The most important things we can accomplish we must do with others. Our strength lies in our ability to connect and network with others. Most in the Tea Party know we all share the same destiny. We get it… Our government does not.
When President Johnson started the war on poverty he could not have imagined where this would lead. Also, it was not just the President but most of Congress and most of the voters were in support. Regardless of which side of the War On Poverty law you came down on, no one had any clear sense of where this would lead nor the impact in would have on the nation and horrors of this well-meant tyranny on generations of our most impoverished. This program appeared to most as compassionate the right thing to do, and was grounded firmly in Christian values.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims is the most oppressive. C.S. Lewis
Mr. Birdnow wrote the best informative article I have ever seen concerning our social poverty programs by linking the programs to government, economics, and labor. As it turns out, as most things government does, it is more complex than meets the eye or fully understood by citizens outside the social system networks.
After reading this article you will have a broader view of what we are facing.
Brian Birdnow
Dan Glazier is undoubtedly sincere in his declarations, but he unwittingly illustrates a nearly insurmountable obstacle in the continuing quest to conquer poverty. That obstacle is the anti-poverty industry, itself. When trying to define the “anti-poverty industry” we generally mean the large and ever growing cadre of social workers, bureaucrats, health care providers, public interest attorney-judicial types, the subsidiary clerical people who assist the aforementioned personnel, and the academic-educational underpinning of this entire system, all of whom have a material stake in the preservation and maintenance of a permanent underclass, which keeps a roof over their own heads, and puts food on their own tables. The anti-poverty industry, although populated by idealistic and earnest workers, depends on an intractably large and growing underclass as a precondition for the continued existence of their own jobs.
The structure of the anti-poverty industry is centered within the numerous layers of the political system. It also branches out into the private sector, and includes many entities, which are neither fish nor fowl, those being quasi-governmental systems such as the public transit authorities and the like. The governmental element of the anti-poverty industry is vast, and growing daily. The federal government employs hundreds of thousands of social workers, dispersed throughout the dozens of agencies including HHS, Homeland Security, Treasury, and the DOD. In addition, the federal agencies employ tens of thousands of clerks and other support staff to further advance their missions. All of these personnel owe their employment to poverty, and the preservation thereof.
This basic industrial structure is replicated in each of the fifty states. The state governments employ thousands of social workers in their various agencies and departments, they use thousands of bureaucrats of different types to keep the paperwork flowing, and the machine humming. Unemployment counselors, welfare caseworkers, public health officials, state probation and parole officers, and the clerical staffs attached to these bureaus all have a stake in the establishment, and maintenance of a permanent underclass.
When we move down to the county/municipal level we see an expansion of the anti-poverty business. The county and city governments employ countless people in jobs, some patronage and some professional, ostensibly dedicated to the eradication of poverty. The social workers, bureaucrats, clerks, caseworkers, court personnel, and public health officials are joined by hundreds of thousands of other anti-poverty workers, who are based in the schools, and increasingly in the universities. Many serve as record keepers who archive and catalogue data, while others serve as professional scolds who lambast their fellow citizens in the newspapers and journals. The common denominator uniting this disparate cohort is the fact that they depend on the poverty of others for their livelihood.
In addition to those who directly depend on poverty for their monthly paycheck, there are thousands of others who are indirectly dependent on poverty for their daily bread. The anti-poverty business now encompasses many technically private entities that actually depend on poverty, and government funding, for their survival. The Legal Services shell-game, building subsidized housing, health care for the indigent, and contracts to bus low income students and to transport poorer workers to and from their jobs are all generally private endeavors, but the existence and viability of the agencies involved hinges on the continued impoverishment of a large and growing underclass.
None of this is meant to impugn the integrity of the earnest and idealistic folks who labor in the anti-poverty business. They all hope to end the scourge of poverty, and with God’s help, they might someday succeed. If, however, we reach a point where (as Herbert Hoover said in the spring of 1929) “…the poorhouse is vanishing from among us…” we will have no need for the veritable army of anti-poverty workers. The social service providers, the welfare caseworkers, the unemployment counselors, and the various supervisors and underlings in the thousands of antipoverty bureaus around the country will be laid off due to lack of business.
As former President George HW Bush said back in 1989, “The best anti-poverty program is a job.” Bush The Elder was not a man noted for eloquence, but he got that one right. An economic boom such as the one the country experienced between 1983-2008 would be a much more successful attack on poverty than the redoubled quasi-socialist approach of the Obama Administration. However, a political party and a President who have bet their political futures an a business-as-usual approach to fighting poverty cannot run the risk of actually succeeding by unleashing the heretofore bound Prometheus of the American economic engine. This would likely bring about substantial declines in unemployment and poverty. The only observers who would find any clouds in this sunny scenario are the legions of anti-poverty workers who would correctly sense their waning job security if we really make any progress in conquering poverty.
Happy New Year to all Townhall readers, even the liberals!
Brian Birdnow
(Brian E. Birdnow is a historian and teaches at a university in the St. Louis area. As reported on TOWNHALL web site.) Which I read everyday. (Drop him a note.)
Professor Birdnow we owe you.
When we consider how deeply entrenched Social Security, Food Stamps, Medicare, Prescription drugs, Medicaid, and all the other direct and indirect family support systems are we become sensitive to the political dangers for politicians in broaching the subject of social programs reforms. If some magic wand was waived and all of these support programs were ended tomorrow what would this country look like in thirty days? The center could not hold.
