By Tom Rhodes, 4/24/2015
When you were in school, if you got an A for a class did that mean somebody else was only allowed to get an F? Is the fact you were given a D in Algebra predicated on the fact that others were given higher grades and there were only so many A’s, B’s and C’s available for the teacher to give, so you were stuck with what was left?
Imagine you’re in a class of 20 students, and the teacher is given a pile of 20 grades to give out, she has 1 A’s, 3 B’s, 12 C’s, 3 D’s, and 1 F. Because that is the total of the grades she has, the entire pie so to speak, she can only give out those grades. How do you think that would affect the work habits of those students who knew they weren’t as smart as some of the others. Let’s say the worked hard and studied and mastered the material and did all the work so had an average of 85% on all the assignments and tests. But there were 6 really smart kids in the class who didn’t have to work at all and they all averaged over 95%. Yes you could kick those kids ass on the football field, but in Algebra not so much. Is it fair you couldn’t get a B and only one of those smart kids could get an A because there were only so many good grades to go around?
If that were the case, then obviously doing your best is not worth the effort you can do minimal and probably get the same C, no amount of effort you put in would get you a B, much less an A. The few class clowns who don’t care and don’t do anything will get the D’s and F, so why should you do your best? If you believe that’s how grades work, only a few with unfair advantage of very high IQ get the good grades, and the rest are stuck with what’s left. The teacher has no control over how many of what grade they can give because the pie is cut and there are only so many pieces to give out, and only one of them is an A.
Would you consider that a “fair” system. Of course not. Is that the way grades are awarded? Of course not. Grades are not given on a strict bell curve. Grades are not given at all. Standards are set and those who reach those standards through hard work or natural ability earn the appropriate grade. That is fair. In the above example that student who worked hard and averaged 85% would get a B, regardless of what any other student did. Those 6 smart kids who got 95% would all get an A, their earning an A doesn’t affect any of the grades of the other students. In fact it is not uncommon for in a class of Algebra students that nobody gets a D or F. Nobody has to be given a bad grade because there are not enough high grades to go around. Grades are earned, not given.
The same applies to money. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is a gazillionaire, he didn’t get that way by taking away from what any other person could earn, he created that wealth by earning it. Nobody is poor because Zuckerman took too much of the income pie. He simply baked his own pie. If wealth is a fixed size pie, and Zuckerberg in less than a decade became worth $34 billion dollars, that would mean he took $34,000,000,000 from other people, Sorry but he didn’t, in fact most people use his product, Facebook, for free. Nobody’s pay got cut or lost their job so that Zuckerberg could get more money. Just like grades, him getting an A+ in social media didn’t come at the expense of somebody else losing anything.
The whole “income inequality” mantra, is based on a lie. Income is just like grades, you get what you earn. You can earn more if you put in more work and have more natural ability than others. As long as people are different, have different goals, different abilities, different skills, there will be different incomes. Not all work is valued the same. The fact is the 80 IQ guy doesn’t have the ability or skills the 140 IQ guy has, and probably doesn’t earn as much. But the High IQ engineer doesn’t take anything from the low IQ landscaper, he’s paid more because he has more responsibility and fewer people can do engineering. If the low IQ landscaper makes a mistake, grass dies or a yard looks ugly, if the high IQ engineer makes a mistake in designing a bridge, people die.
Just because a skill or ability is difficult and rare doesn’t make it valuable. Not many people can swallow a sword while riding a unicycle juggling bowling pins, wearing a pink too-too with a Chihuahua dancing on their forehead. It’s a cool skill, I’ve seen a street entertainer do that, I doubt there are very many others who can do that. As an entertainer I’m sure Samuel Jackson earns more just standing, looking cool, and growling. Why such income inequality. Because you are willing to voluntarily give up more of their money for one than the other. Nobody is forcing you to pay more for a movie ticket to Jackson wear an eye patch on the big screen, then you are willing to throw into the street entertainers hat. One is more valuable to you than the other. That voluntary, not forced, difference is the cause of income inequality, not the people earning more taking an unfair part of the pie. Income inequality is no more unfair than some kids getting A’s and some getting C’s in algebra class. Income inequality is nothing more than a reflection of the differences that exist in individual’s ability, skill, drive, goals, and life choices.
Showing posts with label Equality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Equality. Show all posts
Friday, April 24, 2015
Monday, February 23, 2015
LPF Equality Plank
By Tom Rhodes, Chairman LPF Platform Committee, 2/23/2015
Should America have special laws and programs for different groups based on race, gender or faith or should America have the same laws and rights for all Americans? Simple question and philosophically the answer is clear; America have the same laws and rights for all Americans. The sad fact is even in the leadership of the LP Americans want special rights and privileges for some men.
Our tax code is a prime example of different laws and rights for different men based on some group or other identification. Imagine tax code if it applied equally to everybody? Even maintaining the idiocy of the inequality of a progressive tax system. Imagine that everybody who made $30K paid the same taxes on that $30K. The biggest inequality is not based on how much that person earns, but on how much somebody else earns. If you make $30K and are single you’d end up paying around $5K in taxes, if you were married to somebody making $300K you’d end up paying at least $15K in taxes. Why does who you choose to be in a private relationship or not determine how you are taxed?
Should our tax law consider your sex and the voluntarily chosen profession of your spouse as a means of determining the tax you should pay? Obviously the answer should be no; if we believe in equality under the law. Now let’s get all emotional and really foul up your thinking. Should the widow of a man who died in battle overseas get a tax break? If you think so, why? Why does the widow of man who died at a construction site not deserve the same? Should the same tax break be granted to a widower? Why if it is a financial burden of a spouse dying from one means more deserving of a tax break than another means? Why should the sex of the surviving spouse grant special tax breaks? If taxes are such a heavy burden on military widows that they deserve special tax breaks, why is that same burden on others acceptable? Why shouldn’t the man whose wife dies in a car wreck not get the same tax break a military widow gets?
The answer is simple, equality under the law is a nice idea, but emotionally the reality of treating everybody equally is hard to accept. We want special people to get special privilege because it feels good, we don’t care about fair and equal. When asked “Should our tax law consider your sex and the voluntarily chosen profession of your spouse as a means of determining the tax you should pay?” rationally the answer is clear, your sex and the vocation of your spouse should not determine your taxes; but consider a woman whose husband died defending our country from terrorists, and you throw rational thinking right out the window. Emotionally you are willing to get rid of equality under the law, and grant special privileges to some people based on sex and the chosen profession of their spouse; if the sex is female, and the chosen profession is soldier. For many when it comes down to it, you don’t believe in equality.
The problem is that when we grant some special privilege for somebody special, you destroy the rule of law, and equality under the law. The unintended consequences of such thinking leads to tyranny. Always has always will. That kind of thinking eventually leads to, “that rich guy hires lots of people, we should not arrest him for that crime because those people will be out of work,” AKA “too big to fail.” Accepting and even promoting unequal treatment based on something “special” is generally exercising emotion over logic. It is however very effective, hence special interests, not equality under the law are the rule in Washington and Tallahassee.
The LPF Platform has a plank that effectively states the LPF’s position on all such laws, be they special privileges for military widows, or excessive taxes for being single, or marriage laws. It is principled, logical, and effective, and fair. This plank covers a huge variety of political and legal issues today.
LPF Platform Section I, paragraph 4: We support Equality under the Law, and condemn any law that either rewards or punishes any individual based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or any other group identification. Each person has the same inalienable rights. It is the States duty to protect those rights for each individual equally.
That plank is simply a modern recognition of what our forefathers stated in the Declaration of Independence, that “… all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted …”
The LPF Position is that government exists to protect the natural rights of all men equally, and any law that grants unequal protection or privilege or punishment to anyone is wrong. The LPF position is also clear, we need government and instituted a government purposed to protecting the natural rights of all men equally. That purpose of course inevitably lead to the War Between the States but the idea was realized and continues to be realized. Equality under the law for all men without exception. It is as we abandon that idea of equal protection under the law and the rule of law that we watch the USA creep back to tyranny that was and is normal for most of history and all of mankind.
Footnote:This article is written in English, therefore when referring to people of undetermined sex the generic pronouns man, men, he, him, etc. are used because it is grammatically correct to do so when the sex is unspecified. If your offended, tough, get a life. Using grammatically correct English is not sexist, no matter how you “feel” about it.
If interviewed on TV about a fire a cop might say, “We don’t know who started the fire, but he will be held responsible.” It is understood, by both the police officer and any listeners, that “he” could refer to either a woman or a man.
Should America have special laws and programs for different groups based on race, gender or faith or should America have the same laws and rights for all Americans? Simple question and philosophically the answer is clear; America have the same laws and rights for all Americans. The sad fact is even in the leadership of the LP Americans want special rights and privileges for some men.
Our tax code is a prime example of different laws and rights for different men based on some group or other identification. Imagine tax code if it applied equally to everybody? Even maintaining the idiocy of the inequality of a progressive tax system. Imagine that everybody who made $30K paid the same taxes on that $30K. The biggest inequality is not based on how much that person earns, but on how much somebody else earns. If you make $30K and are single you’d end up paying around $5K in taxes, if you were married to somebody making $300K you’d end up paying at least $15K in taxes. Why does who you choose to be in a private relationship or not determine how you are taxed?
Should our tax law consider your sex and the voluntarily chosen profession of your spouse as a means of determining the tax you should pay? Obviously the answer should be no; if we believe in equality under the law. Now let’s get all emotional and really foul up your thinking. Should the widow of a man who died in battle overseas get a tax break? If you think so, why? Why does the widow of man who died at a construction site not deserve the same? Should the same tax break be granted to a widower? Why if it is a financial burden of a spouse dying from one means more deserving of a tax break than another means? Why should the sex of the surviving spouse grant special tax breaks? If taxes are such a heavy burden on military widows that they deserve special tax breaks, why is that same burden on others acceptable? Why shouldn’t the man whose wife dies in a car wreck not get the same tax break a military widow gets?
The answer is simple, equality under the law is a nice idea, but emotionally the reality of treating everybody equally is hard to accept. We want special people to get special privilege because it feels good, we don’t care about fair and equal. When asked “Should our tax law consider your sex and the voluntarily chosen profession of your spouse as a means of determining the tax you should pay?” rationally the answer is clear, your sex and the vocation of your spouse should not determine your taxes; but consider a woman whose husband died defending our country from terrorists, and you throw rational thinking right out the window. Emotionally you are willing to get rid of equality under the law, and grant special privileges to some people based on sex and the chosen profession of their spouse; if the sex is female, and the chosen profession is soldier. For many when it comes down to it, you don’t believe in equality.
The problem is that when we grant some special privilege for somebody special, you destroy the rule of law, and equality under the law. The unintended consequences of such thinking leads to tyranny. Always has always will. That kind of thinking eventually leads to, “that rich guy hires lots of people, we should not arrest him for that crime because those people will be out of work,” AKA “too big to fail.” Accepting and even promoting unequal treatment based on something “special” is generally exercising emotion over logic. It is however very effective, hence special interests, not equality under the law are the rule in Washington and Tallahassee.
The LPF Platform has a plank that effectively states the LPF’s position on all such laws, be they special privileges for military widows, or excessive taxes for being single, or marriage laws. It is principled, logical, and effective, and fair. This plank covers a huge variety of political and legal issues today.
LPF Platform Section I, paragraph 4: We support Equality under the Law, and condemn any law that either rewards or punishes any individual based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or any other group identification. Each person has the same inalienable rights. It is the States duty to protect those rights for each individual equally.
That plank is simply a modern recognition of what our forefathers stated in the Declaration of Independence, that “… all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted …”
The LPF Position is that government exists to protect the natural rights of all men equally, and any law that grants unequal protection or privilege or punishment to anyone is wrong. The LPF position is also clear, we need government and instituted a government purposed to protecting the natural rights of all men equally. That purpose of course inevitably lead to the War Between the States but the idea was realized and continues to be realized. Equality under the law for all men without exception. It is as we abandon that idea of equal protection under the law and the rule of law that we watch the USA creep back to tyranny that was and is normal for most of history and all of mankind.
Footnote:This article is written in English, therefore when referring to people of undetermined sex the generic pronouns man, men, he, him, etc. are used because it is grammatically correct to do so when the sex is unspecified. If your offended, tough, get a life. Using grammatically correct English is not sexist, no matter how you “feel” about it.
If interviewed on TV about a fire a cop might say, “We don’t know who started the fire, but he will be held responsible.” It is understood, by both the police officer and any listeners, that “he” could refer to either a woman or a man.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
The Road to Barbarism
by Tom Rhodes, 1/29/2015
The road to barbarism is paved with good intentions. Let’s start with the definition so we’re on the same page. Barbarism being a barbarous or uncivilized state or condition. Sort of a circular definition so to be clear when saying something is barbarous, the meaning is clear. Barbarous means uncivilized; wild; savage; crude; savagely cruel or harsh: Modern western civilization is clearly reverting to barbarism, by opening its arms and letting inviting it to take over.
The following by most reasonable standards of western civilization are clearly barbaric acts; crucifixion, kidnapping girls and giving them away as wives or selling them into slavery, stoning for adultery, beheading people for religious beliefs, purging entire cities of people over religious beliefs, throwing acid on a woman’s face, slavery. These are all barbaric acts that happen in the news today.
Our acceptance of such barbarism is an indicator that we are becoming a barbaric not civilized culture. Our culture is rotting from within. The idea that is no moral difference between the Islamist barbarians waving hatchets at children in African orphanages run by Christian missionaries and American soldiers shooting armed terrorists in Iraq, you clearly are not civilized and embrace barbaric acts as equivalent to non-barbaric acts.
The idea that our government calls barbarians planning and acting out murderous deeds “workplace violence,” the logical conclusion is that the culture war is over and the barbarians have won. We no longer have civilized people writing our laws, prosecuting our criminals, and running our courts.
