Be Wary of Progressives in Finance Article Clothing or Down Where the Tax Meets the Bone

November 15, 2014 Leave a comment

Let’s talk taxes. Be wary of Progressives in finance article clothing.  monopoly man

The illustrative article/video, “Income taxes are lower than you think” posted on the Yahoo! Finance webpage uses the good finance cop/bad finance cop ploy to get the reader to come around to their terms. This type of social manipulation could be one reason why America’s Judas MIT con artist Jon Gruber spoke of voters as “stupid”, suckers for any ivory tower talking talking-head in a suit bloviating about the glories of redistributive economics. .

 The article begins: “You probably think your taxes are too damn high. Chances are, you’re wrong.”

Whoa! I am not wrong! No matter how much they spin this clay argument will my taxes ever appear small and sought-after. Caveat emptor mi amigos! And don’t forget, taxes are the coercive means (ala “Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.00”) used by government to fund more out-of-control deficit spending.

Let’s see. There is the personal income tax, the payroll tax, FICA, MICA, property taxes, sales taxes, Obamacare mandate and “Cadillac” taxes (thanks for memories Justice Roberts), the differential tax of government wage and price controls and stagnant wages.  Wage controls include the minimum wage tax placed on employers.  I now buy a more expensive to sell hamburger as does the teenager earning minimum wage.  Nothing happens in isolation.  And, of course, there is the let’s pummel evil business CORPORATE TAX which depresses all forms of economic growth. The direct and indirect taxes are too numerous to mention. I am not cheap or stupid.  I am tired of being taxed to the bone.

Forty percent of the nation pays taxes for the remaining recipient sixty percent.  Twenty percent of the forty percent pays most of the tax burden. Progressive tax rates, among other redistributive programs, are making the U.S. into a socialist European bankrupt-susceptible entity where the individual is no longer important. The individual is just another “stupid” number on Jon Gruber’s chalkboard.

 The video screen reinforces the manipulation of the Progressive dialogue: “Your taxes aren’t as high as you think.” I think both speakers are high on government fumes.

 The article refers to the “nonpartisan “CBO to soften its social engineering blow: “ The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office just published its annual analysis of Americans’ income and taxes, and guess what–American taxpayers continue to get a pretty good deal. The average household pays 19.3% of its income in federal taxes, CBO estimates.” Isn’t that special!

We are TOLD that we are getting a pretty good deal. That’s Progressives for you! They think they know you better than you know yourself! And, that’s when they begin their snake oil salesmanship…

The article goes on to tell us that the currently low (in their minds) tax rates “ought to be good news for consumers, except there are three problems (only three?!?) that explain why Americans don’t feel cheery at all about the government they pay for.” (Here they sweet talk us hoping to play on Progressive ‘sensibilities’.)…

First, while federal tax rates have fallen over time, incomes have stagnated. For middle-class earners, real income, adjusted for inflation, has risen just 16% since 1979, and it has actually fallen by a few percentage points since peaking in 2007. That means the typical middle-class family has experienced declining living standards during the last 7 years—which makes the sting of taxes much sharper.

Next up, they pivot to take a pot shot at the 1%: “The only exception to this pernicious trend of flatlining incomes is among the top 1% of earners, whose incomes-nobody will be surprised to hear-have risen 174% since 1979. Tax increases that went into effect in 2013 actually impacted the wealthy more than everybody else, which is why even the 1% earn less than they did several years ago. But nobody needs to worry about America’s millionaires.”

How nice of them to again tell us what to think!

Listen to the words being used to sell their ‘product’: “Pernicious flat lining,” “Exception,” “(the1%) Incomes …have risen.” With a know-it-all Jon Gruber-like condescension they reassure us that they are looking out for us. (“Our ends justify deceitful means.”)

Well, I care about the 1%. The 1%’s money creates industry, jobs, wealth, stockholder dividends, overall economic growth and lo, and behold, personal dignity from an individual’s labor. Besides philanthropy the 1% investments help feed 401K, IRA and pension retirement accounts. The 1% and I pay for the other 50% of the country that doesn’t pay any tax. It is very short sighted to demonize the 1%. In fact, to do so is a form of social manipulation meant for already in place redistributive ends. Progressivism’s Politburo ‘think tank’ of course do not want you to know this, again in Jon Gruber-like fashion.

“Second, while federal tax rates have stabilized at relatively low levels, state and local taxes have risen in many areas. Property taxes, often levied to fund schools, have become a particular burden, because education costs have outpaced inflation.”

The talking heads left out the nonpartisan national debt. Each us, (our children and grandchildren will not be debt free when we die) now owes ten of thousands of dollars.

