On Rules for Radicals..

After reading about half of this book in two days and covering it with highlighters and notes, I feel compelled to compliment the author, Saul Alinsky on his many shrewd observations and thorough understanding on the nature of people. Make no mistake, I do not agree with the mans politics, but his tactics are unarguably Machiavellian.

An idea that I find particularly interesting is this: "Our cause had to be all shining justice, allied with the angels; theirs had to be all evil, tied to the devil; in no war has the enemy or the cause ever been gray."

I am made to think of the way anyone who denies global warming is called a Flat Earther, one of the modern versions of heretic, an intellectual death-sentence in today's politically correct thought.

"If you start with nothing, demand 100 percent, then compromise for 30 percent,you're 30 percent ahead."
Fundamentally, this is a fairly simple idea, and I think most people are somewhat familiar with it, conceptually at least. It is when this idea is taken to a grand scale, and applied repeatedly that this becomes a powerful tool in moving any agenda foreword.

Lets look at the current health care debate as an example. Currently, The argument is between two sides who basically consist of two positions. The first is; the system is fundamentally sound and needs only minor modifications; the second calls for drastic, if not complete overhaul. At the time of this writing, bills that have been produced in congress are very unpopular, and will probably be rejected outright. Those who stand in opposition to these bills, of which I may be counted, should not consider this a victory though, because now, the minds of the American public have a very extreme reference upon which to measure all future plans. In comparison, all future proposals will appear moderate and the word compromise will be proclaimed by people with a much longer field of vision. With this tactic,as in football, the opposing team can win by moving foreward only by inches.

I will continue to write on the this book, as I believe it should be required reading for anyone who has an interest in how and why this administration is moving in the way it is.

One possible piece of the healthcare puzzle

Bear with me as I work through a rough draft of an incomplete concept. With the whole health care debate raging on, I encountered a lady who is in a situation that I think I have an idea of how to help. Please, please correct me if any of the following suppositions or concepts are wrong, as I am woefully uneducated on this particular topic, and could be flailing wildly for something beyond my grasp.

Many Americans find themselves in something of a situation when they work and try to live responsible lives, meanwhile struggling with the dreaded "pre-existing condition", or they make too much money to qualify for medicaid, while their income is insufficient to cover insurance expenses. Here is my question/idea.

What if a new level were added to the medicaid system where people who make too much money to qualify could buy into the system through a voluntary increase of their federal taxes to offset the additional burden they place on the system?

To illustrate, lets say I am a 30 year old male with an existing condition who makes roughly $30,000 to $50,000 (I'm not sure where the numbers would actually work, these are just arbitrary) annually. Now because of my condition, I have been denied coverage by my employers program, into which I WOULD have paid several hundred dollars monthly, and find myself with limited options.

Now lets just imagine that the govt had a program where people in my situation could sign up to have several hundred dollars taken from my salary or paycheck in the form of additional FICA taxes and I would be allowed to receive all the benefits of other Medicare recipients, with maybe some additional co-pays and or deductibles comparable to those I would have dealt with in the private program offered by my employer.

This is not a panacea and I recognize it would not help everyone. I do think, however that this concept could be utilized to allow the government to assist people in need without placing undo financial strain on the system.

Again, this is a rough idea. Something like this may already exist, or it could just be stupid. Pleas let me know what you think.

My intellectual short mans' complex

A few months ago I was driving with a few buddies of mine and college life came up in conversation. The subjects studied, the teachers and the interesting people all spent time at the center of the conversation before I realized that I was merely listening, unable to participate intelligently in the topic. Suddenly, after thinking about it, I realized that most of the people I choose to associate with have some form of higher education while I was a high school drop out! When I say suddenly, I mean it. This fact hit me like a hammer and did not leave my mind for the remainder of the day.

After a few months of wrestling with this reality, I have come no further towards a conclusion to some of the questions I asked myself. Now I pose them to you, dear reader, to help me tackle.

The first question I have is; Do I lose credibility when I speak as a man with only part of a 10Th grade education behind me? This is definitely the hardest question because I cannot feign to answer it with any honesty. How can any man truly know how he is perceived in other people eyes?

