Rich Hoffman's Blog, page 433
September 12, 2013
What Fast Food Workers and Teachers Have in Common: Rich Hoffman and Matt Clark talk about it on WAAM Radio
Matt Clark had me on his WAAM radio show in Ann Arbor, Michigan to discuss the inflated wages fast-food workers have been demanding as unions are attempting to infect the food service industry with communist oriented mediocrity. During our conversation we covered some of my personal stories and feelings about how value has been robbed from all fields of endeavor due to the subtle influence of communism through labor unions, and how that has lowered the performance level of productivity in America. CLICK HERE TO REVIEW MY THOUGHTS ON THIS MATTER IN GREATER DETAIL. As our discussion evolved we discussed public school teachers and how they are like the ridiculous fast-food worker in thinking they are worth a lot more money than they really are just because of their collective-bargaining agreements. Watch and listen to the interview for yourself:
What has been robbed from the fast food industry, the teaching profession, and every endeavor where unions’ public and private have taken root is the value of value. Value has been stolen from the American worker through these collective bargaining agreements, the belief that just because the ignorant masses believe something, that they can assert a value to it. Obviously, they can not. When people like Matt and I show outrage at the behavior, it is because we see that it is value for an endeavor that has been lost in the process of teaching, building cars, or simply making hamburgers as mediocre workers inspired to achieve a “living wage” through collective enterprise no longer reach for the stars, dream of becoming more than they are, or constantly invent new and better ways of doing things because they are complacent.
American industry was the best in the world because it offered the prospect of profit, even at the lowest level job—as effort and value drove the market. Through the typical progressive, through the unions, the government workers, and all forms of collectivism from the private union steward to the college fraternity, it is the concept of “fitting in” to a group that is destroying American ingenuity, and thus, destroying the American worker. All participants in such processes understand the concept of collectivism and they sense there is something wrong with it, yet they continue to keep their mouths shut because they know they must do so to reap the benefits of group affiliation. Groups do not like individuals who speak out, because there is comfort in silence, and under the communist like methods of the labor unions, there is pay through collective bargaining.
That mentality is attempting to migrate into the fast-food industry out of sheer desperation. Like a cancerous leech, labor unions have destroyed American manufacturing, all government unions, and a good portion of the food distribution network. They need fresh blood to keep their influence migrating off the used carcasses of their members, so they are targeting restaurants. The cost is a loss of value from the industry that is there to some degree in individual pockets where exceptional workers can still make a difference in some fast food stores, and rise to the top to eventually run some of those establishments. But the threat of a labor union moving in to build a nation of more complacent workers happy to make $15 an hour for doing a job that is only valued under $10 is a threat not only to cheap and easy food, but the value of capitalism that is implanted in every free-standing restaurant in America.
Once workers become unionized they are forever tainted by the effects of collectivism, and are more or less ruined for life. The union employee is a typical individual that has been cannibalized for the greater good, and yielded all their hopes and dreams to the value of the worst of their group affiliation. Unions are anti-America, anti-capitalism, and anti-productive. They are no good for anybody. But worse than anything they are looters of value as they not only rob individuals of their merit, but steal value from every task they are affiliated with. And for that reason, they are agents of destruction upon a wasteland that was once known as the most productive country on the planet—now consumed with the parasite named “collective-bargaining.”
Rich Hoffman
Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE. CLICK HERE!
September 11, 2013
The Overworked Lakota Teacher: New levy talking points from the regime of public union monopolies
If it was ever wondered what the cost of public education monopolies are, read the following comment from an apparent Lakota teacher who came unglued the other day on the Channel 9 website for a story they did about the upcoming levy attempt. CLICK HERE TO REVIEW. The teacher’s comments are shown below. Before I dismantle this teacher’s claims to pain and suffering, read it for yourself. The short of the issue is that this teacher can make the claims of hardship because they are working for a monopoly—they have no competition to judge against. So they can claim any little thing as an unwarranted pain, because the unionized workforce of the teaching profession backed by the federal government is operating as an anti-trust. Their demands, and pay rates are dictated by price-fixing, and their expectations are ridiculously high because of it. Now read what a teacher from Lakota thinks is a hard day as they answer to a commenter named “Joe Jobs.”
Let me be succinct in case you can only hold one or two thoughts in your head at any one time. First, those “unions” are made up of teachers; teachers who spend their every day in the classroom with their students and then do the grueling “union” job after hours in many cases. Teachers choose their profession because they are dedicated to helping children be successful people and citizens of their communities. See, it benefits us all when our children succeed in life. Joe, take a “sick day” this week and visit any Lakota school. Sign in and tell the secretary you want to volunteer in a classroom for the day. Don’t forget to pack a small lunch; you won’t be going out and you won’t have much time to eat that lunch anyway. Better be sure to go to the bathroom before the students arrive, because once they do, your only “break” of the day will be after the students go home. Please dive right in; help that teacher manage classes filled with students who arrive with a myriad of abilities and challenges. Some don’t speak English yet. Others are living through family wars, losses of parents or jobs, some are latchkey and arrive at school before the sun is up and most people are not even dressed for work. Be sure you help the students understand how to edit their writing to make it clear. Then help the students understand the challenging new math curriculum that the state and the new “common core” dictates they must understand and succeed with. You’ll have to write for the student whose muscular disease no longer allows her to hold a pencil. You’ll need to always be aware of the time so that students get to the nurse for their insulin checks and their medications. The counselor will need to see some who desperately need his/her help. Several in your class will need to leave at their appointed time to go to the resource room where they’ll continue to work with their specialist who tailors their work to meet the individual needs of each of those students who struggle. Don’t forget to challenge those kids who fly through their work and crave more! Follow the students as they travel their day to each of their classes without their favorite subjects: art, music, and PE. They’ll get a lunch and small recess; you won’t. During your half hour lunch, I hope you can eat with one hand while you answer parent emails with the other, tutor that child that comes in needing help with their math facts, and of course, you’ll have a meeting 4 out of 5 days. When everyone is exhausted, and you finally send your students home, get your butt outside because you have carpool duty. See, Lakota lost most of their busing, so you’ll stand outside every afternoon while hundreds of cars line up to retrieve their children. Pay attention; make sure the right kid gets into their car quickly. The kids will be too busy talking with their friends to be paying attention, so you’ll have to. Finally, at 4:30, go to the bathroom, finally, and drag your butt into your car. Did you remember all those papers that must be assessed before the kids arrive tomorrow? Take them home. Forget watching TV or going out for a run or walk, you have work to do. This is your 60+ hour a week job, that you love, by the way, for 40+ weeks of the year. With an advanced degree and 20 years of experience, what is your salary? Seriously? Think again, JoeJobs. Support our children and their education. Teachers have been doing just that every day.less
I see no problem with arriving at work at 7:30 in the morning and not taking a break until 5 PM. The teacher however does get a bit of a breather between class periods all through the day, so no matter how grueling this teacher attempts to portray their day; it is an obvious neurotic exaggeration. A ten-hour work day is a piece of cake, and I have offered Lakota schools to take this teacher’s challenge and teach not just one of their classes, but four of them at the same time. I made such a challenge to Lakota East’s Spark Magazine where Dean Hume is the head of that endeavor. Of course they didn’t take me up on the offer, and our relationship is so deteriorated now that it is off the table. But the gist is they know at Lakota that their claims of hardship are overblown in a big way, and their collective bargaining agreement expecting over $60K a year on average is too high. Way too high—by about 10K per year.