They also left out that the U.S. dollar is worth less because of the fiscal and monetary policies (printing fiat money for bailouts and financing losers (i.e., Solyndra) to name only two bad GOVERNMENT economic choices) of which these knuckleheads would gladly support. I have no doubt. It’s only money. They go on with the good finance cop talk:

“The third reason Americans are glum about taxes is they don’t feel they’re getting their money’s worth from the government. The Republican sweep of Congress in this year’s midterm elections was an expression of frustration with the economic status quo and the Democrats most associated with it. Poll after poll shows satisfaction with government to be at or near record lows. In Gallup polls, nearly as many people say the government is the nation’s biggest problem as cite the economy. Most people would rather pay a little bit more for something that works well than pay rock-bottom prices for a lemon.” (Yes, government is the nation’s biggest problem along with the nation’s moral bankruptcy.)

Their last line kills me! Be careful! It is a subtle trap. These financial ‘cognoscenti’ are toying with us commoners! Of course, nobody want’s to pay for garbage! But their words imply that we will gladly pay more, just not for a lemon government (read: “It is the institution of government that needs more of your hard earned money to make it less lemony.”)

Our lemon government has paid Jon Gruber $5.9 million for various analyses including The Sting operation known as Obamacare and Amnesty.

Heard at the WH door: “Knock, knock.” “Who’s there?” “Jon Gruber.” “Jon Gruber who?” “Jon Gruber with an invoice for the snake oil you ordered.”

Gruber is listed on the WH visitor list multiple times. He was paid $400,000 to bury the financial truth about Obamacare and to abuse the trust of the American people. Now you want more tax money from me to pay for more abuse? Frick and frack are implying that I should gladly bend over for more of the same.

No, I do not desire to pay more for more bureaucracy, morons! I want a miniscule government and more of my own wages-my personal property-to keep and to give charitably as I see fit. Along with higher aspirations I also seek to be the 1%, at least in the coffers of my mind.

We Americans just loved it, didn’t we, when Obama threw ‘green’ money at Solyndra and then the company went almost immediately into the ‘red’, bankrupt. Most likely, then, the ‘green’ money was laundered into Democrat campaign donations. BTW: When you mix green and red you get a dirty brown color, the color of you know what.

At this moment in time we are paying a huge, huge price for lemon government. You can see this with your own eyes. Our increasing national debt alone is a huge breach in our national security. Frick and Frack don’t mention that government’s revenue collection, via the Founder’s written intention, was intended to provide mainly for our national defense. Our government has failed to do so. 

Our government has failed to do so. By creating a national debt payable to other nations, nations that would like to put us under their thumb and make us submit to their will. And, don’t forget the lack of border security that weakens our national security. Taxpayer money is diverted to climate change nonsense or to some inane study of every deviant specter. Sufficient taxpayer money is not headed to secure our sovereign borders. Instead Obama wants to offer taxpayer funded amnesty, offering your taxpayer dollars to buy votes and popularity with his peeps. You, America come last.

Our government with the aiding and abetting of good finance/bad finance cops and the likes of NYT’s Keynesian economics columnist Paul Krugman ‘cook the books’ ala Jon Gruber, ala ad hoc CPI calculations, ala serendipitous GDP calculations, ala smoke and mirrors unemployment numbers and other snake charming incantations. They consider you ignorant and therefore produce junk videos to charm you into paying more taxes, to demonize the 1% and to redistribute your wealth to a ‘higher cause”–bureaucracy

The demand of the collective: “Government give us jobs that pay more!”

 In 2016 we will vote again. We vote for a leader of our nation.

 One leader may demand more direct and indirect taxes to implement crony policies, he or she may redirect your income to pay for bankrupt ideas like climate change fix-its, college debt bailouts and other Christmas wish-list items. The choice, most likely, is between one of two untrustworthy progressives: Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren

 OR, we vote for a leader who would unleash the power of the American people to create wealth.

 Litmus test: How do you tell political non-leaders from leaders? Those who do not lead will denigrate opponents; divide the nation up into special interest groups. They will make excuses, lie, pronounce judgment on the 1%, raise taxes as the means to greater government and talk about ‘fixing’ government waste while creating more uncontrollable government.

 Those who lead will propose the growth positive reforms necessary to create wealth (not redistributive-wealth as implied in the Yahoo! Article)-for all individuals, not just the Progressive’s chosen elite1%. Leaders have real-life experience in creating wealth and not by deceiving others.

 You will know a leader not by the swagger or their buff BS. You will know them by their sworn duty to uphold the rule of law, by their common sense to reduce the burdens put on the people of this nation and by their stand against corruption in any form.

The Yahoo!Finance article ends with them salivating about their main talking point-“the taxman cometh”: “It’s a good bet tax increases of some kind are coming. For all the dissatisfaction today with underperforming government and the price we pay for it, these could seem like the glory days once tax rates go back up to the more sustainable levels of the past.”

