Liberals, Really?

Tea Party this, Tea Party that. Seriously? Get a grip! It is a battle of ideas necessarily articulated in a convincing way that successfully counters opposing ideas and concepts by defeating them with a logic that resonates with voters.

The perceived facts on the table are that we have, and are continuing to, spend more dollars than we can reasonably derive from the economy. The vast majority of the arguments presented in by Dowd, et al call for greater taxes and cuts in the defense budget - 20% of the budget - as though that will make it all groovy.

This is the polarized thinking of the late 1960's out and really needs revisiting. Social Security is 21% of the budget. Medicare and Medicaid is another 20% with other Income Security another 7%. Some fresh, imaginative thinking is needed on the other roughly 48% of the bugeted spending that is doing more to harm the middle and lower classes by way of inflation than any scheme dreamed up by the ruling class every time the Treasury and the Federal Reserve create more dollars and more debt.

If the Tea Party is anything, it is an amalgation of the frustrated voices of some Americans who have come to believe that they do not have any voice in a government that seemingly works against them at every turn and is unraveling the conception of America that they hold.

Truth be told, much of the elitist, progressive agenda has brushed them off as 'fly overs' and irrelevant. That was and is a tactical mistake. In the rush to achieve liberal/progressive goals, a significant portion of the population has been excluded and is, albeit belatedly, objecting. As they find themselves increasingly priced out of existence, even as they do all the things that are supposed to work, they look for a solution to the question of "Why?".

When searching for a solution one must first discern causes, effects and the outline the proper sequence of steps that will lead to remediation and restoration. Unsurprisingly, they have discovered that beyond taxation the greatest progenitor of their disaffection from their expected reward to be the cruel price inflation caused by the bailing out of everyone but them. The lower classes have their safety net (albeit with inflation diminished results), the upper class has their exoneration from the suffering the consequence of their actions ( much more reduced in their impact) but the working stiff has once again been stiffed. No jobs, higher prices, home values shrunken to a joke. Predictability they are angry. Who in their position wouldn't be?

Yet here we are fretting about higher taxes which we all know invariably result in higher spending rather than spending constraint to a managing and -God forbid! - reducing the debt that is driving the inflation in prices in everything but the value of their prime asset, their home which is going to hell in a hand basket.

Their argument goes, "You don't deserve any more money until you learn to manage the money you are already receiving!" bears some merit. Any reasonably responsible parent would say the same to their child.

Perhaps it would be of value to stop dismissing and objectifying alternative views and pay some attention to what drives their concerns in a constructive way. After all, not everyone lives in Manhattan - or wishes to.

The Actual Choice - Cutting Now or Crashing Later

General - Deficit spending has gone unaddressed for close to forever but definitely for the past 45+ years as if there was no end in sight. Well here we are at the bitter end and we can either whine about what was done or correct the errors, work back the debt in a disciplined way and leave the balance sheet in far better shape than when we inherited it and leave the stewardship issues for the generations that follow.

This will require a determination and vigilance that is usually reserved for states of war. Everyone's ox will get gored and the gravy trains must be derailed and the track bed shredded if it's going to take.

I believe that the free market system will kick in and unforeseen forces will come into play that will offset some of the perceived "pain" that will be required to get us healthy and fit again.

Military (-40%) We have to give up trying to fix the world on the US taxpayer's dime. NATO was one thing following a WWII crushed Europe. The same goes for SEATO and the rest. If we are going to provide security services then either we get paid market rates for it from countries than can well afford it or they can step up and develop their own security forces. We have been played like an addled uncle.

Medicaid (-40%) There has always been a thorn in my side when working people can't afford medical care but those who need/choose to learn how to work the system can get a much higher level of care on the taxpayer's dime. It encourages the 20th century version of slavery.

The desire to have and provide essential medical care to one's family should be part of one's compensation package and be an earned benefit - not a right. Reliance on Mediaid should be limited to episodic care that is either less than or equal to basic compensation based coverage, not superior to it.

I am aware that there are those who believe that they are incapable of working in a traditional 40 hour/5 day structure and they may be correct to a point. I suggest that this is a learned mindset aided by enablers who profit from keeping their client roster popuilated and politicians that need a class dependent on them. Unlike Massa's on the plantation, any robust entrepeanuer will recognize the opportunity here when a significant number of these people can provide minimally time sensitive production from a home based computer.

Open up Medical Insurance Co-ops so small business' can incorporate this as part of a predictable compensation expense.

Medicare (-40%) Means Test 101, Part A. Then roll this back until it's able to be done away with. Medical savings accounts are the wave of the new future that makes personal, employer and corporate responsibility the key to continued coverage. I am not talking about , "a gun to your head" government mandate but a social mandate of what is right, reasonable and acceptable business practice.

