Rants and Raves

   

Isn’t it interesting that the people who proclaim loudest that they are reaching out as bipartisans to accomplish their agendas are also the quickest to ditch the proclamation when they don’t need it. In the latest stinkulus bill discussion, the Republicans were certainly invited to attend the meeting; they simply weren’t allowed to participate.  

“I won” Barack said to the top Republicans when they pointed out that 90% of the legislative abomination is nothing more than pork. In other words, too bad. You can’t do anything about it, and your input means nothing here. Barack certainly did win. And now he has successfully outraged every conservative with a voice and every taxpayer with the ability to see what his great stimulus plan is really funding. Beginning with that comment, many of us are already counting down until the next round of elections in 2010, when the pork bill won’t have done anything more for the economy than the last pork bills did, and the “I won” statement can be stuck right back in his face by American voters.   

Having secured their positions and having eliminated the opposition, Barack and Pelosi have no need to be bipartisan anymore. They’ve got that good old feeling of invincibility as they look at the next two years without checks or balances to stop them; they can see no end to the amount of taxpayer money they can spend. For now.    

As for the truly bipartisan position, as conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh so elequently points out, 11 democrats and every last Republican with a vote said no to the stinkulous bill, teaming up in an attempt to deflate a number of dangerously pressurized political egos. Naturally, the side of reason was still not powerful enough in this climate, but I wonder exactly how hypocritical Obama and Pelosi feel today with that knowledge, considering their constant outcries of bipartisanship. My guess is not at all. That would, after all, require a conscience combined with the ability to logically think.  

   

I write this post today with the hope of understanding exactly why socialism seems so appealing to so many people today. Is it that other people’s money is simply better than our own? (Lord knows my bank account ain’t too pretty…) Or maybe it is because the upper class people in our society have attained a reputation for being particularly low down and dirty. Whatever the reason, I just can’t bring myself to believe that “taxing the rich” equates to anything but legalized theft.   

Maybe I’m just a dumb conservative, but isn’t this the land of equality, where the color of your skin, and your religious preference shouldn’t influence your chances for success? It seems incongruous to me that we should work so hard to ensure equality among ourselves, but then look the other way when we decide how much of our incomes we should have to give away to an already top-heavy government. There is no logical justification for taking 70% of a rich man’s money (as Carter did) while taking 15% of a lower-middle classman’s. I can only think of greed and envy as motives, which is perhaps why I’m still against the idea.  

Here in America, our greatest hope, and even our foundation, is our freedom. The sky is no longer a limit to the things we can achieve if we set our minds to do so. But if we continue down this path, we will do nothing but break the wings of anyone who dares to try. Equality doesn’t mean that we all have to be chopped down to the same level; it means that we all have the same freedom to pursue our ambitions, and it’s up to us to come up with the determination and the know-how.   

Please, share your thoughts on the issue and, if you’re a hardcore tax-the-rich liberal, help me understand your justification for your beliefs. 

  

I’ve got two words today that are sure to aggrevate anyone with an ounce of sense or a drop of integrity. Now that we’ve ruled the liberals  out, those words are Tim and Geithner.   

We might as well dispense with the overplayed rhetoric and sidestepping of every crooked politician who supports the appointment of yet another crooked politician. Geithner is a tax-dodging greed machine, much like every other suit in Washington, which is exactly why no one is pointing the finger at him. When in Rome, I suppose, you gotta eat your heart out and then barf like the rest of them or you don’t earn the official golden seal.  

The new political catchphrase to justify Geithner’s tax evasion is “sloppy.” “He’s a sloppy guy, which I can appreciate because I’m sloppy too…”(paraphrased). …Know what that  means? He’s not considered sloppy because he “forgot” to pay his taxes; he’s sloppy because he got caught. For four years. After he got paid extra money for the sole purpose of paying his taxes.  

The only reason this guy is not in jail is that he’s a politician, and when politicians commit crimes-even Federal offenses-they’re not really crimes anymore. They’re momentary judgement failures, or coincidental slips of the [lack of] mind, and nobody would hold a guy accountable for only four years of consecutive Federal crimes. Come on guys, is this America, or isn’t it? Just look the other way like the rest of us….    

So, despite the public outcry for something approaching sanity, Geithner is going to head up the IRS. And the next time the IRS sends a letter to a citizen who didn’t pay their taxes, the reply will read something like “I’ll pay mine the same way you paid yours. See ya in about 4 years, sucka, and I’d better get a nice position in the government for my trouble.”   

