Ok, we lost the election.  You and I have a socialist president now.  Fine.  We can survive it, but it may take decades to recover from things like nationalized retirement investment accounts, ultra liberal Supreme Court justice appointments, and a general policy of liberal agenda advancement, all of which will diminsh our liberty, our freedom, and increase our reliance on the inept Government.  I can’t think of anything the Government does well, even the IRS can’t collect all the tax owed it, so as we continue to turn over more and more of our lives to the Government, its safe to say things will get worse.  Libertarians stand for the precise opposite of this.  Under Libertarian principles, the Government would not be bailing out GM, but it would support a new GM emerging out of the ashes, one that can live within its means, which makes cars that appeal to American buyers, and one that will shed the Unions that drove GM, Ford and Chrysler into the ground.  And so on…

What can we do now?  Well, there’s plenty. I’ve already written several letters to my Senators, putting them both on notice that I will work with every fiber of my being to remove them both from office if I see more sliding towards Socialism, Fascism and liberalism.  I reminded them of their responsibilty to the citizens they represent, their responsibility to the Constitution, and in the case of the Republican, to his responsibility to conservatism.  The words were lost on the Democrat, but I said the same to him too.

We can become involved.  Help me grow Libertarian Values into a voice to be heard.  Dedicate yourself to conservative values, and embrace the concept of limited government.  Believe in the following things, and act daily to spread the word.  Write your President, your Senators, your Representatives, and your local officials.  Get involved, but more importantly become an ‘evangelist’ for conservatism.  If not us, then who?

Primer on Libertarian Values:

1.  Stop Corporate Welfare (Recently, 1.4B to IBM, 4.9M to a Winery in California, 671M to GE, 3M to California Raisin Board, 1.6M to MCDONALDS for European Advertising!!!)

2.  Deliver World Class Education (Remember, Government schools are decidedly liberal, biased, and do a very poor job compared to Asian and European schools.)

3.  Defend the US from Foreign Enemies and Threats (remember the US Constitution, its in there right at the top…)  Non intervention and free trade are better than proactive military deployments.  We have options on how to achieve our goals, and there is much we can do here.

4.  Come to our senses on the War on Drugs.  Personally, prescription drugs do more damage than illegal ones, and pot is no more a threat than alcohol, but we’re spending billions locking people up for what is not even a crime in other countries, not that we need to be like them, but we can be more sensible.  I don’t do drugs, and I support this to a large degree.

5.   You have a right to keep and bear arms.  This is under the category of ‘liberty’ in the Constitution!  Guns don’t kill people, but people do, and often.  We are not sheep, we are not going to be victims.  Besides, how do we put down our Government if we are unarmed?  There could come a time when that kind of thing could be a serious issue!

6.  Our government produces more environmental pollution than the citizens and private companies do.  We are highly restricted, and have complied as Americans to protect our environment, but the Government does not abide its own laws, and that needs to change.  Private sector experts can lead the way, they are already far ahead!~

7.  Retire rich.  If I had been able to invest my Social Security taxes into my 401K, I would be a millionaire now, but instead, I’ve paid in, and because my retirement is 50.00 over the maximum income, therefore I lose it all because I don’t qualify for Social Security.  I have been robbed for 40 years, and have nothing to show for it now.  You pay 12.4% into system that will collapse in 2016 according to the SS Board of Trustees.  Libertarians want you to be able to invest this 12.4% of your pay to an investment account that YOU control instead.  What a novel concept!  The stock market over time averages 7% returns, whereas Social Security averages 1.2%.  That 5.8% difference means you can retire as a millionaire instead of a thousandaire.

8.  There are poor people among us.  Let us end failed welfare programs.  Let us give dollar-for-dollar tax credits to those that donate to legitimate private charities.  Who would not give to the poor rather than the Government, especially those like us who want smaller government?  But even better than encouraging charitable giving, which frankly cannot solve the problem of poverty, we want to encourage businesses to thrive and hire more people that would not have been working otherwise.  This is the key to ending poverty, it is better to have a shortage of labor than a shortage of jobs.  There are practical ways to encourage even those on a limited income to start businesses or make their own jobs, and then to hire others as they climb the ladder of success.  In spite of the US having spent 4.5 Trillion dollars in the last 40 years on welfare, the poverty level remains at 14%, just like it was in the beginning.  Welfare does NOT work. Jobs are the solution.

9.  Mark Twain might have said “Rumors of Canada’s successful universal healthcare system have been grossly exaggerated!”  The US has the best health care on the planet, period.  Making it affordable for everyone is not hard.  IT used to be that health care was cheap and good in the US, but Government got involved and now it is still good, but incredibly expensive for those on the lower rungs of the ladder.  To get the cost down, we can stop thinking of routine visits as something that needs to be covered by insurance.  Insurance is for catastrophies.  We don’t use insurance to get our car waxed of filled up, but we want our flu shot covered by health care?  Also, we can allow Americans to invest in their own health care savings, tax free, to handle that flu shot, and in normal situations, the interest on your savings will pay for most routine care.  Insurance for real emergencies would be a LOT less expensive, just like your car insurance would be less if you take the higher deductible.  Deregulation in the health care industry will lead to self-regulation and more competition, both of which are good for citizens.  We also have far too many barriers to getting new drugs to market that will benefit those that need them.  10 years to get a heart medicine to market thanks to the FDA approval cycle, meant that 100,000 people died that might have benefited from the drug.  We can do better!

