Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Equality For All (Revised)

This is a revised version of a piece I wrote in November of 2010.
Let’s begin with that the fact that no group is for equality for everyone. If we look deep within ourselves we will find prejudices, or just unknowingly create inequalities. Progressives are always talking about taxing the rich to help pay for those less fortunate. If everyone is truly equal, how can you make one person pay more in taxes than another? The answer is simple—you can’t.
The left will ask, “How do you help the poor if you don’t tax the rich?” You help them by getting out of their life. I was talking with a gentleman in South Africa and he mentioned Shanty Town. This is an area that is government owned land where the poor began to build small shanty homes in which to live.

This made me think about how in America the Federal government is making gigantic land grabs, while at the same time taxing the so-called rich, supposedly in an effort to help the poor. I watched as local governments began to ban or greatly restrict mobile homes because they provided fewer property taxes. These are homes that the less fortunate can easily afford.

Our government decided they didn’t want people living in shantytowns or mobile homes, so they came up with the Community Reinvestment Act and began to throw around terms such as affordable housing. The federal government used its might to force banks to give house mortgages to people who could barely afford them. When the economy declined and interest rates dropped these people began to refinance their homes with the lower variable rate. In time those rates began to rise, so much that these people lost, or will lose, their homes. In some cases monthly payments doubled.

If the same people had lived in a cheaper mobile home, or some cheaper home of their own design, then the collapse of the US economy might have never happened. If people were truly free to live their lives, economy down turns would be more local than national.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Social Security Trust Fund Theft

When the Social Security Act of 1935 was first created by the government, it was a well intended program. When you have politicians involved, even the best intentions often have disastrous consequences. From the beginning, social security took monthly contributions-taxes- and paid the recipients. By law, any excess revenues must be placed in special-issue, non-marketable Treasury bonds. Essentially, that is the federal government loaning itself money. The Treasury bonds go into Social Security and the actual money is spent in the general budget.

It is true that by being in the form of bonds, these assets-I use that word loosely- do gain interest, most often less than 2%. What even the most educated fail to tell you,  this is not truly an asset, but a debt. By turning those excess dollars into treasury bonds, the government can take Social Security funds and spend them any place they wish.

Over decades the Social Security trust has been shuffled around. For the sake of space, time, and understanding, I will reduce the movements to simply these:

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

China, The West’s Greatest Threat

We cannot walk into most department stores without seeing the shelves filled with products made in China or Mexico. Many people want to enact tariffs to allow American manufacturers to compete. It’s been proven in the past that tariffs can start trade wars, but there already more than 12,000 tariffs without any major problems. There are many goods in which Americans can only get from other countries. There are also many goods that that we no longer make in this country, and might never be made profitably in this country again.

We often think of cheap goods that are made in China, but it’s much more than that. Today, I learned that California is putting a new 2050 ft. bridge over the San Francisco bay. That bridge is being made in China and shipped in sections for $500 million less than it could be made in the USA. - American workers are assembling the bridge.

Quote from NY Times:
Pan Zhongwang, a 55-year-old steel polisher, is a typical Zhenhua worker. He arrives at 7 a.m. and leaves at 11 p.m., often working seven days a week. He lives in a company dorm and earns about $12 a day.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Huma Abedin Weiner

Through all the talk about Anthony Weiner, we have mostly listened to jokes about his private parts and his name. His wife was often mentioned as a victim to his online tomfoolery.  Today, I want to talk about his wife, Huma Abedin Weiner.

In 1996, while Bill Clinton was president, he and Hillary met Huma while on a trip to Saudi Arabia. It’s unclear what transpired, but she ended up in Washington DC with close ties to the Clintons. We now know she is Secretary State Hillary Clinton’s deputy Chief of Staff. This is a very sensitive position so we would think Huma was well vetted.