The source of this rot is easy to identify, multiculturalism. Rather than expecting immigrants to assimilate and change their culture to match where they move, we expect culture to adopt the ways of immigrants, or at least tolerate the invasion of cultures. When those immigrants are barbarians, civilized culture rots to barbarism.
From our entertainment to the actions of our president. As a society we are becoming barbaric. As entertainment we accept gory violence, rape, adultery, and a host of immoral and illegal acts as acceptable and “normal.” Society has unequivocally coarsened to savage standards. Liberty and freedom are dangerous, but for an uncivilized society much more dangerous. Our culture is rotting at its core. 30 years ago our president said “Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal,” that and his actions resulted in impeachment and being forced from office, and all he was guilty of was listening in on other politicians. Today the press, and political class praise the president for acting like a Warlord the way barbarian societies have done for eons. Our president openly defies the Constitution, and makes up laws at will, and clearly contradicts the laws as he sees fit, and the press and political elite justify it because the will of the people as expressed through their representatives won’t do as the warlord wants. That is an indicator of a society that is barbaric not civilized. The rule of law is gone.
Multiculturalism is the root of our cultural rot. Rather than having a culture that expects those who want to live within the benefits of that culture adopt the cultural norms, we’re destroying the culture by expecting society to accept barbaric and outlandish behavior. In essence multiculturalism asks majorities to abandon their culture.
Not all cultures are equal. Cultures that not only condone but call for barbaric acts as normative, are not equal to civilized cultures. Cultures that don’t believe in the rule of law, and believe laws should vary based on belief, birth, race, sex, etc. are not equal to civilized cultures that believe in both the rule of law and equality under the law. Such cultures are inferior and should be openly treated as such. Multiculturalism fatally handicaps a society. The idea that our culture is not superior to clearly barbaric cultures undermines our entire society, and is evidence of a society that is rotting from within.
Accepting people to live and be part of our society who reject the basic tenets on which our culture was established, is the seed that will destroy our society. If you reject the idea that all laws should apply to everybody equally, and that no person or group should have special rights, privileges, or punishments that differ from any other individual, you should not be allowed to enter our society.
Multiculturalism, the idea that you can have a society where people don’t have a shared set of values, and establishes governance on the idea that everybody’s values are equally valid, is not sustainable. Forcing multiculturalism on a society will not preserve the best of that society, it is observably destroying the fabric of the societies that embrace it.
The idea of multiculturalism, like many other utopian ideas, sounds like a nice concept. The intentions of those who promote multiculturalism are good. Those ideas ignore reality, not all cultures are equal, not all cultures are compatible, not all people have the same values. No amount of trying to force multiculturalism on a society will work anymore than trying to force people not to do drugs, or drink, or gamble is going to work. It assumes that all people are the same. They are not. Just as the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the road to barbarism is paved with multiculturalism.
The road to barbarism is paved with good intentions. Let’s start with the definition so we’re on the same page. Barbarism being a barbarous or uncivilized state or condition. Sort of a circular definition so to be clear when saying something is barbarous, the meaning is clear. Barbarous means uncivilized; wild; savage; crude; savagely cruel or harsh: Modern western civilization is clearly reverting to barbarism, by opening its arms and letting inviting it to take over.
The following by most reasonable standards of western civilization are clearly barbaric acts; crucifixion, kidnapping girls and giving them away as wives or selling them into slavery, stoning for adultery, beheading people for religious beliefs, purging entire cities of people over religious beliefs, throwing acid on a woman’s face, slavery. These are all barbaric acts that happen in the news today.
Our acceptance of such barbarism is an indicator that we are becoming a barbaric not civilized culture. Our culture is rotting from within. The idea that is no moral difference between the Islamist barbarians waving hatchets at children in African orphanages run by Christian missionaries and American soldiers shooting armed terrorists in Iraq, you clearly are not civilized and embrace barbaric acts as equivalent to non-barbaric acts.
The idea that our government calls barbarians planning and acting out murderous deeds “workplace violence,” the logical conclusion is that the culture war is over and the barbarians have won. We no longer have civilized people writing our laws, prosecuting our criminals, and running our courts.
The source of this rot is easy to identify, multiculturalism. Rather than expecting immigrants to assimilate and change their culture to match where they move, we expect culture to adopt the ways of immigrants, or at least tolerate the invasion of cultures. When those immigrants are barbarians, civilized culture rots to barbarism.
From our entertainment to the actions of our president. As a society we are becoming barbaric. As entertainment we accept gory violence, rape, adultery, and a host of immoral and illegal acts as acceptable and “normal.” Society has unequivocally coarsened to savage standards. Liberty and freedom are dangerous, but for an uncivilized society much more dangerous. Our culture is rotting at its core. 30 years ago our president said “Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal,” that and his actions resulted in impeachment and being forced from office, and all he was guilty of was listening in on other politicians. Today the press, and political class praise the president for acting like a Warlord the way barbarian societies have done for eons. Our president openly defies the Constitution, and makes up laws at will, and clearly contradicts the laws as he sees fit, and the press and political elite justify it because the will of the people as expressed through their representatives won’t do as the warlord wants. That is an indicator of a society that is barbaric not civilized. The rule of law is gone.
Multiculturalism is the root of our cultural rot. Rather than having a culture that expects those who want to live within the benefits of that culture adopt the cultural norms, we’re destroying the culture by expecting society to accept barbaric and outlandish behavior. In essence multiculturalism asks majorities to abandon their culture.
Not all cultures are equal. Cultures that not only condone but call for barbaric acts as normative, are not equal to civilized cultures. Cultures that don’t believe in the rule of law, and believe laws should vary based on belief, birth, race, sex, etc. are not equal to civilized cultures that believe in both the rule of law and equality under the law. Such cultures are inferior and should be openly treated as such. Multiculturalism fatally handicaps a society. The idea that our culture is not superior to clearly barbaric cultures undermines our entire society, and is evidence of a society that is rotting from within.
Accepting people to live and be part of our society who reject the basic tenets on which our culture was established, is the seed that will destroy our society. If you reject the idea that all laws should apply to everybody equally, and that no person or group should have special rights, privileges, or punishments that differ from any other individual, you should not be allowed to enter our society.
Multiculturalism, the idea that you can have a society where people don’t have a shared set of values, and establishes governance on the idea that everybody’s values are equally valid, is not sustainable. Forcing multiculturalism on a society will not preserve the best of that society, it is observably destroying the fabric of the societies that embrace it.
The idea of multiculturalism, like many other utopian ideas, sounds like a nice concept. The intentions of those who promote multiculturalism are good. Those ideas ignore reality, not all cultures are equal, not all cultures are compatible, not all people have the same values. No amount of trying to force multiculturalism on a society will work anymore than trying to force people not to do drugs, or drink, or gamble is going to work. It assumes that all people are the same. They are not. Just as the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the road to barbarism is paved with multiculturalism.
Monday, January 19, 2015
Punishing Success
By Tom Rhodes, 1/19/2015
The socialist/Marxist values have taken over the USA. Rather than reward excellence we punish it. We reward just showing up. The whole idea that every kid who plays a sport win or lose gets a trophy is a problem. It teaches that regardless of how good you are, or how much effort you put in, you deserve admiration for just breathing. It has resulted in a group of people raised to believe that just because they show up they deserve an award.
A coach in the San Bernardino Unified School District has been given a 2 day suspension because his girls basketball team won a game. Coach Michael Anderson, who coaches both the junior varsity and varsity squads of Arroyo Valley High School’s girls basketball, after trouncing Bloomington High School, 161-2, was handed a 2 day suspension.
San Bernardino Unified School District official Maria Garcia said, “We are really emphasizing that we want them to pursue victory with honor, and that means playing the game with dignity, regardless of the outcome of the game.” The school district says that the walk-on coach’s suspension is a lesson in compassion and respect for opponents.
Respect is earned, Bloomington High Girls Basketball team did not earn any respect, they were clearly outmatched. If they had respected the superior ability of the Arroyo Valley team, when they were down by 50 or so they should have thrown in the towel, and forfeit the game. The accounts note that Arroyo Valley Girls tried (within reason) to give Bloomington a chance, running the shot clock down etc. But as the score indicates Bloomington was hapless against a far superior team. By not forfeiting when it was obvious they were perversely out classed, Bloomington did not show respect for a far superior opponent, wasting their time and effort.
That the San Bernardino Unified School District want to each is that you shouldn’t do your best if others can’t do as well as you. Imagine you doctor doing sloppy surgery because if he did his best it would make other surgeons look bad. Imagine a bridge engineer not putting in his best effort, because it would make other engineers feel bad about not being as good. Excellence should be rewarded not punished.
If you suck at something, too bad. Others shouldn’t be required to put in substandard effort because you aren’t as good as they are. Consider the U.S. men's basketball team beat Nigeria 156-73 in the 2012 Olympics, should the US men’s Olympic Basketball team have been punished?
Last night the Indianapolis Colts got their asses kicked by the New England Patriots, 45-7. This should be old hat to the colts who in 2011 lost to the New Orleans Saints 62 – 7. Should New England be penalized because they kicked Indy’s butt. Should the Saints have been penalized because they kicked the Colt’s butt. Or should we expect people to perform their very best and reward those who excel.
A coaches job is to teach his team how to work together, excel at what they do, and train them so their best effort wins. Coach Anderson took over the Arroyo Valley Girls Basketball team when it was a losing program and turned it around. For excelling at the very task he was assigned to do, the San Bernardino Unified School District punished him. The school system in America believes that it is more important that kids feel good about themselves than succeed. What the San Bernardino Unified School District is teaching the students is ill preparing them for college much less the real world. In the real world excellence is rewarded, just trying and failing, results in unemployment and minimum wage jobs.
Worse yet the government school is teaching kids that it’s wrong to do better than others, and demonstrating that doing your best will result in punishment. Image if the government applied that logic to other area’s they control. Imagine an entrepreneur who’s opened several successful businesses hiring lots of people being told by the government, “You’ve earned enough money”.
Can you image a top government official actually having the audacity to tell successful people that they’ve earned enough money? You might see people saying why bother, if I succeed I’ll be punished. Rather than spending their earnings, successful business might just sit on the cash, why risk it when success will result in punishment. Hell the whole economy would stagnate if that happened. The only new jobs would be minimum wage jobs, or part time. God forbid we should allow successful people have more than those who can’t or won’t perform to the levels of the successful.
You wonder what’s happened to America, we decided to give out trophies for just showing up, and started to punish those who do their best.
The socialist/Marxist values have taken over the USA. Rather than reward excellence we punish it. We reward just showing up. The whole idea that every kid who plays a sport win or lose gets a trophy is a problem. It teaches that regardless of how good you are, or how much effort you put in, you deserve admiration for just breathing. It has resulted in a group of people raised to believe that just because they show up they deserve an award.
A coach in the San Bernardino Unified School District has been given a 2 day suspension because his girls basketball team won a game. Coach Michael Anderson, who coaches both the junior varsity and varsity squads of Arroyo Valley High School’s girls basketball, after trouncing Bloomington High School, 161-2, was handed a 2 day suspension.
San Bernardino Unified School District official Maria Garcia said, “We are really emphasizing that we want them to pursue victory with honor, and that means playing the game with dignity, regardless of the outcome of the game.” The school district says that the walk-on coach’s suspension is a lesson in compassion and respect for opponents.
Respect is earned, Bloomington High Girls Basketball team did not earn any respect, they were clearly outmatched. If they had respected the superior ability of the Arroyo Valley team, when they were down by 50 or so they should have thrown in the towel, and forfeit the game. The accounts note that Arroyo Valley Girls tried (within reason) to give Bloomington a chance, running the shot clock down etc. But as the score indicates Bloomington was hapless against a far superior team. By not forfeiting when it was obvious they were perversely out classed, Bloomington did not show respect for a far superior opponent, wasting their time and effort.
That the San Bernardino Unified School District want to each is that you shouldn’t do your best if others can’t do as well as you. Imagine you doctor doing sloppy surgery because if he did his best it would make other surgeons look bad. Imagine a bridge engineer not putting in his best effort, because it would make other engineers feel bad about not being as good. Excellence should be rewarded not punished.
If you suck at something, too bad. Others shouldn’t be required to put in substandard effort because you aren’t as good as they are. Consider the U.S. men's basketball team beat Nigeria 156-73 in the 2012 Olympics, should the US men’s Olympic Basketball team have been punished?
Last night the Indianapolis Colts got their asses kicked by the New England Patriots, 45-7. This should be old hat to the colts who in 2011 lost to the New Orleans Saints 62 – 7. Should New England be penalized because they kicked Indy’s butt. Should the Saints have been penalized because they kicked the Colt’s butt. Or should we expect people to perform their very best and reward those who excel.
A coaches job is to teach his team how to work together, excel at what they do, and train them so their best effort wins. Coach Anderson took over the Arroyo Valley Girls Basketball team when it was a losing program and turned it around. For excelling at the very task he was assigned to do, the San Bernardino Unified School District punished him. The school system in America believes that it is more important that kids feel good about themselves than succeed. What the San Bernardino Unified School District is teaching the students is ill preparing them for college much less the real world. In the real world excellence is rewarded, just trying and failing, results in unemployment and minimum wage jobs.
Worse yet the government school is teaching kids that it’s wrong to do better than others, and demonstrating that doing your best will result in punishment. Image if the government applied that logic to other area’s they control. Imagine an entrepreneur who’s opened several successful businesses hiring lots of people being told by the government, “You’ve earned enough money”.
Can you image a top government official actually having the audacity to tell successful people that they’ve earned enough money? You might see people saying why bother, if I succeed I’ll be punished. Rather than spending their earnings, successful business might just sit on the cash, why risk it when success will result in punishment. Hell the whole economy would stagnate if that happened. The only new jobs would be minimum wage jobs, or part time. God forbid we should allow successful people have more than those who can’t or won’t perform to the levels of the successful.
You wonder what’s happened to America, we decided to give out trophies for just showing up, and started to punish those who do their best.
