Thursday, September 11, 2014

5 Ways President Bush Was Better Than President Obama

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Were Unions Ever Necessary Part Two

There are many myths out there that have been built up into the general psyche.  One of them is that even though, unions aren't necessary today, there was one point in industrialization where they were, to protect us from the robber baron.  Another myth is that the robber barons, would've just kept all the money for themselves, and created monopolies to charge what they wanted.  I will be debunking both of these myths.

These lies are pervasive and has been built up by the unions.  They've rewritten history to try and change the future.  Unions were (and largely still are) throw backs to mercantilism - they seek crony protectionism, to protect the tradesmen from competition, and harm both the producer and the consumer. They are in fact enemies of free market capitalism.  During the Industrial Revolution, people could suddenly gain skills and money without belonging to a trade union.  The trade unions responded to this threat with lies.  That the immigrants (legal at the time) we're stealing jobs.  That the minorities were stealing jobs.  The Marxist agitators latched onto this myth machine and started espousing that the great business men, were in face "Robber Barons."

They built up the big lie about the "Robber Barons"- people being abused by them, and them abusing other businesses.  Upton Sinclair, gladly played the useful idiot for the unions with his anti capitalist book, "The Jungle".  He proclaimed that "Capitalism is a jungle.", it's every man for himself.  Capitalism in fact is the very opposite of a jungle, and is the very highest form of voluntary cooperation.  Capitalism and free trade, and the ability to change our careers during a lifetime (something unions don't want!) is what separates us from the jungle.  We are capable of shaping our world, and voluntarily cooperating with other people that we would otherwise not get along with.

One of the most brilliant arguments for free market capitalism, is the poem, "I Am Pencil."  Watch this version below;

Milton Friedman also brilliantly debunks the Robber Barons, in this piece;


In the end, capitalism provides choice and liberty, unions take away choice and liberty.  You can re-read my part 1 of this topic here.  I started with a picture of a marxist occupier, many probably won't understand the connection.  The connection, is obvious if you think about it.  Unions today proclaim a job is a right, and you deserve a minimum wage.

You don't  DESERVE anything.  You have to earn, everything.  Capitalism does work, it's the system most compatible with human nature.  The reason why, is it's God's law.  Private property, and human interaction is what God wants.  He wants you to specialize, and then change to what other people need.

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Short Story Hour Part 1

Monster Hunter

    I arrived early morning at the entrance to the city of Purlinska. The Sun had just begun to shine over the furthest mountain peak. It looked like it was going to be a warm autumn day. As I walked through the town toward my destination of the Chapel, I noticed the townspeople averting their gaze from me.  It did not matter much to me though, most Monster Hunters, were hated in any part of the world.  I approached the front of the chapel, cliche as chapels go, with a quaint little graveyard behind it.  I walked up to the wide double doors and pushed them inwards.  Few people inside near the back had their hands clasped together, and heads bowed.  At the front of the chapel was the Father.  I walked towards him and let the doors swing shut behind me.

As I drew nearer to him, he looked up at me then asked, “Are you seeking God my son?”
I replied in cold tone, “No Father.” Then added, “I’m here for the same reason you are.”
He smiled starkly, then replied, “I suppose I should have known you were the Hunter we sent for.”  He gave me a once over then added, “Come, follow me I’ll discuss the details of your job.”

    He left the pulpit and started heading towards his chamber. I followed him, and then walked in as he held the door open for me. He closed the door and went to sit behind his desk, his black robes swaying as he walked.
“Please sit down,” he said gesturing towards the seat on the other side of the desk.
I obliged him, sitting in the hard wicker chair across from him. “So what are the details of this job?” I queried him.
The father furrowed his brow together. “I guess introductions are out of the question?”
I smiled at him. “Names are too formal for the work I do.”
“Well then, shall we discuss why your here?” The father replied hastily, shuffling paperwork on his desk.
“By all means.” I replied, urging him to continue.
The father stood up and walked up to face the window, his robes brushing against the wicker chair as he moved. “Well this quiet town has a horrifying secret…” He started.
“On the night of Hallows Eve, the dead rise from their tombs and devour the living.” He turned deliberately to see my response.

