Hey Daddy, Where Do Wars Come From?

I think that I am as guilty as the next fellow in being unable to see how important some things are because they are with us constantly and so they disappear by being familiar. For example, the intelligentsia in America, and indeed the world, keep promoting bigger and more powerful Government as the only way to prevent war and manage the constant strife amongst all people. They could not be more wrong. Government alone causes war, and the bigger and more powerful the Government, the bigger the war and the greater the strife. Free people do not engage in war, Government coerces free people into war. Free people may squabble and fight amongst themselves, but they do not engage in full scale war.
And this leads me say once again how increditible it is that the Founders understood this and created a very limited Government. However, as we all know, that Government has grown so large and instrusive, that it may be impossible to cut it back down to Constitutional size.
So, the answer to the question, Where does wars come from, is, they come from Governments.

I'm Just Saying

It is a sad commentary about our beloved Nation that the reality may well be that President Bill Clinton, more of a comic book character than a statesman, is probably the best President the country has been able to muster up in quite a while.

Free Markets

Free Markets

By now most citizens have become aware of the so-called “Occupy Wall Street” movement. The movement appears to be more of a protest movement, like the Vietnam War protest movement, than a political movement. Suspicion exists that skilled and unseen power-Meisters and seasoned organizers are using the dupes, naïve, and frustrated members of society, to promote a hidden agenda by orchestrating the latest movement. The suspicion is encouraged by the “spontaneous” global organization of the protests that is taking place. Time will eventually expose the real agenda, and uncover the hidden organizers as well, if they are indeed behind the Occupy Wall Street and global movements.

The Tea Party is another so called movement and most citizens are aware that this movement is basically a political movement that protests big government, taxes and intrusion into free peoples lives. The Tea Party has survived extensive investigation that has tried to uncover if the movement is being orchestrated by hidden power-Meisters and seasoned organizers. To date, no such orchestration has been uncovered. In other words, the Tea Party is a grass-roots movement of frustrated members of society that seeks to change the political structure of the country.

Other than these two basic differences between the movements, could there be a nexus supporting both movements? Of course there is.

The nexus is the universal frustration of all citizens, and of every political stripe, that its citizens are no longer controlling society, but rather, society it is being increasingly controlled by:

Pick One.

a. An out-of-control professional political class that craves power like an addict craves narcotics.

b. Greedy Moneychangers who are sucking up all of the wealth of the country for their personal use.

c. Intellectual Elites that seeks to force all people of the world to join their vision of an “Age of Aquarius” utopia.

d. Knuckle-dragging religious nut jobs that want to take the world back to the dark ages.

e. Variations of all of the above.

Guess what? A democracy enabled by a free marketplace will resolve most of the current citizen frustration with society. Oh my, that’s what out Constitution mandates. Problem is, a regulated and directed free marketplace is an oxymoron, and is what we have today. Oh by the way, the regulated and controlled free marketplace we have today is unconstitutional, but who cares? One has to laugh when the Occupy Wall Street brainiacs sing out that the free market is running amok and is the cause of all of our problems. Little do they realize that the free marketplace is “us” and is the ultimate control they supposedly seek for their lives. Lord help us all.

War and Non-war

This is a piece I did in response to a question concerning assassinating terrorists.

The real problem, as I see it, all started when the Professional Politicians in the "take no resposibility for anything" Congress refused to adhere to it's Constitutional requirements and formally declare war when we are fighting a war. I think it all started with the "police action" Korean war continuing today with the "war on terror". None of this legal nonsense would be under discusssion if Congress will declare war when we send our sons and daughters off to fight in war, regardless what you call it. The Orwell quote," Only an intellectual would believe this nonsense" applies here.

This also means the "War Powers" act is illegal and is an attempt to put lipstick on a pig by not requireing Congress to be responsible for declaring war. All in all, a sorry situation, made worst by Americans citizens getting into inane auguments about trying "combatants" in civil courts when we are fighting an undeclared war. This also means if the President sends the armed services into battle without congress delaring war, He should be removed from office at once by the Congress. Good luck with that.