Monday, June 16, 2014
Fraud Legal, Rule of Law Dead.
By Tom Rhodes, 6/16/2014
For centuries fraud has been illegal. The fundamental English Common law pretty much dictated that if you sell somebody something, and then deliver something other than what you said you sold, you are guilty of fraud. If I tell you I’ll sell you a 5 lb sack of potatoes for $3 dollars, and you then take the clearly labeled 5 pound sack of potatoes and later find out it had 5 lbs of rocks you have a clear case of fraud, and could win compensation for the fraud in court. Simple enough principle and everybody agrees advertising and selling potatoes and delivering rocks is fraudulent and illegal and actionable.
Unless of court you’re a bank. The rule of law no longer applies to banks. It is now legal for banks to falsely represent their products to consumers. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) won dismissal of a suit over $450 million in residential mortgage-backed securities, with a New York judge saying that the firms that bought the bonds should have done more research beforehand.
State Supreme Court Justice Charles Ramos dismissed the claims against Goldman Sachs today, saying the investors only reviewed data presented in offering documents for the securities and never asked to review files for the underlying loans.
“The true nature of the risk being assumed could, admittedly, have been ascertained from reviewing these loan files and plaintiffs never asked for them,” Ramos wrote.
In no uncertain terms judges have ruled that it is perfectly legal to present someone with a fraudulent document claiming to be selling them a pig in the poke, if you don’t actually look in the crate to see that there is a dead cat, and not a live pig in there, it's your fault.
Singlehandedly Judge Ramos has destroyed the loan security market. You are now responsible for checking every single loan that Is part of a mortgage security to ascertain the risk. The bank offering the security is allowed to legally present you with a fraudulent document that doesn’t reflect the actual risks of the loans making up such securities.
Imagine if food companies could legally tell you that the ground beef you were buying was USDA certified and inspected, and sell you rotten mutton instead. If you didn’t check the actual inspection certificate for that lot and compare it to USDA documents, you couldn’t sue for fraud.
Imagine ordering a computer from Amazon online, you purchase a unit advertised to have a Pentium i7 processor and 8GB of ram, and a 2TB hard drive, when you open the box you get an 4.77Mhz XT with an 8088 processor, a single floppy and 256K of ram. Then you find out you have no legal recourse, can’t return it, and can’t sue you didn’t verify that the components in the box where what was promised. That’s the new standard for Banking.
If you have an IRA, or retirement fund that has any money in financial securities, you can be legally fleeced because the banks have no legal requirement to be honest in their holdings, and if you or your broker doesn’t verify the validity of all the details in any prospectus provided independently, you have no recourse.
Game over people, banks are exempt from the law, just like congress. We no longer live in a nation of laws, but an oligarchy ruled by money changers and political hacks. Now that you cannot get justice from the government, the result will be bad. Real bad. To have justice you will be forced to seek it yourself. Just as if you purchase an ounce of pot and get an ounce of oregano, you can’t go to police. Now if you get a bad prospectus and the bank takes your life savings, you can’t go to the FCC or police. So like drug dealers and users, if ripped off you have two choices, accept being ripped off and write off your loses or seek justice on your own. Drug dealers often die violently because they ripped somebody off. Bankers fraudulently take too many people’s money and the courts and government don’t let them get away with it, and they too might be treated like a drug dealer selling oregano as pot. When enough people lose their life savings and their homes because bankers are legally allowed to present fraudulent documents, and those people have no recourse, you will see violent repercussions. Justice in the USA is looking more and more like the third world; justice depends on who you know and your political status not the rule of law.
For centuries fraud has been illegal. The fundamental English Common law pretty much dictated that if you sell somebody something, and then deliver something other than what you said you sold, you are guilty of fraud. If I tell you I’ll sell you a 5 lb sack of potatoes for $3 dollars, and you then take the clearly labeled 5 pound sack of potatoes and later find out it had 5 lbs of rocks you have a clear case of fraud, and could win compensation for the fraud in court. Simple enough principle and everybody agrees advertising and selling potatoes and delivering rocks is fraudulent and illegal and actionable.
Unless of court you’re a bank. The rule of law no longer applies to banks. It is now legal for banks to falsely represent their products to consumers. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) won dismissal of a suit over $450 million in residential mortgage-backed securities, with a New York judge saying that the firms that bought the bonds should have done more research beforehand.
State Supreme Court Justice Charles Ramos dismissed the claims against Goldman Sachs today, saying the investors only reviewed data presented in offering documents for the securities and never asked to review files for the underlying loans.
“The true nature of the risk being assumed could, admittedly, have been ascertained from reviewing these loan files and plaintiffs never asked for them,” Ramos wrote.
In no uncertain terms judges have ruled that it is perfectly legal to present someone with a fraudulent document claiming to be selling them a pig in the poke, if you don’t actually look in the crate to see that there is a dead cat, and not a live pig in there, it's your fault.
Singlehandedly Judge Ramos has destroyed the loan security market. You are now responsible for checking every single loan that Is part of a mortgage security to ascertain the risk. The bank offering the security is allowed to legally present you with a fraudulent document that doesn’t reflect the actual risks of the loans making up such securities.
Imagine if food companies could legally tell you that the ground beef you were buying was USDA certified and inspected, and sell you rotten mutton instead. If you didn’t check the actual inspection certificate for that lot and compare it to USDA documents, you couldn’t sue for fraud.
Imagine ordering a computer from Amazon online, you purchase a unit advertised to have a Pentium i7 processor and 8GB of ram, and a 2TB hard drive, when you open the box you get an 4.77Mhz XT with an 8088 processor, a single floppy and 256K of ram. Then you find out you have no legal recourse, can’t return it, and can’t sue you didn’t verify that the components in the box where what was promised. That’s the new standard for Banking.
If you have an IRA, or retirement fund that has any money in financial securities, you can be legally fleeced because the banks have no legal requirement to be honest in their holdings, and if you or your broker doesn’t verify the validity of all the details in any prospectus provided independently, you have no recourse.
Game over people, banks are exempt from the law, just like congress. We no longer live in a nation of laws, but an oligarchy ruled by money changers and political hacks. Now that you cannot get justice from the government, the result will be bad. Real bad. To have justice you will be forced to seek it yourself. Just as if you purchase an ounce of pot and get an ounce of oregano, you can’t go to police. Now if you get a bad prospectus and the bank takes your life savings, you can’t go to the FCC or police. So like drug dealers and users, if ripped off you have two choices, accept being ripped off and write off your loses or seek justice on your own. Drug dealers often die violently because they ripped somebody off. Bankers fraudulently take too many people’s money and the courts and government don’t let them get away with it, and they too might be treated like a drug dealer selling oregano as pot. When enough people lose their life savings and their homes because bankers are legally allowed to present fraudulent documents, and those people have no recourse, you will see violent repercussions. Justice in the USA is looking more and more like the third world; justice depends on who you know and your political status not the rule of law.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Olympics and Equality
By Tom Rhodes, 2/18/2014
The Olympics is a direct demonstration of the fact that women do not belong in military combat positions, period. The Winter Olympics are politically incorrect proof that equality between men and women’s abilities simply doesn’t exist. In all the traditional Winter Olympic events women compete on less arduous courses. In luge they start lower on the track to reduce their speed, and this year they can finally do ski jumping, but only on the smaller hill. The Olympics are sexist, and for good reason.
We love the beauty and grace of our women gymnasts and figure skaters, and tolerate the minor injuries women get in these sports. We expect our soldiers to get hurt; We expect men in football to be carried off in stretchers; Seeing women in horrendous accidents and carried off the venue in stretchers brings gasps from the audience and hurts our civilized sensibilities. Here are handful of results of women trying to compete on venue’s designed for the very best men.
Jacqueline Hernandez injured during the women's snowboard cross seeding at Rosa Khutor Extreme
Ski-cross racer Maria Komissarova of Russia broke her spine during a practice run at the Extreme Park and is being treated in Munich after undergoing surgery in Krasnaya Polyana, the nearest town to the venue.
Miki Ito of Japan suffered an injury in the warm up before the Ladies' Moguls
Canadian skier Yuki Tsubota suffered a mild concussion and a fractured cheekbone in a Feb. 11 crash during the women’s slopestyle.
Norway’s Helene Olafsen was carried off the course with a knee injury during the women’s snowboard cross.
Britain’s Rowan Cheshire, a skier in the women’s halfpipe event, withdrew from the games after being knocked unconscious during training.
The number of world class women skiers who DNF the women’s Super-G was scary. Even in figure skating women aren’t doing quad’s that are almost routine for the men. Civilized people protect their women. We are becoming less civilized. Bowing to cries for equality we ignore the blatant differences between men and women. Look at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park, the site of the snowboarding and freestyle skiing events like halfpipe, slopestyle and moguls. No quarter is given to women here, and as the name implies this is extreme and there have been lots of injuries, the majority to the women. Unlike the traditional alpine events there is equality and no course concessions made for women. The result has been obvious - many more women DNF, and many more getting injured.
Canada’s slopestyle bronze medalist, Kim Lamarra, admits women are not up to the standard for men lamented, “Most of the courses are built for the big show, for the men, I think they could do more to make it safer for women.” The slopestyle skiing completion was delayed several times by women’s, shall we say, spectacular wipeouts. This demonstrates the reality of equality between the sexes. At the Extreme Park, even to the observable detriment of the female participants, equality doesn’t exist. The fact is that even though they compete on the same course the men do, it is not an example of equality because the women don’t directly compete against the men. The reason they don’t obvious, in extreme sports female athletes would be both inferior and uncompetitive, they simply can’t compete against men. Worse yet when they try, they get hurt, and they behave like lemmings; they will literally kill themselves in their incoherent denial that they are not equal to men. The best go for the biggest jumps and obstacles trying to prove they are capable, the other girls follow and the result is demonstrably increased morbidity.
In some sports like, wrestling, boxing, fencing, biathlon, the direct marshal skills and comparison to combat is blatant. In others less so, but sports are a substitute for combat to determine who’s faster, stronger, can last longer, more skilled, or better. Skiing, skating, running, racing, whatever, sports are competitive, hopefully non-fatal, substitutes to combat. That is part of why vastly more men than women both enjoy and participate in sports. Sports including the Olympics are competitive leisure games whose basis is to keep men prepared for combat and competing against each other.
Women cannot compete in competitive leisure games at the same level of men without hurting themselves at a vastly disproportionate level, how do we expect them to hold their own in combat? Combat military positions are extreme beyond anything mere sports can dish out, in combat the enemy is actively trying to harm them, and there are no concessions for the fact that they are girls. The Olympics prove one thing very clearly. Men and women are not equal and women cannot perform at the level men do under “equal” conditions, this is a fact, an observable truth, a subject that that no amount of crying or utopian thinking of how things should be will change. Men and women are not interchangeable. As a group women are not suited physically or emotionally for combat and with a very rare exception should be excluded from combat positions in our military.
A civilized society protects its women, they do the most important job no man can do, that’s why there is blatant sexism in the Olympics. Not allowing women to compete against men, making sure the courses and challenges are appropriate for the limited abilities of women, are restrictions to protect women because on an even playing field they cannot compete. Feminists fight and demand “equality,” the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park, without separate venues for women, is the result feminism. The resulting increased morbidity of women from that venue is evidence that feminists are misogynistic, preferring the injury and death of women in the name of equality, rather than accept the patently obvious. Civilized people know there are real limits and that men and women are not equal, and strive to protect women, even from feminists.
When women can compete with men, on an even playing field, with no concessions, then and only then should they be considered for combat. The science is clear, there will have to be significant evolutionary change to our species before this will happen. Because combat is real, and deadly, and uncompromising the standards for combat MOS’s should not be diminished just because so few women can meet them. That’s equality, the Olympics make it clear that “all things being equal” for some sports, some jobs, and some tasks and some positions, women are not equal to men. Yes there are some things women can do better than men, so what, that’s the point, men and women are not the same and are not always interchangeable, so we should not expect equal outcomes, and we shouldn’t allow them in combat positions in our military.
The Olympics is a direct demonstration of the fact that women do not belong in military combat positions, period. The Winter Olympics are politically incorrect proof that equality between men and women’s abilities simply doesn’t exist. In all the traditional Winter Olympic events women compete on less arduous courses. In luge they start lower on the track to reduce their speed, and this year they can finally do ski jumping, but only on the smaller hill. The Olympics are sexist, and for good reason.
We love the beauty and grace of our women gymnasts and figure skaters, and tolerate the minor injuries women get in these sports. We expect our soldiers to get hurt; We expect men in football to be carried off in stretchers; Seeing women in horrendous accidents and carried off the venue in stretchers brings gasps from the audience and hurts our civilized sensibilities. Here are handful of results of women trying to compete on venue’s designed for the very best men.
The number of world class women skiers who DNF the women’s Super-G was scary. Even in figure skating women aren’t doing quad’s that are almost routine for the men. Civilized people protect their women. We are becoming less civilized. Bowing to cries for equality we ignore the blatant differences between men and women. Look at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park, the site of the snowboarding and freestyle skiing events like halfpipe, slopestyle and moguls. No quarter is given to women here, and as the name implies this is extreme and there have been lots of injuries, the majority to the women. Unlike the traditional alpine events there is equality and no course concessions made for women. The result has been obvious - many more women DNF, and many more getting injured.
Canada’s slopestyle bronze medalist, Kim Lamarra, admits women are not up to the standard for men lamented, “Most of the courses are built for the big show, for the men, I think they could do more to make it safer for women.” The slopestyle skiing completion was delayed several times by women’s, shall we say, spectacular wipeouts. This demonstrates the reality of equality between the sexes. At the Extreme Park, even to the observable detriment of the female participants, equality doesn’t exist. The fact is that even though they compete on the same course the men do, it is not an example of equality because the women don’t directly compete against the men. The reason they don’t obvious, in extreme sports female athletes would be both inferior and uncompetitive, they simply can’t compete against men. Worse yet when they try, they get hurt, and they behave like lemmings; they will literally kill themselves in their incoherent denial that they are not equal to men. The best go for the biggest jumps and obstacles trying to prove they are capable, the other girls follow and the result is demonstrably increased morbidity.
