Rich Hoffman's Blog, page 455

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/07/cscope-exposing-the-nations-most-controversial-public-school-curriculum-system/

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Published on March 10, 2013 17:00

March 9, 2013

THE NOTHING

For years now I have wondered if Glenn Beck was getting his show topics based on my articles here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom. What he speaks about and what I write about seemed to parallel closely over a long period of time. I know I don’t have time to watch and listen to Glenn Beck in much detail. My exposure to Beck is usually what people send to me in the form of clips through email. On Beck’s end, given his success over the last 5 years, I’m sure he has the same problem that I do only 100 times worse, so I doubt he has time to read my articles—unless somebody he trusts sends them to him. But it is beyond coincidence that he has arrived at just about the same place that I have in regard to public education at virtually the same time. The only rational explanation is that people like Glenn Beck, Judge Napolitano, John Stossel and of course myself have arrived at the same independent conclusions based on our observations of public education because logic has delivered us to truth’s door. The conclusion of those observations that is difficult for many to hear is that if you love your child, you should take them far away from public education. If you love your country, you should take your children out of public education. If you love humanity, you should take your children out of public education. In short, public education is a terribly corrosive social element that is destroying everything we are as human beings toward an aim that is beyond human comprehension. Watch Glenn Beck state the same things I have been saying for quite a long time now:

When I first worked with No Lakota Levy to reform the cost impact of our local government school I didn’t feel so strongly until I learned how mindless the collectivism in public education truly was. But a few years into the levy fighting efforts and three elections later which were ignored by the administrators, I began to realize that Glenn Beck’s statements above were true, and a sad realization. It was actually hard for me to accept and I have never been a fan of public education or collective endeavors of any kind. Even in my own school days when many of the coaches wanted me to be on their track and football teams I was always hesitant because of the collective nature of the “team” concept. Even as a young man I never yielded my individuality to a collective endeavor—so with that position in mind it was hard for me to realize that public education needed to be scrapped in America in favor of a system that is independently competitive, and innovative. Anything attached to government control needs to be rejected and since The Department of Education was created at the federal level in 1979, public education has quickly degraded into a propaganda arm of progressive causes. But why is this so?

The best explanation for the degradation tendency of public education and collectivism in general cannot be found in the rally cry toward socialism or communism that comes from the political leanings of progressives—it’s a far deeper philosophical problem than those types of ideologies. To date, the best explanation behind the type of evil that is in the wake of public education was best defined in the fantasy film The Never Ending Story which came out in the 1980s just a few years after the creation of the DOE. The Never Ending Story is a fantasy about a young hero who must slay a fathomless enemy called The Nothing and the pursuit of the hero’s journey for the main character is to learn that it is imagination that destroys The Nothing. The way to destroy the evil that is destroying the world is to recharge the world with imagination—(thought).

Childhood mythologies often contain within them the stories of morality that all of society needs to keep order to their own value system. As anyone who reads me often understands, mythology is the most important ingredient that a society produces which is why I so openly support the Star Wars franchise, because the product of Lucasfilm is in the manufacturing of values society is hungry for. The reason that fantasy is so popular culturally in movies and books is because humankind seeks to counter the effects of the mythical “Nothing” which imposes itself on their lives—as defined in The Never Ending Story. WATCH THE BELOW CLIP to learn more about The Nothing.

When I was in the fourth grade my class went on a field trip to see the Cincinnati Pops at Music Hall play a symphonic rendition of John Williams’s music for Star Wars. Hanging behind the orchestra was a giant projection screen which displayed slides of the movie characters during the performance and the entire building rumbled with cheers as each slide arrived in procession celebrating the movie that had taken America by storm in 1977. Star Wars to all my young classmates from schools all over Cincinnati were being enchanted with the values of the music and the film behind the characters that contained limitless imagination and boundless energy. I thought the experience was a wonderful one. But later, when we returned back to the school on a silent school bus and were back in the seats of our classroom our teacher unleashed a fury of anger at how inconsiderate we were for cheering on the heroes of Star Wars and ignoring the efforts of the members of the symphony. Even as a young fellow in the fourth grade I shook my head at the obvious ignorance of the teacher. I knew that the teacher represented The Nothing well before The Never Ending Story so accurately placed a name on the type of evil she was spewing. Her values taught to her as an educator pursing the field of instruction through years of college thought the symphony was more valuable than the characters the music reflected—her values came from The Nothing. She valued the collective symphony as the source of goodness behind Star Wars instead of the individual characters who were the real heroes of the afternoon. The music only supported the plight of the heroes. She misidentified the value system of the entire event.

Years later when I first saw The Never Ending Story I had an awwh haaa moment while watching it, and it hit me most when I was first married and had a young child of my own sitting on my lap looking for family friendly programming to show my daughter. When the wolf explained what The Nothing was, I immediately thought of the political world in the wake of the Reagan Presidency, my personal experiences with public education, the relationship between public sector jobs and private sector and all the drama of local politics. The situation in America was not quite as bad as it is now so the impact of The Nothing was not yet in place so obviously. I could see The Nothing even then as clearly as can be expected for something that doesn’t exists–because even a blank space is “something.” The Nothing can only be seen for what it destroys, not for any mass it holds. It can only be measured by what is missing from one moment to the next.

Now, in 2013 many years after the release of The Never Ending Story following 4 years of George Bush senior, 8 years of Clinton, 8 years of Bush Jr., and now 5 years of Barack Obama as Presidents of The United States, it is easy to see that The Nothing is moving easily through the world and it uses people like the wolf did in The Never Ending Story to carry the message of The Nothing. The Nothing seeks to destroy thinking. It is what Ayn Rand calls “evasion” in the philosophy of Objectivism. In mythologies like Star Wars it is called The Dark Side of the Force. But in The Never Ending Story, it is most accurately described as “The Nothing.”

The products of The Nothing are all forms of collectivism which seek to strip away individual thought and action on behalf of a greater good. The greater good is never on behalf of individual freedom, it is always in service of The Nothing—the evil behind the evil that some cultures call The Devil, Sith Lords, demons, or any face of sinister display. The attempt to articulate such collectivism with a face only names the crime—but does not define the origin of the crime, or the tendency to succumb to it. In public education young people are stripped away of their minds and are vehicles for The Nothing which has slowly destroyed the entire world right in front of our faces. No one person controls The Nothing. But individual people dance to its strings just as the wolf did in The Never Ending Story. In that context it could be said that The Nothing is behind government seeking to increase taxes forcing parents to have two incomes to accomplish what one used to—to strip mothers away from their children leaving kids open and vulnerable to The Nothing of public education. It is The Nothing that moves the mouth of Barack Obama seeking to place every child in America during age four into pre-school so that a mind numb teacher can begin to teach young people to turn off their thoughts, and imaginations in dedication to The Nothing. The Nothing is often difficult to see. But in public education, it is evident for those with eyes that are open and willing to take notice. Public schools—government schools–are dedicated to The Nothing like a religion. To see The Nothing speak to people and learn what is NOT there. That is how you know The Nothing is at work.

