Two Worlds

Since no one has asked I just decided to ask myself, "How are things?" My answer to myself was, "Not as good as they might  be…."

Just check the  current political polling. Obama is ahead of Romney a few percentage points. OK, that’s not such a surprise….. When the polls came to approving or disapproving on how President Obama in managing the economy, as many people thought Obama was handling the economy well as thought he was not. (hmmmm)

 It has occurred to me for sometime that we are living in two worlds… Two realities… Two cultures… With one group not having a clue what the other group is thinking…. BUT if you drive around the country ever city looks a lot like the last city.  The people more or less talk, dress, and act the same or similar. However, there is something very different just out of reach of the eye's view.

Values, beliefs, and ideals are not visible things. They aren't tangible things but they are drivers in societies. These drivers direct our thinking and behavior which create our culture… That culture defines and binds us as a group, so we say Oh we are Americans, Oh they are French, etc. Americans can show up in most countries in the world and no one there has any problem knowing we are Americans. For a whole bunch of reasons many countries and people simply don't like us and many absolutely hate us… This as been so for a very long time. What has not been so is  for citizens of this country to dislike or really hate other citizens. How in the world did this come about?

Not that everyone was close friends. I know lots of Dems and I don't dislike them. I just think they are naïve and very poor at math. However, what is becoming clearer is that many Dems and the political class are completely un - accepting of conservative people and conservative ideas. If you smoke they are outright hostile. The American house is divided. Divided houses fall.

 Changes in societies never happen overnight. Back in the sixties we came to a fork in the road and we chose one turn over the other. At this point it doesn't matter what the rationale was  but there were good intentions behind the choice. Of course there were many elderly statesman who warned against the choice and where the choice would take us. Few listened…. Because we were going to build the Great Society…. Really sounded good and an idea that we could rally around and we did.

I don't want to labor the various social programs that rolled out of that congress and the following congresses along with the new federal departments implementing these programs.

As social programs were added and the older social programs expanded, we still couldn't see where this was leading. Early in the seventies we had the first housing collapse that most could remember. The debt that had been expanding associated with the great leap forward showed its ugly head and most savings and loan banks along with other banks failed. House prices fell and many lost their homes and jobs. Unemployment was very high. We were years working these financial problems out but before it was over thirty year US Treasury bonds were being sold with a nineteen percent interest rate. No one really wanted to invest in America because it was too far in debt….I still have some of them. 

When these kinds of horrific events happen everyone who had a hand in creating the problem starts pointing their fingers. Always for politicians bank and businesses are the bad guys.

This seventies mess stretched into the eighties. Did we learn anything from this bit of financial catastrophic history? You bet we didn't… The economy recovered and we set about doing the same thing over again and  here we are.

Of course the brunt of these kinds of governmental mistakes always hit the poorer people and the middle class the worse. They begin to feel victimized. They were the ones who were suppose to be helped by these government programs/fixes but they got hurt. This time this hurt will last longer the last one.

President Obama is the story of America and the American dream. Growing up in less that average family conditions, having to figure out what ethnic group would best accept him, figuring out how the various systems that confronted him worked, making the most of his talents, going to any lengths to educate himself, working hard to achieve each goal he set for himself, and becoming president in spite of his color. WOW!!!

Bill Clinton was the new professional class of politician.  His life in politics will be written about and studied by young politician for years to come.  Obama is also part of this new generation of politician but there is a huge difference between Clinton and himself. Obama is a revolutionary who believes American government should be a used as a tool to make social changes. His believes in government governing the people not a government of the people and by the people.

 This president is the first president since Reagan with strong personal beliefs. The ways he expresses his goals is in the frame of 'fair, equal playing field, spreading the wealth around' with government doing the directing and the political class calling all the shots.  He believes government knows better how to manage our economy and people's lives then the people whose government it is and their lives as people. This basic idea has been around a long time and tried in many different countries and cultures. Europe is reeling because they embraced this idea of a government managed economy. Russia completely collapsed. China is trying to move toward a less centralized directive government and towards a freer market economy. 