Does anyone even realize that Geithner doesn’t even qualify to work the offender’s line at the IRS? Doesn’t it seem odd for someone who couldn’t obtain one of the lowest positions available to take charge of the whole operation? Maybe we should all follow the example and oust the existing corporate leadership structures in America, to replace them with janitorial temps. (Wait a second, that’s actually not a bad idea…)  

For anyone out there who doesn’t have their head buried in the sand (again, just plug your ears, lefties, this won’t take a minute), I pray that people like you, who still choose to think and use reason, can take and hold positions of influence before we all find ourselves subjects to King George Obama III the all-merciful.  

Maybe I just can’t stand all this because it seems like we’ve been here before. As  a matter of fact, it seems like we’ve fought and won wars, simply to remove ourselves from corruption. United States Constitution sound familiar to anyone? No? I didn’t think it would. They say history repeats itself, but I’m personally not a big fan of deja-vu.   

The New American Reserve Fund 

With the subject of bailouts continually flooding every news network and internet site of late, it’ been hard to keep track of just exactly how many $700 billion + packages we are planning to crank out in the near future.

Some say that the national debt has grown by 6.4 trillion in the last few months while others say it’s more like 8 trillion. Whatever the real number may be, I would certainly like to know why the public doesn’t have the right to vote on it.

 How is it that the government can take our money, and as much of it as they deem proper, do what they wish with it, and then fail to publish the grand total or the amount of money being printed? Is anyone even aware of the gross level of overspending that is going on, or what the consequences for it will be? The answer is as close as the nearest history book.

Dumping money into the economy in this way didn’t help out during the great depression. In fact, according to most economic historians, it extended it. The rest of the world during that time suffered a standard economic depression, taking far less time and dealing significantly less damage than that of the American “Great” Depression. Why? Because they didn’t try any socialist methods to “stop the momentum of this economic downturn.” Because Americans used public money to fund unprofitable businesses in a futile attempt to get the ball rolling again.

The problem with the American strategy-take notes here, Washington-was that the businesses being bailed out WERE STILL UNPROFITABLE! Hard to believe, I know, but it’s true. They just sucked down all that extra money and nothing really happened. And if you can believe it, people and businesses used the bail out as an easy excuse to grab as many taxpayer dollars as they could get their hands on. That reminds me, has anyone heard about American Express opening up hoardes of local banks across the country? I’m sure that’s just a coincidence. Really. I mean, these days we have our histories to look to for guidance. All we need now is for a politician to actually read them and we’re rock solid. …Ah crap, who are we kidding? We’re toast. 

 

 

I began this post as a comment in response to the comments on Polianiac  but the rant took me away and it quickly became a post of its own. Check out Polianiac’s blog to get caught up with the debate, and feel free to respond here or there. This response was to Jason’s comment, which I am unsure if I can repost here, so I will simply begin. 

I think we are all tired of both Clinton and Bush. Clinton was president during a great economy. Great. It had absolutely nothing to do with him, but if people want to credit him for it then fine. We can argue economic policy and cite the leading experts until we’re blue in the face, but the fact is that none of them can agree in those areas because there are too many political statements to be made. Clinton cut military jobs, raised taxes, increased the size of government programs, and generally annoyed the crap out of me with his playboy approach at the presidency. But that’s just me.

Bush kept the country safe after 9-11. For that, I give him great credit in addition to my thanks and admiration. At least he had what it took to take action when we were attacked instead of simply ignoring it like Clinton did. If Clinton had possessed the gumption to break away from the party for a few minutes and act like an American president, the war would have began under his watch instead of Bush. Would it have begun in Iraq? Who knows? The intelligence said that Iraq was a good place to start, but Al Qa’ida infests so many countries like a plague that it could have began in a number of locations.  

Liberals love to say that the wars we are fighting are for nothing, or that Bush sent the troops in for the oil because he’s a huge oil tycoon, blah blah blah, I saw it all on the Communist News Network. Say what you will, but until you have read the intelligence reports(that even Obama wants to send troops into Afghanistan for) and sat in the chair to make the decision of how best to defend against terrorists who hide in camps scattered around the world, training young boys to hate Americans to the death, the whole load of crap is just more rhetoric to be tossed about and scattered to the wind.

The fact is that it is anyone’s right as free Americans do say the things they wish to say and either back them up or spin the facts so that they look like something akin to real proof. That right is continually preserved by the blood and the backbones of the very soldiers who are the targets for their scorn, and if you ask those fighting men and women who they voted for, the vast majority never sided with Barack Obama, contrary to the so-called media pollsters that sat and waited around for enough Barack supporters to filter through to justify turning the cameras on.

But Bush didn’t stick to the principles that I voted him in for. By the end of his latest term, he has chosen to bow to the socialists as though the New Deal was something that actually helped the country instead of prolonging the great depression. What I think we are all looking for is a politician who can stick to a set of principles for a change. Our ideas of what those principles are might vary greatly, but the best leaders in history have been those who didn’t care about being popular. They only wanted to make the right decisions for America and preserve the Republic for which they stood. Personally, I would rather vote for a left wing politician who stands clear on issues and has good reasons to back them up than for a right wing politician who regurgitates the same old wishy-washy euphemisms, rhetoric, and red herrings that everyone else in Washington loves to confuse their voters with.

