Current Events Ramblings, January 30

A few odds and ends while waiting for Mitt Romney to sew up the Republican nomination for President.  The Republican "base"--meaning the people outside Washington, D.C.--who want anybody but the moderate Romney, will eventually weary and accept him as the nominee.  What the people want is rarely of any concern to the power brokers in Washington. 

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For more evidence of what I wrote in the last sentence above, witness the Obama administration.  Here's a question for you:  what do Evergreen Energy, Eners, Amonix, and Solyndra all have in common?  They are all "green" industries which the Obama administration wasted hundreds of millions (billions? I don't know the exact amount) of dollars of taxpayer "stimulus" money, and all four of them have either filed for bankruptcy or have recently severely downsized (three of them in the last week).  The people of America don't want green energy; if they did, it could survive on its own in the open market.  But this is a perfect example of arrogant, liberal elitism.  They think they know what's best for us so they are going to ram it down our throats whether we want it or not (remember Obamacare?).  Mr. Obama patronizingly told us during his State of the Union address that America (read:  taxpayer dollars spent by liberal politicians) needs to "invest in the industries of the future."  Yeah.

How does Barack Obama know what "the industries of the future" are?

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Speaking of matters regarding the planet, it's 19 degrees in Dalian right now.  Yesterday it was minus 50 in Fairbanks, Alaska.  Debbie and I almost moved to Fairbanks once.  I would have liked it; I'm not sure she would have.  A study just released by (apparently) credible sources (the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit was involved) claims that global warming stopped 15 years ago and that we may actually be facing a "mini ice age" (there is some NASA evidence supporting this as well).  Of course, "scientific studies" are being done all the time, proving all sorts of things, so it's really hard to know what's going on out there.  Keep in mind that science can be a political football; most of the money for these studies come from government grants, so it behooves the researcher to find something wrong so that he can continue his "research", thus needing more government grant money.  That thought is not original with me, it's widely known in academia.  It's also interesting that most of the people/groups that support man-made global warming are on the left side of the political spectrum.  That, in itself, doesn't disprove man-made global warming, but if they are right about it, it's the only thing the left is right about.  I find it interesting that all of this hoopla about global warming started right after the fall of the Soviet Union.  I've said it before, and I still believe it:  Marxism didn't die after the fall of communism.  They simply changed colors and now support the anti-industry, anti-capitalist "green" movement.  And they are getting as much help as possible from "useful idiots" like Al Gore and Barack Obama.

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Police fired tear gas and arrested about 300 people in an "Occupy" rally in Oakland this weekend.  Can anybody recall how many hundreds of people were arrested during the Tea Party rallies a couple of years ago?  Do not be surprised if there is violence on the streets in this year's election.  Obama is preaching class envy.  Envy leads to hatred.  The left has no moral absolutes and hatred leads to violence.  It's coming, and soon, to a street near you.

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Two men were shot at a mall in Visalia, California a few days ago; two more outside an apartment building not far from the mall.  There was also a police standoff with a man recently in south Visalia, who had duct-taped his girlfriend to a chair and was assaulting her.  Don't blame me.  I preached for four years in Visalia, California, and obviously somebody wasn't listening.  I don't know who these people were who were doing the shooting, etc., but I do know one thing for certain--they were not faithful New Testament Christians. 

But, of course, more Christianity will be detrimental to the United States.  Everybody knows that.  Yes, who needs a country where there is more love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).  No, what we need is more adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, and revelries (Galatians 5:19-21).  That's obviously what will save America.  It's "progressive"...

Has anybody (but me) noticed that, since Christianity has been attacked, mocked, ridiculed, ostracized, and effectively removed from the education system in the United States that there has been a whole lot less of the former (love, joy, etc.) and a whole lot more of the latter (adultery, fornication, etc.)?  Amazing coincidence...

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A recent Gallup poll says that, concluding Obama's 3rd year as President, 80% of Democrats approve of the job he is doing and only 12% of Republicans do.  That makes Obama the most polarizing President in American history (at least since such polls have been conducted.  He also won the prize for his 1st and 2nd years in office.)  This from the man who said he was going to heal all divisions in the country and bring us together.  But, of course, every politician says that and none can do it.  The fact is, always has been, and always will be, that people are different, and they disagree on many, many things, and will never agree on most things.  That's human nature.  What Obama--and politicians in general have done--is politicize these differences.  They've gotten government involved in supporting one side or another and thus creating bitterness and more visible, active division in the country.  We now fight for government largesse.  There is nothing more diametrically opposite the founding principles of the United States than that.  Government should be settling disputes (protecting people's property), not creating them by setting one group of citizens against another.  But the latter is what government has become and Barack Obama is simply the best at it in American history.

Here's an assignment for you.  Read the Constitution and see if you find anything in there about political parties.  Then especially read Article 1, Section 8 (the powers given to Congress) and see if there is any power given to Congress that allows it to support one group of citizens against another (except law abiders vs. criminals, of course).  The powers the Founders gave the federal government were neutral--they benefited all people equally.  There is not one power that allows Party A to take money from the people of Party B and use it for Party A's pet causes.   The American Founders didn't believe in political parties because parties are divisive and force people of one "party" to support causes they do not believe in when their "party" is not in power.  The Founders had a word for that sort of thing--tyranny.  Our current government is expert at it.  We can thank Abraham Lincon for that.  He started it.  Well, actually, he didn't start it, he only made it official by forcing it on a large segment of his country that had gotten tired of it.  Party politics (North vs. South) produced the American Civil War!  And it wasn't slavery that started it, it was money.  And power.  And patronage.

So, yeah, given that principle, Barack Obama can claim he's walking in the the footsteps of old Abe.

Obama Challenges: Shrink Gap Between Rich and Poor

Shrinking the wealth gap between the rich and the poor was one of President Obama's themes during his State of the Union address.  Indeed, it has been one of the main themes of his presidency.  The Republicans almost surely will buy into it, and thus fight the upcoming campaign on his terms.  And, very likely, will lose the election because of it.

