A STEP FARTHER

    Still working on the health-care issue in my rather limited mental capacity. See if this clicks at all.
Insurance is, (originally anyway), based on risk. The more risk the insurance company takes on, the higher the premium.
    The "risk" that someone with an insurance policy will get the flu, or a cold, or bronchitis, or an inner-ear infection, or etc. etc. is 100%. This means that the insurance company, before any other calculation, must account for the cost of providing services for these common illnesses. To provide services for these common issues that virtually every person will need, the insurance company relies on internal and external bureaucracies. These layers of red tape are required to oversee the system and verify needs, etc. These expenses are much inflated at the insurance company level over what they would be at the individual level.
    A visit to a direct care doctor for an illness and the subsequent treatment is exponentially more efficient and effective than going through the insurance company's bureaucratic environment.
    Since I have retired, I have engaged in a contract with a direct care physician and have a small sample of personal experience to draw from. I make a monthly payment for his services and then pay as I go for additional items. A recent blood work-up and an inquiry into prescriptions I need for eye drops revealed an incredibly low cost on both accounts. The blood test was around 20 bucks and one of the eye drops was about a tenth of what I'd been paying even with prescription coverage on my old plan. Additionally, I can call him 24/7 and know that I will get a doctor on the phone. I can email, text or use the handy on-line app they provide. I then purchased a policy to cover any major medical issues I may encounter and the combined costs of both are significantly less, (about half), of my previous employer-provided coverage. Yes, there are still questions and scenarios that may reveal issues with this set-up, but it's the kind of effort I expect from a free society. A society, a citizenry, that is losing freedoms by the day and will quickly lose much ground in this regard if we let the government seize control of our health-care system. (now, back to our regularly scheduled discussion).
    With a direct care model in place, (or something similar), the insurance company's would be free to return to their more appropriate place in the system and provide, true, risk-based coverage for people. This would see a dramatic drop in costs because the 100% risk factor will be replaced by a much lower factor and the common, predictable illnesses will be covered by the much more effective and direct approach offered by the doctor-patient contract mentioned above. A significant outcome with this arrangement is the person's more direct involvement in his health-care services and costs. The individual replaces the incredibly ineffective bureaucracy the insurance companies had previously relied on.
    I don't have a solution to our complex medical insurance situation here in the US, but doesn't it seem incumbent to consider some viable alternatives? This model has been around for many years and is available in all but 2 states as of this writing. If you were wondering how you can bring back a more free society, exercising some initiative and individual responsibility is one way. Please consider taking your health-care back from the government before it's too late.
    Thanks and have a nice day.

FREEDOM THROUGH THE BARS

I've noticed how discussions about healthcare often move quickly from the subject of healthcare to other less central items. For instance, people who have been diagnosed with a serious illness immediately feel compelled to share the guilt they would have, (and we SHOULD have), if someone would have a similar diagnosis without healthcare. Therefore, we need universal healthcare to assuage such. And if your job includes healthcare then you feel guilt about having your job as well. 
Never mind that handing the government absolute control of another 1/6 to 1/5 of our economy will hand them yet more power over the individuals whose votes they so badly want that they will lie, cheat, steal, take bribes, etc., to get. Never mind that this power would singlehandedly  change, in a negative way, the relationship between the government and the governed. This would be one small step to avoid guilt and one huge step for Progressivism. Put another way, another large chunk of our individual rights would be handed over to the ostensibly compassionate and egalitarian government. For the last hundred years or so this country has been undermining its very nature. We have used law against itself and when necessary ignored our founding principles in order to move to the Progressive agenda. Personally, I believe we are all made in God's image and that we have certain unalienable rights. Rights that our founders felt compelled to try and protect from the new government it was setting up. While our system of government was elegant and effective it was also flawed. No more or less flawed than man himself. The framers knew that this new government was vulnerable to the same weaknesses that haunt us as individuals. Our inability to exercise, or indifference toward, the idea of self-discipline. We have laws to try to contain these preclusions on an individual basis, (though no law can contain an amoral society), but our system of government needed to protect the people from the negative effects of these facts on the governed. So our constitution provides for a remedy to an out of control government. One that is in the hands of the people but that will not be employed by a citizenry that is happy to willingly hand over its freedoms to the government. Yet, our founders worst case scenarios are coming true. We are watching our government grow into Tyranny. A socialist state that no longer offers its citizens said protection of their individual freedoms from an overreaching state. We have, in fact, become the "Soft Tyranny" that Alexis deTocqueville warned us about. On the one hand we talk about diversity and its import in our culture and our society, and on the other hand we are moving at breakneck speed toward a country that not just rewards but demands sameness in the name of the "greater good" or the "general welfare" of its people. The latter of which is a term that is badly mis-understood these days to the advantage of our power-hungry politicians. We are made in God's image as unique people and are most able to pursue the diversity that is intrinsic in our God-likeness as a free people. But we are now, on every hand, encouraged, intimidated and even compelled to conform to a particular ideology in order to earn the status of a member of this society. We are a long way down the road of sameness while carrying the banner's of diversity and individualism with us on our journey. Unfortunately, these banners are only used to identify us so they know which victim line to put us in to receive our voting instructions and protest slogan signs. After all, we wouldn't want to admit that we are, in fact, practicing precisely what we accuse others of. Intolerance. Do we really think that our laws should compel a Muslim auto mechanic to fix a pig farmers truck even if doing so would violate his strongly held religious beliefs. I don't see any way to answer in the affirmative here. He is living in a country that allegedly protects his individualism. His right to pursue, (of course within reasonable bounds), life, liberty and happiness. Why would the government, (or the media,(please note the absence of the word News)), try to force our Muslim friend to fix the pig farmers truck? It; they; shouldn't. And yet these situations are manipulated and remade into hammers to club certain people, or actually, certain ideas or positions, over the head with to mold public opinion into a more suitable companion for our governments march toward Progressivism. At this point in our history I believe we can restore our country to the lofty goals, (at least the pursuit of such), that our framers put in place. We are quickly approaching a point where we will not be able to find our way back, however, because the path we have been on is being bulldozed and re-landscaped so we can't find our way back. Leave healthcare in the hands of the medical community, actuary tables, and the good people of our great country and get the government out of the way so we can fix the mess they have made.

