The New Slavery

Definition of Slavery (Merriam/Webster):

                1: Drudgery, Toil

                2: submission to a dominating influence

                3:            a: the state of a person who is a chattel (property) of another

                               b: the practice of slaveholding

I start with that definition to point out that slavery has nothing to do with race.  It is not exclusive to any one race or people.  It has existed since the beginning of time (i.e. the Biblical Hebrews) and is still practiced in parts of the world today.  So, if you are locked into a mindset that I, as a white male, do not have the right to talk about the concept of slavery, well, get over it.

If I gave my personal definition of slavery it would draw the picture of someone who is forced to work to provide for another, against their will.  Yes, because of where I’m from, the picture would be of some folks sitting on a porch watching others work in a field just to take from them the fruits of their labor.

I said in a much earlier post that I could already see that this election was going to come down to the “makers” versus the “takers”, and I was exactly right.  Never in my lifetime has there been such a demand by the takers in our society yelling at the makers for not providing more.  And never in my lifetime has the ranks of the takers been so large.

One party vilifies the makers, very loudly, stirring up class hatred to forcibly take more from the people who have earned it.  Funny thing is, the money never actually makes it to the takers, it just gets absorbed into the system, but the takers seem happy just because the makers don’t have it either.

The other party has to tread lightly in pointing out that government handouts and freebies are at an all time high and that the masses have reached the point of “voting themselves the treasury”, to the tune of over a Trillion dollars per year.  They have to be careful because the all powerful media will paint them as cruel and uncaring for making that point.  I’ve said in a previous post that it’s not charity if you’re forced to do it.  And, the difference in charity and a government handout is we get to exercise a little discernment in our charity where none is required when the government does it.

So, I’ve come to see that there is a new type of slavery in our country.  I see it all across the area that I work in that there are people sitting on their front porches forcing me to work harder to provide them with the fruits of my labor.

To me, that’s slavery.

Blue State Model Is Not Working

No time to pen my own, so I'll plagarize.

Unemployment Rate Dropped In Every State That Elected A Republican Gov. In 2010

Idiots and "Free" Health Care

The people that think this bill is great needs to read this:

1: The Indigent - People currently on Medicaid (for free) will lose services.  Part of Obamacare is to offer states more Medicaid money.  Problem is, by taking the money, States are then required to provide more services than that money covers... a net loss to the State.  Lets say a State could get $100M, but has to provide $150M in services.  It would be stupid for States to take that money.  So, each year the funding from the Feds will remain static, at this years level, buying less services each year.  The indigent will suffer.

2: The Un-Insured - The vast majority of the "un-insured" are that way by choice.  Don't fuss, it's a proven statistic.  They are young, single and in good health so they choose not to have insurance.  They no longer have that option.  They will either pay for insurance or pay the penalty to the IRS.  Thing is, the penalty is less than the insurance, so the majority of them will remain un-insured by choice.

3: Employees - If you have insurance through your employer, the Feds are going to judge your plan and if it doesn't meet their standard, they will fine your employer.  Thing is, to have a plan that meets the Fed standard will be more expensive to most employers than the fine, so guess what?  You lose your insurance.

4: Insurance Companies - Strangely enough, these people currently support this plan.  They look just a short distance into the future and see a rush of people to buy their services.  Long term, though, when the government Exchanges are set up, they will lose.  The Exchanges will offer Medicaid to the masses (under a different name) and because they are subsidized by taxes, will be cheaper than the insurance companies can offer.  When enough folks move to the Exchanges the insurance companies will close leaving the Exchange as your only option.  Folks that complain about what WalMart does to local businesses, same idea.  Drive the little guy out of business then when he's gone you can charge anything you want.

5: Tax Payers - To get this monstrosity approved, all kinds of shortcuts and assumptions were handed to the Congressional Budget Office and they calculated it to cost under a Trillion dollars.  Thing is, the CBO is only allowed to calculate what you hand them.  If they are presented with a scenario that flying monkeys are going to fly out of Pelosi's butt and drop million dollar bills into the treasury, that's what they have to calculate.  So, the rosie scenarios presented to them never actually materialize so they ALWAYS underestimate a bills cost.  Most recent estimate is now at $2T and climbing.  Double.  And that's still the estimate.  Just wait for the actual costs to start coming in.  You think Obama spending $5T in 3 years was bad?  Just wait.