When we are fighting a legally declared war, combatants are subject to the rules of war, not the Constitution

THEIR MAN MITCH

Let me see if I got this all straight, Repub Movers & Shakers come to Indiana and talk at length with Our Man Mitch, after which, My Man Mitch sez, my wife doesn't want the stress and strain of saving our country from certain destruction, so I'm will not be a candidate for President of the good old US of A. Instead, Governator Mitch sez, he was elected by the good folks of Indiana to save Indiana from complete ruin and he just wants to finish the job, so no time for National politics.

Still with me here?

While none of us was a fly on the wall when the Repub Movers & Shakers had their sit-down with Their Man Mitch, one can only assume they were not discussing what would be the latest deep-fried concoction at the Indiana State Fair. Perhaps, I'm just saying, they were (wait for it).............. developing a strategy to have Reluctant Man Mitch drafted as a savior of the Republic when all of the current Repub Yahoo candidates had beat the crap out of each other to an extent that none of them could be elected dog catcher, let alone President.

Problem is that none-candidate, Reluctant Man Mitch, would have to have to state his National Political positions without the messy primary food fight thing. What to do, what to do. Wait, I know, he, National Man Mitch, can write a book to be released at just the right time and go on national TV telling everyone and everybody about how to save the Republic from ruin by trusting, of all things, the Americn People. And the book (Keeping the Republic, Saving America by Trusting Americans) can't be about his being born in Pennsylvania and his developing childhood days in Tennessee and Georigia before coming to Indiana when he was 11 years old which allowed him to develope that good old Indiana work ethic and stern regard for the truth. Oh no, it would be about, golly, National Political Positions.

I am so giddy with anticipation that I can hardly wait to see how the Repub Movers & Shakers will wamp-up the Draft "America's Man Mitch" campaign to save the Republic at just the right time to get Reluctant Man Mitch the Repub nomination for President. I sure hope Mrs. Mitch doesn't catch on to what's going on, because if she does, she is really going to be some kind of Indiana mad.

But then again, I could be wrong about all of this. But I bet my cut of the Stimulas Package that I'm more right than wrong.

Happy Days

There have been some who have not caught the full significance of the Song "Happy Days Are Here Again" at the end of the piece about the Blob.

Back when the depression was going and America was suffering badly, Franklin D. Roosevelt mounted a Presidential campaign that featured the song, Happy Days Are Here Again" with vague promises of a transformation of American into a place where the Government would take care of the people. He was elected with "Happy Days Are Here Again" ringing in everyone hearts and ears. This was the start of real socialism in America and if you are so inclined to research the era, you will discover everything that FDR did during his years as President, made the depression and suffering much worse. The depression was a once-in-a lifetime opportunity (never let a crisis go to waste) to gain power for the Federal Government to implement policy that would never be accepted during normal times. His nanny Government also was responsible for extending the depression in America while the rest of the world recovered quite rapidly.

In other words, it was WWII that ended the American depression, not the entitlement, utopian policies of FDR. There is even strong evidence that FDR made decisions that forced the US into war in order to recover from the depression with his socialism policies firmly in place.

I know, not pretty, but mostly true.

The "Happy Days Are Here Again" theme during the FDR era is the same utopian Flim Flam that people ate up then and is the same as is the "Hope and Change" utopian nonsense that gullible people are gobbling up today and believe the Government can create jobs and take care of them. The point being, that the same disastrous results are occurring as in FDR's day and one must wonder if all of these unnecessary wars nowadays are an attempt to recover as FDR used WWII to recover. (Sorry, the wars nowadays are not big enough to effect the desired change.)

There really is no free lunch, someone must pay and we are now paying with our treasure,freedoms and jobs.

Clark

The BLOB That Ate The Economy

The Blob That Ate The Economy

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has morphed into a job-killing machine.

The Justice Department is a Constitutional Smashing, Freedom Bending, job-killing machine.

The Professional Politician Congress is a Happy-Go-Lucky job-killing machine.

Federal Laws are the gears and wheels for the Federal job-killing machine.

The Digital/Computer/Robotic age is upon us and is a job-killing machine.

