Because we are human…

How, with so many warnings from our founding fathers, have we allowed ourselves to place so much power in the hands of so few?  We must take back our government and never again entrust so much power to politicians.

If there were only one food brand, or just two… only one food-market chain… only one car model or house design, we’d quickly see competitors spring up.  If these new entrepreneurs were strangled by the raw power of the “powers-that-be”, we’d be outraged, scream “Unfair! Monopoly!” and demand justice!
But what if we were never taught the word “monopoly”? …never taught fairness? …had a Media also under the thumb of the powers-that-be?
Politically, this nation is precariously close to this situation today.  With this much power concentrated in DC, we will continue to see competing views, alternatives, “religions”, businesses and alternatives shut down, enslaving us all to the powers-that-be.
Please, all who love Freedom, seek Opportunity, respect Truth… we must shrink government before it devours all Hope. We are destroying ourselves by waging an unnecessary war against each others ideas, beliefs, motives, intentions… our very right to life in this world.
We call for each to respect others, not wage political war to “get our way”!  Stop forcing our view of “what is right” upon us all through the power of a massively centralized government.  This government has grown tentacles into our daily lives and continues to grow and tighten its grip.
Please… WRITE, CALL, DEMAND our government shrink.  It must just “let go” of our collective throats.
“We met the enemy, and they are us!”  WE must stop strangling each other.  Instead, we need to go into our own communities, to our neighbors, take back our money and energy, and devote it to finding and implementing diverse solutions much closer to home.
“Power to the People” has been a cry for freedom throughout our history.  Freedom from a king, freedom from slavery, freedom from exploiters, freedom from war, freedom from poverty, freedom from discrimination, freedom from hate…
But what we need now is freedom from a one-size-fits-all Big Government.
We created it… all parties, all races, all factions and ideologies.  We did it for the best of intentions, but we created a monster.  It has put us at each others throats, choking off true freedom in the name of false unity.
Surrender our souls, our unique perspectives, beliefs, identities… to a “machine”??? …to a power hungry mechanism destroying innovation, creativity, individuality and forcing an ideology upon us all???  Liberals, conservatives, libertarians, religious and secular alike need to return to the fundamentals of the founding fathers: equality in life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and above all, do no harm. 
We must stop with the “my-way-or-the-highway” politics.  We must shrink the influence of power (brute force) be it from money, intellectual slavery (ignorance, propaganda, etc.) or ideology… all, save one: the ideal of freedom.
We defend and grow freedom by distributing power from the center to the localities.  We shrink the power of government and distribute it to charities, communities, states, etc.  But most of all, we return it to individuals.  No more blaming each other for the problem.  Separate and go to work on implementing solutions in your area, business, markets, field of knowledge, towns and states, but always in “small” manageable, achievable, practical ways.  With diverse micro-solutions, experience will be out teacher, free from the shackles of political party and ideology.
Do not block your neighbor.  Move if you must, but try to work independently with like-minded or not, to find workable solutions for you and yours.  Allow states and cities and rural areas to find their own way without prejudging others.
The “American Way” is what I’m talking about! …the American Way back before it was subverted to mean “overwhelming force”. We have well now seen what we warned about by our founding fathers: we are fallible, limited human beings.  Power does not bestow wisdom, but rather, corrupts and will dumb-down those who use it as a crutch.  There is no short-cut around doing the hard work of living the virtues necessary for true success in life.
Let’s return to the American Way of our founding fathers before our hubris destroys our nation.

Where is the Senate Immigration Bill Leading?

The latest proposal of a “surge” in border security spending and manpower does not solve the problem since it lacks objective measures of success. Seal border FIRST, verified by objective measures.  Throwing money at the border will not seal it!

HIDDEN GIVE AWAYS…
“Leahy said the Corker-Hoeven amendment, touted as a “surge” to border security, amounts to a crony capitalist giveaway to the many big money interests quietly backing immigration reform.”
…but he overlooks the crony unionism, e.g. SEIU won a promise of 20,000 work visas for new low wage employees for the “entertainment industry” …more hotel maids paying dues to SEIU.  …and likey there are many more cases of “surprises” in the thousand plus pages written so far.

