Short Bullets on What the Media Won't Tell You

 Click Her Square on the Lips. You know you want to!

I have come to think that a well-organized billboard and bumper sticker campaign would help our country a lot, since much of what needs saying will not get aired in our traditional media outlets...but everybody drives!

My Original Bumper Stickers can be purchased at http://www.cafepress.com/marcsbasecamp

Our society is more and more driven by short, bumper sticker-sized quips, known in the media as "sound bytes." I've always seen them as a shallow, pop culture way of analyzing information, but I think more and more that you have to know how to do employ them if you want to reach the masses with your ideas...and the masses - uninformed as most of them are - affect us all with their votes, so it is a necessity to reach them somehow. Obama got himself elected by mastering the sound byte, so I suppose the rest of us have to take the bumper sticker approach more seriously. This page is my attempt at that, with the byte-sized bullet comments below. In fairness, I'll say that perhaps there's even some merit in this approach, as I have heard it said that "brevity is the soul of wit." I will pepper this page throughout with links to my more in-depth articles for those who crave a deeper treatment. Just scroll sequentially to follow the flow of ideas or click the links above..  

• Click here for A Succinct & BRILLIANT GUIDE to Lots of Things we need to understand about success, society and government. I wish I'd written it.

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• Why did I write this page? I do know I'm nobody special. I'm just another American with the freedom of speech, a website, and a lot of random thoughts rattling around in my attic that I have to put somewhere or it just gets too cluttered up there. I do have a degree in political science from a berry nice place, but being a business owner; a forty-something-year-old; a soldier; a husband; and - most poignantly - a disgruntled taxpaying spectator to the D.C. / pop culture circus; has taught me a lot more about life, the universe, and everything than my formal education ever could...I think even the brilliant Dr. Pete would agree with that. No offense intended, Doc. Know, please, that I didn't write this or any of my website to hear myself talk. This isn't about ego - mine or yours, so please try to check ego at the door. This is about alarming trends I see around me. Email me any responses you wish. I can always use intelligent input. Mere Flamers need not bother.

• The Wise Among Us are - by Definition - in the VAST Minority. If they weren't, we'd call them something else that's more common: The same can be said for the "Intelligent," too, which is not the same thing. That's why going with the majority is never a good idea. This is something I realized a few years ago that has made a big difference in my understanding of why so many people seem to be co-opted into sham ideologies. I'm not claiming to be among the "wise minority," but I do work at it, ever muddling my way in that direction, and I strive always to avoid begrudging those who are wiser than me.

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform."     - [Mark Twain] 

"Wisdom is knowing what you don't know." - [Socrates]

I am pointing out the scarcity of The Wise mostly to illustrate the biggest handicap of a merely democratic society...namely that a democracy seeks the counsel and rule of the the mob (a.k.a. "the majority") who (again for emphasis) cannot be said to be the wise. For this reason, and others, our Founders feared democracy - as a sheep would fear a system where one sheep and four wolves could decide by democratic vote what's for dinner. That's why they made us a Republic, as you often hear said but rarely defined.

• Just Say No to Mob Rule: In a Republic that is founded on the Rule of Law (rather than the rule of the majority) an individual sheep has rights that cannot lawfully be infringed upon. Illustration: If The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's had been decided by majority, it would not have passed. The same logic led our Founders to put in place the Electoral College instead of popular vote. More about that, and other things, as you scroll down.

• The Truth Hurts: Which is why you won't hear truth from most politicians. They don't risk hurting our sensitive, politically correct feelings because they want your vote. Thus, we have ourselves to blame for lowering the standard of honesty and leadership in Washington, because of our insistence on having a weak-stomached, politically-correct culture. It makes it too risky for any politician (dem or repub) to risk offending...anybody. That, and the practice of "personal destruction" we have in this country, where we tear personally at the people who go to Washington is why good people aren't drawn to serve us there. Be critical of policies if necessary. Argue ideas instead of destroying individuals (ex. Newt Gingrich, Ken Starr, Joe Lieberman, Zell Miller, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, George W., Clarence Thomas, and more). It's my belief that liberals practice what's now known as the politics of personal destruction because they run out of logical arguments on the issues so quickly. When they do, they resort to these less sophisticated, sophomoric tactics.

"Those who dare not offend cannot be honest" - [Thomas Paine, Federalist Paper author]

• The Talking Heads: "And you may find yourself" thinking "well who is this clown anyway?" when somebody else steps up and offers the frank commentary we really do need. Yet far too many people who hear such folks just get too get too wrapped up in being offended / ideologically defensive that they will refuse to listen. That happens a lot with talk radio personalities, for example. Many people don't even sample these alternative voices because they consider themselves "too open-minded to listen to someone like that;" and they often allow the opinions of other people at the water cooler to make up their minds about such programs (and there are tons of them besides Rush Limbaugh) before they even listen for themselves (insert a double dose of irony here). That's a shame, because there's a lot of independently-verifiable information that you will only hear on talk radio that will make common sense to you. Stuff you have privately wondered about but knew you couldn't voice in our PC culture, or in an open-minded university classroom. Stuff that you can not get if you just stick to the standard propagandists in the traditional media. The Ted Koppels of the world will tell you proudly that their own actual statistics say that the traditional media is full of ideologues who are 95% straight-ticket party-line voters. Which party? You don't need me to tell you. You already know...which is all the proof you should need that this is true. Read Bernie Goldberg's book Bias for a thorough treatment of this phenom from a 30-year CBS veteran.

• Traditional outlets like the New York Times, Nightline, CNN, NBC, & Dan Rather have lost their monopoly on what gets spoon-fed into your brain. More and more every day their ratings utterly plummet, and many "reporters" and anchors get fired for that and for fabricating stories that fit their agenda. Their audience is turning more and more to the "newer" options of talk radio and the blogosphere...I consider myself to be a (more or less humble) member of the latter community.

• Nobody is objective, and I am no exception, but I have tried to keep the bullets on this page so common sense that the logic will be self-evident if you can find a way to read them with minimal emotional / ideological baggage or preconceptions. That's the spirit with which I strive to write them. No, that doesn't keep me from becoming riled at times....but there are things that should cause us enough righteous indignation / outrage for that to happen.

• What Is This Page?: While this page is an attempt to be a good introduction on a lot of topics for even the deepest thinkers, let me say that I made this in bullet / almost sound byte form so that anyone can peruse a bullet or a block of them and get a sampling of what else is out there but not said on the network news outlets. This country started out as the greatest political idea in history, but the things that are missing today in pop-culture discourse are the very things that could turn this country around, and get it off the path of declining greatness that we are on now.

• A "sound byte" is a media term for a superficial one-liner (like you'd find on a bumper sticker) that is allowed to replace actual in-depth analysis in our short-attention-span, ratings-driven media culture. Unfortunately, a lot of people in America give important political ideas about that much thought before they vote, and they can be swayed by a particularly witty-sounding one. For the Jesse Jacksons of the world, the 'sound byte' pop art form is perfected when it rhymes..."if the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit," et al

• I was originally going to call this page "Bumper Stickers" so that I could be "sound byte" competitive for folks who come to my site and find my more in-depth articles (even with the pictures I throw in) too long-winded. Turns out, I couldn't whittle the thoughts even on this page down quite to bumper sticker proportions - and I was no good at making them rhyme - but each bullet IS very short / to the point, and each stands alone as a self-supporting thought. They are great "think-starters" for folks who are just starting to realize that they need to understand politics; and the bullets are completely developed into blocks of bullets that stay more or less on topic for people who want more. Feel free to peruse them randomly at will, in any order.

• Maybe I should have called this page "The Mother of All Rants." I think this'll become my favorite page :-) At some point I am going to put "in-line frames" here, until then, if you are looking for something specific, type CTRL + F to find a key word on this page.