In some sports like, wrestling, boxing, fencing, biathlon, the direct marshal skills and comparison to combat is blatant. In others less so, but sports are a substitute for combat to determine who’s faster, stronger, can last longer, more skilled, or better. Skiing, skating, running, racing, whatever, sports are competitive, hopefully non-fatal, substitutes to combat. That is part of why vastly more men than women both enjoy and participate in sports. Sports including the Olympics are competitive leisure games whose basis is to keep men prepared for combat and competing against each other.
Women cannot compete in competitive leisure games at the same level of men without hurting themselves at a vastly disproportionate level, how do we expect them to hold their own in combat? Combat military positions are extreme beyond anything mere sports can dish out, in combat the enemy is actively trying to harm them, and there are no concessions for the fact that they are girls. The Olympics prove one thing very clearly. Men and women are not equal and women cannot perform at the level men do under “equal” conditions, this is a fact, an observable truth, a subject that that no amount of crying or utopian thinking of how things should be will change. Men and women are not interchangeable. As a group women are not suited physically or emotionally for combat and with a very rare exception should be excluded from combat positions in our military.
A civilized society protects its women, they do the most important job no man can do, that’s why there is blatant sexism in the Olympics. Not allowing women to compete against men, making sure the courses and challenges are appropriate for the limited abilities of women, are restrictions to protect women because on an even playing field they cannot compete. Feminists fight and demand “equality,” the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park, without separate venues for women, is the result feminism. The resulting increased morbidity of women from that venue is evidence that feminists are misogynistic, preferring the injury and death of women in the name of equality, rather than accept the patently obvious. Civilized people know there are real limits and that men and women are not equal, and strive to protect women, even from feminists.
When women can compete with men, on an even playing field, with no concessions, then and only then should they be considered for combat. The science is clear, there will have to be significant evolutionary change to our species before this will happen. Because combat is real, and deadly, and uncompromising the standards for combat MOS’s should not be diminished just because so few women can meet them. That’s equality, the Olympics make it clear that “all things being equal” for some sports, some jobs, and some tasks and some positions, women are not equal to men. Yes there are some things women can do better than men, so what, that’s the point, men and women are not the same and are not always interchangeable, so we should not expect equal outcomes, and we shouldn’t allow them in combat positions in our military.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
All Men are Created Equal – Not All Cultures
by Tom Rhodes, 8/28/2013
The values and culture of Western Civilization did not pop up from nowhere. It took centuries; more than 500 years after the Magna Carta we wrote our Declaration of Independence, the basis for the founding of our country. It took another century to end slavery in the USA and another century to end segregation, etc. The Declaration of Independence is highlighted by the idea expressed in these words, “All men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.” The implication isn’t to ignore the obvious fact that not all people are equally strong, or equally tall, or equally fast, or equally smart, rather it demands the equal application of the “Rule of Law”; meaning that the law should apply to every person equally with no special protections, punishments, nor privileges to anyone for any reason. The culture that developed under this auspice, “Western Civilization,” produced a set of values based on the concept of individual rights and the idea that government existed to protect these rights not to dictate how individuals should live.
The concept of individual rights, flies in the face of and defies the vast majority of human history. Even today it only applies to a minority of the world’s people. The reality is that through all of human history the plight of man is for the vast majority to live in privation, while a relative few live in relative luxury by controlling the masses through the use of force. Most cultures now and through history work on the premise of some ruling elite controlling the masses. Other cultures are jealous of the prosperity Western Culture brought but are unwilling to embrace the idea’s that made it possible, like liberty and freedom.
Contrary to what egghead academics try to promote and claim, all cultures are not equal. Western culture based on the idea of individual rights and application of the rule of law is demonstrably superior to all other cultures. Western values, not necessarily western people, as people from all over the world, Japanese, Chinese, African, Arab, etc. can and do share western values. The objective, observable, output that the application of reason and individual rights (a Western value) has produced unprecedented quality of life, including; longer life, better health and more wealth for the ordinary person than any culture in the history of man; a culture where a obesity is a more pressing problem for the poor than starvation.
Multiculturalists egghead academics want us to ignore all semblance of logic and reason and not only grant moral equivalency but celebrate all cultures as equal. They even label and attempt to shame those who don’t accept the lie of multiculturalism as bigots. Consider the following mores of other cultures; In around 30 African and Middle East cultures they practice forced female genital mutilation; In most of the middle east there are severe limits on women’s rights to drive, work, walk without male escort, vote and receive an education; Niger still practices slavery; Some pockets of South American still practice cannibalism; Sudan still practices slavery; some Islamic countries stone women for adultery; and in many Islamic countries professing to be a Christian results in a death sentence. How exactly are the mores of these cultures in any way equivalent to the fundamental values of Western Civilization?
The multicultural egghead academic elite on our university campuses across America today want to end individual rights and liberty. They seek to trade liberty and the risks it entails for government control and the security it promises (but fails to deliver). Rather than equality before the law, they want “entitlement.” The multicultural “diversity” agenda is to revert Western Civilization, to the norm for mankind, with a few ruling elite dictating how the masses should live. They believe the ruling elite know better where people should live, what they should eat, what they should learn, what they should drive, what risks they can take, etc. regardless of individual wants, desires, effort, and ability. Like the ruling elite throughout history they claim if only people would live as we dictate there would be utopia.
If it were just multicultural egghead academic elites on our universities, the attacks on Western Civilization might be ignored. But the regression from the rule of law to rule by elite dictates is manifest in our government. The height of the attack on Western Civilization is reflected in new laws which grant certain corporations exemption from prosecution, or exemption from competition, or exclusive rights that other companies and especially individuals don’t have. The idea that a corporation or any group has rights and privileges that don’t apply to every other individual is reprehensible. Image a law that identified John Doe, the mechanic, immune from any law suit for damages due to his faulty break repairs. H.R. 933, AKA the Monsanto Protection Act, is just such a law. The laws in the USA and their disparate enforcement looks more like feudalism of a millennium ago than modern Western Civilization. Oh the feudal lords of today don’t claim a Divine right through heredity or combat, but the day of the citizen representative to our government is dead. The choices offered to the people for elections are as carefully cultivated and controlled by the ruling elite today as the appointment of barons and dukes was in feudal times.
The values that were adopted and created modern Western Civilization can be summed up in one word: Libertarian. Any call for the elimination or restriction on individual rights and special laws that grant some people rights, protections, punishments, or privileges that don’t apply to others is an attack on Western Civilization and the idea that “All men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.”
All cultures are not equal and should not be celebrated. By embracing the two party system with its limited statist choices you are embracing neo-feudalism. If you embrace any culture that doesn’t support equality under the law for everybody, you are embracing tyrannical rule by some despotic elite rather than a government “of the people, by the people and for the people.”
The values and culture of Western Civilization did not pop up from nowhere. It took centuries; more than 500 years after the Magna Carta we wrote our Declaration of Independence, the basis for the founding of our country. It took another century to end slavery in the USA and another century to end segregation, etc. The Declaration of Independence is highlighted by the idea expressed in these words, “All men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.” The implication isn’t to ignore the obvious fact that not all people are equally strong, or equally tall, or equally fast, or equally smart, rather it demands the equal application of the “Rule of Law”; meaning that the law should apply to every person equally with no special protections, punishments, nor privileges to anyone for any reason. The culture that developed under this auspice, “Western Civilization,” produced a set of values based on the concept of individual rights and the idea that government existed to protect these rights not to dictate how individuals should live.
The concept of individual rights, flies in the face of and defies the vast majority of human history. Even today it only applies to a minority of the world’s people. The reality is that through all of human history the plight of man is for the vast majority to live in privation, while a relative few live in relative luxury by controlling the masses through the use of force. Most cultures now and through history work on the premise of some ruling elite controlling the masses. Other cultures are jealous of the prosperity Western Culture brought but are unwilling to embrace the idea’s that made it possible, like liberty and freedom.
Contrary to what egghead academics try to promote and claim, all cultures are not equal. Western culture based on the idea of individual rights and application of the rule of law is demonstrably superior to all other cultures. Western values, not necessarily western people, as people from all over the world, Japanese, Chinese, African, Arab, etc. can and do share western values. The objective, observable, output that the application of reason and individual rights (a Western value) has produced unprecedented quality of life, including; longer life, better health and more wealth for the ordinary person than any culture in the history of man; a culture where a obesity is a more pressing problem for the poor than starvation.
Multiculturalists egghead academics want us to ignore all semblance of logic and reason and not only grant moral equivalency but celebrate all cultures as equal. They even label and attempt to shame those who don’t accept the lie of multiculturalism as bigots. Consider the following mores of other cultures; In around 30 African and Middle East cultures they practice forced female genital mutilation; In most of the middle east there are severe limits on women’s rights to drive, work, walk without male escort, vote and receive an education; Niger still practices slavery; Some pockets of South American still practice cannibalism; Sudan still practices slavery; some Islamic countries stone women for adultery; and in many Islamic countries professing to be a Christian results in a death sentence. How exactly are the mores of these cultures in any way equivalent to the fundamental values of Western Civilization?
The multicultural egghead academic elite on our university campuses across America today want to end individual rights and liberty. They seek to trade liberty and the risks it entails for government control and the security it promises (but fails to deliver). Rather than equality before the law, they want “entitlement.” The multicultural “diversity” agenda is to revert Western Civilization, to the norm for mankind, with a few ruling elite dictating how the masses should live. They believe the ruling elite know better where people should live, what they should eat, what they should learn, what they should drive, what risks they can take, etc. regardless of individual wants, desires, effort, and ability. Like the ruling elite throughout history they claim if only people would live as we dictate there would be utopia.
If it were just multicultural egghead academic elites on our universities, the attacks on Western Civilization might be ignored. But the regression from the rule of law to rule by elite dictates is manifest in our government. The height of the attack on Western Civilization is reflected in new laws which grant certain corporations exemption from prosecution, or exemption from competition, or exclusive rights that other companies and especially individuals don’t have. The idea that a corporation or any group has rights and privileges that don’t apply to every other individual is reprehensible. Image a law that identified John Doe, the mechanic, immune from any law suit for damages due to his faulty break repairs. H.R. 933, AKA the Monsanto Protection Act, is just such a law. The laws in the USA and their disparate enforcement looks more like feudalism of a millennium ago than modern Western Civilization. Oh the feudal lords of today don’t claim a Divine right through heredity or combat, but the day of the citizen representative to our government is dead. The choices offered to the people for elections are as carefully cultivated and controlled by the ruling elite today as the appointment of barons and dukes was in feudal times.
The values that were adopted and created modern Western Civilization can be summed up in one word: Libertarian. Any call for the elimination or restriction on individual rights and special laws that grant some people rights, protections, punishments, or privileges that don’t apply to others is an attack on Western Civilization and the idea that “All men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.”
All cultures are not equal and should not be celebrated. By embracing the two party system with its limited statist choices you are embracing neo-feudalism. If you embrace any culture that doesn’t support equality under the law for everybody, you are embracing tyrannical rule by some despotic elite rather than a government “of the people, by the people and for the people.”
Friday, July 19, 2013
Truth isn’t Politically Correct.
By Tom Rhodes, 7/19/2013
Like it or not we are in the middle of race debate in the USA. The narrative from the press and the statist ruling elite in DC is clear; White America is a brutal and racist. The overt claim is that white people are infringing upon the civil rights of blacks. The solution proposed by the media and government is that we need more government interventionism to end racism. That is the politically correct discussion of race in the USA. The problem is the facts and objective observable truth don’t fit the narrative of those who want more statism.
The actions of statists in Washington and the Media appear to be wanting to create a racial divide in the USA not reduce or eliminate it. Right now we are seeing lots of media induced rage based on politically correct lies not verifiable, observable, objective truth. If we look at data, we see that the truth is not what the Statist Media and ruling elite are proclaiming.
These are verifiable objective facts:
New York City, blacks comprise 24% of the city population
according to witnesses and victims from January to June 2008, 83% of all gun assailants were black, 15% were Hispanic and only 2% were other races including white.
98% of every mugging and murder in NYC are committed by black or Hispanic criminals.
85% of NYC stop-and-frisks are of blacks and Hispanics.
The majority of police in NYC are minorities.
The overwhelming majority of victims of NYC crime are black.
Where is there any objective evidence in those facts of white-on-black racism???
Let’s look at national statistics about interracial crime, white-on-black attacks and the reverse. These are verifiable objective facts:
Blacks make up about an eighth of the population.
FBI ‘single offender victimization figures’ for 2007 reports blacks committed 433,934 crimes against whites.
FBI ‘single offender victimization figures’ for 2007 reports whites commited 55,685 crimes against blacks.
2007 FBI statistics report approximately 14,000 rapes of white women by African Americans.
2007 FBI statistics report ZERO rapes of black women by white Americans.
Fully half the victims of murder in the USA are black people. 96% of those murders were committed by another black.
Comparison of FBI statistics show that a black-on-white assault is 40 times greater than white-on-black assault.
Again: Where is there any objective evidence in those facts of white-on-black racism???
The politically incorrect truth is that ugly manifestation of interracial crime is clear. Any objective rational analysis interracial crime would only lead to one conclusion about racism in America. That conclusion is not politically correct. Black America is a brutal and racist.
Like it or not we are in the middle of race debate in the USA. The narrative from the press and the statist ruling elite in DC is clear; White America is a brutal and racist. The overt claim is that white people are infringing upon the civil rights of blacks. The solution proposed by the media and government is that we need more government interventionism to end racism. That is the politically correct discussion of race in the USA. The problem is the facts and objective observable truth don’t fit the narrative of those who want more statism.