"It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered but softened, bent, and guided. Men are seldom forced by it to act but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy but it prevents existence. It does not tyrannize but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes and stupefies a people until every nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals of which the government is the shepherd ".
Alexis de Tocqueville

AS I WAS THINKING

    Well, there I was reading a few tweets when I stumbled on to another problem I have with government provided healthcare and viewing it as a right. If it is indeed a right then it opens up the idea of someone, needing medical attention, suing the government, or the doctor, for not providing them with their "right" to healthcare. Another way to look at it is that government has the power, under the auspices of protecting ones rights to force certain people to go into the medical profession against their will so that they would be able to provide the citizenry with their right to healthcare. Otherwise, if individuals were left to pursue their own ambitions, the rights of millions of people could be compromised. Additionally, those who did want to pursue a medical profession would be required to study which ever field of medicine the government felt would best provide for the meeting of the medical rights of the people.
    Again, I reiterate, a right is not a right if it infringes on others rights. On the other hand, if we, as a nation, undertake the task of seeing that all who want healthcare are given every opportunity to purchase it, with some assistance if needed, then things fall in place without the heavy hand of government removing even more of our freedoms. It's not hard for me to show where half of my income is going to taxes today. With federal and state income taxes being just the most obvious. We pay a ton of property taxes, registration fees, in addition to inflated prices for goods due to tariffs and subsidies to certain business interests. Also, over 40 cents of the price of every gallon of gas goes to taxes. We have already lost the idea of a man owning the fruits of the sweat of his brow and the labor of his hands since over half of such fruit is forcefully picked by the government. With government run healthcare the government would take the final necessary step to accomplish it's socialistic goals. After that power play by the government it would only be a matter of time before we are a truly socialist country.
    I respect your desire to accomplish this if you wish but it would be best to start with a country that does not purport to protect our individual God given rights. In other words, please take your ideas somewhere else and let us rebuild a truly free society where free enterprise and free people can transform the whole world and make it a better place. You know, like happened before our governmental system was corrupted by men and women whose lust for power eroded the protections intended for the individuals.
    I'm not particularly fond of having Mr. Trump as president, but he may, in fact, be the kind of dramatic change that can start the pendulum swinging back in the direction of freedom. Just maybe.

IDEA ALERT (a solution to our healthcare debate)

    Finally, I think I have an answer to what's been ailing us. See what you think of this. People who want health insurance but who don't want to, ( or can't ), pay for it on their own and who are forced to take money from evil rich top one percenters, (which I presume presents a moral delemna for them), are about to be freed. Here's how it would work. Those who can buy actuary table based health insurance at face value will live with the restrictions of their plans. That is to say, they will buy insurance based on the risk factor associated with their lifestyle and dietary choices. On the other hand, those who's health insurance is being purchased or subsidized for them will be subject to lifestyle and dietary behavior guidelines which will reduce the risk to their health so as to limit the cost to those who are buying health insurance on their behalf.
    Those who are the recipients of free or reduced health insurance costs will be asked to reduce costs for those buying their healthcare. Seems like the fair thing to do. After a couple of generations the lower income segment of our society will emerge healthier and with higher life expectancies then the rich who are not conforming to such stringent health decisions. So eventually the rich will die off and we will be left with the poorer folks who by default are also more noble and trustworthy than the one percenters who are so very stingy with their wealth.
    Seems like this should be a win win to me. The poor can shoulder the sugar tax burden and will be directed to follow whatever "health" concerns are identified by the medical community, like cutting back on coffee for a while then resuming normal consumption and cutting cholesterol out of their diets for 20 or 30 years while we figure out it isn't really the consumption of it that raises our body's cholesterol, or significantly reducing salt intake for half a lifetime until we can confirm that it isn't as harmful as we once thought. The rich can be the "tasters" for the poor. I just don't see a down side. And we can hold on to a semblance of individual freedoms while doing this.
    Additionally, it's time to separate insurance from employment and introduce competition back into our insurance choices. HSA's would be a great start. Employers could contribute to the HSA as a benefit but the insurance part of it would be exclusive of the employment part. Then workers wouldn't feel so trapped,(something employers don't want),and could "shop" around for better pay without risking the loss of coverage.
    Just something to think about. By the way, check out the "Direct Care" and "Concierge" models that are beginning to spring up all across the country. I'm smelling a solution in the offing.