Clearly there is a huge growing group of citizens who can't, for a multitude of reasons, manage their lives and can't take care of themselves. Just why is not fully understood but many believe it is the government's social programs over the last three generations that has caused these massive problems. (We will leave history to sort this issue out.)

The other candidate for president doesn't seem to have a mission at the moment other than doing a clock count down till voting day. I suppose hoping he will not seem as bad as the other candidate to the voters. There maybe some fire in the belly of this man but it is well hidden from me. (I suspect others also.) Everyone who feels he has a program for fixing America's ills raise your hand. The history is that candidates who are middle or the roaders, who are not passionate about America, that can't identify core problems and articulate simple goals for our future don't get elected. This simple fact keep alluding the national GOP. 

So back to the question, "How are things?" Damn if I know but I have a bad feeling about it all. It reminds me of the time the peanut farmer was our leader. His song was the same as Obama's but he lacked political slickness so he got ejected after one term in office. The other big problem Carter faced was a man by the name of Ronald Reagan…. He is not with us and Romney is not a substitute.  Another big difference between that election and this election is the growth of the group dependent on government programs and the minority voting block. These group can easily account for fifty million votes.

These groups, over time, began to develop beliefs, values, and ideas that have created a separate culture for thems in America. The chasm is now so great even Chinese companies couldn't build a bridge across it.  At the core of this separate culture lies a belief that each working American owes them a livelihood. We are now in our third generation of this growing and evolving group. Most politicians understand this voting block and pander to them. When you hear that Obama was a 'community organizer' this was the group he was organizing. The purpose of organizing this group was to create a larger and ever larger voting block to better make demands on the political class. This is Obama's home turf and he is really good at it. All the while this group was growing in numbers and demands no alarm bells went off. No sirens sounded and the culture schism was as devastating as a tornado and rolled across the country tearing apart the belief in One Nation - One people - Under God…..

This coming election is being talked about as the most important election in our lifetime maybe, in the country's lifetime. This election will be a tipping point election…. Our focus is 1) Elect a different president, 2) If this is not possible then we must make sure we have enough newly elected senators to offset the abuse of power by this current president.

Most of the senate races are close and it will be money that will make the difference. Twenty five dollars a month for the next four months is a small investment but the impact will be huge. Just voting will not get this job done in this election.

 "You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done." (Who said this?)

Ron

docnick37@gmail.com

Http://theoxfordteaparty.blogspot.com

Endangered Species

 Our President, our liberal congressional leaders, the people in the liberal press corp have never lived in Europe. They have no idea under what conditions the people in Europe live, how they are taxed, how they get health services, nor how effective their educational system is….. Neither the liberal nor conservative electorate has any experiential knowledge… So as our government moves this country slowly but surely towards Europe’s socialist forms of democracies we need to have a better idea of what awaits us at the end of the Obama version of “Changing America.”

Below is an article from Jan Gindrup.  This is must read article because of the richness of the details and the depth of Jan’s experience working for the Danish government.  Mr. Gindrup received his bachelor's degree and served his country well spending the next 21 years as a police officer in Denmark. After retiring from the police force, Jan served as a security consultant to a large Danish energy company…

It’s a long article full of things we need to know about socialist democracies. Jan is reporting on Denmark but could be reporting the same on all of the countries in the European Union.  (In some ways he is reporting about us.)

 

The Grass Is Always Greener on the Other Side

By Jan Gindrup

Have you ever thought of life being better somewhere else?

It is often said that the grass is greener on the other side. Could it be that sometimes one's own grass just has grown so high that one can't judge the conditions over there?

  

On the other hand, most people, especially Americans, know that Denmark is home to the happiest people in the world and that it is a wonderful fairytale country with peace and the best social welfare system ever. The movie Hans Christian Andersen with Danny Kaye probably reinforced that impression. Never mind that no one knows where Denmark is.