• I left out most external links and references on this page so that no one could blame me for directing folks down a certain path and thus accuse me of being just another ideologue. An ideologue wouldn't tell you the following:

Don't take my word for any of this...pick out any key word or two in these bullets and start Google-ing for yourself. It's all out there. All blocks of bullets below are my words unless otherwise indicated:

My Two Favorite Quotes of All Time (From two of my favorite Presidents of all time):

One: “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race”

More Calvin Coolidge Quotes

Two: "It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly...who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who have never known neither victory nor defeat."

Teddy Roosevelt

Here We Go...

It's not all about military here...heck, I've hit everything...but I am starting there because without security there is nothing else...and the military gives that to us - using their very lives as currency - so we start by giving them their due place of preeminence

• Are you just sitting there "Waiting on the World to Change?" While you're humming that song at Starbucks, we (pictured left) have got your back. We are the true face of compassion. How so? Well, who's more compassionate at a mugging scene?: Someone who steps in to stop the attack, or someone who just shakes their head and "tsk-tsks" about what a shame it is that we have so much crime in the world?

  "Except for abolishing Nazism, fascism, communism, and slavery; war has never solved anything."

  REMEMBER, REMEMBER...THE 11TH OF SEPTEMBER

• I do diverge with President Bush on some issues, but he has the Global War on Terror right - yes, Iraq included. You may lament the deaths of our service-members (so do I, seven percent of the deaths from one community of the military were friends of mine) but these were warriors by trade who knew the risks and took them - knowing that doing so would save countless American civilian lives. Not so, had we chosen not to go...as this would have necessitated our fighting against waves of attacks here at home in our high rises, shopping malls, etc and against our families. Think that's far-fetched? How can you after Sept 11?

• I'm sure you haven't heard much in the media lately about how 9/11 was supposed to be just a kick off of a new era of terror. Our enemies had built vast cell networks all over our country (check out the National Geographic DVD on the subject if you don't want to believe this from the "vast right wing conspiracy machine") and they were emboldened to believe they could pull it off by decades of inaction on our part towards terrorism.

• Sept 11 was not an isolated case...USS Cole, Beirut Marine barracks, Saudi US barracks, Kenya and Tanzania embassies, Iran hostage crisis, Pan Am / Libya, the list goes on folks but most of you have forgotten. 

• Clinton's cut-and-run when it got a little rough in Somalia was the biggest encouragement to people like Osama-Been-Hidin.'

• Bullies - and murderers - see diplomacy (and what we could call "level-headedness") as weakness...and weakness invites their aggression.

• Give Peace a Chance? Brother, your bumper sticker that says that does little good driving down a street in the civilized world. We aren't the ones you have to convince that war is bad.

• it really does matter who started it (that's called "aggression") when you are trying to decide where is the moral authority for fighting a war. But most people who don't even know their recent history will quickly forget who started a conflict, and will irrationally come to see all the people in the fight as part of the problem.

• It's been said that war is evil...better to say that "starting a war" is evil. Finishing it can be noble, and often is....as doing so is a brave defense of others in the final analysis.

• Can you imagine stopping Hitler when he was small "potato(e)s" instead of our having to fight WWII? If we had done that, though, there would have been the same people calling us a bully for picking on a littler guy, just the way those same people have done with the Saddam Hussein infestation we used to have.

• When we fail to display (and occasionally USE) strength against aggressors, we encourage more atrocity from them.  I hate that I even have to point this out, because it seems so self-evident...but there are so many people in this country who still can't see terrorists for what they are once someone like me does say these things...denial and partisan politics are powerful forces, it seems, even in the face of undeniable logic...and the glaring facts of life.

• Are you anti-war folks really trying to tell us "hey guys, war is really bad, y'know." Do they really think we don't know that? Better than they do? As a soldier I feel that I do, yet I want to tell them "yes, war IS really, like, bad, okay...that's why you only engage in it when the alternative is even worse...like your kids growing up under Nazism (do you even know how close that actually did come to happening once?) or with constant terrorism. But those are just hypothetical examples, of course. In short, to you wishful thinkers............

  How do you      with     ???

  I had too much "I-don't-know-what" to show you the videos of them cutting the heads off live people...it's out there though if you need a more graphic illustration of evil. Start with Googling "Danny Pearl" and go from there

• If you could take a time machine back to Sept 12, 2001 and tell people that seven years later there will not have been a single other attack, and that the airline industry was stronger than it's ever been, people would have been on the streets demonstrating for a Constitutional amendment so George W. could run again for a third term. But public memories are short (see my previous comments about the wise being in the minority).

• If you go back on line and read the State of the Union address of 2002, you would hear a resolute George Bush telling us that this "will not be like other conflicts....it will last perhaps decades...we will suffer many casualties and deaths...yet we must act." You all cheered then. Where are you now? Watching Entertainment Tonight again, no doubt. Why do you think you have that luxury?

• For those of you who say "terrorism will always be with us, so it's pointless to fight it?" I say to you "crime will always exist too, yet that doesn't mean we should suspend the police force." And I will also add that Bush made that point to you in 2001 and 2...that this menace will be unlike other wars, and always be a problem. Those of you who are looking at the lack of a decisive moment of victory, I say to you..."we were told from the beginning that it would be that way...and I can't see why it's even necessary to point out that we won't experience that in this form of warfare."

• What we can do - and we ARE succeeding at - is to make being a terrorist an unhealthy lifestyle; and to relegate them to hiding in caves saying "boy it's hard to plan under these conditions." In that, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.  

• Perhaps you are one of those folks who would say "yes, we cheered for Bush once, but that was before he lied about - or failed to find - WMD (that's "weapons of mass destruction," for you Florida voters) in Iraq." Folks, why do you feel we had to prove Hussein had WMD, considering that he had USED them on the Kurds and elsewhere?

• We spent 11 years sending Hussein nasty-grams through the UN telling him we were coming to look for WMD. Don't you think he would have had time to hide them well? Even ship them to Syria or elsewhere? That's why military types value maintaining surprise and initiative. What warrior would tell his enemy he was coming to look for Intel; and then take the guided tour of suspected facilities the way the UN's inspector (Hans) did? 

• I realize that most people have this idea that WMD are warehouses full of 55-gallon chemical barrels with Mr. Yuck stickers on them...or a bunch of warhead-looking thingies. But did you know that (even if you did already have a bunch of mustard gas pre-mixed) all the WMD Hussein ever had at his peak would fit into an average-sized swimming pool? That, in a country the size of California. And there is a track record there of those guys burying things (like fighter jets) underground. Hmm.

• Hussein was also a huge state sponsor of terror. For those of you who fail to see that, I can tell you first hand that it is true. I can't say much more than that here. I'm surprised that that fact would surprise anyone.

• At least 20 years ago an anonymous writer who called himself "Soldier I" wrote a book called "He Who Dares." For those of you in the know, that's the motto of the SAS - England's elite counter-terror unit after which all the world's special forces units are essentially modeled. In it, this SAS veteran said the following "we know the exact locations of most of the world's terror training camps. We could take them out at any time, and by so doing render terrorists far less effective, (I would add: in part by relegating the rest of them to hiding in caves to save their skins instead of planning and executing murder) but preventative strikes (as opposed to reactionary, token strikes) have a way of BRINGING DOWN POLITICAL ADMINISTRATIONS so we have to live with them." Thank you to all of the people in the American public who can't process the big picture ... you have proven him right about that and discouraged future politicians from being effective in defending your own families.

• Bush has done what's necessary even though recent history has shown Soldier I's expression how unpopular PREVENTATIVE ACTION is for a politician. That's leadership, rather than popularity-seeking, and we are destined to have to suffer misery before acting against it, because so few people lack the wisdom required to support those who would PREVENT IT with foresight and resolve.

• The unofficial motto of the CIA is "the public will know about all of our failures, but - by definition - they will never know about our successes." How true, how do you prove to the public that you "prevented something from happening?"