I'm going to state it right now, up front, in this article:  I do not give a royal, rotten fig if the income gap between the rich and poor shrinks or not.  That is bogus, it's a red herring, it shouldn't be the issue, it's not what the country ought to be trying to do. Creating wealth should be the goal, for the more of it there is, the more there will be for everyone to have.  And even if the "top 1%" have an inceasing percentage of it, what difference does that make if there is more availabe for the 99% to enjoy?  That's the key.  The Democratic Party used to know that because it was John F. Kennedy who said, "a rising tide lifts all boats."

But that was before Marxism became the central economic mantra of the tyrants of the Democratic Party.  And so far, only Newt Gingrich has shown the least bit of ability to counter it.  And he hasn't done a very good job of it.

Let me explain how it works--and it does work because history has proven so--and I will try to keep it as simple as possible.  Let's suppose we have 100 people and $1,000,000.  One person, I will call him Mr. Filthy Greedy Rich to appease my Marxist readers, owns 90% of it, $900,000, and the other 99 have only $100,000 (10%) among them.  But, because Mr. Filthy Greedy Rich is filthy, greedy, and rich, he wants more.  There's two ways he can do it.  He can try to rob the other 99 people, but even if successful, he will end up with only $1,000,000.  That hasn't accomplished much, and everybody knows he has an endless, unbounded lust to obtain as much as possible.  No, if he is wise, he will try to create more wealth for himself to enjoy.  So, what does he do?  He starts a business and hires the other 99 people to work for him.  In time, by producing goods and services that the 99 other people want (and he will have to pay them enough so that they can afford those goods and services), total wealth is increased to $5,000,000.  (For those who don't know, I'll demonstrate, in some future article, how wealth is created.)  Now, suppose that Mr. Filthy Greedy Rich still owns 90% of all the wealth.  90% of 5 million is 4.5 million.  That means the other 99 now have $500,000 to share among themselves!  Everybody is getting richer.  The gap between rich and "poor" has widened, but everybody is better off and only Mr. Filthy, Greedy Poor Person will complain about it.  But he'll only complain about it if some demogogue tells him that "the income gap is widening".  "The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer!"  No, they aren't.  In capitalism, if government by and large stays out of economic development, everybody gets richer.  It's just that some get richer faster than others ("rich," of course, is a very relative term).  That's how the poverty rate went from about 95% before the capitalistic Industrial Revolution to about 10% in modern times, and has only been rising again in recent years because Barack Obama and the Democrats have got businesses scared to death to invest and provide the jobs that are necessary to lift people out of poverty. 

But, of course, lifting people out of poverty is the last thing the left wants to do.

For poor people to get out of poverty--and stay out of it--they have to work.  And, of course, that is exactly what countless hundreds of millions of people have done in the last 200 years.  But in order to work, they must have skills that will induce someone to hire them.  Very, very few people are born Michael Jordan or Ludwig van Beethoven.  Skills are learned, developed, and honed over time.  That's why people in their 40s and 50s make more money than teenagers; the latter don't have any skills that would cause an employer to pay them $50,000 a year.  They have to learn those skills, and that's what made Newt Gingrich's response to Juan Williams last week so pertinent.  Let the children in the schools take over some of the janitorial tasks.  Let them learn to be someplace on time, to acccept some responsibility, to develop some sense of pride and self-worth that only successful work can produce.  It was an absolutely brilliant scheme by Gingrich, but of course, the poverty pimps and race demogogues in the country had a wall-eyed fit.  As I have said before, liberals don't want the poor to work, in fact, they want more poor.  They aren't going to say that, of course, but all you have to do is look at what they do.  They want more poor because the more poor there are, the more people there will be dependent on government.  When people rise out of poverty and start taking care of themselves, they don't need much government and they certainly won't need liberals (about the only thing people would need government for is to protect them from liberals, i.e., the fruits of liberal economic and moral theory).  Creating wealth, creating moral,industrious, frugal, self-disciplined people, creating people who can take care of themselves destroys modern liberalism!  The reader must grasp this point:  Barack Obama, from his standpoint, has been an eminently successful President because he has swelled the rolls of those who are getting government assistance; the figure is almost 50% of the population now.  And once that figure gets above 50%--when the majority becomes dependent upon government--Obama and the Democrats will have won, for good.  And the United States, as envisioned by its Founders and the millions of men who gave their lives in defense of it, will no longer exist.

So, the theme of the upcoming campaign will be, as always with the Democrats, class warfare.  Divide the country.  Create bitterness and hatred against those who have been successful.  Cheer the riots in the streets.  Call as many names as possible, throw as much mud as you can, immediately try to destroy any perceived threat.  And give Barack Obama and the Democrats the power to shrink the gap between rich and poor in the only way they know how--steal from the rich and give to the poor.  It will create fewer rich, of course, and eventually, it will create more poor.  Because if you don't give Mr. Filthy Greedy Rich the incentive to produce more wealth, eventually there won't be any to take.  And we'll all be poor.

But we'll all be equal.

Rush on Newt and the SC Primary

Rush Limbaugh is spot-on why Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary.  Some of his comments are worth reproducing here:

"Newt is a vessel. The heads of your party, you want the people that run the party that you're a member of to get the message, stop making fun of you, stop impugning you, stop thinking you're a bunch of hayseed hicks. You just to want save the country. You want somebody that's gonna have fire and brimstone to go out and beat Obama. You don't want people that are afraid to campaign. I know exactly what this victory in South Carolina was all about. The Republican primary voters are this audience. I know exactly what's going on here. I've known probably longer than 25 years. But the people who make this country work are sick and tired of being blamed, falsely accused, attacked, called bigots and racists and sexists and homophobes and all these other horrible, rotten things, selfish, greedy.