IS HEALTH INSURANCE A RIGHT (or a left)?

It seems dangerous to me to refer to the providing of heath insurance to every man, woman, and child, as a right. I understand that the word has a bit of latitude when it comes to it's definition but I would argue calling it a right establishes it as a basic human right in most peoples minds. And this is what I reject. The right to life, as represented in the Declaration of Independence, and protected in the Constitution, is the basic right of mankind, to live with the expectation that others will not take his life from him. This basic right results in laws against murder. Also, within the understanding of this right is the expectation that others will not impede his path toward his pursuits. Not that they will participate in his endeavors, (thought they may choose to do so), but that they will not intentionally block his activities to keep him from his pursuits. This right is contained within man's nature, placed there by his Creator. A man's rights are not dependent on others participation but rather on their refraining from behaviors which limit or remove this right.
If health insurance is a right then it is of a dissimilar nature than the right to life. In order to provide someone with insurance that has chosen not to purchase it (or is unable to purchase it) for themselves, it is imperative that others basic rights be subjegated to the ones for whom the right of insurance is being provided. This strikes me as an illogical and unethical position to take. Protecting my basic right to life is substantially different than a systematic infringement on others rights to provide me with something that has been deemed a right by public discourse. My right to life does not, and should not, imply a particular standard of living. A standard of living is the by-product of many things including my personal choices and should not default to a specific level.
Before you start in with the declaration of my being the personification of evil please understand that I am willing to have a discussion about wheather a country as wealthy as the free enterprise system has made us should provide some basic health insurance for our citizens. But I am not willing to mis-use the word "right" in the discussion. There are plenty of words in our language that have been absolutely obliterated by mainly politicians, we don't need to add more to the pile.

You WHAT now!

    I would like to take some time to review and comment on some remarks our ostensibly intelligent President has recently made. These comments were part of his weekly saturday address. There are, in fact, more than a few interesting statements to deal with but I will focus on but a couple.  Early in his comments he talks about the "investments" his administration has made in science and technology that has sparked innovation and lots of jobs. I'm guessing he's including the bankruptcy lawyers for Solyndra in the list of new jobs. And by the way, those investments were made with money from the citizens pockets at large. My only influence over these "investment" decisions comes in the form of my vote during elections which has proven to be rather frustrating of late. The half a billion tax dollars that were invested in Solyndra didn't exactly work out all that well. And if the government subsidies were removed from, lets say, the ethanol world there would likely be more bankruptcies. Just like social security, the money the government "invests" would be more effectively "invested" by those from whom the money was taken. Wind and solar are not an answer to our energy needs and could have found an appropriate and effective place in the big energy picture under the direction of private enterprise. But this would preclude the governments acquistion of power and therefore is not even considered.
    Later in the same address he equated the fact of the Russians sending Sputnik into space with the illusion of AGW. A physical, and rather large piece of metal, engineered for, and delivered to, space is the same as man-made global warming? Seems a bit of a stretch to me. Denying Sputnik is, in every way I can come up with, quite dissimilar from questioning the argument of man-made global warming. I believed from the beginning that Obama was indeed an empty suit waiting for others to fill. Apparently, those who added intelligence to the suit were dreaming, or hoping. Their hopes have been met with an unpleasant reality.

A CALL TO EXCE0TIONALISM

    Odd, I suppose, to address whole nations with a seldom read article. Assuming the readership here, including myself, will still qualify as seldom.But this is my intent today, though if you don't qualify as a country I would still invite you to listen, with your eyes, to my points. Once again, while consuming a meal my mind was overwhelmed trying to understand all the steps, all the people, all the companies involved in bringing me the chance to enjoy my stack of pancakes with a sausage patty. For instance;

    THE WHEAT: the wheat is used in making the pancake batter. Some form of flour that is.

God created wheat:

Man learned how to grow it more and more efficiently so as to make it available to all.