In spite of the inherent dangers for the politicians and for the country, we must alter each and every program or in a few more years the country will be consumed by the cost. Do we see any signs in any of our candidates that gives us hope that they see this picture clearly. Do we think any of them have doable ideas that will help alter these programs in positive ways without doing massive harm. All I am hearing are the same political platitude, I have heard since……forever.
As Jefferson so eloquently put it, "The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government."
The National Debt clock tells us, as of this moment, each taxpayer's obligation to the federal government's social programs (SS, Prescription drugs, Medicare, and other unfunded liabilities) is $1, 037,876.00. This number has risen a few thousand bucks since I started writing this missive and by the time you finished reading it the clock will have added another few thousand bucks to each of our debt.
All of the Kings horses and all the Kings men can never turn this clock back to what it was again.
With all of this to-do and focus on 'who-be-da-Prez', it is Congress that is most critical for our goals as the Tea Party and hopefully for the majority of voters. The Senate is the key for us as well as the need to expand our presence in the House. Given the liberal media excitement over who said what about whom, they are ignoring/avoiding what is going on in all the other areas of the elections. For us this is a serious and a deadly mistake. Real power for change comes through our Congress.
As the election for president heats up all attention will be on it…. We must be focused on our goal of winning back our government and that is about the House of Representatives and the Senate. This branch of government has the real power if it is used. (Think Obamacare)
It is now 269 days, 9 hours, and 38 minutes till the November voting get under way.
Makes you feel like the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland. So much to do, so little time.
Ron
docnick37@gmail.com
http://theoxfordteaparty.blogspot.com
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
Ideas Breed
If you put six people around any coffee table or in any café in any town in America discussing almost any conceivable topic, they will share their ideas. Each will hear the other's ideas…. These new or different ideas will add to each person's knowledge base. They now come up with their own new ideas. It is as if when ideas get shared they breed new ideas and then even newer ideas. Just average folks doing common everyday things. Shared ideas breed ideas …. Ideas then spread…and breed more ideas...
This goes on across the nation everyday about every single pursuit where there is common interest. If this is so, why aren't all of our problems solved? Well, first there is usually not enough understood about the subject and given each person's history there are biases and beliefs that each person brings to the table. So that slows the breeding process.
More often than not in the cafes the folks at the table drift in and out of discussions of politics. Here knowing is represented mostly by the latest sound bites the liberal media has spawned presented to their audience in such a way each night saying 'this is truth' and being accepted by many as truth... Now that we have access to more information and at the very least the same information the media has, we are no longer chained to their 'news speak.' That is a good thing There are more and more citizens searching out the information they need. And their shared ideas are growing along with their understanding of the government's workings. It appears that more citizens are realizing that the elected do not consider the goals of the voters and that they are acting without their consent. Though limited in numbers, it is a tsunami kind of awakening. The 2010 election, were the frontal edge and the larger wave is on its way.
It's not how smart each individual is that counts. It's how well they communicate and exchange ideas with each other that makes a society, a town, or a nation work. Informed voters communicating with each other is the death knell for politics as we have known it. Informed voters with knowledge and understanding can't be manipulated as easily. Where we in the Tea Party find ourselves is at a moment in time where there aren't enough informed voters. What can we do? Or can we do more than what we are already doing?
I hope so, and more importantly, I believe we can. Also, I believe this is the last time the Tea Party will tolerate this kind of group of presidential candidates. We are learning how to find candidates, train candidates, and replace inept destructive elected representatives. We cannot ever again allow the national parties and their sources of financial aid to manipulate us through their hidden campaign agenda. We knew Romney was their pick long before Iowa. We knew any other candidate who showed any promise would be a target. We have seen this movie before. This was the same core GOP group, with different names, that did not see Romney as a electable candidate last go around and this same group did not see Reagan as a electable presidential candidate either. The ideology of this elite group in the upper echelons of the GOP doesn't change by changing its members. The core of this failed ideology is that power should be concentrated in the hands of a few and they see themselves as that few… Their belief is that the people should sit down and shut up and they will run the nation…. Isn't that just ugly…. And isn't this a ugly thing to say…But/and this is the ideology of our Prez, the GOP's and the Dems….
We at The Oxford Tea Party believe that the home discussion groups are a good way, if not the best way, to help spread the knowledge needed to make informed decisions. Showing up on the streets is very important. That gets our ideas in front of people. Educating, we think, is most powerful. Ideas spread by informed people.
Sooner or later, and hopefully sooner, we in the Tea Party will find ways to spread our ideas faster because time is not on our side….. Move The House was one good lesson that has been learned… And the accomplishment of the goal was profound to all and the politicians in particular. Coming soon to our local theaters and TV screens is the most important election most of us have been confronted with. All of the nation's chips are on the table.
By next week in South Carolina the 'contest' (Is that not a hideous term for what is going on? Contest makes it seem like a game.) for the candidate for president could well be decided. Clearly the national GOP has picked Romney….. Ron Paul may show well if it is a small turnout. As clearly as the GOP are backing Romney they are clearly against Gingrich…. (Gingrich is a threat to the national GOP group. As president he would become the head of the Party. As such he could clean out that group and most probably would.) Santorum's liberal big government positions is his history and will do him in….With this many candidates on the ballots the vote will be spread thin…. All that can be said is the national media, the same group that cheered Romney's victory of 14 votes in Iowa, will hit the headlines once again should he show well or wins. (Margin be damned.)
There are many of Tea groups in South Carolina and they are active. Last election they were the difference in the elections. It seems that no one is sure how they will come down and support which candidate.