Well, here's a chance to hear from the happiest people on earth and their wonderful little country.

  

How Do You Keep People Happy?

How do you keep a population happy? You do it the same way that you keep a dog happy. You provide basic necessities, education, a justice system and entertainment to keep people from spending too much time thinking, in order to keep them from looking outside the fence for new masters. In time, people will start telling each other that they are happy.

What we can readily do without shame is happily brag about being the most taxed and perhaps also most regulated country in the world.

It has jokingly been said that North Korea and Cuba envy Denmark for being the only place where socialism has been successfully implanted without anybody noticing.

We became accustomed to a plethora of state benefits ranging from Medicare to art. Social welfare has been a boon for a large segment of the population. In fact, a few years ago it was normal that after ten years on welfare, people were automatically transferred to a permanent disabled pension at a young age. We have experienced massive immigration by people from the Middle East during the last thirty years, something that has dramatically changed the fabric of our society.

There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

Yes, it true: all Danes enjoy six weeks of paid vacation and, for the time being, paid retirement pension. But these benefits are slowly vanishing.

To finance this overwhelming and still growing public sector, the Danish government keeps inventing new taxes with more and more creative names, like "amenity value tax." The creative Danish tax system - or "how to tax the same service more than once without people noticing" - is big business. It all started with Medicare.

We have roughly 5.5 million inhabitants, including citizens and noncitizen residents. The Danish workforce consists of 3 million people, of which 1 million are public employees. That means that 2 million people in the private sector support 3.5 million other people with their taxes, plus their own use of the public sector.

One example of how the state gets money is by raising taxes on real estate lots. I own an empty half-acre lot in the middle of nowhere, for which I used to pay $180 a year in "dirt tax" (tax for owning the land). I then had the lot subdivided into three lots, each about one-sixth of an acre - still empty land, no rights, utilities nor other improvements. For this, I am now paying $1,250 per lot, or $3,750 per year. This amounts to a tax hike of approximately 2,100 %! When I complained, I received a letter informing me that I could expect an answer in eighteen months. I am still waiting.

The state decides every year what your house and lot is worth. It's usually not far from the market value. First we pay "lot-due tax." In our case, it runs around $7,000 a year. On top of that, we pay something called "rental-value tax of your own property." The state thinks that as a homeowner, you are better off than a person who rents his home. Therefore, it decided that homeowners should pay rent to the state for living in their own home. This also goes if you own a home outside of Denmark.

Contrary to common belief worldwide, our hospitals are not impressive. A few years ago, I cut an artery in one arm and, knowing that the ambulance doesn't always come when called, I rushed in myself. It's not unusual to get an answering machine, to be asked to call another number or to wait for a very long time for the ambulance.

At the hospital, I was met by Dr. Muhammad, the doctor in charge of the emergency room. His Danish was so bad that no one understood him, nor did he understand us. After pulling my artery for 20 minutes with forceps (yes, it hurts, in case you are wondering) and not listening to me or the nurses' requests for anesthesia, he decided to call a Danish doctor. The Danish doctor's first question upon arrival was why I wasn't sedated. He was also curious as why Dr. Muhammad hadn't seen fit to wear gloves. After "treating" me, Dr. Muhammad spent 20 minutes trying to reset a young carpenter's dislocated shoulder. While he was unable to reset the shoulder, he was successful in getting the poor man to cry like a baby. After that fiasco, he left the room burping loudly.

As we left, an old, senile man was walking around confused in the hallway, wearing nothing more than underwear and wetting himself. My wife told this to seven nurses in the intake office, only to be asked if she couldn't take care of the old man!

Next day, I called the hospital to report my experience with its emergency room. I was informed the hospital had already placed Dr. Muhammad on probation. Nevertheless, he was left in charge of a large emergency room.