Much of what the teacher complained about is driven by failures in progressive education, where teachers have attempted to take the place of traditional parents, infusing themselves to the lives of all children in intrusive ways. They have desired to push traditional parents out-of-the-way and raise children into a statist education making students always dependent on others. This has made the teacher’s job harder as parents have yielded to this intrusion seeking a taxpayer-funded babysitter while they build their careers for their own pursuits. The teacher at Lakota made themselves advocates of a progressive education, and they are dealing with the results of a classroom full of dependents. The failure is in the style of education. If the teacher’s job is harder, it is because the progressive education children are receiving has made it so. The task of putting a band-aid on the failure by throwing money at education through permanent tax increases is a stupid idea.
If there were competitive options, that teacher would be happy to have the problems they are complaining about now. The only reason they feel obliged to complain in this case is because there is no competition to their profession other than a few remote private schools, or the occasional home-schooled family. Therefore, the severity of the workday expressed by this teacher is measured against the unrealistic expectations of employment created by a government monopoly at Lakota. Only in such monopolies could employees behave as badly as some of those teachers at Lakota who have been involved in sex scandals, and gotten away with the crime, and still make the claims of hardship similar to what was made in the above statements. The reason is that they are anti-trust employees justifying their impositions on the communities that employ them with parades of complaints that are driven by their own incompetency.
For further proof of this mentality, here is a letter to me from a pro tax supporter I received just the other day.
Rich,
I disagree with your goal of $45K average salaries for teachers. But the public will ultimately decide that. If that goal is reached, it will be up to the teachers to work at a $45K pace and not the pace they are currently working.. Your comment that “teachers at Lakota are making too much money for doing too little” is the point of the levy results. Why would anyone devote so much time toward a job which the community deems as being not worth it? Why isn’t 8 hours of hard work each day enough time toward their jobs?
Mr. George says that the public wants to work with the teachers, but the union won’t let them. Who does he think the union is? It is that 2nd grade teacher that comes in to school 3 weeks early to set up her classroom and prepare for the year. The union is the 5th grade teacher who postpones her bathroom break so her students are under constant supervision.. The union is the AP teacher who teachers college level material using a high school schedule with high school materials and support. When parents go to open house and conferences, that is when they should voice their displeasure with the union because that is who they are directly talking to.
Once again I call on the labor force of the schools to determine the next round of cuts if the levy fails and those cuts should be in the time devoted to the job at hand. Make gone the 50-60 hours work weeks. The public, by voting no, is saying they can’t afford to type of service.
William Schmidt
Isn’t it amazing how similar those comments are to each other? It is the new union talking points for the elections of 2013.
Rich Hoffman
Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE. CLICK HERE!
September 10, 2013
The HWK-290: Preparing for war, gaming way into the night, and the start of revolutions
I have a running fantasy that someday the government will show up on my doorstep with tyrannical intentions and shred off the pretext of decency for open warfare. At that time I will be free to do what I do best and have loved since my feet could carry me upward, and that is to fight—fight for independence, fight for respect, fight for the human race—fight for anything—but fight. Now when I say fight, I don’t mean “serving” for some greater cause made up by a statist government. I mean fighting where my strategy and effort destroy an opponent no matter how great the numbers or odds of victory, the worse, the more attractive. So the fantasy of a large statist government having the audacity to believe that they will win my submission with force is an attractive one to me.
I do not make a good soldier material, or a sports player who simply does what somebody else dictates. That is not the kind of fighting that I’m good at. In sports I never wanted to be a player, only the coach or the owner of a franchise, never some meat head player who was simply a field soldier. In the military, I never wanted to be a soldier, only a commander. But the way the human race is set up, they expect people to run through some kind of social initiation period where they start on the bottom and work their way up. However, by the time that such people find themselves in charge, they have been beaten down into submission and lose the ability to “think” uniquely. So I avoid all structured war games like the plague, and always have. When I play at war whether it is politics, business, or physical submission of one group over another, I require being in charge otherwise I’m just not interested. If people shut up and listen, they find that they benefit greatly by doing what I tell them. I don’t get out of such arrangements anything from the participates—any level of camaraderie, any back slapping from social respect—any feeling of “fitting in” to the structure of human existence. I simply enjoy winning in games of conflict.
