Bookmark this

Copy it, link to it, print it out and spread it around, because this has GOT to leave a mark.

Whereas the Democratic Party has never apologized for their horrific atrocities and racist practices committed against African Americans during the past two hundred years, nor for the residual impact that those atrocities and practices and current soft bigotry of low expectations are having on us today,

Whereas the Democratic Party fought to expand slavery and, after the Civil War, established Jim Crow Laws, Black Codes and other repressive legislation that were designed to disenfranchise African Americans,

Whereas the Ku Klux Klan was the terrorist arm of the Democratic Party, and their primary goal was to intimidate and terrorize African American voters, Republicans who moved South to protect African Americans and any other whites who supported them,

Whereas, according to leading historians (both black and white), the horrific atrocities committed against African Americans during slavery and Reconstruction were financed, sponsored, and promoted by the Democratic Party and their Ku Klux Klan supporters,

And it just keeps going on from there....

Whereas Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka (a 1954 decision by Chief Justice Earl Warren who was appointed by Republican President Dwight Eisenhower) was a landmark civil rights case that was designed to overturn the racist practices that were established by the Democratic Party,

Whereas after Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt received the vote of African Americans, he banned African American newspapers from the military shortly after taking office because he was convinced the newspapers were communists,

Whereas Democratic President John F. Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Law, opposed the 1963 March on Washington by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and was later criticized by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for ignoring civil rights issues.

Whereas Democratic President John F. Kennedy authorized the FBI (supervised by his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy) to investigate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on suspicion of being a communist,

I wonder what would happen if this were left lying around liberal enclaves on either coast? I think I would be able to hear the heads exploding from down here.

Found at KisP.

Is Obama Wright? - Pastor Jeremiah Wright & Senator Barack

As a follow up to:

Vote for Obama or you're a racist!
The Messiah said the hate is your fault......
The fallout for falling short...
Obama's 'Checkers' speech
Barack Hussein Obama's hateful Reverend......3/17/2008 1:58:00 PM...
Obama is a master of the 'BigLie'......3/15/2008 6:54:00 PM...
The 'Rev' of Hate and Mentor to Barack......3/12/2008 6:27:00 PM...

Still busy

For anyone who doesn't know, I'm the choir director for the chapel. No, it's not an official position. No, I don't get paid for it. It's more a case of "Oh hey, you know how to read music? TAG, YOU'RE IT!"

Anyways, for those non-Christians out there, it's Holy Week. Today is Holy Thursday. Tomorrow, Good Friday. Saturday is the Easter Vigil and Sunday is Easter. And I'm the choir director. Which means that by the end of Saturday night, I won't have much of a voice left, and Sunday afternoon is going to be spent drinking beers and telling the rest of the world to go away. Y'see, when you're just in the choir, you can skip a mass or two and rest your voice. The director has to be there for every. Single. Mass. My priest is getting a little sick of seeing me in the chapel. "Dave, what are you still doing here? I saw you hear at lunch!"

Oh, and I'll be eating dark chocolate as well. Not because it's Easter, but because I like chocolate. And maybe I'll have some rum in between beers. Because I like rum too. And I can't get good single malt scotch here to save my life.

So anyways, I'm going to be busy all weekend. And after this weekend, anyone associated with the chapel is going to collapse on their couch and go "Whew! It's over!" Posting is going to be a little bit light until then.

Toodles!

So, feel warmer yet?

No? It's no wonder. Claire and Phil are both playing "Whack-a-Goracle" today, with... *gasp* FACTS! Which we all know the Global Warming cultists can't stand.

The Earth isn't burning up. The oceans aren't going to swamp New York F'n City. We're not all going to die. Although I wouldn't shed too many tears if San Francisco got swamped by a tidal wave.

PFM

That stands for Pure Fucking Magic. Go read this post on KisP, where some doofus in Olympia has multiple orgasms while recounting a dream he had about Obama.

Now, how does PFM work into this? Because it's the only damn way any of this dude's drug-fueled fantasy is ever going to happen:

"We saw black, white, brown, Asian people mixing together in block parties, laughing."

How? PFM! The guy who sat in a church being preached to by a racist who blamed all the country's problems on Whitey ain't gonna make it happen!

"We saw good, quality schools with children happy to be learning."

How? PFM! So far the only thing Obama has suggested is throwing more money at the problem. Gee, that's worked so well in the past, didn't it? We spend more money per student than damn near any other country in the world; I think there's only five or six countries ahead of us in school expenditure. And yet we rank THIRTY-SIXTH in the world in terms of literacy, math, and science.

A whole lot of good that money did, right? Don't change anything else, just add more money. PFM! But Obama just wants to do it again, only HARDER!

Yeah, I stole that last line from Kevin Baker. It fits, so I used it.

"We saw no more crime as the guns had been rid from the streets."

You mean like in Britain? Where despite a total and complete ban on handguns, gun crime just keeps on rising! Total crime keeps on rising? "Hot" burglaries, or break-ins that occur while the occupants of the house are home, just keep on rising! But what makes this idiot think that crime would drop if we got rid of guns? PURE FUCKING MAGIC, that's what! Show me the worst ten crime ridden cities in America, and I'll show you ten cities with gun control. But somehow, Obama is just going to wave his hands and make it happen? PFM!

"We saw no more pollution! The skies were blue, no smog even over LA!"

Pipe dreams again. Tell me, once internal combustion engines are banned, and oil is banned, and gasoline is banned, and people begin to starve to death because food isn't getting shipped, trucked or driven into their urban shithole, what will you do then? Just how are you going to accomplish all this? I guess it's another case of PURE FUCKING MAGIC!

"We saw people going back to work in buildings that were once emtpy. Empty because the jobs had been shipped overseas. Now they were back at full operation."

Any idea how you're going to accomplish that? Especially since Obama wants to tax the living shit out of anything that moves and makes money? Why the FUCK do you think the jobs are leaving in the first place? Why do you think people are leaving California in droves? Why do you think Buck Knife left California, where it was founded, and began manufacturing knives in Post Falls, ID? If you make it hard to do business, then people will do their business elsewhere. And when Obama-rama-ding-dong begins jacking up the tax rates, even MORE people will leave. And they'll take their companies with them. But I guess Obama will just wave his hands, and POOF! PURE FUCKING MAGIC!

"This is the future I saw, this is the future of a new nation, with a new kind of leader at the helm."

New new new! Change change change! Hope hope hope! It's a new era of changy hopyness! Except for the fact that Obama is a product of the Chicago political machine, part of the majority party, and hasn't done a single damn thing except march in lockstep with the far Left. But somehow he'll be different, right? Not like the others! How?

PURE FUCKING MAGIC!

What a load of complete and utter tripe. The fact that there are oxygen thieves out there writing this crap makes me weep for my country.

The obligitory Obama post

Since he gave this big, heart-pouring speech and all.

Listen, this isn't about Obama not holding his hand over his heart and refusing to say the pledge of allegiance.

This isn't about Obama refusing to wear a US flag pin.

This is about Obama's relationship with a racist, hate-filled, loony kook of a pastor for over twenty years. A pastor who says that blacks should sing "God Damn America" instead of "God Bless America". A pastor who believes that the US government created the HIV virus to keep blacks in check. A pastor who believes that the US government gives crack to black people. A pastor who claimed that America deserved what happened on September 11th. Nice video of it in that last link there. A man who wants to talk about the "original sin of slavery" in this country.

