Cult of the State

I was just accused of being a cultist on a social media thread because I stated that I did not believe Jesus advocated the taking of people's money, by threat of force, and giving it to others as a proxy for the individuals taking care of the poor themselves.  Yes.  This is what we have come to.  People truly believing that the nameless, faceless, feckless mass of government bureaucrats are God's instruments on earth and without them, we would certainly all die.   And I am a cultist?

No, the true cultists are those who look to the State for their sustenance, comfort, and security.  Those who believe that without the all-mighty State, all forms of modern life are impossible.  Who excuse the State's misdeeds and criminal activity as necessary for our safety.  These cultists are so blind that they believe that the ever-broadening violations of our God-given and Constitutionally-codified rights actually somehow secure our liberty.  And the funny thing is, these same Statists would certainly look down their noses in disdain or pity at the citizens of countries like North Korea for believing that their leader is a god.

Look, don't many religious cults start with a twisting of the basic tenets of their religion?  Then, they build up individuals and groups of people as divine representatives.  Their leaders or dogma must not be questioned.  There is no thought or debate over these things, only calls of "heretic" for those who dare oppose the divine order.

How are these rabid Statists any different?  They have allowed the basic tenets of our republic, the Constitution and founding documents, to be twisted and tortured in ways that defy logic to accrue more and more power to the deified State.  While they may grumble about certain government representatives or individual agencies, they may never question the over-all necessity for government to sustain our "way of life."  I have yet to see one of these people answer objections with thoughtful, objective apologetics for their view.  You are only met with name calling...kook, racist, idiot, cultist...or changing of the subject. Many times I have prompted them to speak to just one specific point in my argument and tell me how I am wrong...They never do.

Then, to make the deification of the State complete, the true believers co-opt religion to justify their worship and eradicate any last resistance of the sheeple.  They twist sacred scriptures to make you believe that it is unrighteous to question the truth of their dogma.

In particular, Statists use the Bible to attempt to justify the theft by government of more-and-more of your wealth.  They say Jesus advocated taking care of the poor, the sick and the orphans...and indeed he did.  Since they have been so indoctrinated in the Cult of State, though, they can't imagine how this can mean anything other than forced redistribution of wealth.  In his book Biblical Economics, theologian R. C. Sproul, probably a cultist himself, I guess, begs to differ with the Statists:

"I am convinced that political and economic policies involving the forced redistribution of wealth via government intervention are neither right nor safe. Such policies are both unethical and ineffective…. On the surface it would seem that socialists are on God's side. Unfortunately, their programs and their means foster greater poverty even though their hearts remain loyal to eliminating poverty. The tragic fallacy that invades socialist thinking is that there is a necessary, causal connection between the wealth of the wealthy and the poverty of the poor. Socialists assume that one man's wealth is based on another man's poverty; therefore, to stop poverty and help the poor man, we must have socialism."

The evidence is overwhelming that the government is a failure at caring for the poor.  Trillions of dollars spent on the so-called "War on Poverty" and we have millions and millions of people who are  generationally dependent government hand-outs.  I am convinced that it is counter-productive and irresponsible to trust government with caring for the poor.  In his book Rollback, Dr. Thomas E.  Woods points this out about our so-called Welfare system:

"Another way to approach it is to recall that at least two-thirds of the money assigned to government welfare budgets is eaten up by bureaucracy. Taken by itself, this would mean it would take three dollars in taxes for one dollar to reach the poor. But we must add to this the well-founded estimate of James Payne that the combined public and private costs of taxation amount to 65 cents of every dollar taxed. When we include this factor, we find the cost of government delivery of one dollar to the poor to be five dollars."

Is this good stewardship of the wealth with which we have been blessed?  How would the master of the Parable of the Talents view this?  Even the foolish servant only buried the talents.  He did not waste them on some crooked scheme that had a long and continuous history of waste and failure.  Especially in view of the fact that the government has no money.  It continues to amass huge, crushing debts that will be pushed off to future generations not yet born to pay for its wonderful largess to the poor.

In his article Rendering Unto Caesar: Was Jesus a Socialist,  Lawrence W. Reed provides this summary after an exhaustive study of the Bible:

In Jesus's teachings and in many other parts of the New Testament, Christians — indeed, all people — are advised to be of "generous spirit," to care for one's family, to help the poor, to assist widows and orphans, to exhibit kindness and to maintain the highest character. How all that gets translated into the dirty business of coercive, vote-buying, politically driven redistribution schemes is a problem for prevaricators with agendas. It's not a problem for scholars of what the Bible actually says and doesn't say. 

Search your conscience. Consider the evidence. Be mindful of facts. Ask yourself: When it comes to helping the poor, would Jesus prefer that you give your money freely to the Salvation Army or at gunpoint to the welfare department? 