One of the greatest aspects of being human is that we are thinking creatures and find many ways to entertain ourselves. Of the many things invented to entertain the human race, war games for me have always been the thing that I most enjoy. When I was a kid I ran into tabletop war gaming from a military history class I took where famous Revolutionary War battles could be re-enacted. As an adult my wife introduced me to similar games such as the Star Wars: Assault on Hoth which we played nearly every night during the first couple years of our marriage. When I started having kids I played a lot of video games with them—all of which were about war, fighting, and combat. I never approached the games as an escape from reality, but as the only way I could do the types of things I enjoyed doing without destroying the fabric of the world around me. Then of course there was the Wiz Kids Pirate Constructible Strategy Game that I have discussed in great detail here before, which my family spent a good five solid years playing together.
As fate would have it, one of my son-in-laws is a serious table top gamer. He plays games I never had the patience for like Magic the Gathering relentlessly and will play any board game that has ever been invented. He simply loves games. He along with my nephews over the past summer introduced me to the Dungeons and Dragons like game, Hero Quest which I enjoyed greatly. But I have since discovered something much, much cooler—Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures by Fantasy Flight Games. This game has all the things I enjoy and have only found possible since LucasArts produced the old video game X-Wing, which was a combat flight simulator that I often spent entire nights playing. As video games became better and moved online, Star Wars: Galaxies had Jump to Hyperspace, which was the latest evolution of the old X-Wing game, but it has since left the scene since Star Wars: The Old Republic arrived. There was a void in my heart that was there in the years between the exit of Jump to Hyperspace and the creation of Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures that wasn’t filled by anything else. Now that I have discovered X-Wing Miniatures, it has been like revisiting my favorite games of the past with new updated spins which should be expected with evolution, and I have been soaking up. I have enjoyed myself more since the discovery of X-Wing Miniatures than I can remember consistently in decades. I have been buying up ships for the game like crazy and getting very serious about it.
Both of my son-in-laws have also been getting into the game, so over the weekend we went to Yattaquest in Mt. Healthy to purchase a mat for our X-Wing Miniatures game as the playing surface is supposed to be a 3’X3’ area and we wanted something nice. So we went to Yattaquest and saw that the place was absolutely rocking with activity as they had a game night where the back room was filled with players. I was stunned how many other people were playing these games for the same reasons that I do, and I was shocked by how many different games were on the shelf at Yattaquest. There was an entire section for Warhammer—it was simply amazing. I picked up my game mat and the last two ships they had for X-Wing Miniatures, a couple of A-Wings.
Then all my kids along with my wife went to Sci-Fi Cincinnati over in Northgate Mall and found two Y-Wing Fighters and a Tie Fighter Advanced, which are both extremely rare. I bought them up knowing that they were selling for over $50 dollars a piece on the internet because of their rarity. I felt I had just uncovered a gold nugget—a rare treasure and it made my entire weekend.
http://www.sci-fi-city.com/cincinnati.htm
We arrived home late after the mall had closed and began playing X-Wing as a family with the game ending at around 3 AM. We then played most of the next day and I can report that it is some of the most fun I have had in years. It has many of the elements that I personally enjoy more than anything, it’s about miniature detail models, strategy, technology, large concepts, and it has a creativity level that is limited only by the player—which is very attractive to me. After our very successful weekend of playing X-Wing Miniatures, I treated myself to a rare privilege; I pre-ordered a ship that I am hungry to get as a compliment to my Millennium Falcon builds, the new HWK-290. In a 100-point game, the HWK-290 will provide for me the perfect support for my aggressive style of game play and I am very happy to see it come available as it does not technically ship to the general public until September 11th. Fantasy Flight Games pre-released HWK-290s during Gen Con in Indianapolis, but until then and since nobody has put their hands on them.
The ship is a sentimental favorite for me; it’s from the video game called Dark Forces which my daughters used to play with me. So it meant more than just a game piece for X-Wing Miniatures to make the purchase, I am just ecstatic that it will be coming to me. It is a unique item that I can’t wait to put my hands on, and it feels good to have something which drums up so much happiness. Yes, there are a lot of very bad things going on in the world, and I have written about many of them here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom. But the new game X-Wing Miniatures has given me new juice where few things prior provided. I simply love the game for what it does. But more than anything it is allowing me to build a squad that has the Millennium Falcon as a tactical option with the HWK-290.
I don’t socialize much, but it was nice to see so many people with similar interests at Yattaquest. The place was huge and very busy as business was good. I’m obviously not alone in my love of combat because most of those games were themed around conflict resolution. As I stood in the center of Yattaquest I had the sense that if the first American Revolution started in pubs around New England, then the second and third will be in places like Yattaquest. The game players were simply enjoying some escapist fun while not compromising their minds in the process. Those people are not compliant statists of the type who built the trouble of LBJ’s Great Society. They are rebels, commanders, and tacticians that nobody else takes serious as they have fallen through the cracks of the establishment only to become the next sleeping giants awakened during the next great crises. But never before that I can recall did so many people flock to games like Warhammer, Magic the Gathering, and X-Wing Miniatures as they do now. I attempted with all my resources to find Y-Wing fighters but could not, because they were sold out everywhere I looked, even on Ebay and other online outlets. I found them by chance at Sci-Fi Cincinnati and quickly bought them up. They weren’t sold out because the company didn’t make enough of them—quite the contrary—they were sold out because the demand is that high. I find that extremely encouraging.
I might have to wait for my fantasy of a statist government gone mad showing up on my door step to declare war against me and my family. Obama can’t even make a decision against Syria, so I’m not worried about progressives making a visible move against the American people who would cost them terribly—because such things at least require courage, which they lack. But until then, I love that there are games like X-Wing Miniatures that I can play with my family late into the night and all the next day. War gaming is a good substitute for the real thing and I love being a member of the human race because it invents such things. But one thing that is a running theme among these gamers is that submission is not an option. They enjoy war gaming because players contemplate resistance and wish to play out scenarios that bring about such results. The exchange is peaceful so long as participants have an outlet. But heaven forbid that places like Yattaquest didn’t exist. These are not the games of our grandparents, these are the direct response to large-scale statism, and the minds drawn to them are not compliant.