It is The Nothing that Pink Floyd sang about in their Wall album. Many pot smoking patrons declared that the movie The Wall could only be understood when they were “high,” (mentally impaired, intoxicated—or otherwise inebriated) which has been the running dialogue among young people for the last 30 years. But for me, as a young man of 16, 17, and 18 years old who didn’t do drugs of any kind, I understood The Wall on my first viewing, and knew the protagonist was fighting against The Nothing ultimately. Pot smokers could only begin to wrap their minds around freedom from The Nothing when they were “stoned” and had turned off the rules of society. This is why people do drugs and get drunk, so they can have momentary release from the grip of The Nothing. But when the intoxication wears off, The Nothing has them again, and the poor souls become mindless dogs lobbying for more school levies, advocating more socialism under President Obama, and seeking to expand government so that it destroys each and every individual on planet Earth.

I know that many reading this will wonder how I can connect all these dots, and may even question whether or not I am even sane—because relative to their social position, these are outlandish claims. For many people fantasies like The Never Ending Story or Star Wars are just entertainment and the lessons of mythology contained within those stories are dead to them. Those are the kinds of people who are the wolves in our society who help The Nothing destroy the world without knowing it. Like the teacher from the fourth grade who represented The Nothing yelling at our class her embarrassment of students clapping and cheering the images on a slide show instead of the live collective symphony of the Cincinnati Pops, The Nothing destroys by ripping away the source of goodness through deferment. The teacher played her role in destroying the imagination of her students year by year until the kids were less mentally than what they were when they first entered kindergarten. Teachers like that fourth grade instructor plant the seeds of The Nothing so that the adult of 50 years of age has less of a mind than the 3-year-old, because The Nothing lives in their minds and eats their thoughts. It doesn’t mean the 50-year-old does not have statistical knowledge. But the ability to think independently has been destroyed in such individuals—and that is the result of The Nothing.

When Glenn Beck says to take children out of public schools he is saying the same thing that I have been saying and for the same reasons. However, it is not just collectivism that is the ultimate threat, but it is The Nothing that is behind the collectivism that we must fight against. The way to beat The Nothing is with thought and independent values produced by a mind free of collectivism. That was the lesson of The Never Ending Story which never does end. We are living the story today as we have in the past and will in the future. It never goes away; The Nothing will always seek to destroy mankind with the obscure allure of collectivism. It takes an imagination to see the truth and understand the shape of The Nothing. It also takes an imagination to apply thought and mythology to the legal world of the functioning adult which is what I spend a lot of time doing here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom. Just because it is difficult for many to grapple with, does not mean the evil does not exist. To stop that evil, every parent who claims to truly love their child should pull their children from public schools as soon as possible and find an alternative. If parents do not do this, they will subject their children to a doomed life in service of The Nothing, which already holds the hearts and minds of 99.999999999999999999999% of the adult population. Only a few—like Glenn Beck has managed to escape and report what is obvious to those not consumed by The Nothing—that public education is the vehicle that is used to destroy our children—and the problem is far bigger than most people are willing to accept. But The Nothing still is there hunting us all for its collective consumption in a quest that will last all eternity if left unchecked.

It is because of what I have learned about public education that my feelings have evolved over time to seek answers for these modern problems in the myths that have built our society. The logic of political life does not contain the answers—yet the childhood stories of our past contains the wisdom needed to understand the obscure problem of our present—why our children are growing ignorant over time instead of more intelligent and why our adults walk around like mindless zombies full of arrogance due to their years of exposure to The Nothing. At golf courses they add up their scores over a day time beverage and whisk their children to and fro soccer practice thinking they are parents of the year—only to discover too late that they have delivered their children to the gates of doom. The trivia of the adult, and school levy supporter who blindly believes that public education is the savior of society, are simply agents of The Nothing who reside behind all forms of collectivism and is instructed to our world population through public education universally committed to the kind of evil that only occupied the minds of childhood nightmares when the purity of youth could still tell the difference.

For the facts to sustain the assertions above click the link below:

That is how bad the system is. If you have a child in public school, they are being trained by those methods. Every child in a school district is being exposed to these things, and it is our tax money from property values that pay for it.

Rich Hoffman

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Published on March 09, 2013 16:00

March 8, 2013

Rand Paul Goes to Washington: Fighting back against the corrosive hive-like collective

So why the hoopla over Senator Rand Paul’s filibuster that recently took place during the first full week of March 2013? Well the political clatter is over whether or not a President of The United States can assassinate American citizens on American soil at their discretion. The controversial implication is the automated response—how could anyone conceive that an American president would ever act against the people who elected them? The suggestion is a frightening one and most people are not prepared to deal with such a reality—yet that is exactly what the wording that the Justice Department has been attempting to preserve for President Obama with legal language that could easily be conjured up for some future political maneuver. The alarm signs with the Obama administration and his Justice Department started years ago when they openly endorsed the voter harassment antics of the Black Panthers at polling places, then were caught in the terrible gun running scandal of Fast and Furious. Then there was the tragedy of Benghazi which appears to be the result of the President’s military action against Libya without Congressional approval. In spite of what the Obama administration has said about their peaceful intentions, and desire for justice, their actions display a hunger for power that is dangerous, which is why Rand Paul wants to make sure that the language of the law is defined in this moment of history for clarity, which is required given the level of deception that is common in politics.

It is sad that there are members of our American Republic who are so naive that they cannot see the mechanisms of evil that work behind the masses of collective rule. Even though publicly there appears to be great differences behind the recently deceased Hugo Chavez who was the socialist dictator of Venezuela and President Obama, the big differences are in the checks and balances in The United States with the Constitutional power given to individual people and the House and Senate. Idealistically Chavez and Obama might as well be identical twins, as Obama if left unchecked would undoubtedly run America in the same fashion that Chavez ran Venezuela—which appears to be Obama’s intention. Progressives believe that if they don’t name an evil, that it doesn’t exist so they expect Obama’s actions to go un-noticed because the public façade is named to be conducted under the umbrella of goodness.

Yet real reporters like Bill O’Reilly are just now beginning to arrive at the dark place that many of us in the Tea Party movement have been declaring all along only to be shrugged off as conspiracy. Is President Obama intentionally attempting to harm The United States through economic collapse? I have stated that I believe Obama is doing just that and the evidence is stacking up in my favor. But even mainstream reporters who might lean conservative, but attempt to be as fair as possible are starting to catch on that there is something really wrong with President Obama. This led to one of the most explosive, and frustrated interviews that O’Reilly has had in many years when the liberal talk show host Alan Colmes attempted to defend Obama’s fiscal failures with the lure of conspiracy.