DOES NOT SOLVE THE PROBLEM…
He also overlooks the 4.7 MILLION new illegal immigrants that will come in after the bill is passed, since the CBO reports that 75% of illegal immigrants will not be stopped by the plan in the original bill…. these millions WILL be exploited by employers who will pay them under the table.

Ask yourself this question:  if half of the 11 Million illegals here (probably an underestimate) chooses to register and get a work permit, will their employers who have exploited them pay them the higher wage and bother with FICA withholding and employer share payments?  …extra “expenses” that make these contractors at least 15% more expensive when bidding jobs then they were before?  What will they do?  …they will drop those who register and pick up those new illegals who want the job more than citizenship!

Does Leahy favor this exploitation?  …lax border enforcement will encourage it.

What will those who lose their jobs do?  …go on welfare? …riot?  …they WILL take up a fake identity (like many already have) and return to the underground economy!

Certainly the goals promised us citizens will NOT be met with this legislation!

SEAL THE BORDER, implement a strict e-verify, and prepare for lower wages and profits and a shrinking economy until the 11 million already hear are assimilated about 20 years out.   …address the lower wages by unleashing the energy boom now blocked by regulation and intransigence in all things truly progressive economically!

History tells us the border will not be sealed, the e-verify will be full of holes, the underground economy will swell and the poor will become poorer and turn to a more profitable profession:  selling their votes in trade for government benefits, paid for by the dwindling wealth of the middle class.

THE INCOME TAX IS DOOMED….
As more and more immigrants and contractors and middle class workers are squeezed, they will quit working in the taxable economy and follow the lead of the 11 Million into the underground economy.  It is not a matter of disloyalty, it is a matter of competition in a market so constrained by tax law and regulation that would require a police-state to control.

Going to punish the cheaters?
…put the husband in jail with 3 squares and the satisfaction of seeing his wife and children receive more than he could provide by simply applying for welfare benefits?

SOLUTION TO TAX ENFORCEMENT…
Replace with vast array of taxes with a single “Fair Tax” collected at point of sale and enforced by the state tax collection agencies.

It never requires people to report their incomes, but does require dealers to report their sales.  It will not be fool proof, but much better than what we have now.

At least the law will be clear and obvious to all, and we’d not need an army of accountants and lawyers to enforce.

Please support border security with objective measures of success, coupled with a conversion to the Fair Tax to ensure the underground economy does not become the dominant economy!

Better Gun Control

The “three pillars” of the President’s proposal were the least effective of all the possible responses to Sandy Hook.
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/294571-senate-rejects-tougher-background-checks-on-gun-purchases

Hopefully, we can now work on proposals that WILL have an impact:

— 1) enforce concealed carry laws:
     a) setup hidden metal detectors on sidewalks,
     b) challenge people who avoid them or set them off,
     c) verify permits if presented, or frisk them for guns,
     d) severely punish unlicensed carry!

— 2) mandatory penalties for criminals with guns:
     a) regardless of the crime, if a gun is found, +5 years;
     b) if the gun is waved/shown, +10 years, +15 if fired;
     c) if an innocent person is injured, +20, killed, life w/o parole.

— 3) address the mental health problem:
     a) restrain first, test later if mental problem and access to gun;
     b) hold in mental health facility for up to 3 days for evaluation;
     c) easy referral by parents, employers, police for free MH clinics;
     d) fund mental hospitals, essential to security;
     e) recognize that an active, involved, caring, open and friendly society is the best deterrent to undetected/untreated mental illness… promote churches, clubs, community groups, through tax credits/deductions.

Now those are “three pillars” of improved gun security that CAN make a difference!

Promote them!

Freedom [comes] FROM God!

Read the Declaration of Independence if you doubt this nation was founded “under God” …Nature or Nature’s God.