    :irrigation

    :weed control

    :combines

    :tractors

    :genetics

Over time we developed ways of bring it to the masses.

    :trucks

    :trains

    :elevators w/dryers to help preserve it

    :mills and other processing facilities

    :stores (owners, stockers, checkers etc.)

Now, above is a partial treatment, due to time restraints, of just one aspect of my meal. But it you expand this partial list to include the designers, engineers, manufacturers, assemblers, truck drivers, store owners, stockers, checkers, quality control, fuel for harvesting and transporting, and a stove and pan to cook the pancakes in it's incredible. And if you expand this discussion to include the milk and butter, syrup, ketchup, (yes, ketchup), etc. it's absolutely mind boggling.

    These processes are part of what I call collaborative miracles. A partnership between God and man. I believe our country, because of it's Constitution protecting our individual freedoms, has become the most fertile ground for these collaborations to take place. I also believe we are moving away from a government which will allow for the continuation of these processes. These processes unfold over time as people engage in commerce with each other. As someone with a service or product contracts with someone needing that service or product to provide such for an agreed upon item of value. Money or an exchange of other services for instance. This is where the rubber meets the road in defining freedom. Freedom and free market capitalism go together. With a civil society intact, and yes we are loosing that by the day, these interactions result in great advantage for the country as a whole. If there is a catch it is this; we need to understand our createdness. We need to understand that we are all made in God's image and that we have intrinsic value. Without this understanding it all unravels.

    So, Venezuela, Cuba, Nigeria, Russia, listen up. If you want to be exceptional you don't need to become American, you need to become a champion of individual rights and free markets and a respecter of all who live in your country's borders. In time your citizens will make your country truly exceptional. Who knows, maybe at some point you could show us the way back from our current path towards Oligarchy.

Thanks, and have a great day. (That is, if you want too)

GENEROSITY vs SYMPATHY

   

Wanted to explore an idea with you. That is, if you would be kind enough to travel with me for a bit. As we look around this world we live in, it is easy to find those in very difficult, if not utterly desperate, situations. As the internet has matured and spread to many many countries more and more people are exposed to this great need. If I live in Cuba and am a doctor receiving $35 a month I can do little but pray for those in these various hopeless places. If I live in India and make just enough to buy food for one meal a day for my family and me then, again, I am able only to "feel sorry" for the hurting and the hungry around the world. 
    A few days ago I was fixing a problem in a toll booth at one of the Turnpike plazas in my area. While visiting with the collector he mentioned that he was only working part-time and was retired from another job. He went on to say that his son ran an orphanage in Haiti and they didn't have enough money coming in to cover all of their needs.  So this gentleman decided to take on this part-time job which allows him to send more money to his son and the orphans he was trying to help. Another co-worker has spent untold thousands of dollars and thousands of hours setting up medical and teaching facilities in Guatemala. Several people from work went to the Mississippi coast to help clean up and rebuild after Katrina a few years back. I could spend hours talking about people I personally know who spend time and treasure serving others whether here or in other countries. 
    My great fear is that in another 50 years, if we continue down this Progressive road we are on, we will land in a place where our freedoms will not afford us the opportunity to serve others, individually, like we do now. Our movement toward centralized government and the necessary loss of individual freedoms that accompanies such a movement, will leave us with the shared poverty, administered in the name of fairness, that will impede, or stop, our ability to act on our compassion with generosity. On the other hand, it's a lot easier to do nothing, when you haven't the resources to help, which allows for a selfish, and lazy citizenry to be cared for by an all powerful, ostensibly benevolent ruling class. A country full of people living in the government's basement with a lifetime supply of condoms and cannabis. WOW! That's a lot better than having the responsibility of trying to use your resources to help others. 

   " ......Until every nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."
 Alexis de Tocqueville

FREE MARKET CAPITALISM

 

   Testing, one, two three. Is this thing on?I guess it is, it just seems rather hard to hear compared to the big Megaphones so many others have at their disposal. I feel like I'm living in an alternate universe sometimes. So we point at the rich,(one-percenters), or whatever category you wish to invent, and scream that the love of money is the root of all evil. It's very easy to point at various elements of our society and exclaim how very selfish and uncompassionate we have become. It's equally easy to look at a data set of financial information and conclude that our economic system is wholly unfair and that something sinister must be afoot. Easy, too, is the game of fixing society's ills by using other people's money. Easy, that is, if we have determined that these "other people" have come by their wealth immorally. Otherwise, we might feel like the ones stealing other people's money. It seems to me we are missing some important facts here. Or maybe we are missing an important perspective. When we look at data over time. That is, looking at certain analysis of financial concerns throughout our country, we see trends in data. We miss reality because we are focused on numbers on a page which seem to bring us to similar conclusions from one year to the next. Those stingy top one, or ten percenters just won't go away. And they are getting richer and richer by the day. What the data doesn't show, without going to look for it, is the fact that there is substantial movement from within these different categories of income earners from year to year. It's the same set of 10 digits representing the high earners so we assume it's the same people as well. This is simply not true. There are many people earning more this year than last and many earning less. The exception would be the "super-rich" whose wealth well-insulates them from short-term financial set-backs. If you listen to Dave Ramsey's program when he invites millionaires to call in it's a very educational time indeed. These millionaires have simply made smart decisions and most have built their wealth, over time, on incomes very similar to mine. These middle income jobs may be fading but they are still available and I'm not sure punishing these people's wise decision-making by taxing them more and more is a good, or even ethical, position to take. Our free-market system, when allowed to work, for instance allowing failing businesses to actually fail so that new opportunities can be leveraged and turned into profits for the remaining companies is all part of a healthy economy.
    So the love of money is the root of all evil when someone else is accumulating more of it than I think they should have but my desire to have the government take their money and give it to me is somehow virtuous? I just don't get it.
                                             