Up yours! (“Up your own taxes” is a nicer way to say this.)

Sincerely, Taxpayer Hadden Nuff

Here are some book recommendations. These books are written in plain, nongovernmental, non-Jon Gruber English. They will give you insight into how our tax system came about (e.g., the 16th Amendment and the Federal Reserve were both created in 1913, fancy that.).

These books will give you the taxpayer a basic and I consider necessary understanding of economics apart from the saccharine Yahoo!Finance articles.

“Free to Choose” by Milton and Rose Friedman

“The Real Crash: How to Save Yourself and Your Country- America’s Coming Bankruptcy,” the latest revised edition by Peter Schiff

George Gilder’s “Knowledge and Power: The Information Theory of Capitalism and How It Is Revolutionizing Our World”

 

Required reading:

Obamcare’s Three-Legged Stool of Deception Regarding Employer Health Plans

Filed under Economics, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Vote American and Do Look Back

October 25, 2014 Leave a comment

There is no need to remind you that election season is once again upon us. The blitz of TV ads, mailers and phone messages infiltrates our homes with a “he said, she said” type of campaign red-lining. Some of the accusations will ring true while others, sadly, most of the others, will be deceitful, stretching or deleting compelling truth for the sake of pocketing your vote. By now you have noted that the Golden Rule has never been used to measure politician’s noses.

 Be so reminded that Tuesday, November 4th, 2014 is the day when you cast your vote or even earlier, if necessary and allowed.

 The issues at hand-you already know them. You embrace some or all of them with various degrees of importance: immigration, homeland security, foreign policy, the economy, rights of others-which I believe must include a very vocal upholding of due process (i.e., the Ferguson Missouri lynch mob mindset and the ubiquitous college campus kangaroo courts). Other interpretative rights include women’s rights, worker’s rights, and rights, more rights, and la-di-dah rights…

 You won’t hear, “Thank God for our country and for our freedoms” or “Responsibility and self-government are meant to be egalitarian with any ‘right’ afforded to us.” Our last two presidential elections told us in word and deed “God damn America!”

 And, you won’t hear: these aspiring words: “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.”

 The vintage words of Abraham, Martin and John have been trampled under the rush of man’s “me-first” wrath. Their blood stained words are now swept away with dust. Forgotten, also, as are the words of Theodore Roosevelt. Political correctness now governs our lexicons, our lives and our American legacy, all to the detriment of our nation.

It is now intellectually vogue to be anti-American. The “we deserved 9/11” crowd invokes cocktail party ‘pat on the back’ self-righteousness conferred onto sycophants who hang on their every anti-American rant.

Their myopic critiques have become standard fare in college courses dealing with social sciences, the humanities, history and wherever a professor can raise a high brow over America.

 You know some of the ‘black flag’ crowd: : Norman Mailer, Robert Lowell, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Coover, E.L. Doctorow, Joseph Heller, Elizabeth Hardwick, Mary McCarthy, Susan Sontag, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Robert Altman. 

“When I see an American flag flying, it’s a joke.” Robert Altman, American Film Director, b.1925

 It is not anti-American to critique America. Free speech, freedom of assembly, etc. are American rights which give us elbow room to squabble and to even critique America’s rights.

 But, it is anti-American when that is all that is said about America is the negative.

 The fact that you can write and publish anti-American literature, create movies that promote anti-Capitalism in favor of ‘been-there-done-that failed-socialism’ and educate college kids with your perverse version of Americana/sacrosanct collectivism reveals the greatness of our country. Totalitarians demand control of your words, your thoughts and your loves. America gives you the freedom to even pronounce judgment on your own freedom.

 As a timely reminder of what America is about I offer the following from Theodore Roosevelt. His words spoke to the same issues we are now voting for or against on November 4th.

 Below is part of a letter written by Theodore Roosevelt-to Solomon Stanwood Menken, the head of the National Security League and the chairman of its Congress of Constructive Patriotism, on January 10, 1917. Roosevelt’s younger sister, Mrs. Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, read the letter to a national meeting of the organization on January 26, 1917.

 Americanism means many things. It means equality of rights and therefore equality of duty and of obligation. It means service to our common country. It means loyalty to one flag, to our flag, the flag of all of us. It means on the part of each of us respect for the rights of the rest of us. It means that all us guarantee the rights of each of us. It means free education, genuinely representative government, freedom of speech and thought, equality before the law for all men, genuine political and religious freedom, and the democratizing of industry so as to give at least a measurable quality of opportunity for all, and so as to place before us, as our ideal in all industries where this ideal is possible of attainment, the system of cooperative ownership and management, in order that the tool-users may, so far as possible, become the tool-owners. Everything is un-American that tends either to government by a plutocracy or government by a mob. To divide along the lines of section or cast or creed is un-American.  All privileges based on wealth, and all enmity to honest men because they are wealthy, are un-American-both of them equally so. Americanism means virtues of courage, honor, justice, sincerity, and hardihood-the virtues that made America. The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life. (emphasis mine)