(Well, we have all been wondering where our new health care system will find all the new doctors it will need…. We will get them from the same places Denmark got theirs –India – Mideast -------?)

Couples in old-age homes risk separation to different retirement homes after 50 years of marriage. It is considered normal to offer old people a bath every seven to ten days, and it is right now being discussed to take away their daily lemonade from them.

  

We never see our paycheck, as it goes through a public account called "Easy-ID." This means that anything you owe the public is automatically withheld from your account before you get it.

If you pull out more than $1,780 from your own bank account, the teller may ask you why, and if not satisfied, the bank clerk will report you to the Danish IRS; the same goes for any "suspicious" activities in your account. Should you get the stupid notion of opening a bank account outside Denmark, don't use a credit card. If a person residing in Denmark takes out money from a foreign account, it is reported to the IRS.

  

So while we may not have obvious corruption in the traditional sense in Denmark, job perks and benefits from "good old boy" network access are the standard.

Steaks cost up to US$70 per kilo, a bottle of liquor runs over $26, plus there's a 25% VAT on everything. There is a 180% tax on cars, which of course also is reflected in equally expensive insurance rates. We have a graduated registration tax scheme on cars. Normal vehicles have white plates and are subject to a 180% sales tax; yellow plates are two-seated, company-cargo cars, where the backseats are permanently removed and which are in turn subject to less tax; and yellow/white for cargo cars with VAT paid and thus allowed to be used privately. If you drive a white-plated company car, you are heavily taxed if using it privately. This does not apply for cars driven by chauffeurs, as they are tax-free. All ministers have chauffeurs.

Almost all transactions in Denmark have numerous hidden taxes. To give an example, let me try to analyze an electricity bill for you. We pay around $0.35 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), which is about $1,400 a year for a normal home. The basic price is roughly $0.078 per kWh, but after adding energy tax, appendix tax, distribution tax, energy saving (CO2) tax, public duties, transport of electricity, actual consumption and subscription, and 25% VAT, we end up with $0.35!

Gasoline is now at US$9.60 per gallon and still rising. By far the largest part of that price is tax.

And it's like that with almost everything in Denmark.

A Toyota Hilux pickup, which is similar to a Tacoma but has only four cylinders, is a two-seated car on yellow plates. You have the option not to pay VAT, but then you can't drive it privately. If you do and get caught, you have to pay full (white-plate) registration and a fine of the same amount. This Hilux, incidentally, costs $1,600 a year in road taxes.

A guy just got caught in a Ferrari on temporary plates. He was charged for private driving and got a combined ticket and registration tax for $1,070,000 PLUS six months in jail. It's considered tax evasion, and tax evasion is punished more severely here than violence. In normal law, the police have to prove you guilty. With the IRS, you have to prove your innocence. The IRS can conduct a search on your private property without a warrant.

A recent legislative proposal is that the buyer of a service from a craftsman can be held responsible if the craftsman fails to pay tax. That means that the buyer has to make sure that the service provider pays the tax!

For the sake of illustration, the latest survey of estimated prices for craftsmen in Denmark shows that companies charge the following hourly rates:

Plumbers	$125
Electricians	$107
Carpenters and bricklayers	$90
Floor Sander	$63

To compare, a policeman or nurse makes roughly $33 an hour - before taxes.

It will be illegal to pay a craftsman in cash on transactions exceeding US$1,780. Transactions exceeding that have to be done through bank transfer, so the Revenue Ministry can track in detail what you do with your money.

You are not allowed to carry more than $13,600 on you (included valuables) anywhere in Europe, unless you have declared them to the authorities.

By now you get the picture of what it takes to run a "paradise."

But don't worry if you feel like your country is heading the same way, your personal freedom slipping away, your rights disappearing and your money being taken. You hardly notice it, and slowly, day by day, you will become accustomed to it.