Hey Obama? Guess what? Both my mothers family and my fathers family came to this country after the civil war. I've never owned slaves. NOBODY IN MY FAMILY HAS EVER OWNED SLAVES. But you want to claim that I'm part of the "original sin of slavery" because...... I'm white? You know what that is, asshole? That's racism.

And after listening to the man who was your pastor for over twenty years, I think I can see exactly how you feel. Yeah, that crackpot who blames everything on whitey. The one who married you and your wife. The one who baptized your kids. The one who you've supported for twenty-plus years. And the one who has been spewing hatred and racial division for that time, while you sat in his congregation and nodded your head.

You cannot tell me that Obama sat in this mans church for two decades and doesn't believe in what was being preached. Hell no. Which leaves two options: Either Obama fully agrees with Rev. Wright, in which case he's a sorry sack of shit and racist to boot, or he doesn't believe in what the Reverend is preaching, in which case he's only going to that church just for the publicity, the public face if you will, and that makes him a fake, a fraud, and a charlatan. Now tell me again how he's going to heal our country's wounds? Bullshit. Let me quote a bit from his speech, if I may:

…Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety .....

Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor.

The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.

Hey, you know what I constantly see? I see Obama identifying himself as a black man. A black this, part of the black that, black vs. white, etc., etc., etc.

I know I'll probably get misquoted by some moonbat, but I'm going to say it anyway - I don't want a President who considers himself a black American. I want a president who considers himself an American, and who doesn't give a shit what color his skin is. I don't consider myself a white American. I don't consider myself an Irish-American, or an Italian-American, I AM AN AMERICAN. Period. Full stop. Do not add anything to that, do not continue, do not hyphenate that at all, just leave it as it is. I am an American.

I will not accept ANYONE for president who won't say the same thing. Barak Obama does not consider himself an American, he considers himself a BLACK American.

That is unacceptable. And anyone who still continues to label themselves based on the color of their skin is unfit to represent the country. It's not me saying he's unfit because he's black. He is unfit because he segregates himself by his own actions.

If the first way that you identify yourself is due to the color of your skin, then you are a racist. That's a hard truth that people don't want to hear, but it's still the truth. Black-American. Asian-American. Mexican-American. African-American. Italian-American. Arab-American. You are placing your racial identity before your country, and that will tear a country apart faster than anything. You are saying that the color of your skin, or where your family came from is more important than where you are now. It's more important than what this country can provide. You are separating yourself from me because my skin is a different color than yours.

That is racism. And I will not elect a racist to be president.

Preaching to the choir here, boss

But hell, it needs to be repeated, and maybe someone will see it and have a light go on.

Decent, mature people show tolerance toward their adversaries, treating them with respect and arguing points with them reasonably. You only hear them complain about corruption when there’s genuine evidence of it. Immature people, however, constantly hurl accusations against their adversaries, calling them cheats, liars, corrupt, and the like; it’s characteristic of the immature to blame other people for their failures.

In a healthy society, immaturity is recognized for what it is, and mostly ignored. However, if society has deteriorated to the point that the immature equal or outnumber the mature, and if the immature congregate on one side of an issue or in one party, over time the stream of invective takes on a substance of its own; the constant accusations become evidence in themselves of the presence of corruption among the mature.

Here in America, the constant, irrational accusations by Democrats against Republicans has created the impression, particularly among Democrats but also uncomfortably common among independent voters, that Democrats play fair but Republicans cheat; that Democrats are tolerant, Republicans intolerant; that Democrats care about the poor, while Republicans dismiss them; that Democrats defend the Constitution, while Republicans ignore it; etc.

The accusations, themselves, have become increasingly irrational, to the point that a huge percentage of the populace is convinced that the Bush administration either planned the 9/11 attacks or knew about them in advance and deliberately let them happen, even though there’s not the slightest evidence of either. The list of unsupported, unsupportable accusations against Republicans has grown long: Diebold, Halliburton, “lies about Iraq,” “blood for oil,” “Bush=Hitler,” etc. Democrats have taken to calling for and wishing for the President’s assassination. Michelle Malkin wrote a book about the derangement of the Democrats, and lists relevant posts on her blog under headings like “unhinged,” “moonbats,” “Bush Derangement Syndrome,” and other categories that document a culture of immaturity gone berserk in their hatred of all things Republican.

Yet another piece that needs to be printed out and left in offices, coffee rooms, etc. etc.

There have been several, corrupt political machines in America, usually operating in large cities: Tammany Hall in New York, the Prendergast machine in St. Louis, the Daley machine in Chicago, the Rizzo machine in Philadelphia, etc. These have several things in common, but the most notable is that they’re all Democrats. There is no such thing, in American history, of a large, urban, Republican, corrupt political machine. Facts are stubborn things. And yet, I occasionally hear some voter exclaim that “all the cheating seems to be from the Republicans.”

I'd like to point out that the Daley machine is still alive and kicking in Chicago; the Left turned Seattle into another political fraud in 2004, and ACORN is still commiting vote fraud today, all in the name of electing Democrat America Communist Party members.

Yep.

Found at the Geek's place.

Media Malfeasance

I'm a day late and a dollar short posting this, but dammit, it needs to be posted, re-posted, and posted again. The whores and trollops that are the Main-Stream Media have once again pushed Democrat American Communist Party propaganda rather than the facts.

It’s hard to believe that the Pentagon and the White House have still not figured out the dynamics of war reporting in this age. Any report with this kind of impact will be the target of leaks, and probably by those least inclined to support the war. The leaks will go to others who don’t support the war, and they will get the first opportunity to define reality in the media. This is exactly what happened to this report on the Harmony documents; it’s a textbook case of media spin.

In fact, as I noted yesterday, the captured Iraqi documents show that Saddam Hussein funded at least two al-Qaeda groups, including Ayman al-Zawahiri’s group Egyptian Islamic Jihad. He also created and funded terrorist groups in Somalia in 1993 to attack the US troops there at the time. Another group which received funding, the Bahrain-based Army of Mohammad, received funding specifically because they intended to target America and Americans, with full knowledge that the AoM received its direction from Osama bin Laden.

When you couple a partisan, agenda pushing, biased media with a White House press office that seems to be it's own worst enemy, well, this is what you get. Of course, if the MSM doesn't push the Democrat American Communist Party talking points, the kool-aid guzzling poltroons of the media often just refuse to report any news that doesn't fit their agenda.

Ever since then, the media have sought to play down Iraq. They have pulled back coverage, not because of fatigue, but because they have been proven incorrect in their rush to portray it as a military failure. They have grudgingly noted the progress made in Iraq since last year’s change in strategy and tactics, and barely noticed when Iraq began passing the reconciliation legislation demanded by Congress this year and last.

The American public has noticed the improvement. Support for staying in Iraq until the successful completion of the mission has risen significantly. Even the Iraqis want us to remain in Iraq, if not in the current role for very much longer, in order to help fight terrorism and bolster their security. The media, which like the Democrats mostly bid on failure, seems churlishly determined not to report on the success for reasons other than “fatigue”.

Can you just imagine what life in this country could be like of the MSM were fair and objective? Can you imagine what life in this country could be like of the MSM weren't Leftist whores, bought and paid for?

Nice dream, isn't it?

