Of Great Social and Political Import

A stopped clock is right twice a day...

American Exceptionalism, Individualism, Mutual Help will restore us.

The progressive peddlers of programs and tea party tinkerers of taxes are locking horns in Washington DC and personally I don't subscribe to either major political party's agenda. My belief is neither side is acting in the best interest of the American people but merely serving their own purposes. I keep hearing a variation on the statement "they are trying to drive us back to the pre-Depression era." 'They' being I suppose that enigmatic collaboration of tea party, Republicans and conservatives and the complaint coming from liberals who have redressed themselves as progressives. My first thought is I wonder if anyone has considered that the programs of the Great Depression may be what got us into the Disruption Depression we are in today? That and consumerism.

There is a ridiculous headline in the Wall Street Journal "Slow Growth Stirs Recession Fears." Recession? What!? A recession implies a bump in the road and what we're experiencing is far larger than a recession. Statistics can be manipulated anyway someone wants but the reality is our credit rating will be downgraded regardless of any machinations of the Administration, US Treasury, Congress or Wall Street. There are two systemic problems that cannot be ignored by printing money. We are overleveraged as individuals and so is our government and additionally unemployment has become structural. Therefore if people are not able to productively earn money then debt cannot be paid off and will be repudiated.

We never pulled out of the recession in 2009 as some economists would have us believe, merely suspended it. Paul Krugman of the New York Times can rename this the "Little Depression," after all the damage he has done promoting the excessive printing of money, but the bottom line is we are heading for a long decade of economic restructuring and rebuilding. We will have both stagnation and hyper-inflation more endemic than the US in the seventies and Japan in the nineties. If you take the political and bureaucratic classes in DC and the financiers in New York seriously and rely on them for a solution then the joke is on you. They don't have a clue or care about anything west of I-95 and are concerned only with protecting their own self-interests.

In the long term I believe American Exceptionalism and Individualism is alive and well, although buried just beneath the surface, it is burgeoning resurrection. That ideal will be the ultimate resolution to the death of consumerism by technological and economic disruption and is a great thing. We will relearn and return to what it means to be innovative and creative and produce unique and valuable goods that are useful for the new era. It will take time and hard work. The sooner people recognize that reality we will be prepared to move forward. What our government is doing now is pure folly and nonsensical and you can't make sense out of a nonsensical situation. They are postponing the inevitable by trying to revive a dead concept, the old economy.

The American people must relearn to work for themselves. If it is for an employer they need to embrace the concept of being a free agent and not love an employer because they won't love you back. Americans should accept we are not entitled to anything except what we create by reinventing our lives and subsequently recreating the country. It is about our individual responsibility to take care of ourselves and mutual help with each other. The government cannot simulate or stimulate real people doing real things only real Americans can do that.

Economic Doom and Gloom

Survivalist or Survivor? Your choice...

The chief characteristics to personal stability are self-reliance and being prepared.

It seems to me that what many predicted is coming to pass and whether or not it's a "Double Dip" or a "long term slowdown in recovery" is mere semantics. What I think will really cause a collapse of the system is that the political and bureaucratic classes in DC - the Federal Reserve, the Administration and Congress - are playing with fire by making a game out of the debt ceiling, budget, quantitative easing and more. It is unnecessary roughness that serves only one real unintended purpose on their part and that is their own ultimate demise.

My belief is that is where we are heading. A economic crash and system collapse that is unlike any others in the past since we are in an entirely new era. Prior to the 1930s Recessions and Depressions were called Panics. Only history written down the road will name what we are going through but to my way of thinking the best I've heard is Disruption. We are indeed in a Great Disruption of the world as we knew it the past 100 years, since post-WWI, a turning point in history as big as the Reformation, Age of Enlightenment and American Revolution.

I believe America is going to be divided up regionally and not necessarily by contiguous geography but certainly confined to a certain extent by it, into segments of society who survive (and some will thrive) by taking responsibility for their own physical and mental health and working to maintain it. The amount of money, gold or supplies you have may or may not help you but your preparation, planning and wits will. Many of the survivalist camp think their moving off to the woods or for those who stay in towns and cities, growing your own and stockpiling will get them by. I understand that thinking and I do think that now is the time to preserve what you can, store as much as feasible and think of alternate ways to obtain goods in the future other than paper money. Therein lies material for an entire other blog that I'm still contemplating.

What is clear is that economically, therefore politically and socially, things are not improving and we are not "recovering." That is due to the fact that our recovery does not lie in restoring things the way they were and it's taking awhile to get that message through to the markets, people and institutions. This does not mean pending doom for everyone and there is no reason for gloom unless you are unprepared. I recognize some people are trapped in situations they feel they cannot get out of. My thought is "where there is a will there is a way" and it requires thinking through your situation to come up with the best possible solution.

No one promises that will be easy and it never has been in the history of America. Self reliance, mutual help, reinvention and rebuilding are inherent in the American character even if we seem to have lost that in the past 30-40 years. I have every faith it is still alive and well in this country and also in the inherent values of England and the British people.

Here is my video blog of a few weeks ago when the markets were still relatively stable, economic indicator reports had not come out and the debt situation in Europe and the US had not risen to the forefront again. I stand by what I said then.

http://youtu.be/H8GHuyngLZM

SB1070 Revisited: One Year Later

The challenge goes on...

Memorial Day weekend last year was marked by the anti-SB1070 law protest against the law passed by the Arizona State Legislature and signed by Governor Jan Brewer that took a strong stance against illegal immigration from Mexico. What has happened since then?