I personally have a terrible record in voting for presidents. John Kennedy when I was a young person, Ronald Regan with I grew up, and Bill Clinton by voting for the third party candidate Ross Perot. So, given my poor 'president picking' history I don't think anyone should pay any attention to who I think could and should be elected. I voted for Perot knowing that he could not be elected. I called that my voting on principle vote. If I paid attention to or even cared what the liberal media says about Gingrich being a bad candidate and a terrible person Newt will continue to get a check from us every few weeks. If he should become the presidential candidate and at some point later this year, even if I am sure he cannot win, I will still vote for him.
I am not going to offer up a campaign speech on Newt's behalf. We have all known him over twenty plus years of service. Clearly, for many, his mistakes and short comings have become more important than his accomplishments. The 1994 elections were as important as the 2012 elections. Newt transformed the House and reset the Washington agenda. Maybe it's my age but I just cannot see these leadership skills in Romney.
Enough pondering. It time to hit the send key.
There are 298 days, 23 hours, and 10 minutes till the voting starts. Not much time and so much to do...
Ron
docnick37@gmail.com
http://theoxfordteaparty.blogspot.com/
I have a video link below that I think is interesting from New Hampshire voting booths. What a great film for supporting voter's ID.
http://dailycaller.com/2012/01/11/video-nh-poll-workers-shown-handing-out-ballots-in-dead-peoples-names/
This goes on across the nation everyday about every single pursuit where there is common interest. If this is so, why aren't all of our problems solved? Well, first there is usually not enough understood about the subject and given each person's history there are biases and beliefs that each person brings to the table. So that slows the breeding process.
More often than not in the cafes the folks at the table drift in and out of discussions of politics. Here knowing is represented mostly by the latest sound bites the liberal media has spawned presented to their audience in such a way each night saying 'this is truth' and being accepted by many as truth... Now that we have access to more information and at the very least the same information the media has, we are no longer chained to their 'news speak.' That is a good thing There are more and more citizens searching out the information they need. And their shared ideas are growing along with their understanding of the government's workings. It appears that more citizens are realizing that the elected do not consider the goals of the voters and that they are acting without their consent. Though limited in numbers, it is a tsunami kind of awakening. The 2010 election, were the frontal edge and the larger wave is on its way.
It's not how smart each individual is that counts. It's how well they communicate and exchange ideas with each other that makes a society, a town, or a nation work. Informed voters communicating with each other is the death knell for politics as we have known it. Informed voters with knowledge and understanding can't be manipulated as easily. Where we in the Tea Party find ourselves is at a moment in time where there aren't enough informed voters. What can we do? Or can we do more than what we are already doing?
I hope so, and more importantly, I believe we can. Also, I believe this is the last time the Tea Party will tolerate this kind of group of presidential candidates. We are learning how to find candidates, train candidates, and replace inept destructive elected representatives. We cannot ever again allow the national parties and their sources of financial aid to manipulate us through their hidden campaign agenda. We knew Romney was their pick long before Iowa. We knew any other candidate who showed any promise would be a target. We have seen this movie before. This was the same core GOP group, with different names, that did not see Romney as a electable candidate last go around and this same group did not see Reagan as a electable presidential candidate either. The ideology of this elite group in the upper echelons of the GOP doesn't change by changing its members. The core of this failed ideology is that power should be concentrated in the hands of a few and they see themselves as that few… Their belief is that the people should sit down and shut up and they will run the nation…. Isn't that just ugly…. And isn't this a ugly thing to say…But/and this is the ideology of our Prez, the GOP's and the Dems….
We at The Oxford Tea Party believe that the home discussion groups are a good way, if not the best way, to help spread the knowledge needed to make informed decisions. Showing up on the streets is very important. That gets our ideas in front of people. Educating, we think, is most powerful. Ideas spread by informed people.
Sooner or later, and hopefully sooner, we in the Tea Party will find ways to spread our ideas faster because time is not on our side….. Move The House was one good lesson that has been learned… And the accomplishment of the goal was profound to all and the politicians in particular. Coming soon to our local theaters and TV screens is the most important election most of us have been confronted with. All of the nation's chips are on the table.
By next week in South Carolina the 'contest' (Is that not a hideous term for what is going on? Contest makes it seem like a game.) for the candidate for president could well be decided. Clearly the national GOP has picked Romney….. Ron Paul may show well if it is a small turnout. As clearly as the GOP are backing Romney they are clearly against Gingrich…. (Gingrich is a threat to the national GOP group. As president he would become the head of the Party. As such he could clean out that group and most probably would.) Santorum's liberal big government positions is his history and will do him in….With this many candidates on the ballots the vote will be spread thin…. All that can be said is the national media, the same group that cheered Romney's victory of 14 votes in Iowa, will hit the headlines once again should he show well or wins. (Margin be damned.)
There are many of Tea groups in South Carolina and they are active. Last election they were the difference in the elections. It seems that no one is sure how they will come down and support which candidate.
I personally have a terrible record in voting for presidents. John Kennedy when I was a young person, Ronald Regan with I grew up, and Bill Clinton by voting for the third party candidate Ross Perot. So, given my poor 'president picking' history I don't think anyone should pay any attention to who I think could and should be elected. I voted for Perot knowing that he could not be elected. I called that my voting on principle vote. If I paid attention to or even cared what the liberal media says about Gingrich being a bad candidate and a terrible person Newt will continue to get a check from us every few weeks. If he should become the presidential candidate and at some point later this year, even if I am sure he cannot win, I will still vote for him.
I am not going to offer up a campaign speech on Newt's behalf. We have all known him over twenty plus years of service. Clearly, for many, his mistakes and short comings have become more important than his accomplishments. The 1994 elections were as important as the 2012 elections. Newt transformed the House and reset the Washington agenda. Maybe it's my age but I just cannot see these leadership skills in Romney.
