Attention; Future US President

Dear Mr. President,

Economic Growth will not solve our systemic deficit and debt problems quickly enough alone.

Please make the veto your first and frequent choice.  Most of the bills passed by congress are completely and totally unnecessary and not helpful to the majority of taxpaying citizens, nor loyal to the principle of equal treatment under the law.

And as you apparently know, tax and fee increases by any method will damage our nation and get you impeached early in your term.

Remember, "No new taxes."?

Deep spending cuts are necessary.  Elimination and consolidation of Programs and departments, agencies, bureaus, offices, laboratories, institutes, endowments and commissions, etc. are all several decades overdue.

Eliminate all programs that compel participation; because if not enough citizens will choose it willingly to support the advertised benefits, it’s a bad program.  Only programs you must opt into should ever exist, and until then, all new programs must have a widely advertised opt-out clause available to everyone who will never want the purposed benefit, no matter what.

Those who may want or need the benefit someday, should be the only ones paying in.

Incidentally, Government Insurance Program benefits (Social Security, Medicare and Unemployment) are not entitlements; various Welfare Programs are Entitlements. 

Get congress and government officials out of the medical care, manufacturing, marketing, insurance, or energy development businesses, there are not smart enough, reliable enough, or honest enough to be trusted with important matters.

Just an aside; check all public service announcements for accuracy, I think many of them are government self-serving lies; and stop trying to force people to do what some do-gooders think is best for them; and use public service announcements to provide facts without bias, not agenda driven crap by special interests.  

Massive reductions in size, cost, and authorities are mandatory.  The cancer of regulatory excesses needs massive sustained doses of chemo-therapy.

My advice is veto everything the first time it comes from Congress, except repeals previously pass bad ideas and poor choices, like the Unaffordable Non-Care and Medical Tax Act.

Most of the nonsense Congress passes will never get enough votes to override your veto.

If it doesn’t apply to all citizens and residents equally, Veto it.  Every law you sign should apply to everyone, government officials, business executives, congress-persons, judges, military service members, police, union officials, illegal immigrants, convicted criminals and the President equally; if not, it’s a bad law and should never exist.

We want much smaller Federal government, much less power and authority.  Much less regulation, much lower taxes, fewer and less excessive entitlements, very few sustainable benefit programs (Social Security, Medicare, and Unemployment benefits) run by competent professionals, not elected or appointed officials.

Get the federal government out of businesses.  They have no idea what they are doing, they lack foresight and wisdom, and they can’t be trusted with anyone’s money, even their own.

Cut Government spending immediately and massively, if you want to continue working for me; otherwise, “You’re Fired”.      

Stop Daylight Saving Time Now!

Pick a clock setting and leave it there. 

I suggest, at either spring or fall equinox, at high-noon, set each time zones clock to 12:00 adjusted for its zone; and then never adjust clocks forward or back ever again.

The new law could be called; Common Sense Time (CST) or Starlight Conservation Time (SCT); anything less stupid than insinuating we are saving time. 

Changing clocks doesn’t change how much light or dark there is in any day during a year. 

Human physiology is diurnal.  Humans are healthiest when they are active in natural daylight and inactive in the dark of any day.  Inferred generally from Relationships between sleep, physical activity and human health  Greg Atkinson, Damien Davenne, Physiol Behav. 2007 February 28, Published online 2006 October 25.

I’ll get to false claims that energy is saved by pretending time has changed.    

Daylight Saving Time has been around for most of this century.  In 1918, in order to conserve resources for the war effort, the U.S. Congress placed the country on Daylight Saving Time for seven months in 1918 and 1919.  The law, however, proved so unpopular that it was later repealed.

When America went to war again, Congress reinstated Daylight Saving Time on February 9, 1942.  It remained advanced by one hour year-round until September 30, 1945 (It should have stayed that way).  

From 1945 to 1966, there was no U.S. law about Daylight Saving Time.  So, states and localities were free to observe Daylight Saving Time or not.  This, however, caused confusion -- especially for the broadcasting industry, and for trains and buses.  Because of the different local customs and laws, radio and TV stations and the transportation companies had to publish new schedules every time a state or town began or ended Daylight Saving Time.  (The above paragraph from http://www.nationalatlas.gov/articles/boundaries/a_savingtime.html is absolute baloney; all organizations and businesses can standardize whatever schedule they choose.  I think they were extorted by the government then, much like we are today).

The American law by which we turn our clock forward in the spring and back in the fall is known as the Uniform Time Act of 1966.  The law did not require that anyone observe Daylight Saving Time, but if observing Daylight Saving Time, it must be done uniformly.

By 1966, some 100 million Americans were observing Daylight Saving Time through their own local laws and customs (numbers don’t make right, they frequently indicate mass hysteria, folly or falsehood).  Congress decided to step in end the confusion and establish one pattern across the country.  The Uniform Time Act of 1966 (15 U.S. Code Section 260a) created Daylight Saving Time to begin on the last Sunday of April and to end on the last Sunday of October.  Any area that wanted to be exempt from Daylight Saving Time could do so by passing a local ordinance.  The law was amended in 1986 to begin Daylight Saving Time on the first Sunday in April.

Spring forward...Fall back....  It's ingrained in our consciousness almost as much as the A-B-Cs or our spelling reminder of "i before e...."  And it's a regular event, though perhaps a bit less regular than the swallows coming back to Capistrano.  Even birdbrains have enough sense to regulate their own activities by the length of sunlight available and temperatures.

