of 32 percent."  While welfare programs were cut during the Clinton administration, the Obama administration has been redoubling their efforts to increase this spending.

We are headed in the wrong direction.   I agree with then candidate Obama when he said of the much smaller debt under Bush, "That's irresponsible.  It's unpatriotic." We must first stop the bleeding, and then begin to return to fiscal responsibility and prudence.  This can only happen through a return to the principles of limited and decentralized government.  Come on folks, let's get patriotic again.

Professor Antony Davies has another great video on the issue:

The Sin of Redistribution

Professor Walter E. Williams makes the case that redistribution of wealth by government is theft, and therefore a sin.

The Problem of The Poor

Milton Friedman is as relevant on this point today as he was in 1978...maybe more so.  In 1978, we did not have a $16 TRILLION Federal debt with an even larger unfunded future entitlement liability.

"Stimulus" Doesn't Stimulate

Facts are facts.

Obama: Redistributionist

Who can deny that Obama is a communist?  You might play semantics about the definition of communist, or socialist, etc, but these all come from the same root philosophers and thinkers.  Karl Marx did not make such distinctions.  To him, communism was just one type of socialism.

Obama's own life and words point to his communist beliefs.  His near idolization of his Marxist, anti-colonialist father...His childhood mentoring by communist Frank Marshall Davis...his Grandfather's move to Washington state to enroll his mother in an openly communist school.  In Obama's own words, he sought out Marxist professors in college...he surrounded himself in adulthood with Marxists.

And now, in the audio clip below, he admits that he believes in redistribution of wealth.  Taken along with his background and another interview where he complained that the Warren Supreme Court "never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society."  I think it pretty obvious that, no matter what you call it, Obama is a communist/socialist/central planner.

Two cornerstones of communism/socialism are central planning and redistribution of wealth.  The central planners are the ones who can make all the decisions about how to redistribute your wealth...who to steal from and who to reward with that stolen wealth.  Obama believes that he is the one who is smart enough to make these decisions...though I would remind him that "there are a lot of smart people out there."  So why are he and his cohorts any more qualified to decide where our money gets spent than we are?

Do Words Matter?

Obama says "Don't tell me words don't matter."  I agree...they do.  This video takes a look at Obama's own words...and the truth.

Side Effects

I'm always amazed, after hearing the possible side-effects of drugs on the TV commercials, how quick Americans are to swallow pills for nearly any symptom.  I mean, have you paid attention to the legally required fast-talker at the end of any of these commercials?

Symptoms may include drowsiness, dizziness, thoughts of suicide...headaches... diarrhea... nausea...may cause heart damage...liver damage...may result in decreased sex drive.  Call your doctor if you have trouble breathing... sleeping...going to the bathroom..or if it lasts more than four hours.  Don't take this product if you are pregnant...may ever become pregnant...are around anyone who is pregnant.  Rare...but not so rare that we can't mention it...side effects can include hair loss...blindness...stroke...heart attack...or DEATH.

Seriously?  I think, in most cases, I'd rather put up with the original symptoms than risk the kind of side effects I hear on these commercials.  Now, don't get me wrong, I know modern drugs have helped to improve and prolong the lives of millions upon millions of people  Too many times, though, people risk these serious complications for symptoms that are not life threatening, or which could be treated through a lifestyle change...stop smoking...get some exercise...stop eating donuts five times a day...you know, stuff like that.

But, I realize that this is the kind of society we live in now.  Most people want a quick fix.  Just give them a pill that they can pop and let them go on their way.  Many times, they have to take other pills to counteract the side effects of the first pills and before you know it, nobody is sure what is causing which symptom.  I have seen this happen with my own family members, being on so many drugs from different doctors that it causes unforeseen reactions. But, on the whole,we as a society continue to blindly trust our health to the pills and potions dispensed by our doctors...regardless of the possible side effects.  But really, wouldn't most of us be better taking less drugs and understanding all of the possible side effects and interactions of what we do take?

I have also come to realize that this same societal propensity for the quick-fix pill has given us our current state of all-invasive government.  When we see something we don't like, some perceived injustice, immorality, or even just an inconvenience, we too often turn to government for a quick fix.  Over the years, too many have come to trust elected officials as they do doctors...without questioning, trusting that that their council and prescriptions must be what's best.  Unlike doctors though, government's prescriptions -- laws, taxes, regulations, fines, programs and pork -- don't just affect those seeking symptom relief, but spills over onto all of society.