Enough pondering. It time to hit the send key.
There are 298 days, 23 hours, and 10 minutes till the voting starts. Not much time and so much to do...
Ron
docnick37@gmail.com
http://theoxfordteaparty.blogspot.com/
I have a video link below that I think is interesting from New Hampshire voting booths. What a great film for supporting voter's ID.
http://dailycaller.com/2012/01/11/video-nh-poll-workers-shown-handing-out-ballots-in-dead-peoples-names/
Monday, January 9, 2012
Ducks - This Time Its Different
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims is the most oppressive. C.S. Lewis
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. OK, that works just fine for ducks but what happens with politicians desperate to be reelected? First they wait to make sure they know which way the wind is blowing and then they pull out their campaign scripts and begin their Duck Act. Looking like, walking like, and quacking like a conservative - which is just what we want to see and hear. Then, through faults of their own, they slip up and we discover them to RINOs….Not ducks...(RINO stands for Republicans in Name Only…Just in case anyone missed it.)
There is an old adage that says, "Fool me once shame on you".."Fool me twice shame on me." Our conservatives want-to-bes can RINO us twice in one well structured campaign slogan….It doesn't seem to matter if they did the same thing to us yesterday, twice today, and three times tomorrow nor does it matter if we are talking liberal Democrats or so-called conservative Republicans. We the voters say at-a-boy, that’s just what we want to hear….
At some point we all must take responsibility for this remarkable mess. Not just conservatives, but independents, Dems, GOPers because we are all responsible. We didn't come to this point in time on the back of the watermelon wagon. We are the best educated, most productive, best informed generation in the history of America. What we have done with all that is we have is allowed five or six hundred of our elected representatives to systematically destroy the greatest country in the history of the world. I want to say, "Lord help us," but I'm not because he has helped already by giving us the ability to see, listen, think, evaluate, and act.
I don't want to labor this litany of failures and abuses but lets look at a few simple examples in recent government history concerning services that are important to all of the us:
A.. The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775. You have had 234 years to get it right and it is broke.
B.. Social Security was established in 1935. You have had 74 years to get it right and it is broke.
C.. Fannie Mae was established in 1938. You have had 71 years to get it right and it is broke.
D.. War on Poverty started in 1964. You have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor" and they only want more..
E.. Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. You have had 44 years to get it right and they are broke.
F.. Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You have had 39 years to get it right and it is broke.
G.. The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before. 32 years of failure.... (Paid for by guess who?)
Our government torments us with their sincerely exercised tyrannies assuring they are for our own good. Even though their well meaning schemes oppress us over and over, we send our approval - by reelecting them.
Our poorer group of citizens sees and accepts the political system as it has evolved and uses it effectively. We, in the Tea Party, on the other hand seem not to be as insightful. We rail against each new restriction, new regulation, each and every new tax…. We came together and in 2010 and won a battle… Our reward in this 2012 election cycle, for all our good work, is a slate of candidates who, with the exception of one or maybe two, are RINOs simply making quacking sounds.
Our national media along with the people who do political polling assure us that Romney is our best shot for beating Obama for president. This is being echoed by the national GOP so it must be so. These trustworthy groups are in the 'know' but should we be uneasy with their prophecy? Have they ever been wrong? Have they ever mislead us? Well, maybe in 2012 we will do our on vetting and look beyond the traditional political pundits, sound bites, insightful one minute ads, and dismiss all of their quacking.… Our ideals, beliefs, and principles for a president may need to be reconsidered. (Out of the 300 million of us we seem to have come up short.) So the best we can hope for is a candidate committed to conservative ideas, able to articulate to conservative voters, and experienced in the working of government. Those requirements narrow the field of candidates down to one and by throwing in lots of imagination maybe two.
When Romney ran against Kennedy in 94 for the senate, Kennedy would have won no matter what…However, Kennedy campaigned against him using Romney's history as a business man. Speaking of baggage, the national media hasn't used Romney's baggage buried in the details of his business life, what he did to make his money, and his time as governor as of yet. Note: Romney did not run for governor for a second term because he knew he couldn't win. Excuses were given but the bottom line was the people at that point knew who he was….
We said "NO" to him the last time he ran for president…. There were reasons we did and the same reasons exist today. Here he come again, nicely packaged, very deep campaign pockets, but still as shallow as a mud puddle. The national GOP thinks he has the 'right stuff' to get elected…Here we are, once again, not simply with Romney vs McCain but Romney and a whole gaggle of ducks and ducklets.
Fair is a childhood concept. Anyone who has raised two or more children know how they perceive 'fair'. For most, as we mature, the notion of fair becomes a distant construct. We know life is not fair. We accept that some people have more and some have less than others. Progressive socialism strives through wealth distribution to make life fair. The fact that it fails, over time, in every country that tries it, does not in anyway teach a lesson to people in different countries who haven't tried it. In Europe every citizen in every socialist nation is paying a price for wanting more from less. They have been jarred awake…Blood is beginning to seep into the streets there while our President is out selling the same agenda of spreading the wealth because he believes it’s the fair thing to do.….. Many listen and it sounds pretty darn good to them.
Margret Thatcher said, "Socialism works fine until you run out of other peoples money." If being in debt as a nation is a indication we have run out of money it is because we have run out of money and borrowing now from people in other countries.
We must start looking closely at our group of candidates. Everyone was more than willing to look at Gingrich and his history. We know Ron Paul's history…It is getting close to voting time and we need to take care and carefully look at Romney and maybe even Santorum (sp) although I don't really think so.