I’ve bought cars, homes, taken exotic vacations and raised families. I’ve been successful, won many real battles and have enjoyed my life immensely in many capacities. But let me just state that when I purchased the HWK-290 for $14.95 a chill of delight went up my spine that I can’t get from anything else in this world…………….and the reason is beyond the comprehension of the average statist politician. Only people who play such games understand.
Rich Hoffman
Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE. CLICK HERE!
September 9, 2013
“We Are Lakota” Campaign Exploits Children: Parents demand tax increases to shrug their responsiblity
Taylor Mirfendereski from Channel 9 in Cincinnati did a nice article about the upcoming Lakota Levy of 2013 as the new campaign launched. She interviewed members of both sides of the tax increase argument which is highlighted below. Lakota’s new campaign this time is the marketing slogan “We are Lakota” and the angle they are playing is obvious, the inclusion of “community” spirit to encourage voters to feel they are part of the team by voting for the levy. Again the common mistake the pro levy crowd makes is they only react to the causes of tax increases. They never ask why conditions are the way they are, they simply respond with a desire to raise taxes. One of the carrots Lakota has dangled out in front of parents is the promise of more busing to earn votes back from people like the women mention below.
Kim Reber is a mother of three daughters and is a levy supporter. Reber lives within two miles of the school district and has to transport her children to school each day.
She said the success of the levy is critical for convenience reasons and for the success of her children’s education.
“A lot of things that kids need to develop and to grow are being taken away gradually and kind of falling apart. Lakota is known for being excellent and without funding, they cannot maintain that excellence,” Reber said.
She said the stakes are so high for her family, she’s even considered moving if the levy doesn’t pass.
“When I came here, I came here because of the schools. I’m not seeing that the schools can maintain their excellence given the lack of support from the residents,” said Reber.
Some residents say they will never support a Lakota school tax hike because they don’t think enough money is going directly to the students.
Graeme George, an 80-year-old Liberty Township resident, is a staunch opponent of school tax levies.
“We can’t influence the cost and benefits and make improvements because the unions are too much in control. We can’t work with the teachers and the school board and the public because the unions come in,” he said.
George is a member of the anti-levy group, No Lakota, which says it has plans to actively campaign for the levy’s failure once more.
Bob Hutsenpillar, a Lakota district resident and No Lakota member, said he will also vote against the levy because of “wasteful spending” towards teacher salaries.
“What they are asking for to give to students is a very small percentage of the levy,” Hutsenpillar said.
But Willms said taxpayer contributions to teaching salaries are essential for the successful operation of any school.
“We have 900-plus teachers. You have to understand what schools do. They have teachers who teach kids. It’s a service industry, so of course a bulk of your budget would have to go towards your employee,” she said.
The actual article from Taylor Mirfendereski can be seen at the link below complete with pictures:
http://www.wcpo.com/news/education/lakota-school-district-pushes-for-levy-after-three-time-failure
People like Kim Reber moved to a nice community like Lakota for the schools, but that is not all the community has to offer. Reber doesn’t ask the question “why are the teachers making over $60K per year, she simply wants a free education for her children and assumes that the cost of her home was all the payment she had to contribute to the task. Parents like her assume that “WE” means everyone, that I, Graeme George, Bob Hutsenpillar and other NO voters are responsible for raising Kim’s children. This is the same mindset of Hillary Clinton’s ridiculous notion of “it takes a village” mentality. No, it doesn’t. It takes a mom and a dad caring for their own family, and not asking a community to cover higher taxes just to throw money at a teacher’s union that is already over paid.
The Lakota Levy is supported by the kind of people who do not want to take responsibility for their own children—but rather want Hillary Clinton’s “We Are Lakota” type of message insinuating that we are all in this together—the raising of children. The presumption that children are the only aspect of a community is dangerous, and will lead to short lived prosperity when those children grow up and move away never to return because taxes prevent them from moving back to Lakota to raise their own families. The levy supporters at Lakota are again short-sighted, selfish, and lack fiscal understanding. They are happy to parade around with signs on a Saturday afternoon pulling on people’s heart strings hoping to win votes by exploiting their own children so to take the responsibility away from their own parenting, instead of asking the hard question of……………why.
The lowest part of the whole ordeal is seeing parents stick their children out in public carrying signs such as can be seen in Mirfendereski’s article. The parents should be ashamed of themselves. I can’t imagine telling a child they are required to stand with a pro tax sign to cover for the lack of effort by the parents who are hoping to save the cost of transporting their children to school, or even the extra cost of private instruction, with a collective tax increase. If parents really want their children to have a good education, why aren’t they willing to pay for it? Why do they expect the other property owners of Lakota to care for their children? We are not Lakota. They are, and they simply want a hand out for something that is their unmanaged problem to cover an effort they are too lazy, or cheap to handle themselves.
Rich Hoffman
Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE. CLICK HERE!
September 8, 2013
Egalitarianism: Parasites seeking asylum from their own ineptness
Chances are dear reader you fall on the latter half of this upcoming statement as opposed to the former, that often there are those who are on the cutting edge, who fearlessly face down the impossible with a mentality that is obscure to all others, and there are those who wish to sit down with such people and share in the wealth of fiscal opportunity they have created with sheer uniqueness. People who believe in consensus building and shared ideas are those trained in the false ways of egalitarianism. Most every education system in the world teaches this forged method of human achievement because it masks a grim reality—that it is the very few who have the courage to face down the unknown, the perilous opportunities of uncharted waters, but the many wish to take credit for the voyage once safety is realized and strategy is achieved.
I have sat through many dozens of human endeavor where I solitarily cut through the dangers of a task only to have a parade of parasites join me at the finish line wanting to pop corks and celebrate in a victory with the chant of “teamwork.” I laugh inwardly at such people knowing that at any moment I could repeat the task over and over again forever—but they could not, and they know it. They hope that I don’t know it, or that nobody else discovers it, but they do—and it terrifies them. So they promote the social activity that was taught to them during their educations—egalitarianism.