They're seeing their futures robbed. Their party doesn't seem to have the guts to do anything to stop it. They see their party leaders wanting to get themselves in charge of it all. This (caller), if I'd-a let him go on, he'd say, 'We don't care if Newt were married ten times right now. We don't care if Newt had married a horse right now. The message is what we want sent.' We want this party to figure out how to represent us. We think we know how to beat Obama, and it's not with McCain. It's not by going after the independents. It's not by saying we want to compromise and cross the aisle and work with those people who are destroying this country as it was founded.

We don't want to work with those people. Those people have been laughing at us and making fun of us and impugning us, and we don't want you being friends with them. They are taxing us. They are preventing our attempt to acquire wealth. They are spending our children's future away. Why do you want to make nice with them? Why do you want to work with them? Why do you want to compromise with them? Why don't you want to beat them? That's what we want. Ergo, somebody comes along and shows how it could be done, and they go, 'Yeah, right on, mama, keep it coming.' That's all Saturday was. And it was a result of a couple big days prior to Saturday in the wake of South Carolina."

Rush is exactly right.  It's not Newt, it's the message!  If you want to read more of Rush's comments about Newt, which are equally pertinent and incisive--and he talks at length about Newt's problems--follow this link:

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2012/01/23/newt_is_a_vessel_he_won_south_carolina_because_he_articulated_conservatism

Bo and Ronnie and Freedom from Capitalism

             Bo and Ronnie were discussing capitalism.  Bo had had enough.
             “Ronnie, I am sick and tired of these greedy capitalist pigs.  All they think about is profit, profit, profit.  They don’t care nuthin’ about the little people.  This world would be 100 times better off without capitalism.”
             Ronnie smiled and shook his head in sort of an “aw, shucks” manner.  “I don’t know about that, Bo.”
             Bo wasn’t listening.  “Well, I think you and me ought to get away from it, Ronnie.  How about it?  Let’s go get us a home out in the wilderness.  Pristine air, clean water, no pollution…away from capitalism and all the evil it’s caused.”
             Still a little skeptical, Ronnie responded, “Gee, Bo, that’s a big step.”
             “Aw, c’mon, Ronnie.  You been a rancher.  You know how to live off the land.  Sure would be nice to get away from all this greed and poverty that capitalism has caused.  Let’s do it.”
            “Well, ok, Bo, if that’s what you really want….”
             So, in a few days, out in the beautiful prairie, Bo and Ronnie stood in front of their new home, a wood-framed structure well over 200 years old.  Bo smiled, nodded, looking around him.  “Yeah.  This is it, Ronnie.”  He took a deep breath through his nose.  “Just get a whiff of that air.  No pollution whatsoever.”  He waved his hand, and all-encompassing gesture.  “No factories.  No noise.  No city clutter.  No cars mucking up the air.  You can’t get any better than this, Ronnie.”
             “I suppose so, Bo.”
             “Let’s go inside our new home, Ronnie, I’m anxious to see it.”
             So Bo and Ronnie walked up the two steps and into the house.  “Kinda dusty,” Bo said, as he stood in the living room looking around.  “But we’ll clean ‘er up, spic an’ span.  Right, Ronnie?”
             “Whatever you say, Bo.”
             “Uh, it’s kinda dark in here, Ronnie.  Can you turn on the lights?” Bo asked.
             “Bo, there’s, uh, there’s no electric lights.”
             Bo looked at Ronnie like he was crazy.  “No electric lights?  What do you mean, ‘no electric lights’”?         
             “Electric lights are a product of capitalism, Bo.  We’re getting away from that, remember?  Actually, we don’t have any electricity at all.”
             “What?  No electricity?”
             “Another product of capitalistic greed, Bo.  Sorry, no TV, no computers, no Internet, no electric stove, or washing machine, toaster, refrigerator….”
             “But…General Electric…the utilities companies…they’re just greedy…all they care about is profits…” Bo stammered.
             “Well, I reckon maybe that’s true, Bo, but we still don’t have any electricity, lights, fridge….”
             “This is outrageous,” Bo shouted.  “Give me your cell phone, Ronnie, I’m going to call my Congressman.”
             “No cell phone, Bo.  Capitalism.  In fact, no telephone at all.”
             “No telephone?”
             “No telephone.”
      “Capitalism?”
             “Capitalism.”
             “But what if I get sick and need a doctor?  What if I need an operation?”
             “Well, I guess I’ll have to do that.  It will be kinda painful, I suppose, but we can stick this bullet between your teeth to keep you from breaking them when you grit in pain.  It’s called ‘biting the bullet’.  And if you do break one of your teeth, well, I got a pair of pliers we can use to pull it out.  No Novocain, of course, that’s part of capitalism, but it’ll work.”
             Bo was shaken up a bit, but he gained his composure.  “Well, we…we’ll make do, Ronnie.  I’m getting hungry.  Can you run to the store and get us something to eat?”
             “No car, Bo.”
     “No car??”
     “Capitalism, Bo.  Plus, we don’t want to be driving around in one of those polluters anyway, do we?  Giving profits to the oil companies?” Ronnie smiled.
             “Well, yeah.  Yeah, that’s right, bro.  Greedy oil companies…”
             “No Chevy Volt, either, Bo.  Remember.  No electricity.  Electric companies contribute to global warming anyway.  Got to save the polar bears.”
             That seemed to disturb Bo a little.  “But how am I gonna watch the NBA or the Super Bowl or CNN or MSNBC…?”
             Ronnie just smiled and shrugged.  “We’d just be giving profits to the electric company.  I’ll head to town.  I’ll take my horse.  It will take me a few hours to get there and back, though.”
             “Yeah, ok, you do that.  Incidentally, where’s the john?  This house don’t seem to have a bathroom.”
             Ronnie pointed towards the back door.  “There’s a little shed out there, Bo.  The door has a half-moon on it….”
             “But it’s cold out there, Ronnie.  I’ll freeze my…”
             “Here’s you a few corn cobs for when you’re finished, Bo.”
             “Corn cobs?  No toilet paper?”
             “Capitalism, Bo.”
             That made Bo mad.  “No toilet paper.  I don’t believe capitalism…”  Then he reached over and yanked the Bible that Ronnie carried away from him.  “Gimme that worthless book.  Bunch a’ redneck hicks are the only people that believe that mythology any more.  Good grief, if we could get the religious kooks out of the country, just think of how progressive we’d all be.  I’ll use some of this paper in the Bible when I go outside…”
             Just then, there was knock on the door.  Bo opened it and two men, from somewhere down south, pointed a gun at him and said, in a strange accent, “Give us your dinero, amigo.”  He cackled.  “We cross your border while you gripe about bank.”
             Bo was shocked.  “But…but…but….”  He looked at Ronnie in desperation.  “I just pulled all my money out of the bank, Ronnie, because banks are so greedy and don’t care about the people.  I got over a millions dollars here.”
             “Where did you get all that money, Bo?”
             “I wrote a book.  Sold it.  Lots of people bought it.”
             “Oh, I see.  Selling a book.  That had nothing to do with capitalism, did it.”
             “Of course not.  I wrote my book to help people, I had to make a little money to cover my time, costs, living expenses, etc.”
             Ronnie just smiled and shrugged.  “I understand.  Like all the good folks in Hollywood just want to entertain people.  No greed there, is there.  Well, you better give that money to those robbers, Bo.  The bank can’t help you now.”
             So, with the gun pointed at him, Bo had no choice but to give the thieves his money.  As they were running off, Bo shouted at them, “Hey, haven’t you ever heard of ‘Thou shalt not steal.’  It’s right here in the Bible,” he said, waving it at them.
             Ronnie said to him, “You can use the page that says that when you go out back, Bo.”
             Bo gave him a sarcastic expression.  “It’s cold in here, Ronnie.  Turn on the heat, will you?”
             “No electricity, Bo.”
             “Then turn on the gas!”
             “No gas, Bo.  Product of capitalism.  We can’t drill for oil on our land, either.”
             “Why not?”
             Ronnie shrugged.  “Something to do with the environment…”
             Exasperated, Bo replied, “Well, then, what are we going to do for heat?”
             “There’s an axe out in the barn.  You cut your own firewood…”
             “A fire?  I don’t know how to start a fire…well, now, wait a minute.  Yes, I do.  I’ve started a few before…But that will take a long time.  What are we going to do for food?”
             “We grow our own, Bo.”
             Bo nodded, seemingly satisfied.  “That’s ok.  Tomorrow you can get on the tractor and plow some land.”
             “No tractor, Bo.”  
             “No tractor?”
             “Capitalism.”
             “Then how we gonna grow food?”
             “You have to work out here, Bo.  Strange concept, I know.  You can get behind the iron plow.  I’ll hitch the ox up for you.”
             “Iron plow?  Ox?  Oh, man, this is more than I can handle.  I’m gettin’ thirsty.  Where’s the water faucet?”
             “No water faucet, Bo.”
             “Capitalism?”
             “Capitalism.”
             “Well, where are we going to get water?”
             “There’s a shovel in the barn, too.  We can dig a well, put in a pump.”
             “But I want a shower.”
             “No shower.  Capitalism.  But, you can have a bath.  We can build a fire and heat the water…”
             “Yeah, a fire.  I’m cold.  I need some warmer clothes.”
             “Well, we’ll have to go kill some animals.  Maybe a deer or buffalo.  Or a cow.  Skin it.  Make our own clothes.”
             “Kill animals?  Sk-skin them?  Blood?  Make our own clothes?
             “No manufacturing, Bo.  We’re getting away from capitalism, remember?”
             “Ronnie, I’m hungry.  Can’t I call out for a pizza?”
             “Sorry, Bo, remember, no phone.  No Pizza Hut.  Greedy, capitalistic pig company.  Doesn’t want to help people, just wants to make a profit.  Unlike you.  Probably doesn’t pay more than millions of dollars a year in taxes, either.”
             “But, Ronnie, we’ll be living in poverty like this.”
             “Yeah.  Just like about 95% of the population of the world did.  Before capitalism.  Oh, and one more thing, Bo.”
             “What’s that, Ronnie?  How could it be any worse?  No fridge, no TV, no MP3 player, no IPod, no electricity, no running water, no heat, no food…”
             “Yeah, but we’ll be farmers, Bo.  Agriculture.  Just like almost everybody before capitalism.  And you know what else that means, Bo?”
             “What, Ronnie?”
             Ronnie smiled, his “aw, shucks” smile again.  “Slavery…”
            