In 2005 and 2006, Daylight Saving Time begins for most of the United States at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday of April.  Time reverts to standard time at 2 a.m. on the last Sunday of October.

Beginning in 2007, Daylight Saving Time is extended one month and begins for most of the United States at: 2 a.m. on the Second Sunday in March until 2 a.m. on the First Sunday of November.

The new start and stop dates were set in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.  This is just another case of senseless government interference when they should restrain themselves to much more important matters.

Daylight Saving Time -- for the U.S. and its territories -- is NOT observed in Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and by most of Arizona (with the exception of the Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona) All peoples with good common sense.

Other parts of the world observe Daylight Saving Time as well.  While European nations have been taking advantage of the time change for decades, in 1996 the European Union (EU) standardized a EU-wide "summertime period”.  The EU version of Daylight Saving Time runs from the last Sunday in March through the last Sunday in October.  In the southern hemisphere where summer comes in December, Daylight Saving Time is observed from October to March.  

Equatorial and tropical countries (lower latitudes) don't observe Daylight Saving Time since the daylight hours are similar during every season, so there's no advantage to moving clocks forward during the summer.  Note: nor is there any advantage in any other latitude. 

Energy Savings; more government baloney!  Even if it saved the 1% their badly flawed studies claim, it did nothing about the 99% and it did nothing to encourage domestic, or market driven renewable and sustainable energy production

Light and dark periods rule, not clock settings.  The same purported saving or more can be obtained by changing organization and business schedules, and personal choices of individual activity in concert with the seasons.  No silly nanny-state laws are necessary. 

Safety is an issue.  Having children stand a bus stops or workers operating heavy equipment in the dark, twice a year because clock changes is much less “safe” than adjusting scheduled work or school start and stop times. 

I’ll be changing my behavior with the changing seasons and length of natural and artificial daylight.

I will not be changing my clocks to pretend the sun has come up or gone down earlier or later.

I will encourage and participate in national efforts to repeal any form of Daylight Saving Time and prevent the return of any government efforts to reestablish any such silliness. 

Stop Daylight Saving Time Now!

Openly Criticize Religions

Joke about the Muslim Faith Constantly

Blaspheme Allah and Mohammad Everyday.

It drives Muslin believers crazy, cripples their rational thought capability, destroys their ability to coordinate among there various factions; while we still have the most powerful military in the world and can easily defend ourselves.

It’s so easy to disturb and disrupt them.

And while we still have plenty of pigs and pork products, pig blood and carcasses to spread around, splash on, and bury to protect our most valuable and important infrastructure.  And create weapons that splash them in pig parts and blood that will literally drive them insane and damn them to hell with one splatter.

Anyone so frightened of the food product that nourishes two thirds of the known world, can’t possibly initiate, sustain, or prevail in war with peoples that will literally eat nearly everything.

The realities of the modern world so befuddle these primitive savages, that why anyone fears them except for their petty terrorist forays astounds me.  We could without assistance from any one of our allies, annihilate them from the face of the earth.  In a few days we could damage them, destroy their infrastructure, communication, militaries, foods, medicines and hospitals; and lay waste to their economies and finances, leaving them in a stone-age like chaos from 30,000 years ago.

We should go farther than that; discuss, denigrate, debate, and satirize all organized religious institutions everyday.  There should not be a paranoid phobia about religion discussions, denigration or humor.  It’s just beliefs.  If there is nothing ridiculously assuming, hypocritical, or peculiar about your religious beliefs, then it’s a very small, probably quite new, and quite obscure belief.

We should joke about, make fun of, criticize, and evaluate by comparison all religious beliefs; debate daily and publicly until the entire world becomes insensitive to critical comments, humor, slurs, or outright blaspheme; and denigrate every revered saint, savior, prophet, or deity; and discuss and compare every religious belief, and criticize every religious organization, dynasty, nation state and church everyday.

And keep doing it until people can sit quietly listening to others who believe differently and actually consider the merits of their beliefs.  No screaming, no putrid faces, no tongue sucking distain, no attempt to change their beliefs, or them to change yours; just consider for a moment that some part of what they sincerely believe may be more right, more useful, or of more help to as many other people, as the most important parts of what you believe.

It is important to be able to discuss religious beliefs quietly and peacefully; because I think more people are being deliberately murdered today for differing religious beliefs than for any other reason, including crimes and non-religious war; if there is such a thing.

If you are driven to an exasperated frenzy by a little name calling or negative comments about your favorite deity, then you are too easily distracted, your beliefs may be weak or poorly chosen, and you can be easily beaten in any conflict by a little name calling, demeaning insinuations and the denigration of a sacred person or symbol.

You are a weak combatant, easily vanquished.

Get over it; it’s just a belief, an opinion, unsupported by anything resembling proof or even any rational evidence.

Believe what you sincerely believe; but listen openly, observe carefully, and thoughtfully consider that which you do not. 

American Conservative Party,

It’s Time

It’s time for a new American political party; independent and conservative.  Maybe called the American Independent Conservative Party (AICP), maybe CIAP, or ICAP.  Whatever, it doesn’t matter much what it’s called.

What matters most is that it is independent of the Democrat and Republican parties; and that it adheres to Conservative principles, but departs from historical political party methods and behaviors.  