Tying in to the post below

Curmudgeonly & Skeptical has a post up about Kalifornia's court ruling against home-school. Lots of links to good articles.

The Ragin' Mrs. and I were having dinner over at the neighbor's house, and the topic of public education came up. Needless to say, I don't think they'll ever discuss that topic around me again, if they ever invite me over again. I got a little vocal. OK, a lot vocal. Bottom line is, the publik skool sistim is messed up. Probably not salvageable. It needs to be scrapped and redesigned from the bottom up. And the first thing to do is to change who is allowed to teach, and why.

Meanwhile, we learn that those “credentialed” teachers so prized by California courts and teachers’ unions compare very unfavorably to people credentialed in other professions. To become “credentialed,” teachers have to major in education. According to economist Walter Williams: “Students who have chosen education as their major have the lowest SAT scores of any other major. Students who have graduated with an education degree earn lower scores than any other major on graduate school admissions tests such as the GRE, MCAT or LSAT. Schools of education, either graduate or undergraduate, represent the academic slums of most any university. As such, they are home to the least able students and professors with the lowest academic respect."

Clearly, too many “credentialed” teachers don’t know much. Or, to paraphrase Maine humorist Tim Sample: “They don’t even suspect much.” The slow ones – and trust me, there are a lot of slow ones in public education – don’t want any light shining on just how slow they are. That’s why they fight standardized testing for teachers. The first time Massachusetts forced new teachers to take a basic competency test in 1998, an astonishing 59% of them failed. These were college graduates (education majors) taking a test that Massachusetts House Speaker Thomas Finneran said: “a reasonably educated ninth grader could pass.”

Former Boston University President and Massachusetts Board of Education Chairman John Silber wanted to eliminate teacher certification, or “credentialing” as California calls it, because it was keeping really bright people out of the teaching profession. However, teachers’ unions blocked him. Why would unions favor credentialing when they disdain standardized tests? Because it’s easy to pass college education courses and difficult to pass standardized tests which cannot be fudged. I’ll bet a lot of the 59% who flunked the teacher test graduated with honors from their college education departments. Grade inflation there is rampant.

If it weren't for three teachers at my high school, I would have dropped out, gotten a GED and moved on with my life. It was that worthless. Most of the important knowledge I have I learned after I left that particular hell hole. I can't think if anything that a publik skool does that a private school can't do better with less money. Everyone always swoons when they hear how much private school costs. Really? Does anyone look to see how much is being spent per student in the publik skool sistim? In many cases, it is MORE than the tuition of a private school. My niece goes to a private school, and the tuition is around $7,000 a year. That's a nice chunk of change, no doubt. But the publik skool sistim where they live spends approximately $8,000 a year PER STUDENT.

And yet publik skool students as a rule cannot begin to compare with private school students. Someone is getting ripped off. Us.

At this point, I can't think of any good reason to keep America's publik skool sistim in place. It's failing, miserably, time and time again. It doesn't need more money, it needs a complete and total overhaul. And the teacher's unions need to be taken out back and shot for the good of the country.

Damn those fundies!

We all know the state of publik skools in America sucks. There's no question. Well, one Susan Jacoby lays it all on the line.

With her new bestseller, “The Age of American Unreason,” Susan Jacoby adds fuel to the public bonfire. Americans are not only increasingly knowledge-challenged, she argues: they’re also proud of it. “America is now ill,” she writes, “with a powerful mutant strain of intertwined ignorance, anti-rationalism, and anti-intellectualism.” This new, insidious strain–at odds with reason, objective facts, and modern science–has grown over the past twenty years, she writes, and is incredibly dangerous for American culture and politics.

…For Jacoby, Protestant fundamentalism, particularly in its resistance to the teaching of evolution in public schools, is intellectual enemy number one.

Got that? It's not the curriculum based on self-esteem rather than actual results that's at fault. Nope. It's not the constant lowering of standards that's at fault. Nuh-uh. It's not the mediocrity of the teachers protected by tenure and a DNC backing union that's at fault. Nah, it's those damn religious whackos!

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Found at Cold Fury.

Barack Hussein Obama's "God Damn" Minister

Barack Hussein Obama may not be a Muslim, but he's no Christian like I've ever heard of:The 'Rev' of Hate and Mentor to Barack (video links)

"Barack knows what it means living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people," Wright said. "Hillary would never know that.

"Hillary ain't never been called a nigger. Hillary has never had a people defined as a non-person."
...
"US of KKK A," -- Rev. Jeremiah Wright
...
"Hillary is married to Bill, and Bill has been good to us. No he ain't! Bill did us, just like he did Monica Lewinsky. He was riding dirty."
...
“Fact number one: We’ve got more black men in prison than there are in college.

"Fact number two: Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run.

"We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns and the training of professional killers. ... We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God. ... We conducted radiation experiments on our own people. ... We care nothing about human life if the ends justify the means.

"And ... And ... And! God! Has got! To be sick! Of this shit!"
...
“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people,” he said in a 2003 sermon. “God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”
...
“We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye,” Rev. Wright said in a sermon on Sept. 16, 2001.

“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost,” he told his congregation.
...
"Racism is alive and well. Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run. No black man will ever be considered for president, no matter how hard you run Jesse [Jackson] and no black woman can ever be considered for anything outside what she can give with her body."
...
"America is still the No. 1 killer in the world. . . . We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns, and the training of professional killers . . . We bombed Cambodia, Iraq and Nicaragua, killing women and children while trying to get public opinion turned against Castro and Ghadhafi . . . We put [Nelson] Mandela in prison and supported apartheid the whole 27 years he was there. We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God."
...
"We supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-Semitic. . . . We care nothing about human life if the end justifies the means. . . ."
...
"We started the AIDS virus . . . We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty. . . ."
...
"His depth on analysis [sic] when it comes to the racial ills of this nation is astounding and eye-opening," Mr. Wright said of Mr. Farrakhan. "He brings a perspective that is helpful and honest."
...
" Mr. Obama went on to explain Mr. Wright's anti-Zionist statements as being rooted in his anger over the Jewish state's support for South Africa under its previous policy of apartheid. As with his previous claim that his church gave the award to Mr. Farrakhan because of his work with ex-offenders, Mr. Obama appears to have made that up." -- WSJ's Kessler

Barack Hussein Obama's "God Damn" Minister blames you for 9/11.

YAF’s Jason Mattera confronts JFKerry(D)

As a follow up to the latests frauds from the newest phony soldier, eg. "Phonies", who misrepresent their service to claim moral authority and are selectively featured by the MainStreamMedia in spite of their non-representative views:

Winter Soldier II : Ludicrous Lies on Parade

Michelle Malkin

Hot Air TV: Sen. John Kerry confronted about Winter Soldier II (video)

We’ve got another joint YAF/Hot Air TV production for you, just in time for the anti-war confab known as “Winter Soldier II” that kicks off in Washington, D.C. tomorrow and runs through Sunday. YAF’s Jason Mattera, our intrepid special correspondent who cornered Jack Murtha in September, is back in the halls of Congress.

This week, Jason caught up with the original Winter Soldier, Sen. John Kerry, and confronted him about his unsubstantiated, troop-smearing testimony.