This entire charade doesn't materialize until after the election in November.  So, they are counting on folks not understanding the future.  The unwashed masses that look around and say "Well, I don't see it negatively effecting me... today" are just the morons they are counting on to vote Obama back in.

God forbid we find out what he'll do in his second term when he has no hesitation or limitation on what his liberal socialist mind can come up with.

Try Paying 9.5% of Your Taxes

"Justice officials have given Issa’s committee 7,600 pages of Fast and Furious documents in response to his subpoena last year for information on the operation. But Issa said those documents represent a sliver of the 80,000-plus documents that officials have turned over to the inspector general, which is also investigating the gun operation."

Thus, the contempt charge.

A President can only invoke Executive Privilege to protect himself or White House Advisors.  By invoking it to withhold these documents is tantamount to an admission of guilt.

i.e., He knew before he said he did, and he knew more than he said he did, and these documents would prove it.

Remember, nobody died in Watergate.  This is much, much worse.

No resolution in ‘Fast and Furious’ scandal; Eric Holder contempt vote still scheduled for Wednesday

God Bless the British Press

More and more frequently it takes foreign press to produce objective articles about what is going on in our country.  This article is one of those.

"Fast and Furious", as a phrase, has been tossed around so much by our (in the tank for Obama) main stream press, that the general public is becoming immune to it, without even knowing what it really was.

This writer does a good job boiling it down to a paragraph and also providing some very good insight into how this debacle is similar to, and at the same time, very different from Watergate.

Good reading.

The Fast and Furious scandal is turning into President Obama's Watergate

Obama's Parliament Plan

Ever paid attention to a government that uses the parliamentary system?  Like Britain or Israel?

They don't have just two parties, they have a plethora of parties that band together to "form" a majority party.  That's why when something major happens, those loosely bound groups splinter causing new elections to occur because no majority exists.

The thing about this form of government is that you have to keep each small group happy to keep them under the umbrella of a larger group to stay in power.

Now, through that prism, look at the strategy that Obama is using to try and get re-elected.

One of his close aides said last year that they have given up on the middle class.  I define the middle class as those with enough gumption to work and have enough intelligence to make a decent amount of money doing it.  That "intelligence" part is where Obama has lost them.  It's not hard to look at his out of control spending and his entitlement agenda and see that it is unsustainable.

I'm reminded of a Buckley quote - Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.

So, if you write off the working middle class who does that leave you with?

The fringe.

Look at who Obama has made appeasements to recently: environmental nut jobs ( Keystone), homosexuals (marriage), Hispanics (amnesty)... each of these moves has angered "the middle", but he's lost them already.  So, he's making a coalition of the fringe.

Since Sally Mae and Freddie Mac are owned by the government anyway, I fully expect him to make a move to ease or forgive student debts and underwater mortgages, thus buying the votes of those groups as well.

He can, in no way, win the election with the votes of the working middle class, but if he offers enough branches to enough fringe groups, they CAN, by coalition, out vote us.  God forbid if that happens.

The Curse of Anonymity

Read a very interesting blog post recently.

Imagine if you would an Archie Bunker type fellow, a dad, talking to his son about what he'd just read on the Internet. (I'd post a link to it but it was rather profane.)

Seems the son is a writer and the dad read an anonymous comment questioning his sons talent.  The comment used some rather colorful metaphors.

It bothered the dad, but not the son.  Son says "no big deal, Dad, it's just the Internet".

Well, dad goes off on a tare about how he's glad that he'll be dead and gone before one of those little jack wagons that would post comments without fear of repercussions becomes President someday.  He rants at length about how words shouldn't come without consequences, i.e., in "his day" you couldn't say just anything you wanted because it was likely to get you a boot up your... well, butt.

Been thinking about that little.

He's right.  The world today is absolutely chocked full of folks who speak (and type) without thinking or speak to harm and then suffer no real consequences for it, because it's anonymous.  Thus, there is no reason to hesitate before doing so again. And, again.

My wife used to read the online forums in the local paper.  She even got me to read them for a VERY short period of time.  It became painfully obvious that the same folks either agreed with or flamed out every single post.  It was just a circular exercise in futility.  Not one of those folks would every say those things face to face for fear of the fore mentioned boot.

I'm all for free speech.  But the anonymity that the Internet provides is a curse.