• Presidents deserve neither credit nor blame for most economic performance. It is shallow - but a lot simpler - to think otherwise...as if he could be an all-powerful captain at the helm. Any policies they do enact are so "big-picture" that the effects will take years to show themselves, typically those effects are dealt with by the next administration.

• I too wish Bush were a better speaker. I wish he were able to communicate the need for what we are doing against terror - and our need for unapologetic capitalism - better than he has done in recent years....and do it more smoothly so the majority of folks would find him entertaining enough to listen again. But I can look past that and see how how effective his POLICIES have been ... because I don't look to my leadership for entertainment. I'll stick with MC Hammer for that :-) Hey, I'm an 80's child! You should see some of the pants I wore then!

• The economy during George Bush, you say? Well folks, like it or not, our economy is energy-driven. Plus, over 70% of us have big evil oil money as part of our retirement portfolio, so it ain't just for fat cats and it is a resource worth fighting for if we have to because it's a big part of our national interest. The deplorable state of our domestic energy production machines is dragging the economy down. Don't blame Bush - or any president - for that...blame the greenies for doing their best to cripple our energy economic engines (oil companies, for you F.V.-ers) in the name of half-baked alarmist eco-"science."

Environmentalism and global warming:

• Ever wonder why the modern environmentalist debate is split along political lines? That's because it is a political movement. Doubt that? Ever wonder what happened to the openly socialist voices in our country? Has it occurred to you that the modern environmentalist hysteria (I use that word deliberately) is just the age old, human nature problem of class-envy-driven politics? Have you considered that the Greenies' "anti-consumption" rhetoric is just the old "anti-capitalist" dribble repackaged? It is...keep scrolling, please. I'm happy to offer proof.

• I know the average "greenie" is not a card-carrying socialist (or would want to be). I know you guys are mostly well intentioned, conscientious people. But if you are voting green then you are supporting people who are very anti-capitalistic, and who are taking advantage of your high ideals to tear down all of our prosperity a notch or two in the interest of "global fairness." Is that really what you want for your family?.

• To you politicos behind the green movement: If you guys want to make the playing field more even, why do you guys always insist on bringing DOWN what has worked, instead of bringing UP the poorer countries with what's tried and true...free market capitalism?

• Weak, PC-motivated, I-am-not-a-meanie DISCLAIMER: I am a climber, a hiker, a boater, a runner, a diver, a cyclist, a skier, a world traveler, a pilot, etc, etc. etc...I spend ALOT of time outdoors, in beautiful areas. When it comes to protecting such places - without getting crazy - and when it comes to keeping areas clean and pollution / garbage free, I am with you. I have been nose-to-nose with rednecks who threw their trash down in these areas. I have done scores of organized clean ups, I hate the way it looks when people clear cut trees without a plan, and I have gone to great lengths to get a picture of a bald eagle that flew into my yard and then to the other side of the lake, having chills the whole way from the awe of that experience. I have climbed Mt. Kenya and Mt. Whitney, and run from Yosemite Valley to the top of Half Dome. The list goes on and on. I am WITH you guys on loving nature. But some of you greenies take all that good stuff and push it WAY too far. And most of you don't know why that's a problem. That's what this block of bullets is about.

• Most people look for something bigger than themselves to give significance to their lives. This is natural, and admirable. It shows a lack of selfishness. So I can see that as the motivation for many of you greenies out there, and I respect that much. I'm with you more than you might know. Heck, as a climber, I am surrounded by you and count hundreds of you among my best friends. But to those of you who take advantage of those people to further your political opposition to prosperity and capitalism, the rest of these bullets are for you... you may notice a slight change in my tone...

• There is, of course, nothing wrong with recycling and using cleaner fuels, etc. but please don't try to sell me on the idea that our rugged Earth that survives in space is something to worship; or is gona' be saved or destroyed by our choice of paper vs. plastic (George Carlin did a joke about that once. I need to find that on YouTube to put here). To think so is absurd, naive, Chicken-Little-variety hysteria. Our Earth is well-designed and Master-crafted. We can't make much of a dent in It.

• The modern environmentalist movement is full of the people who want you to feel guilty about your possessions and your enjoyment of them. They have only taken the age-old class envy that's been a destructive force all through history and put the conflict into new terms that the public will find more palatable than overt class-envy. I mean, after all, who could argue with a little precaution for Mommy Earth? What's the harm in that? None at first, but the wackos take that much further, and they have taken over the movement.

• Sure, most people do believe in global warming. Please don't use that as evidence of it. I mean, most people can't merge into traffic, and - be definition - the wise will always be in the minority.

• The fact that most people are swallowing the religion of global warming means that politicians in our populist-leaning voting system have to get on board, perpetuate the idea, and throw money at it in order to stay in office. And that afore-mentioned money is just another incentive for people and companies to "go green." It's a self-perpetuating cycle of ignorance that's just as prone to money-motivators as J.R. Ewing (yea, I'm dating myself again...didn't y'all just hate the way they brought Bobby back? I mean, Pam was such a ... okay, okay, sorry. I got off track).

• Many environmentalists have made the whole thing a religious movement. I mean, we all look for something bigger than ourselves to believe in and fight for. Many have chosen environmentalism, and they drink the kool aid with blind faith adherence to anything said by the likes of Al Gore, or cut-and-pasted together by Michael Moore-on.

• I wouldn't mind the "Green" folly if you weren't using it to try and make me pay a fortune at the pump, interfering with my ability to provide for my family, tying the hands of industry with regulation and higher costs...and so crippling our economy, and taking over all the "news" with your propaganda. You take advantage of those among us who will not research your claims enough to find the wizard behind your curtain.

• If you had some hard evidence, then I'd feel differently about the Green movement. Don't know what I mean? Try asking ANY of them to support the global warming hysteria with an independent specific study (no, dude, not one done by Greenpeace or another one of those religious fanatic organizations).

• Environmentalists never can name specific studies to support global warming. If they do (some of them are Googling right now to get some ammunition after they read this bullet - proving my point) then look in that research for OBSERVED phenomenon (rather than a computer-supported theory) which is what separates science from religion.

• The whole issue of global warming is based upon computer models that have never been observed to be actually happening.

• Some inconvenient truths that have been observed to be happening include the following:

  • That the world - and all planets - change. They are not static creations. Even the crust of the Earth creeps around; and we had ice age / global warming cycles that went back-n-forth long before the invention of SUVs.

  • That an increase in solar flare activity was OBSERVED during the most recent "warming trend"

  • That our August 2008 Fall-like weather (unseasonably COOL) was likely due to the fact that that month was the first in 100 years without a single solar flare. Why didn't any of that get reported on the news?

  • That a warming trend on other planets in our solar system at the same rates observed here on earth. How do you blame mankind for that? Okay, in the case of Mars, I concede that we did put an SUV up there.

  • That cooling and warming trends do match observed solar flare cycles (they go in roughly 30 year up and down trends)

  • That the same zealots who preach global warming were (about 30 years ago!) telling us that the Next Ice Age would be our doom. Their sky is always falling!

  • Governments justify a lot of their authority and control over your life (what you can drive, etc) by keeping us in a State of Fear about something as much as they can.

  • Speaking of Ice Ages...how do they account for the end of the last one? How was that round of global warming mankind's fault back then?

  • That carbon dioxide and other fluorocarbons are naturally occurring substances (as is oil, btw) and our production of both is a drop in the cosmic bucket....I mean it's miniscule, people.

  • That if we wanna reduce atmospheric fluorocarbons we need to get a handle on the eruption of all these pesky volcanoes. Just one eruption is WAY more than all the cars - even Hummers - ever driven.