 If salvation were a thing that money could buy, the rich would live and the poor would die.

BEWARE DRINKERS

 In case you missed the announcement, I'm patiently waiting for our country to take another shot at prohibition. See my earlier blog for details. But let me offer a friendly warning to my friends who choose to consume adult beverages. Beware of the socialists amongst us. There was a report on the news today about how many more health problems drinkers have and how, because of Obamacare, those costs burden us all. Socialised medicine, or single payer, or Obamacare, provides an end run to the sluggish and painfully slow process of passing legislation. With the government in control of health-care they will seize control of your behavior and force you into life-style choices you are opposed to. Instead of the predictable and non-discriminatory actuary table determining your premiums and thereby offering a type of incentive to alter your behavior, or not, depending on your personal choice. Your decisions will be dictated by the benevolent government who will be acting on behalf of the people who will be reacting to the latest pseudo-scientific study showing that YOU are costing us all lots of money so you will be required to change your behavior. After all, it isn't fair to the rest of us that men engage in sexual behavior with other men which increases their risk for contracting AIDS resulting in higher health-care costs for all of us. (Yeah, right, like that's gonna happen). Anyway, you get my point. The government already knows how much water you should need to flush your toilet and take a shower. They already figured out that you need smaller, lighter, more dangerous cars to drive so we don't kill the Earth. Additionally, they see the sacred wisdom in using everyone's money to finance the harvesting of body parts from unborn, and born, children for profit. By using everyone's money then we all have blood on our hands, not just the animals we are employing at these houses of worship. So, as you can see, there are none more qualified to tell you what to eat and drink, how much you can eat and drink, and when you can eat and drink those pre-determined amounts of food and liquid. After all, if the government didn't have your best interest at heart would they have offered you "free" healthcare?

THANKS BUT NO THANKS

    So then, if the three of you haven't figured it our yet, I'm a bit of an odd duck. For further proof please keep reading.
    I don't order items off the "Senior Menu" in restaurants, not because I'm pretending not to be old when I am, but because I don't want others subsidizing my purchases. If I get a break, someone else gets a "non-break" as it were. Maybe when I'm on a fixed income and things are truly tight financially, but not now while I'm gainfully employed and can afford to buy my own lunch. While trying to figure out a way to retire ASAP I noticed that, on a retirement income, my wife and I could get insurance for $33 a month. That's thirty three dollars. not $330.00. This would make retirement close to doable but it ain't gonna happen. There is a movement afoot to grab all the freebies you can and just play the system for all it's worth. Why keep fighting when giving up is so easy and so lucrative. Just relax and let the government take care of you like so many of our countrymen have done. The problem is I'm smart enough to see that letting the government take care of me means asking them to take money from others and give it to me. In the case of health care it's pretty much milking the young folks to subsidize the older. A tempting proposition if one isn't particularly concerned about the loss of individual freedoms and liberty in general. As it turns out, I am interested in these things and I refuse to hand the government more power than it already has by playing along with their power grabbing ways. Sure, I could let others pay for my insurance and use that "extra income" to buy nicer cars and bigger TV sets. A kind of personal bait and switch if you will. Get help with the insurance from other hard-working Americans, then shift the money that I would have had to spend on health care over to a miscellaneous fund to buy electronic gadgets and such. What a deal. Except for the ones paying for my insurance. But then they don't really have a choice since the Supreme Court decided the government can force you to play the game. This is a game I refuse to participate in. I can afford health insurance if I sacrifice certain other luxuries. And that will lighten the tax load on the younger generation which, it appears, will be drowning in their elders' debts as they try to build their futures. There are better ways to improve the health care situation than single payer socialized approaches. And for a moment let's pretend there aren't; still, our Constitution is too valuable to the survival of our free and prosperous nation to trample it underfoot for the sake of someone's idea of what's fair. If someone who is driving a beater and only has one 32" flat screen in their house, a house that is sufficient but not exorbitant, and who is not refusing to work when they are capable, needs some help with their insurance premiums then, by all means, society should have a mechanism to help them. But offering someone with sufficient means a subsidized plan for $33 dollars a month by way of taking money from other people is simply stupid and self-destructive. Self-destructive to a free nation, but empowering to the ruling class.

