Frog Boiling 101

I read this interesting piece this morning and it gave me pause to consider the natural progression of all government and the reasons for citizens to be constantly on watch and suspicious of any taxes, and any government program,  for any reason.

HARTFORD, Conn. April 20, 2011 - Do boaters in the Constitution State deserve to be taxed more? Governor Dan Malloy's proposed 2012 budget adds significant new tax levies for boaters and proposes to eliminate the state boating fund and divert boating registration fees and tax dollars - paid by boaters - into the state's general fund. BoatUS says these changes could threaten the state's vibrant boating industry, and lead many cash-strapped residents to quit boating. Connecticut boaters are urged to send a message to their state legislator this week by going to BoatUS.com/gov/ctaction

As can be surmised, the natural progression of government is to spend more than it takes in and to spend on unnecessary things, and then, instead of cutting spending, simply blame the revenue side, and go out and seek devices that allow you to collect more. Now, the best way to “get more” is NOT to institute a pervasive across the population tax. No, that would excite the passions of too many, and so what is done, as in any good military operation, is to segregate the population into groups, find an attribute unique to that group and then tax the group based on that attribute



For example, if a city want to raise more money from homeowners, they can first start by finding an attribute that gives them a small enough “taxation group”that will be below the critical mass which would incite riot and blowback. Maybe they would institute a special tax on all those like me that have artificial turf in their front yards  - claiming increased fire hazard, or reduction of green plant’s or some other made up reason.

Now, because of human nature, my neighbor will not storm city hall on my behalf, and indeed will welcome a tax on my yard because it keeps his taxes low.

After this tax on me in rolled into place, the government can  then add another tax against my neighbor's swimming pool, the other guy's 3 car garage, and other people's incandescent lights, stand alone mailboxes, etc. By the end of things, everything is taxed and the citizens are in chains. (Pretty crafty those in government can be, huh?)


Back to Connecticut. This was surely sold as a modest tax to cover the cost of supporting the boating infrastructure, and surely was sold under the “promise” that the revenues would be used for boating purposes. Now, once the mechanism of boiling the frog has been put in place, and the infrastructure for collecting and paying the tax has been implemented without revolt, the government moves into Phase II of the shakedown. This phase consists of raising the taxes and diverting the monies to the general fund where they will be used for other things. Phase III will come when they raise taxes on boats again, under the promise of course that this time their money will have to go into a boat trust fund and this time really, really will not be diverted .... that is, until they want to divert it again.

Lest you think this happens only to boaters in Connecticut, think again. I happens to motorists in Texas whose hiway fuel tax money has been diverted, leaving the state hiway department having to curtail projects. It has happened to engineers in Texas, where, in addition to paying a registration fee, they are now required to pay another general fund fee that is spent elsewhere by the state.

This, all my good readers, is the nature of the STATE. Although at first the state is “by the people, for the people, of the people”, those elected to the functionary positions within the government soon turn to mischief and they inexorably pervert that ideal of “by the people, for the people, of the people” into the ugly reality of people being “of the state, by the state, and for the state.”


This natural tendancy to grow and devour is why we have a constitution - a document that tells us how our government is to be constituted, such constitution (makeup and structure) of the state being that of a state with shackles placed on it. Not to put too fina a point on things it is because the framers knew that a state, unrestrained, would end up devouring the very countrymen that created it in the first place and the people wopuld end up serving the STATE instead of the other way around.


BTW - If you want to see it in fiction set with an array of archetypal characters just read Ayn Rand’s - Atlas Shrugged. If you want to see this in action - just look around.





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Hope Springs Eternal in the Mind of a Collectivist

~Cato

The perfect illustration of the Utopian liberal mindset, which cannot deal with the real world, but thrills merely to the sound of noble words: From American Thinker

"Behold the words of Donald Berwick -- doctor, Harvard professor, and Obama's nominee to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), arguably the most powerful position in U.S. medicine, directing the flow of almost one trillion dollars a year …

“The only sentiment that exceeds my admiration ... is my hope for the NHS. I hope that you will never, never give up on what you have begun. I hope that you realize and reaffirm how badly you need, how badly the world needs, an example at scale of a health system that is universal, accessible, excellent, and free at the point of care-a health system that is, at its core, like the world we wish we had: generous, hopeful, confident, joyous, and just.”

See, like the world we wish we had – where unicorns frolic and every girl has a pony. Unfortunately, the health care system has to exist in the world we do have – using the resources of reality. We’ll let you figure out how fantasy can be generous, hopeful, confident, joyous and just.

Seneca's Comment ..
H O P E ??? You gotta be freaking kidding me.

Quick somebody get Cato a copy of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" . She spoke to these very things over 50 years ago, but of course she was a kook right? Kook because she actually thought that which was hers was hers.