Colmes as a progressive knows that the way to diffuse a question he can’t answer is to attack the interrogative with wild accretions such as daring O’Reilly to say that Obama is deliberately attempting to harm Americans—which in the court of public perception would appear to be too extreme for believability. Even though the facts point to such a reality, O’Reilly didn’t fall for it and turned the issue around on Colmes which became a violent exchange that I wish more conservatives would do. When conservatives buckle under accusations of fascism, racism, or conspiracy theory, and dance around the issue without getting angry at the strategy they find themselves losing to the Alan Colmes type progressives nearly 100% of the time. They end up like O’Reilly’s former back-up host John Kasich who is the current governor of Ohio as watered down versions of their former conservative selves. Even when people like Kasich win in polling and elections, conservativism loses to the Progressive who is the architect of madness. Colmes deserved what he got from O’Reilly and I would hope that more people would begin to defend themselves from the tyranny of the Progressive—because their work is sinister, deceitful, and disguised with smiling faces. Their evil is well documented and can easily be seen in countries like Venezuela who operated without the checks and balances of a Republic like The United States.

In that context the actions of Rand Paul should be common place in the Senate and not the exception that it was. America should function with the enthusiasm that was shown in the great old movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington where Jimmy Stewart filibustered the senate in a very similar fashion that Rand Paul did in his 13 hour standoff. Government is not supposed to be like a mound of insects serving a collective cause of unity, they are supposed to be a group of representatives who hash out their differences in verbal combat for the good of the country, and display that nobody is above the law—not even a President of The United States. America does not have a king, or a dictator, so they are not able to make decisions without accountability to other representatives of the Republic having an input. The facts and behavior behind President Obama show that he has a willingness to act without respect to these checks and balances, and this should raise concern among every American. Thankfully, Senator Rand Paul acted as a proper representative under tenuous conditions, and justice has been pursued in his filibuster to the benefit of all no matter what political persuasions may be. Right is right, and Paul acted in accord with the pursuit of truth, and justice—and the American way, which is truly unique on the world stage and should be the model every country across the planet uses for their own government. The spirit of that government is often confusing and mired in controversy, but the intention was captured so wonderfully in the film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and the Rand Paul Filibuster. The rest of the world should take notes.

Rich Hoffman

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Published on March 08, 2013 16:00

March 7, 2013

Star Wars Celebration Europe: Get ready to feel the Force!

The Emperor is coming to the biggest Star Wars party in Europe, July 26-28, 2013 in Essen, Germany.

Ian McDiarmid, the actor who unforgettably played the evil galactic mastermind and the ultimate villain of the Star Wars Saga, will make a rare convention appearance at Star Wars Celebration Europe, appearing on-stage and signing autographs.

This summer’s event will mark the first Celebration in Europe at which the highly sought-after actor will appear to sign autographs and chat on the Celebration Stage, offering attendees a rare opportunity to hear about the making of Star Wars from his perspective.

In 1983, McDiarmid embodied the full depth of the dark side as the Emperor in Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi, his face hidden under intensive makeup and his eyes concealed behind yellow contact lenses. When his true face was revealed as the apparently kind and helpful Senator Palpatine in Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace (1999), he projected a different kind of evil – a subtle manipulator of galactic events, a villain hidden in plain sight. As the prequels progressed, so too did Palpatine’s plans until finally, in Revenge of the Sith (2005), McDiarmid got to play evil at its fullest, and revealed the true power of Darth Sidious.

Star Wars Celebrations bring fans of all ages together, from all points of the globe, to celebrate the pop-culture phenomenon that is Star Wars. From its young fans of Star Wars: The Clone Wars to die-hards fueled by the nostalgia for the original Star Wars trilogy; curious, casual followers; gamers, readers, costumers or collectors — there’s something for everyone at Celebration.

Tickets available now at http://www.starwarscelebration.eu/

Rich Hoffman

http://www.redstate.com/jasonahart/2013/02/05/with-medicaid-expansion-gov-kasichs-credibility-collapses/

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Published on March 07, 2013 18:11

Kasich The Progressive: Medicaid expansion in Ohio and why Republicans lose so often

Let’s play a little game……………guess who said the following—“This budget also takes the significant step of helping more low-income and working Ohioans have access to health care through Medicaid, for which the federal government will pay 100 percent for three years and level off at 90 percent beginning in 2020. While a complex decision, this reform not only helps improve the health of vulnerable Ohioans and frees up local funds for better mental health and addiction services, but it also helps prevent increases to health care premiums and potentially devastating impacts to local hospitals.” If you guessed President Obama on one of his frequent campaign speeches that have extended well past the election, you were wrong. No, the person who said such a reckless political statement cited above was what once people—myself included—thought was one of the most conservative governors in the Union. The author of that statement was none other than Governor John Kasich.

Kasich has ignored the efforts of Ohioans to reject Obamacare and instead has put his finger to the political winds after the loss of Senate Bill 5, and changed his political philosophy in the wake of the election of 2012. Kasich seems to be listening to his more progressive friends these days like tabloid television star Bill Cunningham instead of people like Sean Hannity as he has made a noticeable political shift to the far left relative to his previous position. Kasich’s progressive shift portrays exactly why government continues to grow unsustainably as politicians who lack personal conviction find themselves molded by the mob, (masses) and lose their will to fight, or step out of office to maintain their principles. I would respect Kasich more if he didn’t allow himself to be swayed by public opinion and simply did not run for re-election in 2014—returning back to Fox News as Bill O’Reilly’s back-up host. Rather, he has listened to his progressive friends in that an elected representative must put aside their personal feelings and govern on behalf of all people, not just certain groups. While on the surface, this sounds good—in a democracy it allows for the masses to shape government toward the whims of collective force rather than a republic shaped by the representation of the people who elected that voting presence. With Kasich we thought we were getting a conservative—instead we ended up with a guy who lost a couple of fights and has now thrown up the white flag—surrendering to progressives allowing government to grow even more under his watch.

I had a state senator tell me recently that he despised the word “Rhino” which is what Tea Party types have been calling Republicans who have shown a willingness to work with progressives to find a “middle ground.” To such people who don’t desire to fight for their principles, even if it costs them an election, they see the Tea Party position as radical, and too far to the political “right” to win over the “working poor,” “minorities,” and those addicted to government entitlements. Rhino Republicans like Chris Christie and Kasich have listened to their critics and moved to the left, which is what has been happening to Republicans since the Civil War—and is why government has grown so much over the last hundred years. Nobody has been present in government to stop that growth and when it has been thought that such people have been elected, they turn out to lose like Kasich has to progressives, and our entire society moves further to the left. I told the senator that elected representatives need to believe in something and stand for it, and to stop thinking strategically about maintaining the House or Senate as a majority—because if it means compromising fiscal beliefs to hold the office, then their representation is worthless. He said we’ll have to agree to disagree and we both put more relish on our hot dogs and let it pass nicely—but the implication of his statement stayed with me for weeks. The game modern politicians are playing on the conservative side is a game of keep away, but even so, they are losing ground in the process by the radical progressives incessant pursuit of moving the goal posts far to the political left with each year that passes. (SEE MY PREVIOUS ARTICLE ON THIS)

Now that my youngest daughter has had a baby the constant advice from many family members is that she should take advantage of the many government programs available to her such as Wic and various insurance programs supported by the government. Many of these family members are affluent people and their comments center around, “You already pay taxes honey, just look at it as collecting on your investment.” This has went on for many years, in fact when my wife was pushed in the same direction when we had kids over twenty years ago and I learned of the nature of the discussion—there were serious fireworks at our house and family rifts that lasted decades. The reasoning to my wife then was, “you’re husband is riding a bicycle to work for God’s sake, take the pressure off him and get on Wic so that you can afford baby formula.” I was as violently against government assistance as a 19 year-old as I am today, so this urging did not sit well with me and did not go unanswered. The expansion of government happens in part because they actively attempt to sign up young women to government programs to take off some of the financial pressure, then the young women as adults have lost their moral authority to speak against those programs as wizened adults, so they justify such endeavors by saying that “we already paid taxes into the program, we might as well get something out of it.”