SOMETHING IS AMISS`

Have you ever had that gut feeling that things were not as they seem? That the alleged facts of a situation didn't seem to jive with the attitudes being exhibited? Or there was a feeling that you were missing the punch line of a joke you didn't know was playing out? Can it be that so many very intelligent people are being sucked into the AGW idea. Do we actually have to believe that the best argument for gun control is the horrible, recorded murder of a TV news personality and her cameraman? Are there really a significant number of leaders in our country that believe the 14th amendment bestows citizenship on a baby born to alien parents who are here in defiance of our laws? Really? REALLY? I'm a proud C student of both high school and college and I'm looking around at ostensibly the best and the brightest to whom we have entrusted the leadership of our country and am increasingly struck with the idea that we are a great country in decline being led by a bunch of idiots. Or are they? Climate change. Gun control. Open borders. Arguing these positions if one is inclined to believe in them is fine, but do we have to enter the twilight zone of dialogue to approach them? If you want to argue gun control why pick and choose an event every several months and milk it for all the emotional energy you can while ignoring the fact that in Chicago alone we have already had over 200 murders this year? Most of which are carried out with guns. Isn't this worth mentioning in a discussion? I guess not. We have to wait for a nut to kill a bunch of people at a school or in a movie theater. What gives? And climate change. Wow, you mean to tell me the climate is changing. What genius figured that out? Not only are we prohibited from questioning the computer models and the incomplete and shaky data that the models are using but the only way to fix this earth-ending cycle is to end the world as we know it. Nothing less will do. News flash. The Civil War didn't end discrimination as if you'd flipped a switch. The South and North did not immediately shake hands and say, "good game" after the war. The union was spared, and I'm so glad it was, but several amendments were introduced to help lay the foundation for the freedmen. A legal tool to try and encourage the assimilation of the blacks into the fabric of society. This is the spirit and intention behind the 14th amendment. Trying to expressly declare citizenship on the freed slaves. 
    Back to my original contention that something is amiss. The only way really smart people might say the things they are saying and do the things they are doing. The only way the media would use the template they are using to decide what stories to cover and what not to cover, is this. There is a class of people, many of whom darken the halls of Congress, and many who reside at influential positions in media or on university campi, (thank you Rush), who feel like a Utopia is coming within their reach and they are trying to move us away from our Constitution and Democratic Republic form of government. They are already acting like a ruling class and are working together, Republican and Democrat alike, to continue seizing power so that they can implement what they know to be best for us. While you may find fault in my theory, you can not deny that smart people are acting like idiots. And I think the safest way to deal with them, regardless of their grand scheme, is to kick the bums out.
    If you've been waiting for a sign, here it is.
LET'S WAKE UP AND TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK! 

Saving the Earth is a Dangerous Proposition

Sort of odd times we live in, eh? We are so concerned about smokers that we all but ban them from society. Poor things are just too stupid to make good decisions so we have to step in with the force of law and save them from themselves. Yes, I know some people are "allergic" to cigarette smoke. Just like milk and peanut butter and gluten. But any substantial health issues are reserved for the person who has decided to smoke, not the general public. Please don't point to the many studies about second-hand smoke as proving otherwise because I will ask you to take a close look at those studies and see that they are far from convincing. Even if they had more damning data in them I could suggest looking at all the other "scares" the media, with their cherry-picking of studies, have foisted on us in the past. Even some of the more authentic concerns have been found to be less ominous than first thought; cholesterol being the most recent. Alar, silicone breast implants, DDT and others come to mind. The greatest health threat from smoking is to the one smoking, not the whole of society. So I say, let them have the freedom to choose to smoke. And when they come to your house I'm sure they will gladly go outside, and the free market will see to it that there are plenty of smoke-free restaurants available. On the other hand, the behavior that takes many more innocent lives from our society every year than smoking could ever hope to, is celebrated and so comfortably ingrained in our culture that it is absolutely immovable. Drinking is just one of those things that we do. You know, like kids having sex. There's just nothing you can do about it. Boys will be boys, girls will be girls, and innocent dead people will be, ah, I guess they will just be dead. Oh well. So now I'm headed to work every morning, passing bicycles on a narrow, busy, 2-lane road with no shoulder, contemplating the fact that the danger they are putting themselves and everyone who passes them in, is forgiven because they are trying to do the right thing. They are trying to save our poor, delicate planet we call earth, from those money-grubbing rich bastards who don't give a rip about it. So as the death toll rises from this behavior it will be quickly forgotten and forgiven. As the cyclists and the motorists fail at trying not to put themselves in situations that sometimes takes a life, it will simply be a necessary loss to aid in the salvation of Mother Earth. Meanwhile, we are ticketing people who choose not to wear a seat belt in order to save them from their idiocy. It seems to me there is certainly idiocy on display but that it resides right in front of our faces, and is the direct result of some nuanced action by our powerful, ostensibly benevolent government to further the "general welfare" of our country. I think our country would be "generally" better off if they took a more constitutional approach to our welfare.