The second question I ask is one that I think I can answer on my own, but would love to know if I am missing part or all of the answer. Am I unable to recognise/grasp significant ideas and or concepts due to my limited exposure to them? I never read the books that get assigned in the latter half of high school, much less college, and am often finding new and revolutionary ideas in books that most people read years ago. Is it safe to assume that my thinking is several years behind the thoughts of my educated counterparts, due to their having years to mull these things over? Or do I have an advantage in being a bit older with more life experience behind me as I try to dissect some of the great works on politics, philosophy and literature?

Finally,(and this sort of ties into the first question) can I honestly expect others to take my thoughts and ideas seriously if they know that I have only a few years of schooling behind me when they have dedicated so much time and effort toward their degrees? Does it display too much arrogance on my part to believe I can grasp so many complex ideas and concepts without the aid of teachers, fellow students and considerable amounts of discussion?

I would love to hear your ideas and thoughts on this subject, and appreciate all feedback.

How the elected leaders really feel

Hypocrisy Continued

In my last blog, I spoke of how both major political parties were actively engaging in betraying their own position in ways that threaten the liberty and freedom of average Americans. I then went on to illustrate how the Republican party was inconsistent in it's stances, and would now like to move on to the democrat party.



Let us first look at immigration policy. As the "Party of the working man," the democrats should logically take the position that helps the blue-collar workers in this country. Instead what we see are the power players standing side by side with their Republican brethren, albeit for different reasons.



Think about this for a moment. By making sure our borders remain wide open, we allow enormous quantities of people to flood our job market with cheap, often unskilled labor. This helps to fill all those jobs that "Americans wont do" such as farm worker and house cleaning right? WRONG!! People who cross our borders illegally are poor and some are quite desperate, but not necessarily stupid. These people are taking jobs that keep America running. Jobs like sheet metal installers, mechanics, tile settiers, ironworkers and electrician! Jobs that traditionally occupy a significant portion of our middle class are rapidly becoming minimum wage jobs because the Dems work to keep the steady stream of future potential voters pouring in! Imagine, at nearly 10% unemployment what those thousands of jobs could do if the Democrats weren't selling us out!



The next idea I would like to touch on, is tolerance. While we have been battered over the heads for most of my life time with speech about tolerance and peace, the Democrats have been altering the way these words are defined. By describing an idea that stands in opposition to their own as hate speech , the Dems have found a way to silence people. Any idea that they deem inappropriate is called "intolerant" or "closed minded" while they shut down discussion in college campuses and other places all over the country.

While indeed bigoted and racist statements are difficult to hear, the ability to say those things is part of the foundation of our country. People have the freedom to say what they please (with certain limitations) regardless of how offensive or distasteful. The party that has been basking in that freedom for decades by burning the American flag is now working to shut it down by invoking Orwellian thought police whenever a valid political argument arises that they cannot otherwise counter!!! We already have hate crime legislation, and I predict hate speech legislation will come soon.

Lastly, I would like to bring up entitlements programs. By this term, I mean social security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare and the current health care debate. These programs are unarguably strongholds for the Democratic party from which they draw a tremendous amount of voters, but here is the rub. While I am not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, I cannot see the difference between these programs and the illegal pyramid scheme! While the system can function quite well when the people at the top are few, and the bottom are many, everything starts to crumble when the system approaches even, and it completely falls apart when it becomes top-heavy. Now this isn't complicated mathematics that only a brilliant mind can see, but simple common sense that the Democrats are arguing against when they fight to bring more people into the system at the higher level. Why are they trying to expand these programs if they are destined to fall apart you ask? My response is simple. Power. They are seeking to create an entire class of people who are completely reliant on the government and would therefore only vote for politicians who promised to keep the paychecks coming. By expanding these programs and creating more government dependants, the Democrats are purchasing a higher level political power with our freedom as the payment.