The Federal Reserve is Yankee Dollar, reserve currency, fiat printing job-killing machine.

The Federal Government is the ubiquitous BLOB that eats the economy for lunch.

Ya say you need a job Bunkie?

Feeling a little down lately?

Can't pay your mortgage or afford gasoline for the heap?

Can't believe a loaf of bread costs $3.00 and your Union is negotiating for lower wages?

Is that what's has your stomach churnin' and turnin' like Elvis Presley's hips?

So who needs a job anyway? Obammy will take care of you and yours.

Come on now Bunkie, off the meat and on the feet.

Sing along and all of your troubles will fade away like last week's paycheck.

http://wn.com/Happy_Days_Are_Here_Again-Leo

SCOPING OUT THE DEBT PROBLEM

The Wall Street Journal reports today that there is more to the debt problem than out-of-control Federal Government spending.
During the 1990s, Household debt was 84% of annual income.
In 2007, height of the boom, the Household debt was 127% of annual income.
Today, the Household debt is 112% of annual income mainly because of bank writeoff of bad debt.
It would require households to pay off $3.3 Trillion to get back to the 1990s 84% level.
First off, where and what kind of money was used to enable household debt?
How will households ever payoff oustanding debt when real wages keep declining and most need to borrow just to keep heads above water?
How does the household debt relate to the federal debt limit debate?
There are so many questions, so little time.

Casual Obseravtions

Casual Observations

· The mystery of life is the only mystery science can never solve.

· Political speech means exactly opposite what the words say.

· Watching the morning light add color to your life while peacefully in bed beside your loving wife/husband is as good as it can possibly get.

· Religion can serve both despots and the righteous alike.

· Pretty girls rarely evolve into gracious women.

· Macho boys rarely evolve into substantial men.

· Money is inversely proportional to happiness.

· Money is the least important aspect of the education process.

· Money is only an enabler of commerce.

· Money is a poor indicator of character.

· Culture can explain everything Human.

· The beautiful notes of a Red Cardinal and the sordid words of a Rapper both evoke strong emotions.

· Lush grass requires much effort while weeds are no sweat.

· Many pay for what they want and beg for what they need.

· Morality represents the way that people would like the world to work while economics represents how it actually works. Steven D. Levitt

· Civility is not a sign of weakness.

· Vulgarity is not a sign of powerfulness.

· Cleanliness is sexy.

· The size of an automobile is inversely proportional to the size of the owner.

· Age related loss of hearing is a blessing.

· Clothes make the man but makeup hides a woman.

· Chance favors the prepared.

· Dress, art and music are the truest reflection of culture.

· A determined woman is harder to deal with than a resolute man.

· People really don't believe we are made of the same stuff that the universe is made of.

· Drinking beer makes you fart but drinking wine make you look smart.

· Economic conditions may wax and wane but business at the Hemorrhoid Center is always booming.

· Dogs love to smell other dog's butts while humans love to kiss other people's butts.

· I-Pads and Droids are more advanced than Star Trek communicators.

· People who smoke cigarettes often limit their fat and sugar intake for health reasons.

· Beautiful and enlightened people are recognizable by the water bottles they always carry.

· Liberals are called liberals because they are liberal with other people's freedoms, money and property.

· Conservatives are called conservatives because they try to keep what they have earned.

· Relationship augments can be identified because they always begin with "I" and end with "We".

· The credibility of an offering is inversely proportional to the number of itty-bitty

little words used.

· The offering plate is always passed before the sermon.

· With rare exception, the cover is the book.

· If I have a 50/50 chance of making the right choice, 90% of the time I will make the wrong choice.

· Regardless of the course I sail, the wind is always in my face.

· The faster I run the further away I get.

· Available time is proportional to age.

· Activity is often confused with work.

· Complexity is a device used to confuse.

· The idle often engage in argument.

· Golf tests one's ability to count strokes.

· I'm through observing now.