SHREWDNESS EXAMINED

    It has been a mystery to me for some time how the word shrewdness has been used to disguise deceit and dishonesty; how a politician using misleading statements and mischaracterizations of his opponents positions can, in victory, be called a shrewd politician. This is a lying and intentionally misleading politician, not a shrewd one.
    We have a global political ideology at work which is quite comfortable in the Liberal wing of our two-party system. U.S. policy and global initiatives are both drawing on the myth of "global warming" or "global climate change" or whatever they decide to call it tomorrow. How very shrewd of them to take a fact of physics, (climate is always, has always, and will always be changing), and fuel a world-changing movement from it. Call it shrewd if you want, I call it utterly reprehensible. There are many factors contributing to the fall of this great nation but the incredible transfer of power from the people to the government is no more obviously represented than in the "environmental" movement. Animated by a religious fervor that rivals John Brown's they seek to influence the whole world under the banner of compassion while leaving whole countries in ruin in their wake. Their action will bring whole economies to a grinding halt while they are busy re-distributing the collected wealth of individuals to those they deem more worthy or more in need. So they will be undermining the very system of economics that could lift people out of their situations and distributing the diminishing wealth to places of their choosing. Problem is, the whole world will be worse off when the dust clears. But, they will be in charge, and that is, after all, what they really want. How very shrewd of them.

A NEW DREAM

    I feel like I woke up in a new country this morning. A third-world country where people either live with some level of despair about their limited options for a full and happy life or they dream of escaping to a place where hope resides. My despair is tempered by the dream that someday my grandchildren or their children might experience a place where the government, imperfect as it may be, holds in high regard the idea of an intrinsic right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
    This dream is measurably more difficult to deal with because it's one that my family and I have lived. A reality that is now relegated to the world of fantasy. A world where ideas live; ideas void of expression. As our president has promised, the hundred-year journey of fundamentally transforming our great nation is now complete; (at least one politician knows how to keep a promise). A nation once characterized by the rule of law and an adherence to a Constitution that represented man's best effort, in all of history, to provide an equitable and effective method of governance. Now, however, its highest court, its most powerful leaders, whose powers have long since been elevated far above the original intent of our founders, have shown utter contempt for the rule of law and the people it is there to protect.  Our supreme court looks like a bunch of Middle Schoolers role-playing in a civics  class. The majority opinion on the last several cases sound more like a child nonsensically defending their unruly behavior. What an embarrassment.
     So, I am left to dream of some future time when this country will be transformed back into a place  where all men are recognized as being equal and we are free to live, pursue happiness, (as defined by  the citizen, not the government), and to live free. At least that transformation won't require the destruction of our foundational principles.

Up Up and Away

Has anyone else noticed their electric bill has increased recently? Just wondering. I've noticed. Our bill is considerably more than it was just a few years ago and seems to be increasing by the day. Staying true to their inconsistent and illogical ways our bloated and inefficient government has forced us to buy more expensive light bulbs, which pose a more real health threat than the old ones by the way, to ostensibly reduce our energy consumption. While this mandate might have actually saved us a little money on our electric bills, all things being equal, they end up just costing more to buy while we continually pay more every month for our electricity due to their policies. All I seem to hear about anymore is how the poor are suffering and how we have more and more people living below the poverty level. Well, maybe if the government found something to do other than obstruct market forces and causing everyone's cost of living to go up, (yes, this includes the poor), we might make some meaningful headway in overcoming the epidemic of poverty we are having. As the air in the US continues to be cleaner by the year, an incredible feat considering the amount of energy we use, we are attacked on all sides by environmentalist and others who are somehow bothered by our success as a nation, as being greedy and poor stewards of the world's resources. Therefore, we must pay more for electricity and for light bulbs and for vehicles and for toilets and for showers and for new construction and for tires and for (fill in the blank; quick, before the government does). Just go to the World Health Organization website and check out how the cleanliness of the air over our major cities compares to other countries. Rather than tearing down a country that has demonstrated such an incredible resilience through the last 237 years and which has offered so many people so much opportunity, why not reinforce those principles which have brought us here and see what incredible things might come of the next 237 years. Who knows, maybe we can actually come up with a "war on poverty" that actually works. If fact, there's no doubt in my mind that we can. Whaddaya say we give it try rather than burning down the whole house for the sake of a ruling class who couldn't survive in the real world if they had to.