According to a study by BBVA Bancomer Research published in November 2010 there are 300,000 less Hispanics in Arizona since the law went into effect. Also the amount of money transferred from Arizona to Mexico is substantially reduced. Since then it is very likely many more have left and the flow of money out has also depreciated. Anecdotally in the central Phoenix area where I live there are far fewer people of Mexican descent evident than a year ago and relationships are changed. It is difficult to quantify how communication is different but interactions between Whites, Blacks (who are allied on this issue) and Hispanics are modified now, not necessarily hostile or suspicious but definitely cautious. This is in everyday interactions ranging from personal to work to public places.

From a legal perspective US District Court Judge Susan Bolton issued an injunction the day before the law was to go into effect stopping major parts of the law. An appeal to the notoriously liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was refused stating that the federal government is likely to be able to establish the law is unconstitutional. In the interim between the two decisions, Obama's US Justice Department sued Arizona to block the law, stomping over the state's rights. This was predictable considering the Statist condition of the United States which is totally against the principles and ideals of America. [See: "This Is Not America | It is now merely the United States..."] Governor Jan Brewer is challenging the 9th Circuit Appeals Court ruling directly to the US Supreme Court, a considerably more conservative body.

Everything has changed but nothing has changed.

On a more practical and realistic level the fact remains that Arizona still has the most porous border of all of the Border States. Although the law caused illegal immigrants from Mexico to become less evident they are still ever present. In actuality the money is now flowing northward in the form of people and drug smuggling and the southern counties have more of a problem than ever. While the counties of Pima and Yuma conveniently choose to ignore the problem, the county directly north of them, Pinal, does not since the situation is now even worse for them.

A recent non-scientific poll by the Arizona Capitol Times asking the question "Should Gov. Jan Brewer use her new authority to call up a volunteer state militia [granted by the State Legislature] to bolster the efforts to stop illegal border crossings" had three choices of answers. The majority response was "Yes. The sooner the better." This is indicative of the overwhelming sense among most White and Black Arizonans that the federal government has done nothing, as promised, to help solve our border problem.

While what I have written may seem that I support SB1070 in totality, let me clarify my position at this juncture. My thought is there is at least one part of the law I specifically do not like and it is the "show me your papers" provision, which smacks right up against the American tradition of our ability to move about freely, which is a constitutional right. There are other provisions I find questionable also. The spirit and intent of the law, to force the federal governments hand out of the states right to defend itself from intrusion, does appeal to my sense of rejecting the unconstitutional encroachment of the federal government. If you question that, study the history of the US since 1913 and the Sixteenth Amendment to discover what is meant by that statement.

Federal Government now is Unconstitutional Centralized Government.

I am satisfied that the entire set of "Birther" laws was quashed by the sensibilities of the new State Legislature, rightly slapping the hand of State Senate President Russell Pierce (author of SB1070) and State Senator Ron Gould. The message of the voters and other legislators to them and their ilk was clear. "It's the economy stupid!" The state had achieved what it needed to do and that was challenge the federal government, particularly this administration, on their overreaching into a centralized government which has been entrenching itself in this country for decades. It is now working it's way through the system via our rule of law. This continues in another form, the Medical Marijuana Act passed by Arizona voters. Now the Obama Administration and Justice Department are threatening to sue state employees who engage in issuing licenses and pursue individuals for lawfully conducting business in what citizens clearly stated they wanted through a legal election process.

What this all really boils down to is that Arizona is an active microcosm of sentiment that is present all across this country. We represent the macrocosm attitudes and views that are growing across this nation that the government and major political parties are out of control. While SB1070 has not yet accomplished solving our illegal border crossing issue, it has set the stage for a showdown against the US Federal Government and the embedded Political Class that reinforces it. The challenge is far from over.

http://youtu.be/kPjR_eQ63gc

We are headlong into a Double Dip

The Great Recession is far from over...

What is important is our attitude and determination regarding it.

A lot can be said and written about the various events and problems that the United States and the global economy have. I will leave that for a video blog I'm working on.

What I will write is that the vast majority of our government and elected leaders has done us great disservice and has not been acting in the best interests of the American people. We, the people, have allowed this to go on too long and it is up to us to change it. We need to figure a way to get rid of the entrenched political and bureaucratic class along with their friends in the financial world without too much clash amongst ourselves. It is inevitable that there will be discord among us as conditions deteriorate and we disagree about solutions. That is part and parcel of a Democratic Republic such as ours. We will loudly and acrimoniously disagree but we need to avoid violence, we have had one Civil War in this country and the current conditions do not require another. Rather, it requires a revolution of a different sort, one that can be carried out in the vein that the Founding Fathers clearly laid out for us.

One thing is certain in my mind. I have studied enough US history to know we have been here before in our long history, at times in worse conditions, also that in the past people have thought we would never return back to a much better place. I also know that the American people themselves will dig us out of this and not our government or any other forces but by our sheer will and skills. It is The American Way and that is still alive and well among us, even if it seems dormant for the moment. We will endure, survive and overcome but there is no short term fix for this. It is a journey that requires a minimum of 5-10 years of hard work and we can do it, even as spoiled as we've become after 30 years of prosperous times.

Now, more than ever, is the time to revive the American Spirit, remain positive and realistically optimistic and determined to overcome and defeat the obstacles before us. This country has done it before and can do it again. There will be times we will feel down, disheartened and discouraged and it is important during those times we continue putting one foot in front of the other and keep going. It is interesting to me that two opposing forces, unionists and the far left along with tea party sympathizers and the far right, are the ones stirring up debate and flexing their muscles. They are the ones that will eventually move all of us to remove the roadblocks causing the idiocy emanating primarily from the northeastern corridor stretching from Boston to Washington, DC. The government will once again be directed by the citizens of the country and not the other way around.

Economic, Social and Geopolitical

Ayn Rand on neoconservatives...

"Conservative Sellout of Capitalism"

Ayn Rand's reasoning on Religious Conservatives (Social Conservatives), Liberals and Statism in this video from the 1950s is as current now as it was then. It explains why her philosophy is popular again today. Those calling themselves conservatives in favor of free markets and capitalism use three interrelated arguments based from faith, tradition and depravity. These are fallacies that contradict the fundamental principles of the United States.

http://youtu.be/vpp5EXZZrgA

http://www.youtube.com/user/LibertyPen

A Head of My Time

On earning your keep...

The battle lines are being drawn between the entitlement mentality crowd and the legion fed up with them.

When I was young my mother would say in her inimitable British way, that I certainly had endurance and stamina. Depending on the situation, if she was referring out of pride or dismay, she would add that "I had a good English backbone" or "you certainly have your father's American grit." My father's response was always a sanguine "I wonder where he got that from..."

My parents where a unique combination. My mother grew up on the coast of southeastern England during the Second World War with bombs literally dropping around her. My father was a Western American who grew up in a dried up Arizona hard hit by the Great Depression and inherited real true grit. They were rich only in that they were fortunate to come from educated middle class families, who managed to persevere by their ability to work through difficult times, with ingenuity and making the best of bad situations. Humility and humor were both necessary attributes. In that sense, although their childhoods and adolescence occurred during an arduous time period, they did not want for anything they needed. They also grew up knowing that they got a break, since they witnessed firsthand the devastation and destitution of others and were not shielded from it. That does not mean they had excess of anything, only they were not wounded or hungry, everyone was affected by the Great Depression and WWII in some way.

I tend to think that a lot of the skills required to overcome adversity and rise above, persevere through tough times, anxiety and depression, physical pain, deprivation and isolation is largely inherited through some genetic coding as well as parenting, along with acquiring coping skills through hard lessons in life. Almost everyone I know who has the character to endure burdens that others can't, have one or all those factors, regardless if they grew up rich, poor or somewhere in between. All races, both genders, either sexuality.

Large segments of the US population lack staying power and are looking for the easy way out.

When my family moved to this country when I was 14, although we were not without some means we were starting out all over again. We left where we were with the minimum of goods, the money we were allowed to take out of there, sorry to go but knowing it had become a hostile place with a limited future and happy to come to the US. I had always wanted to move to this country and for me the goal was to make the best out of my life in the way of education, achieving by work and effort. My hopes were for a happy, comfortable life with the ability to obtain things I wanted. That didn't necessarily include having a big house, a luxury car or expensive fashionable clothes, although I did like and want nice things. It also didn't matter to me if that was the goal of others, as long as it didn't trample on me or anyone else in our goals.

That is where in the late eighties and early nineties my values and goals started to really clash with many natural born Americans.  It was not only that they seemed to want more and more big and flashier things. It was that I was seeing how a mentality of entitlement was insidiously creeping into the culture of a large segment of the population. Additionally they didn't care how they got it or what harm they may be causing to everything from values to economics, to society or to the environment. It was their right to have more stuff and bigger things without any regard to how they got it or if they had worked for it. It came to be a dominant theme in the social conduct of America, turning having more than you earn a virtue instead of a vice.

On account of where I live, the work I do and the sheer numbers of people I am exposed to, I am well aware of a lot of people whose lives were built on this type of entitlement consumerism and are crashing and burning. I take no pleasure in it but I have no empathy for the whining and crying of the disappointment these people feel. As far as I'm concerned their anger is misplaced about losing their "right" to conspicuous consumption and misdirected in the wrong trajectory. They should be redirecting it to themselves and placing the blame on their own shoulders. I see trouble ahead for society from these people.

We are already getting the signals from unhappy adults with childlike cries for their rattles back. They're expecting the government and other citizens to bail them out to continue their "right" to a lifestyle they didn't truly earn and those that whine "you promised us." Wisconsin is just a small sampler of the backfire from that camp that is on its way to pitching tents of fits all over the country. On the other side there are those fed up with subsidizing the life of others, especially since most of them have weathered this economic storm without much assistance from the government, unions or social services agencies. My bet is on them, they're even angrier and are beginning to marshal their troops to repudiate both the entrenched political class and arming to counter-demonstrate against the entitlement hordes. It's a matter of time.

This is where I also see the worth in the values I inherited, the parenting I received and learning from the mistakes I made with money, relationships and employment. There is a price when you take the effortless way out by accepting easy money, ditching relationships at the drop of a hat without resolving personal problems, for taking easy jobs that pay too well for really doing very little. There are no rights except those outlined in the US Constitution and I find nothing in that document that addresses the desire to have goodies is a right or to live off public money. There is no "we promised you" clause or mention of an implied contract that you would get what you want.

There is a storm gathering that is going to blow out and wash down everything and everyone that does not have the wherewithal to hold on tightly. Endurance and stamina will be required as well as the knowledge of what you really need and that you don't always get what you want.

Thinking Out Loud

There is no going back in time...

Life is not going back in America to the way it was pre-2007 no matter how much the Federal Government, The Federal Reserve and US Treasury, Congress and their lackeys on Wall Street and friends along the Boston to DC corridor pretend nothing has changed. The financial world has it backwards, their ego is not allowing them to recognize a very clear simple fact, that can easily be figured out by watching the Stock Market and their flunkies at the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and on CNBC. The Federal Government, the Fed, Treasury and FDIC are propping them up and Wall Street financiers and bankers are castrated servants.

The actual working real private sector and American people know this. It is only a matter of time before the facade crumbles and the Northeastern so-called elites Masquerade Ball will be over. The show will go on for the rest of the country but without them. How and when this will happen is not yet determined but that it will, much sooner than many realize, is just as certain as a Ponzi scheme eventually reveals itself. Politically and socially two seemingly opposing sides are signalling the same message. Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich may differ politically on fundamental responses but both agree on the inappropriate actions of the Federal Reserve and the banking system. The Tea Party coalition and unionists heartily disagree over basic policies, but are in the same league in believing that the current two political parties are engaging in business as usual, being unresponsive to constituent demands.

What will spur the fall? Anything can happen but three things stand out as the source of a breakdown of the system as we know it. Money cannot continue to be printed without having any intrinsic value and the debt crisis of governments all around the world will eventually reach a stalemate exacerbating a currency crisis. The chain of supply for essential parts and goods has been disrupted by the tragedy in Japan and will worsen with the war on Libya. Also, the war on Libya is only the outward manifestation of festering full blown disputes and conflicts in the entire Middle East, that will not be resolved diplomatically or easily and not without further battles.

Video: Ron Paul

Country Is Bankrupt and Congress Won't Admit It...

Debt will not be paid but repudiated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEVjj03_TYU&feature=feedu

Economic, Social and Geopolitical

A brief history of the Federal government and unionism run amuck...

Or how we got into this mess now and why the country is divisive.

America is a big country with wide opinions as large as the population. We are at a moment in our history where our judgment and reasoning is diverse and our opinions are also divisive. In my lifetime the last time we were at this point was in the late sixties and early seventies in the "love it or leave it" period. In it's simplest form today it takes on the debate of libertarian conservative versus progressive liberal ideals.

Progressive Liberalism (as opposed to Classical Liberalism) as a movement started to take hold over a hundred years ago before the First World War. Theodore Roosevelt was the first President to push Progressivism. The consumerism of today is a result of the shift, at that time, in emphasis of managing the national economy from free market business to the regulation of business in favor of the consumer. The idea was that the consumer was more important than the producer. Consumers were the driver of the economy rather than the producers of goods and their rights to products were more important than those who invented, created, manufactured and marketed them.

In 1927 a group of elite academics, unionists, peace activists and radical leftists took a cruise to the then unrecognized Soviet Union to meet Stalin and tour Russia. Their mission was to be self-appointed unofficial envoys of the United States to document the marvels of the collectivist economy of the Soviets. They were given lavish guided tours to selected places that were successful planned economic enterprises and shielded from anything else. They documented their experiences and wrote papers, books and newspaper and magazine articles extolling the virtues of the collectivist society they witnessed. The importance of the trip and passengers is that many of these people become prominent in Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal administrations.

When the legacy became entrenched.

FDR tired of these people and their experiments by 1937 when the second wave of Depression hit from 1937 to 1939. He had been re-elected in 1936 in a landslide but it was becoming clear that the collectivists and their programs had not solved the problems of the economy. In fact, they made it worse, but the damage was done. The established major institutions we are stuck with today including Social Security and liberalized unionism. After the Second World War, the answer to converting from a wartime economy to a peaceful one was in promoting mass produced cookie cutter housing and consumer goods. The remnants of both Roosevelts, regulated monopolies, Social Security, federal government economic planning and unionism were accepted and tolerated as necessary evils.

Those were the seeds planted that the federal government and programs, as we know it today, mushroomed out of control. President Johnson exacerbated the situation by his Great Society programs. Later the Justice Department in law suits started in his administration resulted in Affirmative Action quotas forced onto private employers by consent decree. Public employee unionism also dramatically increased in this era.

To fully understand the consumerism mindset and sense of entitlement many Americans hold today it is important to see how long it took us to get here and how. In order to unravel it, which we must if we are to recover from our current economic crisis, cannot take a hundred years but must be unwound relatively quickly. If we are to recover from it, otherwise we really will spiral downward, a proposition I don't think most Americans are willing to accept.

Why we're divided today.

Due to the current administration, the ineffective political class of both parties in Washington, the divisiveness we are seeing today is a result of a growing movement that is getting stronger. The loose coalition of the Tea Party is the tip of the iceberg. The sentiment they represent is growing stronger among average Americans who don't necessarily align themselves with any political party of movement. The reason the unionists and supporters resistance, especially in the public sector, is so virulently strong (witness Wisconsin as an example) is they recognize the threat to their status quo. Whether they publicly acknowledge this or not, the Progressive Liberals of today realize they are losing the hearts and minds of the American people. In one election three years ago they won their last major victory and gradually they are losing more and more battles.

Some states, Arizona and Montana among them, are taking steps to buck the Federal government and loosen the grip. The process is called "nullification" and refers to state legislatures and elected officials passing bills and declaring that certain federal government edicts are "null and void" because these mandates violate the limits of authority as stated in the US Constitution. Some of their actions seem extreme to a number of people but they don't realize that some of these actions are literal and others are symbolic. Regardless, the trend is there and it is growing.

In Montana a state legislator, Krayton Kerns, is proposing a bill that would nullify the federal Endangered Species Act "null and void" in his state. According to an article in the Great Falls Tribune he argues that the federal government is in serious debt and the opponents to his bill, countering that this legislation would cost the state federal dollars, are arguing over money that isn't there.

"We may as well be arguing over pixie dust. It has as much intrinsic value, the federal government is going down, and you know when a republic dies, it's kind of an ugly thing. There will be no money in the future. Whether we argue about it or not is a nonissue."

On the federal level, Congressman Ron Paul is making the same argument he has for years. Since the US ended the convertibility of the dollar to gold we are using fiat money. Fiat money only has value because the government has laws that say it does. In other words, we keep printing more and more money that has no real intrinsic value to dig ourselves out of debt. Instead we are digging ourselves into a deeper hole.

What is going to happen.

Fear is a powerful thing and many people operate out of fear. The divisiveness of opinion today is driven by the fear of those who depend on the federal government to continue printing money, versus those who recognize that money has no real value and is leading to the inevitable collapse of the monetary system. Sides are forming up and soon there will be no middle of the road dilly dallying around it. The debate revolves around a number of issues but a few serve as focal points.

On the one side, are those who want to see the federal government get its grip off state and local governments and on the other side are those that want more federal control. There are many who want to be free of government interference in our personal lives and some who want the security of entitlement. It is not easily divided up by political parties but each side has organized representation. They are symbolized by the Tea Party movement and organized labor because they are the most visible. They are by no means the only brokers in this divisive war of opinions but it is becoming clearer, as our economic and social fabric dissolves, that we cannot go on this way.

My thought is that we will survive the increasing fights over how much federal government interference people will allow. At the core will be those who are against the status quo of a so-called planned economy and those who are proponents of it. To me the resolution, which will be a revolution in itself, will come when the bottom line is finally tallied. The government really has no money and we may as well be arguing over pixie dust. The system will break and fall and we the people, will have to pick up the pieces and put it back together.

When it's all over and the dust settles, we will be stronger people less dependent on a consumer economy, achievement oriented where accomplishing something matters, knowing things that are important, such as reading, writing, history, geography and math, working hard results in real reward. Above all we will be proud of our country all over again and what it stands for and what we have done for it and ourselves.

Only In America

Walk like an Egyptian...

Most Americans export ideas with the exception of the left and liberals in the country, the so-called progressives, who import them. The heart of American ideals is to figure out a solution to a problem or invent a new device. This is also true of our values and views that we forged out in our unique, original way several hundred years ago. These ideas have been spontaneously exported around the world, inspiring other people. These values and views, since the early 20th century, have never been good enough for the left, liberals, socialist and unionists. They import their ideas from Europe and Russia, seeking to impose them upon us.

Think about that every time you hear someone say "Well in England people get free and better health care because it's nationalized." Ask them the question "Have you ever been there and received health care?" I have and can tell you that it depends on which region you live in and there's a reason why a private health care system also coexists alongside the public one, making for double taxation. Perhaps this is why federal Judge Vinson has dealt a severe blow to a leftist administration and Congress, that forced through Healthcare Reform, using strong academic and legal reasoning on why HCR is a violation of the US Constitution.

We've suffered enough under the dogmatic browbeating of socialists, who call themselves by every name but that, for almost a century. They've slyly undermined the American Way from Teddy Roosevelt's regulated monopolies to his cousin Franklin Roosevelt's myriad government programs to Lyndon Johnson's Great Society social agenda. It has crept in like mold and spread itself all over the walls built up from the foundation of America. Don't count on the Republicans to stop HCR or reform Social Security and Medicare, the recipients are their constituents. All of this will have to be countered through legal challenges, the election process and probably some civil unrest to boot.

Where do you suppose modern day Egyptians, as well as Tunisians, Algerians, Syrians and Jordanians, got the idea that they could rid themselves of the centuries old ancient ruling class concept of their civilizations? I would propose it is from so many of them being educated in our universities and studying the United States and spreading the ideals of America by bringing them back home with them. In some ways they are exemplifying our ideals more than we are at the moment. This should wake us up to what we can do to promote real change, not the phony political party campaign rhetoric kind.

If the Egyptians can rise up and out into the streets against a ruling class that until now has had the cooperation of a very strong military, what are we waiting for? Afraid of? We are far better able to defeat the status quo that has slowly entrenched itself into the halls of power in this country. We have the Constitution and the Bill of Rights on our side. The amount of guts, blood, sweat and tears we would have to expend is small compared to those in truly oppressive regimes of the second and third world. It is only a matter of time that economic collapse, court rulings and elections combined with fierce determination weaken the kingmakers within the Beltway and on Wall Street, paving the way for a return to real American ideals.

Economic, Social and Geopolitical

re: those of little faith in the ideals of America...

It's understandable to me the different attitudes and frame of mind that contrasting people have taken towards the current economic crisis across our society. There are those few that have been barely dented and just don't get it and insensitive to it all (if you're in Arizona think pretentious North Scottsdale or Oro Valley) but they will be hit, sooner or later. The majority of people have taken various viewpoints that I do understand, ranging from denial to "eat, drink and be merry," to recognizing there's nothing they can do about the macro but focus on the micro, to those who are devastated, to optimists and positive-thinkers to purposeful obliviousness and everything else in between.

One positional longitude that I don't understand strikes me as plain anti-American. It emanates from people who preach we are heading for a long term difficult economic era due to excessive capitalism, firmly believe it and spread a message that the "power elite" will control the markets, while the rest of us will suffer under these people's thumbs forever. Basically to them, truly free America is over. Ironically, I notice that these skeptics, who think we are stuck in the grip of a ruling elite of our own, have something in common. They tend to spring out from liberalism or the left, a gross generalization I realize but too noticeable to ignore. They are the legacy and descendants of the progressives from the period after the WWI. I'm supposing their answer is more government intervention and control.

I don't buy that frame of mind. 

What makes this country different is we are not a European, Middle Eastern, Eurasian (Russia) or Asian country, where it is quite possible to be entrenched in a truly stratified society. Even so, I'm not sure it is possible in some of those countries, of those regions. As a recent example look to Tunisia, which ran its leader out and now Egypt which is on the verge of overthrowing their government, Jordan is likely next. They certainly have more obstacles to overcome to bring down their ruling class than we do in the United States. We may not care for or fear their culture but it is an example of the middle and lower classes bringing down a ruling class that has made life too difficult for the majority to live with.

I do believe we have a class of people who have gotten the notion that they know best and act as power brokers in government and business. Corporations are a large component of our economic distress due to their excessive access to government policymakers. The entire premise of America however, is based on our ability to overthrow our own government quite easily, without real bloodshed. That ideal is based on the Founding Fathers vision, the principles of the US Constitution and our kind of rule of law. Some argue that so much control has been taken by the so-called "power elite" of our country, defined as the corporate and business class and I would add, in collusion with trade unions (who fancy themselves as downtrodden members of the lower class) alongside the political and bureaucratic classes, that "they've" made it impossible to overthrow their control and power.

I don't believe that we've lost that much control.

It may be there are a lot of lazy, entitlement-minded, sheep-like people in this country but I don't think in the big picture, they're the majority. In the long view, when it comes down to brass tacks, I believe most Americans will do whatever it takes to rise above the power structure we have now when pushed too far. The current leadership and ruling structure is out of touch with the average person in this country but we still own that. We lulled ourselves asleep while they snuck in like thieves in the night and stole our stuff but they still didn't get our basic rights. It is a matter of us asserting those rights and overthrowing the current government in our own unique American way. What that way will be, I can't predict, I do think that we are heading towards a turning and a tipping point.

I have faith it will happen.

My thought is that the time is coming when we will have to make some bold moves, as a people, to rid ourselves of the current leading classes that do not have the rest of America's best interest in mind. The civil war of ideas that will occur within the country, when the time arrives for our own overthrowing of the status quo dominating classes, will be between those of us who believe in the ideals of the founders of this country and those schooled in liberalism and socialism. The conclusion I've reached is that those who think more government is the answer will lose that civil war and the overturning of a century's worth of their meddling will be undone.

We will then be rid of two things. The current ruling classes as well as the ideas of the left and liberalism. Both of them are twin evils that are equally responsible for the economic, social and geopolitical crunch we are in, due to the national power they've held. Momentum is building and a shift is coming, ready or not.

Some Americans Are Unhappy With Each Other

Essentially two segments agree on the problems...


They just don't like each other's political answers to them.

It would be an understatement to say there is an ideological political war going on in this country and in this commentary I'll just use the simple "Left" and "Right" to refer to the opposing sides, although it is far more complex than that.

Basically it seems that the Left wants to preserve and create a lot of the government institutions and social programs that have evolved largely since the sixties. Their belief is that all Americans should pool their money by taxation and that the government should provide broad education and social services, provide health care, insure equality by a quota system and regulate business on a number of levels. The government is the mainstay of society and it is essentially a Statist point of view.

Primarily the Right appears wants to dismantle the majority of current government programs that have developed since WWII and increased over the last 40 years. They believe that Americans know best how to disperse their money and that the government should be limited and small, with elimination or privatization of public schools, social services, health care, Affirmative Action quota systems and allow business to operate in a free market. People on a local level know best how to operate society. It is essentially a libertarian republican (lower case) point of view.

For the most part the opposing sides have aligned themselves with the two major political parties, the Left with the Democrats and the Right with the Republicans. They argue over everything from the economy, social programs, immigration, business, individual rights, the role of government...ad infinitum. We all know the topics we've heard them so much and so loudly. They are both rife with hypocrisy and contradictions on what they believe in and what they do.

This is a huge over-simplification I realize.

In my opinion most Americans who align themselves with one side or the other, do not really pay much attention to the finer points of each side, the contradictions within them or the real implications of what each stands for. Really who could, unless you're a political junkie or social activist? I think a lot of people choose sides for cultural rather than political ideal reasons. Alliance relies more on who they are most comfortable and identify with for social and cultural reasons. Sure, they essentially agree with the viewpoint of their preference but often it is based on language, jingo and perceptions of what they think that party stands for. If you listen to the "base" of each, the complaints about "what is wrong with America," are essentially the same. The fundamental disagreement is how to resolve those complaints.

If I were a betting man, I know which side I would bet on that will dominate the upcoming midterm General Election. I would also bet that the majority of common complaints won't be resolved or if they are, in a manner that the dominating party professes to believe in. I would say the same about the opposing side if they were in that position.

That's because we are not even hearing each other, much less listening, we're too busy shouting down the opposition. There isn't recognition the answer isn't in political solutions to manipulate government their way, it is in resolution by finding common ground based in reality.

There is no reality in current politics. We don't recognize that all sides are Americans and do have a voice, whether we like it or not. It's political football, the winner takes all, but no one really gains anything but a cheap trophy. Politics is interesting to watch to me, but I hold no belief that there is a political answer to the present problems in this country. Power really does reside in the people in these United States of America but it isn't in the political arena and until people realize that, we're deadlocked. It really is in the power of people going out and doing constructive things and making change happen in the real world, without being sidetracked by current political party machinations. Our government was structured that way originally...to allow people the freedom to do these things. Early on in our history political parties got in the way but in the past 30-40 years they have all interfered too much and gained too much control. We allowed that. The Political Class has gained a power it was never meant to have and people will have to pay attention to stop that.

It remains to be seen if the Political Class, in my lifetime, is reduced to being representatives of average people, but not impossible.


Both major parties are failing, although it isn't obviously apparent now. If the party not in power now does regain the upper hand in the upcoming election, I would also bet their weaknesses and failings will be displayed (and exploited) in the same manner as the current majority party.

That could be the start of the recognition that neither party serves the American people well and that "the lesser of two evils" is not acceptable any longer. Is it possible for a third alternative to rise up in the near future? 

Economics 101

Free Markets and Small Government Produce Prosperity...


Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute, Freedom and Prosperity video

IMHO: Social Conservatives and Liberals

Social Conservatives are like Liberals...


Nunya business. Keep the government out of my life.

It occurs to me that Social Conservatives place as much demand on the government as Liberals do. They both want to use government intervention and money to forward their social behavior agenda and dictate to everyone their view of how people should behave.

Americans are basically centrist and lean to the right on fiscal issues, and most don't want the government interfering with peoples daily lives, even if they personally hold conservative views on individual behavior. It goes against the grain of their sense of fairness. There is something equally offensive about both Affirmative Action quotas and restriction of women's access to medical abortion by government edict.

Social Conservatives and Liberals need to repeat to themselves over and over again, that the economic crisis and the Great Disruption, overrides everything now. Americans can't afford and won't be distracted by social agendas until their economic concerns are resolved. It explains the Tea Party movement, which is based on one central theme: confronting politicians about taxes, spending, debt and government intervention and not about a myriad of pet grievances such as minority rights or abortion.

Three Perspectives On Medical Cannabis

Schedule 1: "no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States"...


Really?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5dD7dFkmfA


reason.tv
Produced by Paul Fein and Alex Manning

Incorrect Assumptions

Civil rights diversity groups are also intolerant...

The NAACP condemnation of the Tea Party movement as racist reminds me again of what I've thought for a long time about groups such as the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), NOW (National Organization of Women) and HRC (Human Rights Campaign).

(Reference: "NAACP passes resolution blasting Tea Party 'Racism'" CNN.com)

All of these organizations have wasted countless hours and money on approaching legitimate problems regarding issues of discrimination with the wrong approach but also hypocritically. They have spent decades pushing for special legislation requesting special rights in the name of reversing discrimination using federal, state and local legislatures. In my mind these grievances should be redressed through legal challenges based on US Constitutional Rights. That, however, is for another blog.

What occurs to me with the NAACP resolution is what has bothered me about all the so-called civil rights groups. They're just as prejudiced as the people they claim to represent that are the subject of prejudice. There is no tolerance for diversity of political views or opinions within these groups, only one point of view is allowed: Liberal. The National Organization of Women claims to defend women against oppression but are oppressive to women who do not follow lockstep into the feminist agenda. You may or may not like Sarah Palin but she is treated by NOW in exactly the manner that organization claims all women are treated. The Human Rights Campaign Fund has no tolerance for any homosexual that does not sign up wholesale for the entire Gay Agenda from A to Z.

Another troublesome thing about the NAACP resolution, is it makes the assumption that the Media and the Political Class like to cast, that the Tea Party is one unified group of people on the fringe. The Tea Party is a movement that comprises many different groups with similar primary goals but differing ideas.

In any case Arizona Congressional District 3 candidate former Paradise Vally Mayor Vernon Parker states that this will backfire on the NAACP. It appears it already has with such old hat luminaries of civil rights days gone by as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson distancing themselves from the resolution. They've been around long enough to know that the black community itself is not unified under one political philosophy and that many African Americans are actually quite conservative.

My blog Paradise Valley Mayor Vernon Parker is Red from 05/21/10 has Vernon Parker discussing the myth that black and ethnic groups are assumed to be Social Democrats and Liberals.

Here is Vernon Parker's statement from yesterday that he has received the backing of Arizona's largest Tea Party group and about the potential for backlash.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70lFjeP7wXE

http://www.youtube.com/ParkerForCongress

Reason.tv

3 Reasons The FCC Shouldn't "Touch" The Internets...

The very last thing we need is an analog electromechanical bureaucracy, from the last century, thrusting itself unwanted on a new digital technology for this century.


1. Where's the fire?


2. The FCC F2%#ING SUCKS


3. MISSION CREEP


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLyUeiR7djQ

Go to http://reason.tv for downloadable versions of all their videos
Written and Produced by Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie

For What It's Worth

Red State, Brown People, Blue State Ideas...


"There's something happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear."

Arizona is on the leading edge of a national discussion on illegal immigration due to it's passage of legislation known as SB1070 or the Arizona Immigration Law. The original law was amended within a week after passage to specifically prohibit racial profiling and stipulate that the request to "show your papers" may only made in the course of enforcing any other law and not solely for the purpose of checking immigration status. This amendment is rarely cited when any mention of the law is made by the media or anyone speaking out against it.

The next step in the State of Arizona's process of attempting to stem the flow of illegal immigration through the porous border on the south, is to introduce into the legislature next year, proposals to deny birth certificates to children born in the state, of parents who are illegal immigrants. This idea is based on interpretation of the original US Constitution, various interpretations of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution and the intention of Congress, as well as court rulings. It remains to be seen how that will play out between now and the next Arizona Legislative Session.

Another piece of legislation afoot is to charge students of illegal immigrants tuition for attending public schools. Therein lies another legal conundrum due to the US Supreme Court decision in Plyler v. Doe (457 U.S. 202, 1982) which ruled against a State of Texas statute withholding funds to school districts that allowed the children of illegal immigrants to attend their schools. Over the years this ruling has been cause for much debate regarding the overreaching of the Supreme Court in interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment.

Regardless of what view anyone holds on any of these issues and what opinion someone may have of the motivations of the legislator instrumental in spearheading these pieces of legislation or supporters of them, one thing remains plain, simple and clear. You don't need to go very far back in history to see it either.

All of this is leading up to a confrontation between the State of Arizona (and probably other states who are following suit) and the Federal Government. The last confrontation of significance between states over States Rights and the Federal Government was over school desegregation by primarily Southern States and occurred over decades from the 1940s to the 1970s.

There are other factors involved this time around. We are likely beginning to fully enter an economic depression of a magnitude not seen since the 1930s. Additionally, after thirty years of Affirmative Action there is a resentment, rightly or wrongly, that is seething under the surface. In unfortunate concert we have the first black President of the United States, who seems to operate on the level of a Middle Manager at an ineffective Non-governmental organization  (NGO), with his priorities out of order. We also have a Political Class in legislatures and executive branches and Bureaucratic Civil Servants, on all levels of government, who clearly are so entrenched they do not see the people they were originally intended to serve. And then there's that Oil Spill...

The General Population is not happy generally. Make of that what you will. Let me be clear, I am only stating what I observe after careful watching, doing my best to keep an open mind and giving every opportunity to all sides to prove me wrong.

I can only see one result from everything that is building to a crescendo:

Civil Unrest

This video was taken on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend at Alto Arizona, an anti-SB1070 protest. The following day a pro-SB1070 rally was held. I view both events as the last opportunity I will spend time on for several reasons. Mainly I'm not sure what good comes from my attending any of them and I have a sneaking suspicion that any subsequent demonstrations will rival the civil disturbances and riots of the 1960s and 1970s and I experienced some of those.



This video is my own personal social commentary of what I saw at one event.


http://www.vimeo.com/12522769

Red State, Brown People, Blue State Ideas... from JR Snyder Jr on Vimeo.

A Cut Above From Below

What is the meaning of elite?

It's all in the context of personal perception and interpretation


I've been having an ongoing discussion recently with a friend of 45 years over the word elite and what it means. We have similar education backgrounds (we went to the same high school and colleges, different degrees) but come from different socio-economic backgrounds. Over the decades we have had a lot of discussions on topics of "great political and social import," to borrow a phrase from Janis Joplin.

In this case it started with my using the word "elite" which I intended in the first dictionary definition of "the choice or best of anything considered collectively, as a group or class of persons and partly in the second definition sense of "persons of the highest class." Let me state that I personally never have associated class with money, prominent position, aristocracy, name-your-upper-crust. In my mind class has always been associated with any social, economic or political individual or group that carries themselves with a certain dignity and respect for others, which in turn gives them dignity and respect.

I have never understood the visceral reaction so many Americans have to the word elite. They automatically assume it means the third dictionary definition "a group of persons exercising the major authority or influence within a larger group," as in Power Elite and Big Boss Man and in a reactionary way, vehemently call it inherently evil. The idea that elite might merely mean someone or something that exceeds or is more educated, intelligent, accomplished is just considered wrong. Because in America no one better be better than me or anyone else.

Is this what the notion of equality has become? It no longer is about equal rights and opportunity but about equal entitlement? 

Inevitably I get accused of classism or something of the sort if I suggest that human nature and selection of the species indicates that some people, are in fact just better in some ways than others. That somehow this is snobbishness and it's wrong to think that someone can rise above others, are natural leaders and should fill that role. Inevitably I discover that these same people also resent anyone in leadership position of any kind, although they would loath to themselves be a leader instead of the "chosen one."

I suggest that it is peculiarly American trait, born out of a misguided idea that this is a pure democracy coupled with an ignorance of what a democratic republic really means. It almost always springs from someone who is from or perceives themselves to be "working class" and I have concluded it is also classism, only in reverse and the worst kind. "I can't envision myself (or am too lazy) being able to improve or rise above my station, therefore anyone who does is an elitist snob who looks down on me."

It is the worst kind because the concept of achievement, ability, knowledge, skills are to be derided rather than lauded. It assumes that everyone who has "gotten somewhere" gained it without some effort, education and work and is in it purely for themselves with total disregard for others. Perhaps this is why so many people with elite qualities stick to themselves and others like them.

Advice to Tea Partiers

Republicans aren't always your friends, Democrats aren't always your enemies...

With five rational points, John Samples, author of The Struggle To Limit Government, in this Cato Institute video delineates to Tea Partiers five points of advice:

1. Republicans aren't always your friends. (They're also Big Spenders)

2. Some Tea Partiers like big government. (i.e. Social Security, Medicare)

3. Democrats aren't always your enemies. (some Democrats have supported tax cuts)

4. Small Government demands restraint abroad. (reject lack of restraint in foreign policy, cut defense)

5. Leave social issues to the States. (US Constitution supports federalism, states have important role to play)



http://www.youtube.com/catoinstitutevideo
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