Egalitarianism (from French égal, meaning “equal”)—or, rarely, equalitarianism[1][2]—is a trend of thought that favors equality for particular categories of, or for all, living entities. Egalitarian doctrines maintain that all humans are equal in fundamental worth or social status, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.[3] The Cultural theory of risk holds egalitarianism as defined by (1) a negative attitude towards rules and principles, and (2) a positive attitude towards group decision-making, with fatalism termed as its opposite.[4] According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the term has two distinct definitions in modern English.[5] It is defined either as a political doctrine that all people should be treated as equals and have the same political, economic, social, and civil rights[6] or as a social philosophy advocating the removal of economic inequalities among people or the decentralisation of power. Some sources define egalitarianism as the point of view that equality reflects the natural state of humanity.[7][8][9]
At a cultural level, egalitarian theories have developed in sophistication and acceptance during the past two hundred years. Among the notable broadly egalitarian philosophies aresocialism, communism, anarchism, libertarianism, left-libertarianism, social liberalism and progressivism,[dubious – discuss] all of which propound economic, political, and legal egalitarianism. Several egalitarian ideas enjoy wide support among intellectuals and in the general populations of many countries. Whether any of these ideas have been significantly implemented in practice, however, remains a controversial question.
One argument is that liberalism provides democracy with the experience of civic reformism. Without it, democracy loses any tie—─argumentative or practical—─to a coherent design of public policy endeavoring to provide the resources for the realization of democratic citizenship. For instance, some argue that modern representative democracy is a realization of political egalitarianism, while in reality, most political power still resides in the hands of a ruling class, rather than in the hands of the people.[13]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egalitarianism
Egalitarianism allows a room full of businessmen to believe that they deserve a seat at the table when it is only one or two at the table who gave them all something to talk about. Without the initiative of the self-motivated, nothing happens. In politics, board meetings and town hall gatherings allow democracy to claim the rewards of the very few who created the options discussed such as whether or not a new store could be built into a community, or how to spend the tax money taken from property owners. The money and business opportunities were created by the very few, but is spent and consumed by the many who wish to see themselves as equal contributors to the process through egalitarianism. But they are not equal, they are simply parasites—they depend on the actions of others to sustain themselves.
In the case of today’s egalitarian trend, for over two hundred years Europe’s altruist, collectivist intellectuals claimed to be the voice of the people—the champions of the downtrodden, the disinherited masses. They advocated unlimited majority rule—rule by consensus. But their error was that they failed to pay heed to those who created their opportunities. Without those types—the creators–the “champions of the people” would have nothing to discuss or distribute to the masses. Capitalism and its moral—metaphysical bases had to be destroyed by the egalitarians so that the evidence of this parasitic enterprise indulged in by the could be realized. The concept of justice had to be destroyed so that value judgments could not be distributed to those who were ripped off—the creators of virtually everything—the forward thinking individualist whose mind and effort molded the world from their sheer imaginations.
In the end, it was Payton Manning who won the game for Denver and the loss of Ray Lewis sealed it for Baltimore. Everyone else playing the game were egalitarians. The Broncos “team” simply rode the coattails of Payton Manning. Without him, they would only be “average.”
Every time I encounter these egalitarians it sickens me to my very core. I offset my disgust by withdrawing from them for long periods of time, and I always return to the act of creation not for them, but for me. I create because I enjoy it. But the process of the egalitarians never ceases to disgust me in the way that maggots on a rotting corpse might sicken the stomach. Egalitarians are simply vile to the creative process, and they bring nothing to the table. Consensus building exercises do not work, it has never worked, and it will never work under any conditions. There are always only two types, there are people with ideas, then there are people who seek to loot portions of other people’s ideas to fill voids in their own lives. Value is not created through equalitarianism. It is simply another form of wealth redistribution, the value of those who create given to those who do not by democracy.
Rich Hoffman
Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE. CLICK HERE!
September 7, 2013
Why Some Republicans and Democrats Want War in Syria: Protecting the United Nations with American money
Many pundits and social commentators seem baffled as to why some Republicans share with Democrats a desire for war in Syria while others share in common a desire to stay out of such an action. It is mysterious to them that a supposed anti-war, pro peace politician like Barack Obama would support a war effort of any kind, while political “extremists” such as Sarah Palin does not. The reason is not because one political party represents elephants while the other represents donkeys, but because they are both social progressives as the others are not, or are trying to distance themselves from such political parasites.
Progressives believe in global unity, and individual sacrifice for the greater good as defined by them. They wish to think of the world as a giant global village and they are the chieftains. If some terrible thing happens in Syria, then it is the job of the “international community” to do something about it once the United Nations is made aware of an evil. In the case of Syria the crimes against the Syrian people has been known for a long time, but it was only once the United Nations inspectors supposedly saw footage, and were granted into the country to inspect conditions for themselves that progressive politicians decided that the time for action was now, rather than at any other point in time, past or future.
Progressives are not attempting to do justice to the poor people killed under a tyrannical regime. They are simply attempting to preserve the authority of The United Nations as a world police force. The war drums in Syria by otherwise antiwar politicians are the obvious result of these progressive types. If it was ever wondered what politicians are progressive and which actually hold the type of beliefs established under their respective political parties it has never been more obvious, or hypocritical as to whom are progressives than those who support the Syrian War.
Progressives are vile, despicable people who are destructive intellectual collectivists. What they are fighting for is not justice in Syria for the benefit of free people. They simply fight to preserve the reputation of the United Nations. In the context of the global community, it is the United States that is known as the official police force in that global community—and other countries who have elected to stay out of Syrian engagement wish to see the police do their job on behalf of the United Nations, while maintaining their own disengagement from conflict due simply to the financial cost.