10.  Finally, we need less taxation!  Taxes levied by the Government on every stage of a product’s life mean that a 23,000.00 vehicle could be purchased for only 12,650.00 without the built-in taxes that compound in the short life of a new car.  In other words, you give the Government 10,350.00 to spend on some failed program each time you buy a car.  That applies to everything you buy, including a box of Cheerios.  The Libertarian party supports the Fair Tax, a single tax paid at the time of consumption.  If you can imagine this:  You get your paycheck one week, and there is an extra 500.00 in it, depending on how much you make each week.  There are no taxes withheld!  You go to dinner with your family that evening, and there is a single tax added to your meal, and that’s about 17%, roughly what you’d tip for really good service at a nice restaurant.  This is the Fair Tax, and that’s the only way you ever pay any taxes.  If you choose not to spend for dinner, you pay NO tax at all to the Government.  This Fair Tax is becoming very popular, and a good book has been written by Neal Boortz and more are coming.  The FairTax (fairtax.org) encourages saving, reduces your tax burden, takes power away from politicians that want to use your money for failed programs and social engineering, pet projects, pork spending and other wastful things.  It won’t be an easy sell to politicians whose power comes from the tax code, but it can be done if WE, THE PEOPLE want it done!  Get on board, read the book and start supporting it!

That’s it for today, I have to learn my Pentatonic scales, ship my products to my customers, and enjoy the fall leaves for a while today!

Ed

We have such a simple choice to make this election:  We have a candidate that tells you what you want to hear, and one that tells you what you need to hear.

Senator Obama is a socialist, following the De facto party line of the Democratic party, which is anything but democratic, actually.  His views and policies are not based on change, but are in fact based on decades old party platforms of Robin Hood style wealth redistribution via tax policy, empty promises of things he can’t deliver, and as always, plenty of pandering to ‘average Americans’ aka the poor people who are beaten down by the evil corporations who bring us things like automobiles, hospitals, iPODs, houses, and so on.  In these pandering speeches, he promises hope for the future, a better life, a piece of the rich guy’s pie, and of course,  a few thousand bucks in your pocket as thanks for your vote.  Looking at the track record of what the Democratic party has done for African Americans over the last 40 years, in the words of many outspoken prominent Blacks, it hasn’t been much.  What few gains have been made are largely the result of Republican bills that barely squeaked by in the House and Senate.  No, my fellow Americans, whatever style, grace and articulation Barak Obama brings to the table, his is not the agenda this country wants or needs.

Barak Obama’s succes so far is a result of several things accidentally working in harmony.  For as long as most of us can remember, white guilt over slavery and civil rights have brought us things like ‘equal opportunity’, ’sensitivity training’, quotas, reverse discrimination, and many similar aspects of the experience of the last 50 years.  To ease that guilt, some Americans are no doubt looking for a way to say “I’m not like that!”, and voting for Obama is that long sought solution.  “I’ll vote for him, and then I’m free again!”  Further, there is a basic human need to be ‘taken care of’, and this trait has been exploited by the Democrats for as long as I can remember.  Kennedy wasn’t like that, but all since him seem to be.  This exploit is hard to work around because it is so easy for a person to vote for the guy that says “I’ll take care of you, your family, your job, your house, your credit debt, and so on…by taxing those evil rich people and giving you the money”.  Who wouldn’t take them up on such a great offer?  Well, the conservative would not, that’s who.  The conservative is going to vote for the guy who says “This country needs you to be self sufficient, self reliant, to save and invest, and to exercise disipline in your finances, to execute your budget intelligently, and to live within your means, and by all means, to increase your means via the great capitalistic system we have in this counrty…”  And finally, there’s the ‘pop culture’ factor, in which a country obsessed with reality TV wherein the basic premise is “who gets voted off the island or the stage or thrown out of the house this week” has dummed down so many voters to the point where their complete knowledge of the issues and candidates are what they see in the commercials.  These voters love Barak Obama because he is young, articulate, good looking, and stylish, and that’s all that matters.  “Policy be damned, I like the guy!”  That adoration changes when he taxes your text messaging…

John McCain represents the ‘old guard’ to many of us, and that’s ok.  People like McCain have done far more good for the country than bad, and it’s because the basic platform is that which the founders of this country laid out for us in the beginning.  Old fashioned?  Yes, perhaps, and we should be grateful that it is:  The founders were unarguably more insightful than anyone alive now because their vision has lasted longer than any other politicians’ have, and the country they founded is the oldest democracy in all of history.   Those simple principles of equal opportunity, freedom, liberty, self reliance, limited government, representational taxation, and more are really the only principles that guarantee longevity of a nation.

John McCain is not my favorite conservative, and frankly, this is a Libertarian blog so I retain the preference for a true Libertarian candidate, but McCain is a far better choice for President than Mr. Obama.  This is simple because John has a natural tendencey toward the constitutional concepts of the founders, and whatever his policies, they will be more in that direction than in the direction of socialism.

This election is not a choice between candidates, it is a choice between conservative principles vs socialism.  If you don’t know the difference, please either get yourself educated, or don’t vote in ignorance.  Simply put, conservatism represents the good parent that will give you the healthy meal you need even if it isn’t the candy you want, whereas the socialist represents the drunk uncle that hands out candy in spite of the parent’s pleas to stop spoiling the child.

Decide which kind of person you are, then go vote for the wise parent, or the drunk uncle.

By express permission from his web site:
By Neal Boortz

© 2008 Neal Boortz

This is long; very long. Hey, I’m a pretty entertaining writer … so give it a go. If you’re an undecided voter in this presidential election the least you owe your country is to try to base your final choice on some substantive facts. No, I don’t have all the facts here … but I have enough of them to perhaps convince you that voting one particular way on November 4th might not be the most brilliant move you’ve ever made.

This election is my 10th. My 10th presidential election since I became a radio talk show host. My 10th election since I began spending more time than the average American thinking about, researching, reading about and talking about the choices voters face. Look; I mean no arrogance here. It’s just that the average American doesn’t spend from 15 (then) to 22.5 (now) hours a week over the period of a presidential race talking about the candidates, the issues, the non-issues and the consequences of voter choice.

Never in those ten elections can I remember choices so stark and possible outcomes so perilous. For the record, over those 10 elections I voted for the Republican candidate six times and the Libertarian four. Never have I voted for a Democrat for president. I see no need to vote for a Democrat since I have no plans or desires to become a ward of the government. Somehow I don’t think 2008 is going to be the first time.

