"Don't hurt people and don't take their stuff" - Matt Kibbe

5/31/11

"Americans are Terrorists" - Obama Friend

Everyone has heard the saying about the pot calling the kettle black. And it's true many times. But today I ran across the best example of it I have ever seen.

A "friend" on my facebook list, a person who I don't know, but who "friended" me because of this blog had a posting today featuring a video of an interview of a known terrorist, who happens to be an American, berating America as a "Terrorist Empire.
The terrorist is close Obama (actual) friend BERNARDIN DOHRN. She should know I guess.

Most of you older readers know of her from when she used to declare war on the US, promote communism, and go around blowing up buildings as terrorists did in the 1960's in this country.


Some of you younger readers, particularly those who continue to swoon over Obama, will need to bone up on her history so you can craft rationalizations about why Obama is not really close to her and cannot be connected to her and her terrorist husband William Ayers. That way you can feel good about supporting this leftist boob for another term while America swirls the bowl.

The "friend" whose FB page called attention to this video is a person who has a page called Freedom Crossing. And the title of the post is;

OBAMA'S CLOSE FRIEND BERNARDIN DOHRN: AMERICA IS A TERRORIST EMPIRE
The subtitle is;
This woman’s living room is where the 'President' of the United States launched his political career.


The video is below and you can judge for yourself what it all means and if it's important or not.

5/26/11

Saving Medicare - Who Has a Plan and Who Doesn't?

Hat tip to Matson's Roll Call for the Image

Saving a system that should never have been created in the first place is not the kind of thing I have ever advocated in the past. Having said that, political reality is somewhat more compelling than ideological purity at a time when America is on the edge of financial and moral collapse. And I don't believe that is hyperbole.

President Obama and his party had finally found what they consider to be their winning issue in the next all important election. They believe that if they use the tried and true scare tactics of the past concerning entitlement programs that they will be able to make people forget the failures of their economic policies and the attending astronomical unemployment and real estate foreclosure rates.

The two videos found below are from Republicans, but I think we should overlook that unfortunate coincidence and focus on the main points they make. A third video (by Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute) which some of you may have already watched is on the sidebar and is also worth your time.

The main thing to remember about the only proposal so far is that NO ONE AGE 55 OR OLDER WOULD BE AFFECTED BY THIS REFORM PROPOSAL.

It may take you a few minutes of your precious time to view these, but that is the difference between the informed people and the people who have caused these problems by voting for personalities instead of ideas. If you read this blog regularly you are probably in the first group already, but now is no time to enlist in the second group.

Hard choices have to be made, and very soon. Is doing nothing really an option?



5/19/11

Socialism and Perpetual Adolescence

Just a quick update to my recent piece about adult children and how they are abetting the destruction of our nation.  (The Only Real Hope for the Future, an America of Grownups)

I stumbled across this video about the definition of socialism. The interview of  National Review's Kevin Williamson on that topic turns out to make the same case as I made, albeit in a much more scholarly way than I could. It also has the added benefit of clarifying the definition of a term that seems to have widely diverging opinions of its exact meaning.


Hat tip as usual to the Left Coast Rebel for discovering this great video.

5/18/11

Unintentional Humor is the Best Kind

Our friends over at the LeftCoastRebel ran this video on that fine blog today with an air of indignation. Justifiably so, but with all due respect to those fine folks I think their take on it is incorrect.

I think it is hilarious. I think it shows just how goofy the Soros team* is to people who are even mildly intellectually capable. It made me think it was a parody from a Saturday Night Live skit or a well done piece from the Onion.

 Enjoy!



For anyone interested in a rational opinion on Medicare reform proposals, please watch the Dan Mitchell video on that topic on the sidebar at the right. Or at U-tube here.

* The "Agenda Project" (Soros funded?) is sponsoring the ad

5/17/11

The Only Real Hope for the Future, an America of Grownups

People who know us would be quite surprised to hear that my wife and I are childless. And we have been childless for quite some time now.

You see, our offspring have long ago become adults, in every sense of the word. And now we have grandchildren who are in the process of being raised to become adults. If they turn out like their parents (and we have every reason to believe they will) they will be quite different from a huge percentage of the population of this country right now.

In other words, they will not be "children grown large." They will understand things in an adult way. Unlike a huge number of voters in recent elections, they won't be fooled into believing the childish notions which are regularly foisted upon them by a childish media and the politicians they support.

At least that's my hope. A hope based on experiential evidence, not the slogans of image spinners trying to get ideological cronies elected to the highest offices of the land.

The supporters of huge spending government programs and giveaways are a lot like my toddler grandchildren in that they make no connection between what they want and how it is provided. At least the toddlers have an excuse.

I've never been very keen on the blame game, so I'm not sure precisely how so many adults stayed so childish in their thinking. I suspect that overly indulgent parents and an abundant society had something to do with it, but I forgot to get a sociology degree with cheap education loans and government grants so I'll leave that to someone who did.

But I did pick up some common sense notions of my own from my parents and adult mentors so I will opine freely about some of the childish notions that I think must be discarded soon if we hope to save this country (and by extension the world) from imminent financial and moral collapse. Many may be insulted by this piece but I'm insulted by having government treat me like a child so let's call it even.

So all you adult children out there, here are a few things you will resent being told, but it's clear that you just don't "get."

 1. The notion that government has money of its own is childish. An adult knows that government has to take money from people in order to do anything it does. If you get something from government, it had to be taken by force from some other person. Shame on you for not remembering that, even for a frivolous second.

2. The notion that companies pay taxes is childish. Adults know that businesses aren't people. They are accounting creations. They exist only to make money. Any taxes the businesses pay are passed along to actual people. Some are employees, some are business owners, some are customers.