It is not such a mystery once this basic fact is known, who is what and why they believe the things they do. Progressives want war because it further advances their desire for global rule under a gigantic social village where the values of The United States are erased so that the values of lower quality countries can be elevated. Eventually all progressives hope the values of all people will be equal under the leadership of the village chieftains, the progressives. Under those terms, things are not so mysterious. Progressives are not for American preservation, they are about advancement of United Nations influence, and the war in Syria allowing them to achieve two of their goals, to destroy the reputation of America as an independent sovereign nation, and strengthen the influence of The United Nations as a global police force. But the war is not about preserving American independence, or fighting for freedom across the world. That is the distinct and sorrowful difference. The supporters of the Syrian War are united in their goal of progressive politics and that makes them dangerous to every American who supports the Constitution of The United States of America. Progressives desire to use the resources of America to destroy it while moving all the countries of the world toward a global village ruled by a Constitution not yet written, by a society of people the progressives hope to mold from their own cloth. It is not the Founding Fathers of America that these people hope to emulate. They hope to become their own type of “Founding Father” in a society not yet known built on political views of the dangerous progressive, and their wholesale desire to destroy individuality at all cost.
Rich Hoffman
Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE. CLICK HERE!
September 6, 2013
Vote Justin Binik-Thomas for Deer Park School Board: The right person for the right reasons
For those who need to be reminded, Justin Binik-Thomas is an author, one of the founders of the Cincinnati Tea Party, and was at the heart of the IRS scandal personally targeted because of his conservative beliefs. He is also a fan of my novel Tail of the Dragon and is a recent conqueror of that treacherous road in the mountains of the North Carolina/Tennessee, which is evident by the picture on his web site: http://www.binikthomas.com. He is a frequent guest on Greta Van Susteren’s Fox News broadcast and does several radio spots a year with my friends Matt Clark and Doc Thompson. He is also a personal friend of mine. So it gives me great pleasure to announce that Justin is running for the Deer Park School Board.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Committee to Elect Binik-Thomas Contact
Justin Binik-Thomas
Candidate for Deer Park School Board
Binik-Thomas Responds to Deer Park School Levy Request
Deer Park, OH, September 4, 2013– The budget shortfall remains one of the largest district concerns. I have had the opportunity to review the coffee session materials and the five-year budget with senior district leadership. I have come to the conclusion that the levy is premature.
As a taxpayer, I expect budget lines that do not impact services or people should be reduced or removed prior to a request for new funds. The five-year budget includes quite a few areas where this has not yet occurred. Among these are a postal meter, awards, and a line labeled “other.”
The coffee session materials provided attendees with a false choice of ‘tax me a bit more now’ or ‘tax me a lot more later.’ Predictably, the attendees selected the lower tax number. District mailers tout this “choice.”
The proposed levy will tax us forever in order to plug a potential four-year gap.
Next Steps
Regardless of the outcome of this levy, we need to engage in long-term revenue planning to ensure we can cover unfunded mandates, educational needs, and emergencies without continually asking for taxpayer bailouts or levies.
We have two success stories in town to use as a model: my alma maters, Walnut Hills High School and the University of Cincinnati. Each has provided ways to grow funding, using many under-$20 donors, to achieve their goals.
We can further mitigate this risk by limiting our dependence on taxpayer (federal) funds.
About Justin Binik-Thomas
Justin is married to Casey and the proud father of two preschool children (aged 1 and 3). He is a nine-year resident of Deer Park and graduate of Indiana Wesleyan University (MS) and the University of Cincinnati (AA, BS). In addition to working as a contract manager in the medical research industry, he specializes in media relations as owner/consultant of Conservative Media Group.
In his free time, he volunteers as a chaplain at his synagogue and leads the Sunshine Committee. Justin has taught at religious school (grades 2, 3, and 7), currently teaches a social media course annually at a local university, and is responsible for training new employees at both businesses.
Even though I personally think public education is a complete waste of time, and am not the politician type as I don’t play well with others, I admire when local people who are very passionate about reform get involved in politics. I would say to Justin that he is wasting his time with the Deer Park School Board; however, he wouldn’t be if all the school board members were like him. It is entirely possible that public education would not be such a wreck as it is today if people like Justin were school board members in every district in America.
Unfortunately most school board members are big spenders who are in love with the government statist version of public education—filled with progressive politics and antagonistic toward American tradition. That’s why they often run and win while conservatives build businesses, make money and throw money at progressives like a fisherman trying to escape blood thirsty piranhas by pouring blood in the water to take them off the scent. Justin Binik-Thomas is not one of those types. He is a star in his own right, an accomplished person who could care less whether or not he has a powerful nameplate on his desk in charge of millions of dollars. If voters of Deer Park had to pick anyone in a ballot box during their entire lifetimes, it is unlikely they would run across a candidate as pure as Justin Binik-Thomas who simply wants to do the right thing for the right reasons at the absolute right time.
Vote for Justin Binik-Thomas for Deer Park School Board!
CLICK HERE FOR MORE ON JUSTIN.
Rich Hoffman
Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE. CLICK HERE!
September 5, 2013
Lakota Levy Cheerleaders Strike Again: Ignoring the facts to preserve a monopoly
After several years of levy fights in the Lakota school district I have heard the pro tax crowd call me personally every name known to the human mind in anger that I don’t yield to their social impositions. In response to their diatribes I have come up with a lot of names of my own to call them, such as “levy addicts,” “Lakota Zombies,” “Latté sipping prostitutes,” and “Levy Cheerleaders.” This last one reflects well most of the inner sanctum of school levy supports who treat the school superintendent as though she were a rock star for a musical group. Many of these levy “cheerleaders” seem to have replaced their youthful days when they attended rock concerts and tossed their undergarments at a stage advertising themselves for backstage adventures, to becoming enema plugs for Superintendent Mantia at Lakota. Their rambunctious social display of levy support is rather sickening and deserves that type of criticism. It is what came to my mind upon their booth set up at Lakota football games advertising their levy scheme like nighttime employees of K-Street working a hustle.