And no... JFKerry(D) has still not released his military records.
Cross Posted at DANEgerus

Thugs, jackboots, and the US Government

It seems like the jackbooted thugs of the BATFU don't like criticism. Because while Ryan Horsley of Red's Trading Post was in court, dealing with said thugs, one US Marshal Judicial Security Inspector David A. Meyer (dave.meyer@usdoj.gov) took Mr. Horsley aside, and directed him to deliver a message to David Codrea, the owner of the Blog The War On Guns.

"Inspector Meyer asked me to contact you in regards to posting any information with the intent to threaten, intimidate, or incite the commission of a crime of violence against that covered official... "

In short, the thug said "You tell him to shut up, you see? 'Cause otherwise we're gonna pay a visit to HIM, see? And he won't like it!"

Mr. Codrea's response.

If you ever needed proof that the FedGov was way overgrown and too big for it's britches, here's yet another clue-by-four across the forehead. Good on Mr. Codrea for not backing down. And the Federal Government can go to hell.

I love my country, but I fear my government.

Awakening

I can't agree with everything this guy says, but it seems to me that he's waking up to a few realities.

And I began to question my hatred for "the Corporations"—the hatred of which, I found, was but the flip side of my hunger for those goods and services they provide and without which we could not live.

And I began to question my distrust of the "Bad, Bad Military" of my youth, which, I saw, was then and is now made up of those men and women who actually risk their lives to protect the rest of us from a very hostile world. Is the military always right? No. Neither is government, nor are the corporations—they are just different signposts for the particular amalgamation of our country into separate working groups, if you will. Are these groups infallible, free from the possibility of mismanagement, corruption, or crime? No, and neither are you or I. So, taking the tragic view, the question was not "Is everything perfect?" but "How could it be better, at what cost, and according to whose definition?" Put into which form, things appeared to me to be unfolding pretty well.

Ten bucks says all his hoity toity pals, who used to praise his work and hang off every word he said, now treat him like a pariah and shun him like a leper. Seriously, you have to read the whole thing.

Prior to the midterm elections, my rabbi was taking a lot of flack. The congregation is exclusively liberal, he is a self-described independent (read "conservative"), and he was driving the flock wild. Why? Because a) he never discussed politics; and b) he taught that the quality of political discourse must be addressed first—that Jewish law teaches that it is incumbent upon each person to hear the other fellow out.

And so I, like many of the liberal congregation, began, teeth grinding, to attempt to do so. And in doing so, I recognized that I held those two views of America (politics, government, corporations, the military). One was of a state where everything was magically wrong and must be immediately corrected at any cost; and the other—the world in which I actually functioned day to day—was made up of people, most of whom were reasonably trying to maximize their comfort by getting along with each other (in the workplace, the marketplace, the jury room, on the freeway, even at the school-board meeting).

And I realized that the time had come for me to avow my participation in that America in which I chose to live, and that that country was not a schoolroom teaching values, but a marketplace.

Found at Curmudgeonly & Skeptical.

And since I'm the only one who hasn't mentioned it yet

Elliot Spitzer, the governor of New Yawk, got busted schlepping a prostitute to the tune of $5,000 a pop.

Sauce for the goose and all that. Petards, hoisted thereupon, etc.

What did people expect? Let's go over all this again:

1) He's a politician.
2) He's from New York.
3) He's a Democrat American Communist Party member.

That's three strikes right there. He's crooked. It's not a matter of if he's crooked, it's only a matter of if he would get caught. And he did. And oh by the way, any other politician who meets those three standards is crooked as well.

Also, 90% of the politicians from California. Both parties. Crooked. Count on it.

Going to quote it whole

Because cutting it into bits and pieces would not do it justice, and I want this posted around the world.

Now I know that going back to what education once was and its purpose are over. Further, there have always been more ways to learn a trade than to get an education. That’s a feature, not a bug. Learning a trade was once the near-exclusive bastion of apprenticeships and there’s something to be said for that method.

As Aesop said, the problem with learning a trade at a university is that you learn it wrong, although it does provide grounding in the concepts. I know that is true for folks who come out with Theatre/Film degrees, at the (typical) ripe old age of 24--when it is TOO late to begin pursuing an acting career (unless you’re a character actor). Unless the goal is to teach acting, a degree in it is useless from a professional-actor standpoint.

But that isn’t why parents send their little darlings off to get a degree in Theatre/Film. They do it so their starry-eyed kids will have a “fall back” when the reality of their hopes and chances are dashed, and they get serious about life and making a living. So we have parents who are all too anxious for their children’s hopes and dreams to be destroyed, crushed by the realities of life, for the “better” purpose of making a living.

As I said, the purpose of that type of degree is totally useless in the sphere of working in the field (although the old boy/girl network it provides has been useful to many).

What is astonishing, however, is the complete disconnect on what has been happening in the world and the *gasp* coincidence of destroying education, its purpose, and what it once meant.

We have folks with parchment on their walls running industry, with the morals of sharks. They have come out of the degree mills with the ability to make money--lots of it, and they see that as the goal and purpose in life.

It wasn’t THAT long ago that the perspective was entirely different. Making a living, even a good one, was seen as a means, but not the end. The goal of making a good living was to enable one to afford a life of quiet contemplation, of travel, and of the finer things that the education gave the student the taste for. Now the acquisition of possessions, however tawdry and banal, is seen as the goal.

The acquisition of wealth, for the sake of being wealthy, is now the exclusive pursuit of far too many.

It is no surprise at all that we have disasters like Enron and WorldCom. They were run by men with degrees, and technical competencies in their respective fields, but no education whatsoever. It is no surprise that the pickings for elected representatives is tiny, as if non-existent.

If they had ANY education they would not have been the scoundrels and cads they show themselves to be.

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison (to name just two) were educated men… probably a handful of the last of them America produced. It isn’t an accident that they devoted a great portion of their life to public service. That’s what educated men do.

Business once cared about an education degree because it provided some degree of certainty that the person you were dealing with had their priorities in proper order. They could be counted on to do the right thing, to be men of honesty and integrity, with morals to avoid all temptations. The great burden of their education made it near-impossible for them to do otherwise. The great big baton of Western Civilization had been passed to them, and dropping all that man had learned and become was just too magnificent to allow it to be casually set aside when there were financial benefits or carnal pleasures to be had.

Education is not education when it provides anything with which to make a living, or anything we might think of today as “useful.” It concerns itself entirely with how you make your life, not your living. An educated man can learn any trade, but a tradesman can do only what he has been trained to do. The minute it becomes something to do, instead of something that is, it is no longer education.

We have this perception that honesty, integrity, and character are things that are endowed in men like legs and arms. And they are not. Civilizing people was the goal of education--exclusively. That small segment of the population, no more than 1% to 5% who were educated, went out into the world with these high ideals and kept them alive.

Now we have Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and an assortment of bad boys. Wealth itself is lauded as a demonstrative of something important. “Pioneers of Industry” are even lauded, and not recognized for the pirates they’ve become.

There are a few institutions that remain committed to education, but they suffer from the pressures of parents and industry to provide skill-training. Their programs have been altered to such an extent that they might as well throw in the towel completely.

Nock was once asked to become the chair of philosophy at a prestigious university. He’d written extensively on the subject, lamenting the loss of education throughout the world (and that was in the 1920s). He politely declined the offer, saying he’d be a useless bungler. He said that all that he would know how to do would be to take his students on their first day of class to the school library, and with great fanfare open the doors and point to the books, “there” and leave them to it.