My face as stone cold.remained statuesque.  As a Monster Hunter I had become used to these ‘strange’ happenings.  It seems lately they were increasing in frequency.  In my mind it was abnormal to cling on to the old world.  Sanity and normality had been vanquished by the creatures that go bump in the night.

“When will I receive payment?” I asked him before he could continue.
“After you stop the zombies. Find out what is causing them to awaken.” The Father replied to me.
I smiled, and stood up.. “ I’ll take the job and find the source of your zombies.” After replying bluntly, I got up and strided out of the room, and towards the exit of the Church.

    I figured the best way to find out the source of the zombies was to sit in the graveyard in a hidden place to see if I could see anything suspicious.  There was something off about the father, that raised my suspicions, that I’d be dealing with more than just the normal supernatual Zombie.  After nightfall, I snuck into the graveyard, hiding behind a large bush that was next to a mausoleum.  Seconds quickly turned into minutes, and minutes quickly turned into hours.  I was about to abandon my post, when I heard someone talking.  Either, this church has the first ever talking Zombie, or something more sinister was going on.  The sound become more guttural, than human, almost sounding like some sort of rhythmic chanting. I tried getting a better look through the bushes. It looked like the Father, I had spoken to earlier was out with some young clergyman, reading from a book.

I stood up and said, “Well Father what a surprise.”

As he turned towards me, it was almost like his eyes and mouth were writhing like a livnig thing.  He finished facing me, revealing a face flickering in the light of the fire, twisted like the gnarled branches of an old tree.  It took only a moment to realize that, either the Father was some sort of demon, or this wasn't the Father.

He looked up at me snarling angrily, “You fool, what are you doing here!”
I pointed at him and replied, “looking for your zombies.”
“So what are you doing here in the graveyard then?” he asked me.

At this point I was about to point out the obvious nature of zombies hanging out in graveyards, that was until a hand popped out of the grave close to my feet, reaching for me!  It took only another heartbeat for the creatures decayed head to emerge from the grave.  I started to back up to get some room to get my weapons ready, when I heard the ground behind me shift.  Shit.  They were everywhere.  I lunged backwards and tumbled right over a gravestone, into an empty grave.

“GROUAH!”, one of the two zombies screeched.

An eternity passed as my heart beat faster.

Another eternity passed, my heart speeding up.

The father's head poked over the top of the grave.

“GUAAHHH!!” I screamed.  He smiled even more impishly than should be possible, his face writhing in the light.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Social Justice Part III

First read my prior works in this series - Social Justice Part I, and Social Justice Part II.

In my two prior pieces on social justice, I discussed how such ideas are antithetical to Judeo-Christian values.  In this piece I'm going to talk about the results of those good intentions.  Repeated failures that are continually ignored by the Utopian left as they shove their fantasy down our throats.

Interestingly, when society ignores the bible's values on private property rights, and admonitions against theft, (taxation is theft) the society begins to crumble.  America has recent experience with such failures.  The Plymouth colony, that William Bradford founded started with _no_ private property rights.  It was all communal.  He like modern day social justice, anti property rights Christians, misunderstood the Bible and Christ.  Ask yourself an obvious question, if God wanted us to live with no property rights, shouldn't natural law support such behavior?  If God wanted us to have communal property and to be interchangeable bricks in the wall, wouldn't such behavior succeed in reality?

When societies reject Private Property over the "common good", the result is abundance of misery and despair.  Is that what God wants?  for everyone in society to suffer?  If Bradford's experiment in rejecting Private Property was alone, it'd be easy to say, "We just need the right person to lead our centrally planned society!".  Who is that right person?  Why are you so quick to abandon the personal sovereignty that God granted you?  The uneducated masses always forget history, and are always rife to repeat it.

These people are waiting in line for toilet paper! Go Socialism!
Venezuela has decided to chase after Utopia.  They've abandoned property rights- now they can't get
enough toilet paper to clean up the mess they've created.  They've abandoned individual sovereignty - as a direct result crime towards other men and women is on the rise.  All of this makes sense, from a biblical world view.  When you reject the moral value of private property, people also abandond common decency toward others.  The civil society breaks down, as it's replaced with stealing and looting and raping others.