I began writing this blog before I knew there already was an American Conservative Party.  Now that I have discovered it I will provide their link here and insert their creed.  I’m pleased to have discovered that there are many people with whom I share a conservative view of how a free and independent people should allow their government to behave.

So without their permission, but I hope with their blessing, here is what I promised:

http://theamericanconservatives.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=49:principles&catid=34:background&Itemid=53

Please visit their website to learn much more about true conservatism.

The ACP Creed is a belief system of how we feel a just government and its citizens should interact.

WE BELIEVE:

Unalienable rights to life and liberty are given to us by our Creator; these rights exist separate from, and are superior to, government. 

Individuals are responsible for securing the blessings of liberty through the exercise of their rights.

The individual is sovereign over one's person; their labors constitute a foundation for private property that is not subject to the demands of others.

Governments are formed by the will of the people to secure and defend human liberty. 

Law exists to support liberty and mediate disputes where conduct of one infringes upon the rights of another. 

The armed forces and law enforcement exist to bolster private defense, not to supplant it. 

The American Experiment was born out of these beliefs and it has resulted in a bountiful gain for the human condition. 

Notes:

1. The insert above was modified slightly for presentation here.

2.  Please visit the American Conservative Party website to view their Foundation and Principle statements. 

It need not support or endorse candidates for the 2012 elections, but it needs to build structure and influence and begin endorsing local, state and national candidates as early as 2013 using primarily modern media technologies and a network of affiliates and associates unlike historical and conventional political parties.

There are many new methods for participating in forums and discussions and to develop platforms and garner constituents without conventional political practices, structures, parties, machines, publicity, advertising, conventions, fundraising, cronyism, corruption, and dirty tricks.

Just compete enthusiastically in the national free market places for ideas.

The other old trappings of historical politics are, or soon will be unnecessary. 

And stop talking about “taking back’ or “going back” to anything, talk only about going forward to a new and better government, more responsive and more effective, less wasteful and Constitutionally compliant; and incidentally smaller, cheaper, less corrupt, and less invasive and mettlesome. 

If you want to talk about the past, talk about the 65 year old failed socialist policies of the current administration, and their failure to learn from those mistakes, or their apparent unwillingness to learn from their more recent mistakes.  

Socialist and communist ideologies are without any sustainable ideas that might ever work for long, they just keep taken things they haven’t earned, and are unwilling to make, until they use up all the resources without investing any capital in resources, people, technology; or saving anything from which to rebuild a free market economic recovery.

And they never seem to learn any better.      

A Person’s Religious Beliefs

A Personal Private Choice

None of the media’s business, not the government’s business, not a matter for political inquiry, no one else needs to know and it is actually prohibited by law from being an item of consideration in hiring, firing, compensation, discipline or the conduct of commerce like the sale or rent of a home. 

These statements and those that follow are my opinion as a citizen, not as a professional in any specific discipline, nor a licensed practitioner of anything; just my assertion of how I believe it should be understood commonly and statutorily, and how it should be practiced by responsible humans.

A person may express a religious faith, label themselves, erect religious symbols or mark their personal property, or not.  They may choose not to be religious, they may choose to decry those who are religious, or worship anyone or anything they wish to believe in. 

All of these choices are personal and private, and of absolutely no significance to anyone else.  I have religious beliefs and I assume you have some if you want them.  I didn’t ask what you believe.  I don’t want you to tell me.  They are your personal beliefs.  I’ll not ask you what you believe or why.  Don’t ask me.  I’m not looking for anyone to agree with me and I don’t care if you believe anything I believe.  No one else needs to believe the same as either of us.  It’s not a popularity contest.  Chances are quite good I won’t believe a single thing you believe anyway.  Which beliefs have the most human followers means nothing.  It’s my guess about 98% of religious believers are mistaken.  It doesn’t matter.  Numbers of followers are not the test, truth is.

There is no right or wrong belief for the living.  It’s just a belief.  There is no meaningful test for the dead either; it’s too late, they have already made their choices, they cannot be unmade.  

If you chose poorly, it’s for eternity.

A Person may, if they wish, like or dislike someone because of their religion, they may choose not to associate with a person of this faith or that.  They may even publicly defame anyone using their religious affiliation as the reason, and they may say this religion or that religion is wrong, bogus, or harmful, should be prohibited, won’t get you into heaven, or anything else they think or feel about a religion or the lack of one.

A person may practice their religion or choose not to practice any religion.

A person may practice all the precepts of their religion any time and any place, provided the practices do not endanger anyone’s health, or safety, or restrict movement or free association of anyone else without their permission, or violate the rights of other believers or any non-believers.

Some of the thousands of government recognized religions have ceremonies and practices that offend non-believers; like animal sacrifice, prohibition against buying insurance, misbehavior punishments, saluting the national flag, various sexual and marital taboos, allowing medical treatments, self mutilation, scarring and branding, etc.  These and most all other practices are permitted by consenting adults, if not specifically prohibited by Federal, state, or local laws or limited by regulation, for instance you cannot prevent medical care of a sick or dying child, no matter what you believe.  Generally, the forcing of any religious practice upon anyone, especially the infirmed, the incompetent; or anyone by violence or deception (like covert drugging), or of any non-adult (child) competent or incompetent  is, or should be, illegal and abhorrent.

A individual person should be, and I believe is, free to practice their religion any place and anytime, but not free to coheres, force, or conspire to coheres, anyone else to do so with them, nor connive, deceive or compel anyone by the incidence of public event attendance, conscription without consent, or threat of monetary penalty, or persecution and eternal damnation to participate or appear to participate by any contrivance, deceptive or not.  