  • That astronauts in space watched Mommy Earth clean herself up quite nicely after dead guy Hussein set the Kuwait oil fires that were supposed to destroy the climate. (we'll get to him in another block). Chernobyl was also supposed to be doomy but that never really panned out in the long run, big picture. But we don't hear that. The hype just fades away without a backwards-looking critique of the phenomenon from the faithful. Just like we never hear the media ask what happened to the research about the Next Ice Age doomies from 30 years ago. Why? Because it's all taken on blind faith (but with a little "f")

  • That you guys in the global warming movement are willing to be lied to by people who "over-consume" as part of a daily life that they seem to think you unworthy of. Each live in multiple huge mansions, own and drive fleets of personal SUVs, fly everywhere in private jets. I don't knock any of that, btw, if they come by it honestly, but you "greenies" are like all those people who send money to corrupt televangelists who use it on luxury items for themselves...I mean it all looks JUST the same. Al Gore alone has been estimated to consume every year what would take almost 400 FAMILIES 100 years working together to consume. Wake up and smell the kool aide, please! 

  • That "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." [H. L. Mencken]
     

• Here's what is at the heart of the hysteria...the desire to pin guilt upon industrialized giants for "having" too much....only they use the term "over-consuming." Don't buy that? Well then why are they never picketing in the countries that are the biggest polluters on earth, but who happen to be communistic, or just "under-privileged." Ask them that sometime....it's fun!

• Global warming computer models are the exact same computer models that can't tell you what your weather will be this weekend. And they want you to believe that these computer-simulated theories (with all the subjective variables that have to be inserted into the formulas) can tell you what will happen with the weather a thousand years from now.

• You have certainly never heard in the traditional media that there has been an observed cooling trend for the last nine years (as of 2008). Even the global warming wackos acknowledge this, but tell us that - according to the computer models that didn't see the cooling trend coming -  global warming will recommence in the year 2014. Hmmm...Yet I have no doubt that the zealots out there are spreading that Word faithfully.

• Did you know that most of the oil in the oceans didn't come from the Exxon Valdez? Yea, it seeps through cracks in the ocean floor. Why? Because it's a naturally occurring substance - basically the blood of the Earth and thus...pretty green, Al.

• Can you imagine the outcry if I started an email campaign AGAINST spilling a boat-load of oil all over Anwar that would seep into the shale and permeate it? That's where it is now, but we are not allowed yet to go get it because THAT would hurt the environment? I'm confused, are you?

If you're not confused, you don't know what's going on. - [Irish proverb]

• Did you know that making all those batteries for a Prius has made their assembly plant a NASA-cited wasteland? That's called the "Rule of Unintended Consequences" and it's one reason why our decision-making process should be based on a dogma-free assessment of pros and cons, rather than half-baked and unproven ideology.

• The media make it sound like all scientists agree with the assumed reality of man made global warming, yet this is far from true. But the dissenting scientific voices do not get air time. Look for them on your own if you don't believe me. I wouldn't take my word for this any more than I would take NBC's word.  

• Did you know that what you might well-intentionally call "cutting down on consumption," a socialist calls "putting a dent in Capitalism?" Thus, it is no coincidence that 99% of "green-leaning" people you meet vote socialist (that's democrat, if you haven't been paying attention). Don't take my word for that, just ask the next greenie you meet what they think of successful capitalists. But you already know their answer to that.

• Actually, the greenies are even now trying to change the name of the climate crisis. They now want us to call the global crisis "abrupt climate change." They are doing this because the "warming trend isn't actually being observed. With this catchy new term, any event of "big weather" can be blamed on mankind and those evil successful countries. Hey, why limit yourself to just "warming" when tidal waves and hurricanes can be invited to the party too? I mean, everyone knows that we never had these before Henry Ford and his drinking buddies screwed up the weather.

• Always beware of political movements that implore you with religious fervor to change your lifestyle...it's ironic that most of the zealous environmentalists would unhesitatingly accuse Southern Baptists of being backwards, judgmental, and self-righteous if they commented on your lifestyle. Yet try and drive an SUV to their doorstep, or throw an aluminium (jeez! I can never spell that) icon in with the mere the trash and listen to them proseletyse (are all the werds hard to spell today?) at you.

• Environmentalists are the ones who inspire those nagging thoughts you have when you:

  • Use too many paper towels for a spill in your kitchen

  • Drive too big a car

  • Have a full refrigerator for your family (I mean, "what about all those people who don't?")

  • Have "too big" a house

  • Earn "more money than you need"

  • This list goes on, as you already know

• Yer mom even bought into this. Who doesn't remember being told - when they threw away food - "there are starving people in Africa..." you know the rest. Yer mom didn't tell you the rest of that story, though...about why the third world is what it is

• Again, the green ideas go back to politics, and the capitalist / socialist push / pull that exists as a world tension-maker

• That takes us to a few thoughts on the third world, and how "bringing the first world down a notch" is the biggest motivation of the world-level "green" movement (more on that just below).

The Bottom Line: The Modern "Green" hysteria, at the highest levels, is about hampering capitalism and bringing prosperous (over-consuming) countries "down to size" with the rest of the world...all in the name of "equality." For folks without a context for this, that's called socialism, and it's been disasterous everywhere it's been tried. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

I have never understood the idea of making everyone equal by bringing the prosperous down. Better to pull the less-prosperous UP; which could be accomplished by studying and emulating the prosperous.    

Related Articles

Re: Chicken Little's Big Car Guilt Trip: 1). Prius vs. Hummer: Rethinking "Eco-Cars." 2). My letter in response to Rock and Ice Magazine's anti SUV article Re: Global Warming and High Mileage Cars: by Me

All About Trees

"GREEN WITH ENVY: Exposing radical environmentalists' assault on Western civilization"

Czech President Klaus: "The Environmentalist Movement is the Modern Equivalent of Communism."      

• Science writer Michael Crichton wrote a great, critical book about the global warming hysteria called State of Fear. One thing he did that I really liked was that he documented his research and debunked others in a HUGE bibliography at the end of the book.

• Another great and well documented book is The Skeptical Environmentalist, which exhorts - and helps - us to at least research this stuff before we drink the kool aide.. I included here (left) the www.Amazon.com links to buy both books.

***As a side note, A bibliography with references is almost always omitted in liberal books, but is considered required by Conservatives. Check for yourself and compare conservative vs. liberal books in general. This is because Conservatives are driven by logic (facts) and liberals are driven by ideas, theories, and "feelings" - a lot like a teenager is***

Political Foundations

The three-and-a-half most important habits that successful people pass on to their kids...and the spirit of our Constitution

1. Prepare well and work harder

2. Pay yourself first, because it's not about how much money you make...it's about how much you save

3. Always take FULL responsibility for the choices you make, and accept the consequences

The Least We Need to Know

• A "hand out" is not a "chance"... it's just a hand out.

"The kind of person who is capable of making something out of an opportunity doesn't wait to be given one." - Marc Heileman

• Politicians are not able to give anyone anything that they don't first take from someone else...because government produces nothing....it only regulates...controls...and takes.

• All politicians love control....some start out that way and are attracted to power for those reasons, but most if not all come to love control for its own sake.

• When you vote for a "compassionate" politician who promises to "give" to the needy...know that you are only empowering him to "take" from your family and others in order to give to those folks. Know that he does this not because he is compassionate, but because he buys patronage from them - votes - that way. Know that when you vote for him you are giving away control over your own family's finances and life, and empowering him to confiscate from you and other productive people.

• Of course, the people who don't mind this scenario are those who are willing to receive financial gain from people who actually worked for the money. Politicians are more and more in the business of confiscating money through taxes and redistributing it in the form of welfare and entitlements and pork, for the purpose of securing votes. Our new president has even said this out loud to Joe the Plumber.

• There is also a type of productive person who can be made to feel okay about being plundered in this way for the "greater good" (as if a politician could ever be an instrument of this)...These people are those who suffer from a disease I call "Success Guilt Syndrome." Symptoms include chronic liberalism; an inability or unwillingness to process self-evident truths; and the inability to see any connection between a person's personal choices in life and their current situation.  

• Once you see the truth about the "welfare state" system of such entitlements and welfare (don't you just love those terms!) it all starts to sound more like the kind of corrupt, vote-buying schemes you'd expect to hear about in some two bit banana republic somewhere...not in a free country....and certainly not in freedom-loving, rugged America.