You see, the Elsworth Tooheys of the world brand me a kook too because I state that mantra, which they see as "Oh so harsh and cold and unfeeling",  and they work like subterranean sappers to try and undermine this archetypal statement of the reality of things - the only statement of moral position that does not lead to the very things that the world is experiencing right now.

Take heed all you conservatives out there, so smug in you non-Obamaness and in your hatred of a man with such a black heart directed against America, for you too are just as culpable until you too embrace the creed that:

What's mine is Mine; What's yours is Yours ...and, most important of all ... What's Mine is Not Yours - regardless of how much better a place/use you think you can find for my money than I can.

But NO you will not embrace THAT creed because deep down in the place in you heart where even you are afraid to go - you know that you too are "on the take" and at the trough of government subsidy.

student loan - subsidy
FHA Fannie Mae loan - subsidy
energy tax credit for the new insulation you put in - Subsidy
Scholarship/Pell Grant = Subsidy
Aid to Dependent Children - Subsidy
Habitat for Humanity - Subsidy
Farm Credits - Subsidy
Milk Producers Credits - Subsidy

All stolen from your neighbor, so as to flow to the multitude of pockets just like yours where you can tell yourself that your subsidy is "different", and protesting so loudly when people like me refuse to ratify the sanctity of your "need".

May you all burn in hell and that hell will be right here. Dante's Inferno is not some mythical place  - we are staring at its mouth even as I write this.

The Difference

If a conservative doesn't like guns, they don't buy one. If a liberal doesn't like guns, then no one should have one.

If a conservative is a vegetarian, they don't eat meat. If a liberal is vegetarian, they want to ban all meat products for everyone.

If a conservative sees a foreign threat, he thinks about how to defeat his enemy. A liberal wonders how to surrender gracefully and still look good.

If a conservative is homosexual, they quietly enjoy their life. If a liberal is homosexual, they loudly demand legislated respect.

If a black man or Hispanic is conservative, they see themselves as independently successful. Their liberal counterparts see themselves as victims in need of government protection.

If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation. A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him.

If a conservative doesn't like a talk show host, he switches channels. Liberals demand that those they don't like be shut down.

If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church. A liberal wants all churches to be silenced and God removed from public view.

If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it. A liberal demands that his neighbors pay for his.
 
~ sent to me by Monte

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Editors Note:
Each of these is a colorful way of saying that the Conservative's view of the world is:

• What's Mine is Mine - Not Yours

and that the Collectivists view of the world is:

• What's Mine is Mine - What's Yours is Mine, Too.

Why Johnnie Doesn't Share

In my earlier article  Communist vs. Capitalist Vocabulary, I discussed what I meant when I said that the first word the little communist (Billy) learns in kindergarten is S-H-A-R-E, while the first word learned by the little capitalist (Johnnie) is T-R-A-D-E.

In the article I pointed out the insidious nature of S-H-A-R-E  being a first word learned and also pointed out that Johnnie - even without being taught property rights - has a very definite idea of property, and has an innate resistance to its theft.

After reading the earlier article, one may ask why it is that this little proto-human (Johnnie) has such an innate reasoning about property and an innate resistance to its theft, and it is obvious that the reason for this is that it is an evolutionary survival mechanism.

Consider, if you will, the earliest days of man, and ask yourself what man would it be that would survive if he simply turned over his scarce property (food, clothing, shelter) without which he would starve, to one who, instead of creating such things on his own ,or trading them for other things of value, was just allowed to take them. No, my good friend, the humans that did that did not live long enough to procreate (they starved, or froze, or were eaten by beasts).

Thus it is that what we have in the world today is a species whose very existence sprang from the idea of NOT SHARING. NOT sharing, meant survival and propagation, and NOT having a sense of ones own property meant death and extinguishment of that particular hereditary line.

Thus it is that little Johnnie is exhibiting a trait (What's Mine is MINE, Not Yours) that has kept the human race alive -and the reason HE has it is because he is the end result of a million years of evolution that propagated these traits and extinguished others.

Keep in mind, however, that Billy is also exhibiting a trait - also in the human condition - that it is easier to take than it is to make. Consider too, that he is also exercising a form of survival strategy. However, this is not a long term survival strategy, for if all you do is take, then who is left to make? And, even if there are those that can make, the question is "will they" and "for how long"?

Think of it this way, as long as there are others to take from, and there are others that do not mind starving and dying so that the Billys of the world might live, then Billy may indeed survive . However, the question is for how long? It is easy to see that at some point Billy is going to run into somebody that will kill him, instead of giving up that which they themselves need to survive, and indeed this is exactly how the human evolution has played out to ingrain in even the tiniest babe a sense of property and the intimate and instinctual connection of property to survival.