We’re going to have to figure out how to do it differently. There are a few parents who get this and understand it, but they do it without fanfare or notice… and then there are folks like Mark (who started this thread), wanting to pursue knowledge for the sake of bettering himself, and by extension, the world around him.

We could achieve it in a myriad of ways--through the formation of Socratic Societies (there are quite a number out there, if folks look). The salon tradition is sickly, but not dead.

I doubt, however, that we’ll achieve any measure of success. We’ve gone too far down the road of believing that “all men are created equal” speaks to quality of character, rather than equality in the law, and anything that smacks of elitism is immediately shot down as bad.

All we have left are the books… and if we can keep them from the fires or banned lists, they might continue to serve their purpose… for the few who seek them out and can understand them.

Education in and of itself doesn't mean a damn thing, especially with schools and universities today. Without a foundation to build on, all an education gets you is an over-educated simpleton who can't be trusted to do much of anything. I've seen way too many people who have an education, but don't know the first thing to do with it. They have the know-how, but not the know-why.

Think I'm kidding? Look at all the Democrat American Communist Party politicians, advocating for policies which have been tried and failed. The people who vote the politicians in have degrees, don't they? How can they then advocate for a system of government which has been shown to fail in every country it's been tried?

They have an education, but that just doesn't mean what it used to.

Why you should carry a gun

Because you never know when some deranged Leftist is going to try to gun people down. Or plant a bomb. Standard Leftist/Marxist. They can't win with ideas, so they have to try to intimidate with violence. Just following the standard communist doctrine there. Problem for them is, they haven't disarmed us yet.

There's a maxim that I try to teach the various kids around here. A maxim that I try to live by:

"Don't start the fight. But make damn sure you finish it if someone starts it."

Found at Michelle Malkin.

You want a peek into a conservative mind?

Then go forth and read. Here's a little taste:

I'm tired of it. Tired way down deep. It's the new slave class, the new Company Store that makes me pay for the fantasies and guilt trips of the privileged few who score a sweet government job. And will continue to vote largesse unto themselves as long as they can get away with it. And nobody on the Left will ever use the word, "greedy" for such. I read today where Wellstone didn't provide Workers' Comp for his campaign staff that died with him in the plane crash, so the taxpayer, the little guy, gets to ante up one more time. He was another one, another Hope and Change hypocrite.

Fuck 'em all. Fuck FDR and LBJ and O-ba-ma.

Found at Spat's place.

The Culture of Entitlement

Michelle Malkin links to a couple of pieces written by one Franklin Schneider. They're a hoot, that's for sure. The first piece I'll link to is a nice, hateful rant about the different places he's worked. Now granted, I've dealt with my fair share of bullshit in the workplace, but you know what? If I didn't like it, I FOUND ANOTHER JOB.

That's not the worst of his writing, though. Oh no, the worst of it is where he complains that he didn't get enough unemployment.

When the federal economic stimulus package hit the news in January, my latest run on unemployment was just going dry, and the mere prospect of getting another job was enough to make my testicles retract into my body. When reports surfaced that a three- or six-month (!!) unemployment extension was going to be part of the package, it seemed like government was finally doing something for the little guy, instead of just the fat cats and whiny Christians. I spent the next two weeks Google News-ing “unemployment extension economic stimulus” every 10 minutes.

When the package including the extension failed by one vote, I was so fucking pissed at the United States government that if an al-Qaeda recruiter had pitched me at that moment, I’d be in the Afghanistan desert as we speak, screaming Arabic at the top of my lungs while bayoneting an Uncle Sam mannequin.

What a nice guy, eh? He's going to stop getting my tax dollars, and he's pissed about it.

Not only do I feel no guilt whatsoever about sucking from the state’s teat, I feel that I’m absolutely entitled to it. First of all, the employer that fired me pays for half of my unemployment, and fuck them.

Mr. Schneider then goes on to prove that he has absolutely no knowledge or idea of economics.

Second of all, it’s really my money in the first place. See, your employer never pays you what you’re worth—there’s a surplus, some of which goes toward overhead and various other business costs, and the rest of which is kept as profit. (This is what Marx was referring to when he talked about “exploitation of the workers.”) A tiny fraction of this surplus—which, again, has been skimmed off of my labor—is put into a government-mandated account to go toward unemployment checks for fired workers. So yeah, it’s my money. Give it back. And since most people’s lives are so devoid of meaning that they’d rather go directly into another shitty job than be forced to confront the sheer emptiness of their existence, most of that money never even gets distributed.

This guy has no clue. And from the sounds of it, he's never HAD a clue. Does he know how much money a company is forced to spend on every employee? Does he know how much money in various taxes a company has to put out for each employee? Obviously not, or he would not have penned that mind-numbingly stupid screed.

And reading even farther down, you see that this guy does not want to be a contributing member of society at all. He just wants us to give him our money so he can do whatever he wants:

Another friend of mine—also an old hand at unemployment milking—tried for months to get fired from a local movie theater. After witnessing shenanigans that at most work places would not only get you fired, but would also get you arrested, he realized they had him in check. After much hand-wringing, he walked out mid-shift.

We saw each other in the grocery store a few weeks back, during the economic stimulus debate. He’d read about the wrangling over the unemployment extension and said he’d thought of me.

“The best part,” he said, chuckling, “was when one of the senators supporting the extension was like, ‘These people want to work, they want nothing more than to work but through no fault of their own, they just can’t find jobs!’”

“Yes, I want nothing more than to go into an office for eight hours a day and get ordered around by inferior people. It’s not about the money! I’ll do it for free!”

“My life is empty if I can’t man a cash register. Please, I want to contribute!”

“Goddamnit, why can’t I find a job? It’s almost as if I’m not trying at all!”

We amused ourselves in this manner for several minutes.

Ha ha fucking ha, you worthless fart-sniffer.

When I was laid off in Seattle, I had another job in a month. ONE MONTH. And thanks to the fact that I didn't blow my cash on too much stupid shit, I didn't apply for unemployment. I made it without any help. But then, I was raised to believe that you had best not count on anyone else for your life. To do so makes you little more than a slave to someone else's whims.

Mr. Schneider willing places the chains on his own wrists. Notice that the option of running his own business never even crosses his mind. I know people who hate the 9-5 bullshit. I know people who would rather slit their own wrists than work in a cubicle in some office where the HR assholes demand every little PC motto be enforced.

These people find non-office jobs, or they start their own businesses. And they couldn't be happier. But they also are self-reliant people, not sniveling little parasites like Mr. Schneider.

Let's face it; if Mr. Schneider the teat-sucking tick wants to do nothing but lay on the beach and bad-mouth his former employers, that's his prerogative. But nobody should be forced to pay for it. And if he thinks he has a right to my tax dollars, he's got another thing coming.

OHMYGOSHOHMYGOSH!

Dennis Hastert's Congressional seat went to a Democrat American Communist Party member!

Um.... so that's going to change things how?

Some of the blame has to fall on Hastert himself. His run as Speaker got marred by corruption and massive increases in pork-barrel politics, two themes not without their connections. He personally benefited from pork legislation that increased the value of land he owned as part of a trust. He also fought to protect William “Dollar Bill” Jefferson from an FBI investigation into bribery and corruption rather than take a more reformist stance that demanded transparency and clean government.

The guy was a corrupt shitheel who tried to protect other corrupt shitheels. He was part of the problem. He was SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE during a period when we had a Republican president and Republican control of Congress.