And, yes, I am a right wing conservative and a Christian to boot. I believe that the courage and values in an American president were rarely so clear as they were in Ronald Reagan, who defiantly spit in the face of dictators and communists that starved their people while their bellies burst from their own gluttony. Reagan stood for what was moral and just, and to the birds with the constant dissenters who could never be happy or reach agreement about an issue. Reagan was respected. He was feared by his enemies. And it was his values and policies that got the country booming like it never has before, after the failed socialist experiment that Carter put us through.

If ever a presidential candidate arises with those same clear principles and attitude, who is willing to back statements with real facts, and strives to speak clearly so that Americans understand the reasoning behind them, I believe that we can arise from our current state of affairs and become again the great nation that is quickly fading in the murkiness. Until then, we are stuck with what we are stuck with, and it is our own citizens who put us there because “he’s a powerful speaker” or “I have to side with my race or gender.” Maybe someday, we’ll realize that there is significantly more to a leader than looks and words.

 

 

 

 

There has been a great deal of heatead debate lately about who should fill the recently vacated Senate seats of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Without getting into the blatantly corrupt processes involved there(see Only In Politics  for that rant), the biggest and loudest voices of outrage cry out for Hillary’s slot to be filled by a woman and Barack’s to be filled by an African American. My big question about that is: Why?

 Why not choose a political candidate(or any other) based on real qualifications and experience for a change? No bribes, no racial profiling, just the facts. Here’s my proposition to solve this little problem: From this point forward, every potential candidate for office will be known to the public as candidate a, b, c, etc., revealing no name, no picture, and no soundbytes to anyone for any reason until the decision has been made through a public vote. Each candidate’s skills, abilities, and years of experience will be listed for different types of jobs while keeping the job titles and locations a secret so that the candidate’s real identity will be subject to a best guess, if that.

 Why would this be a better process? Because it’s cleaner. It takes out all of the garbage that tends to baselessly swing votes around, such as “oh, he’s a great speaker” or “I have to support my race/gender.” The whole idea of a public vote is so that candidates will have a better chance of being judged fairly instead of being subject to corrupt processes that can be controlled by those in power(again, see Only In Politics  for that rant). What the public vote has instead turned into is a fashion and eloquance contest that has nothing to do with who can govern better or more fairly.

Where has the ideal of America gone to be replaced by such rabble? Why don’t we teach the real histories of our founding fathers and discern their intent through the Constitution anymore? Since when does a judge or any other governing body have the right to eliminate constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms? America badly needs an operation, else I fear she won’t make it through the next night. When she wakes, she’ll be a horribly disfigured semblance of her former majesty, and she’ll be helpless to the domineering machinations of the outside world.

We need a change, America. And the only way to bring it about is to get off our keesters and make it happen ourselves. Or should we simply entrust it to a governing body with a single digit approval rating?

I would honestly like to know how it is that in a genuine democracy, politicians can sell Senate seats without losing their jobs. Blago (I’m not even going to bother trying to spell it), I hope you are proud of yourself. I hope that you can lay your head down at night and sleep knowing that you are the absolute epitome of what good people in the world don’t want to be. 

Your ideas about political horse-trading have absolutely nothing to do with real democracy and you are now known as one of the biggest scumbags in a city full of scumbags working for a capitol full of scumbags. If you don’t have the decency to resign, at least have the mercy to get a haircut. Seriously, are those bangs?  

Yes, this rant is a bit on the bitter side, perhaps because I just can’t get the taste out of my mouth. I am sick and tired of people like this running the country, and somehow getting re-elected even though no one votes for them. It is because of people like this that democracy is being strangled to death in America, and until someone finally puts a stop to the greedy, pork-barrel, horse-trading substitute for real progress, we will continue to wallow in our own filth and wonder if there ever was a time when the people in charge actually gave a crap about their constituents. 

During this last election period, there were a number of city and state budgeting issues that were voted on in addition to the candidates seeking public offices. Of these issues, perhaps the most common to be raised in the realm of public finance is the never-ending cry for tax increases.

I am always intrigued at the need for higher taxes, for the simple fact that the level of tax revenues rises along with the population. Why is it, then, that a rising population is always the foremost reason cited for raising the percentage of taxes that the people should have to pay?

Understandably, crime rates do rise with population numbers,  creating a need for a larger police force and better equipment, but I also understand that there are a number of public programs and expenses that we could do without. Certain salaries are exorbitantly high and there are always just a few bucks here and there that dissappear with no accounting for it.  