 Preparedness must be of the soul no less than of the body. We must keep lofty ideals steadily before us, and must train ourselves in practical fashion so that we may realize these ideals. Throughout our whole land we must have fundamental common purposes, to be achieved through education, through intelligent organization and through the recognition of the great vital standards of life and living. We must make Americanism and Americanization mean the same thing to the native-born and to the foreign-born; to the man and to the woman; to the rich and to the poor; to the employer and to the wage-worker. If we believe in American standards, we shall insist that all privileges springing from them be extended to immigrants, and that they in return accept these standards with whole-hearted and entire loyalty. Either we must stand absolutely by our ideals and conceptions of duty, or else we are against them. There is no middle course, and if we attempt to find one, we insure for ourselves defeat and disaster. (emphasis mine)

 Next up from Theodore Roosevelt, an April 1894 article from The Forum Magazine titled “True Americanism.” Here are some excerpts:

 “the class of hypocrites and demagogues, the class that is always prompt to steal the watchwords of righteousness and use them in the interests of evil-doing….

 We Americans have many grave problems to solve, many threatening evils to fight, and many deeds to do, if, as we hope and believe, we have the wisdom, the strength, the courage, and the virtue to do them. But we must face facts as they are. We must neither surrender ourselves to a foolish optimism, nor succumb to a timid and ignoble pessimism. Our nation is that one among all the nations of the earth which holds in its hands the fate of the coming years. We enjoy exceptional advantages, and are menaced by exceptional dangers; and all signs indicate that we shall either fail greatly or succeed greatly. I firmly believe that we shall succeed; but we must not foolishly blink the dangers by which we are threatened, for that is the way to fail. On the contrary, we must soberly set to work to find out all we can about the existence and extent of every evil, must acknowledge it to be such, and must then attack it with unyielding resolution. There are many such evils, and each must be fought after a fashion; yet there is one quality which we must bring to the solution of every problem,- that is, an intense and fervid Americanism. We shall never be successful over the dangers that confront us; we shall never achieve true greatness, nor reach the lofty ideal which the founders and preservers of our mighty Federal Republic have set before us, unless we are Americans in heart and soul, in spirit and purpose, keenly alive to the responsibility implied in the very name of American, and proud beyond measure of the glorious privilege of bearing it….

 Regarding immigration:”

 “It is urgently necessary to check and regulate our immigration, by much more drastic laws than now exist; and this should be done both to keep out laborers who tend to depress the labor market, and to keep out races which do not assimilate readily with our own, and unworthy individuals of all races – not only criminals, idiots, and paupers, but anarchists of the Most and O’Donovan Rossa type. From his own standpoint, it is beyond all question the wise thing for the immigrant to become thoroughly Americanized. Moreover, from our standpoint, we have a right to demand it. We freely extend the hand of welcome and of good-fellowship to every man, no matter what his creed or birthplace, who comes here honestly intent on becoming a good United States citizen like the rest of us; but we have a right, and it is our duty, to demand that he shall indeed become so and shall not confuse the issues with which we are struggling by introducing among us Old-World quarrels and prejudices.

There are certain ideas which he must give up. For instance, he must learn that American life is incompatible with the existence of any form of anarchy, or of-any secret society having murder for its aim, whether at home or abroad; and he must learn that we exact full religious toleration and the complete separation of Church and State. Moreover, he must not bring in his Old-World religious race and national antipathies, but must merge them into love for our common country, and must take pride in the things which we can all take pride in. He must revere only our flag; not only must it come first, but no other flag should even come second. He must learn to celebrate Washington’s birthday rather than that of the Queen or Kaiser, and the Fourth of July instead of St. Patrick’s Day. Our political and social questions must be settled on their own merits, and not complicated by quarrels between England and Ireland, or France and Germany, with which we have nothing to do: it is an outrage to fight an American political campaign with reference to questions of European politics. Above all, the immigrant must learn to talk and think and be United States. The immigrant of to-day can learn much from the experience of the immigrants of the past, who came to America prior to the Revolutionary War. We were then already, what we are now, a people of mixed blood.” (emphasis mine)

 …

“Above all we must stand shoulder to shoulder, not asking as to the ancestry or creed of our comrades, but only demanding that they be in very truth Americans, and that we all work together, heart, hand, and head, for the honor and the greatness of our common country.”

 Theodore Roosevelt quotes;

 “Let us pay with our bodies for our souls’ desire. Let us, without one hour’s unnecessary delay, put the American flag at the battle-front in this great war for Democracy and civilization, and for the reign of justice and fair-dealing among the nations of mankind.”