I learned recently that regarding Kasich’s expansion of Medicaid, offices have been actively attempting to increase enrollment on the program to justify the expansion. The unsaid strategy from Kasich is that he wants young women and the working poor voters to know that the Governor is looking out for them–to give them a hand up in life—especially during the hard first years of starting a family. He thinks he’s taking a page from the Democratic playbook and is beating them at their own game, but in the end the progressive wins because they set the measure everyone is playing to. In that way conservative governors like Kasich and Christie play to the same rules that Obama and the New York progressive Cuomo play by. In the end, government expands because nobody in government from either side fight for their beliefs, and the republic of America is reduced to a democracy of majority rule which will always perpetuate toward degeneracy. When politicians refuse to take a hard-line, then chaos becomes the ruler no matter who is in charge.

The senator mentioned that was eating hot dogs for dinner with me will never understand why Tea Party members call him and his kind Rhinos due to their will to compromise, because their goal is not just the health of Ohio, it is in maintaining majorities in the House and Senate. To do that they must compromise with radical government expansionists who are always looking for new ways to make the public addicted to their services as they redistribute wealth with tax and spend management of state and federal economies. The people who lose are those who think they are voting for men and women of conviction only to find out that their representatives are weak-willed progressives addicted to public office and perpetual elections that keep them out of the meat grinder of the private sector. The worst and weakest human beings typically therefore move into public office and they work to stay there. Real reformers enter office only to leave a few years later in frustration, or do like Kasich has and declared that if you can’t beat them………….you join them. Which he has.

Now a note about what can be done about these diabolical schemes from the desk of Steve Elliott, which primarily focuses on these issues at the federal level. It should be noted that many of the sequestration jobs being cut were created in the same manner that Kasich is now expanding Medicaid, so the events are connected directly.

The BIG LIE of BIG GOVERNMENT is about to be exposed — IF members of Congress will stand strong and NOT be bullied by Obama. We must understand precisely what’s happening. Please see below. — Steve

Dear Don,

Yesterday, we warned you that an effort was under way to give Obama unconstitutional authority to raise taxes. This shocking news was confirmed by various news reports.

The good news … many grassroots citizens responded, and we dodged that bullet!

Now … today … as the doomsdayers in D.C. are counting down to the Sequester-mageddon. President Obama just held a press conference DEMANDING NEW TAXES and blaming conservatives for the coming alleged catastrophe of sequester.

And our Radical-in-Chief is getting ready to unleash his unprecedented grassroots army to PRESSURE your Ohio members of Congress to RAISE YOUR TAXES!

+ + Krauthammer Exposes OBAMA’S BIG LIE

Let’s be clear — the entire sequester “crisis” is a fabrication of Obama himself — the idea originated in the White House. And it’s designed to force us to accept even higher taxes and even more government spending.

Obama thought conservatives would have caved in long ago. Now, as Charles Krauthammer explains in his column today, the BIG LIE of the Left is about to be exposed.

What is that BIG LIE?

Simply this:

The LEFT’S BIG LIE is that any cutbacks to BIG GOVERNMENT will cause severe economic hardship to be unleashed on our nation. But it’s a lie!

As Krauthammer explains, if the sky doesn’t fall with a modest cutback in government spending, “people might get the idea that we can shrink government and live on.”

Do you see what’s happening?

If the sky DOESN’T fall with a 2% cut in government spending, then the BIG LIE of BIG GOVERNMENT will be exposed!

That’s why Obama’s far-left “Organizing For Action” activist group sent this message out to their tens of millions of followers yesterday:

“On the chopping block are 10,000 teaching jobs, more than 70,000 kids’ spots in Head Start, $35 million for local fire departments, $43 million to make sure seniors don’t go hungry, and access to nutrition assistance for 600,000 women and their families.”

Obama and the Left WANT sequester! They want the threat of school teachers and firemen and air traffic controllers losing their jobs because it creates an underlying fear of any cutbacks in government.

+ + TAKE ACTION: EXPOSE THE BIG LIE!

As I write, Obama has unleashed his ORGANIZING FOR ACTION activist group to bombard Congress.

You and I have two choices.

We can sit by silently and let Obama’s fear tactics take the day.

Or …

We can take action and help EXPOSE THE BIG LIE of BIG GOVERNMENT leftists!

If you want to take action, here’s what you can do:

#1 — Call Your Members Of Congress

Tell your two Ohio Senators and your Representative what you think about Obama’s plan to grow government and raise taxes. Let them know that you see through the BIG LIE of BIG GOVERNMENT. Phone numbers:

Sen. Brown: 202-224-2315

Sen. Portman: 202-224-3353

Rep. Chabot and Rep. Boehner (Note: we are listing two Reps because you live in a gerrymandered district.): 202-225-2216 and 202-225-6205

#2 — Sign Grassfire’s “No New Taxes” Petition.

If you oppose the BIG GOVERNMENT plan to raise taxes, join with nearly 100,000 other citizens in signing Grassfire’s “No New Taxes” petition. We will be delivering petitions to leaders in Congress as soon as next week. Go here now:

www.grassfire.com/322/petition.asp

Remember, just two months ago Congress and Obama raised YOUR TAXES by two percent — and exactly 60 days later, they’re back for more! Sign the petition.

#3 — Tell BIG GOVERNMENT Politicians: “We Paid Our 2%! Why Can’t You?”

Grassfire has set up a FaxFire to let you tell Congress, “We Paid Our 2%! Why Can’t You?” After all, they just imposed a two-percent tax on us. That means we were FORCED to cut back our family budgets by two percent. Government can do the same!

As Krauthammer writes:

“…millions of American workers have had to tighten their belts by precisely two percent. They found a way. Washington, spending $3.8 trillion, cannot? If so, we might as well declare bankruptcy now and save the attorneys’ fees.”

Go here now to fax your two Ohio Senators, your Representative and key leaders on Capitol Hill:

www.grassfire.com/5322/offer.asp

Again … Obama and the Left are very nervous today. WHAT IF THE SKY DOESN’T FALL?

Then their Big Lie is exposed.

Thanks for the stand you’re taking.

Steve Elliott

P.S. Liberty News’ Norvell Rose just posted an exclusive that further exposes the sequester madness called “The Sequester Is Falling!” Also, I have posted this update on my Liberty News blog. Go here to comment and share.