• I won't pin this on one party vs. another. It's true that all politicians today do this to one degree or another. Please just keep the above points in mind whenever you hear a politician ask for your vote.

• When you hear a politician talk about "spreading the wealth around" ask yourself (and by all means, ask HIM if you get the chance the way Joe the Plumber did) why you never hear from them that there is any relationship between a person's choices in life and the situation they are in. 

• Understanding the relationship between choices and circumstances is part of our definition of maturity. It's the main thing we try to teach our children before they leave the house. This fact should lower our tolerance for adults and politicians who refuse to address the problems that underlie why "the needy" get into the straits that they do. Those people do not need government hand outs or an all-powerful welfare state to confiscate from others and take care of them; they need the maturity, the tools, the responsibility, and the motivation to take care of themselves. Capitalism offers all these things. Moreover, the prosperity-building tools that Capitalism offers are by far the most compassionate things to keep available to the needy. 

• I realize that there are not any popular politicians who are able or willing to vocalize these things; so I don't fully blame Americans for not understanding all this. No one since Reagan (who was called "The Great Communicator" even by his opponents) has been competent at expressing these enduring concepts about Freedom and its marriage relationship to Capitalism.

Okay, Now For Some Red Meat

• Truthfully, if any government institution has any real impact, it is Congress (House of Reps and Senate, for you Florida voters who find hanging chads and the Electoral College intellectually ambiguous)...which sets the budget, appropriations and tax codes, etc. If you want to change our government, learn more about your reps and senators and vote them in or out based on their record and the books they have often written.

• Elected officials will only get the message and make real changes if we are vote-responsive to their record instead of their rhetoric. As long as we allow our cynicism to tell us that "it doesn't really matter who's in office" they will continue to take our society down the current path we are on - that of degrading what made us the world's greatest country - and taking us down the same old fool's path to mere democracy.

• ALL politicians (dems or repubs) care about nothing more than staying in Washington. They care more about that than they do you - or this country. They will say anything they think you want to hear. Look deeper at them than letting them spoon feed you at press conferences and emotional rallies what they want you to think about them. I can't overemphasize this: that their voting record is public info.

• If you want to change the world, government is not the place to look. Our Founders knew the dangers of giving up our personal freedom to an all-powerful government, and wanted SMALL government for that very reason. Why people continue to look to government in light of that fact, and despite a very conspicuous and disasterous track record, is baffling to me.

• But that is the common human-nature-driven pattern of government building, and it's a repetitive cycle that leads back to mere democracy (as opposed to a "republic") and then to tyranny if we don't learn from history. Alexander Tyler put it best when he wrote over 100 years ago that...

 You have probably heard it said that "we are not a democracy, but a republic" ... Have you ever heard that really explained? Our Founders feared democracy. And the "D word" was a dirty word to most Americans until FDR's welfare statism. Why? Alexander Tyler said it best, when he said...

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage."

That quote above may be the single most insightful political insight of all time. He wasn't writing about the United States. The quote is well over one hundred years old, and he was writing about the fall of the Athenian Republic. Even as wise as the Athenians were, they didn't see the trap coming. No other country has yet either. We need to be the first, or we are likely to be the next 200-something-year old new dictatorship.

• Our politicians today are falling into the democracy trap all over again...meaning that they can only get into office by pitting groups against other groups (rich vs. the "have-nots" [remember John Edwards' 'Two Americas' attempt at class warfare?]; the 'black vote' or 'the women's vote' it goes on and on like that) and promising them tax-funded programs in a shallow attempt to secure their vote.

• Our Founders knew that they way to avoid the mob-vs-mob form of government (a.k.a. "democracy") was to focus on Individualism. That means that you can think for yourself, rather than follow and vote with whichever mob you most identify with. It also means being given credit for your actual, individual accomplishments OR LACK OF THEM.

• Modern liberalism has succeeded in defining individualism as something self-centered (or worse, selfish) because modern "conservatives" have been (after Reagan) inept at articulating why individualism is the only compassionate and "fair" way to look at people.

"The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities." [Ayn Rand]

"America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to 'the common good,' but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America's industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance -- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way." -- Ayn Rand

• The world is changed far better by private citizens who start companies and charities of their own accord, without regulation from external forces with unlimited power and an agenda (that's government, again). Please consider that the next time you say "there ought to be a law against _________:"

• vote, because it doesn't matter what they say. To respond to a politician's catch phrases one way or the other is to be led like a sheep. What matters is what they have done in the past. That is what tells you who they are. Look at their voting history - it's easy to find nowadays. Most candidates count on the people being unwilling to make that small effort.

• I don't have to wait till the last weeks of an election to find out "new" stuff about a candidate in order to decide how I will

• Big and small business owners have FAR more influence on the economy than anyone, and are doing all the work in our free market, but spending half their time dodging the obstructions that politicians throw up in front of them.

• Thus, the government representatives who are the most minimalist and who want to DO the least with their power of government intervention (i.e. they are "conservative" about how much power they should wield) are the ones we should want.

• One Bill Gates does FAR more to eradicate poverty, disease, and misery than all the government, social, and Peace Corps workers who have ever lived, combined and reproduced exponentially (that's "rabbit-like," for you Florida voters). So politicians do us the best service when they stay out of the affairs of such people (and all other producers, big and small) and let them go about being the engines of the economy that they are by definition.

• Yes, we do have to have government checks against abuse like what we saw from ENRON, but these abuses are by far the exception to the rule....otherwise you can bet we'd be hearing about such cases every minute from a media machine that loves any opportunity to paint capitalist drivers as corrupt.

• We do need laws against corruption, of course...in business as well as anywhere. The SEC and other agencies that go after corrupt business practices were instituted during the Woodrow Wilson years at the turn of the 20th century. Before that, "fat cats" did often take advantage of the lower classes who lived in squalor. I grudgingly recognize the need for this, but we should never throw out the baby with the bath water when we think about capitalism as a whole.

• Freedom cannot exist without capitalism. And the less capitalism is molested, the freer we will be. Why? Because only in a capitalistic system is there no limit to what you can achieve and how well you can provide for your family.

• There are people out there who think when they read that last bullet "Yes, but some people have more than they really need." Think about how dangerous it is for you or your government to start deciding who needs how much? That way of thinking is at the root of all dictatorships, and oppressive / socialist societies, because it leads to the confiscation (either through income tax systems that target high income earners, as we have) or through outright, forceful, deadly oppression and class warfare like we have seen in every socialist or communist society. 

• Socialist countries will always become oppressive. They have to. Either to confiscate from those who produce, or in order to make people produce despite that society's ban on proper compensation for being productive.

• Money is society's way of compensating you for your contributions to it. The more you contribute, the more you make. Any other system is a disincentive to be productive. Even in the best case, a "money-shunning" (I don't know how else to define that) philosophy limits a society to second-world status. And in the worst case, a society that refuses compensation to their high producers must resort to force to get what it needs from its citizens. That's why socialist societies HAVE TO become oppressive, and why there can be no freedom without money. Thus the term, free market, in my opinion.

• Class envy is natural (but ignorant and destructive) and it exists here in America. Politicians are in the business of exploiting these divisive tendencies.

• One of the things that socialist-leaning politicians do often is to try and convince us that there is only so much "pie" out there and that there are people who take too much of "their fair share" of it. This is nothing more than a banana-republic class warfare tactic that is beneath us. The pie is limitless. The more people who produce and become successful, the more pie they PRODUCE for everyone else to buy. When it is bought, that produces jobs and LIVELIHOODS for everyone else in society.

• It is no accident that those who have, have. Their success is not luck, it is the result of good choices and self-discipline. Look at lottery winners, who get money without these good habits. They lose it almost overnight. That's why there are theories out there that say that if you took all the money in the world and divided it up equally (as democratic and socialist tax codes have as a goal, they call it "income redistribution") within ten years the same people would have and the same people would have not.