Politics Is A Dirty Game

We all know that, of course--i.e., that politics is (are?) dirty.  Power is one of the most corrupting things known to man.  Many people would rather have power than money, and that has become as true in the United States as anywhere else.  It's a shame, because the savagery of politics is a disincentive for any decent person--the kind of people needed running the country--to become involved.  So we end up with incompetents like Barack Obama, or dingbats like Nancy Pelosi, or revoltingly immoral curs like Barney Frank, Bill Clinton, and Teddy Kennedy--mediocrities who have no ability to be critical of, or no conscience that bothers them when they seek to destroy other people.  And heaven forbid if anybody comes up with a decent idea that would truly help others.  If it goes against liberal ideology, then amoral liberals will do whatever is necessary to make sure that person gets nowhere near the reins of power, at least if they can do anything about it.

Newt Gingrich is a strange duck, there's no question about it.  One moment, he can say something beyond brilliance, and the next day he can come out with ideas as ridiculous as Barack Obama (notice, I didn't say Barack Obama's).  His past life is less than exemplary; the media has discovered that Newt is a sinner, but that only matters, of course, if a person is a Republican.  He's a bit arrogant and hot-headed, and in times past, something of a loose cannon.  Frankly, he'd probably make a pretty good President.  With some self-control, he could be a great President.