Romney I'm sure is a good man…. That said, we need to look at his 'accomplishments' by selecting a couple of examples which serves as a way to generalize his behavior in so many areas or his life as well as government. I realized I have chosen a 'hot' button but also something very important to conservatives in general and in particularly conservative women.
"One year after his pro-life conversion, in July of 2005, Mitt Romney vetoed legislation that would expand the use of the morning after pill arguing that it would contribute to abortions….However, just three months later Mitt Romney slid back and signed a bill that expanded state subsidized access to the morning after pill.
Two months after his pro-life conversion, Mitt Romney appointed Matthew Nestor to the bench in Massachusetts, Romney seemingly bowed to political pressure making Nestor a judge even after Nestor, according to the Boston Globe as far back as 1994, had campaigned for political office championing his pro-abortion views.
You would think Romney had been around the block a pretty long time only to finally come to the obvious realization about abortion in July of 2005… (If in fact he did have one of ah-ha moments.) He said he was pro-life in his quacking but not in his walking… Nestor is still on the bench and the state is still subsidizing the 'morning after pill.'
Life happens…Things in life change… Knowingly and sometimes unknowingly we instigate things and events that impact us. Sometimes for the good and sometimes not. No matter, the idea of freedom and the only real freedom we have lies in our choice in deciding how we respond to these experiences. We are not the upper and lower class, we are not the haves and have nots, we are not the smart and the dumb, we are not the conservatives and the liberals. So no matter how each of us identifies with certain group it, defines our personal selves and political selves. We are interlocked with all other citizens by sharing the same destiny. No matter how much effort our President puts into pitting one imagined group against another, we are we. We are the citizens and we are the nation and he is an elected employee…Here today and gone tomorrow.
We are living in a time of rapid change. Once change happens you can't undo the change. Once we knew the world was round instead of flat didn't mean that everyone accepted the reality. So much of the flack the Tea party gets has to do with not accepting new realities.
Driven by America's science and technology the world is getting somewhat flatter. National boundaries are getting blurred. (An example: There are two consistent readers on this Tea Blog who live in small separate towns in north west India. I have no idea why they come to this site. What could they be looking for and/or what do they get when they log on? Unless they have 'Goggled Oxford' I would bet they don't know where Oxford is and may know were Mississippi is. I would bet for each of them, they have some sense of a shared destiny. What happen here impacts them there and what happens there impacts us here. We are interlaced and interlocked.
These up coming elections will have an impact on the world. For 100 years and not always wisely America has been the world leader. We are not some parochial corner of the world in the hands of an out-of-control government. For now and for the next few years we must continue our burden as the world leader.
To be the most powerful nation in the world we must be the most powerful producer in the world. Military power did not put us at the worlds' center but our ability to produce. We educated our children and they built a production machine founded on growing science and technological changes … The world is healthier because of our patented medicines and our patented innovations in technology.
However something has happened that has gone unnoticed by most. We are slipping behind in these two important areas. I am laboring this 2012 campaign and the people because we must find leaders who can look past the next election and do the future planning that is needed to keep the country at the center of this productive world.
We are now 303 days, hours, and 40 minutes till the last round of voting.
Whatever we want to do of importance we must do with others. We are interlaced will all others like never imagined. The people in power need us divided. We must work together because we are connected together.
Dunne said: Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Let me end this by suggesting that you take a few minutes and click on the link below. Its enlightening, a little scary but offers some obvious answers.
http://wimp.com/countryscience/
Ron
docnick37@gmail.com
http://theoxfordteaparty.blogspot.com
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. OK, that works just fine for ducks but what happens with politicians desperate to be reelected? First they wait to make sure they know which way the wind is blowing and then they pull out their campaign scripts and begin their Duck Act. Looking like, walking like, and quacking like a conservative - which is just what we want to see and hear. Then, through faults of their own, they slip up and we discover them to RINOs….Not ducks...(RINO stands for Republicans in Name Only…Just in case anyone missed it.)
There is an old adage that says, "Fool me once shame on you".."Fool me twice shame on me." Our conservatives want-to-bes can RINO us twice in one well structured campaign slogan….It doesn't seem to matter if they did the same thing to us yesterday, twice today, and three times tomorrow nor does it matter if we are talking liberal Democrats or so-called conservative Republicans. We the voters say at-a-boy, that’s just what we want to hear….
At some point we all must take responsibility for this remarkable mess. Not just conservatives, but independents, Dems, GOPers because we are all responsible. We didn't come to this point in time on the back of the watermelon wagon. We are the best educated, most productive, best informed generation in the history of America. What we have done with all that is we have is allowed five or six hundred of our elected representatives to systematically destroy the greatest country in the history of the world. I want to say, "Lord help us," but I'm not because he has helped already by giving us the ability to see, listen, think, evaluate, and act.
I don't want to labor this litany of failures and abuses but lets look at a few simple examples in recent government history concerning services that are important to all of the us:
A.. The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775. You have had 234 years to get it right and it is broke.
B.. Social Security was established in 1935. You have had 74 years to get it right and it is broke.
C.. Fannie Mae was established in 1938. You have had 71 years to get it right and it is broke.
D.. War on Poverty started in 1964. You have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor" and they only want more..
E.. Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. You have had 44 years to get it right and they are broke.
F.. Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You have had 39 years to get it right and it is broke.
G.. The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before. 32 years of failure.... (Paid for by guess who?)
Our government torments us with their sincerely exercised tyrannies assuring they are for our own good. Even though their well meaning schemes oppress us over and over, we send our approval - by reelecting them.