• It is a shame to have to justify this in a capitalist society, but let me point out that you cannot buy a Ferrari or a yacht or a big house without employing blue collar carpenters, fiberglass workers, electricians, sheet metal workers, etc etc. And yes, engineers and business managers and owners too...elevating their possibilities above that of a blue collar worker if they are willing to get the education that will lead to that. The more stuff you buy - and the BIGGER you buy - the more true this is. Think about how many more jobs (and thus, meals / livlihood) are provided by someone who builds a 9,000 sq. foot mansion than someone who lives in a trailer home. 

• Make no mistake, the people who want you to feel guilty about "having and buying more" are only engaging in class-envy-driven politics. That's an intellectually bankrupt idea, as becomes self-evident when thunk about a little bit.

Third World Politics

• Most of the poor people in poor countries are poor because they have bully dictators who plunder everything that is produced or sent as foreign aid, buying yachts, mansions, and fleets of Mercedes while their people live in squalor.

• Third world countries also tend to have a lot people who still haven't learned that a civil war makes about as much sense as defecating where you eat. The fact that these countries are still mired in that foolishness, instead of practicing capitalism and limiting the power of government the way we and other first world countries have.

• The best thing we could do to show compassion to these countries, if we are going to, is export the ideas of freedom, and capitalist education to them....not try to show our compassion by bringing ourselves down a notch just to show how "we-are-the-world" we can be. That doesn't help them - or us.

Dealing With Dictators and Aggressive Empires

• Liberals are perfectly willing to treat dictators as peers at the UN, and with state visits, in a naive attempt to be "inclusive" and so show them "how to be nice." Such folks don't understand bullies at all.

• Jimmy Carter, for example, practices this method. He has never met a despot he didn't slobber kisses onto, never realizing that this has the effect of legitimizing / perpetuating that regime. And to think they gave him a Nobel Peace Prize.

• Bill Clinton, for example, made Yasser Arafat (also a Nobel Peace prize recipient! despite being a terrorist) his most frequent guest in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House.

• Ronald Reagan, by contrast, made a REAL difference in the world when he treated global gangsters like the criminals they are. The liberals wrung their hands during his whole administration, wetting their pants at the tough talk he offered up. Yet that is why the wall came down in Europe, and why the Soviets lost their ability to be a threat to the world. I grew up living with the fear of a nuclear WWIII that would destroy the world, as did everyone within three generations of mine. Yet we don't anymore, because of Reagan. Reagan's also why we don't hear about Quadaffi anymore. He accomplished all this without firing a shot.

• Backbone, as JFK also showed during the Cuban Missile Crisis, is what bullies understand and respond to. Showing that to them PREVENTS WAR, as JFK did so masterfully in 1967.

Russia Invades Georgia: The more things change, the more they look the same. As I watch this unfold, I can't help but think of all the people who naively think the world has evolved beyond this kind of thing - countries invading their neighbors for profit and power. I can name off the top of my head thirty or better dictators in the last ten years who do such things - just like in the old days - which necessitates our own continued military might. Furthermore, we have to wake up to the fact that this power grab by former KGB chieftain - and murderous career thug - Putin is meant to set himself up as an oil baron and restore some of the former glory of the Soviet Union...all at the same time that we are crippling our own oil power and thus our whole economy by pandering to environmentalist hysteria. Our security - economic or military - is not a given. Russia's economy is growing rapidly, and our declining one is - like it or not - energy based. There is no better illustration than this situation that we need oil independence by drilling and producing here at home. Mr. Obama, "inflating our tires" and "getting tune-ups" is an absurd solution to the energy crisis that is just about to get even worse with this new situation. Tell me that's not the extent of your as-yet-unspecified "changes" we can believe in.

Go to my Military Pages for more on this topic

Capitalism

• Just as people who "have less" are inspired to envy those who "have more;" many people who are among the "haves" can be made to feel guilty about it. Don't! Your ability to provide for your family - as well as you can - is NOTHING to feel shame about.

• If you want to "help" the less fortunate, the best thing you can do is show them the way to prosperity that we have found (capitalism), not break or under-utilize the very machine that got us there...as some sort of misguided penance.

• It does no "poor person" anywhere ANY GOOD AT ALL for you to identify with them, or for you to deprive your own family "for their sake." How could that help them in any way?

• In short, I have never understood why the goal of liberals / socialists (and now environmentalists) is to seek social equality by dragging everyone DOWN to the same level. Why not strive to RAISE UP as many people as are willing to work for it (that work is also a virtue, as libs and sosh's forget).

Churchill said it better than me...

"The worst thing you can say about capitalism is that it is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The best thing you can say about socialism is that it is the equal sharing of the misery" (Winston Churchill)

• The best way to help "poor people" - whether in your own country or in another - is to export capitalism to them. We need people in politics in this country who can articulate this, without apologies or feel-good qualifications. 

• Ever heard of the Luxury Tax? It was a tax on luxury items, like yachts and Ferraris, meant to penalize people for being able to afford them. It got enough support from "the masses" because it played to their natural sense of class envy. It was repealed when (shocker) people stopped buying these items, putting thousands of blue-collar sheet metal and fiberglass workers, electricians, et al, out of work. Of course, those people then stopped buying refrigerators and washing machines, putting still more people out of work. It was a great illustration of how capitalism works...that "trickle-down economics" is the basic functioning of the capitalistic system, and is only "voodoo economics" to people who choose not to understand it or to misrepresent it for their own purposes.

• "The worst thing you can say about capitalism is that it is the unequal sharing of the blessings; the best thing you an say about socialism is that it is the equal sharing of the misery."     - Winston Churchill.

• The rich need to "pay their fair share." Right? Yet did you know that (aside from being the engine of the free market by creating ALL the jobs that exist) the rich pay 97% of all taxes that are paid. The latest stats are out and can be found at the IRS website, if you don't want to take my word for it. They go like this...

•  

  • 50% of all taxes are paid by the wealthiest 1% of income earners

  • 70% of all taxes are paid by the wealthiest 30% of income earners

  • 97% of all taxes are paid by the wealthiest 50% of income earners

  • The bottom 30% of income earners are not paying income taxes at all...that's what a "refund" is

• The number one response you get when you tell people about the bottom 30% not paying taxes is "yes they do...they pay sales tax on everything they buy." To you boneheads I repeat: "I am talking about INCOME taxes."

• Corporate profits and success "trickle down" to everyone in a free market (capitalist) society. A successful Big Business (a dirty phrase in modern liberalism) creates jobs and a livelihood for everyone in the community - even the noble "little people" (I guess they mean janitorial level folks, etc) who are the objects of adulatory reverence from a socialist (Lenin called them The Noble Proletariats and advocated killing "class enemies" who were not poor like them, remember) are better able to provide for their families when successful big business is around.

• Small business is even more responsible - statistically - for prosperity in our country. Shop-owners and merchants are so numerous that this becomes true. Yet small business owners fight every day against regulations that strangle their vision and initiative, rather than reward it.

• And at the end of the day, Big Business is just small business does right....that's why it grows.

• And every job created by a big company creates one more person who now can buy things from other people - creating still more opportunities for a livelihood. The effect is exponentially beneficial for everyone....even down to the lowest skill levels (you have to say that in order to get democrats on board because they don't like the more successful people). 

• The more government intervention there is - and the more regulation to which companies must comply - the less effective the prosperity (capitalist) process is.

• If you are more inclined to think ill of the motives of private enterprise vs. the IRS, then I wonder about your ideological baggage. 

• If you don't like the word "profit" (above) then please find your way to the entries I have on this page about socialism vs. compensation to start your education. 

• "Profit" is a dirty word to a liberal / socialist / democrat. They attach nasty connotations to it at every opportunity, and a lot of people even in America buy into that. But profit is success in business. Two more seconds of rational thought by anyone would reveal that successful business is good for everyone, and the benefits "trickle down" to everyone in a free market (capitalist) economy.