***

“If we stand idly by, if we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win at the hazard of their lives and at the risk of all they hold dear, then the bolder and stronger peoples will pass us by, and will win for themselves the domination of the world.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Let’s remember, as True Americans, to vote with a clear regard for others and for our country, giving no allegiance to the false flags wafting for our attention.

 

A Lefty Explains What the Election Is All About

 Added 1-28-2014: 

Chicago Activists Unchained, Destroy Black Leadership

 

Resource:

 http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/23771

 

Filed under Culture, Political Commentary, Politics Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Egalitarianism. Is It Equal To The Task?

February 5, 2014 Leave a comment

The 2014 Olympics is fast approaching… starting-line

 Should Olympians ‘race’ when everyone gets the same prize at the finish line?

 Egalitarianism = equal outcomes.  And equal outcomes are what Progressives want to have happen within our legal system, within our education system ~ within society as a whole.

 Egalitarianism is posited as a means to create the unspoken Utopian bureaucratic island where near-perfect socio-politico-legal systems exist and where no one has advantage over another except for the so-called elite who have been ‘blessed’ with “superior intellect.” Only they know enough to define life for you. (e.g., Cass Sunstein’s recent Nudge book).

 In my younger days I was a sprinter.  I would run many heats and then the final events.  To do so I had to prepare for the weekly track meet. I will use my own ‘summer event’ experience to help you to consider whether egalitarianism is equal to the hard work and discipline required for life’s trials and to decide whether the rise of “egalitarianism” will benefit or hurt our society.

 I wrote the following as a ‘real-life’ depiction of my understanding of the “Constrained Vision” and the “Unconstrained Vision” as delineated by Thomas Sowell in his own favorite book A Conflict of Visions:

A Tale of Two Foot Races

Race Number One:

Eight men enter a race.  They are roughly about the same height and weight but come from very different backgrounds. The eight men enter the race knowing that there will only be one winner.  It was for this outcome that they had prepared themselves with rigorous discipline during the past four years.

Months prior to the track meet the eight men are told of the rules:  A runner must run in qualifying heats. If the runner is successful in those heats the runner will then be allowed to compete in the final race with the other qualifying runners;  a runner who jumps the gun twice at the starting line will be disqualified as having a “false start”;  the commands “Ready”, “Set” and a gun shot will be used by a track official to start the race fairly;  each runner must stay in his lane or he will be disqualified;  runners will be timed and the first runner to cross the finish line will be the winner of the race.

The runners all agree and sign off on the rules before the race.

On the day of the race and after qualifying in the heats eight runners come to the starting line.  They know that they must run straight ahead in their own lane to reach the one-hundred meter line. They know that if they jump the gun twice they will be disqualified from running. They know that they must sprint as hard as they can to cross the finish line first. They are knowingly competing for first place. The race before them has now become the culmination of years of exhausting training and dedication to finishing the race and receiving first prize.

When the race is announced the runners shed their sweats and come to the starting line. The track official then announces, “Ready”. The runners will then carefully position their legs into the starting blocks and place their open hands stretched behind the starting line.  

Once the runners have settled the track official then snaps “Set”.  The runners immediately come up to a “set position”, coiled in their starting block. With the burst of the starting pistol eight men bolt from their starting blocks and run down the track as fast as their disciplined bodies will carry them.

The winner of the race is the one who breaks the tape. There is also a second, a third and fourth place finisher. The runners-up each congratulate the winner for his speed and, implicitly, for his fidelity to the rules and his commitment to the sport of racing.

The first three finishers receive medals, adulation and wreaths of honor from the thousands who have come to watch a fair race between those who have so vigorously prepared themselves. The experience of the race has bolstered each runner’s self-esteem. The cheering crowd is also moved by each runner’s self-sacrifice, dedication and self-discipline. This spectacle has confirmed the crowd’s understanding of athlete’s playing by the rules and aspiring to excel within those rules. Those who witnessed the race that day are stirred, encouraged to excel at what they do.

All eight racers later return home.  The runners-up are now more dedicated than ever to prepare for another day of racing and to receiving their own crown of victory. Ciltius, altius, fortius.

Race Number Two:

Eight men enter a race.  They are roughly about the same height, weight but come from very different backgrounds. The eight men entered the race knowing that everyone will be a winner.  It was for this outcome that they saw no need to prepare themselves with rigorous discipline during the past four years. They just had to show up.

Months prior to the race the eight men are told the rules.  They are told the rules are subject to change at the time of the race based on the current ad hoc articulated reasoning of one superior intellectual with unquestionable virtue.  A runner must run in qualifying heats but this will not be a constraint. Whether or not a runner is successful in those heats he will be allowed to compete in the final race with other ‘qualifying’ runners. The heats are basically events created to satisfy the need for more equality.