Hypocrisy

I have long been making the case that out two party system is deeply flawed and in need of a third party, which would better represent the middle of the road Americans. One reason for this belief is the distance between the major parties, and their commonly claimed principles. I believe that I can make the case that through either of the big two, we as Americans find our liberty encroached upon.

Let me begin by "eating my own" and pointing out the issues with my former party. While the Republicans run on a platform of fiscal responsibility, small government and strong national defence, I believe they have strayed very far from these principles in ways that burden the average citizen.

When speaking of fiscal responsibility, we are generally talking about balancing our national checkbook. When a family, small business or even a large business sits down to make financial decisions they must consider how much money they have, and try to spend less in order to remain positive, or profitable in the business analogy. Seems fairly straight foreword right? Well, as many Americans know, another way to do get by is to borrow more, or use credit to purchase things that they cannot currently afford. The problem with this is two-fold. First off, that money must be paid back, which then leaves even less money with which to pay bills. Second, interest charges added on to the money borrowed increases the price of every item purchased. Now anyone with a little sense understands that this is a dangerous trap to fall into, and many Americans have found themselves very deep in this hole.

Republicans in the last administration didn't fall into this trap, they drove in with both headlights on and floored the gas pedal! Our national debt skyrocketed under Bush, and we were borrowing just to pay the interest on a sum of money that you and I will pass to our grand kids. In this way, the Repubs have bound us to generations of servitude to our creditors, primarily China. Hardly responsible.

Smaller less intrusive government has long been a mantra of the Republican party, and I submit to you that both parts of this phrase are flat out lies. Lets start with the less intrusive part. The Repubs have been fighting to prevent gay marriage for as long as this has been an issue. Think about that. Two adult individuals want to enter into a contract in which they share most or all of their personal property and responsibilities. How is this less intrusive exactly? Or what about the "war on drugs"? Why can a man drink himself to death under full protection of the law, while the same man cannot pick a plant from the ground and smoke it?

These are two examples of how the Republican party fights to keep government involved in the lives of private citizens, where there is no justifiable cause.

The argument for smaller government has been proven as just rhetoric over the last eight years as the govt has grown more under Bush than it did under any of the prior three presidents, and the office of homeland security shows no signs of slowing it's growth.

And finally, National security. We have under our command, the finest fighting force mankind has ever witnessed. The men and women of our armed forces are more highly trained, better educated and (in my humble opinion) of a higher caliber than that of anything the world has ever known. So what do we do with this massive tool in times of war? We send our nations defenders into dangerous places without proper equipment, in too small of number and with restrictions on their behavior that the enemy makes no pretense of respecting or imitating. We send these people to fight with one arm tied behind their backs and claim to support them! it is a shame and a disgrace to the Republican party that congress can even function without every advantage being first given to Americas finest! For this I am embarrassed.

Additionally, there was a man once, many years ago by the name of sun tzu who wrote a book called "The Art of War". This book and many like it have written about being outflanked and why any body at war should always guard its rear. This is basic warfare, and the Republicans have been ignoring this simple concept by leaving out borders open for the sake of importing cheap labor.

In these two examples, the Republicans have robbed us of the ONE basic premise of the Federal Government, protection of our borders and our interests, by first fighting a war without fully engaging, winning and leaving and secondly by ignoring the borders, allowing millions of unknown persons to cross without any authorisation in order to take jobs that could be done by the millions of Americans who are currently unemployed, or maybe worse.

Fake hate crime by the Left!!!

Yesterday, members of the Democratic party in Denver showed up to work to find all of their windows busted and pictures of the president smashed. Much of the day was spent talking about the right-wing extremists who must have committed such an act, and how they should be tried when caught. The phrase "Hate crime" was ringing in the air like church bells on Sunday Morning.

When the man was apprehended, it was discovered that he had a history of working for the Democratic party in various ways. Maurice "The Hammer" Schwenkler does not appear in the Colorado voter database, but he is recorded as having received $500 from a leftist political committee known as "Colorado Citizens Coalition".

Suddenly, the church bells have stopped ringing, and the locals are no longer quite so interested in how this man is prosecuted. I bet he gets a simple vandalism charge.