The fundamental concept of Nature is not religious…. atheists have faith in nature, science, logic, etc. which is precisely the same foundation under this country, all life, and all religions!

If you disagree, you are free to exercise your disbelief because Nature gave your free will, equality with the rest of us, and we respect your beliefs just as well as you respect ours…. granting you every bit of freedom possible up to the point where your freedom infringes upon my equal right to freedom.

As a science lover myself, I am “blown away” by the extent to which God has gone to create a world with accountability, equality, direction, growth, evolution, joy and beauty…. and yet, perfectly masking the Creator, as necessary for us to have free will, and thus know love and self restraint!   ….a wonderful symmetry, an amazing balance.

Thought evolves as we learn, but always in the direction of awe at the wonderful opportunities given us if only we have the faith to believe!  We are all sinners, in need of redemption, redirection, hope and Faith.  …this world will eventually teach us God’s way.

Marriage …real marriage… is NOT ALL ABOUT THE MONEY!

Foolishly and childishly, people protest today as if government controls personal commitments! …government controls taxes, benefits, welfare …yes, and usually very poorly… but government under the 1st Amendment does not control the definition of words, dictate beliefs, or define the limits of human emotions.

 

So why protest to government about “marriage rights”?  …gays want to share in the financial benefits?  Is that all there is to this whole “gay marriage” thing?

 

Marriage …real marriage… is NOT ALL ABOUT THE MONEY!  …what the government regulates with marriage law deals only with the money aspects.  Calling it “marriage law” demeans marriage and misrepresents the intent of the law.   ….so how should the Supreme Court rule on “gay marriage” issues?

 

The correct answer is to get the government out of the business of pretending to be an almighty god, defining what is health, what is wealth, what is charity, what is love and what is hate. Those are subjective things that any rational government would recognize are beyond measure by a civil agency.

 

Government, under our Constitution, can ONLY ensure “equal treatment under the law” with respect to opportunity to share in nature’s freedoms. Force of government cannot constitutionally be used to promote any belief system, other than the right to equal treatment (the ancient “Golden Rule”) under the constraint of “do no harm” (the ancient “Hippocratic Oath”.)

 

When we cannot agree on when life begins or what is marriage, freedom of belief over rides any law!  Government should not be used as a tool of secularism OR humanism OR Islam OR Christianity…. it should recognize our fundamental freedoms and retreat to within the traditional constitutional bounds.

 

And yes, this means financial benefits to married couples in this era of equal access to the workplace is obsolete; children may well deserve a voucher to aid in health, education, and defense from predators, but giving deductions for adults to live together is not in the realm of a constitutional government interest.

 

If you truly understand the 1st Amendment history regarding freedom of speech, belief, conscience, association, and the importance of equality under the law, you would move to have SCOTUS strike down not just “marriage law”, but most of what is now called the “welfare state”.  Favoring one group over another to promote equal outcomes based on some belief system or another, is beyond the Constitutional limits set on government.

 

Virtually all our political problems today come form the abuse of the Constitution, usually due to well intentioned, but misguided attempts at “social engineering”.  A legalistic mechanism, such as a Constitutional Republic, does not have compassion, does not understand love nor hate.  Only people can deal “morally” with reality, according to their vision of reality, subjectively and personally.  This is why we have juries, not just judges and laws.  This is why we have churches, volunteerism, the broader society and…. very fundamentally, Freedom and Liberty.

 

Shrink government! …so we may all be free of the prejudices of “powers that be”.

We are NOT a One Dimensional Nation!

I am so sick of the media viewing all us Americans as one-dimensional creatures, strung out on a line between liberal and conservative!
Rand Paul clearly destroys that childish image of a polarized America.