Jesus was no dummy. He was not interested in the public professions of charitableness in which the legalistic and hypocritical Pharisees were fond of engaging. He dismissed their self-serving, cheap talk. He knew it was often insincere, rarely indicative of how they conducted their personal affairs, and always a dead end with plenty of snares and delusions along the way. It would hardly make sense for him to champion the poor by supporting policies that undermine the process of wealth creation necessary to help them. In the final analysis, he would never endorse a scheme that doesn't work and is rooted in envy or theft. In spite of the attempts of many modern-day progressives to make him into a welfare-state redistributionist, Jesus was nothing of the sort.

I am all for helping the truly needy.  I am all for defending the defenseless.  I just don't think Jesus will credit it as righteousness to steal your neighbor's wealth, through government force, to give it to the poor.  And, if we are going to look to the Bible, let's look at the whole of scripture:

" For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: "The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat." - 2 Thessalonians 3:10

"Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." 1 Timothy 5:8

They never want to talk about these passages.

Related Links:
The Ten Commandments of the Federal Government
Godless Socialists
The Sin of Redistribution

Selfish People Suck!

I am personally sick-and-tired of all the selfishness in the United States.  So many today care only about their own comfort and desires, with no concern whatsoever about those around them or their community at large.

Who are these selfish people of whom I speak?  All those who believe that just by the fact of their existence, somebody owes them.  Those who think that just because they live, they have the right to make claims against the fruits of my labor; who have no qualms about having others confiscate what I have earned for my family and my future by threat of force and violence.

People who have not done what I have had to do to get where I am...who haven't gone in debt to get the education they need to find a good paying job...who didn't walk over a mile to where they could hitch a ride to school for this training...those who haven't been careful to make decisions along the way to get the experience they need to advance...who still think they have a right to my labor so that they can have cable TV, a cell phone, cigarettes and beer...these are some of the selfish people of whom I speak. These are the members of the entitlement class.

The other selfish group are those who care only about their own power and position...the ruling class elites.  This group wields the weapons of force to confiscate the fruits of my labor to buy the votes of the entitlement class.  They care little for either the producer or the entitled.  They will do whatever they must to accrue more and more power unto themselves...even to the point of paying for their lust on the backs of generations yet unborn.  They don't care if their policies of ever increasing and irresponsible spending cause future calamity for society, as long as they get the control they crave now.

It is not the producer, who works to provide for himself and his family, who asks nothing of anyone else, who is selfish.  It is not selfish to want to keep hold of what you have worked for...this is a foundational principle upon which our country was based.  The producer does not mind chipping in for basic services that make modern life possible, but they should not be expected to pay for a hugely bloated bureaucracy that seems geared toward squeezing more and more of the juice from the fruits of his labor every year.  He should not be forced to pay for those too short-sighted...or just plain lazy to take care of themselves and their own families.

Whatever the producers pay seems never to be enough for the entitled and the elite.  We are supposed to be happy to endure another tax, or fee hike, "It's for the common good," they say.  And after all, "it's only a few more dollars, what's the big deal?"  But, it's the cumulative effect of a few dollars for this tax, and that tax and the other fee, year after year that has brought the burden on the producer to be more than 50% of most people's income...and still it is not enough.  We are told that we shouldn't be so selfish.  The hubris! The unmitigated gall! No, it is not we, the productive class, who are selfish.  It is the entitled and elite.  Without the producers the whole system collapses under it's own weight...and there are less and less producers and more and more...parasites every year.

This is what I mean about being sick-and-tired...this is who I mean when I say,

Selfish People Suck!

You're not exempt from the math

This is a very simple and unemotional explanation on why Obamacare sucks.  Dave Ramsey does a great job explaining that regardless of how people may want there to be some kind of magic that will allow this monstrosity of a law to work as we were promised it would...you can't escape the simple math of the situation.

Ashamed?

http://www.cato.org/blog/sequestration-cuts-perspective

On his March 21st show, Rush Limbaugh made the following statement: "Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in my life, I am ashamed of my country." Audio can be found here.