That's always the end result of Social Justice.  The natural world and natural law backs up God's words in the bible. He didn't want you to be envious of the rich, to have Government steal their wealth.  It's amazing to me, even the Pope buys into this marxist agitprop. Christ, clearly states; "There will always be poor people.".  Do you believe the bible is the word of God or not, you social justice espousing Jews and Christians?  Even for those that don't believe in the bible, natural law shows that their theories of humanity don't work.  They lead to misery and poverty.  Capitalism, especially the maligned "unbridled" capitalism, lead to great advancements in human interaction with one another.

There's nothing greater than the voluntary interaction between two people in capitalism.  Between the baker and the customer.  Between the fry cook and his or her customer.  Voluntary interactions bring together people that probably ordinarily hate one another.  That's the system the left wants to destroy?

Sunday, August 31, 2014

Obama's Week of Weakness (Week 2)

This week really shows the animal for the Democrat party should be an ostrich with it's head in the sand.  I think this would be just as valid for their domestic policies, as they ignore the failures of those policies.  Legislation can bring heaven to Earth, in the eyes of the utopian leftist.

Monday) Several stories for 8/25/2014;

Story One) Spin doctoring Obama's lack of response to ISIS, and stating "if ISIS was a problem in Syria, Obama would take care of it."  Like he took care of Russia invading the Ukraine this week?

Story Two) And the obligatory; "Obama has spent less time off than his predecessors"

Bush still worked at ranch; However the media held no punches when criticizing him for taking vacations.

As has been stated by Mark Levin, Obama's schedule when NOT on vacation is a joke!  He doesn't wake up until after NINE!  The last week of August, he was purportedly not on Vacation and his schedule was completely empty.  NOTHING, for the whole week?

Invariably, my comment to lefists that always point to Bush taking more vacation, is the obvious;
"Two wrongs don't make a right".  Seriously, why do you use bad behavior to excuse more bad behavior?

Tuesday) 8/26/2014: Obama's indecisiveness is costing lives, however the Obama uncertainty principle is a working factor of his presidency.

Last September the MSM defended his indecision, saying it was working in Syria.  A year later would they still defend such an asinine assertion?

Would they dare say the same thing today?

Wednesday) 8/27/2014: This is perhaps the best article to come out of the mainstream news this week, dealing with his own indecisiveness, and Obama's inability to course correct from his mistake.

This isn't something that is exclusive to Obama, every Democrat today suffers from this hubris.  They won't course correct on their economic blunders, and they won't course correct on their international blunders.

Thursday) 8/28/2014: Absolutely no plan to deal with the greatest Islamic Terrorist threat since Al Qaeda?  The very same day the Obama administration stated to global audience that they have no plant, Russia invaded the Ukraine.

Friday) Two stories for 8/29/2014: I wasn't sure which one was more damning of this pathetic administration, So I'll comment on two;

Story One) Obama urges calm while his weak Presidency did nothing to stop the collapse of Ukraine to Russia.  He wonders why Israel rejected his "peace treaty"?  If Israel listened to Obama, there would be no more Israel.

Story Two) They don't have a plan to deal with ISIS. Why would our enemies fear us, when Obama couldn't lead himself out of well lit room?

Saturday) The feckless and weak administration is blaming perception on his failures.  It's not his fault the world is falling apart.  Social media is creating a false perception of failure. Lying about the news is low, but not surprising.

Classic narcissism, and leftism.  The inability to accept responsibility for your mistakes.  The problem is, announcing to the world, that we don't have a plan will cost MORE American lives.  I fear ISIS will strike America, and Obama still won't have a clue or a plan.

Friday, August 29, 2014

5 tips for Implementing Positive Change In Your Life

What are some of the best ways to implement positive change in your life?


1) Be happy in everything you do.  This is seriously under rated.  If you go into a task with a positive attitude, more than likely those around you, will be drawn to help you.  I would add to this, that avoiding media that drags itself through the mud, to express misery and despair should be avoided.

2) All life is political.  it's important to understand how you affect other people.  You have to pay attention to the feeling of others, and position yourself as an asset to your corporation, your family, your neighborhood.  What do you bring to the table?  Are you in a constant quest of self improvement?

3) There is only one person that can motivate you.  Look in the mirror, see the person staring back at you?  They want to be more than the sum of your parts, but you have to get past the entropy of being human.

4) Get up and move, as cheesy as it sounds a body in motion is likely to stay in motion.  There was a study released recently, financially successful people work over 60 hours per week.  The unions gave you "the weekend" all right, and as a result have ensured more people stay at the bottom.