The reader may now ask what does this have to do with Communism, Socialism, & Collectivism, and I will now proceed to show what it has to do with it. The connection is that the grown-up Billys of the modern world are not stupid, and by executing various survival strategies over the past 2000 years, they have learned that if they can convince a group of sufficient size (but not too great a size) that the need of the "have-nots" stakes a moral claim on those that "have", then they will be able to persist in their strategy of "feeding" without producing much of anything themselves.

Thus it is that the smart collectivist does not mount a frontal assault against the producers, for to do that would polarize the producers and in not to short a time there would be few collectivists. In addition, if a frontal assault succeeded, then in not to short a time (50 years?) the collective would perish as there would be no one left to produce.

No, the smart collectivist, executes a different strategy. He insinuates the ideas of the collective into the population via slogans, symbols, art, literature, religion, and especially into the minds of the children (the kindergarten scenario above) - and, critically important, he does this so that not all are turned into collectivists. This is critical - that not all be turned into collectivists, for even the true collectivist knows that if there were nothing but collectivists, that nobody would eat because, as in Jamestown in early America, where all land was held and worked in common, with rations distributed evenly from a central storehouse, there was no incentive for an individual to work harder and, with such an attitude of "Why should I work if my neighbor is required to make sure I do not starve", everybody indeed starved.

No, the smart collectivist, tries to, in the mass of producers, create and then calve off from the main mass of producers two groups.

The first is a mass of modified Johnnies, who after 15 years of exposure to such pap as "share" because others are in need and you have more - or the pap that selfishness is bad - or the pap that what's his really isn't his, have been body-snatched and re-educated to the collective and thereafter turn into community organizers, marching all around town (with Billy) trying to organize all the other body-snatched Johinnies and Billys of the neighborhood to come together into a shouting mob to take from the producers of the world - all while carrying signs accusing the producers and property owners of the world as being selfish. (Hell yeah, they are selfish - it is THEIR property.)

The second group is different in that they have not yet been completely body-snatched, but have been sufficiently indoctrinated with the kindergarten lessons, to be useful to the collectivist agenda which is to propagate and survive.

The members of this second group are the kind that get up and pronounce that private property rights should be respected - but that all children should be insured; or that complain about the government taking over health care - but in the next breath intone how it is "society" that should come together to pay for care for their aging parent; or that talk about how people should bear the consequences of their acts - but then participate in engineers without border, doctors without borders, carpenters without borders, habitat builders without borders, etc, where they go into a society that in 5000 years has not learned to, for example, drill a water well, and proceed to drill it for them, thus upsetting an entire societal structure with their do-goodedness.

These are the same people/groups who talk loudly at tea parties against government intrusion - but when that government intrusion is going to throw pork their way, are nowhere to be seen, but everywhere to be heard, as they grovel ,grunt, and shove their way to the head of the line. (A perfect example of this being individual members of a national engineering society who while protesting the evils of Obamunism, try to move themselves to the head of the handout line by raising a hue and a cry about how their profession should get government money for work that is not in need of doing, and if it is in need of doing, should be funded at the local level instead of at the national level.

These in-betweens & bystanders are very useful to the true collectivist because they are economically productive, are attached to their station in life, and are attached to the fruits that they have been able to gain and retain by in essence being closet collectivists, or by averting their eyes from what it truly is that they obtain their wealth and possessions. Essentially, they are people that are so wedded to their comforts in life that they will suffer giving up a portion of their property - if they can convince themselves (and indeed they do so convince themselves) that they can just be left alone to enjoy the rest, or if they judge that it is less work to just give up than it is to fight. (BTW - The IRS tax structure is EXACTLY set up with this in mind.)

As a stark lesson in what I mean, consider Nazi Germany and the work of extermination of the Jews. Ask yourself, if they came for your Jewish neighbor, but not for you, would you have stood against the Nazi boots - or would you have "stood-by"? If the answer is that it depends on the cost to you, then you might be an in-between , or a bystander.

Considering the above, is it any wonder then that the signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged their lives, their property, and their sacred honor, instead of pledging 5% of their income, or a couple weekends of their time working in a homeless shelter.

How many of us would do that - Pledge our lives? Pledge our property (all of it) ? Pledge our sacred honor? Not very many of us, I am afraid, and THAT is exactly the strategy of the collectivist. To take as much as can be taken without causing a complete attack from the production tribe, and to even bribe part of that production tribe with promises and selective delivery of economic gain to those that can be body-snatched and induced to continue to stand-by.


