It's just math...

There is homelessness while banks destroy homes they cannot sell. There is hunger while restaurants, grocery stores and individuals throw away 100 BILLION pounds of food a year in the US alone. There is sickness, while pharmaceutical companies make billions selling a drug that costs pennies to make. There is ignorance, while educational institutions profit by selling the future.

There are enough resources available right now to feed, clothe, house, educate, and provide healthcare for every man, woman, and child in the world and yet we do not. Why? Does providing these things for all, take from the elite more than they should have to sacrifice? Does the desire of the wealthy to be more so outweigh the needs of the poor? Cannot these basic human necessities be provided for without crushing innovation and ambition? Need socialist safety nets and capitalist expansionism be mutually exclusive? More importantly, does not everyone, the wealthy included, benefit from a better educated, healthier and happier society? Was Einstein born wealthy? Did he die so?

In a world where man lists computers, skyscrapers, and railroads as his greatest accomplishments these inequities will always exist. It is embracing the quantitative that blinds us to the value of the immeasurable. Only when man learns to hoard the insubstantial with the same greed he currently reserves for the mundane; to value equal rights and equal opportunity, to value the common good, the common wealth, and the common health as highly he does his own ambition will mankind truly be equal, will we be a truly great society. No great pyramid or giant skyscrapers will be so valued by our children as a healthy planet populated by the just and educated.

Some would claim that what I propose is a utopia. It is not possible. A few hundred years ago people would have said the same thing about the US and the changes it has wrought on the world. There is no doubt that human rights are at a historical high, but we still have far to go. By standing on the shoulders of the giants that came before us we can see beyond the next horizon. We can attain that which was beyond our reach only a couple generations ago. Yesterday it was a utopia. Today it is just math.

How much longer are we supposed to wait?

So your buddy is down on his luck and needs a place to stay. He comes to you and says. I have this great job opportunity I just need a place to stay until I can get my feet under me. Of course, you say. You are trying and you need my help!

Two weeks later your friend gets a big fat paycheck but instead of paying his share of the groceries and rent he says, hold on just a little while longer. I haven’t made enough yet, and you know once I have enough money I’ll not only pay my share of the bills but I’ll give you a job too and guess what I can sell you stuff really cheap. If you really need money now for the bills, I can give you a loan, but I can’t pay any of the bills yet. I still need to make more money! So you say OK. If I sacrifice a little now we will both be better off for it later.

So it goes, pay day after pay day. The whole time your buddy has been raking it in while not paying any of the bills and if that weren’t bad enough; he is a terrible house guest. He always makes a mess and refuses to clean up after himself. Every time you approach him he says the same thing. If I start paying the bills now or clean up after myself, I won’t be able to give you that job, or sell you this really inexpensive car I just made, or give you this loan…

How long do you keep faith in your friend? How long do you wait for the job? How long does it take you to realize that you wouldn’t need to buy the cheap crap he sells or take the loans he offers, if only he would pay his share of the bills to begin with?

Our home is the USA, and our ‘buddy’ is big business. He has been promising to pay his share for three decades now! How much longer are we supposed to wait? 

The Gadsden flag, and what it means to me...

This article is untimely at best. If I was going to write this, I probably should have done it a year ago when the flag first started to be embraced by the mostly well meaning but tragically mislead Tea Party et al. However, like many others, and despite my interest in history, I did not know the meaning of the flag. At one point I even created a parody that replaced the snake with a pile of solid waste (aka poop). I thought myself quite witty. After all who would want to tread on that? Given my contempt for the average Tea Party member, it seemed funnily appropriate.

Then out of curiosity, I felt compelled to research the history and meaning of the flag. Once aware of its historical importance, once aware of the sacrifices made by the men that first flew that flag, I was ashamed of my little joke. This is a flag that flew as a standard for the courageous American sailors that proudly and bravely took on the most powerful navy the world had ever seen. This flag flew in defiance of tyranny. This flag flew over the heads of men that made the ultimate sacrifice for their country and countrymen. It deserves the ultimate respect. It deserves reverence. It deserves the sanctity of the blood spilt to defend it.

In my shame, I found anger, anger at myself for my own ignorance, but even more so, anger at those that now fly the flag to support their political agendas. Many of whom have never sacrificed so much as a single hour for their country or community. It is now carried proudly by those that believe their country and their countrymen are asking too much of them. Those that believe their taxes are too high, those that believe that a healthy educated nation is not worth the price. Those that believe they should not have to sacrifice their money (let alone their lives) for their country. It is not patriotism but avarice that motivates most of those that now claim that flag as their own, and what once flew as a symbol of ultimate sacrifice now flies as a tribute to ultimate selfishness…  

Atlas Shrugged, and so did I...

I have tried and failed to read Atlas Shrugged twice... The plot is transparen­t and predictabl­e, populated entirely by stereotypi­cal caricature­s of human beings. The story is painfully contrived to serve as vehicle for Ayn Rands' socialist paranoia and her prose overly verbose. I suppose the plot would not be quite so obvious if I had not known ahead of time that it was allegorica­l.

In her defense she had good reason for being paranoid. She did witness firsthand the death and destructio­n created by the Bolshevik revolution in Europe. When you put her philosophi­es in their historical context they almost make sense, but they are in no way relevant to the current situation in the US.

