I Can't Beat This Drum Enough....

....FairTax, FairTax, FairTax. The country I was born into is going down the tubes. Fast food workers are demanding nearly as much pay as I was getting as a licensed journeyman electrician. Union workers demand so much pay and benefits they price themselves right out of a job, then blame their employers. Government unions are an entirely different story....they vote for the candidates who can guarantee them the most benefits who are then beholden to the unions who voted them into office in the first place. The government, for all its proclamations of compassion for the poor, has a misplaced heart. People expect the government to care for them from cradle to grave, not realizing or not caring that the benefits they receive come from someone else who worked for the money that was then taken from them, at gunpoint, in the guise of the IRS. I hear people complain of the rich getting all of the breaks, and to some extent that's true....but no one ever got a job from a poor person. Jobs don't just appear out of thin air....they are created by people who have the means to do so. The rich also pay more in taxes than anyone else, with 40% of government revenues coming from the top 5% of income earners. That's income earners....NOT the wealthy. Our current system does not tax wealth the same as it does income. It is possible, under our current system, to be a multimillionaire yet qualify for foodstamps. Those income earners that are being taxed are the small and medium sized businesses that employ somewhere around 80% of the nation. You're biting the hand that feeds, people.

Why Is It....

that people feel that its perfectly ok to wrong the people in their lives then pray to whichever god they worship expecting that to heal the wounds without saying a word to those they did wrong? Is it because it would require an admission of guilt in the real world with real consequences? I read a joke once about a boy who wanted a bike, so he wrote a letter to God asking for one. He started by writing "God, I've been a very good boy and I would very much like a bike." He realized this wasn't the truth, so he tore it up and started again. This time he wrote "God, I've been a pretty good boy, and I would very much like a bike." Well he realized this wasn't the truth at all either, so he tore up that letter, went out and stole a bike, and prayed for forgiveness. Too many people today seem to have this attitude that they can take whatever they want from whoever, and if they get away with it, everything is hunky dory. It is not. There are many things, intangible things, that until recently I was not even aware could be taken...and in ways I could not previously fathom. Those who took these things know who they are and what they took, and are apparently under the impression no apology is necessary to those they stole from.  This could not be farther from the truth.

The liberal intellectual elite in this country are much the same way, feeling that it is fine to take from those who earned what they have and give to those who did not, so long as it doesn't affect them. Rarely will you come across an individual who will themselves take a hit to do what is right in the long run or make a necessary change. This is the difficulty faced by anyone attempting to make significant, meaningful change in America's political structure and system of taxation. As the nature of these changes come to light, one bumps into special interests on every side who are doing not much more than the boy with the bike, in the guise of charity or compassion or fairness, when their real intention is to line their own pockets and bring down others they view as a threat. The single biggest and most helpful change this country could make, possibly more important than healthcare reform, is tax reform. Our progressive tax system is overly burdensome to job creators and private entities in a position to help others make a bigger pie. The FairTax is a way to not only tax wealth, which is something our current tax system passes over, it also taxes blackmarket activity and would pave the way to the repatriation of approximately $11 trillion dollars in private revenue kept in offshore tax shelters. Our national debt is somewhere around $17 trillion, just to put that in perspective.

I sort of went off on a wild tangent on this piece, for which I beg  your pardon. If you couldn't tell, the first part has some personal significance which led to the second part, which is more general in nature but still related in that the second part is somewhat analogous to the first.

Students Forced To Re-Enact Slavery

 Political correctness alert: if that's what you're looking for, you're not going to find it here. I am not a racist, but you may not come away from this post with that impression. I am, however, a bit of a culturalist, and I feel that there are certain cultural elements in the United States that are in need of a dose of reality. Freedoms in this country are being frittered away by those who would prefer nanny government take care of them and insure their security, paving the way again to slavery...just in a different form. I'm writing this post and maintain this blog so that perhaps, years from now, I won't be saying "See, I told you so." Hopefully its not already too late.

Students at a middle school in Hartford, Connecticut were forced to re-enact slavery last year on a school field trip. You can read the story here. It was reported that students were asked to jump up and  down, open their mouths so their teeth could be checked, and made to dance for their masters. In addition to pretending to be sold at auction and picking cotton, the students participated as slaves in a re-enactment of the Underground Railroad and simulated being on slave ships. Though organizers claim racial epithets were not supposed to be used during the exercise, the parents of the complainant claims that they were.

Horrible, right? Well....maybe not so much as one would think. People in America today, though they banty the term "racist" about as if it were nothing, know nothing of true racism. Race baiters like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson make their livings off of keeping the race war alive in America, which means using the slightest hint of bigotry as a verbal cudgel to match the real cudgels carried in the 2008 presidential election and the 2010 midterms. It would seem that some have developed an extremely thin skin where the slightest provocation is met with a violent retort, leading those in a position to do something about it impotent.