The United States of America was founded by people who rebelled against an overreaching, tyrannical government.  They saw that, as George Washington said, "Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."  These founders sought to decentralize and limit government to it's bare minimum required to allow people to live in a civil society.  The big debate during the Constitutional Convention was between those who wanted a very limited central government (the Federalists) and those who wanted an even more limited government (the Anti-federalists).  They realized that there was a place for government, but that it should be used as a last resort and as little as possible for the over-all health of society.

Today, though, many see government, like pills, as the first recourse for nearly any perceived ill in society...seemingly with absolutely no regard for possible side effects.  The side effects and interactions of government are not rare and are very detrimental to the health of society and liberty.  Let's look at just a couple of examples of side effects of government:

As laws are the main prescription dispensed from the government apothecary, many citizens believe that the main job of their representatives is to churn out new laws.  There are thousands and thousands of laws on the books with new ones being passed every year.  Most of these laws have penalties for those who break them.    Penalties typically consist of fines or incarceration.  Every new law creates potential for people to break them...and therefore new enforcement.  A side effect of so many laws is the high rate of incarceration we have in this country, higher than all of the other developed countries in the world...combined.  With only 4.5% of the world's population, we imprison 23% of the world's prisoners.  Ask yourself, is this because America is such an evil den of criminals?   Are we worse than China...than Russia?  Are we on the verge of some dystopian collapse or is it that the thousands and thousands of laws we have on the books provides huge opportunity for the use of government force?  John Stossel has a great program on the subject called Illegal Everything.

What about the laws that are made to help people?  Surely these are okay, right?  Well, let's look at one of government's attempts to help people.  Back in the 1990s, during the Clinton administration, the government said it was just unfair that everyone wasn't able to own their own home.  President Clinton launched The National Homeownership Strategy which spawned the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) in 1994 to encourage more lending in poor and minority neighborhood (article on details).  To make a long story short, government meddling, through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the banks to offer loans to families that they wouldn't have normally been able to afford.  This meant demand for housing went up, and with increased demand there is increased pricing. Raising prices caused real estate speculation to raise.  Government then strong-armed the banks to increase level of lending and create more favorable terms to allow families to cope with the rising costs.  This all caused the housing bubble that eventually burst and was a major cause of our current economic woes.  The end result is that the very people the law was intended to help were hurt the worst...along with the rest of the country.

Loop holes are a side effect of the interactions of laws.  It seems that no sooner than a law is passed, there are people lobbying congress for relief from aspects of the law that caused new, undesirable symptoms.  Politicians, of course, are more than happy to offer new laws or adjustments for the proper...ah, remunerations to their reelection funds.  The latest example of this is the hundreds (about 1200 to be exact) of companies who lined up and received exemptions from Obamacare.  

If we accept the truism that "power corrupts," it should also be noted that power emboldens.  As we have ceded more of our power to the politicians and trusted them to always make the right decisions for us, they have become like physicians with a god complex.  At least doctors are well trained and tested to perform their roles.  Politicians need only convince people to vote for them to get their jobs.  Being elected does not make them an expert in anything, but they increasingly act as if they know what's best for us and will inflict their will on us whether we agree or not.  The passage of Obamacare is a good recent example of this side effect also.  We were told that we just didn't understand the issues...that we had to pass the law before we could know what was in it.   Over the stringent protests of a majority of the American people, in an act of supreme arrogance, the Democratically controlled Congress, lead by Reid and Pelosi, passed the largest tax hike in the history of the country in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

These are just a few examples of the side effects of an overreaching government.  Multiply this by the thousands and thousands of laws, regulations and policies that are inflicted on us by government.  Don't get me wrong, though I lean very heavily libertarian, I do believe there is a place for government.  I just believe, as the founders did, that it should be dispensed sparingly with great care and with close attention to possible side effects:

Government: CAUTION, possible side effects include incarceration, high taxation, over regulation, bankruptcy, market bubbles, loop holes, corruption, huge debt, deficits and a general loss of liberty.

The Truth Behind "You Didn't Build That"

When Obama made his now infamous "You didn't build that," speech, we got a deeper insight into the true beliefs and motivations of this president.  As Daren Jonescu points out in his article in the American Thinker, Obama is espousing a central tenet of communist doctrine, namely, there is no private ownership of property.