Jan Gindrup

My response in reading this article in Casey new letter was to say this craziness could never happen here. After a few cups of coffee while staring out the window I realized everything the government needs to make this next leap into the European way of government and life is already in place. Just look at all the add-ons on your phone bill, the social programs that are up and running, and Obamacare just around the corner. (Note: There is a link at the end of the article to an interesting tidbit on Medicare Advantage for ones who are on it or whose parents are on it.)

Government controls the money supply, they have control over businesses through regulations, and they take the money we earn. And they now have control over health services, and multimillions of people on social programs dependent on them for their day to day living.

What else do the liberals need to finally bring America to the European level of government control? 1) They need to reelect Obama for another four years; 2) they need to keep control of the Senate for another four years. Given the current poll numbers they maybe well on their way.

It is my belief that it is only the Tea Party that stands between the American way of life and the European way of life. A government for and by the people or a people for and by the government is our choice. No matter how we read our last fifty year history we have been moving in this socialist direction towards the latter.

Maybe soon someone will jokingly say, “America is another country where socialism has been successfully implanted without anybody noticing.”

How did we get here? Is there some innate need in humans to be taken care of? Does our present population want to govern themselves through elected representatives?  Tea party folks seem to want to but do we reflect the population as a whole?

We are at a crossroad. A wrong turn here/now will take us to Europe and like Europe once there we cannot get back. For sure, after one generation our grandchildren will have forgotten the American way of life and what that life uniquely offered.

We need a new president and eight more conservative senators. How can we get them? The conservative candidates will need lots of money and lots of our time. I just sent Josh Mandel (in Ohio) some money and he needs lots more because he is well behind in the polls.  Crews need money and our support. That is just two and there are more candidates that will need our help.

Mississippi Tea Party just sent out a list of six candidates running for the senate and most on the list is doing well in the polls.

Florida US Senate Election 2012 – Must Win
Incumbent: Bill Nelson – Democrat
Challenger: Connie Mack IV, U.S. Representative – Republican

North Dakota US Senate Election 2012 – Must Win
Democratic candidate: Heidi Heitkamp
Republican candidate: Rick Berg, U.S. Representative

Virginia US Senate Election 2012 – Must Win
Democratic candidate: Tim Kaine
Republican candidate: George Allen – Former Senator

Massachusetts US Senate Election 2012 – Must Hold
Incumbent: Scott Brown – Republican
Challenger: Elizabeth Warren – Democrat

Montana US Senate Election 2012 – Must Win
Incumbent: Jon Tester Democrat
Challenger: Denny Rehberg, U.S. representative – Republican, former lieutenant governor, and former state representative

Nevada US Senate Election 2012 – Must Hold
Incumbent: Dean Heller – Republican
Challenger: Shelley Berkley, U.S. Representative – Democrat

Wisconsin US Senate Election 2012 – Must Win
Democratic candidate: Tammy Baldwin
Republican candidate: Tommy Thompson – former governor, and former Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Missouri US Senate Election 2012 – Must Win
Incumbent: Claire McCaskill – Democrat

The GOP primary will take place on August 7th. There are three Republicans vying to challenge McCaskill. Running are former state treasurer and state senator, Sarah Steelman, U.S. Representative Todd Akin, and businessman John Brunner. 

Gindrup's article is a warning hopefully to our citizens…

My mind wants to believe that socialism could never happen in America… Growing up when I did has left me with a naïve belief about government and the elite political class that has been running the country.

We are in danger and the conservative American is an endangered species.  

126 days, 0 hours, and 11 minutes till the November voting begins.

Ron

docnick37@gmail.com

Http://theoxfordteaparty.blogspot.com

http://my.brainshark.com/The-President-s-8-Billion-Coincidence-356086344

Social Capital

Sunday we went to one of the youngest cousin's fiftieth wedding anniversary. (This is a clue as to the average age of the fifteen remaining first cousins.) At the gathering were a bunch of the older group with their spouses who had celebrated their fiftieth anniversaries during the past decade or so… In attendance were the adult children in the extended family,  grand children and a handful of great grandchildren.  Everyone one cleaned up real well, visited, ate of lot of cake and drank un-sweet tea…. The talk, whenever this group gets together, often has to do with growing up in Mississippi during the depression years and family activities when we were children.

