"They" know

LBJ's biography had a very revealing statement in it, reagarding his Great Society.  Basically, in refering to it prior to its establishment, he told a colleague that he had a way to insure blacks and poor people would be voting Democrat for 200 years.  MLK was a Republican.  Republicans had passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, after Democrat JFK vetoed it in 1963.

All this griping about Democrats buying votes through entitlements dates back to FDR, but was brought into art form by LBJ.  It contunues through BO.  All this is done on the guise of "helping people", but, in fact, they know they are building their own base for their own power, and truly robbing the people of the vote -- ironically, with the tax dollars collected from those who oppose them, a shrinking minority of those who are unwilling to surrender their liberty to suckle the government sow.

Simplicity and its folly

It seems that the "super rich" are villified because, well, they make more money than us, and they ship $50/hr jobs overseas to places where people make $50/month.  Therefore, it is reasoned by some, we should punish them by taxing the bejeebers out of them.  Hmmm.  Be successful, make good decisions that help people in the 3rd world (who would otherwise be making $20/month), compete in a global economy, have your corporation taxed at 38%, then be forced to give 45% of your income to FEDERAL taxes; the state and locale in which you live wants to tack on another 15% in taxes (licenses, fees, duties, etc.), ringing up a staggering 60% of all you earn going to one form of government or another -- working the first 3 days of every week for the government and reaping only 2 days worth of effor for your self...

I do not care what income you make, the above scenario is simply wrong.  It is oppression through taxation.  It is punishing success.  AND the rest of us are not far behind!  The aggregate totals for the average Americans show that the governments in our lives take 45% of all we earn!  One quarter of this tax haul is earmarked for wealth redistribution -- taken from YOUR family and given to others!

Why do jobs go overseas?  Is it so the rich can become the super rich?  How about a corporate tax rate that is twice as high as competing nations?  How about the value of a company's stock, which affects the retirement income of the great and small alike?  How about unions that elevate wages of unskilled laborers to levels that exceed college graduates -- even some of whom have very technical degrees!  In doing so, they themselves help drive companies to other borders.  How about the fact that the reduction in costs mean lower consumer prices for everyone, which allows the consumer to either keep more money in their pocket or buy more goods?

Learn the lesson of 1984: give society a singular enemy on which to focus, and they will do anything and let you do anything to achieve victory.  This is how "sound-bite, one issue" politics work...oh yeah, lest you forget, only wage-earners and consumers pay taxes, everyone else coordinates the collection...

Liberty protects all individuals

The current Marxist/Facist trends so popular with the current administration is a threat to personal freedom.  Making people wards of the state through entitlements robs them of personal liberty.  I saw that impact when I went into Romania shortly after the fall of Communism.  People were wondering who was going to take care of them rather than create opportunities for themselves.  their whole lives wre built on dependency upon the state.

Recipients of entitlements will seldom, if ever, vote away what they are receiving at the expense of others -- no matter what strings are attached.  This is human nature.  Give a person something to help them, but do it a second longer than needed, and all they want is more, and more, and more.  They are wards, owned by the state, at that point.  No longer in charge of their lives.

Liberty makes people dependent on themselves, self-reliant.  You might not like the manner in which others enjoy their liberties, if you are morally left or right, but all are free and personally responsible.  Many want to be free to do as they please, but do not want the responsibility of liberty.  Think of Brave New World.  Free to pursue any pleasure, but ordered and controlled by the state in every area, even in pleasure.  

Give me liberty, free of the shackles of burdensome government.  I will live my life, be responsible for my life, and share the Gospel of Christ and His freedom...

All the means of being heard

Anonimity is the by-product of a large collection of people.  It is impossible to hide in small groupings of people.  Small towns are being left for the opportunities large city afford.  People leave those small communities not only for opportunity, but also anonmity (how many times have heard the following said about small towns: "everybody knows everbody else's business"?).  Anonimity provides the opportunity to avoid accountability, to adapt a new persona, and to be ignored.  Enter the world of FaceBook, MySpace, SMS, Twitter, etc.  Now, anonimity's values and opportunities are betrayed, cashed-in, for the sake of being noticed and heard.

Twitter is good because i can see what my duly elected officials are doing as often as they update.  But I have people following me, and I have no idea why.  I do not know them, yet their profile shows that they follow hundreds and hundreds follow them.  I don't get it, I guess.  Is there a Twitter reward program of which I am unaware?

I use blogging and FaceBook to express my views, views which, by the way, I also share with my duly elected officials in Austin and DC.  We have great discussion, there is a greater sense of connection to the multi-faceted American mosaic of people.  Grassroots mobilization and debate has seldom been more fluid.  I want to be heard, rather than feel I am the only frustrated soul in the country (I live in the city because that is where my job is, and I feel an obligation to provide for my family with as little government interference as possible).  I have met many wonderful people and had many good debates with my FB community of friends. 

I am member of several forums and boards on which I post.  I discuss matters of interest with people all over the world.  This has been very helpful in two of my hobbies: music and playing guitar.  The knowledge I have gained in the last 5 years in these areas far exceeds what I had learned in the 40+ years previous.  These are a good things.