ACTIONS:

1. Call your members of Congress.

Sen. Brown: 202-224-2315

Sen. Portman: 202-224-3353

Rep. Chabot and Rep. Boehner (Note: we are listing two Reps because you live in a gerrymandered district.): 202-225-2216 and 202-225-6205

2. Sign our “No New Taxes” petition.

3. Fax Congress.

4.Read Krauthammer’s column.

Rich Hoffman

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Published on March 07, 2013 16:00

March 6, 2013

The Rand Paul Filibuster: Fighting for the right to LIVE in America

Rand Paul was one of only 7 Senators who voted against the NDAA Act a few years ago, CLICK HERE FOR REVIEW. So it should come as no surprise that Paul is filibustering in the Senate over Eric Holder’s comments about the right of President Obama to kill American citizens on American soil with the drone program. Below Harry Reid attempts to end the filibuster with a frustrated effort about 9 hours into Rand’s marathon talk. But he failed, and Rand continued on with his filibuster. Watch the attempt:

It is very refreshing to see a representative in the Republic of The United States who finally has the guts, and sincerity to match those of us who were outraged by the NDAA Act and the idea of a government that has shown a desire to gradually move itself toward tyranny. Thank goodness for Senator Rand Paul. I wish there were about 300 more politicians just like him on Capital Hill.

It’s nice to see a real life Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Look familiar!

Rich Hoffman

How much does my family like pirates? Well, here is my oldest daughter’s birthday where her husband turned their townhome into a pirate haven. You be the judge. Needless to say, when Black Flag comes out, there will be a party at my house!

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Published on March 06, 2013 19:55

The Black Flag of Assassin’s Creed: Why modern politics can be seen in naval ship battles

As I mentioned yesterday, Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed video game franchise is releasing a pirate version of their popular series to be launched prior to Halloween 2013 and it looks fantastic. So I’m going to take a break from the usual serious matters dealt with at this site and expand a bit more about what I started to discuss regarding Assassin’s Creed as an instructive platform from which all people can learn history, by allowing players get to walk in the shoes of characters as history was made. Shortly after I wrote the article previously mentioned, I managed to obtain my own ship while playing Assassin’s Creed III which takes place during the American Revolution and engage in the fantastic naval battles which is the new feature developed by Ubisoft. The ship battle feature in the game is hands down one of the coolest uses of video game technology I have ever seen and it appears to be expanded upon dramatically in their upcoming pirate release, so it deserves mention and a metaphorical analysis in relation to real life. The ship to ship battles in Assassin’s Creed III are simply breathtaking and deserve comment for the bench mark in history that they represent. Justifiably so, I am very much looking forward to the release of Assassin’s Creed 4, The Black Flag coming this fall. I will be one of the first to get it! There are few places that you can live history from your living rooms and engage in the exhilaration that model ship builders have for years tried to capture when imagining grand galleons perched in combat with cannons firing on the choppy waters of a stormy sea. But that is exactly what these recent Assassin Creed releases are offering for the first time anywhere and the results are simply stunning. I’ve never seen anything like what I was able to play in Assassin’s Creed III with the ship to ship combat that alone makes the worth of the game more than justified for gamers who enjoy history.

Hanging in my home I have a painting of two ships firing canons at each other on Lake Erie during the War of 1812. I have found that the old sea battles from the romantic era of naval combat reflects modern politics in many ways. Like politics, wind speed is important as well as the direction from which it comes. Politicians often allow themselves to blow where the winds of public opinion take them, so the metaphor is a proper one. The old mast driven battleships were very much victims of circumstance, so maneuvering in position at a speed of 8 to 12 knots in order to fire upon an enemy was difficult. Even then gaining a tactical advantage over an opponent meant that one ship would have to outlast another in broadside combat at close range, because that is often what it came to. One ship would have to absorb the damage of another and hope that their ship wouldn’t sink to the oceans depths before their enemy. I see in modern politics that Republicans have constantly been outmaneuvered by the pirate tactics of the Democrats who attack not just with one spectacular galleon, but many small ones. Republicans often utilize such magnificent ships by displaying lots of guns and massive sails in a fashion that was typical of the British during their imperial rule. The Democrats use smaller, faster vessels that can overtake larger ships with mass and dirty tricks to take down their superior foes—and such a metaphor describes modern politics clearly.

Many of the tactics seen in modern politics were long ago used on the high sea battles of early naval combat, before engines and modern firepower allowed technology to trump bravery. In the picture I referred to of the 1812 conflict, I often think of the do or die nature of the ship crews who knew if they lost the fight, there would be no quarter given, no rescue from the enemy–there would be only death as their ship sank becoming their collective tombs. So it is in this spirit that I love naval conflict from the period of world history where such things occurred, which is so wonderfully rendered in the Assassin games.

Personally I love the violent combat that is required in Assassin’s Creed III to even get to the naval battles. Many game players over 35 years old might find themselves turned off at having to assassinate so many Redcoats to play through the story mode. Some of my Tea Party friends who are history buffs and are inclined to spend their spare time building model trains and ships in bottles would love the naval combat graphics engine in the game, but they would find the brutality required to play the main character difficult to get their minds around. That is the only weakness of the Assassin games. The cost of the game is worth buying just for the ship battles, but that option should be available right out of the box to the advantage of the history buff—not the seasoned video gamer who loves the violent game play—like I do.

But that aside, it was bewildering to engage in combat with several schooner style ships in the choppy seas off the coast of North Carolina where the waves were 10 to 15 feet high and pitching my ship to and fro in a very violent manner. I found that I had to time the cannon fire to these rough waters so that the cannons would reach their targets and not nose dive into the water short of their mark. I have never seen such realism in a combat simulation of any kind, and it is just incredible to look at, let alone play.

The Assassin games are bringing history to life in a way I never thought was possible. Needless to say, I am incredibly impressed. As I write this the Horseshoe Casino has just opened in downtown Cincinnati and many adults my age converged upon its opening to spend $10 dollars per game on bets they are likely to never see a positive result. The gaming that goes on in places like Vegas and casinos like The Horseshoe are consuming exercises that do little to give the players any kind of rewarding experience except for the occasional jackpot. For my money, I would rather spend my gaming time on a $60 investment into a game like Assassin’s Creed III so at least the time spent playing can put the player into the seat of history and see and feel what it was like to stand on the docks of Boston in 1773 climbing aboard a ship to sail into the open sea blasting canons into the hull of an enemy in a rip-roaring wind attempting to turn ships over as sea water washes over the decks in a bubbling froth. The ship battles are a heck of a lot more exciting than a casino slot machine that simply is designed to eat money from hopeful treasure hunters dressed to kill, but often losing the shirt right off their backs. Games like Assassin’s Creed give back where a casino gaming experience can’t.