It is these in-betweens and bystanders that the collectivist needs, for it is they that set the tone of social acceptability and pressure, it is they that work in the factory or the office, and it is through them that the true collectivist achieves his aim of creating a system where a sufficient number of producers continue to produce, and where he the collectivist, just as a vampire bat, can feed.

Service to Whom? - The Insidious Nature of the Government School

I ran across this as I was looking on my school district's website in search of a someone to contact about whether or not the propaganda film "All About Stuff" was being used to indoctrinate the children into the evils of the United States and to make them better servants of the State.

I hear on one of the talk shows this morning that the state of Maryland has a requirement that you have to do community service in order to graduate from high school.

I see a judge has ordered community service as part of the "punishment".

I see a bill passed by the House and the Senate and signed into law, said bill having the name the GIVE Act.

Everywhere I turn what do it see??? Service to others (a.k.a. the camel's nose for Service to the State)

Tell the truth, I am sick of it. I guess that any reader of the About Me section to the right of this blog, will not be surprised, and that he will not be further surprised as he reads most any of the posts here.

I have a question - If everybody is doing service to others, then what about his responsibility to himself? Do you really think that a society can be built on service to others, instead of service to ones self? If so then, let me know so I can give you an address to send your money to, because I need your money more than you do.

So sad it is for me to come to the understanding that the very things that made this country great - self interest, self reliance, making people bear the consequences of their folly instead of bailing them out, etc - are the very values that have created so much wealth that people now are able to (but not for long) ignore what it was that got us here in the first place.

Thus it is that we have all these touchy-feely, do-gooder agencies, and thus it is that if you kid does not stand up and proclaim in a loud voice to his classmates that he does not matter, then he will be ostracized and his future dimmed because he did not spout the politically correct line of "Service to the State". And yes, this includes "Habitat for Humanity". If you want to go build a house for somebody, using YOUR money, and YOUR time, the bully for you. But why do you go around telling everybody about how "caring" you are?

Are you doing all the "helping" because you really want to "help", or are you doing it because by so doing, you make yourself feel good, or because you either want something to put on your resume or college transcript, or because you want to have something to "crow" about. The fact of the matter my dear reader is that help is a private affair and this currently in vogue idea of "service" it the nose of collectivist camel trying to take over the tent.

I, for one, am sick of it. How about you? Are you sick of it too? Will you stand up, and stand against, such thinking - thinking that will lay this country bleeding in the ditch as sure as would any IED. Have you yet freed your mind from toxic idea that you are supposed to live for others, .. of your requirement to sacrifice ... of the idea that another mans "need" lays a moral claim on you to fulfill that "need"?

How it Happens

"I do think that if we try to defend capitalism and try to defend freedom just on the basis of the Judeo-Christian morality , we're in trouble. [Be]cause I think that philosophy is much more consistent with socialism than it is with capitalism. [Ed Note: He is correct on this point.] This country was founded on the principles of the enlightment: on John Locke; on individualism; on ideas that came out of the age of reason, not ideas that came out of the New Testament. [Ed Note: He is correct here too.] And that's important."
...
"That [the Jefferson Bible] is full of altruism, that is full of this idea that we need to be our brothers keeper, it is full of the idea of need as a moral claim against us, and that is what Obama, and that is what socialists use in order to get us to accept health care and to get America behind them."

"The key is that we understand that capitalism stands for individualism, self interest, a rational pursuit of our own happiness , that's in our Declaration of Independence, and we launched the Campaign for Liberty on a moral foundation of the right to pursue happiness - individual happiness - your own happiness.

We need to reject this notion that somebody's need, somebody that doesn't have health insurance, somebody that doesn't have a pension, or somebody that does not have money to buy food, [that their need] lays a claim - a moral claim and a political claim on my life, on my productivity, on my success. If we can reject that, then capitalism and freedom are easy after that."

~ Yaron Brook, Ayn Rand Institute Director, Responding live to a comment made by Glenn Beck .....

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"I do feel we have a collective responsibility to the least among us to some extent, but I'm not a socialist. [Ed  Note: Oh, really? Think Again.] I think that is terrifying."

~Pat Caddell, Former advisor to President Carter, speaking to Glenn Beck on 9/12/2009

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"Reason is not automatic, and those that deny it, cannot be reached by it."

~Ayn Rand

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"It is far easier to think the lie to be the truth, than it is to discover the truth itself."

~ A. Koenig, aka Seneca




So my friends, here in the first statement, we have the clearest presentation of the objectivist philosophy that I have ever heard ........  and here in the second statement, we hear the clearest presentation of the muddled thinking of those that Ms Rand is referring to in hers, the third statement.

More to be posted later but other commitmments require me to take leave for now so that I can be my own keeper ....and not yours.