One thing is lacking in all of these "instruments of connection": actual human contact.  I mean, where do people meet to have these rich conversations?  The fact is we cannot.  Workdays and commutes are too long, our families need our presence (and we need to be with them, too), our global friends are still too far away, and we don't really have good front porches anymore...

Budget cuts

Using a breaking down of government spending from www,usgovernmentspending.com, the spend for the federal government is almost $4T, and $2.5T for state and local governments. Oddly enough, the state and local governments will take in enough to pay their bills, whereas the federal government is in a free-fall of nearly $1.8T deficit spending for 2009 alone, spending 190% of its income.

It is easy enough to trim $1.5T from the federal spend by program elimination, which basically pushes the federal government back to its Constitutional boundaries as declared by the 10th Amendment. That only pushes the federal government size back to 2005 levels. Cutting the federal government spending in half is really not that difficult when you drill down and see programs that provide mere oversight and do not contribute to the GDP in anyway, or the activities of which belong in the hands of the states and the people.

Beware, as in 2009 and going forward, state and local taxation will exceed federal taxation. Already the total tax bill is reaching 45% of GDP, and the morons of the Hill want to add national health care????

ONLY two people pay taxes: wage-earners and consumers. There is no escape.

There she goes...

I saw her standing there, dressed in black.  Black short-shorts, black hat, black top, her long blonde hair flowing down.  Her back was to me as I approached the intersection, her creamy yellow-white legs long and ...WHAT!?!?!?  That is the most unusual skin color I have ever seen!  I wonder if my wife will notice if I look to my left again, to study the subject who had caught my attention.  I wonder if she noticed this girl as well...

A second look explained the odd-colored skin.  A mannequin.  Perhaps a prank, perhaps advertising something, maybe someone got punk'd; I don't know.  I know what "she" looked like at first glance, which was kind of odd for that neighborhood.  My wife and I laughed, whoever left her standing there, we appreciated the humor.

Fabricating Reality

BO's recent speech on the economy cites "the recession was years in the making, it will be months or even years in the recovery".   "Years in the making", just after his party took over the halls of Congress (about four or five months, actually), and until then it was a roaring economy.  Yes, the FM twins were a problem, which silly ol' W tried to get Congress to regulate at least twice in his administration to avoid the coming meltdown, but neither a GOP nor a Democratic Congress could come to grips with financial realities.  

Partisonship yet reigns, as though ideology overcomes the laws of function.  When SS bankrupts, it will fall on the Democrat's shoulders, the same with Medicare/cade.  They used partisan politics to prevent any correction of that mess, ignoring the simple laws of finance.  The GOP ignored the need to provide regulation of "funny money" schemes, and the need to protect non-union employees from predatory practices (such as those who lost their retirements at Enron; something was done, but after the horse was out of the barn).

BO ignores his own and his party's responsibilities in crippling an expanding economy.  Check the facts, do not embrace the sound bites.  "Years in the making" was predominately the years of the 110th Congress...

Disclaimer:  I am no GOP apologist, will likely never vote GOP again, and certainly have disliked the Democrats since Carter.  I am  a Jeffersonian republican, a Constitutionalist, perhaps even a libertarian.

Quips of Wisdom

The journey is part of the destination.

Physics is not just a good idea, it's the law.

Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration (T. Edison)

No matter where you go, there you are. (B. Banzai)

Do first things first, don't do second things.

Eat the elephant one bite at a time.

Decisions are judgments made among dissenting opinions.

People do what you inspect, not what you expect. (H. Brandt)

No one rises above the enthusiasm and confidence of the leader.

If you are leading, and no one is following, you are just taking a walk. (J. Maxwell)

Vision with no action is dreaming; vision coupled with action is a new future

Mother's Day 2009

Happy Mother's Day!

Moms do many things:

1) They love us, anyway

2) They never stop being moms

3) When the world is nasty, they have the most comforting solutions

4) When the world attacks, even when we deserve it, they defend like a powerful tigress

5) They teach us how to get along with others

6) Most of all, they teach us to love...

Wonders of Technology

Here is a list of things I find kind of amazing, overall:

I can publish online through a new thing called a 'blog'

My Android G1 phone, which easily navigated me through  East Texas by using GPS and creating a link, on the fly, of a street address from an e-mail

My LiveScribe pen...

The great strides made in speech-to-text recognition -- it is about 99% accurate nowadays!

The cool utility of text-to-speech...

The ease at which my G1  finds movies in my area, in a few seconds!

MP3 music files...

Online communities of many varieties

Repository of reference material at our fingertips

There are more, I know, but one has to stop somewhere!

Enough Older Posts

The first three posts were from some time ago, and I have used them to check my settings both here and on FB.  All will be new from here on out...

