I Needed to Save This One

A Country Founded by Geniuses but Run by Idiots!

If you can get arrested for hunting or fishing without a license, but 
not
for entering and remaining in the country illegally —
you might 
live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If you have to get your parents’ permission to go on a field trip or 
to
take an aspirin in school, but not to get an abortion —
you might 
live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If you MUST show your identification to board an airplane, cash a 
check, buy liquor, or check out a
library book and rent a video, but not 
to vote for who runs the government —
you might live in a nation that 
was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If the government wants to prevent stable, law-abiding citizens from 
owning gun magazines that
hold more than ten rounds, but gives twenty 
F-16 fighter jets to the crazy new
leaders in Egypt —
you might live in a 
nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If, in the nation’s largest city, you can buy two 16-ounce sodas, but 
not
one 24-ounce soda, because 24-ounces of a sugary drink might make 
you
fat —
you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is
 run by idiots.

If an 80-year-old woman or a three-year-old girl who is confined to a 
wheelchair
can be strip-searched by the TSA at the airport, but a woman 
in a
burka or a hijab is only subject to having her neck and head 
searched—
you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but 
is run by idiots.

If your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions 
of
dollars of debt is to spend trillions more —
you might live in a 
nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If a seven-year-old boy can be thrown out of school for saying his 
teacher
is “cute,” but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class 
in grade school is
perfectly acceptable —
you might live in a nation 
that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If hard work and success are met with higher taxes and more 
government regulation and intrusion,
while not working is rewarded with 
Food Stamps, WIC checks, Medicaid
benefits, subsidized housing, and free
 cell phones —
you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses 
but is run by idiots.

If the government’s plan for getting people back to work is to 
provide incentives for
not working, by granting 99 weeks of unemployment 
checks, without any
requirement to prove that gainful employment was 
diligently sought, but couldn’t be found —
you might live in a nation 
that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If you pay your mortgage faithfully, denying yourself the newest 
big-screen TV, while your
neighbor buys iPhones, time shares, a 
wall-sized do-it-all plasma screen TV
and new cars, and the government 
forgives his debt when he defaults on
his mortgage —
you might live in a
 nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If being stripped of your Constitutional right to defend yourself 
makes
you more “safe” according to the government —
you mightlive in a 
nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If the media panders to your openly socialist leader while the IRS targets groups with
dissenting views—
you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If your government ‘cracks down’ on legal gun sales to law abiding citizens while
secretly supplying illegal guns to Mexican drug cartels—
you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If your local government (Chicago) outlawed gun ownership for ‘the safety of its
citizens’ and now boasts the worst murder rate in the country —
you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

More on Scarface

I read a little on Al Capone after my last post, and it's true:  despite being connected with dozens, perhaps hundreds of murders, not to mention other crimes, they finally got Capone on tax evasion.  Oh the usefulness of the IRS!

But, if it weren't for prohibition, guys like Capone would have never gone into business.  It was the prospect of huge profits from dealing in an illegal substance (that nonetheless was used by the majority of the population for thousands of years) that brought the mob into it.  Sure, they could've done the numbers racket or other penny-ante stuff, but organized crime would have never reached the scale that it did without prohibition.

So--create the problem through government stupidity, and solve it with government power.  Works for me.

Frankly, I'll take Capone.

Flat tax

Gary North, in an essay entitled, "Tax Payment Calculator (Rigged):  4 Presidential Candidates", opines:
"I would go with Cruz's plan: a flat tax. This honors the principle of the rule of law: all people pay the same percentage. I call it the principle of the tithe. To vote to impose a tax on someone else requires that you vote to pay the same. This principle is never honored in politics...This would involve massive spending cuts. I'm for that, too. But Cruz does not mention this in his speeches."

Yes, I'm for a flat tax too.  I agree with Gary's principle of voting for yourself what you vote for others.  BUT...I disagree that lower taxes "would involve massive spending cuts".

We'll just do what we've been doing, oh, since the '50s at least, and just paper over the difference between collections and spending with money creation.  Don't just take my word for it, here's what Alan Greenspan recently said: 

Interviewer: Are you optimistic going forward here?

Alan Greenspan: No, I haven't been for quite a while and I won't be until we can resolve the entitlement programs. Nobody wants to touch it, but it's gradually crowding out capital investment, and that's crowding out productivity, and that's crowding out the standards of living… and you get an extraordinary demand for entitlements and all sorts of programs which are not funded. Why? Because why do they need to be funded? We just print the money.

And frankly, if that flat ten percent leaves NO loopholes at all, except for the $10k deduction for everyone, I think that perhaps revenue collection will be "enhanced", to use a governmental term.  And, more importantly, 95% of the IRS will be left without justification for its existence.  Just the prospect of putting 95% of that organization's bureaucratic parasites out on the street is enough for me to vote for the flat tax (but not for Cruz).

Just to make my position perfectly clear: I think that the income tax is a smokescreen.  It's a smokescreen to obscure the amount of money creation that's been going on.  If there were no income tax, and government carried on business as usual, people might get wise:  "Where's the money coming from?"

To further clarify my position:  IMO, tax collection is the least important of the IRS's functions.   Its primary purpose is to ride herd on the citizenry, and keep them in line.  Case in point: the administration's siccing the IRS on conservative groups they didn't like.  If you REALLY want to nail someone, forget the FBI--send the IRS after them.  (Didn't they finally get Capone on tax evasion charges?  That speaks volumes.)