Social Security (+/-) Quick test question here. Is Social Security a funded by withholding from both the employer and the employee retirement account or is it a taxpayer funded entitlement? We were sold on the supposition the former state of affairs and labored a lifetime under the assumption that the money taken from our employers and us was being held in an inviolate trust account. That money was then "invested" in government securities so it is now part of the national debt. It's time to get honest and honor the 14th amendment's 4th clause and stop pretending SS is an expenditure from tax revenues. It's a matter of paying back what was already borrowed and spent from our trust fund.

Other (-50%) Run the government on the cheap - just like business has to.

Income Taxes (+8%) I favor the doing away of the tax structure as it stands. All deductions, subsidies, and the rest do not serves the national interest. A flat consumption tax added at each stage of transfer of materials and developed products all the way to the end consumer should take it's place. This should also be applied to imported goods and services with the tax based on the cost were the items originated and completed here.

This could be managed in such a way that it would do away with huge swaths of bureaucracy there to filter special case treatments engendering further cost effective savings.

Payroll Taxes (+8%)

Corp Taxes (+8%)
--------------------------------------------
Deficit neutral in 2012, minimum - $0.5 T in 2014 and up to -$0.75 T years following.

Debt to GDP from 70% in 2012 declining to ~ 22% in 2021

Revenue exceeds spending from 2013 out.
2013 $0.3 T
2014 $0.5 T
2015 $0.6 T
2016 $0.6 T
2017 $0.6 T
2018 $0.7 T
2019 $0.6 T
2020 $0.8 T
2021 $0.7 T

This comes to $5.4 T debt reduction over 9 years. Extended out and with further cuts in the future as social programs are scaled back to zero can put us in a debt neutral position in 25 to 30 years.

$14,653,833,000,000 and counting up at $2.88 BILLION a day is that huge a debt.

Watermelon Anyone?

This one's a keeper. I think it would be a wonderfully teachable moment to give the Baaaa-ma (I'd say Bama but Alabama deserves better) a permanent time out and take away his jets, helicopters, limos and all those mad cool techie toys the POTUS gets to use and get along on his pension that unfortunately we must pay under the 14th amendment and as an unemployed nut deprived "advocate" a la Bill Clinton so he can think he's finally feeling the pain of the disenfranchisement he claims to champion. The only question that remains is if his wife, the black version of Soupy Sales White Fang, will run for the Senate in some socialist stronghold and keep the nightmare alive.

On a related note, I had an interesting moment this evening. One of those little quick mind photos that perfectly encapsulate a much larger issue.

I was driving down the Harlem River Drive at the exchange where it becomes the FDR Drive and there was this very well developed and very physically strong looking black male off on the side of the road selling watermelons holding what appeared to be a length wise quarter section over his head with a sign that stated, "THE AVERAGE WHITE MAN SPENDS TOO MUCH MONEY."

(I'm not making this up - facts are facts and yes, I wish traffic was slow enough to take a picture.)

Seriously? WTF are you saying? WTF are you really about?

Somewhere in this tableau was a perfect depiction of the the incoherent thought process of entitlement based on assumptions of a racist mind. The scenario was finely tuned to guarantee a complete satisfaction of a thesis.

The successful or even slightly successful selling of his inventory to what would be largely white or at a minimum upmarket drivers would signify their agreement that yes, white men do indeed spend too much money because they have an unfair and unearned share of wealth and that the white male owes money to this watermelon seller and in fact all people he designates as deserving of redistribution to.

Failure to turn a reasonable profit on his enterprise supplies clear proof that white men are greedy and undeserving holders of undeserved wealth who have it in for the black man.

This is exactly the tactic that has worked so well for the likes of Jesse "call me Reverend" Jackson, Al "The Reverend" Sharpton and the rest of the race card guilt dealing radicals.

Thankfully we are helping kill the effectiveness of this tactic by showing it for what it is - and by buying our melons at our local grocer supporting our own towns and business people who we freely choose to support.

Who Is The Real Despot?

At some point one has to get honest and look at the facts of history, of modern events, of the polemics presented not merely for the consumption of the 'outside' world stage and for the mass consumption and promulgation of the lazy and complicit western media for their indoctrinated idiots worldwide - but also those much sharper tirades aimed at the adherents they hold as slaves to their control as well.

Israel, a tiny democratic republic fragment on the coast of a huge despotic quasi empire that has taken the riches of their resources for a privileged few while leaving their people in abject poverty and ignorance under the veil of a grand caliphate that somehow honors their version of a god that they can use to retain their utter control of their masses with.

We don't insist on their destruction of Arabs, Palestinians, Persians, Pakistanis, Islamists of any stripe or the rest of the masses arrayed against the rest of the world. If anything, we hope for their elevation into educated and aware individuals who can see past the constructs of those that oppress and enslave them by blaming their poverty on others as they themselves live well beyond any western concept of wealth and riches and certainly beyond any concept of sharing the wealth so popular with the left.

In the meanwhile, peaceful coexistence is not in their vocabulary. Rather, they insist on the destruction of the Jews and (for now at least) the subjugation of the non-believing masses under their utopian dream of a world wide Caliphate. Intellectually compromised and blinded, indoctrinated idiots in the west will miss this a lifetime while they spout platitudes and quote studies of predetermined results performed by likewise intellectually and emotionally biased charlatans that clock themselves as "academicians".