3. "Rich people don't pay enough in taxes" is another childish notion. Adults know that the so called "rich" pay so much more of the total income taxes on a percentage basis than the rest of us do that only a child could buy in to that notion. Many dozens of studies which childish people ignore clearly show that. Closing your eyes and covering your ears won't change that. Neither will watching only certain TV news shows that ignore it.

4. Another childish idea is that people who have succeeded in making lots of money somehow "owe" a debt to people who haven't. (for whatever reason) Or that if taxes are raised on "rich" people, the budget can be balanced without actually cutting what government spends. Simple math shows that even if the government confiscated 100% of the earnings of the millionaires and billionaires the gap cannot be closed. If you don't believe that just watch the video on the sidebar of this blog. (Title:  Dear President Obama, please watch this video) Don't worry, it's presented in a way that even a child can understand it.

5. Only a child would believe that the US Constitution is old and irrelevant. It mattered then and it matters now. It's the rule book for government. You couldn't play any sport without a rule book. What makes you think you could live in a country without one?

If you don't like the rules, there is a way to change them. But it's not by ignoring them or appointing judges to pretend they say what some people want them to say instead of what they were written to mean. And you don't need to be a lawyer to know what that was, only an adult.

There are many more childish notions that people have, but those five are a good start on the path from adolescence to adulthood. Children aren't stupid, they are just living in a childish world of wanting things but being in denial about where they come from.

The good news of the bad times we are living in is that we are now faced with only adult choices and the abundance of the past is no longer a hiding place in a child's game.

An election is coming. It's past time to graduate from school and become a grownup. We cannot afford to live in a tooth fairy world anymore. Time is running out and it's our only real hope.

5/9/11

A Great Retirement at Thirty Years Old - Happy Anniversary!


I'm not talking about anyone retiring at thirty even though I tried to hook you in with that headline. Instead I'm talking about the thirtieth anniversary of a social security system that actually works and (unlike the one we suffer with in the USA) will never go bankrupt.

I'm talking about a successful government system which is not a Ponzi scheme but a retirement savings plan that the people actually own and which has a rate of return which makes the US Social Insecurity system's (merely theoretical) return look pitiful by comparison.

This year, on May 1st, Chile celebrated the birth of it's privatized Social Security System. They were the first of some thirty other rational countries to "just say no" to government Ponzi schemes which were headed for default and say yes to a privately held, government regulated retirement system that has not only out-performed all expectations but befuddled the leftist naysayers who cannot stand the idea that any system that isn't administered by elite government central planners can succeed in aiding ordinary people in providing a great retirement for themselves.

According to an article in the Investors Business Daily on April 29th;
"In 2005, New York Times reporter John Tierney worked out his own Social Security contributions on the Chilean model and found that his privatized pension would have been $53,000 a year plus a one-time payout of $223,000. The same contributions paid into Social Security would have paid him $18,000."

The return on investment since inception for the Chilean system; "Over the last three decades these accounts have averaged annual returns of 9.23% above inflation. By contrast, U.S. Social Security pays a 1% to 2% (theoretical) return, and even less for new workers."

Of course as any even semi-informed citizen of this country knows, there is no Social Security Fund with any real assets in it for American people. The money has already been spent buying votes from the people who put the money in in the first place. The "Fund" is just an accounting device "account" full of government IOUs promising to print enough paper dollars to satisfy the claims of those who have paid in all their lives. (Until 2037 anyway, when even those Tooth Fairy promises also run dry.)

As part of the law the people in Chile actually own their own accounts as private property, just like your 401k or IRA accounts in this country. 

In a world where American "progressives" are constantly comparing the US to other countries to see if they can find a way to denigrate our way of life, they forgot to compare us to the thirty-ish other countries who have come to their senses and left America in the dust on this one.

 It's enough to make you wonder what the climate is like in Chile.

5/5/11

Three Items That Have Nothing to Do With The Obama/Osama Headlines


Having resisted the urge to join the "comment cacophony" on the Osama/Obama news that knocked the Trump/Birth Certificate non-news off the front pages, I think it's time to bring a few different items up for contemplation.

The items have gotten buried and pushed aside by the admittedly interesting news that Osama bin Laden has a much more open mind nowadays. So while everyone else is focusing on that, allow me to try to refocus/distract you by talking about some other things that have been happening.

One interesting (but under-reported) incident that the left leaning media has been happy to see get buried was the "news" that there were no riots/massive demonstrations, no fleeing and hiding out elected officials, no mob takeover of the capitol building and no teacher "sick-ins" in Massachusetts after a Wisconsin-like law that curbs public employees collective bargaining was passed by the State House of Representatives and sent on to the State Senate. Could it be that if Democrat controlled legislatures have a rare moment of clarity like the Republican controlled legislatures in Wisconsin recently had, it's not so bad? Hmmm, I'll let you decide.

Another item that would be of note if not buried by recent events was the trial balloon floated by the Democrats this morning of a new tax. This time on the mileage people put on their cars between fill-ups. They were careful to try to distance the White House from the proposal just in case the trial balloon turns into a lead balloon.

I'm not sure how that new tax would square with the President's pledge to only soak those who make more than $250,000.  It should be interesting though. Maybe it will only be on cars that weren't manufactured by Government Motors.

Or maybe the news (according to statistics released today) that new claims for unemployment benefits just hit an eight month high would be more newsworthy if the country wasn't so distracted by the controversy over not having pictures of bin Laden's late intellect splattered all over to prove that he is as dead as the birth certificate issue.

You can always count on this blog to shout out those little tidbits of news when they are hard to hear over the din of the over-covered stories of the week. At no charge of course.

This blog remains free and it's probably worth every penny you pay for it.