I’ve noted that some other “pundits” out there are starting to post, in columns and in their blogs, the reasons they are going to vote the way they are going to vote. I’ll make no attempt to refute their (oh-so refutable) arguments here. Instead, I’m just going to put my thoughts and reasoning in writing just to cleanse my mind. If you can make some use of them; whether it is for laughter, talking points or intellectual consideration, have at it. Me? I’m just pulling the handle.

The Race Factor

Are many black voters going to vote for Barack Obama primarily because of race? Of course, many will. Surveys and polling have shown that the figure may reach 20%. I think it’s well more than that. Is race a sound reason to cast a vote? Probably not. Is it understandable? Absolutely. I cannot fault a black American for voting for Obama. It may turn out to be a negative vote insofar as their dreams and goals are concerned. It may not work out all that well for their children, especially if they’re ambitions and talented. But I don’t think many of us can absolutely say that we wouldn’t be casting the same vote were we in their shoes.

If you are a white American there is no way in the world you can look at this election through the same eyes as a third or fourth generation black American citizen. Several months ago a caller to my show suggested that Barack Obama’s ascendency in the presidential sweepstakes was Black America’s biggest accomplishment. I disagreed. Though I can’t remember the exact words, I said that, in a general sense, the shining moment for Black America may have been the show of patience and restraint shown by black men when they returned from putting their lives on the line in World War II and in Korea to a country with segregated schools, colored waiting rooms, whites only water fountains, beatings, lynchings, water hoses, police dogs and systematic discrimination pretty much every where they looked. The restraint showed by black Americans during the civil rights struggles of the 50’s and 60’s, though not universal, was something to behold.

Now .. try, though you won’t succeed, to put yourself into the mind of a black American. How can you experience or understand the legacy of segregation, violence and second-class citizenry your ancestors went through and not take pride in a black American on the verge of winning the presidency? How many black American voters do you think are uttering to themselves: “If my grandfather had only lived to see this.” It takes a great deal of maturity and a clear understanding of the possible future consequences for someone to put their racial pride aside and swim against the tide on this one. So, there will be no name-calling, at least not here, for people who cast their vote on the basis of race in this election. As I said, It’s understandable.

And Then There’s the Race Card

This really isn’t really a reason to vote for or against Barack Obama, but you do need to know what the next four years are going to be like with an Obama presidency.

During the campaign there have been some rather amazing charges of racism. Let’s see if we can remember a few:

• Using the word “skinny” to refer to Obama is racist.
• “Community organizer” is a racist term.
• Any reference to a connection between Obama and Franklin Raines, the former head of Fannie Mae is racist … that would be because Raines is black.
• All references to Jeremiah Wright are racist; that being due to Wright being black.
• Referring to Obama as “eloquent” is racist because it infers that other blacks are not eloquent.
• For goodness’ sake, don’t say that Obama is “clean.”
• This just in from The Kansas City Star: Calling Obama a “socialist” is also racist because “socialist” is just another code word for black.

And so it goes. We’ve also had several pundits, columnists and opinion-makers flat-out state that if you are white and you don’t vote for Barack Obama it can only be because he’s black. There is simply no other legitimate reason to deny this wonderful man your vote. Vote for McCain, you’re a racist. Simple as that.

Now let’s consider the next four years under President Obama. He is certainly going to introduce ideas and pursue policies that are pure poison to many Americans; especially achievement-oriented self-sufficient citizens. Whenever anyone dares to utter a word in opposition to any Obama position or initiative you can be sure that there is going to be someone waiting close by to start screaming “racist!” By the end of Obama’s first year in the White House virtually every white American will have been called a racist for one reason or another. So, what else is new?

The Republicans

One thing for sure … the Republicans deserve exactly what is happening to them in this election. It’s just too bad the rest of the country has to suffer the lion’s share of the punishment the Republicans so richly deserve. In 1994 the voters were fed up with Clinton and the Republicans swept to control of both houses of congress, largely on the strength of Newt’s Contract with America. Do you remember some of the promises? One that sticks in my mind is their promise to dismantle the Department of Education. Republicans – in 1994 – recognized that the quality of American education had been going steadily downhill since this government behemoth was formed. Well, that was then … this is now. The size of the Education Department, as well as the cost, has doubled. Republicans did this, not Democrats.

As a matter of fact, it’s not just the Department of Education; it’s our entire federal government. Spending has doubled. Size has doubled. All under the Republican watch inside the beltway. Pork barrel spending is completely out of control, and Republicans are behind the wheel. Education and pork spending aside, we have the Medicare prescription benefit, McCain-Feingold, Sarbanes-Oxley, a tepid response to Kelo vs. New London … all elements of a well-deserved Republican drubbing. The problem here is that the cure, that being Barack Obama, might well be much worse of than the disease.

The Republicans don’t deserve power in Washington just as you don’t deserve a boil in the center of your forehead. There are worse things, however. Complete Democrat control or, in the case of your forehead, a nice big melanoma. Pretty much the same things, actually.

It’s not that the Republicans did everything wrong. They got the tax cut thing right, and they responded correctly, for the most part, to the radical Islamic attack on our country. They just did so much wrong at the same time. They got drunk with power, and the hangover affects all of us.

Obama’s Friends

By “Obama’s Friends” we mean the likes of Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko and other assorted miscreants. I could spend a lot of time here detailing the crimes of Obama’s friends — and make no mistake, they were his friends. At this point I don’t think that any votes are going to be changed one way or another by detailing the corruption of Rezko, the America-hating of Wright or the unrepentant terrorism of Ayers. Suffice it to say that Obama was close to all of these people … and these were associations born of mutual interests and philosophies. If you think that it is fair to judge the character of a person by observing the people they surround themselves with, then the judgment of Barack Obama would be a harsh one.

Obama’s varied storylines regarding his relationship with Ayers have, to say the least, been interesting. The list is incomplete, but thus far we have:

• He was just a guy who lived in my neighborhood.
• I was only eight years old when he was throwing bombs.
• I didn’t know about his history when we started working together
• I thought he had been rehabilitated.