It was Pierre-Joseph Proudhon who first proposed the idea that "property is theft" in his book What Is Property.  An excerpt from this book gives the basis of the doctrine:

"If I were asked to answer the following question: What is slavery? and I should answer in one word, It is murder!, my meaning would be understood at once. No extended argument would be required . . . Why, then, to this other question: What is property? may I not likewise answer, It is robbery!, without the certainty of being misunderstood; the second proposition being no other than a transformation of the first?"

As you can see here, Proudhon called property ownership robbery and drew a direct equivalency between private property ownership and slavery and murder.  It was this same book that led Karl Marx to call for the abolishment of all private property.  

Another of the fathers of communist thought, Jean-Jacques Rousseau made a similar assertion when he said, "The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying 'This is mine,' and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this imposter; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody."

 This has been a standard mantra for collectivists and central planners throughout the years...and Obama carries the banner forward.  As Jonescu points out, "The 'fundamental transformation' Obama seeks to impose on America has many practical manifestations, but all his sundry means relate to one basic end. This is the permanent 'transformation' of a nation grounded in the principle of individual self-ownership (the philosophical foundation of property rights) into a nation grounded in the principle that everything you have is merely on loan to you from the great gods of collectivism -- 'society,' 'history,' and 'government.' "  As much as they try to deny it, Obama is a communist/socialist/ collectivist/central planner.  These are all just labels for the same basic worldview with roots in the political philosophy of writers like Proudhon and Rousseau.

This philosophy is in direct opposition to the foundational principles of our country.  The United States was based, in no small part, on the idea of personal property rights.  One of the key philosophers who influenced the American founders was John Locke.  As Jonescu points out, Locke had a completely different view of property.  Lock stated that  "Though the earth and all inferior creatures be common to all men [in the state of nature], yet every man has a 'property' in his own 'person.' This nobody has any right to but himself."  Additionally, Locke said, "The 'labour' of his body and the 'work' of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever, then, he removes out of the state that Nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with it, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state Nature placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it that excludes the common right of other men."  In other words, Your body is your own...all that your labor has earned belongs to you...and not to anyone else.

But, Obama and his fellow communists believe, that all property is held in common, and, therefore, it is only natural that someone who has more should have to give up what he has to those who have less. This is his point when he says. "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."  He is just repeating what he has learned through his life being influenced by communist thought.  We know that he sought out Marxist professors in college...that he has been mentored by Marxists like Frank Marshall Davis and Bill Ayers.  He believes in redistribution of wealth, and that allowing people to keep their own money is equivalent to government spending, as if all money belongs to government to begin with.  So..."You didn't build that," shouldn't surprise us.  In his mind, nothing can be done outside the collective and without a central government...and that, my friends, is communism, pure and simple.

Jonescu summarizes:

"The reason why one has no right to the fruit of another man's labor is not to be casually glossed, and it cannot be overemphasized: the other man's labor is itself his property, derived from his most fundamental property, namely himself.  (This explains why state-controlled medicine is the ultimate policy prize of leftists; it directly attacks the heart of property rights, the right to the use and preservation of your own person.)"

"This brings us back to modern progressivism, and its chief mouthpiece, Barack Obama.  By denying the inviolable right of the 'successful' to the legitimately acquired result of their intellectual and physical efforts, Obama and his cohorts are denying the successful man's ownership of himself."

Today, Obama only calls for the fruits of those he deems as "rich."  This is the essence of class warfare.  But, if "the rich" can have their property so casually confiscated, what will keep them for coming for yours and mine?  Communist philosophy has never in the history of the world lead to societies with more freedom and prosperity.  It has only lead to totalitarianism by a group of elite central rulers at the expense of the masses. 

Obama and his cohorts represent a clear and present danger to our liberties.  They stand against the founding principles of this great country and on the shoulders of their Marxist mentors.  They must be defeated, both politically and in the hearts and minds of the people.  

Obama must be voted out of office in November!

It's A Miraculous Life

No need to add anything.  Whittle nails it.

Obama Tax Hikes Will Cost Jobs

A study recently released by Earnst & Young, LLP says that if the Bush-era tax cuts for wage earners over $250,000 are allowed to expire, the country will lose 710,000 jobs while the economy declines by $200 billion.  The report's author, Robert Carroll wrote, “The higher tax rates will have significant adverse economic effects in the long run: lowering output, employment, investment, the capital stock and real after-tax wages when the resulting revenue is used to finance additional government spending.”