Our poorer group of citizens sees and accepts the political system as it has evolved and uses it effectively. We, in the Tea Party, on the other hand seem not to be as insightful. We rail against each new restriction, new regulation, each and every new tax…. We came together and in 2010 and won a battle… Our reward in this 2012 election cycle, for all our good work, is a slate of candidates who, with the exception of one or maybe two, are RINOs simply making quacking sounds.
Our national media along with the people who do political polling assure us that Romney is our best shot for beating Obama for president. This is being echoed by the national GOP so it must be so. These trustworthy groups are in the 'know' but should we be uneasy with their prophecy? Have they ever been wrong? Have they ever mislead us? Well, maybe in 2012 we will do our on vetting and look beyond the traditional political pundits, sound bites, insightful one minute ads, and dismiss all of their quacking.… Our ideals, beliefs, and principles for a president may need to be reconsidered. (Out of the 300 million of us we seem to have come up short.) So the best we can hope for is a candidate committed to conservative ideas, able to articulate to conservative voters, and experienced in the working of government. Those requirements narrow the field of candidates down to one and by throwing in lots of imagination maybe two.
When Romney ran against Kennedy in 94 for the senate, Kennedy would have won no matter what…However, Kennedy campaigned against him using Romney's history as a business man. Speaking of baggage, the national media hasn't used Romney's baggage buried in the details of his business life, what he did to make his money, and his time as governor as of yet. Note: Romney did not run for governor for a second term because he knew he couldn't win. Excuses were given but the bottom line was the people at that point knew who he was….
We said "NO" to him the last time he ran for president…. There were reasons we did and the same reasons exist today. Here he come again, nicely packaged, very deep campaign pockets, but still as shallow as a mud puddle. The national GOP thinks he has the 'right stuff' to get elected…Here we are, once again, not simply with Romney vs McCain but Romney and a whole gaggle of ducks and ducklets.
Fair is a childhood concept. Anyone who has raised two or more children know how they perceive 'fair'. For most, as we mature, the notion of fair becomes a distant construct. We know life is not fair. We accept that some people have more and some have less than others. Progressive socialism strives through wealth distribution to make life fair. The fact that it fails, over time, in every country that tries it, does not in anyway teach a lesson to people in different countries who haven't tried it. In Europe every citizen in every socialist nation is paying a price for wanting more from less. They have been jarred awake…Blood is beginning to seep into the streets there while our President is out selling the same agenda of spreading the wealth because he believes it’s the fair thing to do.….. Many listen and it sounds pretty darn good to them.
Margret Thatcher said, "Socialism works fine until you run out of other peoples money." If being in debt as a nation is a indication we have run out of money it is because we have run out of money and borrowing now from people in other countries.
We must start looking closely at our group of candidates. Everyone was more than willing to look at Gingrich and his history. We know Ron Paul's history…It is getting close to voting time and we need to take care and carefully look at Romney and maybe even Santorum (sp) although I don't really think so.
Romney I'm sure is a good man…. That said, we need to look at his 'accomplishments' by selecting a couple of examples which serves as a way to generalize his behavior in so many areas or his life as well as government. I realized I have chosen a 'hot' button but also something very important to conservatives in general and in particularly conservative women.
"One year after his pro-life conversion, in July of 2005, Mitt Romney vetoed legislation that would expand the use of the morning after pill arguing that it would contribute to abortions….However, just three months later Mitt Romney slid back and signed a bill that expanded state subsidized access to the morning after pill.
Two months after his pro-life conversion, Mitt Romney appointed Matthew Nestor to the bench in Massachusetts, Romney seemingly bowed to political pressure making Nestor a judge even after Nestor, according to the Boston Globe as far back as 1994, had campaigned for political office championing his pro-abortion views.
You would think Romney had been around the block a pretty long time only to finally come to the obvious realization about abortion in July of 2005… (If in fact he did have one of ah-ha moments.) He said he was pro-life in his quacking but not in his walking… Nestor is still on the bench and the state is still subsidizing the 'morning after pill.'
Life happens…Things in life change… Knowingly and sometimes unknowingly we instigate things and events that impact us. Sometimes for the good and sometimes not. No matter, the idea of freedom and the only real freedom we have lies in our choice in deciding how we respond to these experiences. We are not the upper and lower class, we are not the haves and have nots, we are not the smart and the dumb, we are not the conservatives and the liberals. So no matter how each of us identifies with certain group it, defines our personal selves and political selves. We are interlocked with all other citizens by sharing the same destiny. No matter how much effort our President puts into pitting one imagined group against another, we are we. We are the citizens and we are the nation and he is an elected employee…Here today and gone tomorrow.
We are living in a time of rapid change. Once change happens you can't undo the change. Once we knew the world was round instead of flat didn't mean that everyone accepted the reality. So much of the flack the Tea party gets has to do with not accepting new realities.
Driven by America's science and technology the world is getting somewhat flatter. National boundaries are getting blurred. (An example: There are two consistent readers on this Tea Blog who live in small separate towns in north west India. I have no idea why they come to this site. What could they be looking for and/or what do they get when they log on? Unless they have 'Goggled Oxford' I would bet they don't know where Oxford is and may know were Mississippi is. I would bet for each of them, they have some sense of a shared destiny. What happen here impacts them there and what happens there impacts us here. We are interlaced and interlocked.
These up coming elections will have an impact on the world. For 100 years and not always wisely America has been the world leader. We are not some parochial corner of the world in the hands of an out-of-control government. For now and for the next few years we must continue our burden as the world leader.