Gingrich has some marvelous ideas, and he has never been more articulate, eloquent, and practical than he was this past Monday night in the FOX debate.  His answers to Juan Williams' race-baiting questions were brilliant, and drew a standing ovation from the crowd, something unheard of in debates.  Newt touched a chord with many Americans.  Decent Americans know that people should work for a living, for their own sake.  Work is good in every single thing it accomplishes, individually and collectively.  Even when Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden before they sinned, God made them work--"dress and keep the garden."  And these same decent Americans are tired of freeloaders, and more than that, tired of the liberalism which caters to it, encourages it by casting the freeloaders as "victims", and forces hard-working Americans to shell out their ever-deflating money (thanks to the government) to cover the cost of supporting these parasites.  No doubt--and subsequent events have shown--liberals were frightened out of their wits at Newt's common sense answers and the response they got from the audience.  One thing liberals do NOT want is more and more Americans--especially blacks--having jobs.  Because if people are working, they aren't dependent upon government and thus don't need liberals.  Job-creation and independence are the very antithesis of modern liberalism (unless they are union jobs, of course).  Gingrich has finally...finally...got to go...

So out come the brutal attack dogs again.  I don't know what Newt's ex-wife is going to say about him in this upcoming interview, but it doesn't matter.  The media doesn't care what she says as long as Newt Gingrich can be destroyed and Mitt Romney becomes the Republican nominee.  Nancy Pelosi herself has said that the Democrats want to run against Romney.  He's weak, he's mush, he appears vulnerable in the one lie they use to buy more votes than anything--class warfare--and he's not Newt Gingrich.  (Notice also, however, that guns are starting to be aimed at Romney as well.  "He gave millions of dollars to the Mormon church."  Yes, giving money to a church charity is certainly something liberals can't understand and don't believe in.)  Thus, the target now becomes Newt Gingrich's personal life and how to spread as much horse manure as possible to detract from people hearing his ideas.  It's really amazing Newt has lasted as long as he has in the race and is still as popular as he is.  That's because of one thing--he's a brilliant man with some brilliant ideas and he can articulate them better than anyone else.  Countless millions of Americans are hungering for that, yearning for a return to the days when America believed in industry, sacrifice, decency, virtue--an America they can believe in.  Every one of those things will destroy liberalism, and that's why the attacks on Gingrich and other conservatives are so incredibly vicious and without any restraint or an ounce of decency.  Victory is all that matters, and thus anything goes, which is the mantra of secular liberalism's ethical subjectivism--the same moral philosophy, incidentally, that underlay Nazism and Marxism, and brutally murdered hundreds of millions of people in the 20th century.  American liberals, frankly, scare me, because the only restraint they DO have comes from the moral capital that Christianity brought to this country, and still exists in the minds of a huge segment of the population.  And that is a capital liberals are working 24/7 to eradicate.  Well, they are also concerned that the Tea Party people all have guns and will use them, if necessary.  It's no surprise that liberals want to take away people's guns; it's exactly what Hitler and Stalin did.  An unarmed populace can't shoot back.   Government is to have all the power.  None for God, none for the church, or the family, or the people--all power in the state.  Everybody looking, not to Father God, but to Father Government for guidance, a government controlled, of course, by an atheistic secular elite.  That's what this is all about, folks, and given what happened in the 20th century, it ought to scare our pants off.

But back to the main point of this post.  No, I am not endorsing Newt Gingrich or anybody else; it doesn't matter who I want, Romney is going to get the nomination.  Gingrich certainly has his baggage and his Republican opponents have not been slow to expose it.  Indeed, the Republicans have been doing a marvelous "bite and devour one another" dance--no doubt, much to the delight of the Democrats, though in one sense, it's understandable that each Republican candidate is trying to distinguish himself (herself) from the others, and that's the main motivation among those candidates.  But it's not the motivation among the liberals.   As sure as night follows day, liberalism will do everything it can to destroy any conservative who appears to be even a threat to their power.

Newt, you done good Monday night...and you're going to pay the price for it.

The Tim Tebow Phenomenon

Tim Tebow's football year is over now, thanks to an overwhelming 45-10 loss today to the New England Patriots.  The loss, and the size of it (at least to me), wasn't surprising.  Denver's defense was mediocre at best, Tom Brady is one of the best--and hungry--and in this age when the passing game dominates in the NFL, the outcome was almost a foregone conclusion.  Tim Tebow is not a good NFL quarterback, and he may never be.  Quarterbacks whose main asset coming out of college is an ability to run either have to evolve into a pocket-type passer, or they won't last long in the league.  Even Michael Vick has learned that lesson.  Vince Young never did.  Tebow will have to, or he will go to way of...Vince Young...and other "running" quarterbacks.

But, for the past three months, Tebow was in the limelight and he did do some remarkable things.  His success caught the nation's eye, but his decency elevated him above the normal.  And the latter, more than anything, will be missed if he doesn't develop into a true NFL-type quarterback.

The mainstream media, with its searing, blinding, raging hatred of Christianity, gritted its teeth everytime Tebow pulled off a remarkable win.  Finally, they had to get on board, at least partly--"there go the people.  We are their leaders.  We must follow them."  For many Americans, it was just nice to see a decent, respectful, God-fearing young man succeed, a man who wasn't ashamed or slow to proclaim his faith and trust in God and Jesus.  In a sports age that has given us NFL, MLB and NBA rosters that look like police rap sheets and post office walls, a Tim Tebow is something a country that retains a lot of decent people is looking for.  How is it that human trash like Madonna and Lady Gaga can become so popular, adored, and worshipped by so many?  This is good?  This is an improvement on public moral virtue and character?  These are the kinds of people we want our children to become?  Barney Frank, Edward Kennedy, Bill Clinton?  Every chance a "mainstream" media reporter gets, he/she will take a swipe at Tim Tebow and his religious beliefs.  And yet the rot and vomit that is spewed out of Hollywood today is viewed upon with starry-eyed wonder and amazement, and pushed before American youth every chance possible.  No, I say fill Hollywood, the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB--and especially Washington, D.C.--with people like Tim Tebow, and America would become a country to be proud of again. 