Back then, most of Mississippi was made up of farm families such as ours. Many subscribers to this blog have similar family histories. Our family wasn't unique. What is unique was there wasn't a sense of being poor…. More or less every family had the same, which was little or nothing. You would be hard pressed to call what was going on in Mississippi at that time an economy...If crops were good you had a little more. If crops failed you had less…. Clothes were mostly hand-me-downs. There were no government backstops. However, there was something that held it all together.

 There were social values. There was a set of beliefs that was common to all. These values and beliefs were the social capitol. We had very poor people, some with a little more and a few who had a lot compared to the very poor. All were bound together by some inner strength. This strength was the social net. This 'net' contributed, helped out, shared and this compassionate legacy was America and Americans. Wherever we have gotten to, this legacy is what got us here. The ones in the family who have had fiftieth anniversaries are old enough to recall that Mississippi and that America. One book per class in a one room school,  the orange at Christmas, and sometimes a silver dollar on a birthday, along with prayers for rain in the summers.

That period of our history and all the poorness that went with it is gone and good riddance. What are not gone are the poor people. 

Government, businesses, and people have worked hard over the last half of the last century replacing the old social capitol with financial capitol. This was a trade off few realized was happening and was spread over a couple of generations so there weren't any big jolts…. By the early sixties there were enough divorces that some began to notice and worry that the core of the nation, the family, was spinning apart. By the late sixties as President Johnson created a national mission, the war on poverty, could we begin to see the transition to the new social capitol and the impact on the old social capital. Once done the flood gates opened for government to step into the role of the good neighbor and it has never looked back. Within one generation the grandchildren accepted and expected government to take care of all social problems and many demanded that even become more proactive.

Looking back, governments, throughout history, have been the ones who decide and create economies and defines how they will work and what the rules within the economy will be. There is an illusion that has been fostered over the last century that capital markets and economies have been created by individuals exchanging goods and services, i.e. the free market….The money that was used in the market place was created and denominated by government. Government encouraged business to produce certain things the society and government needed, inhibited foreign competition, and the unemployed were paid to do work at different levels of government such as build roads, plant trees, etc.  

When government does its job well we often don't know/don't see it has a hand in what is going on. When it becomes lax and leaders become self absorbed the system starts to unwind and becomes unstable. It is only then that we see government’s hand in the pot, such as in this moment in time with this president and this congress behaving like despots.

We find ourselves at this tipping point again in America. This is not our first tipping point and will not be our last. This representative democracy called the United States of America is in its midlife crisis. About two hundred years is as long as similar experiments have lasted and each historical failure can be traced to the door step of the people in those nations through their lack of involvement, lack of interest, lack of knowledge, and lack of responsibility. That has been the cause of the government breakdown with all who have tried and this was always followed by an economic breakdown. As President Truman said , "The buck stop here" meaning his desk…. The reality is, the buck starts and stops on our dinner tables."

We forgot to guard our elected guardians. The Tea Party is now in the process of reminding the guardians who they work for and how they are expected to serve and serve only at our behest. Not an easy job but we are up to it. We dropped our forefathers' baton but it has been picked up and the race is a long way from being over. In 2010 we wrote lots of congressional pink slips….Hopefully we will write even more pink slips this November. (The Dems will remember 2010 as one of their good years.) With the defeat of our current president the whole mishmash of self-interest fringe groups under the banner of American liberal Democrats will spin apart along with the elected who pander to them.

If we can't get them all out in 2012, well 2014 is just around the corner. The political class will have to deal with us every two years and ever two years we will replace a few more of these good old boys. They are politicians who come and go but we are the citizens. We are America. This is a last man stand sort of thing. 