Go ahead, practice any religion you wish.  But do not even attempt to compel or to force any others who do not wish to practice your religious beliefs, or any other belief, or no religious belief at all.

Do not use any of my resources, my attendance, my image, or constrict or subvert my rights as a citizen or a human.

In the United States it is not your right to compel me to, or create the appearance that I believe anything, religiously!

Do not waste your time trying!    

Our Government Doesn’t Allow Success

We Earn That Ourselves

Shame on you, Mr. President; apparently you have forgotten what little you might have once known about government by consent of “We the People”.  Last week you said the government allowed us to become successful.  Wrong, Mr. President, so wrong.  We don't need government permission or any government help to become successful; just stop over-regulation, over-taxing, and needless interference.    

We allowed you, Mr. President, and we’ve regretted each and every day of your administration since.

We originally allowed the government and established its limits.

You, nor our government, had anything to do with what we were endowed with by our creator.

My parents received no help from any government when I was born.  They were hard working farmers in Eastern South Dakota.  No Medical care, no farm subsidy, no welfare, no paved roads, no electricity or running water; just the expectation that if they worked hard eighteen hours a day, planned ahead, acted wisely, took good care of the land, equipment, buildings, livestock and their family, and trusted in God for the things they could not influence; they might be successful someday.

Farming wasn’t to be my father’s success.  He sold out, moved to California with help from his family, not the government.  Although the government made sure it took its tax from everything he had made.  He became quite successful, in spite of government restrictions, excessive taxation, constant regulation and interference, mostly by buying and developing real estate.

He developed a very successful business building and leasing billboards, with no help from the government.  A business which the “Beautify America Act of 1964” made illegal destroying everything my father had built, all the while governments only provided harassing interference, endless regulation, exhaustive permitting, and punitive taxes which it used to build poor roads and faulty bridges, and ineffective schools, and unnecessary government jobs, and expensive offices, ineffective and lavish entitlement programs, and pointless conferences, and meaningless travel on the backs of my father’s and other taxpayers hard work, rewarding them with more interference and more confiscation for more government than they had asked for or could possibly pay for. 

My mother worked hard raising a family and working for others, and eventually owning and running several small businesses.  The government never helped, they only interfered and took all they could confiscate from her hard work too.  My folks never needed nor ever sought anything from the Federal government.  

I went to schools my father’s hard work helped pay for.  I drove to work, sometimes at three different jobs per day, on roads my father built and some he helped pay for.  I earned the right to go to a college, which my wife and I, and my parents and hers, helped pay for with no help from the government.  I earned my degrees, none were granted by the government.  We paid our own way by working while I went to college, all the while the government took part of our wages for failed social programs, and gave college entrance and jobs to those who had not earned them, in a seat next to me and we paid for them to be there.

Our government didn’t help me find and keep a job, get and use an education, buy and maintain a home, raise and support family, work 60 and 70 hours a week, save money for retirement, stay healthy, or pay for medical care, or ever give my family money for food; instead it just took some of what we made without option, for things we didn’t want and didn’t ask for, and gave it to those who might never earn anything.

Governments were a constant hindrance!  They put unnecessary roadblocks in the way frequently.  Conscripted us without option into programs like Social Security and Medicare that any fool could plainly see would be bankrupt by the time we might need them.  And robbed us of hard earned money most of which it then wasted on frivolous vote buying programs.  And we never wanted or ever sought anything the Federal government had to offer, and we never thought we were owed anything, and we never took anything we didn’t earn

So, Mr. President you have it exactly wrong.

We allowed you and our fraudulent, corrupt, excessively repressive government to violate the pact between; “We the People” and a badly flawed mutant version of our original Federal government.

You are right about one thing, Mr. President; we didn’t do that by ourselves.

Is It News

Or Propaganda?

Watching for the “News” coverage of the most recent tragic mass murders in Aurora, Colorado, it occurred to me that almost no new news was being treated as “Breaking News” on broadcast, cable and satellite TV.

What is “News” and what isn’t, seemed like an important question to me? 

Recently I’ve seen many people getting their News from the Internet via You Tube, Facebook, Blog sites and web pages, some dedicated to news coverage of world and national events and some just using their Internet access to exhibit their photos or videos of events in which they were either witnesses or victims.  

Some I saw were from Libya, Syria, and Colorado.

These were News!  At that place and that time in the direction that that camera was pointed, assuming it was not a staged event, to the extent its visual content and context was self evident with little chance of misinterpretation; it was News.

Most contained no expression of opinion, just statements of fact, like the time, the date, the place name, and distances and cardinal directions.  The destruction, foreboding, terror, mayhem, and fear were evident by the actions of the people in the video.  Little commentary was needed.  No commentator feelings, value judgments, assumptions or opinions were needed or wanted.  Although some showed up from self proclaimed, “Major news” organizations days later standing in front of ruins speaking as though they knew something about what happened there

That is as close to news as I have seen in several decades.  It’s no wonder to me that millions of young and old have turned to the Internet to get first person unadulterated, un-amended, mostly unbiased, un-manipulated event audio and video. 

On NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN and even FOX provided almost no factual data, and went immediately to conjecture, insinuation, musing and supposing things about which they had not a scintilla of facts, data, or even second person information, and brought on agenda driven personalities and celebrities with even less news and more opinions.