Of course, an NFL full of Tim Tebows (I'm talking character, not talent) would be a ho-hum place, wouldn't it.  Righteousness is boring.  Sin is fun.  And therein lies the major problem in the United States.

"Righteousness exalts a nation; sin is a reproach to any people" (Proverbs 14:34).  It's not hard to explain America's downward spiral of the last 50 years.  You can start, continue, and conclude with the pseudo-"intellectual" class's rejection of Christianity.  To have progress, to go forward, America must go back to the Bible.  It's the only hope.

But every precedent of history teaches that, once a nation starts down the path of degeneracy, immorality, and hedonism, it does not return before catastrophe strikes, if ever.  Don't expect it to happen any time soon in America.  A country that defines deviancy, dependency, and degeneration as "progress" has got a long way to go.  That would be funny, if it wasn't so sad.

The tragedy for Denver--and the nation--today was not that Tim Tebow and the Broncos lost.  The real tragedy is that a religious person like Tim Tebow is so unique, so exceptional in American pop culture.  That speaks volumes--to those with eyes to see--of what the United States has become.

There Are Still a Few Left...

...and, not surprisingly, a lof of them live in Texas.

http://biggeekdad.com/2011/10/kellers-riverside-store/

"I Love Greed"

Here is Walter Williams' January 5 article.  The title of this post, "I Love Greed," is actually the title of Williams' article, so it's his, not mine.  Whether he is being tongue-in-cheek about that or not, I'll let the reader decide.  As usual with a Williams article, the economics here are brilliant and simply explained.  I have some comments below the article.

"What human motivation gets the most wonderful things done? It’s really a silly question, because the answer is so simple. It turns out that it’s human greed that gets the most wonderful things done. When I say greed, I am not talking about fraud, theft, dishonesty, lobbying for special privileges from government or other forms of despicable behavior. I’m talking about people trying to get as much as they can for themselves. Let’s look at it.

This winter, Texas ranchers may have to fight the cold of night, perhaps blizzards, to run down, feed and care for stray cattle. They make the personal sacrifice of caring for their animals to ensure that New Yorkers can enjoy beef. Last summer, Idaho potato farmers toiled in blazing sun, in dust and dirt, and maybe being bitten by insects to ensure that New Yorkers had potatoes to go with their beef.

Here’s my question: Do you think that Texas ranchers and Idaho potato farmers make these personal sacrifices because they love or care about the well-being of New Yorkers? The fact is whether they like New Yorkers or not, they make sure that New Yorkers are supplied with beef and potatoes every day of the week. Why? It’s because ranchers and farmers want more for themselves. In a free market system, in order for one to get more for himself, he must serve his fellow man. This is precisely what Adam Smith, the father of economics, meant when he said in his classic “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (1776), “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." By the way, how much beef and potatoes do you think New Yorkers would enjoy if it all depended upon the politically correct notions of human love and kindness? Personally, I’d grieve for New Yorkers. Some have suggested that instead of greed, I use “enlightened self-interest.” That’s OK, but I prefer greed.

Free market capitalism is relatively new in human history. Prior to the rise of capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving one's fellow man. Capitalists seek to discover what people want and then produce it as efficiently as possible. Free market capitalism is ruthless in its profit and loss discipline. This explains much of the hostility toward free market capitalism; some of it is held by businessmen. Smith recognized this hostility when he said, "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." He was hinting at government-backed crony capitalism, which has come to characterize much of today’s businesses.

Free market capitalism has other enemies -- mostly among the intellectual elite and political tyrants. These are people who believe that they have superior wisdom to the masses and that God has ordained them to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Of course, they have what they consider to be good reasons for restricting liberty, but every tyrant who has ever lived has had what he considered good reason for restricting liberty. A tyrant’s agenda calls for the attenuation or the elimination of the market and what is implied by it -- voluntary exchange. Tyrants do not trust that people acting voluntarily will do what the tyrant thinks they should do. They want to replace the market with economic planning and regulation.

The Wall Street occupiers and their media and political allies are not against the principle of crony capitalism, bailouts and government special privileges and intervention. They share the same hostility to free market capitalism and peaceable voluntary exchange as tyrants. What they really want is congressional permission to share in the booty from looting their fellow man." (Walter Williams, "I Love Greed, Jan. 5, 2012).
 
I personally don't like the word "greed," because it has a negative, evil connotation, but there is no question that people operate from self-interest.  Everybody--EVERBODY--including the welfare recipient who would rather live off the government than work, is actuated by what they believe to be their own self-interest.  Not every action of every human is always motivated by self-interest; there is a such a thing as "philanthropy," and often times people will make sacrifices for others with no real self-interest involved.  But the fact remains that people, most of the time, are going to do what they believe to be best for themselves.  Jesus recognized this in His classic statement, "Love thy neighbor as thyself."  Jesus never taught self-hatred, He simply wanted to mitigate the worst abuses of selfish behavior.  "Christian self-interest" is better than "enlightened self-interest," and is better than "greed." 
 
Williams' economics, of course, is spot on, and his simple way of explaining it must send shudders down the backs of his opponents.  It is extremely important to note that much of what is called "free-market capitalism" today is nowhere near the free market or capitalism.  I, along with Walter Williams and every other believer in free-market capitalism, deplore the "crony capitalism" that goes on in Washington.  It's been going on for a long time.  Even the "laissez-faire" late-19th century was hardly that.  Most of the trans-continental railroads were built (wastefully and fraudently) with government money, and most of them eventually went bankrupt (the only one that didn't was James Hill's Great Northern, which he built with private money and no government loans).  When the Obama administration hands out hundreds of millions of dollars to its favorites (e.g., Solyndra, et al), that is NOT capitalism.  And, not surprisingly, many of those ventures eventually fail for the reasons that Williams points out--they aren't built upon the peacable, voluntary exchange of producuers and consumers but on tyranny and force.  And you can't build a successful economy on those principles.