His accomplishments? Nothing. No, rewind, dub over, it was LESS than nothing. Federal spending went up, the GOP crumbled like little bitches before the Dimocrat opposition on any topic, corruption ran rampant, and the conservative principals that got them elected into office were thrown right out the window. It was a giant leap backwards for the GOP, and it led to the Republicans getting kicked in the nutsack in 2006.

Unfortunately, I really don't think the GOP has changed any. They're just a little less socialist and corrupt than the Democrat American Communist Party.

We're so screwed.

Winter Soldier II: Ludicrous Lies on Parade

LGF serves up the latests frauds from the newest phony soldier, eg. "Phonies", who misrepresent their service to claim moral authority and are selectively featured by the MainStreamMedia in spite of their non-representative views.

The anti-war left is preparing to stage a rerun of the infamous “Winter Soldiers” travesty, and here’s one of their star witnesses, identified only by her first name “Jen:” A Soldier in Winter.

The ludicrous stories this woman is telling are so over the top and obviously false, it’s hard to believe anyone gives them credence; but the fact that leftists are apparently willing to believe this garbage speaks volumes about their so-called “support for the troops.”
...
Jennifer Spranger, secretary of the Milwaukee chapter of IVAW, is a very likely suspect for “Jen.”
...
...notice that Salon does not identify her as a member of IVAW.

Cross Posted at DANEgerus

The Wrong Question

I can't remember where I saw the discussion (and if you're the one who asked the question, please let me know so I can link to you), but it was about the California case where the courts have ruled that the parents cannot home school their children.

Now, the question that was asked was this: Is there a constitutional right to homeschool? And it got the wheels turning a bit in my head, albeit slowly after sleeping in and waking up late this morning.

The more I thought about that question, the more I'm convinced that it's the wrong question to ask. The right question is this: What gives the state the power to tell you how your children will be schooled?

Not everything is a constitutional right. But it does not have to be a constitutional right. Remember that the Constitution of the United States of America never places limits on The People. It limits what the Government can do, but places no such limits on the general population. The question of how that family schools it's kids should never come up, because there's nothing in the Constitution that gives the State the power to dictate how the kids are schooled. The State should not have any say in that matter at all.

In short, what has happened in California is that the State has flipped roles. Instead of being limited by the Constitution, it is using laws to limit what the people can do. Instead of The People smacking the State on the nose with a newspaper and saying "NO!", the State has now, in essence, turned The People into subjects instead of citizens.

It's time for the actual citizens of that state to leave.

And more anti-military crap

I know it's not the water in California, because I've met plenty of sane people from that state. But there seems to be an infestation of shitheads that keeps on growing, and I'm wondering how to keep the infection from spreading to the rest of the country.

In denying the Royal High School student delayed entry into the Marine Corps, Children's Court Commissioner Marilyn Mackel reportedly told Sage and a recruiter that she didn't approve of the Iraq war, didn't trust recruiters and didn't support the military.

"The judge said she didn't support the Iraq war for any reason why we're over there," said Marine recruiter Sgt. Guillermo Medrano of the Simi Valley USMC recruiting office.

"She just said all recruiters were the same - that they `all tap dance and tell me what I want to hear.' She said she didn't want him to fight in it."

Things like this are why the government needs to have as little power as possible.

Destroying the Anti-Gun arguments

I swear, if you ever need pro-gun reasoning, just bookmark The Smallest Minority. Go to his sidebar and start reading. And check out his latest effort.

Anti-military

The Left wants a replay from the 70's. Bring it on. Will it be like Jesse McBeth? Jimmy Massy? I swear, the keep trotting out the same old crap, time and time again.

Yes, I question their patriotism.

When Leftists attack

Michelle Malkin has a whole list of Leftist attacks against military recruiters. It's only going to get worse, folks. Why? Because the Democrat American Communist Party supports this kind of action. Some openly, some behind closed doors. But we have one side of American politics run by the barking moonbats, and this is the predictable result.

Also from Malkin, the good guys get a word in.

Still, it's going to get worse. When the attacks against recruiting stations, ROTC buildings and other military areas happened, nary a peep was heard from the mainstream DNC. And more importantly, no one on the Left side of politics did anything to prevent another attack. Nobody spoke out against the attacks. No Leftist did a damn thing to support the military under attack.

And then they wonder why the attacks continued?

Template change

You might have noticed that the link to the American Conservative Party is gone from the upper-right corner. It's been replaced by a link to Soldier's Angels, which is well known for Project Valour-IT. If anyone ever wanted to donate to this blog, I'm asking folks to go donate to Soldier's Angels instead.

Trust me, they can use it a lot more than I can.

Busy Day

Hey, I told y'all a while back that I would be busy. So today is a Linky Love day.

Curmudgeonly and Skeptical: Treason at the State Department. In better days, we would be warming up barrels of tar and plucking chickens.

Random Nuclear Strikes: They Did What? Lemmee ask you a question here - since the Leftist traitors in this country have decided to start blowing up military recruiting stations, can I now shoot them on sight and get a reward?

Personal Effects: Start Packing. The state of Kalifornia has just decided that parent's can't homeschool their children. In short, parents have no rights to their kids what so ever. The STATE just told the PARENTS that the parents have no choice, no say, no right to determine how their kids are schooled. Folks, if that doesn't scare the shit out of you, I don't know what will. The STATE has determined that the children are to be bundled off to their local publik skool indoctrination center, and the parents have to go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut.

It's time to start shooting people in Kalifornia. Maybe that's why Kalifornia doesn't allow it's subjects to carry guns?

Drumwaster;s Rants: ReadysetGO! If you're a math person, try his challenge. It'll keep you up for a while.

Rachel Lucas: I bet your mom's super-glad she squirted you out. I know the type of person Ms. Lucas is writing about. I've dealt with them. And I can't say I understand them one bit.

Daily Mail: Britain's first "safe text" street. Um.... wow. Just wow. I'm trying to find the words to express just how revolting I'm finding the people who A) advocate for this kind of crap, and B) think it's just fine and dandy. Oh, I know!

brainless, dazed, deficient, dense, dim, dodo, doltish, dopy, dotterel, dull, dumb, dummy*, foolish, futile, gullible, half-baked*, half-witted*, idiotic, ill-advised, imbecilic, inane, indiscreet, insensate, irrelevant, irresponsible, laughable, loser*, ludicrous, meaningless, mindless, moronic, naive, nonsensical, obtuse, pointless, puerile, rash, senseless, short-sighted, simple, simple-minded, slow, sluggish, stolid, stupefied, thick, thickheaded, trivial, unintelligent, unthinking, witless

Ayup, that might just begin to cover it. Seriously folks, if you are so damn (pick a word from above) that you need padding on street posts in order to protect yourself while you text, then you have no right to breed and pollute the world with your equally mentally-deficient spawn. Some people in Britain have just admitted that they are incapable of doing ANYTHING to deal with day-to-day life, and they are now nothing more than burdens on society, retards that have to be kept away from hot stoves and open second-story windows, dolts and dimwits that cause more problems for everyone else with an IQ over 30 or so. Break out the straitjackets and padded romper-rooms, because we're going to need them.