Could it be

During this time of national crisis, the likes I have not seen in my lifetime, I am forced to ponder some unsettling questions about our country and its leaders. Questions that have been fairly easily dismissed in the past, but are demanding a closer look as we continue down the road to dissolution. While the likelihood of intention each step of the way from the beginning to where we are is slim, there seems to be a case for thoughtful direction in recent years. Maybe a case of opportunism. Liberal ideology, as defined in our current political climate, may not have had socialism as its objective. But I would argue, through activism in the courts and through legislation, pushed through from both parties as the ruling elite grabbed for power at every turn, we have laid a firm socialist foundation. We have moved from "rugged individualists" to "I want my mommy". From "no thanks, we'll be fine", to "it's about time you gave me some of your money!" Rights, as defined by liberals, have become the enemy of freedom. Anything that is declared a right seems to imply that it should be provided to all who don't have "it", by those deemed to have won the lottery of life. Having the right to health care, using today's understanding of the word, means it has to be provided for everyone. By this definition we would all be provided with firearms given to us by the government. It seems a more appropriate understanding of the word right would be to suggest no one can intentionally impede or obstruct your ability to obtain what you have a right to. That is to say, if you want to purchase a firearm you may do so. If you want health insurance, you have the right to purchase it. Is there a role for local and state governments in helping poorer families secure insurance if they want to acquire it? I would say yes, but with qualifications.
The current "hate the rich" sentiment is, in my opinion, a manipulative tool to move people to a more socialist point of view. Another move to consolidate even more power in the federal government. Truth is, we could take every penny of income that all the rich people receive and we would still be looking at a bankrupt nation. We could take all the current holdings of the "rich" and run the country for a short time, but then what? Truth is, wealth is a dynamic thing and we are destroying the process by which it is generated. The politicians promise more and more entitlements, when we can't even sustain our current levels of spending. We play games with the language, calling reductions in growth "cuts", leaving us with the possibility that "cutting spending" will bankrupt us at the same precise point as spending more would. Fact is, there are those who hate this country and want it to join the rest of world in poverty as a means of paying us back for all the ill we have spread around the world. If I were trying to destroy our economy, I can't think of anything I would do different than what Washington has done the last few years. (this includes George W. Bush's reckless spending) The answer isn't, "tax the rich", it's "follow the rich". While I don't know any super-rich people, (like Warren Buffet), I know plenty of people who fit in the current "rich" category according to our government. They don't buy new cars, they buy 3 yr. old cars so they don't take the hit on the steep depreciation. They don't buy the biggest house they can afford, they buy a house sufficient for their needs with a few extras thrown in, of course. They also tend to be rather generous people. More generous than I tend to be, much to my embarrassment. They investigate organizations who receive their aforementioned generosity to assure themselves that their resources will be effectively used. Dear Mr. Obama, please stop fueling class warfare, beating up on the rich, as a means of gaining some kind of political advantage, and start leading like someone wanting to make the country he is leading, rich.

Momentum

It would seem to me that our over-reaching government may be about to reach critical mass. As the government grows, its influence on people's voting decisions grows as well. If the government's enterprise is one of protecting us from foreign enemies, protecting our borders and enhancing interstate relations as in providing roads and other infrastructure for transportation of goods and such, then when we go into a voting booth, the scope of our interest is limited to those activities which the federal government is about. Our personal fortunes are not directly tied to such a vote but rather our collective fortunes, if you will. However, if the government is in the business of taking money from one citizen and giving it to another as it sees fit, then those who are receiving the money will likely vote for the person who promises to take more from others and give it to them. Once the government is controlling the banking system, automobile production, college loans, health care, and the majority of the commerce in the country by way of the EPA and its alleged concern for the well-being of the citizen, then we are locked into a socialist form of government which will eventually collapse under its own weight. Votes will flow to keep the money coming which will forever empower our bloated and mis-directed government. If the voting booth is a way to get someone else's money into our pocket then it has become what so many in history have warned about. Our country will continue sliding down the road to fewer and fewer personal freedoms and more and more government involvement in our lives. Kind of like the new owners of a well-respected company exploiting the reputation of the company. You simply start building less quality into your products while continuing to put the well known and well respected brand name on them. Though eventually people figure out that the name has become meaningless you have in the meantime, made a handsome profit based on the deception. We can call ourselves free while giving up more and more of our freedoms to the government, but at some point "freedom" will look a lot like slavery and we will be giving incentive to people to follow the path of least resistance and just let the government take care of them. Of course the brevity of a blog would allow you to see me as a cold-hearted person lacking in compassion. However, I am not. I simply believe compassion can only be applied by individuals giving of their time or treasure and acting under the influence of their conscience. If your conscience moves you to take resources from someone else to give to one you would like to help, then you need to find a word other than compassion. We've already had enough words stolen from our rather fragile language.