You see, not only is free market capitalism "rutheless in its profit and loss discipline," consumers are "ruthless", too.  If businesses do not provide the goods and services that consumer want--consumer self-interest--those businesses will fail.  And do you think consumers care if those businesses fail?  Of course not.  The very reason those businesses DO fail is because of consumers not buying their products; somebody else is doing a better job of meeting consumers' "self-interest".  Such a business should succeed because it is giving people what they want at a price they want to pay.  And their profits will tell just how successful they are at doing what consumers want them to do.  And those CEOs who have the foresight and wisdom to help those companies make those profits--profits, remember, made because that company is providing consumers what they want--should be well-rewarded for it.  What they get paid is none of my business, or your business, or the media's business, and it's certainly not Barack Obama's business.

But, the lines in this year's presidential debate are already being drawn.  Since it's obvious now that Mitt Romney is going to be the Republican nominee, swords are being drawn against "venture capitalists."  I don't know anything about Mitt Romney's former business enterprises, and I don't care enough, at the moment, to do any research about it.  And I doubt those who are starting to scream loudly about him know anything, either.  I do know I get sick of reading statements like "all businesses care about are profits."  That reeks of reading somebody's heart and mind to me, and nobody has that ability.  But worse than that, and what really aggravates me, it is a horrible, unjustified slight on millions and millions of hard-working, successful Americans, who have worked, saved, sweated, and sacrificed to build their own economic futures.  And while there are always some who cheat, the vast, vast, vast majority of successful American businessmen have played by the rules and earned what they have by the sweat of their brows and by their own foresight, industry, frugality, and virtue.  And to hear worthless, useless incompetents like Barack Obama and his Democratic Party buffoons villify them, and build a whole movement--"Occupy whatever"--on class warfare, is a disgraceful, despicable thing.  I have nothing but contempt for those who want to punish success, to "legally" steal (through taxes) from those who have succeeded just to buy votes of the stupid masses and stay in power.  But that is Barack Obama and the Democratic Party, and they are liable to be in power...until there isn't anything left to steal.  Read:  Europe.

I have absolutely no use for businesses who cozy up to government for protection against the ruthlessness of the free market; it's consumers who suffer when that happens.  But that's just another reason why government needs to be seriously downsized and stay out of the business world.  There is a place and time for government to step in and protect property--that means my property, too, and that means, at times, against abusive business.  But keep that involvement as minimal as possible and never subsidize businesses that can't profit on their own.  If people want solar energy or electric cars--and it's obvious they don't--they'll demand it and it will be provided for them, cheaply, efficiently, and resourcefully, by the free market.  Barack Obama and his Marxist, secular intellectual tyrants, may think they know what it's my self-interest.  But I beg to differ. 

And even if I'm stupid and don't know any better, I still want the freedom to be stupid and to make my choices for myself.  With my own money.  Buying what I want to buy.  When I want to buy it.  From whom I want to buy it (thank you, Wal-Mart).  Can somebody--anybody--explain to me why I should let those decisions be taken away from me and given to Barack Obama, a man who, the only thing he knows how to run is his mouth?

Obama and the Intentional Destruction of America

There is no doubt now that Barack Obama is deliberately trying to weaken America and turn the country into a second or third-rate European power.  Actually, there never was any doubt about it, from the time he came upon the national scene and ran for President.  He campaigned around the world, bashing his own country and denigrating America's historical greatness.  But all Obama has done is simply make manifest the "progressive", liberal ideology.  Liberals have always viewed America as racist, sexist, homophobic, elitist, and imperialistic (read any college history textbook; I've read plenty), and thus the United States gained its ascendancy in the world, not by hard work and industry, but by robbing, cheating, and exploiting other peoples, including a huge number of its own citizens.  A country like that needs to be punished for its historic sins and brought down to a level with the nations it has forthrightly abused.

Barack Obama is the personification of that hate-America philosophy.

Now he has announced a plan to cut the United States military by some hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade.  Actually, I'm not necessarily opposed to that.  I've long been an advocate that the United States, once it finishes in Afghanistan, should bring all its troops home (from Korea, Japan, Europe, and wherever else they are stationed) and mind its own business--"no entangling alliances," as George Washington so succinctly expressed it.  The country needs to remain strong enough that, if threatened, it can go kick whoever's butt needs to be kicked--and then return home and let the rest of the world take care of its own affairs, too.  The United States is being invaded right now, and the troops who are brought home should be guarding our own borders.  But, of course, that's the last thing Obama is going to do.

So, again, trimming the military budget, if done for the right reasons, is not necessarily a bad thing.  It isn't surprising, in the least, that the American military has a higher confidence rating among the American people (78%) than Congress (12%).  The reason is inherent--protecting property is the one thing that government can do well, and the only thing it should do.  As John Locke put it, "Government has no other end than the preservation of property."  Thus, given the fact that government is the nationalization of force, military and police action are always the most successful ventures of any government. 

But, of course, governments--led by self-anointed leftist, godless "progressives"--have been trying, in the 20th century, to socially engineer, and with very little success (and hundreds of millions of deaths).  Oh, government can do some of these things (welfare, urban renewal, education, etc.), but always wastefully, fraudulently, and in ways that engender sloth and vice (and--lo and behold--dependence upon government!).  When government redistributes property rather than protects it, it does two things--it discourages people from becoming productive property owners, and it provides no incentive for lazy, covetous people to become productive.  The American Founders set it up exactly right--government will protect the property of the industrious, frugal, and virtuous, and give nothing (welfare) to the slovenly and lazy (churches, families, and charitable organizations were to take care of the truly needy poor).  We want industrious people in a society, not lazy, immoral bums.  Productive, virtuous people become wealthy, or at least able to take care of themselves, and thus with little need for government.  These productive people thus become the envy of those who don't have the same ability, drive, and talent as they do.  It's easier to complain about the "rich" than to go through the hard work necessary to become one, and it's a whole lot easier to vote for a politician who will steal from the rich and give their money to the lazy and indolent.  And the latter is what gives "progressive" politicians power.  The person who recently commented on this site about the feminist movement being the worst thing that ever happened to America was a little bit off.  As bad as feminism is, the worst mistake the country ever made was giving the vote to non-property owners, because they have used that vote to take money from the productive and redistribute it to the non-productive.  The Democratic Party today is, of course, the party of the non-productive wealth stealers (along with immoral haters of Christianity, and the two go hand-in-hand).  And the Democrats--the "progressives"--have done a marvelous job in convincing people that the rich have gotten rich by stealing from the poor and thus to redistribute that income is only giving it back to its rigthtful owners.  The "widening income gap" is always presented negatively; "oh, no, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer."  That's Marxism 101 because it implies that the rich are robbing the poor.