The local media this time around is being very careful, as they are afraid that someone is going to get physically hurt and they might be blamed for provoking the violence. From their point of view I can see their concern. Over the last three levy attempts at Lakota things have gotten incrementally worse each time, and after the third levy I had promised a “head for an eye” revenge for the Kroger survey taken against my name during the month of February 2011. CLICK HERE FOR REVIEW. However, I usually only respond to attacks, I don’t issue them, so as long as the pro levy crowd engages in civil debate they have little to worry about. Where they need to worry is when they attempt extortion against known NO voters, vandalism, theft, and public reputation lynchings of characters that stand in their way. But until then, debate is acceptable, and one of the levy supporters who has been there from day one is Pam Perrino. Pam in the beginning started down the road of threats and intimidation against anyone who did not support a tax increase for her children attending Lakota schools. When I went on 700 WLW to expose the real reason for the levy needs at Lakota, she threatened the radio station with boycotts. LISTEN TO THAT BROADCAST HERE FOR REVIEW. So she has been at this pro levy business for a number of years, and she is back at it with a Letter to the Editor in the newspaper, Today’s Pulse stating:
IT IS TIME TO SUPPORT LAKOTA LEVY
I am so grateful that the Lakota School District has finalized their plans for the levy funds. It has been eight years since the last levy passed. Lakota has experienced extremely harsh cuts over the past two years. In fact, it is now operating on $20 million less than it just three years ago.
They just shared that our per pupil spending is less than it was in 2005, when the last levy passed. While I want them to be fiscally responsible, I also don’t want it to go so far that it is compromising the great education we have been providing during the 20 years I have lived here.
Because of a change in how schools are measured, we will not be given an assessment by the state o Ohio this year. We will not know exactly how these cuts have impacted Lakota’s performance. We do know that some testing scores have gone down the reduction of class offerings at the high school and participation in sports throughout the district is significantly down.
So – we are starting to feel the negative impact from cuts we have experienced over the last two years. I know that Lakota has spent the last two years reaching out to the community to find out what it wants in a school district. After the board of education presentations, I feel they responded to this input and are meeting the needs of our students and also provide services that the community has identified as the most essential for student success. It is time to support this levy to secure solid futures for our Lakota students.
Pam Perrino
Liberty Twp,
That to me was a reasonable levy cheerleading argument that deserves an answer, which I provided to the paper. Even though Perrino in the past has been quite divisive in her participation of tax increase campaigns at the school, she brings up a lot of issues that need clarification. So here is my response to Perrino’s letter which appeared in the paper.
Say No to the Lakota Levy
The assumption that there is a time to support a Lakota levy based on the years since one last passed is a poor measure of fiscal management. Levy supporters at Lakota are starting their levy promotion efforts for the November election with the very weak argument that the best reason for a tax increase is that there hasn’t been one since 2005. The postulation is that time is the measure of levy necessity, not market conditions. Only a functioning monopoly could make such a claim.
Lakota does not need a levy; it is going through an approximate ten-year period of declining enrollment which will necessitate workforce reductions at Lakota do to the much smaller classroom sizes that will be needed. The $20 million the school has had to cut over the last couple of years is due to this declining enrollment and is part of the painful process of fiscal management which should be expected.
The best way to keep costs down at Lakota is to keep money out of their hands with “NO” votes, and force the school to reduce their work force in conjunction with the declining enrollment which is a natural part of a mature community. Under the pro levy argument they are saying that every couple of years forever Lakota will expect a tax increase no matter what the market conditions dictate. The proposed tax increase in spite of claims for improved security and technology upgrades are simply going to cover payroll increases for raises issued under an upcoming 2014 labor contract. Only an organization that is functioning as an antitrust would have the audacity to make such a claim which is all the reason that school levies should be defeated at Lakota for at least the next decade.
Rich Hoffman
Liberty Twp,
The trouble with these levy discussions is that all the information is subjective to the real problem that public schools are functioning monopolies. Lakota is an antitrust by its nature, as all public schools are organized allowing them to make any claims of fiscal hardship they can imagine without having opposing facts generated through competition. This allows schools like Lakota to claim hardship when forced to make budget reductions by the tax payers to reduce their per pupil expenses at the ballot box. Voters in Lakota have had to take control of the administration’s spending by keeping money out of their hands which has forced them to make cuts they wouldn’t otherwise make—which has been on par with budget conditions. CLICK HERE TO SEE THE FACTS ON THIS MATTER. The claim of hardship by the school is due to the fact that they are the only game in town, and do not have another school to compete with who operates with lower per pupil costs, allowing them to claim imposition to gain public support for tax increases.
But to the levy cheerleaders, none of those facts matter. They propose an infinite amount of tax impositions upon the community with the short-sighted intention of perpetual approval. What they don’t understand is that when costs go up, businesses, and residents sell off their properties, and they move. Lakota as a district in Butler County has benefited from having relatively low taxes, particularly with sales taxes, and this is the real reason for the spawn of real-estate growth. It has little to do with Lakota schools. Many parents would love to send their children to Lakota schools, but few can afford to live in the district which is the byproduct of being a successful community. The natural impact on the school from that success is that there will be declining enrollment. And that fact alone is enough to put out the fire that the levy cheerleaders are trying to advance by blowing on the flames of consumption for higher taxes.
Rich Hoffman
Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE. CLICK HERE!
September 4, 2013
Captain Kirk watches the MTV Miley Cyrus performance: The destruction of the U.S.S. Enterprise
I recently expressed how I felt about the raunchy Miley Cyrus performance on the MTV VMA awards. Well, it is good to see that I’m not the only one. It appears that the good folks on the Starship Enterprise feel the same way as I do. With all the alien life forms that Captain Kirk and the gang from Star Trek encountered, nothing could prepare them for the destruction that came from the Miley Cyrus performance.
Rich Hoffman
Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE. CLICK HERE!