So here’s my proposition. Since we love to spend so much tax money already, why not create a kind of council, or budget reform board if you will, from the existing citizens in each city or county that continually rotates and renews its numbers by random selection. This could be done in the same fashion as jury duty, and the positions would be paid for all who participate.

The budget reform board will be solely responsible for investigating and either approving or vetoing the spending of public funds, and because it consists of a constantly changing group, it will only focus on a few issues at a time, and will be much less susceptible to the corruption that holding a public office seems to bring about.

Not only do I believe that the public would learn a great deal more about where their money is going from this, but also that the number of frivolous spending projects would be greatly reduced as a result of this knowledge. There is currently a severe need for this kind of budget reduction and monitoring, most especially during this latest economic crisis, and we have been given numerous reasons to believe that the job can only be performed properly if we do it ourselves. 

In essence, we have a desperate need to bring decision making power back into the hands of the people instead of allowing it to remain in the hands of those who generally misuse it. This is a call to arms, and I openly welcome any other ideas or debate about the issue. Our consitution guarantees us the right to reform our government and it’s about time we started using it. 

There was once a time when Capitalism was viewed as the savior of the American people. After all, it was capitalism that propelled us to our position of world power that we still hold today. It was capitalism that ensured American freedoms and individual rights to own property, conduct business affairs, and achieve as much success as we could stand.  

Now, the warcry goes out for change. Normally, change is a good thing for people. It causes us to grow and understand ourselves better than we could have without it. And I suppose that the change of Socialism will do that for us as well. Unfortunately, it will also be a painful kind of change. The kind of change that causes us to have our vital organs removed, only to later realize exactly why we needed them.  

Why is it that America feels the need to enforce fairness and equal circumstances? Wasn’t it supposed to be equal opportunity? Equal platforms from which we could reach for the stars if we so desired? It was the American dream to have the ability to live freely, work hard, and enjoy the successes we brought about. Now, the people who didn’t feel like trying are in a rage over how unfair it is for those rich people to enjoy the fruits of their labors. 

Make no mistake, it is the people who dedicate their lives to success that end up becoming rich. They sacrifice every day, coming to work early, leaving work late, saving and building, constantly striving, only to have their masterpieces continually ruined by each new failure. The number one characteristic of the world’s most successful people, according to financial guru Dave Ramsey, is their indominable will to continue when it seems unreasonable to do so. They took their beatings and never gave up until they achieved their goals.

These are the same people we now virtually criminalize, demanding that they hand over their profits because they suddenly don’t deserve them.  Why? Because somebody doesn’t think it’s fair. Well, guess what, people? The more we punish those who succeed here, the more they are going to conduct their business elsewhere. We think it’s only fair to tax and steal so that everyone gets a little piece of the pie they baked from scratch, and at some point, these highly motivated, job-creating people are going to say that enough is enough and start outsourcing most of their business to countries that can appreciate having a place to work-oh, wait, I think they’re already doing that…

If we don’t wake up, give ourselves a good smack, and decide that it’s up to us to earn our own money, we’re going to begin drowning in our own overblown sense of entitlement. When nobody works, there’s no more money to steal(or tax, if you prefer to live with the illusion), which means that nobody eats. I recently heard an experience describing a visit to Russia during their openly Communist days, when a group of farmers were spotted standing in the shade and relaxing. When asked why they weren’t working, they simply replied “We get the same number of Ruples for resting in the shade as we do for working in the sun. So… we rest in the shade.” This comment spoke volumes as to the reasons that Communist nations often starve their people to emaciation.

So, for those Americans who feel that we should continue taking more from the rich and giving it to those that aren’t even working, I genuinely hope that you take a visit to any Communist country and speak to the people there about their quality of life. Inevitably, it is the lowest, poorest, most miserable existence in the world, and the people forced to live there would probably not believe the splendor that many Americans scorn as still not good enough.

Capitalism? That’s just a quickly dying myth. Capitalism doesn’t work. Why else would America hate it so much?

There is currently a resolution being considered by the U.N. called the “Defamation of Religions” act. While the name of the act sounds like it’s probably a good thing, the international legislation would allow countries within the U.N. to criminalize Christianity, Judaism, Bhuddism, and every other religion except for Islam. And of course, the act is being pushed by the OIC, or Organization of the Islamic Conference. It’s not the first time that this organization has tried to justify their belief that all non-muslims should be prosecuted, and without a doubt it won’t be the last. What’s scarry about this, however, is that there are still quite a few countries voting for the measure. As a matter of fact, until recently, there were actually more countries voting for the measure than against!  The very idea of this is appalling and nonsensical, but the U.N. is considering making this an international law? For more information, or to sign a petition against this act, I ask any who read this post to go to the ACLJ’s website: https://www.aclj.org/Petition/?ac=1&sc=3387