There is a level of freedom for all in the United States that is unknown in the history of the world and it is being taken for granted on a daily basis by those who take their livings from those who earned it because they somehow feel entitled to it. Most are guilty to one extent or another, never thinking how easily those freedoms could slip away.

Though nothing was mentioned of it in the story, organizers most likely did not adequately inform parents of the nature of the exercise. I think parents should have been included in the exercise, made to kneel with their children as a reminder of the things America has left behind and how easily things can slide back. To know what it feels like for a human being to be bought and sold as property, because we have forgotten. All of the benefits that people vote themselves from government coffers come from somewhere....someone... productive. To do that is no different than stealing the portion of that persons life it took them to earn it.

 

What Makes A Crime More Of A Crime?

A couple days ago, I ran across the story of three black soldiers accused of killing a white soldier. Following is a quote that appeared in the USA Today story on the incident:

Matthew Barnes, a soldier who was holding Geike in his arms when he died, told KIRO-TV that someone in the car had yelled "cracker" and "white" at the soldiers numerous times.
"I yelled back, 'So this is how we treat combat veterans now?' But we weren't looking for trouble, and trouble found us anyway," Barnes said. "And when police find them, I hope to God we get justice."

You can read the rest of the USA Today story here.

The story I first read is here.

The following quote is from the NY Daily News. 

"Where's the outrage?" Turnipseed said. "If this had been the other way around — black victims — then this would have been a hate crime."
Lindquist said the facts didn’t support a hate crime charge. Two of Hill’s accused accomplices told investigators race wasn’t a factor and Geike’s friends said there weren’t any more slurs after the initial heckling, Lindquist said.

Police also said that race wasn't an issue, but didn't elaborate.

I'd like to hear some elaboration.

When I originally viewed the story, it stated that the attack was being viewed as a possible hate crime. When I went back to it several hours later, it had been updated to state that, while investigators would not explain why, it appeared that race was not a motivating factor. Apparently, on the word of the murderer's accomplices, coupled with the fact that the other party involved stated that the slurs ended before the stabbing occurred, it is determined that this is somehow not to be tried as a hate crime. Would he have had to have been calling him a cracker WHILE he was stabbing him for it to qualify? Does this mean, while during the commission of a so called hate crime, if a white person were not calling someone a nigger or spic or fag WHILE they were doing it, their crime should not have been classified as a hate crime and their sentences reduced or their convictions overturned? Does anyone else think this has devolved into utter ridiculousness? Is this how hate crime laws in our country are to be applied now? A hate crime is only a hate crime if its a white person committing it against some other minority? Am I asking too many questions that so called smart people can't answer rationally?

Hate crime laws began in the United States in 1968 with the adoption of the Civil Rights Act, which allows federal prosecution of anyone who "willingly injures, intimidates or interferes with another person, or attempts to do so, by force because of the other person's race, color, religion or national origin". These basic qualifiers have been amended to include gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and homelessness. These are all feel good laws meant to protect "minorities" from undue aggression from the "majority". The problem comes in its application...these laws are not applied equitably, as evidenced in this recent case. Hate crime charges should obviously be pursued in this case, but are not. Is it any wonder then, that this inequity of application further widens the racial divide in this nation? Is that the goal? If these laws are going to be on the books they should be applied evenly, across the board. If they are not, those involved in this investigation should themselves be investigated to determine why these laws are being willfully misapplied.

I personally do not condone hate laws, as motive does not make a crime MORE of a crime. That being said, they are now the law of the land. If they are to be so, then they should be applied more judiciously, in EVERY applicable case. Justice is supposed to be blind. With these kinds of laws being misapplied, the blindfold has been ripped off and the scales thrown out...leaving justice in the hands of thieves.

Update: 10/23/2013

This video highlights the hypocrisy with which hate crime laws are prosecuted in this country.

 Jeremiah Hill is being charged with first-degree murder; Cedarium Johnson and Ajoni Runnion-Bareford are being charged with rendering criminal assistance after helping dispose of the murder weapon. Johnson was released without bail; no mention was made of the driver or other passenger.

The Story Of Your Enslavement

This fellow, Stefan Molyneux, has something to say about the institutions that people tend to enslave themselves with. It makes a lot of sense. People have always found a way somehow to take other peoples capital, be it monetary or intellectual, from the obvious smash and grab to some not so obvious psychological cons and everything in between. One of the most insidious ways is through the government which we insist we must have to provide for us. The problem comes in when we find a way to vote ourselves benefits from the public coffers. What people tend to forget or perhaps purposefully ignore is that the government cannot give anyone anything it has not first taken from someone else at the point of a gun in the guise of the IRS. That enslaves both those who work for and earn the money which is taken and those who take that money, who then find themselves unable or unwilling to do anything other than continue to vote for those who will continue to take money from those who earn it and give to those who don't. The FairTax is the beginning of a solution to this problem.