The actions of statists in Washington and the Media appear to be wanting to create a racial divide in the USA not reduce or eliminate it. Right now we are seeing lots of media induced rage based on politically correct lies not verifiable, observable, objective truth. If we look at data, we see that the truth is not what the Statist Media and ruling elite are proclaiming.
These are verifiable objective facts:
Where is there any objective evidence in those facts of white-on-black racism???
Let’s look at national statistics about interracial crime, white-on-black attacks and the reverse. These are verifiable objective facts:
Again: Where is there any objective evidence in those facts of white-on-black racism???
The politically incorrect truth is that ugly manifestation of interracial crime is clear. Any objective rational analysis interracial crime would only lead to one conclusion about racism in America. That conclusion is not politically correct. Black America is a brutal and racist.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Why Dealing With Cops is Frustrating
By Tom Rhodes, 7/9/2013
YouTube is full of videos of cops doing stupid stuff. Not just abusive, but just plain stupid. Clearly the volume of video available demonstrating that LEO's clearly don't know the law and making obviously erroneous statements is evidence that at best police officers are of average intelligence. Consider the volume and complexity of modern law, it is not fair to expect these guys to know it or understand it. So be careful when dealing with LEO and give them a break, they just don't have the IQ to understand the constitution and its ramifications. It's not their fault; you see Federal Courts have validated policies that exclude the hiring of smart people to be cops.
The ruling elite don't want smart cops who know and understand the Constitution, they only want and hire people of average intelligence who will do what they are told' smart thinking people need not apply.
The massive volume of video evidence at YouTube alone validates the idea that at few cops are capable of understanding the abstract Constitutional aspects of their job. Reading this article probably indicates that you are of above average IQ, it's overtly libertarian and not widely advertised, thus to find this article you are probably looking for news and commentary that is not reduced to the lowest common denominator. So for you the above average intellect I offer some advice if you have to deal with LEO's.
Try to focus on the practical aspects of the situation so that they can follow. Don't offer any additional information, be kind and polite and remember you are probably dealing with a person who has at best average intelligence.
When you are talking with cops remain calm and plan on having to teach them, but remember to speak slowly and try not to get perturbed at having to repeat yourself a lot. When you ask "am I being detained?" and they don't answer but instead ask you a question, it's probably because they didn't understand why you or what you asked. Substituting "am I free to go?" this reduces the vocabulary to single syllables which are easier for them to understand. Be polite and patient it's not their fault they were genetically screened for no more than average intelligence. Ask again and again until they answer, but be patient and kind.
Understand that they think because they "passed" the test to become a law enforcement officer, that they believe they are smarter than those who didn't take or didn't pass the test; they probably haven't considered the fact that smart people "fail" the test. Knowing this it's incumbent upon you to consider the ramifications of making statements/questions like, "I do not consent to a search officer; can you articulate specific probable cause of a specific crime and exactly what items you are looking for?" This is long sentence with many polysyllabic words, so the probability is that the abstract ramifications articulated will produce intellectual and emotional conundrums that the LEO may not be able to ameliorate into their modest intellect and thus elicit a negative emotional response. Although exercising your rights may be legal and principled, frustrating people who have firearms and are legally immune from most prosecution if they use them may not be the wisest course of action.
As a principled libertarian exercising your rights, you expect that relative simplicity of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, which are clearly limiting government and not you, to be understood by law enforcement. That is not the case; the courts have ruled that there is a "rational basis" to purposely selected LEO without high IQ, thus insuring that cops have a propensity of accepting and enforcing the edicts of the ruling elite not critical thinking. This is why it is often frustrating exercising your rights with today's law enforcement community, they were not selected for their ability to think.
YouTube is full of videos of cops doing stupid stuff. Not just abusive, but just plain stupid. Clearly the volume of video available demonstrating that LEO's clearly don't know the law and making obviously erroneous statements is evidence that at best police officers are of average intelligence. Consider the volume and complexity of modern law, it is not fair to expect these guys to know it or understand it. So be careful when dealing with LEO and give them a break, they just don't have the IQ to understand the constitution and its ramifications. It's not their fault; you see Federal Courts have validated policies that exclude the hiring of smart people to be cops.
The ruling elite don't want smart cops who know and understand the Constitution, they only want and hire people of average intelligence who will do what they are told' smart thinking people need not apply.
A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court's decision that the city did not discriminate against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test.
...
Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took the exam in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125. But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training.
Most Cops Just Above Normal The average score nationally for police officers is 21 to 22, the equivalent of an IQ of 104, or just a little above average.
The massive volume of video evidence at YouTube alone validates the idea that at few cops are capable of understanding the abstract Constitutional aspects of their job. Reading this article probably indicates that you are of above average IQ, it's overtly libertarian and not widely advertised, thus to find this article you are probably looking for news and commentary that is not reduced to the lowest common denominator. So for you the above average intellect I offer some advice if you have to deal with LEO's.
Try to focus on the practical aspects of the situation so that they can follow. Don't offer any additional information, be kind and polite and remember you are probably dealing with a person who has at best average intelligence.
When you are talking with cops remain calm and plan on having to teach them, but remember to speak slowly and try not to get perturbed at having to repeat yourself a lot. When you ask "am I being detained?" and they don't answer but instead ask you a question, it's probably because they didn't understand why you or what you asked. Substituting "am I free to go?" this reduces the vocabulary to single syllables which are easier for them to understand. Be polite and patient it's not their fault they were genetically screened for no more than average intelligence. Ask again and again until they answer, but be patient and kind.
Understand that they think because they "passed" the test to become a law enforcement officer, that they believe they are smarter than those who didn't take or didn't pass the test; they probably haven't considered the fact that smart people "fail" the test. Knowing this it's incumbent upon you to consider the ramifications of making statements/questions like, "I do not consent to a search officer; can you articulate specific probable cause of a specific crime and exactly what items you are looking for?" This is long sentence with many polysyllabic words, so the probability is that the abstract ramifications articulated will produce intellectual and emotional conundrums that the LEO may not be able to ameliorate into their modest intellect and thus elicit a negative emotional response. Although exercising your rights may be legal and principled, frustrating people who have firearms and are legally immune from most prosecution if they use them may not be the wisest course of action.
As a principled libertarian exercising your rights, you expect that relative simplicity of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, which are clearly limiting government and not you, to be understood by law enforcement. That is not the case; the courts have ruled that there is a "rational basis" to purposely selected LEO without high IQ, thus insuring that cops have a propensity of accepting and enforcing the edicts of the ruling elite not critical thinking. This is why it is often frustrating exercising your rights with today's law enforcement community, they were not selected for their ability to think.
Monday, July 8, 2013
US Court Rules Discrimination is Legal
By Tom Rhodes, 7/8/2013
US federal courts have ruled that if you can show a "rational basis" for discrimination against persons with a common genetic trait, that such discrimination is legal. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision claims it's reasonable to not hire men of above average IQ in order to reduce the expense of job turnover. Because just like skin color, eye color, height, sex, etc. no individual has control over their genetic makeup, which includes IQ, the court has effectively said that it's ok to not hire somebody if there is a "rational basis" that such genetic variance can lead to increased job turnover. This is an interesting new standard which if applied equally, effectively legalizes descrimination.
Based on this court precedent it is rational to consider persons common a genetic traits in hiring as a means to reduce job turn over. This begs some interesting but politically incorrect questions.
Does this court ruling overturn the court rulings that force cities to dumb down civil service tests for firefighters etc. when not enough minorities pass the test? If getting too high a grade is "a rational basis" to exclude somebody from the job pool, why isn't too low a grade?
Does this mean that because there is a statistical increase in the chances that persons with a common genetic trait, like skin color, being imprisoned (which puts a damper on going to work), that to avoid job turnover it's rationale not to hire young black men?
Does this mean that because there is a statistical increase in the chances that persons with a common genetic trait, like sex, leads to increase in leaving a job to raise children that that to avoid job turnover it's rationale not to hire women of child bearing age?
Lucky for us that the rule of law is dead in the USA, if the government actually enforced the rule of law equality for everybody then sexism, racism, ageism, etc. are now all legal. Because our nation has abandoned the rule of law you don't have to worry, it only applies to Politically Correct discrimination. The way our government works, the law will be applied to allow discrimination against smart white Judeo/Christian men.
US federal courts have ruled that if you can show a "rational basis" for discrimination against persons with a common genetic trait, that such discrimination is legal. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision claims it's reasonable to not hire men of above average IQ in order to reduce the expense of job turnover. Because just like skin color, eye color, height, sex, etc. no individual has control over their genetic makeup, which includes IQ, the court has effectively said that it's ok to not hire somebody if there is a "rational basis" that such genetic variance can lead to increased job turnover. This is an interesting new standard which if applied equally, effectively legalizes descrimination.
A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court's decision that the city did not discriminate against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test.
"This kind of puts an official face on discrimination in America against people of a certain class," Jordan said today from his Waterford home. "I maintain you have no more control over your basic intelligence than your eye color or your gender or anything else."
He said he does not plan to take any further legal action.
Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took the exam in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125. But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training.
Most Cops Just Above Normal The average score nationally for police officers is 21 to 22, the equivalent of an IQ of 104, or just a little above average.
Jordan alleged his rejection from the police force was discrimination. He sued the city, saying his civil rights were violated because he was denied equal protection under the law.
But the U.S. District Court found that New London had "shown a rational basis for the policy." In a ruling dated Aug. 23, the 2nd Circuit agreed. The court said the policy might be unwise but was a rational way to reduce job turnover.
Based on this court precedent it is rational to consider persons common a genetic traits in hiring as a means to reduce job turn over. This begs some interesting but politically incorrect questions.
Lucky for us that the rule of law is dead in the USA, if the government actually enforced the rule of law equality for everybody then sexism, racism, ageism, etc. are now all legal. Because our nation has abandoned the rule of law you don't have to worry, it only applies to Politically Correct discrimination. The way our government works, the law will be applied to allow discrimination against smart white Judeo/Christian men.
Monday, April 1, 2013
Women Don’t Want Equality
by Tom Rhodes, 4/1/13
There is a Facebook image going around of a young woman, decrying the fact that now that she is back from military duty overseas and the courts have not returned her kid to her. You see her child is now in the legal custody of the father, who was granted custody because her mother could not take care of the child while stationed at the far corners of the earth. She is making an emotional appeal on Facebook decrying how unfair it is that she hasn’t been given her child back. This is not evidence of any wrong doing by either the government or the child’s father, just evidence that women want special privileges and rights based on their emotions, and to never suffer consequences of their life choices.
This is evidence that women don’t want equality under the law but instead want preferential treatment. There is no evidence that the father is not providing a good home for his child. The only rationale is to forget a stable environment for the child and grant the woman her way, regardless of the choices she made, regardless of the father’s rights, and regardless of what’s in the best interest of the child. The military is completely volunteer, she wasn’t drafted, thus her status in the military is completely her choice. She claims she joined to make a better life for her son but obviously she didn’t think that decision through; how can making a career choice as a single parent that in all probability will result in long term separation from your child, rationally be considered to make things better for that child. Being in the military and sent overseas will put a big crimp in one’s ability to be a single parent. You cannot join the military, either active or reserves or national guard, and not know that you will in all likelihood be deployed overseas at some point. Thus she knew her ability to be a good single parent is questionable with the other legal commitments she chose to make. Her choice clearly show that she has put herself as a priority over her child or didn’t understand the ramifications of her choice in either case the courts determined the best interest of the boy was to be with his dad. How does the fact that she’s no longer in the military negate that decision by the courts?
The question is: Why should her desire to be her son’s custodial parent take precedence over the court’s decision and fathers ability and willingness to be his son’s custodial parent? Unlike other careers, a military career has the instability of being stationed in unsafe environments to raise children. Women who have children and choose to join the military are clearly making choices that put their career ahead of being a parent. What basis do the courts have for taking a child away from a father who currently provides a stable home for his son and returning him to a mother whose previous choices have proven to create an unstable living conditions?
Why should this woman not have to suffer the consequences of her choices? Women demand equality under the law, equality in the work place, yet when they are treated the way a man would be treated in a similar circumstance they decry the fact. How is it fair to the father and son, to have their stable home torn apart, because the woman is back from overseas? This woman no longer has custodial rights and care of her child because of her choices, this father and son should not be forced to uproot and put their lives in turmoil because of this woman’s changing, poorly reasoned, career choices. There is no evidence that her emotional desire to be mommy, will provide any better life for her son than being with his father. Without any evidence other than her desperate emotional attempt to generate support, this is appears to be a case where the courts rightly dismissed the female emotional response, and rationally concluded that the boy is better off with his dad.
There is a Facebook image going around of a young woman, decrying the fact that now that she is back from military duty overseas and the courts have not returned her kid to her. You see her child is now in the legal custody of the father, who was granted custody because her mother could not take care of the child while stationed at the far corners of the earth. She is making an emotional appeal on Facebook decrying how unfair it is that she hasn’t been given her child back. This is not evidence of any wrong doing by either the government or the child’s father, just evidence that women want special privileges and rights based on their emotions, and to never suffer consequences of their life choices.
This is evidence that women don’t want equality under the law but instead want preferential treatment. There is no evidence that the father is not providing a good home for his child. The only rationale is to forget a stable environment for the child and grant the woman her way, regardless of the choices she made, regardless of the father’s rights, and regardless of what’s in the best interest of the child. The military is completely volunteer, she wasn’t drafted, thus her status in the military is completely her choice. She claims she joined to make a better life for her son but obviously she didn’t think that decision through; how can making a career choice as a single parent that in all probability will result in long term separation from your child, rationally be considered to make things better for that child. Being in the military and sent overseas will put a big crimp in one’s ability to be a single parent. You cannot join the military, either active or reserves or national guard, and not know that you will in all likelihood be deployed overseas at some point. Thus she knew her ability to be a good single parent is questionable with the other legal commitments she chose to make. Her choice clearly show that she has put herself as a priority over her child or didn’t understand the ramifications of her choice in either case the courts determined the best interest of the boy was to be with his dad. How does the fact that she’s no longer in the military negate that decision by the courts?