5) Stop expecting someone else to make you happy or motivated.  They have their own battles to fight, and more people need support than can offer a helping hand.

So what's with the dramatic graphic I chose at the top of this post?

It's the final secret to success, and positive change.  Be uncomfortable with everything in your life.  It's when you are uncomfortable that the greatest change, for the better happens in your life.

When do you focus on cleaning your house?  When you're uncomfortable with how dirty it is.  When do you focus on changing your career?  When it makes you uncomfortable.

Thursday, August 28, 2014

The Unintended Consequences Of Utopian Statism

The hubris of statism and feel good intentions of prohibiting behavior and trade always has unintended consequences.  With plastic bag ban, it's an increase in norovirus and people getting sick.  Mortgage and banking industry, Democrats passed laws forcing banks to give bad loans.  We all know the end result of that.  Millions of people couldn't (and wouldn't) pay back their loans, leading to a mortgage crisis.

If the left was as truly as open minded as they claim, they would reverse course on these bans, but they don't and the result is people die from their hubris.

The case study for this blog will be the CAFE standards, to "save the environment", or as they were originally envisioned to "make us more energy independent."

So let's challenge those two premises, and then move on to the unintended consequences of Utopian regulations, to change behavior.

1) Has it "saved the environment"?  By their own standards, CO2 is a pollutant. (Which I'll be addressing in a future post)  What has CO2 done since the inception of the CAFE standards?

2) It's original goal was to reduce the amount of oil imported.  Did it accomplish that?  Initially the data makes it appear that way after ten years.  However that's not taking into account two things.  Firstly, increased oil production domestically allowed under Reagan's lax on regulatory burden.  Secondly, decreased consumption in the early eighties from a recession that was the worst since the great depression.  (unlike the one Obama inherited).  You can see this in the Total oil used which also decreased from 1980 to 1985.


Year CO2 Level CO2 - %change Oil Imported OI - %Change total oil used TOU - %Change
1978 336.48 ppm 2,319,826 Not Available
1980 339.34 ppm 1,926,162 17,056,000
1985 346.65 ppm 22.1% 1,168,297 -64.8% 15,726,000 -8.5%
1990 354.88 ppm 23.2% 2,151,387 45.7% 16,988,500 7.43%
1995 361.70 ppm 18.9% 2,638,810 18.47% 17,724,590 4.15%
2000 369.85 ppm 22.0% 3,319,816 20.51% 19,701,080 10.03%
2005 380.78 ppm 28.7% 3,695,971 10.18% 20,802,160 5.29%
2010 390.22 ppm 24.2% 3,362,856 -9.91% 19,180,130 -8.46%
Sources: CO2 data, Imported Oil, Total Oil Used

So what does the data tell us?

1)  CO2 has not stopped increased, despite the push for smaller cars. In fact as an average, CO2 has remained at a constant state of increase, completely separate from economic activity. (see point 2)

2) Imported oil hasn't decreased, today is a greater percentage of total oil used, then it was in 1978.  It was 13.6% in 1978 and is 17.5% today.  You can also see in total oil used, that recessions changed behavior more than regulations.

What about my initial point, that CAFE standards kill (and that wonderful picture in the beginning)?
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/02/the_cafe_effect.html
According to the Brookings Institution, a 500-lb weight reduction of the average car increased annual highway fatalities by 2,200-3,900 and serious injuries by 11,000 to 19,500 per year. USA Today found that 7,700 deaths occurred for every mile per gallon gained in fuel economy standards. Smaller cars accounted for up to 12,144 deaths in 1997, 37% of all vehicle fatalities for that year.
How many deaths have resulted? Depending on which study you choose, the total ranges from 41,600 to 124,800. To that figure we can add between 352,000 and 624,000 people suffering serious injuries, including being crippled for life. In the past thirty years, fuel standards have become one of the major causes of death and misery in the United States — and one almost completely attributable to human stupidity and shortsightedness.
National Review has another brilliant unintended consequence.  Fewer people will be able to afford newer cars, as regulatory burden drives prices upward.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/296998/cafe-standards-kill-deroymurdock

Given all this why hasn't the state repealed the CAFE standards?

Reagan said it best: