Saturday, August 29, 2009

10 Ideas to Improve America

You certainly won't hear much about these ideas on those beacons of intellectual news known as NPR, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, and my personal favorite, the NY Times.

1) Tort reform. I guess the many former judges and lawyers in congress find it difficult to turn off the spigots for their friends in practice now. Stop the crazy lawsuits, reduce the exorbitant malpractice insurance costs, reduce defensive medicine and forget about the planned government takeover of our personal health care decisions.

2) Close (and defend) our borders. Duh. Neither side wants to do this. Republicans fear alienating the families of illegal aliens and losing their votes while Democrats welcome the illegals as a means of loading up the census in their favor so they can gerrymander voting districts and grab even more permanent power for themselves.

3) Drill here, drill now. Another duh. What a double blessing we have here. We can reduce, or stop, the flow of money to our enemies who want to kill us, and we can create jobs right here. Seems so amazingly simple. Maybe the "stimulus bill" should have allocated all $787 billion to job creation in this area instead of plugging state budget holes...just a thought.

4) Cut the corporate income tax rate in half. It would seem to me that if you want more jobs you might want to stop rapping the knuckles of business owners with the 2nd highest tax rate in the industrialized world. Cut taxes and watch businesses stop sending their money offshore to avoid the tax- thereby, actually increasing revenue. Yes, my liberal friends, the rich will get richer and so will many, many other folks as well.

5) Abolish the capital gains tax. Why are we taxing capital more than once? Simple, because liberals have convinced enough folks through their class envy rhetoric that only the 'rich' can be earning capital gains so let's soak it to them. Half of America owns stocks, and we should stop taxing their money a second time.

6) Term limits for congress. Money has ruined our system especially at the state and local levels. Incumbents stick around way too long because other citizens can't raise the funds needed to effectively compete. Additionally, the votes of informed citizens at the state and local levels are often cancelled out by uninformed voters who select the only name they recognize on the ballot.

7) Embrace the Constitution (and maybe even teach its contents to our kids). Your not alone if you are uttering, "what's the Constitution?"The contents of our most important document for governance are largely ignored by our public schools and colleges. They consider it irrelevant and actually a hindrance to their "whim-based" society where the socially enlightened involve government in every aspect of our lives.

8) Eliminate the NEA. This union, while initially well intentioned, has ruined our public school system. There is no competition. There is no incentive for teachers to get better. There is little in the way of truly free speech unless you reside on the left. And most importantly, as kids continue to graduate with fewer and fewer skills, these folks insist we must throw ever increasing amounts of money at the problem. More money doesn't mean better students and we need to stop burdening our citizenry with ever higher tax burdens to support ideas that don't work.

9) A balanced budget amendment. Stop the entitlements. Start making some hard choices. Emphasize personal responsibility over handouts.

10) You want stimulus??? How about a payroll stimulus? Eliminate social security. Social security is really a ponzi scheme in need of elimination. I know, as did Roosevelt when he implemented it, that it can never be abolished because the masses are entitled to it, but we've already spent the money anyway so let's give the people back their hard-earned money. Give seniors a one time lump sum payment equivalent to the present value of their expected payments due and end this stupid program.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

False Compassion


What do you visualize when I say the word compassion? How would you define it? Would an act of compassion be obvious when you come across it? These days, the liberal media pundits, our president, most of congress, and even many citizens define compassion as remedying a perceived wrong by taking one person’s assets and distributing them to another via legislation, judicial fiat, or somebody’s whim. This is not compassion. This is progressive social engineering. We need to understand this before it totally shifts public sentiment away from successful capitalism and towards the unsuccessful utopia known as socialism.

Socialistic thought sounds “fair and balanced” but our Founding Fathers never intended for every citizen to expect the exact same outcome. The Founders knew what many today don’t grasp and that is, the relationship between risks and rewards. We should all be allowed to determine how much risk we take on in our pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. Those successful entrepreneurs choosing to take on more risk aren’t better people than folks who don’t. One person is not “better” than another (they may think they are but God tells us clearly they are not), but it does mean that when risk-takers are exponentially successful they should not be unduly punished for their success because the rest of us didn’t take the same risks they did.

Progressives want to box us in. If we take risks and fail they say nothing, but if we take risks and succeed, they want to tax us into oblivion. There is no downside for a progressive thinker. You’ve either gained at the expense of others unfairly or you are in need of a handout. Therein lays the trouble. A society that does not actively and handsomely reward risk taking will never produce a thriving economy. We know this instinctively in our personal lives, but we fail to translate it to the larger picture.

We know if we hand the bank money for a CD, our return is minimal, our investment is safe, and we will never get rich. We also know if we take that same money and buy Microsoft stock that our potential return will be much greater, but so will our potential loss be. Progressives want to tax your successful investment in Microsoft and tell you they are doing it to even out the playing field for the person investing in CD’s.

This is not compassionate. This is a mirage. When government picks sides, one person is shown compassion at another person’s expense. By very definition this cannot be called compassion.

Compassion in society must be practiced at the individual level and it must be accompanied by choice. I choose to donate my time, money, talent, and energy to help those in need. I chose, not you choosing for me. I take care of my neighbors and those I rub shoulders with everyday. Many will shout, “what if nobody chooses to help?” My answer to that is, we are the most generous nation on earth, many people will step up at the individual level and help when government stops trying to help by taxing all of us to death.

A person looking out for other people is true compassion and it advances society infinitely farther than Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi deciding who should sacrifice and who should receive. When you hear too many people parroting the phrase, “to each according to his need and from each according to his ability”, watch out…the decline in your standard of living is not far behind. Know the difference between artificial compassion and true compassion, be able to articulate it, and let’s go get our country back.