Or better yet, remove the damn protection and let these mind-numbingly stupid people kill themselves! Let's make stupidity painful again! A friend of the Mrs. and I had a plan to kill off the stupid people who do nothing but make life difficult for everyone else. Remove all the safety tags off of everything. That sign at the gas station that says not to drink gasoline? Take it off. Put up a sign that reads "TASTES GREAT ON CORNFLAKES". And once that wave of idiots dies off, we'll remove another safety sign to kill off the next wave. If you're too stupid to realize that blow-drying your hair in the bathtub is a bad idea, then maybe you need to die off and let the intelligent people take over, m'kay?

Or we'll just take the padding off of the street posts in London, and watch the mouth-breaking morons break themselves. At least it'll be good for a laugh or two, until you realize that without the benefit of medical castration, these poltroons and parasites are breeding.

Lord, that's a scary thought.

Oh, but they SUPPORT the troops!

Yeah, right.

Anyone else seen this video, of a Marine purportedly throwing a puppy off a cliff? People still can't agree - was it a real dog or a fake dog? If it was real, was it dead or alive? Who the hell knows? Yet ABC is already rolling out the "War-tortured troops suffering from Bush-imposed illegal war on innocent terrorists!" meme.

The motivation for such an act, if it did indeed occur, may be as complex and deep as the U.S. war that has dragged on for more than four years, experts told ABCNEWS.com. Chief among them: Having to live with the constant fear of being injured or killed might have led this Marine to take his aggression out on a defenseless animal, several psychologists said.

If it did occur? IF IT DID OCCUR???? THESE FUCKING BASTARDS DON'T EVEN KNOW IF THE EVENT ACTUALLY FUCKING HAPPENED AND YET THEY TROT OUT THIS FUCKING BULLSHIT HIT PIECE ON THE MILITARY, PRESIDENT BUSH, AND THE WAR ON TERROR!

YOU FUCKING COMMUNIST COCK-BITING, AGENDA PUSHING, BIASED PIECES OF SHIT!

How about this: Some people are sick fucks! And if that was a real, live dog then the Marine who did it needs to have the book thrown at him! But I would still rather trust any group of US Marines over the kool-aid guzzling propaganda whores of ANY Has-Been Media outlet. Other than one or two quick links, how many stories have been put out by the MSM on military members bring dogs home from Iraq? Did they trot out the psychologists for those troops?

Hell no. It didn't fit the narrative, did it?

The best thing that could happen to the MSM in America is for it to die quickly. I never trust any news from any major news outlet. They've proven that they can't be trusted. They've proven that they would rather lie, skew the facts, and twist the story in order to push their agenda. They've proven that they cannot be objective for fair.

They've proven that they have no real reason to exist other than to push totalitarian bias.

Quote of the Day

Taken from a piece that you have to read in it's entirety.

The West has no use for sanctimonious homilies from societies that cannot provide clean drinking water or sewage systems, that make no provisions for the handicapped, and that leave 40 to 50 percent of their citizens illiterate.

As Bill Whittle once wrote(in his essay Tribes) it's NURTURE, and not NATURE that makes us who we are. Well, our culture is one of the main things that nurture who we become.

Anyways, go read it if you haven't already done so.

What level of education all that money buys

This will not surprise you:

ABRAHAM KATSMAN : Obama-mania and cult of self-esteem

Obama has tapped into is the first generation educated in schools focused on "self-esteem." Now, the products of self-esteem education have come of political age in substantial numbers, perhaps with profound implications for this and future elections.

For the past two decades, America's educational establishment has stressed the inculcation of self-esteem as the supreme educational goal. Self-respect - the product of struggle and achievement - is out; self-esteem - the entitlement tofeel great self-worth regardless of actual accomplishment - is in.

Strict correction of misspelling or of wrong answers to math problems is discouraged. Competition is a big no-no: many youth sports leagues forbid keeping score, lest any child's self-esteem suffer from the indignity of losing. Posting honor rolls is discouraged, as it might injure the self-esteem of those who did not make the grade.

Grade inflation is rampant in schools: according to one recent study, about half of today's college freshman had an "A" average in high school compared to under 20% in the late 1960s, even though SAT scores have tanked over the same period. The focus on self-esteem has, in a sense, been a huge success.

For example, American students have very high scores when asked to assess how good they are at math. Unfortunately, they have low/mediocre scores in actual math performance, routinely being outscored by students in most other developed countries.

Inevitably, however, such over-indulgence of students leads to increased narcissism, self-absorption, and sense of entitlement. Those with self-esteem disproportionate to their achievement tend to be less willing to take responsibility for their own failures, shortcomings, or bad behavior.

Coddled children raised to believe that any dream is not only attainable, but an entitlement granted regardless of actual effort and accomplishment are increasingly growing into depressed and stressed young adults as they rudely discover that the post-school world is not so cooperative and doesn't really care about their dreams or their feelings. In the real world, they keep score.

The more money we pour into education the worse the results. Shouldn't it bother everyone that public schools spend twice the money per pupil, that private schools charge in tuition, yet those public schools turn in far worse results?

Well... unless your political campaign is funded by the NEA.

Cross Posted at DANEgerus

"But it's not FAAAIRRRR," or "Cookie Economics"

The standard hue and cry around which your garden variety socialist will attempt to rally his or her hemp-wearing, birkenstock-clad friends is that a capitalist society is inherently "unfair." The disparity of incomes between the rich and the poor apparently highlights some fundamental flaw in the system, a wrong which needs to be rapidly and forcibly righted through a more "fair" redistribution of wealth from the wealthy elite to the poor downtrodden masses; you know, those souls suffering under the crushing thumb of their capitalist task masters. Or some such.

Let's look at the whole concept of "fair," shall we?

Say, for example, your second grade teacher decides to reward students with cookies for good work. Her plan is simple - equal pay for equal work. If everyone achieves to the required level, everyone gets a cookie. Sounds great, right? Totally fair. Everybody gets the same thing. Now, what if she started giving two cookies to her "favorite" students, the teacher's pets who play her game, while she still only gives one to the others. As a matter of fact, what if she starting NOT giving cookies to the students she didn't like, so she could have more to give to her favorites. That wouldn't be FAIR, would it? Most would agree -- no.

So, now, we return to the original system, where everyone is rewarded with a cookie for a good days schoolwork. But, the way the system is set up, you can only get one cookie per day. Period. So, no matter how much MORE work you do, your reward is…one cookie. Ah, but now let's throw in a little more modern socialism for spice. Because the teacher is so worried about the students' self esteem, and she doesn't want anyone to feel exluded or "disenfranchised," in the noble idea of being "fair" to everyone, she decides to give everyone a cookie NO MATTER WHAT. Every day, every student gets a cookie, all in the interest of fairness.

Pretty soon, Johnny Snotlocker figures out that he's going to get a cookie regardless of whether he does all the homework or not. He can act up in class, pull Sally's pigtails, steal Freddy's pencil...he still get's his cookie.

Soon thereafter, Billy Squaredaway realizes that no matter how well he behaves, no matter how much extra credit he does, how neatly he writes his papers or how helpful he is to the teacher or other students, he also only ever gets one cookie.

What is Johnny's motivation to behave or achieve if he knows that a cookie awaits him at the end of the day, regardless? And what is Billy's motivation to excel if he is going to get the same grade as Johnny, or get the same number of cookies as Johnny?