Yeah … I guess it’s OK if you form a close relationship with a bomb-throwing terrorist, as long as he threw the bombs when you were a kid. Works for me. Work for you? In a similar vein, It must be OK if your pastor rails against America, as long as you aren’t in church on those particular days. Or maybe we should say as long as nobody remembers actually seeing you in church on those days.

One interesting point: If Barack Obama was applying for a security clearance as a government employee, these associations would disqualify him. We are, my friends, about to have a president who doesn’t qualify for a security clearance. Pretty pathetic. If Barack Obama becomes president, he would not even qualify to be his own bodyguard.

Obama’s Tax Policies

You may consider this to be horribly old fashioned, but I operate on the principle that governments have the power to tax so that governments can collect the money needed to pursue and pay for the legitimate functions of that government. By “legitimate functions” I’m referring to law enforcement, national defense, a system of courts to adjudicate interstate disputes, national infrastructure and the costs associated with running the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government.

Now we can get into quite an argument over what constitutes a “legitimate” function of government, but let’s save it for later. Suffice it to say that Barack Obama has a much different picture of our government’s taxing authority than many of us do.

Before we go on, let me remind you of a point that I first heard made by former Libertarian presidential candidate Harry Browne. Government has one unique power that you don’t have, and neither do I. This is a power that is denied all private businesses and individuals in this country. That power .. the power unique to government .. is the power to use deadly force to accomplish its goals. If you have a business; a restaurant, for instance; you have to convince people to come to your establishment for a meal. You can advertise for customers, but they make the decision whether or not to give your restaurant a try. When the customers do come in it is up to you to deliver to them a superior product with exemplary service. This is how you get them to come back. Not through force, but through value and service.

Not so the government. You have no choice as to whether or not you are going to be a customer of government. Your patronage is compelled and your payments are extracted at the point of a gun. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall said that “the power to tax is the power to destroy.” The power to tax in the wrong hands can certainly bring destruction to our economy and even to our country. I submit to you that the power to tax in the hands of Barack Obama is dangerous: Dangerous to you personally, and dangerous to the very fabric of our Republic.

Just take a look at some of the rhetoric Barack Obama uses when he talks of his plans to increase taxes on the evil, hated rich. In a television interview with (I think) Charles Gibson, Obama was asked if he understood that tax increases have often resulted in decreases in government revenue. Obama responded that he was aware of this fact. He was then asked why, then, would he be so eager to raise taxes? Obama responded that, to him, tax increases were simply a matter of “fairness.” In other words, Obama didn’t wish to use the police power of the state to collect taxes necessary for the legitimate functions of government; he wanted to use his taxing power to promote some vaporous “fairness” in our economy. After all, as Obama put it, the people he wants to tax have more money than they actually need and he wants to give that money to people who really do need it.

Now I ask you, does any of that sound vaguely familiar? Hmmmmm, let’s see. I know I’ve heard something like that somewhere before. Wait! I think I have it. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” Some character named Marx made slogan quite popular around 1975 in a writing called “Critique of the Gotha Program.” This phrase is one of the most well-known principals of communism. You can yell, scream, spin around on your eyebrows and spit wooden nickels all you want, but what Barack Obama is pushing here, at least insofar as his tax policies are concerned, is communism. This shouldn’t come as a surprise considering Obama’s self-professed affinity for communist student groups and communist professors during his undergraduate years. Oh, you didn’t read that? Maybe that’s because you read his second book, not the first one. But what the heck. He’s eloquent, isn’t he? And he has a good narrative.

As I’ve indicated, I’ve been doing talk radio for 39 years now. I was on the air when we were fighting communism in Southeast Asia. I was flapping my jaws when Soviet leaders seriously entertained dreams of world communism. Throughout all of those years I was never one to scream “communism” every time someone came up with an oddball idea on governance, and I never once found a communist under my bed. But now, at least when you consider tax policy, we have a candidate for president who seems very comfortable with some basic communist principals. Too comfortable. But none of this should really bother you … right? A little communism or socialism never really hurt anyone that you can remember. Besides, Europe is telling us that they’ll like us again if we vote for Obama. That pretty much overrules everything, doesn’t it?

Does this reflect your philosophy?

Come on! Put the celebrity worship aside for a moment. Put skin color aside. Just think about Obama and his “spread the wealth around” tax policy.

Let’s talk heartbeats. Sounds weird, but I’m going somewhere here. A bit of Internet research led me to the fact that the average number of heartbeats in a life time for a human being is about one billion. To make this more understandable, the average human heart beats around 70 times a minute. In one eight-hour work day your heart beats around 33,600 times. This is your heart beating .. every beat subtracted from the one billion .. every beat a part of your life gone, never to be recovered. If you are a moderately successful human being Barack Obama is going to take about 13,000 (39%) of those heartbeats away from you every working day. Put your finger on your wrist and feel your pulse. Feel every heartbeat. Just count up to 100. How much of your life went by as you counted? You can’t get those beats back. They’re gone, for good. Remember, you only have a finite number of those beats of your heart left … and Obama wants 13,000 of them every working day of your life. Those heartbeats – your life – being expended creating wealth. Your heartbeats, your wealth. Obama wants them. You don’t need them. Someone else does. The police power of the state.

Taxes are a nasty little reality of life. Nobody wants anarchy. Government is a necessity. Government, though, is not supposed to create winners and losers. Government is not, as Obama intends, to be used as an instrument of plunder. Almost all Americans are perfectly willing to surrender an appropriate percentage of their earned wealth to fund the legitimate functions of government. I, for one, don’t want to see my wealth confiscated because some bureaucrat has determined I don’t “need” it, and then have to watch as that wealth is used to buy votes from someone who is simply too lazy to generate the income they need by themselves … or, as Obama puts it, “spread around.”