He is absolutely right that this nation was founded fearing government corruption, and 200+ years of American history alone proves this was a very wise decision, already too often violated!
The president should not be killing without declaring war, identifying the enemy, and explicitly calling for their surrender under pain of sudden death…. then the war should be all-out until the enemy surrenders or is destroyed.  Anything less is a) allowing the president to kill without oversight, and b) a violation of the “just war” philosophy that no war is just unless it is all-out to destroy war…. killing for intimidation sake is inhumane and itself terrorism.
Likewise, the separation of church and state requires the government get out of the business of regulating marriage!  ….the state of a couple, married or not, is of no import to the government. Any family benefits the government may want to subsidize MUST be directed at the needs of children, NOT at the marriage status of those who claim to be parents of the child!
Following the same logic that gives us freedom of religion, belief, conscience, speech, association, and the press, the government has no right to make “moral” decisions to protect our “morality” because what is moral is a personal choice!   …the duty of government is to protect our persons and property from harm from fellow citizens, equally!  It is not to protect us from ourselves or from bad habits or bad thoughts about ourselves or others!
Liberals and conservatives alike should take pause and learn the depth of history behind the 1st Amendment:   ….both will find themselves frequently to have been on the wrong side of freedom!
So called “free” contraceptives (or abortions) are not something the government can demand objecting citizens pay for, for the same reason giving tax deductions to straight couples but not to gay couples (or business partnerships, for that matter) is constitutional!
There are serious reasons why we have freedom FROM government!  …whenever we ask the government to give us something, we pay for it with our freedom, and come to regret the resulting slavery.

The Bernanke Rally… when will inflation hit?

The Bernanke rally continues on Wall Street as the FED funds our government with printed money (well, synthetic e-money) and we all wait for the inflation shoe to drop. Will it? When? …can money created with a keystroke be “burned” with a keystroke and “nobody” hurt in the matter?  If so, then let’s drop this foolishness of wasting time on government, work, duty, responsibility, etc and simply have Ben print Trillions for all us and hand it out like candy!

Obviously, this game of musical chairs, where there are more dancers than chairs, will come to an end. Or, in this case, this game of more virtual dollars than real profits, will eventually be reconciled.

Who will suffer when Ben hits the delete key, erasing the trillions of “investments” sitting on the books of the FED?

Could it be so easy? …can the virtual bank absorb virtual losses and we all dance merrily away from a “virtual” catastrophe? …can we sin without hell? …can life go on with no virtue, truth, honesty or reconciliation? …do we want to live in such a world? …how could such a world work? …who would “work”?

The answer is clearly this: it won’t work. People randomly (at best) will be left holding the bag of excrement left by those who did cash-in at the right moment. Those “cheated” people will rise up in anger and violence. We’ll see the equivalent of kings and castles, vassals, concubines, peasants and slaves, all sorted out with a great deal of violence…. so unnecessarily.

Live within your means, at all levels, working and serving the good of family and fellow human, and this can be avoided. Continue down the selfish, lazy, stupid path we’ve seen in recent years, betting that somehow “technology” will make personal responsibility obsolete, and we’ll repeat some of the saddest stories in mankind’s history, but on a massive, global scale.

Side Splitting Humor on NPR NEWS!

I use to listen to NPR going and coming from work, back before I retired.  So today, on the way to CVS, since the radio station I normally listen to was covering college football, I thought I’d give NPR a try.  The 5 PM news show started, and let me tell you…. it was a barrel full of LAUGHS!

First, the reporter started with the story of the day, about how Romney was (breathlessly) attempting to recover from a “disastrous week”!  …say what?  He’s the challenger and as of this morning, still even in the polls!  He should be down by 15 points, but HIS situation is “disastrous”?

Hasn’t the President spent the last 10 days telling us the unrest in the Middle East was due to a movie that turns out to only be a amateur movie trailer less than 15 minutes long?  Why did he do this?  …in a desperate attempt to make 9/11 go away!

Not the 9/11 of 11 years ago, but the 9/11 of 11 DAYS ago when our Ambassador to Libya was obviously (as ultimately confirmed) murdered in a well organized attack by terrorists connected to Al Qaeda and probably led by a released GITMO detainee!   …all too embarrassing for a President so close to the election, he can’t simply admit THAT!