Hopefully there are enough "undereducated" or just plain intelligent and honest informed observers and students of history to stand against the tide of bovine leavings that pass for their intellectual product as they incestuously quote each other, offering their product as food rather than the end product of it's consumption that it is.

At some point an individual needs to either stand on and for - their honor, their principles and what is morally right. Of course those with none of the above will have no such constraint and travel with the herd into the slaughter shed - mooing loudly and self contentedly all the way.

Sunday May 1, 2011

“First, I am really thankful that our troops executed the mission without any injury. I am personally very, very happy that we have finally taken out this sick animal and sent him to his just recompense. We have cause for joy and should savor this moment.

Tonight, I headed over to the WTC site for a bit. It was still a small (for NYC) but full throated celebration with me joining in on the Pledge of Allegiance and The Star Spangled Banner. But my quiet sense of satisfaction and homage at the day’s news didn’t match up well with the exuberance of the crowd.

We have won a victory that is more the winning of a battle of undetermined value than winning the war. It is my sense of things that we must be careful against allowing our joy to transform into smugness. That was the mistake we made following the WTC attack on February 26, 1993 which helped pave the way for 9/11.

The war continues and will continue until the motivation to subjugate others by force to a global Caliphate fades away to the point of becoming a gnat on an elephant’s rump .

Come the morning we will still have work to do and battles to fight and win.”

Pakistani Treachery and Bin Laden's Demise

Pakistan's Prime Minister Gilani is almost utterly correct when he attempts to deflect the glaring fact of his country's complicity when he characterized the intelligence failure as being that of the whole world. No one knew until recently that top Pakistani active and retired military were keeping Bin Laden safe under their wing. As for his own 'plausible deniability' position that may sell in Islamabad or to the ears that wish to hear that kind of tripe. But that dog won't hunt. As for Pakistan's transparent duplicity, on this and how much more we aren't hearing about ... yet, they now stand naked before the world.

It is precisely for that reason that the United States had to take unilateral action. Informing the Pakistani authorities would have resulted in Bin Laden's hasty departure.

As for whether or not he was in fact armed at the moment he was shot it is a moot issue. Once he was told to freeze if he made any motion suggesting non-compliance it was a reasonable assumption that someone who has used suicide bombers, and airplanes would not hesitate to seek to kill the force that sought his capture. Unlike his mislead zealot adherents, Americans do not seek to die for the cause, but are culturally imbued and militarily trained to arrange for the enemies to die for theirs.

Obama's sound decisions - the burial at sea and to withhold the photographs - have presented me the unique experience of finding myself supporting his actions. The many victims worldwide of Bin Laden's bombs and airplanes were denied any kind of proper burial. Explosions, plane crashes and building collapses tend to destroy the possibility any such consideration. He was in fact given much more. He received a proper Muslim funeral with all it's considerations and ceremonies.

His burial at sea was just. As with the withholding of the photographs, it denies his supporters and disciples the shrine they undoubtedly crave just as the families of those he murdered were denied that rest to their souls.

Karma is indeed ... a bitch.

If the reaction of many liberals to yesterday's tragic events in Tuscon wasn't so transparently, knee-jerk stupid it might be amusing. Instead it is a sickening display of emotional immaturity and intellectual dishonesty.

Rather than joining with all people of good will no matter what their political views in repulsion and contempt for the actions of what was apparently a deeply disturbed and sick young man, the rush to place blame politically is it's own mini tsunami of mental and emotional imbalance.

When a child interprets events through the prism of their emotions alone while discounting the emotional reactions of others is understandable and in the words of such progressives it's, "a teachable moment." When adults respond as that child, then a pathology is in play and rather than it being cause for that "teachable moment" it is better addressed by mental health professionals in hopes that therapy might offset their disorder.

A review of the NYT article, "In Attack’s Wake, Political Repercussions" and the comments following the targets for blame have been all their opponents. The Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Republicans, Glenn Beck, Fox News, gun control laws, the State of Arizona, and all sorts of boogeymen that the left hates.

Somehow it is irrelevant, or at least inconvenient and thereby in need of spin, that the shooter was found to have copies of both the "Communist Manifesto" and "Mein Kamph" both socialist and both not only the antithesis of the Tea Party agenda but much closer to their own philosophies of state control.

Ignoring the truth that socialists have no such problem with guns, [Mao, one of their own, noted it was his view that, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."] they equate gun control with peace and safety. It is a false comfort?

New York City has some of the most stringent gun control laws in the country. What has been the result? Criminals and crazies have no problem getting guns since they could care less about the law.

Is anyone really safer for it? While in recent years gun involved deaths have gone down (2007 496 murders, 397 by gun - 2008 523 murders, 292 by gun) murder by knives, bludgeoning and other means has actually increased. So then is it really safer to be slashed or stabbed to death than shot? Apparently not. It's just quieter up in the ivory towers of denial.