More rules: a runner who jumps the gun twice at the starting line will not be disqualified from running. Instead he will be given another chance; the commands “Ready” and “Set” and a gun shot will be used by a track official to start the race fairly, though any sincere attempt to cooperate with the official will be accepted; each runner must stay in his lane or he will be disqualified unless, of course, their background is such that they have never stayed within the lines; runners will not be timed because such keeping of minutes would be discrimination against slower runners.  The first runner to cross the finish line will wait at the finish line so that everyone will be considered a winner of the race. This must be done at any personal cost to the first one crossing the finish line.

The runners agree and sign off on the rules before the race.

On the day of the race all of the runners come to the starting line.  They know that they are supposed to run down to the finish line before the outcome-determining patrons. They know that there will be equal prizes and the egalitarian appreciation of well-wishers to look forward to. They are going to run for this reason. This race is now the culmination of years of knowing that the battle is just showing up and doing what you are told.

When all the runners are in their starting blocks and their hands are behind the starting line the track official then says, “Ready”.  After a long moment of reasoned judgment the official says “Set”.  The runners come up to set position.  Then the race official shoots the starting gun. The eight men come out of their starting blocks and run down the track as fast as their unfocused discipline has trained them.

At the finish line everyone is a Finisher, even those who left the race due to being out of breath. There are hand-shakes and kudos all around for having shown up for such an event.

At the awards ceremony all the runners receive medals and congratulations. Thousands have come to watch a race between runners who have shown up for a race where the outcome was predetermined to be fair ~ fair as defined by the few judges of superior intellect and of unquestioned virtue.

Later, all the runners return home and rest for another day of showing up.

*****

A Tale of Two Foot Races:  Equal Opportunities vs. Equal Outcomes by Sally Paradise © Sally Paradise, 2013, All Rights Reserved

Added 2/7/2014:

Communism Leads to Slavery Not To Equality

Filed under Egalitarianism, Political Commentary, Politics, social commentary Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Quoth the Paradise: Nevermore!

December 30, 2012 2 Comments

Quoth the Paradise:  Nevermore!

 Please!  No more tattoos.  Cover up your butterfly, your Mayan symbol of fertility, your undulating butt cheeks covered with spider webs.  Cover up your magic marker body.  I do not want to see it.

 Please! No more women talking endlessly on cell phones while driving an SUV or a mini-van.  They are multi-tasking my patience. 

 Please, no more skinny jeans.  If I wanted to look at a blue toothpick then I will go puncture a Smurf. 

 Please, no more make-your-skin-crawl women: Rachel Maddcow, Ellen, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi. 

 Please, no more city mayors telling us we can’t drink a biggie size drink or carry a gun or have a Chic-fil-A restaurant in our district.

 And please.  No more government!

When you voted for Obama you voted to make your life harder. I know I know. You thought life would be better but you were deceived by the “social justice” propaganda.

 Voting for tax and spend Democrats (Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi) means that you spend less time with your family and more time working to pay your bills.  Sure Barrack and Michelle will continue to get Hawaiian vacations and Barrack will continue to play hundreds of hours of golf but your family will have to put off vacations because of … 1) rising Federal and State taxes, 2) because of government regulations affecting your workplace which affects your pay and 3) because of rising consumer prices due to corporation taxes. And, tax rate increases for the wealthy do not occur in a vacuum.  Increasing the tax rates for the wealthy affects everyone negatively.

 With Democrats you are placed in what I call a Moronic Squeeze:  government through taxation (including the newly tax-mandated Obamacare) demands more of your money.  So now you will have to work more hours in order to take care of your family.  Then because you are both working so much you can’t spend time with your kids, time the kids desperately need.  Instead,  a public school takes over your children.  Then the public school system demands more money to teach your children and then government will come back for more tax money from you.  Phew! You and your children are put in an ever tightening vise by government.

 More devastating, government creates fiscal and moral poverty; “social justice” is the scam that is used to take money from your pocket and put it where it best serves a politician and his reelection needs.

 When both parents are working who’s with the kids?  Are you letting the public school inculcate its “diversity” values into your children because you don’t have the time to spend with them, because you work so many hours to pay government for the first five months of the year?

 Social justice, better simply, “justice”,  is learned at home.  Invest your money there and not in government:  spend time with your children, teach them what is good.  The returns will be great.  Government gives you pennies on the dollar return on your tax payments.

 When you keep more of your own money you have more options and more time to spend with family.  Voting for more government – more Democrats – does not give you more time with your precious family.  Instead you must work all the harder to meet government’s demands.  Obamacare is only one of the huge financial demands now placed on the middle class.

 2014 & 2016:  Think about your family before you vote for more government (and less take home pay) in the form of a Democrat candidate.