The income tax is just a not-so-subtle yearly reminder of who's boss. 

Scorn of the Left

I've noticed that when someone on the left debates someone on the right, the arguments of the lefty most often consist of sarcasm, sneers, belittlement, name-calling, and scorn rather than substance.  I've often wondered why--outside of the fact that they've given themselves over to an anti-God worldview and philosophy and therefore it's not surprising that they should display such odious behavior.

But just now I read an essay by Thomas Sowell which explains it.  I reproduce the key passage:

"What socialism, fascism and other ideologies of the left have in common is an assumption that some very wise people -- like themselves -- need to take decisions out of the hands of lesser people, like the rest of us, and impose those decisions by government fiat.

The left's vision is not only a vision of the world, but also a vision of themselves, as superior beings pursuing superior ends. In the United States, however, this vision conflicts with a Constitution that begins, "We the People..."

That is why the left has for more than a century been trying to get the Constitution's limitations on government loosened or evaded by judges' new interpretations, based on notions of "a living Constitution" that will take decisions out of the hands of "We the People," and transfer those decisions to our betters.

The self-flattery of the vision of the left also gives its true believers a huge ego stake in that vision, which means that mere facts are unlikely to make them reconsider, regardless of what evidence piles up against the vision of the left, and regardless of its disastrous consequences." (emphasis mine)

Thank you, Dr. Sowell!  This makes sense.  It explains the intellectual snobbery of those on the left, their obvious attitude that anyone who disagrees with them just can't be too bright, that their opponents are lesser beings--perhaps even subhuman!--and needn't be treated with the respect one would extend to a fellow human being.

"And the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die.  For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Gen. 3:4,5)

Re: The Jehovah vs. Yahweh "Controversy"

The following is a response to one person who took exception to another's use of "Jehovah" in reference to the great I AM, insisting that Yahweh is the correct way to render it:

That's okay...we're English speakers.  We allow speakers of other languages considerable latitude in their pronunciation and spelling of names, places, etc.  Why shouldn't that same forbearance be extended to us?
I'm reminded of the name "James".  In other languages it's rendered Jakob, Jacobus, Iago, etc.  How we came up with James I don't know!  But would you deny parents the right to name their child James because it doesn't conform to the original language? 
In German and some Slavic languages that J is pronounced like we English speakers pronounce the letter Y.  (Go ahead, take a crack at Ljubljana!)  Hence the perfectly logical Iago in Spanish.   I don't know for certain, but suspect that the Hebrew letter we use the V or W for (depending on how you pronounce it) has an actual pronunciation midway between the two.  I've heard that pronunciation in Urdu, for instance. 
What about the name Jesus?  It's actually Yeshua, or Joshua in our rendering.  Again the Y sound has been replaced by our J sound.  Is that blasphemous?  I think Yeshua would be very tolerant!
So what I'm trying to say is, be forbearing and allow people their linguistic/cultural differences.  Even our own.

Re: BLM takeover of ranchers' lands

"What do you think about the federal Bureau of Land Management staking claim to land that has been owned by Texas ranchers for over 70 years? Should the BLM take into consideration that the land owners have deeds handed out by the State of Texas and that they have been paying property taxes on the land over the years?"

This comment at the end of the article really burned me.  "Should the BLM take into consideration..."!  In other words, the BLM is the arbiter of this affair!  There wouldn't possibly be a conflict of interest, would there?

I'd like the sentence to read, "Should the BLM take into consideration...that with the wide dissemination of happenings like this on the internet, their chances of burying this whole affair may be greatly limited compared with past years, and could set off a firestorm of outrage not only against the BLM but against federal agencies in general, and against the whole idea of immunity from prosecution for federal officials that only dates back to a 1970s decision which, if reversed, could result in a number of bureaucrats having their butts thrown into the slammer for long periods of time, not to mention the public infamy brought upon them and their families?"  That's what it SHOULD read. 

Whew, that felt good.

The Left and Morality--Response to John Little of Omega Shock

Re those voting for Hillary: "We are so dumbed-down, that we will vote for her, without realizing how important all this is."

John, I believe that it's worse than that. It's that many if not most of the people voting for Hillary won't even care about the moral issue because their primary desire is for political power.  The Democrat party "has become a habitation of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird!" (Rev. 18:2)

"And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind" (Rom. 1:28)

I know, there are plenty on the right side of the aisle who are guilty of wrongdoing.  But those things are not policy with them, as they are with the left.  The right still admits to the existence of moral categories, and they're still humiliated when caught doing wrong.  But the left denies the existence of objective morality, calling it a purely human construct.

If you survey the university scene, you'll find that objective morality basically ceased to exist there decades ago.  And it's at the universities--with the intellectuals and the future leaders--that the direction of society is determined.  The contempt on the campuses for traditional values and morality is stunning.  These are the strongholds of the left, and this is the intellectual and philosophical base of Hillary's supporters.

If you've never done so, please go online and check out two publications which have wide readership in Portland OR, the city my wife and I live near.  You really have to read them to truly understand where our society is:  Willamette Week and the Portland Mercury.  A total jettisoning of moral values, except those values found useful by the left in argument.  As I like to say, the left doesn't really believe in morality, but finds it a convenient club with which to bash their opponents, who DO believe in morality.

If you really pin a lefty down on a moral issue, and he finds no way to escape, he'll just look you in the eye, spit in your face, and say "To h--l with your outmoded, bourgeois morality!"

This could be 50% of our electorate, John.