And they all moved immediately to accusing one faction or another (NRA or businesses) implying involvement by insinuation, or by asking why would a seemingly intelligent advanced degree student from a liberal university go crazy and start killing people like a disgruntled middle aged white male conservative, or the big one; can’t we now get some more new gun and ammo control laws, so that those crazy people who won’t give up their religions or 2^nd Amendment Rights can stop causing our children to be killed by these poor misguided unfortunates.

All about feelings, agenda, demonizing, attitude, accusation, insinuation, mischaracterization, and in ABC’s case misidentification of a 59 year uninvolved man as the 22 year old, immediately arrested, perpetrator.

Virtually no news was provided.  Just the gun control mantra repeated in various ways and by various representatives from among the well-meaning pretending that inanimate objects, not a deranged liberally educated person, animated, loaded, aimed and fired itself spontaneously and was responsible for the terrible deaths and mayhem.

Assumptions, accusation, insinuation, agenda, and opinion is, they apparently think, Good News.  

Terrible Murders;

But It’s People That Need Controls, Not Guns

These very terrible murders and many unfortunate woundings at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado recently have brought out the gun control crazies and the well meaning in huge numbers.

That too is very unfortunate.  Things don’t need more controls; people do.  Guns, vehicles, chemicals, hammers, chainsaws and butter knives don’t need more controls; people do.

As usual, it’s what you’re not hearing that is more interesting.  Little is being said of the failure to enforce existing laws.  Few are asking what’s wrong with these people or our culture and society.

Nothing is being said of failed policing.  Or, the failure of some states to report to the national data base.  Or, the failure by psychologists and psychiatrists to identify, house, and treat the mentally deficient; or the failure of academia to educate professionals with the insight to identify the criminally insane, or the courage to institutionalize them; or the failure of institutions to maintain confinement of the dangerously deficient; or the complete failure of a supposedly intelligent individual who was completely incapable of recognizing and doing something responsible about their own personal deficiencies and behavior.

Nothing is being said about increased evaluation, containment, incarceration and treatment of the seriously mentally ill and emotional deficient.

Listen people; stop blaming other things and other people for your deficiencies.  Learn to assess your skills, intellect, health and mental stability accurately.  Get in touch with reality.  Stop deluding yourself.  Don’t believe feel good crap fed to you by the “socially just, politically correct or the well-meaning.”  Learn to think for yourself, if you cannot, it’s an indication you need more evaluation and training. 

If you are thinking about and planning the murder and maiming of dozens of people; go get mental care.  If mysterious voices in your head are telling to do bad things, and you think you should be doing what they tell you, go get mental care.  Turn yourself into a state run hospital for containment and further evaluation.

Stop blaming your personal circumstance, condition, inadequacies, incapability’s, bad behavior and poor choices on something or someone else.

If something bad happens to you; you allowed it and probably helped cause it.  Even most accidents are partly caused by your choices or behavior.  Rarely, does fate, chance or luck alone intervene in your life.  You make your choices; don’t blame things, don’t blame others, real or imagined.

If disappointment, disease, misery, and disaster constantly occur in your life without occasional good, helpful, valuable things that you have earned; then something is wrong; change your life choices, get professional help.

Don’t take some tools or devices and start slaughtering other people.

And, if you are one who thinks these kinds of problems need more government laws controlling inanimate objects, especially if you are having trouble understanding effects and their correctly associated causes, then….

You should check yourself in for a complete mental evaluation. 

Affirmative Action,

When Will It Be Enough?

For more than forty years now, reverse racial discrimination for jobs and educational opportunity, and many other things, has been the practice in the US.

Is it working?  If so, when will it be enough?  When will it begin diminishing to allow its benefactors to adjust their behavior to fair and equal competition?  And how long will it take to get rid of the stigma of having to be subsidized?

How many years of reverse discrimination are necessary, to prove that more discrimination against others will not work and isn’t what’s needed?  It doesn’t change history.  Demeaning others doesn’t elevate you.

It doesn’t stop the incompetent, ignorant, weak or lame from using the excuse that they are disadvantaged because of things that happened to their great-great grand parents, great-grand parents, grandparents, and that somehow has kept their parents children from, learning, working, saving, investing, practicing good health, or obeying our nation’s laws; and that some sort of secret hidden agenda conducted in plain sight but unseen from all others, especially whites, thwarted their quest for success.  This cleaver cabal is seen behind every social slight, accident, twist of fate, cause and affect, or logical outcome that befalls them from having chosen poorly.

It could not possibly be their own deliberate ignorance.  It must be the ignorance forced upon them by the evil white dominance conspiracy.

It could not possibly be they are broke because they managed their money badly.  It could only be generations of discrimination that forced them to spend all their money on drugs, booze, buying expensive popular fashion clothing, dancing and cavorting with loose women.  Oh, and because of police profiling harassment and corruption. 

It could not possibly be they didn’t work, save or invest in themselves and their future.  It must have been the deliberate disadvantages forced upon them by whitey that made them spend foolishly, made them steal and sell drugs, got them falsely accused, took their money for bail, made them stay up late, oversleep, lose their jobs, over-eat fat foods, and spend their available time seeking or having sex instead of working, saving and investing while obeying the laws of the land.

It could not be possibly that ignorance has caused their poverty.  Their behavior choices, their culture taught them from generations of prejudice, harassment, discriminating, violence and murder and social exclusion passed on to them by genetics or osmosis; I guess, forced upon them by white culture, white business, white justice, white people in a giant coordinated conspiracy; you know, everything and anything white.     