• I always love the way a liberal talks about profit and big business as dirty words. I was listening to the radio recently as the host was talking about how good it would be for our economy if the oil reserves off the California coast and elsewhere were tapped at last. How great it would be not to have to depend on middle eastern oil cartels if we did that. The caller responded "yea, but boy somebody would make a lot of money off of that!" So ^$^$$^% what? WHY is it that a liberal tends to see it as something bad when somebody makes something work successfully, is compensated for that success, and adds money and jobs (more money still) to the economy for everyone by doing so. 

• It's fascinating that liberals think that "big government" is somehow better than "big oil" or that their own institutions are free from corruption and greed and money-motivation. For example, is it not obvious that providing government grants, other funding, tax breaks, subsidies, etc, are all incentives for a company to "go green" or to perpetuate any other agenda? Every bit as much as "big oil," such incentives mean that there is a lot of money in perpetuating the myths of the liberal agenda.

• A conservative is against government meddling to "solve" problems. Often they are painted as uncompassionate for this. I mean, how can we say no to well-intentioned social programs? Here's are a few of the reasons:

  • Government is not the solution to anything. Most often, they are the problem to begin with. If you believe in them for solutions, then you are in the company of Marx, Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler, etc...all socialists or outright fascists

  • Government is naturally prone to corruption, because they have a monopoly on the lawful use of force - police or military.

  • I cannot name one single problem that has ever been solved by a government program

  • A "research grant" is nothing more than rewarding someone whether they produce solutions or not. By contrast, a free market approach means that only a "workable" idea reaps any reward. That's a good motivator, as the Edisons of the world who make a real difference work hard for years in obscurity and without reward until their "eureka" moment. With a "grants" approach, an inventor can make a living in his shop producing token inventions that do not have to be practical (solar cars, fuel cells, etc). Not as good a motivator as the free market which insists that the idea work FIRST before rewarding it

  • Keep in mind that government produces nothing on its own. To give to anyone it must first take your family savings (via taxes) 

  • If grants come from private foundations, more power to them. That's a person using his own money to voluntarily fund the researcher, as opposed to the government using the force of law to make you fork over your family earnings to do so.

• Conservatives are conservative about how much we really need government to (tax us to) provide. We assert that the things we need from government are not much more than fire and police protection; a military; road construction; and international representation / trade functionaries. Nearly everything else should be produced by the free market and - if regulated at all - is only for the sake of preventing corruption.

• There is a difference between a right and a need. Rights are protected by government. Needs are legitimate, but should not be provided by government.

• We have only three protected rights - Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happ(y)ness. Food, shelter, health care, retirement plans, etc, are not rights but things that we must work for.

• Even the Bible, with all of its emphasis on care for the poor, talks repeatedly about how "if a man does not work, then neither should he eat." And it is called sinful to fail to turn a profit with one's investments...even the worker who didn't waste his money but buried it for save-keeping was called lazy and sinful and was fired in Jesus' own Parable of the Talents. It seems clear, then, that the Bible makes a clear distinction between "the poor" and "the lazy"  and it does not revile the earning of money.

Tax Reform

• Taxes are a necessary thing. We do have to have them in order have certain government services that we do actually need - as opposed to those that dependency-cycle people want.

• Income taxes are unconstitutional. Our Founders favored other forms of taxation and warned us against income taxation. They knew it penalized people for being productive, and so was a drain on everyone's prosperity.

• Karl Marx thought income taxes to be a vital component of communism and included it as one of the 12 vital steps towards that end.

• It took a Constitutional amendment to institute our income tax system, led by FDR and his New Deal idea. But even then it was supposed to be a temporary, emergency measure to build federal revenue after The Great Depression.

• There is no such thing as a temporary tax or government entitlement. They all stick. In the case of entitlements, they stay because ending the temporary ones is seen by the recipients as a discontinuation of their benefits...and they'll vote against someone who does that to them.

• FDR's "New Deal" plan fathered our modern welfare state.

• Ask any liberal who the greatest president is and they will say FDR, because FDR fathered the Welfare State in America, and socialists (democrats) love him for it.

• The political parties all over the rest of the world who have the most in common with our democratic party openly call themselves "socialists." Our socialists do not only because there are too many "roll up your sleeves and get it done" people in America to find their true beliefs (when openly articulated) palatable outside New York or San Francisco, et al.

• There are other ways to get taxes from us than income taxes, which are a tax on productivity. It's absurd to penalize productive people. By contrast, a consumption tax (like The Fair Tax proposal that's already in Congress) is a tax on spending. That makes a lot more sense. That way, if you buy a Ferrari, you are taxed on the purchase - even if you are a drug dealer.  If you want to save all your money, you are not taxed on it. You are taxed only when you spend it. Even you rich-people-haters should be happy with that idea, as those greedy folks could only get their luxury items if they are willing to pay you for it too.

• The Fair Tax would eliminate the IRS. You would no longer need to justify your desire to keep your own money to a government Gestapo with unlimited power.

• The Fair Tax would also lower the price of everything, as the costs related to compliance with our current tax code (CPAs, lawyers, accountants, in house record-keepers, etc) makes manufacturers of EVERYTHING have to raise their prices. These are called "imbedded costs" and they are in everything you buy.

• Lest you say that these manufacturers would just keep their prices high and make more profit....just know that to do that in a free market (and this would be an even freer market) would make that manufacturer uncompetitive. Any successful company knows the market rate of their products and they know that they will be extinct at some point if they price gouge.

• The Fair Tax would make the US a tax haven for businesses that would attract many of them to relocate here - which would be a boon our economy and make us even more prosperous - for everyone, in general.

• Yes, there are a few other things we need from government, but welfare is not one of them. Retirement plans, likewise, should not be something we are taxed for.

• Private retirement plans and investments and the Stock Market are FAR FAR better performers than our Social Security system. Why? That's self-evident when you understand that anything that's government-run will ALWAYS under-perform...because it operates without competition. They have no reason to do a good job. Try to remember any experience you have ever had at a government office / service window. That's them in a nutshell. You can't fire them so they don't go out of their way for you.

• One of the craftiest things the government has ever done is to take your taxes straight out of your paycheck before you even see it. That way you never miss it so much. If we all had to write a monthly check for the amount they take out of your paycheck, there would be a tax revolt in this country. The government is robbing us blind...but most people are not paying enough attention to know that. Just ask someone how much they make. They will start to respond by saying "well, I take home..." Stop them there and ask them how much they make "before taxes" every paycheck. Most people don't even know. They are fully indoctrinated into the plunder.  

• If you want more info on tax abuse outrages, just Google that and strap in. You wouldn't believe some of the things you are paying for...tattoo removal for the "underprivileged" so they can (theoretically) do better in job interviews; hair straightening for black people; 50,000 animatronic Smokey the Bear statues at a National Park....this is a seriously endless list, folks, and this is the kind of stuff that you work January through May ("Tax Freedom Day" is sometime in May)  to provide for others instead of having it to use for your family.   

• Democrats are always changing the description they would like used for themselves. Once they openly called themselves "socialists." Then "populists," then "liberals," and now they try to shuck the liberal label at all costs and call themselves "progressives." The reason for this is that Americans do eventually see through their objectives, no matter their attempts to paint them a different color. When that happens, they need a new label. I wonder what the next trendy one will be?

• Conservatives are "Conservative" about how much government should be allowed to interfere with our lives. I don't know why none of them since Reagan have been able to articulate this. Because conservatives today can not or do not define themselves, their opposition has been successful in defining them in the mind of the average person. As such, the connotation of conservative has become negative - your opposition will always paint you negatively - as folks are convinced that it means "people who want to dictate to you what you can do in your bedroom" or force you to pray in school or something equally cartoonish in depth.

• True Conservatism is more liberal than liberalism....in that it is fundamentally about reduced governmental influence and interference in our lives ....meaning, of course, greater personal liberty.