Of course, the Democrats are rushing to dismiss the report's assumptions, methodology, and conclusions because it does not fit their tax-and-spend doctrine.   White House spokeswoman, Amy Brundage posted analysis from Jason Furman of the National Economic Council which says that the report “fallaciously assumes that the tax cuts are used to finance additional spending, ignoring the benefits of what the president actually proposed, which was to use the revenue as part of a balanced plan to reduce the deficit and stabilize the debt.”  Even if all of the revenues raised by this tax hike went to helping reduce the deficit, it is only estimated to raise enough to fund the deficit for about eight days...not eight days of government spending, mind you, just the deficit spending.

Furman claims that Obama's plan "includes $2.50 of spending cuts for every $1.00 of revenue."  What in the history of Obama, or the Democrats...or the Republicans, for that matter...would lead anyone to believe that they won't continue to increase spending?  This president has presided over the largest accumulation of national debt in the history of the country, by far.  Debt has increased by more than $5 TRILLION in less than four years.  This claim is eerily familiar to when the Democratically controlled Congress promised President George H. W. Bush three dollars in spending cuts for every one dollar of tax hikes. Bush famously capitulated, breaking his "read my lips, no new taxes" pledge.  What he got was not spending cuts, but...you know what's coming, don't you...that's right, increased spending. 

Frum says that the study "leaves out the President’s proposed new tax cuts for business hiring and investment."  This is proposed, of course, and not actual, enacted tax cuts. Obama's cuts will, supposedly provide a "10 percent tax credit for business hiring and wage increases and allowing immediate write-offs of new investment through the end of 2012."  So, with these cuts, Obama is trying once again to micromanage the economy.  Businesses do not hire because they get tax credits for doing so; they hire when demand for their products and/or services is high enough to justify adding head count.  In prolonged downturns of the economy, businesses are even more hesitant to hire, due to the uncertainties of the market.  Instead, they make due with the employees they have working more and more overtime before hiring.  This is why hiring is always a lagging indicator for economic recovery.

In a May article on the NPR web site, columnist Fred Barnes said there are problems with, what he calls
"Obama's phantom tax breaks." Here's what he said:

"There are three big problems here. The first is that his 17 tax cuts have had little if any impact on small businesses or the economy. Basically, they failed. Second, his new cuts are much like the earlier ones. They're temporary, narrow, and not what small business owners are asking for, which are fewer regulations and a permanent cut in the personal income tax rate or at least no hike in that rate. Third, they have no chance of being enacted in 2012."

Frum continues by saying that even the Earnst & Young report acknowledges "that the short-run impact of extending the high-income tax cuts will be proportionately less than the impact of the middle-income cuts, noting that a 'disproportionate share of the tax change is likely to be channeled through savings for taxpayers facing the top tax rates as compared to other taxpayers.'  As I have been prone to saying a lot lately, SO WHAT?  This is just basically saying that raising taxes on the middle-income earners is also a bad idea.  It does not negate the claims that there will be job loss and economic downturn.

The main reason for the job loss seems to be that a large number of small businesses file at an individual rate rather than a corporate rate.  Obama claims that he will be giving "tax cuts for 97 percent of all small-business owners in America." and his proposal "isn’t about taxing job creators, this is about helping job creators.”  But, the businesses under $250,000 a year are not job creators.  These are mostly small, one or two person shops...consultants and freelancers.  The Heritage Foundation calculated that "the average American with $250,000 or more in income can expect an average $24,888 tax increase next year under Obama’s proposed policies."  Looking at Treasury Department data they determined that "1.2 million small businesses both had employees and earned more than $200,000 in 2007. So the President is putting about 1.2 million jobs—perhaps even more—at risk with this tax hike." 

Obama is a big-government socialist.  He claims that, in his words, "It is only government that can break the vicious cycle where lost jobs leads to people spending less money, which leads to even more layoffs."  He believes that not raising taxes on Americans is spending by the government.  And so far, all of his policies that are supposedly aimed at fixing the economy through big-government solutions have been complete failures.  So please excuse me if I might tend to accept the conclusions of the Earnst & Young report over anything this failed president or his minions might offer as evidence supporting their plans.   Expecting more of the same to work this time is the very definition of insanity.

Government Exploitation

In light of the ridiculous statements Obama has been making about the nature of success in this country, which I covered in my previous post, I thought I would share this video by Matt Zwonlinski, PhD on the subject of whether capitalism exploits workers.  He gives a very well reasoned and succinct coverage of the topic.

Dr. Zwonlinski concludes that while capitalists want to exploit workers, they can't very well in a free market society because of the competition for good labor.  Interaction between business and labor is voluntary and mutually agreed on.  Government, however, has the coercive power to exploit the ordinary citizens.  It is, in fact Government that poses the most danger of exploitation...and, therefore, danger to our liberty.

“The accumulation of all powers legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands, whether of one, a few or many, and whether hereditary, self appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” – James Madison; Federalist No. 47.

Success? That's No Big Deal.

"If you got a business, you didn't build that, somebody else made that happen." ~ Barack Obama

This kind of thing has me heart sick for our country.  Not because Obama said it; I expect this kind of idiocy to come from Obama and his operatives.  What deeply saddens me is that he can say it and not be booed off the stage...that so many average Americans seem to be buying into this collectivist, anti-American drivel.  Not so long ago we were not afraid to condemn this kind of socialist rhetoric as dangerous to our very way of life...to our liberty.  Now, it resides in the White House.

Obama says, "If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.  There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system we have that allowed you to thrive."  While this is all true, Obama wants us to draw the conclusion that since, as John Donne famously penned, "No man is an island, entire of itself," we should not have a problem giving more of our money, time, and freedom to the collectivist, central government.  In the mind of Obama and that of  his ilk, the government is the font of all opportunity, all provision, all wealth, and all power...but only when they are in charge of it.

Success, regardless of what Obama thinks or says, does not happen because of the goodness of government.  Taxes, fees, regulations, and bureaucratic red tape place ever-larger road blocks in the path of small business.  This makes the already difficult task of business success almost impossible.  No, success happens in spite of government, not because of it.  


Successful entrepreneurs are not necessarily the smartest, or hardest working in our society.  But they are the ones who have used the intelligence they have, worked very, very hard, taken the risks, overcome the failures, and continued to strive toward their goals. They must have the right product or service, in the right location at the right time.  They risk their own money, sweat, and family lives to get the business started, and then more than 50% go out of business in the first five years.  Many successful entrepreneurs have failed multiple times in the process of learning how to succeed.  These are costs that the average American is not willing to pay.


Obama does not have a clue as to what it truly takes to succeed in business, and he continues to show his ignorance through his policies that have given us an economy that continues to falter with dismal unemployment numbers.  How dare he lecture us on what it takes to succeed!  It is not the teacher who gives the business owner money and stands by them through the long nights of paper work and planning.  It is not the road worker or the fireman who share their anguish about how they will make the next payroll.  It is not the government bureaucrat or politician who gives them the motivation and drive to keep going, even when it seems impossible to win.  No, these business people are out there to fail or succeed all on their own.   


And what about this "unbelievable American system we have" that allows them to thrive?  How can they get their supplies or ship their goods without the roads provided by the government?  What about electricity, communications, water, sewage infrastructure?  The small businessman didn't build those, but he uses them all for his success.  This is true...SO WHAT?!  All of those things are the natural outcome of people interacting together in a society.  Everyone is doing what they can to make a living by providing products or services to his fellow man.  The carpenter frames the storefront.  The electrical worker brings power to the building. The construction worker builds the roads to bring customers to the store.  All of these people ply their trades for their own self-interest.  The store owner owes them nothing.  They have been paid in full.  This has nothing to do with government.  We do not need government's permission to do it and we do not need their interference to make it happen.  See my earlier post, Why Feed The Pig, for more on the subject of government's involvement in infrastructure.


Without people interacting in this way there is no wealth creation, and, therefore, no money for government.  Business came first...people came first.  Government is a creature of the people.  Nothing -- NOTHING --of value originates with government.  In this country, The People institute government to serve them, not to rule them.  That is the principle of republicanism.


It has not been very long ago when the majority of people in this country celebrated success.  How then, can so many people now buy into its denigration, as if it is only a matter of luck and the largess of a benevolent government?  This attitude has not come about overnight.  It is the result of years and years of continuous programming.  Over the last decades we have been fed on a  diet of  class warfare that has told us that the rich have only succeeded on the backs of the poor.  We have been lead to believe that the economy is a zero-sum game where the more the rich make, the less there is for me and you.  We have had the self esteem movement inflicted on us, which tells us that everyone is special, whether you are a doctor or a welfare bum.  Multiculturalism has also told us that all cultures are equal, whether they have brought us wealth, art, and science, or they stone their women for talking to a man, or kill each other in clashes between warlords...one's as good as the other.  All lies!