Stop subsidizing incompetence!  If you must subsidize something, try extra training and education, try changing their culture of ignorance, try changing their tendency toward easy money and criminality, try instilling work, business and economic understanding, and try developing some ethics; like dignity, responsibility, honesty, merit, and respect for women.  Try; learn, earn, save, invest, and set aside some resources for your future, and then play hard.

Try knowledge, skill, work experience, intellect, ethics, effort, responsibility, earned merit, drop the “poor us” group loathing, reject hollow false advantages, and become a responsible, no excuses, meaningful, contributing, individual. 

Graduation Commencement

Good Life Advice

Written by Neal Boortz, a Texan, a lawyer, a Texas Aggie (Texas A&M) graduate, and now a nationally syndicated talk show host from Atlanta.  This commencement address was written as though it was delivered to the graduates of a recent Texas A&M class.  It was never spoken at their commencement.  It would have been far different than either the students or the faculty would have expected.  Edited slightly for improved readability by Citizen Stormo.  Whether you agree or disagree, his views are certainly thought provoking. 

"I am honored by the invitation to address you on this august occasion.  It's about time.  Be warned, however, that I am not here to impress you; you'll have enough smoke blown up your bloomers today.  And you can bet your tassels I'm not here to impress the faculty and administration.  You may not like much of what I have to say, and that's fine.  You will remember it though.  Especially after about 10 years out there in the real world.  This, it goes without saying, does not apply to those of you who will seek your careers and your fortunes as government employees.

This gowned gaggle behind me is your faculty.  You've heard the old saying that those who can - do.  Those who can't - teach.  That sounds deliciously insensitive.  But there is often raw truth in insensitivity, just as you often find feel-good falsehoods and lies in compassion.  Say good-bye to your faculty because now you are getting ready to go out there and do.  These folks behind me are going to stay right here and teach.

By the way, just because you are leaving this place with a diploma doesn't mean the learning is over.  When an FAA flight examiner handed me my private pilot's license many years ago, he said, “Here, this is your ticket to learn.”  The same can be said for your diploma.  Believe me, the learning has just begun. 

Now, I realize that most of you consider yourselves Liberals.  In fact, you are probably very proud of your liberal views.  You care so much.  You feel so much.  You want to help so much.  After all, you're a compassionate and caring person, aren't you now?  Well, isn't that just so extraordinarily special.  Now, at this age, is as good a time as any to be a liberal; as good a time as any to know absolutely everything.  


You have plenty of time, starting tomorrow, for the truth to set in.  Over the next few years, as you begin to feel the cold breath of reality down your neck, things are going to start changing pretty fast.  Including your own assessment of just how much you really know. 

So here are the first assignments for your initial class in reality: Pay attention to the news, read newspapers, and listen to the words and phrases that proud Liberals use to promote their causes.  Then, compare the words of the left to the words and phrases you hear from those evil, heartless, greedy conservatives.  From the Left you will hear "I feel.”  From the Right you will hear "I think."  From the Liberals you will hear references to groups -- The Blacks, the Poor, the Rich, the Disadvantaged, and the Less Fortunate.  From the Right you will hear references to individuals.  On the Left you hear talk of group rights; on the Right, individual rights. 

That about sums it up, really: Liberals feel.  Liberals care.  They are pack animals whose identity is tied up in group dynamics.  Conservatives think -- and, setting aside the theocracy crowd, their identity is centered on the individual. 

Liberals feel that their favored groups have enforceable rights to the property and services of productive individuals.  Conservatives, I among them I might add, think that individuals have the right to protect their lives and their property from the plunder of the masses. 

In college you developed a group mentality, but if you look closely at your diplomas you will see that they have your individual names on them.  Not the name of your school mascot, or of your fraternity or sorority, but your name.  Your group identity is going away.  Your recognition and appreciation of your individual identity starts now. 

If, by the time you reach the age of 30, you do not consider yourself to be a conservative, rush right back here as quickly as you can and apply for a faculty position.  These people will welcome you with open arms.  They will welcome you, that is, so long as you haven't developed an individual identity.  Once again you will have to be willing to sign on to the group mentality you embraced during the past four years. 

Something is going to happen soon that is going to really open your eyes.  You're going to actually get a full time job! 

You're also going to get a lifelong work partner.  This partner isn't going to help you do your job.  This partner is just going to sit back and wait for payday.  This partner doesn't want to share in your effort, just in your earnings. 

Your new lifelong partner is actually an agent; an agent representing a strange and diverse group of people; an agent for every teenager with an illegitimate child; an agent for a research scientist who wanted to make some cash answering the age-old question of why monkeys grind their teeth; an agent for some poor demented hippie who considers herself to be a meaningful and talented artist, but who just can't manage to sell any of her artwork on the open market. 

Your new partner is an agent; for every person with limited, if any, job skills, but who wanted a job at City Hall; an agent for tin-horn dictators in fancy military uniforms grasping for American foreign aid; an agent for multi-million dollar companies who want someone else to pay for their overseas advertising; an agent for everybody who wants to use unimaginable power for their personal enrichment and benefit.

That agent is our wonderful, caring, compassionate, oppressive government.  Believe me, you will be awed by the unimaginable power this agent has, power that you do not have; a power that no individual has, or will have.  This agent has the legal power to use force, deadly force to accomplish its goals. 