To be the most powerful nation in the world we must be the most powerful producer in the world. Military power did not put us at the worlds' center but our ability to produce. We educated our children and they built a production machine founded on growing science and technological changes … The world is healthier because of our patented medicines and our patented innovations in technology.
However something has happened that has gone unnoticed by most. We are slipping behind in these two important areas. I am laboring this 2012 campaign and the people because we must find leaders who can look past the next election and do the future planning that is needed to keep the country at the center of this productive world.
We are now 303 days, hours, and 40 minutes till the last round of voting.
Whatever we want to do of importance we must do with others. We are interlaced will all others like never imagined. The people in power need us divided. We must work together because we are connected together.
Dunne said: Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Let me end this by suggesting that you take a few minutes and click on the link below. Its enlightening, a little scary but offers some obvious answers.
http://wimp.com/countryscience/
Ron
docnick37@gmail.com
http://theoxfordteaparty.blogspot.com
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
DABROGOTTAGO
Sometimes when all the news 'sound bites' start bouncing around in my head along with the insightful liberal media articles assuring more debt is good and that the conservative Tea Party and its dumb redneck members are destroying America I take a time out…. I simply sit at my computer watch the ducks on the pond or watch the squirrels burying acorns at a hurried pace. Sometimes I read or I listen to music. This morning it was music, a Woody Guthrie's album singing about the dust bowl disaster of the thirties.
I realized once again how easy it is to forget. As a percentage of the population at that time, the dust bowl was a greater natural disaster in terms of human and financial loss than Katrina or any other disaster and lasted for years.
I did a quick Google search and it seems this disaster isn't mentioned in any of our American history books used in public schools today. (The Google search could be wrong. I hope so.) I can't believe some history teacher somewhere wouldn't just slip in something about that part of our history. Who knows maybe it wasn't taught when these teachers were in school either.
The nation was in the throws of the Great Depression so most everyone to some degree was hurting. In retrospect it's difficult to know how much attention these thousands of displaced families were given. Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck follows one family's flight to California….My mother's grandfather, whose farm was outside of Muskogee, was blown away. He, his wife, and the eldest son didn't leave until the wells dried up. In today's world, how many have an inkling of what it means to a family when their well dries up?
During the thirties the banks in Mississippi foreclosed on twenty five percent of the family farms. This number may not be right on target. Foreclosures may have been some more or some less in the twenties and thirties.
During these two decades the nation was in the final throws of transition from an agricultural society to a industrial society. In the earlier part of the century over eighty percent plus made their living farming and we ended the century with less than two percent farming.
The only purpose of recanting this history is to say the American spirit has been tested and retested. Our forefather, and our nation'sw founders put down human roots in this land. Floods and tornados leveled towns, people died, trees and crops died, but the human roots were deeply buried and did not die…. and never will.
Many know and value the stock we sprang from.
In his book, From Audacity of Hope, President Obama said: "I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction." The liberal press must be right because this dumb redneck can't quite get the idea that a man, in our country, can say such a thing and still be elected president. Not only that but he could possibly be reelected. Just one more example of how out of touch I am in today's world.
Tipping times are time, of significant transition. Few realize the tipping is taking place or even that something really significant is happening. 1955 was such a tipping point and no one seemed to have a clue as to its significant when white collar workers out numbered blue collar workers for the first time. During the first Clinton campaign NAFTA was a campaign issue and finally got passed. During that campaign Ross Piero warned of the great 'sucking sound' of jobs disappearing to other countries. NAFTA was another tipping point. It took time but all of the lower skilled jobs that our less educated did simply disappeared never to be seen again. The world's greatest manufacturing nation became a non-manufacturing nation, the nation the world had relied on and was beholden to. Now a nation that is beholden to great degree on others. Everyday we shop and read labels. The reality of this change stares back at us, not understanding the full meaning of "made in some country other than here."
2007 was a tip point. This tipping point went unnoticed and it meaning is even more abstract. Simply put, more people live in cities and urban areas than in the small towns and farming communities. As cities become more expensive as well as the surrounding urban areas the poor and poorly educated are pushed out and go back to the small towns and rural communities. Communities without jobs, where the only support are social programs. And the poverty spiral bleeds into the next generation and the next.
Why am I rambling about these emerging super cities and great sprawling urban areas? Because we have elections happening. We need to elect people who can think past the next election cycle. Most of the major problems are systemic and are growing. In a few years we will look back and be amazed that we only had a few trillion of debt back in 2012.
The new leaders must have a clear vision of what is needed and the fortitude to take the steps to fix tomorrow's problems today. We are here because the good-old-boys we have reelected over and over could never set aside their personal goals. In the process of selling their votes congressional for votes the nation has suffered in incalculable damage not simply measured in dollars.
The GOP candidate seems to be Romney. That is where the money and effort is being funneled. Soon we will begin to see if the voters believe he has the backbone and skills to be president at this time in our history. Its time for Ron Paul to go back to Texas. He has served the country well and long enough. Perry may be tough enough but do we think he has the skills and experience to be president in the turning troubling times? The others are want-to-bes without any real credentials. That leaves us with just one candidate who has the skills, credentials, long vetted, short and long vision, and the courage to act. Along with, what many believe, is electability.
Today the vetting by the public begins in Iowa. Within six to eight weeks we will see which candidate voters believe can lead the nation and beat Obama in November elections. What is most needed is personal soul searching. This is, in my mind, the most important election in my life time. The future is what is at issue not what this or that candidate did or did not do in yesteryear.