Rush lists as his reason for shame the way we are having "our common sense and intelligence insulted the way it's being." The latest insult to our intelligence for which Rush has gotten so incensed is the maelstrom that is being whipped up over the so-called sequestration cuts to the budget.  As Rush said, it is only "44 billion dollars...that's the total amount of money that will not be spent that was scheduled to be spent this year.  And, in truth, we're gonna spend more this year than we spent last year...There is no real cut below a base-line of zero."  But we are to believe that any cuts at all to the planned spending of our bloated bureaucracy will cause a collapse of all of our necessary government services.  It's as if the line from the movie Ghost Busters is about to come true:

"What he means is Old Testament...real wrath of God type stuff...Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!...Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...The dead rising from the grave!...Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria! "

All this over a $44 B cut to the baseline budget.  As Larry Kudlow states, "According to the CBO, budget outlays will come down by $44 billion, or one-quarter of 1 percent of GDP (GDP is $15.8 trillion). What's more, that $44 billion outlay reduction is only 1.25 percent of the $3.6 trillion government budget."  And remember, that is 1.25% of the proposed increased budget over last year...so no real cuts.  Kudlow also observed that:

"Federal outlays as a share of GDP peaked at 25.2 percent in fiscal-year 2009, fell to 24.1 percent in 2011, and came in at 22.8 percent in 2012. The long-term historical norm is about 19 percent, so spending is still way too high. But some progress has been made. And if the GOP sticks to its guns and implements the current sequester, a lot more progress will be made, opening the door to a stronger economy."

"In other words, lower spending and limited government are the exact right medicine for free-market prosperity. The sequester cuts are pro-growth. Finish the job, please."

So, should this make Rush ashamed of his country?  Well, it makes me ashamed.  I love this country and what it has stood for in the history of the world.  But there are many things I am ashamed of when it comes to the current state of our country.  I am ashamed that as a whole, through our votes and indifference, we have allowed our country to come under the control of unscrupulous, power hungry statists.  I'm ashamed that the majority of citizens have given up on the founding principles that made this the freest and most prosperous country in the world.  More than that, they don't even know what those principles are, other than a few platitudes, and worse, don't care.

I am ashamed that after once being the most prosperous, productive and innovative country on the face of the planet, we have become a debtor nation, owing more in debt than the entire GDP of our economy.  That we have fallen behind in education and manufacturing. And that those on the government dole nearly exceeds those who make their own way.  I am ashamed that we seem to have become a country of spoiled, irresponsible children with an entitlement mentality who would rather pass their debt to posterity than give up their government freebies.

I am ashamed that after so much progress has been made since the struggles of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, so many have abandoned Dr. King's dream that people would "not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."  Too many people follow the purveyors of multiculturalism and class warfare who seek to divide and weaken us...benefiting only the purveyors themselves.  I am ashamed that so many voted for a presidential candidate with no qualifications for the job, an unknown and questionable background with very anti-American associations only because of the color of his skin, or because they believed he would deliver the goodies...like free cell phones.

I'm ashamed that our First Amendment rights are under assault from political correctness....that our Second Amendment rights are being attacked so viciously by the Progressive statists...and most people just shrug and say, "What are you gonna do?"  I'm ashamed that no one can seem to recognize any more that if the government can take rights from those you don't like...they can take them from you.

 Yes, I am ashamed of many aspects of the current state of affairs in this great country.  I am ashamed and afraid that my generation and my parent's generation may have allowed the erosion of our liberties to come to a point where they cannot be reclaimed.  That we may be witness to the final demise of the great American experiment in freedom.

What about you?

Informed Mistrust

Thanks to my friend Rich for sharing the video below.

I do not trust centralized power, and in this sentiment, I stand with the Founding Fathers who strove to define a small, limited and decentralized form of government for the United States of America.

The gun control issue is about far more than guns.  It is about whether a small group of hypocritical, ruling-elite totalitarians in Washington can nullify our basic rights at their own whim.  It is about whether we are a nation of laws, based on the bedrock of a Constitution, or are to be ruled by the "tyranny of the majority," swayed by every wind of populist frenzy which would see every "good crisis," real or manufactured, as a reason to usurp our rights.

The participation of legal gun owners in crime has been characterized, from the FBI crime statistics, as statistically insignificant.  Gun bans will make no one safer since criminals, by their nature, do not obey laws.  But, if these usurpers can in effect nullify our 10th Amendment rights, they can also nullify our 1st Amendment rights or any other they choose.

Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it:

The Nazis confiscated guns from the Jews.  The Soviets and the Red Chinese confiscated guns.

John Adams effectually nullified the 1st Amendment through the Sedition Act, imprisoning many.  Lincoln imprisoned tens of thousands of people for the crime of publicly disagreeing with him with no due process...you were probably never told about that.  FDR imprisoned thousands of AMERICAN CITIZENS of Japanese decent in internment camps.

No, I do not trust centralized power.  If you do, you ignore the whole of human history, and you do it at your peril and the peril of your posterity.  There are many, many examples of centralized power gone bad...and I would say none of it turning out well.  We have only lasted this long, because of the work of the founders, through the Constitution, and many others who fought to uphold it.  We are at a dangerous time, I fear...a time when too many are willing to "give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety."

So no, I do not trust them when they tell us that they don't want to take our guns.  I know from history, past and recent, that they do.

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.

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.

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."

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?

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!

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.

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.