What is Obama going to do? How does he determine “need?” What data does he use to determine “fairness?” Maybe he’ll set up some bureaucracy staffed with like-minded leftists who will use data collected in the last census and from those pesky American Community Surveys to establish a basic “need” level for people living in different areas. Once it is determined how much of a person’s wealth they really don’t “need,” it will be a simple matter of confiscation and redistribution to those who do need it. After all, that would be “fair,” wouldn’t it? Come on, it’s not exactly like you worked for that money.

Listen to the rhetoric of the left. Those who are in need are called “the less fortunate.” This means that their status as needy was due to nothing but bad luck. It stands to reason, then, that those with more than they need were just lucky. The fortunate and the less fortunate. The lucky and the not so lucky. And here comes Barack Obama riding over the rainbow on his Unicorn to set everything right and make it all fair. Isn’t that the world you want to live in?

There’s a quote that’s been floating around since I began my talk radio career. This quote is most often attributed to someone named Alexander Tyler writing in 1787 about the fall of the Athenian Republic. Others have said the guy’s name was Tytler. Let’s not argue spelling right now … let’s just get to the quote, because the quote goes to the heart of this presidential election:

“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.”

Think about this, my friends. Isn’t this exactly what we’re seeing right now? In fact, hasn’t this pretty much been the theme of Democrat Party election politics for nearly as long as you can remember? Here we have Barack Obama promising that he’s only going to raise taxes on the evil rich who make over $250,000 a year while 95% of Americans will get tax cuts. Think of this in terms of votes; higher taxes for 5% of the voters, lower taxes for the other 95%. It really doesn’t take all that much brainpower to figure out how this is going to work at in an election does it? You take money away from the people whose votes you don’t need, and give it to the people whose votes you do need. So very simple. The result is that people have, in fact, discovered that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. Who is promising those wonderful goodies? That would be Barack Obama. Just what percentage of voters out there do you think are going to vote for Obama simply because he is promising them someone else’s money? My guess is that the number would be high enough to constitute the margin of victory for The Great Redistributionist.

Somehow I had this idea when I was growing up that if you wanted something bad enough, you would work hard until you got it. That was then. This is now. Now you vote for it. That’s change you can believe in.

Those Amazing Vanishing Jobs

Barack Obama repeatedly tells the American people that he is going to cut taxes for 95% of them. Now that’s a pretty nifty trick when more than 40% of Americans don’t pay income taxes in the first place. Tell me please … just how do you cut taxes for someone who doesn’t pay taxes?

Here’s the fancy narrative (Obama supporters just love that word) that the Obama campaign has come up with. Even if you don’t pay income taxes, you still pay payroll taxes. So Obama is going to give these people who only pay Social Security and Medicare taxes an offsetting tax credit. At this point Obama’s plan becomes almost impossible to explain. It’s convoluted, to say the least, but that’s out of necessity. When people started reminding him that about one-half of the people he’s going to cut taxes for don’t pay taxes he had to come up with something. The bottom line is this. Obama says that he is not going to take the cost of his tax credits from the Social Security Trust Fund. That’s nice, considering the fact that this so-called Trust Fund exists only on paper anyway. But if that money isn’t subtracted from the Trust Fund … where does it come from? Obama’s people explain that at first the deficit will just have to increase while these checks are written. Later they’ll just go out there and get the money from those “rich people.”

OK … so there we are. It’s tax the rancid rich time so that money can be transferred to the poor. But just who are these evil rich people destined to be beaten down by Obama’s taxes? At first Barack Obama defined them as “people making over $250,000 a year.” That definition had to change when it became known that the $250,000 a year figure was only for a married couple filing a joint tax return. In a heartbeat Obama changed his rhetoric to note that the tax increase would nail “families,” not “people” earning over 250 grand. If you’re single, the figure will be somewhere between $150,000 and $200,000, depending on who you’re talking to. We’ll try to let you know when Obama settles on a hard figure.

There’s your first lie.

So, what does all of this have to do with jobs? Well the very people that Barack Obama wants to nail with these tax increases are the people who create most of the jobs in our economy; America’s small business owners.

The Democrats spend no small amount of time excoriating corporations. To listen to a Democrat candidate corporations and lobbyists are the sole sources of evil in our society. Oh … and right wing talk show hosts. Well, you can forget these evil, nasty corporations for now. Fact is 70% of all jobs in our economy come from America’s small business owners. The Small Business Administration recently reported that 80% of all new jobs are being created by these small business owners. These are people who report all of their business income on their personal income tax returns. As such, they are squarely in the crosshairs for The Chosen One’s tax increases.

If you are an American concerned about your job with a small business … and if you vote for Obama … then you very well could be cutting your own economic throat. Think about it. If the small business owner(s) who employs you has his taxes increased by Barack Obama he is going to look for a way to replace that money. So where does he go to replace his income lost to Barack’s tax increases? The best way would be to cut expenses. Well guess what? You’re an expense! Will it be your job that is cut to compensate for the increased taxes? Maybe you’ll be lucky and just have to forego your next raise. Maybe there would just be a cut in your pay or a reduction in benefits. Cast your vote and take your chances!

In recent days the McCain campaign has finally started to warn people about the possible consequences of Obama’s tax increases on America’s small businesses. This has forced the Obama campaign to come up with a response. Initially Barack Obama started saying that he was going to give a break on capital gains taxes to small businesses. This worked for a while until people started figuring out that small businesses don’t pay capital gains taxes. Back to the drawing board, and this time they came up with a beauty. It’s a con, but it works. Barack Obama is now telling the media and anyone else who will listen that 95% of America’s small businesses don’t make $250,000 a year, and thus won’t be affected by Obama’s tax increases.

That’s the second lie. A lie of omission.

Obama’s statistics may be accurate .. or nearly so. But the statement leaves one very important statistic out. Initially when you hear that “95% of all small businesses” line you probably think that this 95% employ about 95% of all of the people working for small businesses. You could think that, but you would be wrong.

The trick here is that the vast majority of America’s small businesses are just that … small. I owned a title abstract business in the 80’s that had one employee. My wife owned a travel agency that had two employees. Neither of these small businesses came anywhere near the $250,000 line.