The question is: Why should her desire to be her son’s custodial parent take precedence over the court’s decision and fathers ability and willingness to be his son’s custodial parent? Unlike other careers, a military career has the instability of being stationed in unsafe environments to raise children. Women who have children and choose to join the military are clearly making choices that put their career ahead of being a parent. What basis do the courts have for taking a child away from a father who currently provides a stable home for his son and returning him to a mother whose previous choices have proven to create an unstable living conditions?
Why should this woman not have to suffer the consequences of her choices? Women demand equality under the law, equality in the work place, yet when they are treated the way a man would be treated in a similar circumstance they decry the fact. How is it fair to the father and son, to have their stable home torn apart, because the woman is back from overseas? This woman no longer has custodial rights and care of her child because of her choices, this father and son should not be forced to uproot and put their lives in turmoil because of this woman’s changing, poorly reasoned, career choices. There is no evidence that her emotional desire to be mommy, will provide any better life for her son than being with his father. Without any evidence other than her desperate emotional attempt to generate support, this is appears to be a case where the courts rightly dismissed the female emotional response, and rationally concluded that the boy is better off with his dad.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Equality vs. Reality
By Tom Rhodes 3/27/2013
Until political correctness overtook the USA, "equality" in the legal sense generally meant that everybody was treated equally under the law, not that everybody had an equal outcome in life. The fact is nowhere in history has the utopian idea that all people are equal ever been observed. The very idea that everyone is "equal," or should be equal is absurd. The utopian thinking that tries to dictate equality of outcome for everybody has and will continue to push towards despotic rule and diminish liberty.
Are men and woman equal? Of course they aren't so they won't have equal outcomes in a variety of ways. All people are individuals and different but there are measurably more genius men than women (7 times to be exact). You can also prove that there men are far more likely than women to be idiots. On average you could argue that women are marginally smarter than men, but on the extremes it is clear that there are more overly smart men than women, and there are more overly dumb men than women. Because men exhibit more outliers at the extremes of the intellect spectrum. This means a disproportionate number of men will win Nobel science prizes than women, not because there is a bias in the Nobel prize system.
How about speed, is it fair that 95% of the top sprinting records are awarded to people who trace their ancestry to West Africa. If you are a betting person you could make a lot of money betting on the origins of professional US Hockey Players, the majority are born in either Minnesota or Massachusetts. Utopian thinkers conclude that if there is a disparity of outcome there must have been some oppression or "privilege" that created the un-equal outcomes. This is a lie, and they know it. If it weren't a lie then they would be denouncing the NBA and NFL for being biased against Asians and Hispanics. Blacks make up 13% of the US population yet comprise 90% of professional basketball teams and 80% of professional football teams and are the highest paid players in both sports, there are more Hispanics in the country than blacks, only an idiot would think that this is evidence that there is bias against Hispanics in professional basketball and football.
There are many disproportionate distributions of outcomes. How are utopian thinkers going to correct the unequal outcome between men and women when it comes to lightning strikes? Men are struck by lightning 6 times more often than women, something must be done to make things equal.
The only way to justify utopian equality of outcome thinking is to reject rational thought, observation, history and the scientific method. Expecting equal outcomes by race, sex, national origin, religion, or any other observable difference in humans is sloppy un-reasoned thinking. There is absolutely zero evidence from anytime, or anyplace, that proportional outcomes have existed as a norm under any circumstance on the earth. The idea that disproportionate outcomes of any kind is proof of inequality before the law is a purely emotional desire for equality that has never and will never exist. The best we can do and the only thing we should strive for is that every individual is given equal treatment before the law. The differences in people based on race, creed, sex, etc. will result in different outcomes, that is not evidence bias. It is only evidence that although everybody is a person, not all people are the same and that certain groups of people have consistent and similar variations in their gene pool.
If you believe or argue that there are more white male CEO's and they make more money than black male CEO's is proof of racism, but fail to make the same racist argument about there being more and higher paid black than white football players you are being intellectually and factually dishonest. The academic and lawyer arguments that different outcomes is proof of bias is not justified in fact and causes significant unequal treatment of people based on race, sex, country of origin, etc. The idea and goal should be equal treatment under the law, not equal outcomes. The only way to get equal outcomes based on race, sex, or whatever, is to eliminate individual liberty and allow a tyrannical government to dictate the outcome of everything. Reality is that all people are not equal, some are smarter, some are faster, some are stronger, some have more drive, some are prettier, punishing those who are superior in some part of their being to others is not equality it's tyranny and flies in the face of reality.
Until political correctness overtook the USA, "equality" in the legal sense generally meant that everybody was treated equally under the law, not that everybody had an equal outcome in life. The fact is nowhere in history has the utopian idea that all people are equal ever been observed. The very idea that everyone is "equal," or should be equal is absurd. The utopian thinking that tries to dictate equality of outcome for everybody has and will continue to push towards despotic rule and diminish liberty.
Are men and woman equal? Of course they aren't so they won't have equal outcomes in a variety of ways. All people are individuals and different but there are measurably more genius men than women (7 times to be exact). You can also prove that there men are far more likely than women to be idiots. On average you could argue that women are marginally smarter than men, but on the extremes it is clear that there are more overly smart men than women, and there are more overly dumb men than women. Because men exhibit more outliers at the extremes of the intellect spectrum. This means a disproportionate number of men will win Nobel science prizes than women, not because there is a bias in the Nobel prize system.
How about speed, is it fair that 95% of the top sprinting records are awarded to people who trace their ancestry to West Africa. If you are a betting person you could make a lot of money betting on the origins of professional US Hockey Players, the majority are born in either Minnesota or Massachusetts. Utopian thinkers conclude that if there is a disparity of outcome there must have been some oppression or "privilege" that created the un-equal outcomes. This is a lie, and they know it. If it weren't a lie then they would be denouncing the NBA and NFL for being biased against Asians and Hispanics. Blacks make up 13% of the US population yet comprise 90% of professional basketball teams and 80% of professional football teams and are the highest paid players in both sports, there are more Hispanics in the country than blacks, only an idiot would think that this is evidence that there is bias against Hispanics in professional basketball and football.
There are many disproportionate distributions of outcomes. How are utopian thinkers going to correct the unequal outcome between men and women when it comes to lightning strikes? Men are struck by lightning 6 times more often than women, something must be done to make things equal.
The only way to justify utopian equality of outcome thinking is to reject rational thought, observation, history and the scientific method. Expecting equal outcomes by race, sex, national origin, religion, or any other observable difference in humans is sloppy un-reasoned thinking. There is absolutely zero evidence from anytime, or anyplace, that proportional outcomes have existed as a norm under any circumstance on the earth. The idea that disproportionate outcomes of any kind is proof of inequality before the law is a purely emotional desire for equality that has never and will never exist. The best we can do and the only thing we should strive for is that every individual is given equal treatment before the law. The differences in people based on race, creed, sex, etc. will result in different outcomes, that is not evidence bias. It is only evidence that although everybody is a person, not all people are the same and that certain groups of people have consistent and similar variations in their gene pool.
If you believe or argue that there are more white male CEO's and they make more money than black male CEO's is proof of racism, but fail to make the same racist argument about there being more and higher paid black than white football players you are being intellectually and factually dishonest. The academic and lawyer arguments that different outcomes is proof of bias is not justified in fact and causes significant unequal treatment of people based on race, sex, country of origin, etc. The idea and goal should be equal treatment under the law, not equal outcomes. The only way to get equal outcomes based on race, sex, or whatever, is to eliminate individual liberty and allow a tyrannical government to dictate the outcome of everything. Reality is that all people are not equal, some are smarter, some are faster, some are stronger, some have more drive, some are prettier, punishing those who are superior in some part of their being to others is not equality it's tyranny and flies in the face of reality.
Friday, February 1, 2013
Marriage Truth and Taxes
By Tom Rhodes, 2/1/13
The uncomfortable truth surrounding the marriage issue is that heterosexual couples have long been subsidized by their unwed neighbors. Rather than recognize the inherit unfairness of granting those who choose to be in a contractual relationship with another special privileges and rights that others don’t have, and eliminate all marriage tax preferences and treat it like any other contract, homosexuals want some of their number who choose to enter into contractual relationships the same benefits over single people. If we had a fair and just government, marriage contracts would be just that, contracts. They would convey no special benefits beyond the terms agreed upon. The result would be that religious individuals and institutions with conscientious objections to homosexuality would never be forced to violate their conscience.
The entire issue is caused by Too Much Government. Government that has gone beyond its core mission and responsibility has again proven to cause more problems than it fixes. Because the government has taken the function that for centuries was the purview of the church and stepped clearly beyond the powers granted to it, we now have a divisive issue in politics that should never have existed. Making marriage a tax issue and the government taking the authority to sanction marriage from the church has created a system that is unjust, unfair.
Government overstepping its bounds on taxation is the root of our problems. To attempt to socially engineer our society the government gives some people different tax rates than others, based on what private contractual agreements they enter. This is unjust on its face. What is the moral justification for a voluntary private contract between two individuals being what determines that taxing someone earning $25,000 a year at a differently than anybody else making $25,000 per year who has no contract with another?
The government using tens of thousands of pages of tax code to socially engineer society is obviously an abject failure. It is a method of “legally” instituting Neo-Feudalism and concentrating power in the hands of a few. It can be clearly seen when the favorites of the ruling elite, GE corporation, literally have to pay no taxes is favored by the ruling elite, while the everyday worker is oppressively taxed, and threatened with financial ruin for even challenging his taxes. You have to be exceptionally brave (stupid), be exceptionally poor, or have exceptional connections to the ruling elite to consider challenging the IRS. We need radical tax changes.
I’d prefer the Fair Tax, because consumption taxes disproportionately hit those who use more of the products and services society provides. The fact is that won’t happen in the current environment, so were stuck taxing the income not outflow of peoples finances. That said if the we’d all be a lot better off if IRS 1040 form looked like this:
No it’s not a perfect solution, but within our current legal and social structures it is viable. It’s not viable to congress because it takes away their gifting and power to control through taxation. It does however insure the poor not only don’t pay taxes, but get more back than they pay in, and although a “flat” tax its implementation is progressive. It also does away with any penalty or benefit to marriage. It is a just and fair method.
Let’s look at how a household of 4 people would be taxed at various incomes: If this family of four’s earnings was a mere $16K per year (minimum wage for one wage earner), not only wouldn’t they owe a dime in taxes but would receive a refund of an additional $3600, call it an “earned income tax credit,” effectively giving that family a 22% increase in their earnings. In fact until a family of four’s total earnings exceed $36K not only would they pay zero taxes but would get some extra back. A family of four earning $50K would only pay $2520 in taxes, while if they earned $100K they would pay $11,500 in taxes, and the mythical $400K earning family of 4 would pay $65,500 in taxes. Although seemingly flat, that in implementation is quite a progressive tax system. The key would be other than the standard deduction for a taxpayer and dependents there are no other deductions – PERIOD.
The elegant solution to the marriage penalty/benefit is the deductions. Every person is entitled to one deduction whether against their own wages or their spouses, significant other, or other “head of household” age is no barrier. If you end up supporting your parents in old age you can take a deduction from your taxes. One spouse, two spouses, no spouse, it doesn’t matter, each wage earner is entitled to $16,000 tax free and an additional $5,000 for every person they support including themselves, relationship is irrelevant. If you are a dependent of another person you can’t deduct yourself. This is fair, a wage earner gets to take a deduction for every person they support. Since everybody has a social security number, finding those who would try to double dip would be simple.
Do you see the hidden marriage bonus? It’s there, but it doesn’t care if it’s a legal marriage, gay marriage, or just casual cohabitation. Assume you have a household of 4 earning a total of $36,000 per year but instead of 1 wage earner it’s made of 2 wage earners. Since every individual files a tax return, and the total dependents for the two returns is still 4 (2 dependents on each return). Each wage earner would receive $1800 (total of $3600) “earned income tax credit” while if it was a single provider earning $36,000 with a total of 4 dependents would get zero earned income tax credit.
This would end the need for any gay marriage laws and most of the reason for the current battle between gays and the religious right. Unless of course the goal isn’t equality under the law, but to force churches and others to recognize gay unions as morally equal to strait unions. This would be using the government to force changes in religious beliefs, and clearly violate the First Amendment. In as much as we know the homosexuals only want equality, not to force others to abolish or change their religious beliefs, then this elegant simplification of the tax code should have their support. It eliminates the disparity between “married” couples and other couples. All the government would be doing is protecting individuals equally in legally binding contracts; marriage would again be the purview of the church, and none of the governments business.
The other rational for this would be the elimination of tens of thousands of pages of legal graft. The IRS tax code and laws are unequal and unjust. This would produce a far fairer and better solution to our current tax problems. Radical changes to our tax code, with radical simplification, would be a huge benefit to all of America.
The uncomfortable truth surrounding the marriage issue is that heterosexual couples have long been subsidized by their unwed neighbors. Rather than recognize the inherit unfairness of granting those who choose to be in a contractual relationship with another special privileges and rights that others don’t have, and eliminate all marriage tax preferences and treat it like any other contract, homosexuals want some of their number who choose to enter into contractual relationships the same benefits over single people. If we had a fair and just government, marriage contracts would be just that, contracts. They would convey no special benefits beyond the terms agreed upon. The result would be that religious individuals and institutions with conscientious objections to homosexuality would never be forced to violate their conscience.
The entire issue is caused by Too Much Government. Government that has gone beyond its core mission and responsibility has again proven to cause more problems than it fixes. Because the government has taken the function that for centuries was the purview of the church and stepped clearly beyond the powers granted to it, we now have a divisive issue in politics that should never have existed. Making marriage a tax issue and the government taking the authority to sanction marriage from the church has created a system that is unjust, unfair.