Well, I say that if the rich are getting richer because they are working hard and providing goods and services that people want (which is the only way, ultimately, to get rich), and the poor are getting poorer because they are sitting around on their lazy butts not doing anything, then the rich ought to be getting richer, and the poor ought to be getting poorer. 

Float that truth around the country and watch the reaction.

Barack Obama is almost sure to win re-election.  I'm not convinced there are enough decent people left in America to elect a decent person.  Plus, it is now clear that, barring a major gaffe by Mitt Romney, he will be the Republican presidential nominee, and there's not enough contrast between he and Obama to warrant a change in leadership (to most Americans).  Any Republican who could win a statewide election in the People's Republic of Massachusetts isn't going to have the fortitude or ideology necessary to do what the country needs.  But then--and again--I don't know if there are enough virtuous people left in the United States to elect the kind of leader who can do what needs to be done.  California is becoming us.  It may be over for America.  Obama and the Democrats will have America looking like Europe before long.  That's their goal.

After all, America needs punishing for its historic sins.

Current Events Ramblings, January 2

Happy New Year.  The last week has been incredibly busy.  I had exams in all of my classes; the largest section of over 70 students had their final exam so I had to get those graded and all the final scores resolved and turned in.  Next week is final exams for the rest of my classes and I'm going to be glad to see the semester end.  There will be about a five-week break and that will be most welcomed.

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The Iowa caucuses are January 3, or tomorrow, depending upon what time zone you're in, I suppose.  As far as I'm concerned, it's been a foregone conclusion, for a long time, who is going to win the Republican nomination, so the whole thing is only of a passing interest to me.  Any time any reasonably conservative Republican makes a move in the polls, the media and Republican establishment have done everything they can to destroy him (or her).  Newt Gingrich is the latest casualty.  I've noticed that Rick Santorum has made a slight move upwards in the Iowa polls.  If he begins to threaten Romney, the "establishment" will bare its fangs and sink them into him next.  Wait and see.  The media want Romney, of course, because he's mush (McCain II), and they think Obama can beat him (highly possible).  The establishment Republicans wants Romney because they don't want a conservative in the Presidency who could make their creamy Washington social life a little uncomfortable.  I don't really think they care who wins the election as long as they can remain where they are--within the beltway of power.  If they were concerned about country, they wouldn't be pushing Romney so hard.

Frankly, I haven't heard any of the candidates say what they truly need to say:  "If I'm elected, I'll go to Washington and mind my own business.  And let you mind yours, too."  Folks, it's the government in Washington, D. C., that is a major reason why the United States is in the mess that it's in.  The politicians created the disaster by all their meddling and intervention; why in the world do we think they can solve it?  Does anybody really think that Barack Obama has made the United States a better place in three years he has been President?  He's done nothing to improve the country.  But as long as a majority of the American people accept this notion that government is the answer to most of the country's problems, those problems will only get worse.  There are a few things (very few) that government can do and do well (like kill people).  There are just some things--many, many, many things--which government is simply inherently unable to do.  But, late in the 19th and early in the 20th centuries, the "intellectual" "progressives" began convincing Americans that government was the answer to most of their problems.  Too many people bought into that lie and it has gotten increasingly worse over the decades.  Every Republican--including the "conservatives"--has "solutions" to the "problems," and every solution involves more government something.  Even "cutting spending" is the wrong language.  Quit spending is what they need to do, and give the people their money back.  Fat chance on that.  There is a whole educational revolution needed in the United States, and I don't see that in the works--especially since the government controls the education system, too.  Freedom.  Yeah.  We buy that lie, too.

Incidentally, Ron Paul has some of the best ideas, but even he's goofball on some things, but more than that, he has no chance of getting the nomination.  And that's the main reason why he's largely been left alone by the attack dogs.

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The Dallas Cowboys ended a miserable year by missing the playoffs.  Their loss to the New York Giants was wholly expected by anybody who pays even a modicum of attention (which is about all I pay).  That idiotic stunt that Jerry Jones pulled last week was determinative.  What player wants to go all out for an owner who, in effect, goes down to the field and tells his coach to lose a game?  Or, at best, not make the supremest effort to win?  If nothing else, it has a subconscious effect on the team.  Plus, it's hard to imagine any of the players having any respect left for head coach Jason Garrett.  If Garrett had shouted at Jones, "Get your butt back upstairs and let me run the team on the field!", his team might have won the game against the Giants.  But Garrett would be looking for a job, too.  But then, Jones would never have hired a man who would say that to him, anyway.  The Cowboys are in a mess and it's hard to see them being any more successful in the near future than...the Astros.

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The state of California continues its headlong march into banana republicanism.  A law will go into effect this year which "authorizes any [college] student, including one without lawful immigration status, to serve in any capacity in student government."  In other words, people who are breaking the law are going to learn how to serve in the institution (government) that makes laws.  I think only California legislators could come up with something that logically stupid.

If Obama has his way, of course, then the whole country will look like California within a generation.

True history also doesn't matter to the California legislature.  Another law "bans teaching materials that reflect poorly on gays."  Let's don't tell the whole truth about them.  Can't have that.

In all 40,000 new laws will go into effect in the United States this year, the land of the free....