Clearly America is not Greece, Italy, France, or Span. We are not going to let our politicians sink this representative democracy even though our behavior over the past two plus decades has led them to think so. We are the sleeping Tiger Japan feared and any politician who forgets American history, written by its citizens not politicians, does so at their peril.

Our political class has forgotten… Each incumbent is holding on to his/her power by a thread of empty promises and self delusions. Suddenly many elected Democrats are announcing that they will not attend the Democratic Nation Convention. This speaks volumes. As Regan so apply put it, "They can run but they can't hide."

This war or what feels like a war on our freedoms, beliefs, and values started long before Obama became president. However, many in congress today, who make up the good-old-boys and girls in the always to be reelected crowd, have been in Washington chipping away at one right after another, one value after another, and our freedoms for low these many election cycles while hiding behind government departments autocrats who spew out regulations, controls, and restrictions at their behest. Protecting themselves behind a thin cloak of denial. 

One would think the political class, who control both the Democratic and Republican parties, would sense that something unique is happening. They don't…

This election is part of a struggle for the preservation of America and a way of life of the citizens that this political class does not know, understand, or have any contact with. It is as if they live in some parallel universe.

This country created more wealth, safety, and still offers hope for a better life for our children and grandchildren today as it did before this political class emerged and the current group of elected representatives got elected the first time.

Note to all these candidates:

What we the people want is simple: We want the minimum necessary government. A government which defends individual freedom, our country, supports those in real need, takes as little of our money as possible to run, and doesn't impose itself in our lives.

Our current President, congressional leaders, the media, and all other who make up this elite political class are at odds with the Tea party in general and these simple American birthrights. 

The Tea Party is not simply a sub-group of unhappy dumb voters complaining about this or that tax or law... The Tea Party folks are the salt. It is they and their fathers who have fought many bloody wars when less was at stake.

As I was getting ready to post this article I started listening to the Supreme Court's decision on Obama Care…. The word "infamy" came to mind. I have never used or heard the word used since I was very young. President Roosevelt described Japans attack on Pearl Harbor as the Day of Infamy. Earlier in this article I talked about a tipping point. This decision in my mind is a tipping point.  Now we have a congress, a president, and the Supreme Court saying that no matter what the majority of voters wants it is for the political class to decide what is best for them.

No matter how many new Tea Party folks there will be come November can they offset the seventeen million new folks who now will be on our, free to them, medical system with their health coverage being paid for by the people who work and the businesses they work for? Maybe more importantly, given our current health system, will it not collapse under the weight of all the new citizens’ patients?

The answer may lie in the adage, "When the going get tough the tough get going."

I saw a wonderful tee shirt the other day that said, "I am the Tea Party".  I though, yes he is the Tea Party and I am the Tea Party….What a simple and powerful statement. Each of us is the Tea Party

134 days, 10 hours and 32 minutes till the November voting begins.