Government overstepping its bounds on taxation is the root of our problems. To attempt to socially engineer our society the government gives some people different tax rates than others, based on what private contractual agreements they enter. This is unjust on its face. What is the moral justification for a voluntary private contract between two individuals being what determines that taxing someone earning $25,000 a year at a differently than anybody else making $25,000 per year who has no contract with another?
The government using tens of thousands of pages of tax code to socially engineer society is obviously an abject failure. It is a method of “legally” instituting Neo-Feudalism and concentrating power in the hands of a few. It can be clearly seen when the favorites of the ruling elite, GE corporation, literally have to pay no taxes is favored by the ruling elite, while the everyday worker is oppressively taxed, and threatened with financial ruin for even challenging his taxes. You have to be exceptionally brave (stupid), be exceptionally poor, or have exceptional connections to the ruling elite to consider challenging the IRS. We need radical tax changes.
I’d prefer the Fair Tax, because consumption taxes disproportionately hit those who use more of the products and services society provides. The fact is that won’t happen in the current environment, so were stuck taxing the income not outflow of peoples finances. That said if the we’d all be a lot better off if IRS 1040 form looked like this:
No it’s not a perfect solution, but within our current legal and social structures it is viable. It’s not viable to congress because it takes away their gifting and power to control through taxation. It does however insure the poor not only don’t pay taxes, but get more back than they pay in, and although a “flat” tax its implementation is progressive. It also does away with any penalty or benefit to marriage. It is a just and fair method.
Let’s look at how a household of 4 people would be taxed at various incomes: If this family of four’s earnings was a mere $16K per year (minimum wage for one wage earner), not only wouldn’t they owe a dime in taxes but would receive a refund of an additional $3600, call it an “earned income tax credit,” effectively giving that family a 22% increase in their earnings. In fact until a family of four’s total earnings exceed $36K not only would they pay zero taxes but would get some extra back. A family of four earning $50K would only pay $2520 in taxes, while if they earned $100K they would pay $11,500 in taxes, and the mythical $400K earning family of 4 would pay $65,500 in taxes. Although seemingly flat, that in implementation is quite a progressive tax system. The key would be other than the standard deduction for a taxpayer and dependents there are no other deductions – PERIOD.
The elegant solution to the marriage penalty/benefit is the deductions. Every person is entitled to one deduction whether against their own wages or their spouses, significant other, or other “head of household” age is no barrier. If you end up supporting your parents in old age you can take a deduction from your taxes. One spouse, two spouses, no spouse, it doesn’t matter, each wage earner is entitled to $16,000 tax free and an additional $5,000 for every person they support including themselves, relationship is irrelevant. If you are a dependent of another person you can’t deduct yourself. This is fair, a wage earner gets to take a deduction for every person they support. Since everybody has a social security number, finding those who would try to double dip would be simple.
Do you see the hidden marriage bonus? It’s there, but it doesn’t care if it’s a legal marriage, gay marriage, or just casual cohabitation. Assume you have a household of 4 earning a total of $36,000 per year but instead of 1 wage earner it’s made of 2 wage earners. Since every individual files a tax return, and the total dependents for the two returns is still 4 (2 dependents on each return). Each wage earner would receive $1800 (total of $3600) “earned income tax credit” while if it was a single provider earning $36,000 with a total of 4 dependents would get zero earned income tax credit.
This would end the need for any gay marriage laws and most of the reason for the current battle between gays and the religious right. Unless of course the goal isn’t equality under the law, but to force churches and others to recognize gay unions as morally equal to strait unions. This would be using the government to force changes in religious beliefs, and clearly violate the First Amendment. In as much as we know the homosexuals only want equality, not to force others to abolish or change their religious beliefs, then this elegant simplification of the tax code should have their support. It eliminates the disparity between “married” couples and other couples. All the government would be doing is protecting individuals equally in legally binding contracts; marriage would again be the purview of the church, and none of the governments business.
The other rational for this would be the elimination of tens of thousands of pages of legal graft. The IRS tax code and laws are unequal and unjust. This would produce a far fairer and better solution to our current tax problems. Radical changes to our tax code, with radical simplification, would be a huge benefit to all of America.
Monday, June 11, 2012
"If you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to fear"
By Tom Rhodes 6/11/2012
The standard response by government and do-gooders of all types to people who express outrage at: Red Light Cameras, FBI bugging without warrant, FBI putting GPS tracker on your car, indefinite detention, cops asking to search your car, etc. is "If you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to fear." Now in Indiana that is exactly what the legislature has said to the police.
It is clear that the "public servant" has nothing to fear so long as they are not intruding on the private property of others illegally. If a cop does a no-knock entry into the wrong house, he is committing a armed felony, breaking and entering and the people have the right of self defense, even if it means the cop gets shot dead. But if they are not doing anything wrong, cops have nothing to fear.
It is now being found that citizens have the right to film cops and other public servants when they are doing their jobs in public places. They tend to get feisty and uptight when mere citizens film them violating citizens rights. But of course if they aren't doing anything wrong they have nothing to fear from citizen journalists and youtube.
It is good that, at least in Indiana, a police breaking the law is exactly the same as that of any armed criminal. That is called equality under the law, and applying the rule of law equally to everybody, including those in government, is the hallmark of a free people and the difference between a free country and tyranny.
The sad fact is that because of the blue line, and the deference prosecutors and the courts pay to fellow government employees. Cops can and do get to break the law without the same consequences as the mere public. "Professional Courtesy" is paid from cops to each other, cops can and do get away with speeding, DUI, and a variety of other crimes without notice, as their comrades in the "public service." The vast majority of internal investigations result in officers being cleard of wrong doing, even when they shoot innocent people raiding the wrong house. Since the reality is that most in the public have no recourse against the criminal actions of the government, Indiana's law protecting the rights of individuals from the government is necessary and proper. Unfortunately, if the armed criminal illegally invading your home is cop, your only true recourse is immediate self defense, as the government has proven to be unwilling and unable to protect individuals from the illegal actions of the police. At least in Indiana the people fought for and have chased off the governments infringement upon the oldest right of all men, self defense.
Hopefully this will result in individual officers thinking twice about no-knock raids, double checking to make sure they have the right place, and limit such actions to legitimate circumstances. As they are no longer immune from people exercising their natural, pre-existing, right to self defense. The hope is that all public servants, including armed police, remember their actions and authority is limited, and that they realize that their power is granted by the people, and the people retain power for themselves, including the right to shoot armed government agents when those armed government agents are unlawfully using their power.
To Sergeant Joseph Hubbard and any other "public servant" worried about having their actions recorded, or being shot if they "accidently" raid the wrong house, don't worry "If you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to fear."
The standard response by government and do-gooders of all types to people who express outrage at: Red Light Cameras, FBI bugging without warrant, FBI putting GPS tracker on your car, indefinite detention, cops asking to search your car, etc. is "If you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to fear." Now in Indiana that is exactly what the legislature has said to the police.
Every time police Sergeant Joseph Hubbard stops a speeder or serves a search warrant, he says he worries suspects assume they can open fire -- without breaking the law.
Hubbard, a 17-year veteran of the police department in Jeffersonville, Indiana, says his apprehension stems from a state law approved this year that allows residents to use deadly force in response to the "unlawful intrusion" by a "public servant" to protect themselves and others, or their property.
It is clear that the "public servant" has nothing to fear so long as they are not intruding on the private property of others illegally. If a cop does a no-knock entry into the wrong house, he is committing a armed felony, breaking and entering and the people have the right of self defense, even if it means the cop gets shot dead. But if they are not doing anything wrong, cops have nothing to fear.
It is now being found that citizens have the right to film cops and other public servants when they are doing their jobs in public places. They tend to get feisty and uptight when mere citizens film them violating citizens rights. But of course if they aren't doing anything wrong they have nothing to fear from citizen journalists and youtube.
It is good that, at least in Indiana, a police breaking the law is exactly the same as that of any armed criminal. That is called equality under the law, and applying the rule of law equally to everybody, including those in government, is the hallmark of a free people and the difference between a free country and tyranny.
The sad fact is that because of the blue line, and the deference prosecutors and the courts pay to fellow government employees. Cops can and do get to break the law without the same consequences as the mere public. "Professional Courtesy" is paid from cops to each other, cops can and do get away with speeding, DUI, and a variety of other crimes without notice, as their comrades in the "public service." The vast majority of internal investigations result in officers being cleard of wrong doing, even when they shoot innocent people raiding the wrong house. Since the reality is that most in the public have no recourse against the criminal actions of the government, Indiana's law protecting the rights of individuals from the government is necessary and proper. Unfortunately, if the armed criminal illegally invading your home is cop, your only true recourse is immediate self defense, as the government has proven to be unwilling and unable to protect individuals from the illegal actions of the police. At least in Indiana the people fought for and have chased off the governments infringement upon the oldest right of all men, self defense.
Hopefully this will result in individual officers thinking twice about no-knock raids, double checking to make sure they have the right place, and limit such actions to legitimate circumstances. As they are no longer immune from people exercising their natural, pre-existing, right to self defense. The hope is that all public servants, including armed police, remember their actions and authority is limited, and that they realize that their power is granted by the people, and the people retain power for themselves, including the right to shoot armed government agents when those armed government agents are unlawfully using their power.
To Sergeant Joseph Hubbard and any other "public servant" worried about having their actions recorded, or being shot if they "accidently" raid the wrong house, don't worry "If you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to fear."
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
The Moral Value of Effort
By Tom Rhodes, 12/7/2011
Imagine you are a mildly disabled couple with no employment, if you apply you are currently eligible to receive more than $1,200 a month in public housing vouchers, plus state and government disability checks and food stamps. Not only is there is no requirement to show your net worth and assets, but they are not considered, the only thing considered to be eligible is your income. Wages not wealth are what we tax, and use measure a person's ability to pay.
Wages are not considered a person's own but your labor is considered the government's who determines what part of those wages you are allowed to keep. Our whole system is based on taxing the labor of those who work; it is assumed if you don't work you have no access to money. This is why the average person living on welfare has color TV, Cable, AC and Heat, Microwaves, a car, and lives in an apartment or house with more square feet per person than the average middle class European. Significant numbers of people on welfare are better off living on the dole than trying to live on the wages commensurate with their skills, and can and do live without working better than if they worked, the incentive to work and increase their skills is not there. We reward those with no skills or ambition. This is not to say that there are not people truly in need, but that number is far less than the numbers of people who actually live on the dole.
Actually being needy is not a requirement for government "charity." Consider this couple, they live in a million dollar mansion, etc, and have huge amounts of accumulated wealth, can afford to give to charity and travel the world, yet receive tens of thousands of dollars from the government a year because their income indicates that they live in poverty. No not everybody is abusing the system this much, but why are we giving money to anybody who can support themselves but won't. Our current welfare system is immoral.
The reason why the US and Germany are arguably the most successful in the world, is they share as societies a basic moral value. These values can be summed up as follows: Effort should lead to reward as often as possible. People who work hard and play by the rules should have a fair shot at prosperity but not a guarantee. People should be rewarded monetarily based on enterprise, merit, and effort. People should be rewarded for exercising self-control while sloth and envy should not be rewarded. Our government and other institutions should nurture responsibility and fairness and shame irresponsibility and favoritism.
However there are a large group of people who see things through poorly shaded lenses that cloud their vision with an image of a permanent class war. They do not think it matters how people conduct themselves, they only consider the final outcome of who has and does not have wealth. Rather than expect a person to be self-reliant they assume any person who does not have wealth is poor because a person of wealth purposefully withheld either opportunity or property. They do not consider the effort put into creating and accumulating wealth to have any more value than breathing. These people are generally liberals, progressives, leftists, socialists, etc, and all firmly believe that resistance to redistribution of wealth is greed and avarice and treated with outrage.
Our current financial crisis came from bankers buying off politicians and both getting rich off of securing mortgages to people who were not qualified to repay them. Even now the government is requiring banks to grant loans to people who cannot repay them, in order to be "fair." We still reward sloth and envy those who legally acquire wealth. We know this yet, the left, our press, the government, and the banks refuse to even talk about letting the people who caused the crisis to be held responsible. Our massive debt is the problem, not a lack of taxes, yet the left never even considers any strategy to unwind the gigantic debt buildup. Because the basic structural problems plaguing our economy are not attended to, nor does our current leadership, regardless of party, appear to be willing to address them, as we currently see, the result is that the United States suffering from a horrible crisis of trust. The result of this lack of trust is crippling slowdown in growth, a paralyzed government, and the strangest direction of politics in modern history.
Business is sitting on massive wealth, but will not invest it because the uncertainty of whether they will be allowed to grow those investments. If investment and labor cannot be reasonably assured to produce prosperity, while government cronyism and theft are visibly rewarded and while we routinely provide for those who can but don't provide for themselves, you cannot expect people to work and invest with such uncertainty and obvious moral corruption. The very moral fabric that created the most prosperous and generous country the world has ever seen is being torn apart by power hungry collectivists who seek to redistribute the wealth of this nation not based on the idea that effort should lead to reward as often as possible, but based on the idea that regardless of effort everybody should receive the same rewards, and the ruling elite should receive a lot more.
We cannot subsidize behaviors that make us poorer, and penalize behaviors that make us richer and expect people to choose to behave in a manner that enriches themselves and the country. If you want people who have legally acquired wealth, to invest that wealth (not hoard and protect it), you cannot penalize the profits from investing and take away the fruits of their labor to such an extent that they are better off doing nothing with their labor and wealth than they are to exploit both for their and their communities betterment. Why would a person or company make an investment whose efforts are taxed to such an extent that if they simply purchased gold or other commodity and did nothing, they would make more off the increase in value due to inflation, than the profits from investing?