You have no choice here.  Your new friend is just going to walk up to you, introduce itself rather gruffly, hand you a few forms to fill out, and move right on in.  Say hello to your own personal one ton gorilla.  It will sleep anywhere it wants to. 

Now, let me tell you, this agent is not cheap.  As you become successful it will seize about 40% of everything you earn.  And no, I'm sorry, there just isn't any way you can fire this agent of plunder, and you can't decrease its share of your income.  That power rests with him, not you. 

So, here I am saying negative things to you about government.  Well, be clear on this: It is not wrong to distrust government.  It is not wrong to fear government.  In certain cases it is not even wrong to despise government for government is inherently evil.  Yes, a necessary evil, but dangerous nonetheless, somewhat like a drug.  Just as a drug that in the proper dosage can save your life, an overdose of government can be fatal. 

Now let's address a few things that have been crammed into your minds at this university.  There are some ideas you need to expunge as soon as possible.  These ideas may work well in academic environment, but they fail miserably out there in the real world.

First is that favorite buzz word of the media and academia: Diversity!  You have been taught that the real value of any group of people - be it a social group, an employee group, a management group, whatever - is based on diversity.  This is a favored liberal ideal because diversity is based not on an individual’s abilities or character, but on a person's identity and status as a member of a group.  Yes, it's that liberal group identity thing again. 

Within the great diversity movement group identification - be it racial, gender based, or some other minority status - means more than the individuals integrity, character or other qualifications. 

Brace yourself.  You are about to move from this academic atmosphere where diversity rules, to a workplace and a culture where individual achievement and excellence actually count.  No matter what your professors have taught you over the last four years, you are about to learn that diversity is absolutely no replacement for excellence, ability, and individual hard work.  From this day on every single time you hear the word "diversity" you can rest assured that there is someone close by who is determined to rob you of every vestige of individuality you possess. 

We also need to address this thing you seem to have about "rights”.  We have witnessed an obscene explosion of so-called "rights" in the last few decades, usually emanating from college campuses. 

You know the mantra: You have the right to a job.  The right to a place to live.  The right to a living wage.  The right to health care.  The right to an education.  You probably even have your own pet right - the right to a Beemer for instance, or the right to have someone else provide for that child you plan on downloading in a year or so. 

Forget it.  Forget those rights!  I'll tell you what your rights are.  You have a right to live free, and to the results of 60% -75% of your labor.  I'll also tell you have no right to any portion of the life or labor of another. 

You may, for instance, think that you have a right to health care.  After all, President Obama said so, didn't he?  But you cannot receive health-care unless some doctor or health practitioner surrenders some of his time - his life - to you.  He may be willing to do this for compensation, but that's his choice.  You have no "right" to his time or property.  You have no right to his or any other person's life or to any portion thereof. 

You may also think you have some "right" to a job; a job with a living wage, whatever that is.  Do you mean to tell me that you have a right to force your services on another person, and then the right to demand that this person compensate you with their money?  Sorry, forget it.  I am sure you would scream if some urban outdoors men (that would be "homeless person" for those of you who don't want to give these less fortunate people a romantic and adventurous title) came to you and demanded his job and your money. 

The people who have been telling you about all the rights you have are simply exercising one of theirs - the right to be imbeciles.  Their being imbeciles didn't cost anyone else either property or time.  It's their right, and they exercise it brilliantly. 

By the way, did you catch my use of the phrase "less fortunate" a bit ago when I was talking about the urban outdoors men?  That phrase is a favorite of the Left.  Think about it, and you'll understand why. 

To imply that one person is homeless, destitute, dirty, drunk, spaced out on drugs, unemployable, and generally miserable because he is "less fortunate" is to imply that a successful person - one with a job, a home and a future - is in that position because he or she was "fortunate”.  The dictionary says that fortunate means "having derived well from an unexpected place”.  There is nothing unexpected about deriving well from hard work.  There is also nothing unexpected about deriving misery from choosing drugs, alcohol, and the street. 

If the Liberal Left can create the common perception that success and failure are simple matters of "fortune" or "luck" then it is easy to promote and justify their various income redistribution schemes.  After all, we are just evening out the odds a little bit.  This "success equals luck" idea the liberals like to push is seen everywhere.  Former Democratic presidential candidate Richard Gephardt refers to high-achievers as "people who have won life's lottery".  He wants you to believe they are making the big bucks because they are lucky.  It's not luck, my friends.  It's choice.  One of the greatest lessons I ever learned was in a book by Og Mandino, entitled, "The Greatest Secret in the World".  The lesson?  Very simple: "Use wisely your power of choice”. 

That bum sitting on a heating grate, smelling like a wharf rat?  He's there by choice.  He is there because of the sum total of the choices he has made in his life.  This truism is absolutely the hardest thing for some people to accept, especially those who consider themselves to be victims of something or other - victims of discrimination, bad luck, the system, capitalism, whatever.  After all, nobody really wants to accept the blame for his or her position in life.  Not when it is so much easier to point and say, "Look!  He did this to me!" than it is to look into a mirror and say, "You S. O. B.!  You did this to me!" 

The key to accepting responsibility for your life is to accept the fact that your choices, every one of them, are leading you inexorably to either success or failure, however you define those terms. 

Some of the choices are obvious: Whether or not to stay in school.  Whether or not to get pregnant.  Whether or not to hit the bottle.  Whether or not to keep this job you hate until you get another better-paying job.  Whether or not to save some of your money, or saddle yourself with huge payments for that new car. 