Let's make this even MORE applicable to modern times. Say Billy does a little tutoring on the side, helps some of the slower students, and they, in turn, give him one of their cookies in thanks. Billy realizes that this is a great deal, and starts building up a pretty good collection of cookies for himself. Soon, however, Johnny Snotlocker finds out about it, and decides he wants more cookies, too. Now, Johnny, not being smart enough or dedicated enough to earn his OWN cookies, figures out a better plan. He complains to the teacher that Billy Squaredaway having so many more cookies than everybody else JUST. ISN'T. FAIR! Billy's got eight or ten cookies, but Johnny and Sally and Suzy all only have one or two. The teacher thinks things over, and realizes that little Johnny has a point. Her goal is to treat everyone equally, to ensure that no one feels either superior or inferior to anyone else. So she marches over and tells Billy that he's got to hand his extra cookies out to the other students who have less. To. Be. Fair.

The light bulb goes on in little Billy's head, and he realizes that, no matter what he does, he's really only ever going to be allowed to keep one cookie. So, he finally knuckles under, waits patiently for the day to end so that he can get his next cookie, and leaves his textbooks to gather dust. Oh but wait, there's more.

For the final blast of realism, the teacher tells Billy that, in order to make sure that ALL the students are getting an extra cookie, Billy has to continue to tutor other students, but give the teacher all the extra cookies he earns so that she can redistribute them more equitably. As a matter of fact, any students who earn extra cookies all have to hand anything in excess of the basic one-cookie amount to the teacher, who, of course, is the only who can determine what is a "fair" distribution.

So, I ask you, gentle reader, which scenario is more fair? Let's try this from a slightly different perspective.

Billy Squaredaway goes to school, gets good grades, gets into a decent college and graduates. Maybe he joins the military or heads straight for corporate America. Perhaps, based on his education, drive, and experience, he develops an innovative distribution system that streamlines a company's processes. He gets a hefty raise, and is soon making $125,000 a year.

Johnny Snotlocker drops out of high school, gets a series of dead end jobs, moves in with his pregnant girlfriend, who also dropped out of school, and they end up living on welfare and food stamps. Most of which are used to buy cigarettes and poptarts. All told, they bring in maybe $27,000 a year.

The socialists will scream that it is Billy's obligation, his duty, to calve off huge chunks of his hard earned money to help out Johnny, who is "poor." After all, since Johnny is a victim of the capitalist process, it only makes sense to penalize the capitalists to help him. It's UNFAIR of Billy to have all that money while Johnny languishes on food stamps, "unable" to earn a living.

I think that it's UNFAIR to expect Billy to be forced to pay his EARNED income to Johnny, just because. I think that it's UNFAIR for Billy to face scorn and derision for having the audacity to actually be successful. I think it's unfair to penalize Billy for being more successful by taking more in taxes to support Johnny each time Billy's wages increase.

I think it's UNFAIR of Johnny to expect, even demand that he be supported, as if it was some right. He had many of the same opportunities as Billy. He made different choices.

What the socialists always seem to miss is that the more disincentives we give the Billys of the world to be prosperous, the less money they will have to pour back into the economy. The more we penalize our highest wage earners and the more we demand they pay into government social programs, the less they will spend on consumer goods, the production of which keeps so many people emplolyed. Make it too expensive for a business to operate due to heavy taxes to support things like welfare and unemployment, the more jobs are lost as the company moves offshore.

You actually create more unemployment be insisting on this bastardized forms of "fairness." We are the strongest, healthiest, most advanced country on the planet. We got that way by encouraging innovation, achievement, excellence and rewards for good performance. Not by the levying of crushing taxes which make rich people into poor people, and the poor people into slaves of the state.

Now this is going too far

Or maybe not. I mean, if they can make money selling this stuff to World of Warcraft geeks, (NSFW!) many of whom haven't seen a real woman in years, then more power to them, right?

I guess my sense of decency is in a struggle with my notion of allowing people to do what they want.

On the other hand, when I was thirteen, I would have been so into that it's not even funny. But that was... um... mumblemumble years ago.

BATFU taking another shop to court

The trial for Red's Trading Post begins today. Given that the BATFU can't even seem to keep track of it's own firearms, I'm hoping that Red's tears through them like shit through a goose.

You want jackbooted thugs? Look no father than the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Think of all the money we could save if they were shut down. Millions! Billions, even!

Two Must Reads

From Kim du Toit. The first is on the Law of Unintended Consequences, as it applies to the Democrat American Communist Party's financial dreams. Read, learn, vote.

Second, a post on gated communities in Great Britain. And the reason I find this post interesting is due to the number of gated communities here in Puerto Rico.

Hell, gated communities, gated houses, bars over every window and opening, permanently locked doors on shops, you name it, the crime rate here has made people live like prisoners in their own houses, which have more iron over the windows than most prisons I've ever seen. To get into the leather shop we frequent here, you have to go through a wrought iron door, and stand in front of another door which is locked, whereupon the shop owner and see you and identify if you're carrying anything naughty, and whether or not he should let you into the shop. Other than the big chain stores, this is the norm. All doors are always locked, and the shopkeeper lets you into the store when you ring a doorbell or a buzzer. MacPhearson's Leather in Seattle was in what we considered a high crime area, and all they had was a little alarm on the door to let them know when someone walked in.

The houses have bars everywhere. Most places don't have a single opening that's not covered by bars or concrete. One house I went to had three different locks on three different doors just to get into the kitchen. We have friends who own a house a little ways from post, and every entrance into that house is made from solid steel, with security locks, with different keys for each door. And they live inside a gated community! This is how they have to deal with the crime INSIDE A GATED COMMUNITY! Their dog has bitten at least two people who tried to crawl over their back fence. In a gated community.

Now, I've told you all that so I can ask you this: What is the big common denominator between Great Britain and Puerto Rico?

Both countries have severely restrictive gun laws. As in, the ordinary Joe can't get a gun, which means that the criminals, many of whom DO have guns, can have the run of the place and do whatever the hell they want without fear of being ventilated.

Hmmmmmmmm...... Anyways, go. Read. Vote.

Adding on to Steve's post below

I seem to be doing that a lot. So sue me. One guy's post starts the wheels turning.

Here's a question for my readers: Can you identify the Palestinian Army uniform?

Of course you can't. They use Hamas and Fatah "militants" as their army. They have no uniformed military service. They're freaking TERRORISTS, for cryin' out loud. So that fact ties in with THIS fact:

Every time you read about Palestinian "civilians" being killed, you cannot think of that as a western civilizations. Because all of the militants being killed are technically "civilians". They don't wear a uniform. They don't follow the Geneva Conventions. They don't target other military forces.

They wear civilian garb. They target other civilians. They use hospitals, schools, and other bases of population as attack points.

What does this all mean? Well, because we have a biased, worthless, kool-aid guzzling media, what this means is that if the IDF kills some shithead who's attacking a disco or pizza joint, then they've killed a "civilian".

Think about that. According to the MSM, some terrorist asshat firing an AK-47 at a group of Jews waiting for a bus is technically a "civilian".

According to the MSM, some carpet-munching fuckstick who's assaulting an IDF checkpoint is a "civilian".

According to the MSM, some turbaned tumblefuck who's firing rockets into an Israeli town is a "civilian".

So when you hear about "60 civilians" being killed..... well, you can bet good money that 59 of them were carrying rifles or RPGs and attacking Israel. So, to anyone who had a brain and who lives in the real world, they're not "civilians". They are "enemy combatants", and they are perfectly legitimate targets.