Here is an example; we need massive expansion to our aging power grid. Power companies are regulated extensively but guaranteed a profit (about 10%). If you have money to invest and after you pay the taxes on your dividends the real profit from investing in a power company is a modest but because power companies are government protected monopolies such investments are fairly safe. This investment would allow the power company to expand and make improvements. Now if you invested that same money in gold, you have an even safer haven for your wealth and the return is greater than the investing in a power company. There is not growth, but the wealth is protected against inflation; the growth and payout from the power company doesn't even cover real inflation. Obviously the incentive is no longer to invest but to protect wealth and assets. It is the government regulation that severely restricts the profit that can be made by power companies, and takes the profit that can be made by investors, and inflates the value of dollars, which has made conditions such that those with wealth are better off sitting on it that putting it to work. Since we now punish people who invest and work hard, and reward hoarding wealth and doing nothing, people are no longer investing and working hard, but are doing everything they can to protect what assets (wealth) they have.
Eliminating those who would protect the very moral fabric of our society is essential for liberals and the Wall Street - Government Complex. The ruling elite do not garner wealth through effort but by graft. They make the less fortunate dependent upon the largess of the ruling elite to buy their votes so they may remain in power and suck the wealth and labor from those who labor. Explain why congress and its employees are exempt from insider trading laws. Explain why the ruling elite guaranteed known bad mortgages, and rewarded bankers and themselves with massive amounts of money at the expense of the taxpayer. Explain why it is acceptable to have generations of people living on the dole. Explain why with more and more spending and more and more government control that the actual output of government education continues to get worse not better, especially for those who live dependent upon the government for their every need. Explain why they have restructured and tried to change the purpose of government to supply the needs of everybody, rather than provide protection for the rights of all individuals equally. Explain why we reward sloth and envy and punish self-reliance and effort. Obviously those who would return the US to a system where effort, enterprise, productivity, and self-discipline were rewarded and bad governance, sloth, and envy were not rewarding, would result in the ruling elite losing both wealth and power. The protection of individual liberty, although historically prove to enhancing a societies overall wealth and well being, diminishes central control and power, the ruling elite would rather all lose liberty than they have less power.
It took a little while longer than I expected but the ruling elite in DC have succeeded in eliminating or silencing all the presidential candidates who are willing to address the true problems facing this country. Ron Paul, Herman Cain, Gary Johnson, and all the third party candidates have effectively been disqualified by the media and ruling elite in Washington. Even though Ron Paul, is still taking 2nd place in polls, and the people resonate with his message, the press and ruling elite will not address the issues he and others running who represent half of Americans who don't live off the government. All these candidates the collectivists don't want you exposed to share a common belief. They believe it is moral and just, and have a willingness, to hold the government accountable for its spending and seek to reestablish the basic moral formula that made this country great, based on moral values that has historically proven to provide the highest standard of living for the most people, a moral formula that so called progressives hate and refuse to acknowledge or address. That moral formula is simple, Effort should lead to reward as often as possible.
Imagine you are a mildly disabled couple with no employment, if you apply you are currently eligible to receive more than $1,200 a month in public housing vouchers, plus state and government disability checks and food stamps. Not only is there is no requirement to show your net worth and assets, but they are not considered, the only thing considered to be eligible is your income. Wages not wealth are what we tax, and use measure a person's ability to pay.
Wages are not considered a person's own but your labor is considered the government's who determines what part of those wages you are allowed to keep. Our whole system is based on taxing the labor of those who work; it is assumed if you don't work you have no access to money. This is why the average person living on welfare has color TV, Cable, AC and Heat, Microwaves, a car, and lives in an apartment or house with more square feet per person than the average middle class European. Significant numbers of people on welfare are better off living on the dole than trying to live on the wages commensurate with their skills, and can and do live without working better than if they worked, the incentive to work and increase their skills is not there. We reward those with no skills or ambition. This is not to say that there are not people truly in need, but that number is far less than the numbers of people who actually live on the dole.
Actually being needy is not a requirement for government "charity." Consider this couple, they live in a million dollar mansion, etc, and have huge amounts of accumulated wealth, can afford to give to charity and travel the world, yet receive tens of thousands of dollars from the government a year because their income indicates that they live in poverty. No not everybody is abusing the system this much, but why are we giving money to anybody who can support themselves but won't. Our current welfare system is immoral.
The reason why the US and Germany are arguably the most successful in the world, is they share as societies a basic moral value. These values can be summed up as follows: Effort should lead to reward as often as possible. People who work hard and play by the rules should have a fair shot at prosperity but not a guarantee. People should be rewarded monetarily based on enterprise, merit, and effort. People should be rewarded for exercising self-control while sloth and envy should not be rewarded. Our government and other institutions should nurture responsibility and fairness and shame irresponsibility and favoritism.
However there are a large group of people who see things through poorly shaded lenses that cloud their vision with an image of a permanent class war. They do not think it matters how people conduct themselves, they only consider the final outcome of who has and does not have wealth. Rather than expect a person to be self-reliant they assume any person who does not have wealth is poor because a person of wealth purposefully withheld either opportunity or property. They do not consider the effort put into creating and accumulating wealth to have any more value than breathing. These people are generally liberals, progressives, leftists, socialists, etc, and all firmly believe that resistance to redistribution of wealth is greed and avarice and treated with outrage.
Our current financial crisis came from bankers buying off politicians and both getting rich off of securing mortgages to people who were not qualified to repay them. Even now the government is requiring banks to grant loans to people who cannot repay them, in order to be "fair." We still reward sloth and envy those who legally acquire wealth. We know this yet, the left, our press, the government, and the banks refuse to even talk about letting the people who caused the crisis to be held responsible. Our massive debt is the problem, not a lack of taxes, yet the left never even considers any strategy to unwind the gigantic debt buildup. Because the basic structural problems plaguing our economy are not attended to, nor does our current leadership, regardless of party, appear to be willing to address them, as we currently see, the result is that the United States suffering from a horrible crisis of trust. The result of this lack of trust is crippling slowdown in growth, a paralyzed government, and the strangest direction of politics in modern history.
Business is sitting on massive wealth, but will not invest it because the uncertainty of whether they will be allowed to grow those investments. If investment and labor cannot be reasonably assured to produce prosperity, while government cronyism and theft are visibly rewarded and while we routinely provide for those who can but don't provide for themselves, you cannot expect people to work and invest with such uncertainty and obvious moral corruption. The very moral fabric that created the most prosperous and generous country the world has ever seen is being torn apart by power hungry collectivists who seek to redistribute the wealth of this nation not based on the idea that effort should lead to reward as often as possible, but based on the idea that regardless of effort everybody should receive the same rewards, and the ruling elite should receive a lot more.
We cannot subsidize behaviors that make us poorer, and penalize behaviors that make us richer and expect people to choose to behave in a manner that enriches themselves and the country. If you want people who have legally acquired wealth, to invest that wealth (not hoard and protect it), you cannot penalize the profits from investing and take away the fruits of their labor to such an extent that they are better off doing nothing with their labor and wealth than they are to exploit both for their and their communities betterment. Why would a person or company make an investment whose efforts are taxed to such an extent that if they simply purchased gold or other commodity and did nothing, they would make more off the increase in value due to inflation, than the profits from investing?
Here is an example; we need massive expansion to our aging power grid. Power companies are regulated extensively but guaranteed a profit (about 10%). If you have money to invest and after you pay the taxes on your dividends the real profit from investing in a power company is a modest but because power companies are government protected monopolies such investments are fairly safe. This investment would allow the power company to expand and make improvements. Now if you invested that same money in gold, you have an even safer haven for your wealth and the return is greater than the investing in a power company. There is not growth, but the wealth is protected against inflation; the growth and payout from the power company doesn't even cover real inflation. Obviously the incentive is no longer to invest but to protect wealth and assets. It is the government regulation that severely restricts the profit that can be made by power companies, and takes the profit that can be made by investors, and inflates the value of dollars, which has made conditions such that those with wealth are better off sitting on it that putting it to work. Since we now punish people who invest and work hard, and reward hoarding wealth and doing nothing, people are no longer investing and working hard, but are doing everything they can to protect what assets (wealth) they have.
Eliminating those who would protect the very moral fabric of our society is essential for liberals and the Wall Street - Government Complex. The ruling elite do not garner wealth through effort but by graft. They make the less fortunate dependent upon the largess of the ruling elite to buy their votes so they may remain in power and suck the wealth and labor from those who labor. Explain why congress and its employees are exempt from insider trading laws. Explain why the ruling elite guaranteed known bad mortgages, and rewarded bankers and themselves with massive amounts of money at the expense of the taxpayer. Explain why it is acceptable to have generations of people living on the dole. Explain why with more and more spending and more and more government control that the actual output of government education continues to get worse not better, especially for those who live dependent upon the government for their every need. Explain why they have restructured and tried to change the purpose of government to supply the needs of everybody, rather than provide protection for the rights of all individuals equally. Explain why we reward sloth and envy and punish self-reliance and effort. Obviously those who would return the US to a system where effort, enterprise, productivity, and self-discipline were rewarded and bad governance, sloth, and envy were not rewarding, would result in the ruling elite losing both wealth and power. The protection of individual liberty, although historically prove to enhancing a societies overall wealth and well being, diminishes central control and power, the ruling elite would rather all lose liberty than they have less power.
It took a little while longer than I expected but the ruling elite in DC have succeeded in eliminating or silencing all the presidential candidates who are willing to address the true problems facing this country. Ron Paul, Herman Cain, Gary Johnson, and all the third party candidates have effectively been disqualified by the media and ruling elite in Washington. Even though Ron Paul, is still taking 2nd place in polls, and the people resonate with his message, the press and ruling elite will not address the issues he and others running who represent half of Americans who don't live off the government. All these candidates the collectivists don't want you exposed to share a common belief. They believe it is moral and just, and have a willingness, to hold the government accountable for its spending and seek to reestablish the basic moral formula that made this country great, based on moral values that has historically proven to provide the highest standard of living for the most people, a moral formula that so called progressives hate and refuse to acknowledge or address. That moral formula is simple, Effort should lead to reward as often as possible.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Liberty vs the Left
Equality, Fairness, and Ethics
By Tom Rhodes, 12/2/2011
How do liberals (leftists) compare to those who believe in liberty and smaller government when it comes to Equality, Fairness, and Ethics.
Leftist yell that those who want smaller government are against equality, we are not. While generally recognising the benefits in Scandinavian-style homogeneity: crime tends to be lower, people are less stressed etc. The problem is a content size country like the USA, consisting of a vast and diverse population, is not and cannot be homogenous; nor will the policies and laws that work for a small homogenous society work for ours. The primay objection however is is not that egalitarianism is undesirable in itself, but that the policies required to enforce in involve a disproportionate loss of liberty and prosperity, Historically outside small nations with homogenous populations, egalitarian laws when implemented result in an overall lower standard of living and poorer quality of life for the society as a whole (look at USSR, Cuba, even the USA since implementing the War on Poverty).
The left accuses those who want smaller government as being against "fairness." The problem is that the left doesn't want fairness, they want socialism. If you promote more government, please explain how it's fair that public sector employees get paid more than private sector employees for the same jobs. Public school teachers get more than private school teachers is just one example. How is it fair to make our children and grand children pay for todays spending because we are unwilling to live within our means? How is it fair to the boy who leaves school at 16 and starts paying taxes to subsidise the one who goes to university? How about being fair to the unemployed, whom firms cannot afford to hire because of the social protection enjoyed by existing employees?
Of course the one subject the left avoids is ethics. Leftists rant and rave about how uncaring people on the right are, but when the truth is told it is they who lack ethics, and moral clarity. There is virtue in helping the poor, donating time, money to help others, but there is no virtue in being forced to do the same. Choosing to give your money to charity is meritorious; paying tax is morally neutral. Evidence is clear that, as taxes rise, and the state squeezes out civic society, people give less to good causes. It is also clear that those who believe in smaller government give more to private charity in both time and money than those who want and promote government solutions to our problems.
Equality, Fairness, and Ethics all subjects the left tries to claim superiority but when the truth is revealed the liberals support less equality, less fairness and lower moral action.
Equality, Fairness, and Ethics
By Tom Rhodes, 12/2/2011
How do liberals (leftists) compare to those who believe in liberty and smaller government when it comes to Equality, Fairness, and Ethics.
Leftist yell that those who want smaller government are against equality, we are not. While generally recognising the benefits in Scandinavian-style homogeneity: crime tends to be lower, people are less stressed etc. The problem is a content size country like the USA, consisting of a vast and diverse population, is not and cannot be homogenous; nor will the policies and laws that work for a small homogenous society work for ours. The primay objection however is is not that egalitarianism is undesirable in itself, but that the policies required to enforce in involve a disproportionate loss of liberty and prosperity, Historically outside small nations with homogenous populations, egalitarian laws when implemented result in an overall lower standard of living and poorer quality of life for the society as a whole (look at USSR, Cuba, even the USA since implementing the War on Poverty).
The left accuses those who want smaller government as being against "fairness." The problem is that the left doesn't want fairness, they want socialism. If you promote more government, please explain how it's fair that public sector employees get paid more than private sector employees for the same jobs. Public school teachers get more than private school teachers is just one example. How is it fair to make our children and grand children pay for todays spending because we are unwilling to live within our means? How is it fair to the boy who leaves school at 16 and starts paying taxes to subsidise the one who goes to university? How about being fair to the unemployed, whom firms cannot afford to hire because of the social protection enjoyed by existing employees?
Of course the one subject the left avoids is ethics. Leftists rant and rave about how uncaring people on the right are, but when the truth is told it is they who lack ethics, and moral clarity. There is virtue in helping the poor, donating time, money to help others, but there is no virtue in being forced to do the same. Choosing to give your money to charity is meritorious; paying tax is morally neutral. Evidence is clear that, as taxes rise, and the state squeezes out civic society, people give less to good causes. It is also clear that those who believe in smaller government give more to private charity in both time and money than those who want and promote government solutions to our problems.
Equality, Fairness, and Ethics all subjects the left tries to claim superiority but when the truth is revealed the liberals support less equality, less fairness and lower moral action.
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