Some of the choices are seemingly insignificant: Whom to go to the movies with.  Whose car to ride home in.  Whether to watch the tube tonight or read a book on investing.  But, and you can be sure of this, each choice counts.  Each choice is a building block - some large, some small.  But each one is a part of the structure of your life.  If you make the right choices, or if you make more right choices than wrong ones, something absolutely terrible may happen to you.  Something unthinkable.  You, my friend, could become one of the hated, the evil, the ugly, the feared, the filthy, the successful, the rich. 

The rich basically serve two purposes in this country.  First, they provide the investments, the investment capital, and the brains for the formation of new businesses.  Businesses that hire people.  Businesses that send millions of paychecks home each week to the un-rich. 

Second, the rich are a wonderful object of ridicule, distrust, and hatred.  Few things are more valuable to a politician than the envy most Americans feel for the evil rich. 

Envy is a powerful emotion.  Even more powerful than the emotional minefield that surrounded Bill Clinton when he reviewed his last batch of White House interns.  Politicians use envy to get votes and power.  And they keep that power by promising the envious that the envied will be punished: "The rich will pay their fair share of taxes if I have anything to do with it."  The truth is that the top 10% of income earners in this country pays almost 50% of all income taxes collected.  I shudder to think what these job producers would be paying if our tax system were any more "fair”. 

You have heard, no doubt, that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.  Interestingly enough, our government's own numbers show that many of the poor actually get richer, and that quite a few of the rich actually get poorer.  But for the rich who do actually get richer, and the poor who remain poor.  There's an explanation -- a reason.  The rich, you see, keep doing the things that make them rich; while the poor keep doing the things that make them poor. 

Speaking of the poor, during your adult life you are going to hear an endless string of politicians bemoaning the plight of the poor.  So, you need to know that under our government's definition of "poor" you can have a $5 million net worth, a $300,000 home and a new $90,000 Mercedes, all completely paid for.  You can also have a maid, cook, and valet, and a million in your checking account; and you can still be officially defined by our government as "living in poverty”.  Now there's something you haven't seen on the evening news. 

How does the government pull this one off?  Very simple, really; to determine whether or not some poor soul is "living in poverty”, the government measures one thing -- just one thing: Income. 

It doesn't matter one bit how much you have, how much you own, how many cars you drive or how big they are, whether or not your pool is heated, whether you winter in Aspen and spend the summers in the Bahamas, or how much is in your savings account.  It only matters how much income you claim in that particular year.  This means that if you take a one-year leave of absence from your high-paying job and decide to live off the money in your savings and checking accounts while you write the next great American novel, the government says you are living in poverty." 

This isn't exactly what you had in mind when you heard these gloomy statistics, is it?  Do you need more convincing?  Try this.  The government's own statistics show that people who are said to be "living in poverty" spend more than $1.50 for each dollar of income they claim.  Something is a bit fishy here.  Just remember all this the next time Charles Gibson tells you about some hideous new poverty statistics. 

Why has the government concocted this phony poverty scam?  Because the government needs an excuse to grow and to expand its social welfare programs, which translates into an expansion of its power.  If the government can convince you, in all your compassion, that the number of "poor" is increasing, it will have all the excuse it needs to sway an electorate suffering from the advanced stages of “Obsessive Compulsive Compassion Disorder”. 

I'm about to be stoned by the faculty here.  They've already changed their minds about that honorary degree I was going to get.  That's OK, though.  I still have my PhD. in Insensitivity from the Neal Boortz Institute for Insensitivity Training.  I learned that, in short, sensitivity sucks.  It's a trap.  Think about it - the truth knows no sensitivity.  Life can be insensitive.  Wallow too much in sensitivity and you'll be unable to deal with life, or the truth, so get over it. 

Now, before the dean has me shackled and hauled off, I have a few random thoughts. 

* You need to register to vote, unless you are on welfare.  If you are living off the efforts of others, please do us the favor of sitting down and shutting up until you are on your own again. 

* When you do vote, your votes for the House and the Senate are more important than your vote for President.  The House controls the purse strings, so concentrate your awareness there. 

* Liars cannot be trusted, even when the liar is the President of the country.  If someone can't deal honestly with you, send them packing. 

* Don't bow to the temptation to use the government as an instrument of plunder.  If it is wrong for you to take money from someone else who earned it -- to take their money by force for your own needs -- then it is certainly just as wrong for you to demand that the government step forward and do this dirty work for you. 

* Don't look in other people's pockets.  You have no business there.  What they earn is theirs.  What you earn is yours.  Keep it that way.  Nobody owes you anything, except to respect your privacy and your rights, and leave you the hell alone. 

* Speaking of earning, the revered 40-hour workweek is for losers.  Forty hours should be considered the minimum, not the maximum.  You don't see highly successful people clocking out of the office every afternoon at five.  The losers are the ones caught up in that afternoon rush hour.  The winners drive home in the dark. 

* Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech.  Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection. 

* Finally (and aren't you glad to hear that word), as Og Mandino wrote:

1. Proclaim your rarity.  Each of you is a rare and unique human being.

2. Use wisely your power of choice.

3. Go the extra mile, drive home in the dark. 

Oh, and put off buying a television set as long as you can.  Now, if you have any idea at all what's good for you, you will get out of here and never come back.  Class dismissed"