When you think about it you will understand that the important statistic here is the percentage of small business employees who will be affected, not the percentage of small businesses.

The October 21st edition of The Wall Street Journal addressed this issue in an article entitled “Socking It to Small Businesses.” The WSJ reports that Obama is right “that most of the 35 million small businesses in America have a net income of less than $250,000, hire only a few workers, and stay in business for less than four years.” There’s more to the story though: “.. the point is that it is the most successful small and medium-sized businesses that create most of the new jobs.. And they are precisely the businesses that will be slammed by Mr. Obama’s tax increase.” The Senate Finance Committee reports that of those who file income taxes in the highest two tax brackets; three out of four are the small business owners Obama wants to tax.

The WSJ reports that the National Federation of Independent Business says that only 10% of small businesses with one to nine employees will be hit by Obama’s tax increase. However, almost 20% of the small businesses that employ from 10 to 19 people will get nailed, and 50% of small businesses with over 20 employees get punished.

Again … it is not the percentage of businesses that will have to pay the increased taxes; it’s the percentage of the total of small business employees who work for those businesses. The Obama campaign is counting on you not making that distinction; and they know the media won’t make it for you; so Obama’s “95% of all small businesses don’t make $250,000″ line will probably rule the day.

Come on folks. These are your jobs we’re talking about here. It’s time to take your blinders off and see through some of this Obama rhetoric. The Obama campaign has some wonderful people working for them to tell them just how to parse words to hide intent and meaning. Just because they’re trying to fool you doesn’t mean that you have to be so easily suckered. When Obama talks about change .. he may well mean that you are going to have to change jobs. Now that’s change you can believe in, right?

Pandering to the Unions .. at Your Expense.

Now since we’re talking about jobs here, you need to be up to speed on The Messiah’s “Employee Free Choice Act.” Let me step out on a limb here and say that applying the words “free choice” to Obama’s plan to eliminate secret ballots in union elections is like applying the words “fun sex” to an act of rape. Freedom has nothing to do with Obama’s plan, and fun has nothing to do with rape.

Going in you need to recognize that union membership has been falling for decades. You only see growth in union membership in government employee unions. This, of course, is troubling to union leaders. It is also troubling to Democrats. Unions, you see, almost exclusively support Democrat candidates, both with money and time. Big money and lots of time … and it’s all behind Obama’s candidacy.

To know what Obama is up to here, you need to know how union organizing works under the current law. Union organizers circulate a petition among employees. Employees are asked to sign a card saying that they would like to be represented by a union in their workplace. If a majority of the workers sign the cards the employer has the option of immediately recognizing the union and allowing them to organize the workplace. More often the employer will call for an election – an election using secret ballots. Every employee will be given the opportunity to express their desire to join or not to join a union in secret. Their co-workers will not know how they voted. They can prance around the workplace touting their support of unionization all they want in order to impress or appease their fellow workers, especially those who are trying to organize the union, but then vote “no” on the secret ballot if that’s how they truly feel.

How, you might ask, do Democrats feel about the secret ballot in union elections? For a clue let’s go to a letter from 16 House Democrats dated August 29, 2001. The letter was written on the letterhead of California Congressman George Miller, a Democrat representing the 7th District of California. That letter reads:

So there you go. These 16 Democrats are on the record as being solidly in favor of using secret ballots in union recognition elections. So far, so good … because that, as they point out in their letter, is clearly the right stance.

That brings us to piece of legislation – a piece of Obama sponsored legislation –designated as H.R. 800, the Employee Free Choice Act. Would you care to guess just what H.R. 800 does? Well, that’s simple. It will eliminate the secret ballot in union recognition elections. You got it! Obama has decided to really do something nice for the union bosses that are supporting him in this election, and he is determined to do away with secret ballots in union elections. When H.R. 800 gets passed … and trust me, with Barack Obama in the White House, this thing will become law … the union organizers will visit all of the workers, perhaps even visiting some of them in their homes, and “urge” them to sign the card calling for a union. I can hear it now: “Mrs. Johnson, wouldn’t you and your children want your husband to be represented by our union at his job?” Now put yourself in the worker’s place! Are you going to say no? This organizer is sitting in your living room looking at you and your wife and saying “You do want to be represented by our union in your workplace, don’t you?” And you’re going to tell him no?

Are you getting the big picture here? This is nothing less than Barack Obama and his Democrat pals legitimizing union intimidation in the workplace. If you don’t see that, then there is virtually no hope for you when it comes to understanding basic politics. It’s payback the unions time .. pay them back for all of that financial support and all of those volunteer hours. Besides … the more union members there are the more union dues the union bosses have to spread to Democrats as campaign contributions.

But – we’re saved, right? After all, we have those 16 Democrats who signed that letter to Mexico. What was it they said? Oh yeah: ” … we feel that the secret ballot is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise chose.” So these 16 Democrats will certainly put up a spirited defense of secret ballots in union organizing elections, right?

Well … um … maybe not. You see, four of these congressmen (Dooley, Sabo, Evans and Coyne) are no longer in the Congress. One of the signers, Bernie Sanders, is now a Senator. That leaves 11 of the 16 signees still in the house to defend the principal of the secret ballot.

I’m afraid we have a small problem though. It seems that every one of the 11 remaining signees is now a sponsor of H.R. 800. In fact, the so-called Employee Free Choice Act was actually introduced by none other than George Miller – the very California Democrat on whose letterhead that letter to Mexico was written. Bernie Sanders is a sponsor of the same legislation in the Senate along with Barack Obama. No surprise .

On the one hand we have these Democrats writing a letter extolling the virtues of a secret ballot in union organizing elections, and then they sponsor a bill eliminating those very secret ballots! And here’s Barack Obama pledging to sign the bill as soon as it comes to his desk! So what changed between 2001 and 2007? What happened that made these 12 Democrats go from believing that a secret ballot in a union election was “absolutely necessary,” to introducing a bill eliminating those “absolutely necessary” secret ballots? Control of congress; that’s what changed. In 2001 the Republicans ran the show. In 2007 it was the Democrats … and it was time to return some favors to union bosses. Do you know what you’re seeing here? You’re seeing just how much power unions have over Barack Obama and the Democrat party. It doesn’t matter what kind of letter you wrote, or what stance you took in the past — when we say “frog” you had better jump.

Let me tell you what is going to happen as soon as Barack Obama is elected. Employers are going to look at the so-called Employee Free Choice Act and they’re going to be very afraid. They know what a union can do to their business and their profitability. Just look at our auto industry. So employers are going to immediately start working to minimize the damage. How do you do that? Well, automation is one way. Go ahead and buy that machinery you need to automate much of your workplace. That will allow you to get rid of these employees before they can unionize. You might also want to consider the possibility of moving some of those jobs overseas where union intimidation might not be such a negative factor in your business operations.

When Obama gets his unionization by intimidation thing in place – and he most certainly will – jobs are going to be lost and businesses will fail. This is the price Obama is willing to pay to pay back the unions who have supported him.

Just another reason to vote for The Chosen One, right?

The Supreme Court

This is getting to be a bit long. We’re over 6,200 words here. So let’s end this message to the undecided voter with a few words about the Supreme Court.

It is quite possible that Barack Obama will get to make one, maybe two Supreme Court appointments before he’s through in Washington. It is also possible that he will have a filibuster-proof Senate to help him ram those choices through.

I’m a lawyer, and I’ve always had this strange idea that the U.S. Supreme Court should base its decisions on the supreme law of our land, our Constitution. Many people think differently these days. A recent and rather shocking survey showed that around 80% of people who support Barack Obama believe that the Supreme Court should base its decisions not on the Constitution, but on what’s “fair.” Egad! On the other hand, the strong majority of McCain voters believe that the Supremes should look to our Constitution as the final authority.

Let’s just make this short and sweet, because I know you want to get out of here. If Barack Obama gets those two nominations, and if the Democrat Senate rubber-stamps them, then we are going to have a Supreme Court making decisions based on their liberal definition of “fairness” with some consideration to foreign court decisions tossed in. This is perhaps Obama’s greatest opportunity to do permanent damage to our Republic; permanent and irreparable damage. It’s one thing when Barack Obama talks about wealth seizure and redistribution in terms of “fairness.” It’s quite another when that talk is legitimized by a Supreme Court decision.

So, dear undecided voters … as Og Mandino (a great American) once said: “Use wisely your power of choice.” There’s a lot hanging in the balance.

There. I’m done.

Another day, another mall/school/street shooter, many dead, and the outrage continues.  And inevitably, the call for gun control.  Let’s go with that line of thinking for a moment…  People die at the hand of a gunman, so to solve the problem, take away guns.  Extending this logic, people die at the hand of stabbers, so take away knives.  And rat poision, don’t forget rat poision is used to murder people, gotta get rid of it too.  Let’s see, what else…cars kill people, so do airplanes, motorcycles, pillows, buckets of water, drugs, baseball bats, fists, and well, you get the point.  What to all these methods of death and killing have in common?  Bless those of you who said ‘a human operator with a deranged mind’.  Disarming a society of instruments that can be used to kill is a naive response to the wrong cause.  The cause is not the gun, it’s the human operating it.  Sure, a gun is easier, but without a gun, the person will find another way, perhaps even worse, a bomb, chemical agent, etc., to kill the victims.

In the USA of the 21st century, sane and insane criminals can count on one thing:  justice will be slow if it is served at all, and if it is served, it will not be uncomfortable.  In other words, there are few real deterrents to violent crime in the US.  Our laws are a joke, and our enforcement of them is the punch line of the joke.   I don’t advocate the Islamic approach to crime (but admit that they have almost none in their societies) but you have to agree that REAL deterrents do work, and their system is proof.  Now, as Americans, our job should be to find out a workable medium between our current “warm ‘n fuzzy” approach to violent criminals and the “effective” deterrents used by Islamic and other countries.

For that matter, why don’t we have an instant 10-year prison term for drunk drivers on the first offense?  I bet there would be fewer first offenses if there were a real deterrent.  Instead, so many innocent people are killed by drunk drivers with a second or third offense on their record.  What’s the point?  How many true ‘recovered alcoholics’  do you know?  You can’t help these people, and making a life threatening decision to drink and drive is no different than pointing a 3000-pound gun at someone and pulling the trigger.  Let’s be consistent!

For shooters like the one in the mall recently, there are deterrents that would make kids think twice about doing what he did:  No media coverage beyond simple reporting of the fact would remove the ‘fame’ goal so many of them have.  If they survive the SWAT team, mandatory execution seems fair once the laborious trial takes place, but that could even be made ’swift’ like the Constitution mandates it to be.

I grieve for the families of the victims, everyone should, but keep sight of the real problem here.  Access to guns is not what caused this, the parents of this child are more responsible even than he is.  It’s their job to raise and nurture this child, and they apparently failed.  I see this far too often, and failed families are more the norm than the exception across the US.  Absentee fathers, overworked, or otherwise unavailable even if good intentioned moms,  lack of any kind of real foundation, goals, and all the stuff that successful people have are all the responsibility of parents.  Raising children is more than implanting sperm and then pushing them out of the womb, the responsibility begins even then to make this child a successful member of society.  Teaching them how to deal with life and how to have hope is a lot easier than trying to find ways to keep them from having access to a gun when all else fails.

The bottom line here is that we need to stop using massacres like this as a platform to launch gun control discussions.  It’s no more logical an argument than ‘baseball bat control’ for angry people, or ‘hamburger control’ for ‘over eaters’ that burden the health care system, or ‘cigarette bans’ to fix the outrageous cancer/lung deaths of smokers.