In such war simulations I tend to be a rammer when it comes to naval combat. With all things being equal, the way to gain an advantage over an enemy is to be bolder in combat efforts so ramming into an opposing ship to cause them to hesitate before firing yields great results. I do the same type of thing in actual politics. Rather than dance around in never-ending stalemates, I tend to think like a pirate in being overly aggressive in achieving a victory. (SEE THE LAKOTA LEVY FOR A SAMPLE) I don’t have a lot of patience when it comes to politicians who insist on dancing with the enemy as less aggressive ship captains discover happens often in confrontations if they over-think their scenarios. Playing games like Assassin’s Creed III can reveal these tendencies in a simulation before millions of wasted dollars go into political campaigns that only end up dancing around the enemy on the seas of life, (LIKE THE ROMNEY CAMPAIGN). The people reading this who will insist that their strategy was formed from years of experience and that such a simplified answer to age-long questions cannot be found in a video game—they are the same people who have lost many campaigns and are not qualified to provide an opinion. Players of such a game not only learn a lot about history, but they also learn a lot about themselves.

Regardless of the level of enjoyment, the Assassin Creed video games are unsurpassed in their naval war simulations. I could play them endlessly, and I scratch my head at those who are my age and older who scamper off to a casino to throw their money away when there are games like Assassin’s Creed III that are much more beneficial to the human mind, and an understanding of the history of our species. But just for the sheer enjoyment of blowing up a gigantic galleon after a long fought battle, Ubisoft has achieved a level of detail that has never before been achieved in a game or war simulation of any kind any where. I simply shudder to consider how cool the new game Black Flag will be. I think I will be taking another vacation come fall of 2013, similar to the one I took to play The Old Republic. Because if Assassin’s Creed 4 has better ship combat than Assassin’s Creed III, then I may never leave my house again………….because they are a lot of fun, and filled with rich history that will make a modern novel envious.

Rich Hoffman

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Published on March 06, 2013 16:00

March 5, 2013

Walking the Streets of Old Boston During the Revolutionary War: The new way to think about education

When people ask me what I think education should be, and how much money I think should be spent on it, my thoughts are not even in the same universe as the typical concerned parent. In such discussions it quickly becomes realized that parents need a babysitting service for their child, and that is their primary concern when discussing education, so they aren’t even willing to discuss the quality of education itself. I personally think the old top down teaching method is dead, and is obsolete entirely. I favor one that has individual interaction with all the wonderful media tools available today and that will come to availability tomorrow over a teacher standing in front of a classroom like a dictator reeking with authority toward an uninterested class. I touched on some of these changes coming to education in my article on School Choice which can be reviewed by Clicking Here.

I recently found myself inspired by playing an MMO video game called The Old Republic in how the power of gaming and story driven content provided a context to how the future of education might take advantage. After spending roughly 300 hours playing the story portion of that game with my wife I am more convinced than ever that it is in that forum that education might best be stimulated. Now, under my daughter’s guidance and continued coaxing, I am playing a game on Xbox called Assassin’s Creed III which I previewed here a bit, CLICK FOR REVIEW, and I am staggered by the results of that effort. Assassin’s Creed III is a visually stimulating game that is a fictional story set during the Revolutionary War taking some liberties with the time period and involves a war between a group of Templers and Assassins that extends for millenniums of human history. It has some science fiction elements, mystery, drama, action, and some sentimental romance that makes it a compelling story—but more than that I found it educationally thought-provoking.

I more heavily than ever support the Tea Party efforts of my friends in the Liberty Movement and there have been some intense discussions of late over beer, chicken wings, and flat screen televisions in dark corners of dank local pubs that have reminded me of how the Liberty Movement started in Boston during the years of 1750 to 1773. I see the same thing happening once again in America in these dark corners under hushed voices. Being a lover of Alan Eckert novels especially The Frontiersman, and Wilderness Empire which cover American development from 1720 through the early 1800’s from the East Coast to Illinois I have a love of information that covers that era. To date only The Last of the Mohicans really jumped into this time period successfully as Walt Disney attempted on several occasions to tell stories from the period without coming out like stale bread. The period of 1680 to about 1840 in America is one of the most violent, liberating, and exciting times in American history, yet it has been watered down by modern education to reflect through academic collectivism only the concerns of the Civil Rights debates of the 1850s to 1970s which were only the tail being wagged by the dog which began in the period of the First Great Awakening, roughly 1730 to 1770. So it was with some excitement that I placed Assassin’s Creed III into my Xbox to play after looking at it on my book shelf for nearly 4 months unopened, as I had other tasks to attend to over that duration.

The game is fun, and it’s wonderful to cut the heads off bad guys and do all the usual video game antics that make them so popular with young people. But Assassin’s Creed is more than just fun—it is deeply educational, and places the video game player in the sights, sounds, and politics of 1750 – 1773 America very accurately, much more than I anticipated. Within the first 15 hours of game play I took a journey from England to American aboard a four masted galleon that took 73 days. Life on the ship was brutally realistic, and even though I have read for years about such journeys, having the ability to walk around a ship, sleep, look-out across the water, talk to people working on the vessel and doing simple chores made the journey very real for me and gave me an appreciation for these boats and their tribulations that I have not received upon viewing actual replicas in port at Jamestown and other such places. In Assassin’s Creed III I have had the opportunity to walk the streets of Boston as they might have looked at the time and engaged in meetings in those same dimly lit taverns which reminded me very much of my present reality. I have met and interacted with Ben Franklin, William Johnston, George Washington, and Sam Adams just to name a few. I have found myself just walking around the streets aimlessly looking at all the street vendors, the ship yards, and various businesses in amazement. They have done in Assassin’s Creed what Walt Disney attempted to do with his Frontier Land in Disney World, which is recreate Old Boston with as much accuracy possible so that the essence of it would not be lost to time.

To get an idea of where Lexington is in relation to Boston and how the terrain outside of Old Boston might have looked to neighboring Native American tribes has been nothing short of stunning. The Native Americans speak in their native language with subtitles needing to be read, and I found that after a little while I was starting to understand some of the words in context to the situations without reading the subtitles. I could literally go on and on about the quality of Assassin’s Creed as a video game. It is an example of exception that has set a new high bar for video game development.

Yet I could not stop thinking that more kids have probably learned more about American history after playing Assassin’s Creed for 40 or 50 hours than they have in all their years of public education history classes—which makes the video game far more superior as an education tool than a stagnant teacher standing in front of a class writing on a chalk board. Assassin’s Creed would be a fun game if killing wasn’t even involved, but rather just interacting with the Founding Fathers and watching the slow gradual rebellion fester up against the English over a twenty year period. It is one thing to read about the occupation of British troops in Boston in 1770, but it is another to watch them patrolling the city and shoving you out-of-the-way if you walk in front of their formation to exert their authority, like what happens in Assassin’s Creed. I have caught myself saying ahhh, haaaa many times as things I’ve read in different books over the last thirty years came together for me in the video game where I suddenly had visual reference to tie it all together. The detail is immaculate, even down to the mechanics of riding horses as they splash about on a muddy street from a recent rain.