HOPE & CHANGE

Vesting

Why We Can’t Win At The Ballot Box

You say you want to cut Big Government down to size and regain our freedoms by using the ballot box? Good luck with that. It can’t be done and here is the reason why. VESTING. That’s right fellow citizens, VESTING. What is vesting? Vesting is when you invest your money, time or other good and valuable resources into a program and then expect a return on your investment. Let me give you a real life example of how our elected Government uses Vesting as an insidious device to perpetuate and expand power by creating basically social programs that cannot ever be stopped or curtailed because of vesting. Let’s take Social Security as an example and here is how it works. You start a safety net program for old age and pass a law that says you must participate in the program by paying taxes to support the program. Viola, you are now part of the program and you can’t get out without losing all of the money you have paid in even if you could. After time passes you realize that you have paid a great deal of money into the system and you then demand that the program be continued in order that you receive your fair share of what you have invested into the system. In short, you have become VESTED regardless if you wanted to be or not, and the program can never, never ever, be terminated because the citizens have become VESTED in the program. It only gets better. The Government keeps on expanding the program (Social Security) into other areas and forces you to pay more taxes because you can’t or won’t get out of the program due to VESTING. I bet most people don’t realize that Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, Aid to Dependant Children, etc. were all enacted under the Social Security Act. Insidious. Now multiply all of the others program that use vesting to perpetuate themselves and you have a situation where the citizens of this country will never allow anyone to stop these programs because of VESTING. For these programs to be fair, they should include an “Op In” clause so that if you want the Government to run your healthcare or retirement, then you must Op In into the program and only you and others who Op In to pay the taxes to support the program. I am now laughing out loud! You should live so long. I’m sorry Brothers and Sisters, you can’t fix our Big Government via the ballot box, it was designed to be unstoppable.

Hooray, Hooray, They've Saved The Day!

Hooray, Hooray, They’ve saved the day!

The Grand Old Elephant and Common Man Donkey embraced, and amid a mighty roar, bombastic hoopla, and with a final historic grunt, brought forth a Gnat.

Hooray, Hooray, They’ve saved the day!

Same Sex Marriage

I never thought intelligent people would be required to debate the fundelmental aspects of Marriage anymore than I thought there would be a necessity of debating what makes males and females physically different. But here we are, forced by a powerful minority that thinks the world revolves around their sexuality and insisting that all other people and society must change to suit them. If this powerful minority can force society to change against its will, one can only speculate what other behavior, that took untold generations to determine as deferential to society, will also insist on being made civil.
It seems to me to be unecessary to state it is SOCIETY that has determined that marriage between a man and a woman needs to be encouraged because the resulting nuclear family is the bedrock upon which civilization rests. Same sex marriage is an invalid argument because neither you or I created the Human Race and required different gender as the means to procreate it's people. In other words, gravity dictates we fall down, we cannot fall up regardless if a self-centered and powerful minority insists that we must fall up. Why we even have such sophomoric discussions about "Gay Marriage" in the first place is beyond me. The worst part of this manufactured debate is that somehow the "Gay" community (aided and abetted by the entire length and breath of Media, academia and entertainment industry) will foster the label of bigotry and assigning hate upon people who only support society authorizing marriage between a man and a woman. Most people, including me, believe sexual preference is a personal matter, not an official society sanctioned matter, but yet we are accused of being hateful and ignorant by not supporting same sex marriage. I'm for living and let live and if same sex people want to join together I say more power to them, but they can no more be married than you can fall up.

DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME

Daylight Saving Time.

When told the reason for daylight saving time the old Indian said, "Only the Government would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom, and have a longer blanket."

UNIONS

Present day Unions are a victim of modern times. Back when the industrial revolution was getting going and most industry was domestic, unions were needed to battle the robber barons and secure a decent wage and working conditions for labor. Times change. Not only did unions become powerful, they also became corrupt. (Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.) Then came the digital & computer revolution. As I have written before (The Coming Age Of The Borg) there is far more American jobs (labor) lost to computerized automation and industrial robots than all of illegal immigration, and moving factories overseas combined. In other words, the basic feed stock of unions (labor) is decreasing at an ever increasing rate resulting in less and less membership. So union corruption, industrial automation and globalization has delivered domestic unions a triple whammy.