What Little Communists Learn in Kindergarten

Do you know what was the first word the little communist learned in kindergarten?
S-H-A-R-E


Do you know what was the first word the little capitalist learned in kindergarten?
T-R-A-D-E


In what kind of kindergarten did you learn?
In what kind of kindergarten are your children learning?
How about your neighbor's kids?

Two More Men Explain the Ayn Randian Philosophy

I wonder how many will see that he is talking about ... Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Income Tax, HEW, HHS, HUD, Dept of Education, etc.

I also wonder how many will make the connection that the archetypal point is that medicine is simply one nose of the camel looking to find the edge of the people's tent.

Now, if I was a politician running for office, then I could not say these things as it would offend the sensibilities of many who are now in on the dole. But, since I am not a politician, but just a thinking citizen , I can say that this is exactly what he is talking about .. and when you come to the end of the matter, say that you must fight, with all your mind and might, and rid yourself of the the pernicious pap that you were taught that "... you are your brothers keeper" ,and rid yourself of all the altruistic implications of that, for it from this well (altruism)that all the mischief springs.

Yes, in a way it can be said that you are your brothers keeper, if by "keeping your brother", you tell him to get a job and give him tough love by schooling him in the truth that his demand does not constitute any valid sanction for you to fulfill it.

Now there are those out there that will say, "Oh you are so callous. What? If a neighbor's barn burns down, you would not help him rebuild?" As for me, I have heard that example many a time and my answer always has been, "What kind of dunce do you take me for? Of course I would hitch up my mules, go over and help. WHY? Because it is in MY best interest to do so. Why is it in MY best interest to do so? Because when MY barn burns down, I think it would be a good thing for ME if I had engendered a feeling that leads my neighbor doing the same for ME, and that if so engendered that he may act on that feeling, however, there is no demand on my part that he help me.

I say that if those of sagacious mind would but contemplate the matter, I do believe that they could see through the pap that is altruism, self-sacrifice, etc., and see that deep down it is ALL about self interest and that a stable and free society can be built and sustained ONLY on such a thing. Indeed, even if they contemplate it a bit and come to an opposite conclusion, then I assert that such a conclusion is itself based on self interest - the self interest in not wanting to see their part of the dole removed.

To prove this about altruism being a papish smoke screen and that the real motive is always self interest, consider the man that gives his money to the poor. Then ask yourself a question. Do you really think that he feels BAD when he gives his money to the poor? No man does that which in sum does not leave him, in his mind at least at the time of doing it, with a net positive result of some sort. The murderer, the thief, the parking ticket offender, the person that gives his money to "the poor', the person that harnesses the power of the government to take from you to give to others, himself included, that he deems "in need" ... ALL are doing their deed because at the moment of doing it, they, in Dr. Phil's words, were getting a net payoff - and it is this net payoff, the payoff to them, that is the motivation.

Man Helps Explain Ayn Rand's Philosophy

Here is a passionate look at the state of things. But this guy is the only one that feels this way, right? Keep on dreaming ... there are millions that feel this way. About time to start calling a spade a spade. All the things he is talking about, brought to you courtesy of those that really believe that you are your brother's keeper, and use the power of the government to force you to do it. I mean after all, Barney Frank was just doing some "brother keeping", right?

That is exactly the point of Ayn Rand, that altruism (brother keeping) is destructive to society in that it leads to these kind of things, because what better way to practice altruism than to have "Big Brother" be my keeper. The only way to keep this from happening is to take the other tack and say " Sorry Bro, you best be keeping yourself", which by the way, is the real meaning of the phrase.

Open without the kids around.


~ Video Link Courtesy of Ann

Cash for Clunkers & Government Spying

This sent to me by RayRay

And you thought that they just wanted you to go green....
Never in America ... Yeah Right

Property = Freedom

~ by Cato

I was thinking about the government’s increasing encroachment on my economic choices and wondering how to protect my property from the government. Suddenly, I woke up and smelled the coffee as my brain was animated to think "Wait a minute! Wasn’t our government set up to protect property rights? Indeed, can not freedom, and life, and indeed many of the other "rights" that we had to embody in a Bill of Rights be considered "property" - in the abstract at least.

At any rate, when I feel that I must protect my property, my life, my liberty, my freedom, against the government that is supposed to protect it, then something is very wrong. Indeed, I realized that the more I fear the government’s threat to my property, the farther along we are on the path from safety to danger, from republic to statism, from freedom to tyranny.

Then I read this from Barney Frank at the National Press Club today:

"I've had people come to us and complain, "Well, if you do that, I can't make any money." The answer is that's not my job. We're not here to help you make money. We are here to help have a system in which you will make money as an incident of your providing funds to those who will use it productively."

Huh? I am supposed to make money for someone else? And double Huh? You get to dictate that I use MY property in a manner YOU consider productive?