Thomas Jefferson Quotes

Not necessarily my favorite founding father, but often wise despite being inconsistent personally:

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state. (any 2nd amendment doubts about the citizens, not just a militia, being armed)
Thomas Jefferson

Every generation needs a new revolution. (Timely, and not just in a fashionable or rhetorical sense)
Thomas Jefferson

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories. (Trust our leaders for...?)
Thomas Jefferson

Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.(Johnson County War???)
Thomas Jefferson 

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.
Thomas Jefferson 

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.
Thomas Jefferson 

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
Thomas Jefferson 

Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.
Thomas Jefferson

Wise Sayings: Government

1. In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one
useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more
is a Congress. -- John Adams

2. If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if
you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed. -- Mark
Twain

3. Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member
of Congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain

4. I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into
prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to
lift himself up by the handle. -- Winston Churchill

5. A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always
depend on the support of Paul. -- George Bernard Shaw

6. A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow
man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money. --
G. Gordon Liddy

7. Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a
sheep voting on what to have for dinner. -- James Bovard

8. Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from
poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor
countries. -- Douglas Casey

9. Giving money and power to government is like giving
whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. -- P.J. O'Rourke

10. Government is the great fiction, through which everybody
endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. --
Frederic Bastiat

11. Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a
few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving,
regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. -- Ronald
Reagan

12. I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and
report the facts. -- Will Rogers

13. If you think health care is expensive now, wait until
you see what it costs when it's free. -- P.J. O'Rourke

14. In general, the art of government consists of taking as
much money as possible from one party of the citizens to
give to the other. -- Voltaire

15. Just because you do not take an interest in politics
doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. --
Pericles (430 B.C.)

16. No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the
legislature is in session. -- Mark Twain

17. Talk is cheap... except when Congress does it. --
Anonymous

18. The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a
happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the
other. -- Ronald Reagan

19. The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing
of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the
equal sharing of misery. -- Winston Churchill

20. The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist
is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. -- Mark Twain

21. The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of
folly is to fill the world with fools. -- Herbert Spencer

22. There is no distinctly native American criminal class...
save Congress. -- Mark Twain

23. A government big enough to give you everything you want,
is strong enough to take everything you have. -- Gerald Ford

Opression and Enslavement

As many of you already know, there is a very fine line between helping someone and enabling their bad behavior. If you go too far in your helping, you do the person more harm than good. Moreover, if you take responsibility away from someone and replace it with benefit, they will give you the responsibility from that point forward.

The United States government is setting the stage for an economic class conflict. Already, nearly 50% of Americans pay no federal taxes, yet receive benefits. For them, these benefits are free. In reality, they receive these benefits because a disproportionate amount is taken from others, who often receive significantly fewer benefits. With every new tax that is being proposed, there is a desire to subsidize the responsibility of the lower income classes to pay. In doing so, the burden of paying for all government services falls to those who work hard to advance themselves in terms of education and economic status, yet who themselves see little or no benefit from the additional taxation. It is unlikely that those who are receiving benefits at no cost will ever vote to pay more in taxes, to pay more to receive more benefits. Their responsibilities for those benefits have been abdicated to the federal government, and in doing so these same people have become wards of the state. They are enslaved. Their own economic models include government helps without which they are not able to care for themselves. The things the government provides for them, they have removed from their equation of responsibility. Moreover, they will never vote for anyone who desires to reduce the size of government by either taking away such benefits or asking them to pay taxes in order to continue to receive them. This is the enslavement factor that is being put upon the lower income classes in America.

The oppression comes from excessive taxation of those who have sought to better themselves through education, thus elevating their economic status, and at the same time subjecting them to an onerous progressive tax system. It is easy to focus on the federal income tax, but we must also keep in mind that every American pays state and local taxes as well. Everywhere the wage earner and the consumer turn, the purchasing power of their dollar is being diminished by taxation. The combination of these three levels of government take from 30% to 50% of every dollar earned. This is oppressive. There is nothing fair nor right about such aggressive taxation. The government refuses to downsize. It continues to add entitlement programs. It continues to demand more tax revenues. Our own government has turned against us and is robbing us at the gunpoint of taxation.

I do not know what can be done to restore the sense of personal responsibility by every American regardless of their socioeconomic class. A flat common user tax would affect everyone by the same fractional amount. Moreover, it would encourage saving, by not devaluing the dollars that are not spent. Of course it will be difficult for those who are used to getting something for nothing to adjust to being personally responsible for their own well-being and their own welfare. They would never vote for such system; their votes have already been purchased, and therefore their condition is a threat to our democracy.

Living with liberty and freedom is risky business, I understand that. It requires checks and balances to ensure a constant and fair playing field. It does not guarantee equal outcomes. What it does not require is enslavement of certain members of our society to the government handout. I have traveled the world and I have seen very, very poor people. The poor people in America are not counted among them. Everyone in America has one unique opportunity that the poor in other countries do not have: access to a free public education. It is therefore the responsibility of each individual to take advantage of this great gift, this great opportunity, to pick themselves up and advance themselves, and live as free people in the land of liberty. Likewise, the government needs to lift the oppressive yoke of taxation from the necks of those who are working, risking, and striving to make this country great.