So unions must do something in order to survive. Viola, become international to address globalization and organize the only remaining American labor pool that is still growing, i.e., Service Industry labor and Government Service labor. Organizing Government labor is the best for domestic unions because there is no labor competition and wages are guaranteed by taxes with no competition for wages either. This situation is corruption nirvana, i.e., make law requiring Government to withhold union dues and then use union dues to fund professional politicians and make them beholding to organized labor: Corruption Nirvana. By going international, unions can not only address globalization, they can become a political force to be reckoned with, as we are now seeing.

I know, not a pretty picture.

Political Market Equilibrium

THE TALK SUPPLY EXCEEDS THE DEMAND.

Freedom Versus Socialism

Freedom Versus Socialism

Have you ever been surprised when a subject you were familiar with and understood reasonably well all of a sudden was crystallized into a new awareness and understanding by some words someone spoke on a different subject? It has happened to me a number of times and it just happened again and I thought I would share the experience with you. The subject is the political philosophy of Socialism and the exceptional American Constitutional government that ensues freedom of the individual to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Regardless of your political persuasion and political philosophies, even if you don’t have any, the USA has been slowly moving from a nation of full individual freedoms to a socialistic governance that has a central governmental political authority directing more and more of our individual lives, for the betterment of all, of course. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, State Children’s Health Insurance Program, Supplemental Security Income, ad infinitum, are a few examples of socialism’s slow and steady march to dominance within our society.

Even if you buy into the hokum about helping people who can’t help themselves, the truth is that Socialism is a form of Government that forces people to behave in ways that are not necessarily in ones best self-interest, but rather, to behave in ways to benefit all as determined by a central political authority. I think we all reasonably understand the concept and the distinction between individual liberty and socialism. But now, carefully read the words of Wamditanka (Big Eagle) of the Santee Sioux, circa 1860s:

“The whites were always trying to make the Indians give up their life and live like white men- go to farming, work hard and do as they did- and the Indians did not know how to do that, and did not want to anyway… If the Indians had tried to make the whites live like them, the whites would have resisted, and it was the same way with many Indians.”

We all know full well how the free Indians were treated and destroyed by the white man, for the good of all, of course. The elegant lament of Big Eagle did not stop the white man from changing the Indian any more than the lament of free Americans can stop the socialists from transforming the society of America, for the good of all, of course. After all, elegant though the lament may be, it is powerless to stop a determined force that somehow knows what is best for all.

The Coming Age of the Borg, Redux

First there was John Henry matching muscle power with a steam machine. Then we had Garry Kasparov matching wits with IBM's Deep Blue in a thinking contest over a chess board. And now we have Ken Jennings and Brad Ritter matching knowledge with IBM's Watson over the Jeopardy board. We all know what the outcome is going to be. And what this means is we lose more jobs to computers and automation that all of the outsourcing and current job killers combined. The American deep thinkers had better consider what is happening with computers and automation causing a great social change and formulate policies to deal with it or we will become irreverent.

Thats right John Henry, Garry Kasparov, Ken Jennings, Brad Ritter, Mr. & Mrs. America and all the ships at sea:

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE,

YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED.

Divine Science

Divine Science

Perhaps you have read my rants about science and how science has somehow become the de facto sole source of truth. Well we now have another instance of criminal science being perpetrated and the really sad thing about it is that most people, and certainly not the mass media, don’t seem to care all that much about it.

The criminal science I’m talking about here directly resulted in the unnecessary death of innocent children in addition to suffering unnecessary pain, and in some cases, permanent disfigurement. What I am talking about here is one Dr. Andrew Wakefield and his published findings in Lancet that our modern children’s vaccines cause autism. The so-called scientific study was manufactured by Dr. Wakefield for, are you ready for this, money. Lawyers paid Wakefield some $674,000 to create the fraudulent study in order to provide a scientific basis to sue vaccine manufactures so that they could make lots and lots of money. I can’t begin to imagine a punishment severe enough to serve justice for this despicable crime against not only children, but against science as well.