For me the beauty of the game is in the ships. Assassin’s Creed III allows me to climb aboard the kind of ships I have built and used in strategic combat CLICK TO REVIEW, and walk the decks, hoist the sails, and steer accurately on the open sea. In reality those old ships were boring, but Assassin’s Creed makes them realistically boring to the level of excitement if that makes any sense. The graphics engine for the ship to ship combat in Assassin’s Creed III is so deliciously good, with water looking photo realistic and the ships pitching to and fro so authentically that Assassin’s Creed 4 is going to expand on their ship development with a pirate adventure in the next edition—which for me is equitable to the most ecstatic experience imaginable. Aside from the Revolutionary Period in America, the Golden Age of Pirates is among my favorites in history, and my daughter knew it when she obtained the leaked news from Ubisoft sending me a text, “DAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE NEW ASSASSIN’S CREED GAME IS CALLED THE BLACK FLAG!!!!!!!!!!!! IT’S ABOUT PIRATES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Being a history buff, I love to interact with these three-dimensional environments that modern video games afford. They complement my reading in a way that allows a very detailed picture to be painted in my mind, and connects many historical dots obtained from multiple sources. The games are made for the purposes of entertainment, but it is staggering to consider how effective they could be if they took themselves seriously as educational tools. As I examine the effectiveness of Assassin’s Creed III next to the stagnant education methods of even the best schools, it is obvious that public education is well down the wrong path, and they refuse to analyze their position in favor of something better. Not being a gambler I would bet everything that most young people today know more about George Washington not because of the books by Glenn Beck, or the efforts of 12 years of public education, but because they played Assassin’s Creed III during the fall of 2012 and winter of 2013 and had to speak to him, go on missions that he sent them on, and watch history take place in a computer game instead of a solitary, bored individual standing at the front of a class spewing “teacher breath,” (a combination of coffee and teeth in the first stages of gingivitis) toward an uninterested class that has no context to apply any information to. Video games provide that context, and to date, none better than Assassin’s Creed III. Not even the great Sid Meyer games did so well to place a player into the streets of history to interact with its authors as equals so that truth can be grappled with. That is the power of a video game to become an opportunity to improve education effectiveness.

Rich Hoffman

http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/12/top-1-of-american-taxpayers-pay-almost-as-much-in-taxes-as-bottom-95-and-half-of-that-group-paid-nothing-in-2010/

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Published on March 05, 2013 16:00

March 4, 2013

Take Away 2 1/2 Fries from a Big Mac Meal: The real cost of federal sequestration

On the day after the sequestration implemented from the federal government on March 2nd Darryl Parks from 700 WLW covered the events that transpired in the aftermath as government officials calculated that society might come to an end because of the cuts. Well, in his usual fashion Darryl brought some non-partisan, non emotional, non group affiliated analysis regarding the sequestration cuts to the light of reality. As many might be afraid of the rhetoric coming out of Washington Darryl put into the context the extent of the cuts in a fashion that everyone can understand. The ridiculous amounts that Darryl laid out in his broadcast, and that I break down below in written form are so small that they aren’t even worth discussing. Yet all the news broadcasts on television cried like infants for over three weeks along with virtually every politician, especially Barack Obama about the costs of these cuts to the social fabric of American society. So without further fanfare have a listen to Darryl’s broadcast as it was given on March 2nd at 9 AM in the morning.

Most people think that 44 billion sounds like a lot of money, but in regard to the sequestration cuts, it is only 1/80th of the total federal budget. The federal budget is in fact so large, and deliberately made complicated by the same politicians who have been crying wolf, that most Americans cannot even wrap their mind around the numbers. Nobody can envision a trillion dollars, and one billion is well out of touch from most people’s minds. Yet American spending is in a deficit trend of over a trillion dollars per year from an income stream where only 1.35 million Americans at the very top of the income bracket pay as much as the bottom 95%. In total roughly 130 million Americans pay taxes into the total federal budget minus some revenue generated from foreign trade and travel gathered in the form of sales taxes. So when it is learned that most of the federal yearly budget supplied to the government is provided by only 130 million Americans—while almost as many more pay no taxes off payroll or other direct measures, the situation becomes incredibly frustrating, and daunting. Like their counterparts in the government school system, federal bureaucrats make it a practice to deliberately deceive voters into protecting the empire of spending they have recklessly erected. For more information check out the links below:

How much the Top 1% pays in taxes:

Federal budget by the numbers from the Heritage Foundation:

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/10/federal-spending-by-the-numbers-2012

Most people start to blank out when such large numbers are expressed so they cannot get their mind around such concepts. Looting politicians like Barack Obama know this, and have successfully hidden the extremity of these federal numbers behind relatable faces, like children, National Park employees, government janitorial staff and so on—so that tax payers will be inclined to vote in favor of more tax increases to help out their fellow Americans. The federal government essentially uses the same tactics that we have been fighting locally in the school levy debates—they clearly manipulate the numbers in hopes that nobody can wrap their mind around the truth. However, Darryl Parks did better than President Obama in showing the hypocrisy of the federal diatribes by putting into a context that everyone can understand the amount of the sequestration cuts that prove just how small they really are—and how much politicians in Washington and the doomsday press blew out of proportion the extent of the damage—which proves that none of them can be trusted.

Darryl did the hard math and discovered that it was much easier to understand the 44 billion in cuts coming from the sequestration reductions that went into effect on March 1st by proportionally breaking it down against something that virtually everyone can relate to, a McDonalds Big Mac extra value meal. Darryl took the known value of 1320 calories that are contained within a Big Mac extra value meal consisting of a Big Mac sandwich, a medium Coke and a large order of French fries that normally contain 87 individual fries within the container they come in and for sake of argument gave that value of 1320 an equal value to the federal budget. Now we know that 44 billion in cuts is only 1/80th of the total federal budget, so if we apply the same reduction to the Big Mac value meal, we discover that we will only lose 2 ½ French fries from our feast

Most people eating such a meal would not notice a 2 ½ fry reduction, and in the society at large, particularly the 130 million Americans who pay nearly all the federal tax, they won’t notice any reductions at the federal level. The only people who will notice the reductions are those who have built their careers in the flimsy existence of government and find themselves jobless in the sequestration cuts. It will be discovered that many of those reduced jobs were not necessary to begin with just as many of the local schools who have had to reduce their staffs have found that they can still operate with fewer employees as they work to meet their budgets. The impacted parties are those who work for government at wages that are too high for jobs that were created by government for government reasons.

Nobody in their right mind can argue that losing 2 ½ fries per Big Mac value meal will ever be noticed and will drive down the quality of the meal itself. Just like the sequestration cuts don’t even come close to bringing our federal government into the light of reality when it comes to fiscal spending of those poor 130 million tax payers who are covering the whole bill. Yet everyone who covered the sequestration in a negative way is guilty of openly misleading the American people with radical rhetoric that belongs in the basement of old hippie flower children engulfed in pot smoke as they watch reruns of Sesame Street and think themselves sophisticated contributors of society. In reality, much, much, much more needs to be cut from our extra value meals if we wish as a nation to lose any weight and take measures to truly get our budget under control. Taking away 2 ½ French fries out of 87 won’t do the job—and is not even worth the discussion which has transpired.