So you say. Sorry, but no. Your job is to safeguard my property rights, not decide who gets my property.

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Seneca's Addendum:

#1 This then causes the bumper sticker I saw the other day to come into clear focus, for it said, "Fear the Government that Fears Your Guns" .... And all the little kiddies think (or are taught) that the 2d amendment was/is about hunting and target practice.

#2 There is a difference between the government belonging to the people, and the people belonging to the government. I think we know which of these philosophies the Revolutionary War was fought over. Shame on Mr Frank and shame on anybody that says "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country".

The real thing that needs to be said is, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for YOURSELF."

Government's Aspirations??

Cass Sustein, Obama's Regulatory Czar as seen on the Glenn Beck TV show 22 July 2009

"What Roosevelt did in altering the American government's aspirations for its citizens is capture [in] the second bill of rights better than anywhere [sic], Government's aspirations for its citizens"

Government's aspirations for its citizens?!! What the &^@*(!!!

1. The government is not a being with aspirations, not a father figure who will take care of me.

2. I am not "its" citizen. It does not own me. I own it.

3. Therefore I don't want the government to have any aspirations for me. I have aspirations for it, to curtail its power.

The entire premise of Sustein's statement is an assault on my liberty -- before we even start talking about the abomination referred to as the second bill of rights. Indeed, the premise [a government having aspirations and a government that possesses citizens] is exactly an encapsulation of the ideology of today's mainstream Collectivist.

Just for the record, what was really happening was that Roosevelt was trying to use the governmental machinery to impose HIS aspirations on those he considered to be HIS citizens.

~Cato


Seneca's Comment: Oh No, it looks like I have created a monster. Cato and I have debated the various meaning(s) and consequence(s) of the ideology contained in my statement "What's Mine is Mine". This of Cato's seems to embody the sentiment very well.

Understanding Illegal Immigration - Think Property Rights

Recently, large demonstrations have taken place across the country, protesting the fact that Congress is finally addressing the issue of illegal immigration. Certain people are angry that the US might protect its own borders, might make it harder to sneak into this country and, once here, to stay indefinitely.

Let me see if I correctly understand the thinking behind these protests .....

Let's say I break into your house (aka your country) . Let's say that when you discover me in your house, you insist that I leave.

But I say, "I've made all the beds and washed the dishes and did the laundry and swept the floors. I've done all the things you don't like to do. I say that I am hard-working and honest (except for when I broke into your house). Using the logic of these protesters I tell you that:

You are Required to let me stay in your house.

You are Required to add me to your family's insurance plan.

You are Required to Educate my kids.

You are Required to Provide other benefits to me & to my family (my husband will do all of your yard work because he is also hard-working and honest, (except for that breaking in part).

If you try to call the police or force me out, I will call my friends who will picket your house carrying signs that proclaim my RIGHT to be there. It's only fair, after all, because you have a nicer house than I do, and I'm just trying to better myself. I'm a hard-working and honest, person, except for well, you know, I did break into your house. And oh yeah, I get a free education, whereas you have to pay your own way through college .

And what a deal it is for me ... and you have no right to deny me my American Dream paid for at your expense, because if you do assert such a right, I will pull out the race card and play it for all it is worth!!!

I live in your house, contributing only a fraction of the cost of my keep, and there is nothing you can do about it without being accused of cold, uncaring, selfish, prejudiced, and bigoted behavior.
Oh yeah, I DEMAND that you learn MY LANGUAGE so you can communicate with me. And don't forget to make sure your forms are in MY language - I need to understand them.

~ Sent in by Tom

Obama to Ration Health Care

From Good Morning America, 24 June

OBAMA: The measure of the quality of care is not quantity, but whether or not it is making you better. What we've said is, let's put out the research, let's study and figure out what works and what doesn't.

SAWYER: Will there be a board making Solomonic decisions about best practices --

OBAMA: What I've suggested is is that we have a -- a commission that helps -- made up of doctors, made up of experts, that helps set best practices.


Hey Obama - Cato speaking here - we already have someone to determine best practices. It's called your family doctor and his team of specialists. What does a committee know about the best way to treat me? What you really want is someone to ration and distribute "best practices - someone to determine the best economy of practice (aka rationing/treatment delay tactics), not what is the best medical treatment practice.

There is no other reason for a higher "commission". Typical liberal, using words that say one thing, but meaning another. Tell you what. You tell me exactly what this commission will do, then we'll see if the American people want it.

Note from Boulder Colorado

Just spent a few days in Boulder, CO. Pretty City with plenty of Kool-Aid to go around. Here is an example. They have a beautiful downtown area called Pearl Street. Take a street with old buildings on either side, block off the traffic, put in brick pavers and plant trees, with few sculptures, etc and you get a very nice outood shopping park with musicians, jugglers, singers, artists ... and a few "beggars and street bums" thrown in for a little seasoning.