Now, we all know there has been a “reset” in our Middle East policy: Muslim outreach, Arab Spring, etc.  We all know we’re out of Iraq, Bin Laden is dead, our surge forces are out of Afghanistan, etc. and the “war on terror” should never have happened, so how is it that the Ambassador is dead over a cheap movie?  …but it turns out to be a planned terrorist attack?

Oh, and by the way, at least a half dozen soldiers have died in Afghanistan these 10 days, we’ve had to suspend training programs for safety (our only reason for still being there) a Squadron Commander is dead, and a half dozen American aircraft in their hangers destroyed (over $8M in damages) in the most secure facility in Afghanistan by a Taliban terrorist attack also triggered in response to 9/11.

And Romney had a hard couple of weeks ????  …if it wasn’t so deranged, the NPR “top story”, neglecting the deaths and the disasters and the collapse of the President’s primary foreign policy initiative would have brought tears of grief and anger, but it is really, really hard to get mad at NPR when they are this childishly out of touch with reality!

So what was the “disastrous” event causing such harm to Romney?  Well last week it was his claim that it was inappropriate for the State Department through the Egyptian embassy to have justified violent attacks by sympathizing about how insulting that dumb movie was!  Ok… wasn’t that proven to be true by the fact that the administration just hours later disavowed that statement?  So Obama and Romney agreed on that point but Romney is the only one suffering for it?

Ok. He shot pretty quick from the hip, yep… but hit the target!

Oh, and then there was the 47% statement!  A video, conveniently held back from May until the President’s foreign policy began to collapse, presented Romney pointing out that some 47% of the voters will never vote for him, some because they are dependent upon government (e.g. the recently announced 47% number) and others because they simply believe in the President and the Democratic party.

And this is news?  Do you see Obama spending millions in campaign funds plastering videos all over Texas?  No… you spend where you have a chance and conserve where you don’t.  So isn’t Obama the President of Texans too?  …well apparently not given the uproar we hear from the media about the 47% remark.

By the way:  economist George Gilder points out that Romney was wrong!  If you add in crony capitalist companies and all the lawyers and bureaucrats involved in writing, fighting, enforcing, advising with regard to, all the government regulations, the proper number dependent to some degree on the government is closer to 70% !!!

So I guess our jolly NPR reporter is correct!  …how can Romney ever expect to be elected?

Yes, she asked that question to a campaign consultant she interviewed!  …it was so obvious to her that Obama was a shoe-in that … well, there simply was no other news this week to report!

Well maybe those theories of “alternate universes” really, really are true!  Maybe we can have a sky rocketing stock market and a collapsing economy at the same time!   …oh wait, that is obviously true since it only requires we devalue the dollar, like in QE2 and QE3.  Bad example.  Well maybe terrorists can be appeased into peaceful coexistence!  …oh wait, didn’t seem to happen over the last 3.5 years of playing nice, and of course it didn’t happen with Germany and Japan back between the wars.

Ok, ok.  I’ll let it go.  Let’s just give BO another chance, even if he seems to be a W on steroids as far as spending goes… Surely we couldn’t have a future life as bad as Romney had this week.  Could we?

Seriously:  denial of reality is one of the best honed talents of liberals. As painful as it will be for the poor and middle class (including me and my children) the surprised look on their face when reality can no longer be ignored just may be worth 4 more years of disastrous decline.   …eh, not really.

Medicare Bills Rise as Automation Makes Billing Easier

Seems automation makes billing easier… and more of it!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/22/business/medicare-billing-rises-at-hospitals-with-electronic-records.html

Precisely what would happen if a 3rd party paid for burgers at a fast food store.

When the consumer is not responsible for the bill, no one is. If we had NO profits involved, i.e. pure single payer, someone somewhere is still being paid a salary, and if the patient is not in some way holding the providers responsible, we have waste up until there is no more money to waste, then we will have service delays, quality will drop, and people will die.