Huma Abedin Weiner is a devout Muslim. Her brother, Hassan, works at the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies (OCIS) at Oxford University. He has close ties with the Muslim Brotherhood. The Egyptian Al-Azhar University, is well known for a curriculum that encourages extremism and terrorism, and is active in establishing links with OCIS.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

How I Came to be Where I Am Politically

It’s always interesting to discover how people come to a point in their lives. No one ever just wakes up one day Republican, Democrat, or Libertarian. I had a long evolution to become where I am today. Being a teen of the 60’s didn’t leave a lot of news choices. Back then the three television stations often signed off at midnight. Back then I have to admit being a Liberal Utopian.

One thing the current generation doesn’t remember is the Fairness Doctrine. At the end of the local news we would often hear counterpoints to some political statement the station had made. As a child of the 60’s I heard from peers how bad the war and other things were. I heard how “the man was down on me.” To a teen and young adult anarchy seemed a good choice. We knew the war was bad because the men in expensive suits telling the news told us this.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Why is Obama The Reluctant Warrior?

Sometimes those of us who very closely follow politics and world events  just sit back and scratch our heads. This has been my reaction to the attack on Libya. I sat and listen to all the talking heads, especially conservatives that go on about how the USA is not taking the lead in the Libyan attack. There is a simple answer for this.

We have to look back to the relationship Gaddafi had or has with Reverend Wright and Louis Farrakhan. There is evidence that on more than one occasion Gaddafi gave millions to Farrakhan. We all know that there is a close relationship between Farrakhan, Wright, and Obama.


Black Liberation Theology and the Nation of Islam are not that far apart in their ideology. We have President Obama who is an anti-colonialist. It only makes sense that the three of the men and groups are allied. Toss in Gaddafi who hates the USA and you come up with close allies. If not for the huge transfer of funds to the Nation of Islam we might not complete this tie. As recent as 1996 Gaddafi awarded Farrakhan the Al-Gaddafi award for human rights, which furthers the connection.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Wisconsin, Land of Theft and Corruption

Since the early twentieth century we have heard about union corruption. Those that are younger than myself no longer have to read about it in history books. They have seen that same corruption on stage in Wisconsin.
If we were to rely on the leftist media we would know only that private citizens were fighting for the right to collective bargain. This is much more than collective bargaining, this is about bribery and public corruption. More than 95% of the Wisconsin union’s contributions go to Democratic candidates or the party itself.  They elected democrats that will in turn give the union more power and benefits. This was a vicious circle that has to be broken.


If I could have had my way, public sector unions would be abolished, not just in Wisconsin, but in the federal government as well. We have union leaders mandating classroom size and the curriculum in schools. This is giving unions power that people thought they were giving to elected school-board members. I often write about how the Executive branch of the federal government is bypassing the Legislative branch, this is much the same thing. In both cases we have non-elected individuals making law or rules for public or private institutions.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Is The Political Left Evil?

Those of us that follow the political world tend to find any position other than our own evil. So I ask, is the left evil? The clear answer is no. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t evil within all ideologies. I find most of the people have a good heart. They care about others. They worry about those without housing, food, and health-care. Those are not bad things.

What the left often gets wrong about the right; is that we worry about the same things. It’s only how we wish to solve these problems that differs. We on the right believe that the poor are best severed when the rest prosper. Through the free-market system we have made the American poor some of the richest people in the world.

Those on the left run around shouting that the rich need to pay more. If we confiscated the wealth of anyone possessing more than a million dollars, we couldn’t even pay off the current national debt.

I wonder how many people on the left would be willing to give up the simplest things so that the poor around the world could eat properly. If people were told that giving up cell phones would end world hunger and poverty, would they? I dare say they wouldn’t.

On the other hand, are the people on the right greedy? Sure, maybe some, but most humans are. What makes people on the political right different is they are realist. We know that confiscating wealth will do little to solve all the problems the left holds dear. Since the 50’s we have each year put more and more money into education, yet test scores continue to drop.

What is evil, are the power mongers that will use the good hearts of the people on the left to further political ambitions. For decades those in power on the left have been promising black Americans prosperity, yet it has never come. The best those of us on the right can promise anyone is equality.