Here is the incident that made it all come together. I was walking along and a fellow who was lost asks me if I knew which way was Broadway. I said " I am from out of town too and I don't know either."

We continue walking and about 10 feet later we pass by a raggy looking dude with greasy hair and groody fingernails, sitting down near his backpack holding a sign " Homeless - Please Help".

As we pass by I pointed to this bum and told my fellow wanderer "Hey, why don't you ask that homeless guy ... the one sitting right there next to his $1,500 mountain bike. I bet he knows."

Only in The People's Republic of Boulder

How Did It Get Like This?

5/15/09
Rush Limbaugh just finished asking the radio audience something along the lines of "How can it be that it has gotten to this point. " (The government involvement in health care and everything else.)

The short answer: Rush, it has gotten this way because the vast bulk of the people want it this way.

And when I say "the people", I do not mean commie-pinko-Russian flag-waving nut jobs. I mean the bulk of the American people. This includes Democrats and Republicans of almost all stripes.

You heard it here first folks: Obama will have a 2d term. So, then, go ahead and sip your sissy-man triple super latte as you watch the next 25 years of destruction of the country. And go ahead and vote for that "other guy' because you think he is different that those evil "other guys".

Folks, Statism is Statism - whether it comes from a Democrat, or whether it comes from somebody calling themselves a Republican, for both are for big government, just big government for different purposes.

To prove the point, try this test. Tell a Republican that we need to do away with the income tax, they will say "But what about...."; Ask a Republican how they would feel if the Chinese Navy decided to run naval war games in the Gulf of Mexico and point out the parallel to US ships in the Indian Ocean or the Gulf of Arabia and they will say "But what about...." ; Tell a Republican that the American citizen should not be taxed to send money to Africa or elsewhere and they will say "But what about...."; Tell a Republican that people should pay for their own health care and not expect the governement to chip in one dime, and they will protest "But what about...." ; Tell a Republican that when their parents get old and they have to put them in a nursing home at $40k/year, that they should themselves be responsible for the cost, and they will say "But what about...." and proceed to tell you that it is just "too expensive" for them to pay, and that THE STATE should "help them out".

Go ahead. Just try it and you will find out exactly why we are in the situation that we are in.

A Letter to a Senator II

I got this from a friend of mine. It is an email that he sent to Senator Cornyn (R-Tx), one of the two Republican Senators from Texas that sold us out on the TARP bailout. My friend is a laid back guy that does not generally bestir himself to become entangled in the messy politics of the day because, like many of us that are not drinking the Kool-Aid, he is too busy working as an Architect.

The very fact that he has taken the time to pen this invective to his elected Senator is one of the reasons that I post his letter, for I believe there are millions like him (a.k.a. - Ayn Rand's "Creators") and that it is they that will make the difference in the next election cycle.

Indeed, if the Republicans do not wake up and smell the coffee, then they may wake up and find that the Democrats have taken even more seats because of the Republicans that figure that if they have a choice of 2 Democrats running, then it would be best to choose the Real Democrat as opposed to the other Democrat - i.e., that is running on the Republican ticket.

(Editors Note: I have taken the liberty to edit for context.)
_____________________

Senator Cornyn ,

The following is the opening paragraph of your May 1, 2009 Update newsletter.

"This week marked President Obama’s 100th day in office, and his agenda has been nothing so far if not ambitious. However, I have serious concerns about the long term impact it will have on our nation. Since being sworn in, President Obama and the Democrat majority have spent too much, taxed too much and borrowed too much. They have managed to spend more in 100 days than we have spent on the war in Iraq, Afghanistan and Hurricane Katrina relief-- combined. And they’ve stuck generations of Americans with the tab."

Oh, Yeah Right. Last October, I sent you, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, and Representative Lamar Smith an email asking . . . NO - demanding - that you vote NO on the first TARP Bill. And yet, each of you voted FOR.

After my letter, I heard nothing from your office. (Hutchinson's office sent an acknowledgement email, and Smith's office sent some nonsense regarding "turning the stampede".)

So, based on your showing of your colors as a RINO (Republican In Name Only) when November came around, I voted for the Libertarian candidate in each race. I don't vote for people that refuse to listen to their constituency. I am not so naive to think that my opinion would sway any one vote, but, since the last election I have talked to many others who felt the same sentiment that the TARP was something that needed to be deep-sixed and were appalled at the Republican sell-out and accordingly stayed home .. or voted against you and the others. One friend of mine, Republican for all his life, actually voted for your Democratic challenger.