Recognize that you can’t legislate this problem away.  But perhaps the single most important thing we could do legislatively is to make parents responsible for their children in an attempt to encourage them to actually  develop their children, do something about their futures, support them, teach them, and raise them to be assets to the country.  All it takes for the parent is to just be a parent instead of an elder occupant of the same home.  It doesn’t take money either.  The world is full of poor families with character and hope.  Doesn’t take government either.  Character, hope and self respect are something families develop, not something governments issue.

Next time this sort of thing happens, you might want to ask what kind of parents raised a kid that was this deranged and still loose on society?  You can control children.  The secret is this:  Teach them love, understanding, patience, honor, truth, and treat them like the precious individuals they are.  Punish them according to the severity of any given transgression against the rules and values you establish in your family.  And when the punishment has ended, remind them that you were doing your job as a parent, and that even while you punish, you love.   It’s ok to let them know that you’re a parent first, and a friend second.  Your primary job is that of a parent.  Guide them, talk to them about small and large things. Imagine with them.  They will trust you if you trust them, and that’s easy to do when you do the things above.  Trust happens automatically in an environment like this.  The real failure of parents is to assume that the roof, food, and clothing they provide constitutes raising the child.  It does not.

The Libertarian Values blog is a place to talk about the United States, our government, our way of life, the challenges we face, and what we can do as individuals to conserve and grow our culture, limit our government, and promote freedom and above all, liberty.

As the individual responsible for LV.org, my intent is to provide a place for recording my personal thoughts on these topics, and where you and others can engage in dialog on the same.

Before you continue reading on this site, you need to agree to the rules in advance because we will not invite anyone here that is looking for anything other than friendly dialog and the exchange of ideas. If you have a political or personal agenda of hate, you should not participate here because the subjects will most likely lead you to make personal attacks on the members, and that won’t be tolerated. There are other websites where your anger and hate may be welcome, but this is not one of them. You have a right to view these pages, and if anything here offends you, then you should consider whether you want to continue reading. You have a right to ignore anything you see here as well. Do not bother with legal means because by reading beyond this paragraph, you have agreed to these terms, and agree that you may be offended, pleased, angered, or bored with anything that is said here, but that is your right and by choosing to participate in this dialogue, you agree to play nice and be a good citizen. As a private citizen, I have a right to eliminate you from the membership any time I please, but as long as you focus on the discussion, regardless your position, and do so in a humane way, you will always be welcome.

As our dialog progresses, keep in mind that there are a few principles that are not negotiable in my mind, and discussions that seek to argue the validity are going to be fruitless and pointless. That’s because these things are fundamental principles, and cannot be offered for discussion because they are simply the ‘physics’ of the American society that was formed so long ago, and which are still valid in my mind. These principles are as follows, and could be considered a Bill of Rights, or 10 Strong Recommendations (’commandments’ was taken, sorry), but whatever they are, you will have to work very hard to convince me that these are not absolutes:

1. That the American government is our servant, and it’s powers must be limited to those things that we as individual citizens and private organizations cannot provide for ourselves except through collective government, such as the judicial system, the executive branch, the legislatures, military power, and a few others.

2. That liberty is the basis of our society, and infringements on constitutional liberty are the primary mechanism of decay in our society.

3. That free enterprise and liberty are fundamentally positive forces and that the rise of socialism represents our failure as a people to be successful in our pursuit of liberty.

4. That Americans have a right to live in a sovereign country, and to protect and maintain the sovereignty for all time, and against all threats.

5. That the American government, based on God-given rights, and formed in the image of the ancient democracy of Greece is as valid a form of Government as any other government based on religious beliefs, and deserves the same respect in the world community.

6. That the American government owes us no more than the following: An opportunity to legally and safely pursue our goals in life, The guarantee of the continued liberty, Protection from enemies of the state, Law and Order, Civil Infrastructure, and an economic system that supports the American economy in which we all strive to attain our personal goals.

7. That there is a bi-polar political system in place in this country, and neither pole is attracting the compass needle of the American culture, rather it is spinning out of control looking for ‘true north’, which I assert does not currently exist. We have a democratic party (the Republicans), and a Socialist party (the Democrats), and neither has been faithful to the founders vision, the Constitution, and the best interests of the American people. Yes, that’s written correctly. Democrats support the concept and philosophy of elected government, an open economy, and free enterprise, whereas Socialists support the concept and philosophy of absolute government based on social dependence, wealth distribution and fine control over social structure.

8. That personal responsibility is fundamental to human social/political success. If there was ever one statement that needs to be engraved on the psyche of Americans, it is this one: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your Country”.

9. That America is on the verge of loosing her way due to increasing disarray and chaos in society. Since the founding of this country, we as a people have increasingly looked for the Government to provide for us what has been difficult for us to provide for ourselves, and there is a political party emerging that seeks to capitalize on the fundamental human characteristic of ‘need’. If the party can offer solutions to all of society’s needs, then that party stands to be in power forever. Humans tend to forget that as children, our parents rarely gave us what we wanted, but tried hard to give us what we needed. Now as adults, we feel we ‘need’ things like Universal Health Care, but in reality, we just want it. What we really need is competition in the market so that health insurance is more like car insurance or life insurance. But allowing something so significant to enter a competitive market, when the socialist machine screams so loudly that it should be your ‘right’, and does so toward so many willing ears, we begin to lose our liberty in real, tangible and irreversible ways. Look at the IRS for a good example of how not to fund a war. This temporary program plagues us decades after it was to have been shut down. The IRS is the best example of socialist encroachment you might be able to produce today!

10. That individual American Citizens can and will save their precious country from the socialist tendencies, the Islamic terrorists, the Communist Dictators, the social decay and internal issues that face us. Our government does have a role, but remember that we are the government, we still decide their power, we still decide the course of the nation, we still decide who represents us to a large degree (read about the electoral college, and the Constitution where you find that you do not have a right to vote, actually….). There is hope for America, but only if we settle our internal differences, and to do that, some of us are going to have to assume new positions, else the enemies within and afar will overtake us while we fiddle on our collective roof of argument!