All of these things have been designed to convince us that no one is special.  We all "deserve" a trophy.  It's "only fair" that those who have more should "share" it with those who have less...after all, they were just lucky and were helped along by all the rest of us.  It is all a scheme to bring down the very idea of American exceptionalism.  If Americans believe that their system of liberty, capitalism, and "small r" republicanism is nothing special, no better than any other country's system, then "fundamentally changing America" will be much easier. And now, after more than a hundred years of Progressive (socialism in sheep's clothing) teachings and propaganda, the average American has just accepted much of socialism as facts of life.  They have been dumbed-down as citizens in that they don't know or care about how their country operates...or is supposed to operate.  They just believe that government involvement is necessary for any real success.  They can't imagine how roads or infrastructure could possibly be built without an all powerful central government.

After Obama has made moves to take control of banks, auto companies and the healthcare industry, we hear that businesses are just a product of the collective.  Why then shouldn't they be controlled by the central nexus in Washington D.C.?  It only makes sense, right?  This is the central message of socialism.  Too many are either too busy worrying about the next winner of America's Got Talent, or have just become so jaded by the whole process that they have chosen to ignore it and Hope for some good Change.

If there's any hope to save liberty in this country, we must rouse ourselves from this stupor.  We must pay attention.  We must understand the foundations of our freedom and how it is being threatened.  And then, we must act to correct the damage.  In 1790, John Curran rightly said that, "It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.”  Are we lazy?  Are we common?  Or are we Americans?  Then, let's stand, as Americans, vigilant against threats to our liberty.

Obama Care - Still a Bad Idea

Regardless of whether the Supreme Court found it constitutional or not, I thought it was time to remind everyone of why Obama Care is still a bad idea.  The basic facts have not changed since I did a post about the Democrat's wild rush to pass this monstrosity back in July of 2009. At that time, Gallup polls indicated that 56% of likely voters believed that passing some form of healthcare reform was important.  This past week, Rasmussen reported that 53% of likely voters support repeal of Obama Care.  Gallup reports that, "Americans are more likely to say the 2010 healthcare law upheld by the Supreme Court last week will hurt the national economy (46%) rather than help it (37%), while 18% say they don't know or that it will have no effect." Which agrees with what the Congressional Budget Office said in 2009 when it reported that the Obamacare legislation would raise federal health care costs"to a significant degree" while not reducing health care costs in general.  This tells me that while people thought there were problems with the health care system, they do not believe that Obama Care is the right solution.  But, the majority of Americans have continued to say that they do not want a government takeover of health care all along.

The very basis of Obama Care were the claims made by supporters that a large number of Americans were not covered by health insurance.  Here's what I wrote then, which is still true:

The President and the Democrats trot out all of the normal, emotionally charged statistics to back their claim that we are in a health care crisis. Particularly they point to the last U.S. Census data that shows that nearly 47 million were uninsured as of the 2006 census. Taken at face value, this seems like terrible thing, but once the data is broken down you begin to see a different picture. For example, 10.2 million of this number is made up of non-citizens. 8.3 million are between 18 – 24 years old, a group that typically chooses not to spend their money on insurances. Another interesting group is the 9.2 million with household incomes of $75,000/year or above. Now that number does not seem nearly as tragic, does it.

So, the lie is revealed.  The 47 million who are tragically uninsured is really more like 19 million.  Of these, many were only temporarily uninsured do to job changes but were reported in the snapshot of the 2006 Census.  But, let's take 19 million as the number.  That is 19 million of a population 310 Million, or 6%.  Should we completely overhaul a system that is working for most Americans for 6%...a number that seems to be high to begin with?  Should we trust the central government to control one-sixth of the economy?  From my earlier  post:

What in the history of the Federal Government or the career of Barack Obama recommends them to be able to run health care any better than the private sector? I submit that, in fact, the opposite result is indicated. Government never has to compete…if they fail; they just raise taxes or print more money. More Americans (45%) trust doctors and hospitals to address the problems than either the Democrats (33%) or Republicans (10%). Beyond the trust issue, the Federal Government has long been known as a paragon of inefficiency. While large corporations can have their own level of bureaucracy, they seldom pay $2,000 for a toilet seat or hammer. Companies are responsible to their stock holders and must compete against other companies to survive…unless they are a bank or auto manufacturer, I guess. The government mostly exists to further its own size and power.