Added Dec 31st, 2012:  The Best Bumper Stickers of 2012 – the Legal Insurrection edition. Here’s one example:

Bumper-Sticker-Gypsum-CO-Forward

I have to ask:atlanta-Freedom

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“That’s What We Are Creating…”

December 8, 2012 Leave a comment

This is where my hard-earned taxpayer money is going…strum, strum, strum right down the drain:

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High On the Hog

November 30, 2012 Leave a comment

High On the Hogbacon

Friday:  I’m sitting at my desk minding my own business.  The person who does the electronic file work for all of our projects stops by to talk to the guy in the next cube.  The boisterous blather begins.

 Ms. CEM (College Educated Moron) is from Michigan. She starts talking about Detroit being absorbed into the black hole of oblivion (self-destruction really).  Then somehow the subject is changed onto public schools: “I don’t like charter schools.”  The guy in the next cube can barely get a word in: “I like charter schools…” Ms. CEM takes a deep breath and throws her head back:  “Well, I like public schools. I’m an advocate for good education.  Good schools make good adults.  I don’t have kids and I don’t want kids. It takes a village to raise a child.”

 Ms. CEM is thirty years old, a Michigan State grad in Art history and easily twice my size. She sits directly on the other side of my cube where she spends her time talking about food and specifically, BACON.  All day long.  She eats cup cakes with bacon-infused frosting and bacon innards!  She talks up food… all… day… long. And when she is not talking about food and gourmet restaurants and craft beers she is sighing heavily as if the weight of the village is being put on her again and again. This must be.  She voted for the Obama village twice.  I am as sure of this as I am that she will have some sort of bacon varietal for lunch.  Lard Almighty!

 I could see where Ms. CEM having kids would detract from a life of complete and utter self-indulgence.  And why not self-indulge? Obama offered the Promised Baconland.  (But Bottom-of-the-Barrel Detroit is what she’ll get.)

 Besides, kids are a distraction. Better to ship them off like hogs and have them processed… into… bacon for those who union villagers who live off the fat of the land.

 I didn’t jump in and tell her that had we home schooled two of our kids and that charter schools are the best hope for kids in one of the worst school systems in the US,  the Chicago Public Schools. I also didn’t mention that Chicago will self-destruct like Detroit and that the village had run out of bacon. I’ll keep those pearls to myself.

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I Have to Ask…

November 28, 2012 Leave a comment

I have to ask you…

 I support myself and my family by working in the Free Market. I pay tons of taxes on money made in the Free Market. I pay all my bills including medical with money made in the Free Market.  I give to charities and to those in need weekly from monies made in the Free Market, I find work and opportunity in the Free Market apart from a union…Do you have a problem with the Free Market?

 Now here is something I have a problem with:  why am I subsidizing people sitting on their ass? And, why am I subsidizing kids camping in a park protesting the Free Market? Why are illegals being allowed into the US and allowed to live off of me? Why is it that the Democrat’s only answer to every fiscal problem is “higher taxes” and it’s never to cut entitlement spending? And why, why is work punished?

From the Zero Hedge article

When Work Is Punished: The Tragedy Of America’s Welfare State

  • For every 1.65 employed persons in the private sector, 1 person receives welfare assistance
  • For every 1.25 employed persons in the private sector, 1 person receives welfare assistance or works for the government.

The punchline: 110 million privately employed workers; 88 million welfare recipients and government workers and rising rapidly.

And since nothing has changed in the past two years, and in fact the situation has gotten progressively (pardon the pun) worse, here is our conclusion on this topic from two years ago:

We have been writing for over a year, how the very top of America’s social order steals from the middle class each and every day. Now we finally know that the very bottom of the entitlement food chain also makes out like a bandit compared to that idiot American who actually works and pays their taxes. One can only also hope that in addition to seeing their disposable income be eaten away by a kleptocratic entitlement state, that the disappearing middle class is also selling off its weaponry. Because if it isn’t, and if it finally decides it has had enough, the outcome will not be surprising at all: it will be the same old that has occurred in virtually every revolution in the history of the world to date.

 But for now, just stick head in sand, and pretend all is good. Self-deception is now the only thing left for the entire insolvent entitlement-addicted world.

I made my choice.  How about you?

*****

BTW:  Health Insurance is NOT the Same Thing as Health Care

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Thanksgiving Food for Thought

November 22, 2012 1 Comment

Thomas Sowell:  Liberals and Conservatives

Thomas Sowell:  Occupying Mindlessness

Milton Friedman:  Cause and effect

Tax the wealthy and there will be no money for investments and new jobs.  Monies for charities will dry up.  Tax the wealthy and you hurt charities and the middle class the most.  Obama has no clue as to what he is doing.  Sadly, people voted for just another politician.

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The Hangover Continues

November 7, 2012 Leave a comment

Obama won.  America lost. 