• Civil Liberties: Liberalism is the ironic sponsor of the thought-policing politically-correct (PC) movement. PC is not a celebration of the freedom of expression, as it creates this list of thoughts and words that become taboo and can even become the reason you lose your job or go to jail. Yet the most liberal enclaves of society (most universities and Hollywood - a dichotomous coalition considering the school drop out rate among actors) regularly complain about infringements on civil liberties. Ironically, then, these civil liberty champions become the most repressive of all.

• I love the way politically-correct people fail to realize that words are just reflections of thought. Because that's true, changing a label from "fat" to "gravitationally-challenged" will not have any effect at all in taking the edge off the label. The new term will soon (or immediately) take on the old connotation...because the thoughts behind the words DO NOT CHANGE. I mean, is there anyone who doesn't think "secretary" when they hear "administrative assistant?" To me, the latter just adds a dash of pretentiousness, and a perception that the folks in that office are too hung up on superficiality to be able to do real work. A productivity-oriented business would not consider spending "business hours" on "sensitivity training" in the conference room. Companies with administrative assistants probably do.

• Don't even me started on hyphenated Americanism. A woman (or a man, as I know one sad case of - yea, he has a maiden name) with a hyphenated last name just tells me that that person doesn't consider the difficulty of keeping up with people's names....and they are self-centered enough to expect me to remember three of theirs when one is hard enough these days.

• What happens when a hyphenated family has children and that female child gets married? How many names does she have then? How about her great-great grand daughter? Maybe there's a good reason we take one name when we marry that has nothing to do with subjugating women? Clearly we are not smarter than our forbearers in this.

• Of course, there is also the obvious problem posed by hyphenism for genealogists down the road....but the people who insist on hyphens are not thinking that far, about anyone else, they want the hyphen for themselves. Again, they are typically very self-centered people.

• "More on" hyphenism - The best illustration I ever saw of the absurdity of the term "African-American" was when an "anchor-person" on CNN (who was obviously a disciple of political-correctness) was describing a police chase in South Africa that they were showing video of. She got tripped up describing it, saying "and here you see the police chasing this blac...um...Afri....well...African-American-South-African down the street." Yea, how do you describe black people who are not American...outside of America?

• How does anyone call themselves "African" American when (if you asked them) they could not name a single country there with which to identify? Africa is a continent, not a country.

• At the end of the day, who are the people who really care enough to try and invent new names for everything? To all of you, please grow up.

• Lastly, The word "black" is not hateful, the way the "N-word" is.

"Race" and Gender Relations: Oh, snap! Yea, I'm goin' there. Pray for me

• I finally figured out how best to express the state of affairs in this department...I know very very few people who still hang on to any real bigotry against minority groups. Most all of us who are not full-functioning idiots have no problems with encountering and interacting with folks from other ethnicities (that's a more scientifically accurate term). What most of us DO have a problem with is having ethnicity or gender thrown in our face as a chip on someone's shoulder - a chip that says far more about the Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons and feminists of the world than it does the society they live in.

• You don't need anyone to tell you that only black people are permitted to talk about black culture. And even when one of them - like Bill Cosby - does it, they run the risk of being accused of "acting white" if they say anything that doesn't support the stereotypes you see on the cover of Vibe magazine.

• So long as black people in America see staying together as a family, being successful, or being academically studious as "acting white," they will not need anyone to keep them down. So long as they keep telling their children that hip-hop and basketball culture is more "authentic," their state of affairs will not improve.

• Further, other minorities also keep themselves down in our country too. When Alberto Gonzalez was being confirmed as Attorney General (nominated by Bush, btw - who has the most "diverse" administration in history...for those of you who worship at the altar of that word but don't give credit to "non-liberals") he was accused in the media and by democrats of not being an "authentic" Latino who could identify with "his people"....simply because he was successful in our society and educated - oh, and because he was nominated by a republican. Same thing happened to Clarence Thomas, and to some extent Colin Powell and Condoleza Rice. Seems they should all be congratulated for their success, somehow, but that's just my opinion.

• I don't attach low standards to minorities. Of course they are as capable as anyone....obviously. But they do it to themselves regularly, and Hollywood, pop culture, and academia support them in this when the celebrate or make excuses for them. Worse still are those like Jesse Jackson and Sharpton who have made a career of stirring up imagined conflicts for the sake of profit and publicity for themselves. All these people and institutions" perpetuate the things that hold them back, even as they claim to be a champion for them, if in no other way than by stifling the open discussion of the real issues; and by targeting other people (like me) as politically incorrect when they are "mean" enough to say the self-evident things that would be truly helpful. 

• By contrast, have a look at Jewish culture. They have tenfold more experience with persecution than any other minority group in history, and yet they rise to success in every society because they realize the need to "over-succeed" when they are at a disadvantage. They look at the odds stacked against them and say to themselves and to their children: "we will just have to work harder, then" and "educate ourselves better." Bravo! That's how winners look at long odds....indeed, winners seek them out.

• Of course, I shouldn't have to point out that there is no better country in the world than America for the poor, the minorities, etc. to have a "chance" of overcoming past inequities (that's "unfairness," to translate that into "liberal-speak).

• "That's not fair" or "they just need a chance" are perhaps the most classic victim / loser / liberal phrases. Winners do not need to be "given" a chance. They make them. And the world is not fair. You were never promised that it would be. We should try our best to make it so, and America does this FAR better than anywhere else, but it will never be "fair." Suck it up, deal with it, look at what you have to do about your (real, imagined, or self-imposed) personal challenges and DO THOSE HELPFUL THINGS without blaming anyone else for any shortcomings you might have.

• We all have shortcomings, or personal weaknesses. We are all doing the best we can with them, and it isn't anybody else's fault if we are hanging on to them or - worse - using them as an excuse to fail.

• "That guy is a Mexican" is a perfectly legitimate and "un-hateful" way to describe a ... person from Mexico. It is a sad statement of the absurdity of the PC culture that I have to point that out.

• Our political fascination with "race" and gender is embarrassing to me as an American. Talking about that when discussing a person or a candidate is about as relevant (when faced with their voting record or something else that's substantive) as talking about their hair or the quality of their complexion. None of the superficial things like gender, etc. will affect our lives when they are in office...except to the extent that they might enact policies and laws to pander to others "like them," as they often will have to do in a "group-centered" - and thus, divisive - democratic voting system.

• We will never become a fully "un-bigoted" society as long as there are people out there making an issue out of ethnicity.

• Is there anyone else out there who is weary of hearing political commentators and politicians talk about how candidates are performing with regard to the "black vote" or the "women's" vote? I mean, are y'all in those "groups" not offended at the fact that the powers that be assume you have no mind of your own to use when picking a candidate for whom to vote?

• Likewise, are you guys in ethnic and gender minority groups not DEEPLY offended by affirmative action programs that assume you cannot achieve anything without their help? You can, of course, and you should. Maybe there was a time when  such programs were necessary, but are you not bothered that any true accomplishments you ever actually DO work hard to achieve have the shadow of doubt cast over them by people who wonder if your success had anything to do with the degrading and condescending protectionism of affirmative action? 

“Some say it is unfair to hold disadvantaged children to rigorous standards. I say it is discrimination to require anything less. I refuse to condemn children to the soft bigotry of low expectations.”   [George W. Bush] Admin note: to those of you who just chose to discount the common sense of everything I have been saying because I have this quote here from a person who is not a member of your group: I tell you that you are not intellectually ready to weigh the actual issues yet.

• Our country was formed around your rights and merits and achievements as an individual. Democrats often say that focusing on the individual is "selfish." The Clintons do this regularly (Google it). Yet our Founders understood that we can not have freedom without focusing on individualism, because that is the only way to NOT limit you to what the "average" member of your group can achieve. That's just one more reason why we  should not focus on your rights as a member of a "voting group." That's a natural outgrowth of democracy, a.k.a. &qu