Look, we didn't want it when it was Hillary Care, and we don't want it now.  Let's repeal Obamacare.  Let's dump the largest tax increase in the history of the country.  To do that, Obama Must Go!  Elections do indeed have consequences.

Who's Money Anyway?

On Monday, President Obama called for extending the so-called Bush tax cuts for anyone making under $250 Thousand a year while letting the cuts expire for those making more than that. While everyone can agree that raising taxes on the middle class during this troubled economy, Mr. Obama continues to use one of the major tools of socialists everywhere...class warfare.

One of the most troubling parts of his speech was when he said, "The money we're spending on these tax cuts for the wealthy is a major driver of our deficit, a major contributor of our deficit, costing us a trillion dollars over the next decade."

Okay, where to start? First of all, Mr. Obama, like all statist, central planners seems to think that all money belongs to the government. He believes that letting the wealthy keep their money is spending by the government. This is in direct opposition to the principles of this country's founding. The power...and the money, for that matter...comes from the People. It is ours first and we decide how to invest it in government. It is not the other way around. When we keep more of our money, it is not spending by government.

Let's look at an example of how this kind of thinking would work in another part of society. Say you go to a car dealership to buy a new car. You want something nice, with decent gas mileage numbers, but can't afford anything too extravagant. You decide on a Ford Fusion. You go to the dealership and pick the car you want. Now, when the paperwork is being completed, the manager of the dealership comes and tells you that you make too much money to buy a Fusion. You have to buy a much more expensive Lincoln MKT. "You see," he explains, "We are behind our quota and our budget is already overspent. We can't afford to spend the difference between the Fusion and the MKT on you this month. We will have to sell you the more expensive vehicle."

Does this seem like a ridiculous example? Why, because the dealership doesn't have armed agents to force you to buy the more expensive car? Or, maybe because nobody voted? What if all of the car dealers in your area voted and decided to give themselves the power to force you to buy a more expensive car? Would it be okay then? No, huh? Okay, you're a tough customer. What if everyone in your state voted and a majority said dealerships could force people of a certain income level to buy more expensive cars than they wanted? Then it would be okay, right? I mean everybody voted and all. Okay, still not convinced? What if they told you that they were going to take part of the extra money you spend for the MKT and help someone with less means buy a Fiesta? That would be nice...you could help someone else own a car.

Well of course it is a ridiculous example. It is your money...money you earned. What do you care if the dealership has mismanaged their business and are in financial trouble? If you don't buy a car that is twice as expensive as the one you want, the difference is not spending by the dealership. It's money they never had and were never entitled to in the first place. Helping someone with a lower income than you buy a Fiesta does not make any of it more acceptable. Why would it be more acceptable, or moral, when government does it? I propose that it is not.

Secondly, the President contends that the so-called "spending on these tax cuts for the wealthy" is a "major contributor of our deficit." This also is a ridiculous assertion. As I have chronicled in several past posts, which I list below, our deficit is not caused by a lack of taxation...of revenue...but by out of control spending. Deficit is the result of spending more money than you have...deficit leads to debt. Recent estimates are that the revenue raised by the allowing the tax rates for those over $250,000 in income to return to the pre-Bush levels would fund our deficit for about eight days...eight out of 365, or about 2% of the deficit.

This president is not serious about fixing the economy. With this assertion, Obama just presumes that every bit of government spending is absolutely vital and legal. He has no plans for cutting spending...in fact, he only continues to propose new spending. He has raised the nation's debt by more than $5 TRILLION in less than four years, more than all other presidents combined. Joblessness under this administration continue to be dismal. And all he seems to have to offer are repeal the Bush tax cut for the wealthy, a move which many in his own party don't even agree with, and the largest tax hike in the history of the country through Obamacare. This is the same man who said, "The private sector is doing fine. Where we are seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with State and local government."

What we can no longer afford to spend on are big-government solutions that have caused massive deficit and debt. We can't afford policies that kill jobs and ruin whole industries. We cannot afford to allow politicians to invest taxpayer money in business of their choosing to see those companies fail and take our money with them. What we cannot afford in this country is Obama and his like-minded Marxist, central-planning cronies. This man...this total failure of a President...must go, and we need to sweep his type of political theory out of government behind him.

Related Posts:
A Spending Problem

Are You Getting It Yet?

The Debt from Two Perspectives

The National Debt in Perspective