America deserves better than this media mollycoddled divisive passive-aggressive politician. The hangover from election night 2008 still has America off her feet.

****

 This morning I bumped into our office’s cleaning lady.  I’ll call her Dushanka. 

Dushanka asked if I had watched the election coverage last night.  I answered sadly that I did.

 I never knew Dushanka’s political inclination before this morning.  We previously had only talked before about our families and about work. We often talk when we arrive to work at 6:30 in the morning.  We sometimes see each other during the long work day and then we also chat.

 Dushanka came to America from Romania. She came to America because America was hope and change long before Obama came on the scene.  Dushanka works long hard hours just as I do.  We both pay our taxes and we obey the rules.  But after watching the election results and the crowd at McCormick Place and on the street she told me, “America is now broken.”  She could not fathom why those young people were standing there paying homage to Dear Leader, economic reality held in abeyance.  Nor could I.

 Dushanka told me something that I am no longer shocked about in Obama America:  another cleaning women working with D cheats the “system” – you and me.

 This woman, a foreigner, is using some else’s social security number. This woman has a child from a boyfriend. This woman registered the child at a Chicago Public school and received $200.00 (for what Dushanka didn’t know).  This woman who works with Dushanka also receives food stamps.  This same woman wrote on her job application that she had graduated from high school though she never graduated.  All of these things and more this woman related to Dushanka in a rather smug way: “Look, I am getting away with this.  You can too.”  In other words she is “cleaning up” at our expense.  That is Barack Obama’s America. And that is status quo for Chicago.  It is quickly becoming so for the nation. This is Social Justice Obama style but is this going forward in a morally right direction?

 Dushanka told me that she does not cheat the system:  “That would be cheating God.”

 Where is the Social Justice for people like Dushanka, for people like me?  Where is the social justice when people steal from other Americans? And where is the social justice when people forcibly take your property and give it to someone else though taxation? Where is social justice in class warfare?  In dividing the country racially?  There can be no social justice when men are not given their due, when materialism trumps the justice due human dignity and worth.

 Did you notice that our American ambassador and his aides were slaughtered in Benghazi?  The Obama White House is covering up their decided lack of involvement.  American citizens were killed but Obama played golf, campaigned and had another cigarette.  Could it be that there is now in place “a U.S. government policy of “engaging, legitimating, enriching and emboldening Islamists who have taken over or are ascendant in much of the Middle East,”? This is the biggest scandal in American History.  The Obama regime wants to stonewall the whole business so that time will pass and people will forget.  But we won’t forget.

Did you notice Fast and Furious – AG Eric Holder sends lethal weapons to narco-terrorists in a scheme to teach America a lesson about owning guns?  The scheme backfired and a US border agent, an American citizen, is killed with the same guns along with hundreds of Mexicans. This is Social Justice Obama style.

Religious liberties are now being deleted for the new religion of political correctness. Moral relativism is replacing absolute truth.

 Millions of people are out of work.  Yesterday people voted for more of the same!

This is what fear of the state looks like<< click here

Asstounding!  People voted for more uncertainty, more unpredictability, more taxes, more regulation, more tight money, more policies that undermine business confidence and block economic recovery. They voted for more incompetence from Barack Obama!

Today’s children want socialism.  And it is the very people who want socialism who bring nothing to the table.  That is why they want redistribution of other people’s money – they have nothing to offer themselves.

 People now want the government to be their insurance company and their vending machine for everything from birth control to abortions to health care.  People now want government to cover all their bets and to give them other people’s money to play. The majority of people voted for the indentured slavery of big government and the Boot placed on their neck!

****

 Obama’s Hope and Change cocktail has put our country on its back.  The only cure for the “Goddamn America” hangover from the 2008 and 2014 election nights is “God Bless America.”   The cure didn’t happen the last four years and it is not going to happen these next four years.  The narcotic effects of atheism, nihilism, materialism and antinomianism (lawlessness) – an elixir of evil gulped down on those election nights will now spread rapidly through your system. Liberty won’t know what hit it.

Just ask D.

*****

Read The Forgotten Man – those who supply jobs and resources – requirements for human flourishing – are not the academics.

*****

Media Bias and the other Great Overlooked Stories of this Election Season

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Socialism: The Opposite of Success

October 11, 2012 Leave a comment

Since the elections are days away from taking place I thought it important to post information to help inform your decision.  Our nation is at the tipping point of being destroyed. A second Obama Term will make that happen. Vote wisely and not with feelings that do not pay the bills.

Socialism does not work in Europe.  It will not work in America either, no matter the label on the snake oil bottle:  Progressivism or Social Justice or Redistribution of Wealth.  It’s bad bad medicine.

Filed under 2012 election, conservative, Political Commentary, Progressivism Tagged with , , , , , , ,

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