The Final ‘Lone Ranger Box’ Office Numbers: Western values upheld through Disney’s ‘Star Wars’
The worldwide total box office take for Disney’s The Lone Ranger was $239,131,00 which is respectable. It was hardly the box office flop that the entertainment industry has attempted to project it to be. I felt that The Lone Ranger deserved a bit of defense because it was a hack of a good movie. I heavily promoted it, I loved the film, and I am sure that when it hits the home theater market, it will do excessively well. Disney spent the enormous sum of $215 million on the production of the modern western plus many tens of millions on advertising hoping the picture would bring in a billion dollars as a summertime blockbuster. But the money wasn’t there. By the time the summer box office market hit the Fourth of July, movie goers had already spent their money on superhero pictures like Iron Man 3 and Man of Steel. Money was still spent on children’s films like Monster’s U and Disney’s Planes, but for the most part, movie audiences had run out of money leaving many studio films to fail at the box office. But when it came to The Lone Ranger, there was a hatred from the entertainment community that caused them to even turn against Johnny Depp, which I found fascinating, and I know exactly why. A good portion of the why is seen in a totally unrelated Blaze Television piece that Glenn Beck did about his experiences on a real western ranch. The entertainment community in Hollywood’s Wilshire Blvd and Broadway in New York has grown to despise the “flyover states” and Glenn Beck is part of that New York culture which is where he made his fame and fortune. But wisely, he has moved away in search for truth and discovered the America that the rest of us already know about, and he is touched by the results.
The Lone Ranger as a Disney film was about these good ol’ fashioned attributes of self-reliance and rugged individualism. The movie will be looked back upon as a success as it will become a fan favorite in the years to come once it gets away from the entertainment machine that is rooted in progressive political causes. The Lone Ranger was in fact too good for the modern film community. They did not want it to do well because they didn’t want to have to compete against it with future remakes and copy-cat attempts by other studios. Modern progressives do not want to revisit the era of the American western. They do not want western values to exist in American culture for many of the reasons Glenn Beck uttered in his short video clip above.
The movie business is changing dramatically, and industry insiders know it will not be to their advantage. They resent Disney as a family film studio and the amount of money they generate. Disney thankfully holds the rights to Marvel Comics, Pixar, their own slate of family programming and now the massive franchise of Star Wars which I’m going to state emphatically is set to change the world with “western values.” Star Wars is a modern western. George Lucas made Star Wars in the spirit of the old Saturday morning serials that made The Lone Ranger so popular and there is little that the world can do at this point to stop the explosion of Star Wars that is about to burst upon the world. Movie studios attempting fixed progressive social messages can see that Disney is positioned to get the “family friendly” message out to the flyover states for the next 20 years while they collapse under the weight of competition.
That competition is driven by union labor. The cost to make movies is too high because labor demands are too ridiculously over-rated and most studios cannot make films that will garner over $500 million in worldwide market sales which is what it takes to cover modern production costs. So many studios will drown within the next decade because they will have to produce more comedies, more chick flicks, and more small pictures that are not so effects driven, because during the summer of 2013, many of them took a bath that they drowned in. The impact of 2013 won’t be seen until 2015. In that year, Disney will become the most dominant film studio in entertainment as the rest of the entertainment establishment reels. Other studios will have to file for bankruptcy. They will not be able to compete.
Disney has their own internal marketing machine, their own amusement park revenue, and they own ABC, ESPN and many other media outlets, so they can afford to have the rest of the industry turn their back on them, which they did when The Lone Ranger was released. Critics went after the film more for the power that Disney had, than because the film was bad. The industry wanted to see Disney fail because they know what’s coming, and they resent the filmmaker Jerry Bruckheimer openly naming himself a conservative while he was promoting The Lone Ranger. That is where the real hatred for The Lone Ranger filmmakers and the film itself stemmed from. Disney is not making movies for the Los Angeles and New York markets, but for the other 48 states that are the “flyovers.”
When Star Wars hits the release phase, Lucasfilm under the protection of Disney is going to produce the most intense schedule of family programming ever seen in the motion picture, and television industry. I have read just about every Star Wars novel, and I can report that there is so much wealth in that story line that literature has never seen anything like it. When that material becomes television shows, cartoons on the Disney Channel, more novels, more movies, more video games, entertainment will be changed forever. And Star Wars is not a progressive production—it is traditional in the way that The Lone Ranger was a western set in the desert during a historical past; Star Wars is a western set in the distant past in deep space.
When it is wondered what the Huffington Post and Glenn Beck have in common, it is Star Wars. The Huffington Post covers every move of the Star Wars production with keen interest and if anybody has read any books by Glenn Beck Star Wars references are common, especially in his novel The Overton Window. When Star Wars hits theaters in the winter of 2015 after Avengers Two dominates the summer box office the world will change in entertainment. A new bar will be set, and many studios will collapse under the pressure. They know this instinctively and they took out their frustration on The Lone Ranger.
In the end, The Lone Ranger will get the last laugh. It will not be a financial loss for the Disney studio as it will easily cover its marketing budget with home sales on Blu Ray. But more than that, The Lone Ranger is one of the many influences of Star Wars. The values of The Lone Ranger are the values of Jaina Solo who will be the star of the next Star Wars film. She will go down in history as the strongest female protagonist in any movie at any point in time, and Disney will be the studio that can take credit for it. Disney will not need the New York and Los Angeles media in their court. They will have the “fly over states” and a very hungry international market that is poised to consume the intensely “western” values of Star Wars which will eclipse everything else produced by all other studios. In the end, The Lone Ranger produced by the Disney Company will ride off into the sunset knowing the part it played in the creation. Critics attacked The Lone Ranger not because it was a bad movie, but because of the values it articulated. But even their parade of insults did not prevent the film from doing respectable business. For Disney however, the best is yet to come, and for those who were afraid of The Lone Ranger, wait till the impact of the new generation of Star Wars hits a youth that is so hungry for heroes that they can think of little else. The emotional void left by our modern progressive society will fill quickly with values that were born in the American western.
And no group of progressives, Fabian socialists, or open communists will be able to stop it this time……………………………………….
The western is back. But this time the horse will be replaced by space ships, the gun and the whip by the lightsaber of Jaina Solo.
Rich Hoffman
Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE. CLICK HERE!