Rich Hoffman

Obama lies to the public in the same way that an alcoholic or drug addict justifies their mental illness. Obama appears to have no connection to reality over the issue of money and is just as foolish as the metaphorical display in the video above. Proportionately he is just as reckless. Like the banker, we should all dismiss Obama as a fool who has an obvious problem. He should even be impeached as stated in Article One, section Two of The United States Constitution where it reports, “The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.” The writers of the Constitution intended for American presidents to overstep their bounds and be impeached by the House on occasion, but members of the House and Senate are just as bad. So who are they to throw stones in a glass house? The result is that nobody does anything but cave into the addicts, because they all share the same sickness.

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Published on March 04, 2013 16:00

March 3, 2013

The Audacity of Government Spending: Putting things in perspective on the national debt

To put in perspective just how ridiculous our current government is in its demands for ever-expanding government, more and more government employees, and exploding encroachments of every individual American life, the video below places into context the audacity of modern politicians regarding the debt crises. The government through both the Bush administration and Obama administration have attempted to pad the numbers of a declining economy with government expansion to the point of bringing the nation to a current $17 trillion-dollar deficit moving rapidly toward $20 trillion. Sadly, the video below, which is only a year or two old, was made when people like me were already deeply concerned at $14 trillion. I and my Tea Party friends were aghast when the deficit hit $10 trillion, and by the time the video below was made, I had already given up on current government. The state of America today isn’t even on the measuring stick of sanity regarding finance. When I hear Obama speak about the sequestration cuts and how difficult it is for him to even digest a 2.5% reduction in government which is still deficit spending, it places me in the mind of the banker seen below, with the President playing the idiot asking for an increase in the debt ceiling.

Obama’s argument for increasing the debt ceiling is that “America pays its debts.” The trouble is the President won’t stop spending money, which forces America to pay for things it can’t afford. America cannot afford to be a nanny state, it cannot afford to take care of more than 50% of the nation who doesn’t work, or pay taxes. It cannot take care of senior citizens who retire at 65 and live till age 90 on the government dime as there are fewer children being born than ever before who will have fewer jobs to work in as adults so that they can continue to pay into Social Security.

The government cannot afford to give insurance to every American. It cannot afford to build the political party of one left leaning side with entitlement spending—which is what has been happening. Democrats and progressives know that their political base cannot support a voting base with their ideas, but only with what they can give away to purchase votes from the most ignorant among the American population. They like the guy in the video above when he’s told that he cannot have the money instantly states that without raising the debt limit, his wife will leave him, because if he cannot spend money to keep his wife happy, their marriage will fall apart.

So too will the marriage between young people and progressive Democrats erode away to nothing when the money runs out. When there are no free things to gain like welfare, free insurance, free education, easy government jobs that pay 40% more than private sector jobs, etc., voters will reject the party of handouts, the Democrats. Obama knows this, which is why he played the scare game over sequestration only to back pedal when he realized that Republicans like the banker above had reached their limit.

For me, that limit was a long, long time ago. I reached my limit during 2005 in the Bush years. People I know best started reading Atlas Shrugged between 2005 and 2007 and were ready to throw George Bush out of office for creating the Department of Homeland Security, the TSA and other massive government programs. There were already murmurings of starting a Tea Party like organization even back then when I fought the first Lakota levy in Butler County where that government school showed a never-ending tendency to spend more money than they ever take in, just like the guy in the video above. Once Obama was elected, and the Lakota teachers showed in 2008 what national teachers all across America were really up to, many in the Liberty Movement had already reached their boiling point. By 2009 and 2010, coordinated measures to expose spending addicts like the guy in the video above were being implemented to render publicly so that voters would come to understand the unsustainable path that America was on. Unfortunately, half the country presently is just like the guy in the video above. They are like heroin addicts—in denial of their addiction to spending and they are on a self-destructive path to always spend more than they take in and they are electing politicians into office who will provide them that fix. What these politicians have in common with these spending addicts is that they too have the same problem—they can’t control themselves.

The very small cuts that Obama is bellyaching over are just as foolish as the silly amount discussed above. 2.5% is hardly worth even mentioning. I wouldn’t be happy until more than 50% of the current budget is slashed. I don’t want the government to do much of anything except build up a military, run a bit of a post office, help NASA along, maintain roadways, and that’s about it. The private sector could and would take care of virtually everything else. The people who would be left behind in such an economy are those who refuse to participate even when politicians like Obama steal from others and place the goods at the feet of the malcontent—who even then hardly picks up the food to place in their mouths. All of society should not be destroyed because the addicts of spending like Obama and his Capitol Hill thugs cannot regulate themselves, and have no understanding of what makes a human being rise in the morning to meet a day’s challenges.

Like the banker we should run Obama out of our offices and take away his credit cards. We should not feel bad about it either, because it is him who has mismanaged his own life, and built a party around debt and theft. So the fault of a failing economy falsely propped up by government expansion will be his alone. The loss of jobs created not by demand, but by whim are the fault of Obama for not measuring need against desire. The fault of the days to come will fall squarely on Obama’s shoulders and Republicans would do well to close the door and let Obama and his party fall completely into disarray by their own recklessness. Because the current debt is abysmal—I personally support nothing that contributes to those debts. I do not care about government pensions. I don’t have one, and I never will—so I don’t want to pay for somebody else’s pension. I don’t care about public schools. I’d rather pay for private tutors and instruction. I don’t care about Social Security. I have no plans to ever collect a Social Security check and would consider the money dirty if I did. I have no need of Medicaid, or Medicare. I manage my own health and well-being under my own funds, and I have no sympathy for those who cannot, or refuse to. I pay roughly $20K a year in personal taxes when I add up all the little things, and I get very little in return for that money. Nearly 1/5th of that number goes to public schools alone which I think is a complete waste of money. I may use $2,000 of that $20K, and it’s been that way for over 15 years, and that is not a good ROI. When congress messed up the Social Security tax this year, I notice immediately that I was paying $80 more a month in just Social Security tax from December 31st 2012 to January 1st 2013. Congress allowed those taxes to fly in under the radar while everyone else was looking at the fiscal cliff negotiations. I don’t get a damn thing for the $80 lost dollars—nothing. It’s just more looted money lost in the pit of a government being run by money addicts that are just as in denial of their social imposition as any rampant drug user.

More than ever I want to push the government out of the finance office for their unreasonable requests that are every bit as foolish, and animated as the idiot who wants to raise his personal debt ceiling in the video above. It is astonishing that politicians like Obama can even stand in front of people and ask for more money when $80 dollars here and $80 dollars there fly from our pockets like pennies on a roller coaster. The arrogant politician has no concept of what they ask, and are just as ridiculous in their demands as displayed in the above metaphor. And it has to stop. It has to stop right here, and right now. The money addicts have to be driven from office and their parties destroyed for the good of America. Nothing less is acceptable.

Rich Hoffman