The US government is certainly not setting around hatching plans to strip big business of its power and money to benefit the "moochers". In fact it is quite the opposite. Big business is so deeply in bed with our government it is nearly impossible to tell the two apart. In fact, the repeal of the Glass-Stea­gall act, the bank bailouts, the continuing tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% and most recently the Citizens United act are all evidence that capitalism has corrupted the democratic process to such a degree that our current government can more aptly be described as a Plutocracy rather than Democracy. As such, Atlas Shrugged is simply a means for the unconscionably avarice to sleep soundly in the knowledge they are the "producers"…

Diatribe from the center to the right in defense of the left...

People that attack others specifically and personally for expressing their views in a public forum annoy me. It is one thing to attack the view/opinion but quite another to attack the person presenting those views. This post concerns me taking offense at an unwarranted attack on the intellect of a fellow poster.

You are wasting your time Nick. These comments come from those who consider the term "rediculou­s" an intellectual argument. - Sergeant

You have certainly distinguished yourself as an intellectu­al. 

Vacuous, fallacious­, sophist prattle flows through your cranial vault and not a leaf is stirred nor a whisper heard. Yes! You listen with rapt attention to the great men of modern propaganda­, men whose names will be remembered by history as the great deceivers of their age, the demagogues that stole a democracy and replaced it with a plutocracy­. All the while great thinkers of the day, like you, cheered them on with chants of 'Don't tread on me!', 'Take back America!', and my favorite so far 'Beware of liberals pretending to be Americans!­'

You have purchased the message of the American aristocrac­y, paid in full without as much as a moment of cognitive dissonance­. We your masters are not to blame for your ills! It is not us, the industries­, banks, and corporations destroying this country with our avarice. It is the poor and the liberal social programs they promote. 

This is the heart of the conservati­ve movement and you sir are blind, willfully ignorant, or complicit. So which is it? I await with bated breath your undoubtedl­y intellectu­al response. -Shawn Wheeler

I never got a response... 

Welfare recipients are living off my Taxes!

You ever try living off my taxes? It's a lousy living. Most people wouldn't do it if minimum wage jobs didn't pay even less and with no medical. I grew up in an area that had 5 people to every available job. So what do McDonald's­, Wendy's, K-Mart, etc do? They offer only part-time jobs... That way they can avoid all those pesky taxes and regulation­s that insure full-time employees get treated fairly.

In the mean time I get to decide whether I a) want to bust my rear working 2 or more jobs (don't forget I have to come up with transporta­tion for both jobs) so I can make 80 a week (after taxes). With no medical benefits for me or my children. OR b) I can stay home with my kids, make $200 a month + a stipend for the kids and I get $200 a month in food stamps + some for the kids. (These are approximat­e numbers from 10-15 years ago) In addition I also get medical for the kids!!!

Why would anyone pick the low-pay jobs? Well because they can't get on welfare. It happens a lot more often than you think.

Everyone on welfare is lazy or stupid, and it couldn't ever happen to me... Thats the attitude of so many... I wonder how many people are singing a different tune now that the economy has tanked?

Debate on Health Care...

Your health is important to your liberty, but when you decide that I must give up my liberty for your health, than your health becomes my tyranny. - Semolina Pilchard851

I don't know about you, but the liberty to suffer and die is a freedom I can live without :) - Shawn Wheeler

In the minds of the founders, liberty--w­ith all of its intrinsic risks--was more desirable than material prosperity or life itself, if that prosperity and life was accompanie­d with despotism or collectivi­sm.

So strong was their desire that they were willing to give up the latter in order to procure the former for themselves and their posterity.

The modern welfare liberal barely believe in liberty and would willingly trade it away for the promise of the possibilit­y of some healthcare in the distant future.

You would give away something that so many risked everything to give you.

"Necessity is the plea for every infringeme­nt of human freedom. It is argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves." William Pitt in the House of Commons November 18, 1783 - Semolina Pilchard851

Our founding fathers where many and varied, ascribing to many different philosophical views. To assign a single belief to all of them is sophist, at best.

Ideologues, love to invoke their name and quote them out of context. Ascribe entire belief systems to all of them as a whole as if they all had a single vision for this nation, and then dare anyone to repudiate the sanctity of the FOUNDING FATHERS wisdom.

In the end, if I did believe as you suggest that our founding fathers as a whole were against the common good/ common wealth. The only thing I would infer from that is that they lacked sufficient prescience to understand the complexiti­es of todays world.

To my knowledge there was only ONE thing they could all REALLY agree on. No taxation without representa­tion! Well you have representation. All you have to do is get enough other people to be heartless and you get back your "liberty". -Shawn Wheeler

Huh?

Pro-Life, Pro-God, Pro-Gun!!­! That was the bumper sticker I saw the other day. It strikes me as odd. For one, is God pro-gun? That doesn't sound like the God of love and peace I was told about...

It seems a lot like the owner of this bumper sticker believes everyone has the right to be born but he should have the right to take them out later if he wants, and that it would undoubtedl­y be God's will if he did...

Seriously though, how can you possibly debate anyone that does not realize that two of those three things should be mutually exclusive?