Pay people directly what they earn throughout their life-time…. no tax gimmicks, no hiring the employer to do be a tax collector for the government or a health care adviser for the employee. The employer is lousy at both… it is deceptive to pretend otherwise.

Then have the people purchase the insurance and buy the health care they choose, forcing them to be responsible for their lives …novel idea, eh?

Force doctors and hospitals to compete for their customers, just like the rest of us! It will be surprising to all how quality, service, outcomes and prices will all improve!

Keep pretending that bureaucratic hospitals dealing with bureaucratic insurances companies under the faulty oversight of a bureaucratic government will cure people, and the longest lived people on earth will be bureaucrats.

Think, Live, Vote Independently … How to Fix Political Parties

I was recently invited to join an anti-political party group.
Here’s the comment that got me invited:

“John, anyone puts their party ahead of their country is an idiot. We have two parties so the idiot vote cancels out! Elections are decided by the thinking people who support people based on the candidate’s principles, not party ideology.
Think independently, live independently, vote independently and Independence thrives. Independents decide elections; independents RULE!”

 

The sponsor of this group seems to have formed it to sooth his decision to not support the candidate of his party, but still support the “philosophy” he thinks his party represents.  I went on to explain my opinion:

So you see, I’m somewhat beyond supporting “my party’s philosophy” and actually believe the ideal is 2 parties with only one ideology, and that one limited to the Constitution of the United States. The beliefs, philosophies, strategies, goals (and unfortunately, biases and weaknesses) of individual candidates are why I would choose one over another. “Party” affiliation should be irrelevant.

There is the natural human desire to form “gangs” so as to offer each other support, feeling of community, team membership, etc. One could think the equivalent of this in the sphere of politics is the “political party” and thus be tempted to create lots of parties to capture all the diverse philosophies and interests we each may have. Unfortunately, this does not work for two major reasons:

1) (practical) our state voting laws so bias elections in favor of the two party system as to make minor parties powerless,

2) (game theory) the objective in an election is to establish a majority consensus …achieve majority voter buy-in… around a candidate who will represent us. Simply put, having only 2 parties guarantees the winner has buy-in from the majority of voters.

Thus I feel we are stuck with 2 parties, and out of pragmatism choose to move on to the question of how we get these 2 parties to represent our diverse philosophies:

1st) In my ideal world, each party would be a training ground and support group raising, educating and testing candidates for office, independent of philosophy EXCEPT the common ground defined by the Constitution as to the limits of government, duties of officers/candidates, and the organization of government. This common ground evolves only through the formal amendment process.

2nd) We promote our view by interactions within and across parties as we prepare ourselves as candidates and support each other based on our philosophies, beliefs, etc. We do not endow either party as the sole home for any one of our personal philosophies, ideologies, biases, etc. No litmus tests!

3rd) We maintain balance of power between the two parties by shifting our allegiance between parties to achieve the key advantages of competition: a) checks and balance to assure efficiency and integrity, and b) having a viable leadership team to switch to when the current team fails through exhaustion, corruption, disaster, or whatever else would lead to loss of trust among the voters.

How we achieve this “balance” between the parties?
Precisely by being, thinking, funding and voting independent of party label.

Can’t be done? …look who decides elections! The independent vote is very often the deciding vote. The knee jerk voters cancel each other out, empowering those of us who vote for the individual, not the party label.

Think for a moment how much more effective we and our government could become if we act this way deliberately, consciously, and regularly. We have the power in our grasp to punish the party that most recently lied to us (abused their power.) Rock the boat! Shift the center of gravity back and forth until both parties are shaken out of their ideological straight jackets and return to the ideals of our founding fathers!

It can’t happen quickly, requiring multiple election cycles, but it CAN happen! In fact, I believe our country can only survive as our founding fathers intended IF we break the back of the ideologically biased party system we have today.

What say you? With me in this bottom up independent voter revolution?