After these first few primaries watch which conservative candidate the liberal media pushes and which one they ignore or attack. The one who gets attacked is the one they do not want to run against Obama. (Let me quote Barney Frank again: He said, "Romney would be the best thing that has happened for the Democrats since Barry Goldwater.") Barney said a lot in this statement and Romney is the Dems candidate of choice. Just a note: Polling companies are liberal in their heart or hearts. LA Times, NY Times, Washington Post polls always get different results than most other pollsters. Their results plays well with their liberal readers.
Mr. President, it is now 308 days, I hour, and 21 minutes till the 2012 voting begins. In 2010 we came for the good-old-boys….This time we are coming for you.
Ron
docnick37@gmail.com
http://theoxfordteaparty.blogspot.com/
I realized once again how easy it is to forget. As a percentage of the population at that time, the dust bowl was a greater natural disaster in terms of human and financial loss than Katrina or any other disaster and lasted for years.
I did a quick Google search and it seems this disaster isn't mentioned in any of our American history books used in public schools today. (The Google search could be wrong. I hope so.) I can't believe some history teacher somewhere wouldn't just slip in something about that part of our history. Who knows maybe it wasn't taught when these teachers were in school either.
The nation was in the throws of the Great Depression so most everyone to some degree was hurting. In retrospect it's difficult to know how much attention these thousands of displaced families were given. Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck follows one family's flight to California….My mother's grandfather, whose farm was outside of Muskogee, was blown away. He, his wife, and the eldest son didn't leave until the wells dried up. In today's world, how many have an inkling of what it means to a family when their well dries up?
During the thirties the banks in Mississippi foreclosed on twenty five percent of the family farms. This number may not be right on target. Foreclosures may have been some more or some less in the twenties and thirties.
During these two decades the nation was in the final throws of transition from an agricultural society to a industrial society. In the earlier part of the century over eighty percent plus made their living farming and we ended the century with less than two percent farming.
The only purpose of recanting this history is to say the American spirit has been tested and retested. Our forefather, and our nation'sw founders put down human roots in this land. Floods and tornados leveled towns, people died, trees and crops died, but the human roots were deeply buried and did not die…. and never will.
Many know and value the stock we sprang from.
In his book, From Audacity of Hope, President Obama said: "I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction." The liberal press must be right because this dumb redneck can't quite get the idea that a man, in our country, can say such a thing and still be elected president. Not only that but he could possibly be reelected. Just one more example of how out of touch I am in today's world.
Tipping times are time, of significant transition. Few realize the tipping is taking place or even that something really significant is happening. 1955 was such a tipping point and no one seemed to have a clue as to its significant when white collar workers out numbered blue collar workers for the first time. During the first Clinton campaign NAFTA was a campaign issue and finally got passed. During that campaign Ross Piero warned of the great 'sucking sound' of jobs disappearing to other countries. NAFTA was another tipping point. It took time but all of the lower skilled jobs that our less educated did simply disappeared never to be seen again. The world's greatest manufacturing nation became a non-manufacturing nation, the nation the world had relied on and was beholden to. Now a nation that is beholden to great degree on others. Everyday we shop and read labels. The reality of this change stares back at us, not understanding the full meaning of "made in some country other than here."
2007 was a tip point. This tipping point went unnoticed and it meaning is even more abstract. Simply put, more people live in cities and urban areas than in the small towns and farming communities. As cities become more expensive as well as the surrounding urban areas the poor and poorly educated are pushed out and go back to the small towns and rural communities. Communities without jobs, where the only support are social programs. And the poverty spiral bleeds into the next generation and the next.
Why am I rambling about these emerging super cities and great sprawling urban areas? Because we have elections happening. We need to elect people who can think past the next election cycle. Most of the major problems are systemic and are growing. In a few years we will look back and be amazed that we only had a few trillion of debt back in 2012.
The new leaders must have a clear vision of what is needed and the fortitude to take the steps to fix tomorrow's problems today. We are here because the good-old-boys we have reelected over and over could never set aside their personal goals. In the process of selling their votes congressional for votes the nation has suffered in incalculable damage not simply measured in dollars.
The GOP candidate seems to be Romney. That is where the money and effort is being funneled. Soon we will begin to see if the voters believe he has the backbone and skills to be president at this time in our history. Its time for Ron Paul to go back to Texas. He has served the country well and long enough. Perry may be tough enough but do we think he has the skills and experience to be president in the turning troubling times? The others are want-to-bes without any real credentials. That leaves us with just one candidate who has the skills, credentials, long vetted, short and long vision, and the courage to act. Along with, what many believe, is electability.
Today the vetting by the public begins in Iowa. Within six to eight weeks we will see which candidate voters believe can lead the nation and beat Obama in November elections. What is most needed is personal soul searching. This is, in my mind, the most important election in my life time. The future is what is at issue not what this or that candidate did or did not do in yesteryear.
After these first few primaries watch which conservative candidate the liberal media pushes and which one they ignore or attack. The one who gets attacked is the one they do not want to run against Obama. (Let me quote Barney Frank again: He said, "Romney would be the best thing that has happened for the Democrats since Barry Goldwater.") Barney said a lot in this statement and Romney is the Dems candidate of choice. Just a note: Polling companies are liberal in their heart or hearts. LA Times, NY Times, Washington Post polls always get different results than most other pollsters. Their results plays well with their liberal readers.
Mr. President, it is now 308 days, I hour, and 21 minutes till the 2012 voting begins. In 2010 we came for the good-old-boys….This time we are coming for you.
Ron
docnick37@gmail.com
http://theoxfordteaparty.blogspot.com/
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