Now back to your disgusting and self -serving "update email newsletter". Since the water is now under the bridge, you now have a different take on the situation and you are nothing but the pot calling the kettle black. In addition, and more important, you have saddled my grandchildren and great-grandchildren with the enormous burden of paying back your excesses not only in money but in having to suffer under the tightening yoke of government control and intrusion over/ into our lives.

All of us are now in chains because of the liberal, phony propaganda machine, and "conservative" Senators like you, and Representatives like Lamar Smith, being unable and unwilling to take a stand for the beliefs of their constituency and unwilling to take a stand for private property (a.k.a. my money that is confiscated via taxation to pay for the statism that is infecting the country.)

Those of us in the private sector know what it takes to balance budgets. We don't have the luxury of printing money - which, by the way, is no answer either. My hope was that our elected officials would understand how business works, but apparently they don't.

Please know that I will work to oust any politicians that cannot or will not reflect my conservative thinking.

We were promised change . . . we got it . . and you, and the Republican Party helped bring it about!

Sincerely,

Name withheld by request

Socialism/Collectivism For Dummies

Sent to me by a friend and it was too good to not post. It fits in exactly with my take on things ....

An economics professor at Texas Tech said he had never failed a single student before but had, once, failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said, "Okay, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism."

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too; so they studied little.. The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the third test rolled around the average was an F.The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great; but when government takes all the reward away; no one will try or want to succeed.Could not be any simpler than that...

The Epitome of Failure

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/25/AR2009042501870.html

At the link above, you will find the epitome of the liberal/collectivist failure and a harbinger of the future.

I have news for this poor sister -- she cannot keep up, and neither can Obama. This is what awaits the entire country: complete exhaustion, the destruction of the goose that lays the golden eggs. Why? Because the government simply cannot, nor should it, take care of anyone or everyone, meet all their needs, ensure that the house is not foreclosed, the gas bill gets paid, the job saved, that everybody uses energy wasting environment-destroying fluorescent bulbs, etc..

Liberals want utopia secured by the government, but want what can never be, and in trying to achieve their utopia, they destroy the very thing that created the wealth of the world.



P.S.

About 1/3 down the article says:

Now she sometimes wonders aloud to her husband, Charles: "When does it stop?"

Councilwoman, let me break it down for you. It stops when you and your kind move your eyes to the right hand side of this blog, read the "About Me" section, and start to understand that it is exactly the views and morality espoused there that built the country, and that government policies having their basis in your views, are leading to its very destruction.

It stops when you wake up and realize that that lazy brother of yours will suck you dry, exactly BECAUSE you are giving him a handout.

It stops when you realize that there is ALWAYS going to be a "lazy-brother" and that your handouts of MY money, do nothing but increase his number.

It stops when you realize that you could take all the wealth of all those evil rich people, distribute it to all those you deem "in-need", and raise the standing of "the people" by perhaps as much as only .00001% . (aka shared misery)

It stops when you tell that "friend" of yours that they need to pay their own "... $168 .. water bill".

From all of us that grew up on the farm and know that if you put out free cream for one cat that the next day there will be 3 more freeloaders, none of which will catch mice anymore, we tell you that you are playing with matches in the closet.

Burn Baby Burn

On Ponzi Schemes and You

~ from the Securities and Exchange Commission Site.....

....Ponzi schemes are a type of illegal pyramid scheme named for Charles Ponzi, who duped thousands of New England residents into investing in a postage stamp speculation scheme back in the 1920s. Ponzi thought he could take advantage of differences between U.S. and foreign currencies used to buy and sell international mail coupons. Ponzi told investors that he could provide a 40% return in just 90 days compared with 5% for bank savings accounts. Ponzi was deluged with funds from investors, taking in $1 million during one three-hour period—and this was 1921! Though a few early investors were paid off to make the scheme look legitimate, an investigation found that Ponzi had only purchased about $30 worth of the international mail coupons. Decades later, the Ponzi scheme continues to work on the "rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul" [emphasis added] principle, as money from new investors is used to pay off earlier investors until the whole scheme collapses.


Regarding that last part, "Robbing Peter to Pay Paul". Perhaps it would be a good use of time to go back and read the above while considering the recent "bail-outs," and the schemes of social security, universal health care, children's health insurance, welfare, free education, food stamps, set-asides, immigration "reform", global warming, carbon taxation, save the hungry, feed the whales, aid to Africa, aid to China, be kind to trees movements, and a host of other programs/causes.

Great schemes - all designed to "reach across the aisle" so as to get money out of your pocket and into somebody elses - and also to wrest control from YOU and install it elsewhere. But then, that is OK as long as, in the end, I am able to get more of "mine" at your expense, than you are able to get of "yours" at mine.