Ron

docnick37@gmail.com

Http://theoxfordteaparty.blogspot.com

Squanders 0f Liberties

" A society without the means to detect lies and theft soon squanders its liberty," C. Hedges The candle was lighted in the window so we have found our way home from our Central American sabbatical just in time to start all of the spring gardening chores and campaign watching. The lesson from the reaches of Costa Rica that is every country has limits. When the people, along with their government, exceeds the resource limits of their country the punishment is swift and the downward economic spiral takes no prisoners. Seeing the cost of these mistakes, as a outsider in Costa Rica, the question resounds like a cannon shot, "How could they not see?" Possibly this small nation has resources for a million people yet it has four and a half million and growing and at the same moment being bombarded with illegal immigrants. Costa Rica is a third world nation and we are the world's leading nation so how could there be any similarities between the two? From bondage to spiritual faith;  What do we know as a people about our government and its workings? Can our citizenry detect lies? Do we recognize theft? Do we notice when politicians change the meaning of words to hide the meaning of their acts? This reelection game is now getting underway in spades…. Saw my first TV ad this morning by Congressman Cohn out of the Memphis area… The ad tied him together with Obama and a older black lady saying, "They" are trying to take away my President and my Congressman." I suspect this is a simple example of the direction this campaign will take over the next five month. From spiritual faith to great courage;  Simple reality, yet so easily forgotten is the 'bigger something is the more time, money, and effort it takes to manage it. Resources are limited and when growth in terms of people and government out strips the resources of the country the results are predictable. BUT by whom? Americans are hopeful people. If our citizens cannot detect lies and recognize theft and deceit, how can we know who the candidates really are and will be unable to predict their behavior as leaders? From courage to liberty;  George Orwell famously said: “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” Today, conservative truth tellers are the Tea Party revolutionaries, struggling to get a seat at their governments table against the elite political establishment that blankets free speech, conservative ideas and ideals with liberal media blitzes. Once again, like in 2010, the liberal media broadcast the demise of the Tea Party. discounting the Tea Party as yet another grass roots movement who's time has passed. From liberty to abundance; Here we are in 2012 and like in 2010 the Tea Party folks are the only drums sounding out warnings…. Recognizing the theft and deceit … Predicting and fearing the consequence of our governments' direction. Our elected RINO's can't/don't ever look past the next election cycle. We know this about them because we know them….and yet in all likelihood we will reelect many of them again. From abundance to complacency;  Former slave Frederick Douglass advised: "Find out just what people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them. ... The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." From complacency to apathy; Societies are always in flux. Adaptation and change has been the corner stone of mankind. Now is no different from yester-year or yester-century with one exception and it a big exception.We have more of everything' than anyone in history and therefore we have more to lose. All our forefathers contributed to this rich society by following the back side of a mule or standing on an assembly line day after day, year after year. Dreaming dreams. Dreams of liberty and the freedom to accomplish all that they were able was the driving force of their efforts. They built the nation one crop at a time... One car at a time... One family at a time... This is a silly thing to say, but most of the people working in America today have never gone without, have never sweated on their job, and few have ever made a deal with a hand shake. Maybe sweat and handshake times have passed but the loss of this community trust is seen in almost everything we do. From apathy to dependence; There are 161 days, 22 hours, 32, minutes, and 22 seconds before the voting begins in November. The choices will be limited so great care and consideration is needed. This voting will take us to a form of governing that offers citizens their rightful place as the head of their government supported by their elected representatives or it will take us to an unthinkable direction of elite political class tyranny that has become so dominant in the last few decades and has escalated under this current president. Obama is not the threat to our freedoms and our historic way of life but the guy that stares back at us in the bathroom mirror every morning… Does the man in the mirror want the responsibility of the governed? Does he want a job? Does he want to contribute to his community? What does the face want? There is and has been the wealthy and the poor. These groups were bound together by common beliefs and ideals and working together a middle tier group grew and the nation prospered. The linkage between the wealthy and the poor is breaking apart. The values, beliefs, and mores in the poorer group began to change. Social bonds, family values, communities unraveled, and work ethics began to disappear. History's finger points to 1964…. The year government decided to intervene in the social structure of the nation and began engineering the Great Society. A half century later we find ourselves in a divided nation. This election will not be about federal deficits, slowing economies, unemployment, failing school systems, lies and deceit of the political class but the torn curtain that separates our citizens from one another, the people from their government, children from their fathers, and the nation from it dreams. Sweat and courage are the tools. Hope points the direction. There are few hands left that have memories of the older nation. Soon Saba's will be gone. No one will know where the candle is to light. From dependence back into bondage. If you take a group of any size where there are the same beliefs, values, the group will be acceptably stable. The group will come together, work together, and be empathic where there are causes and needs that affect the group as a whole and individuals within the group.…. At a national level, in our recent past, this was referred to as, "Being a good neighbor and/or The American Way of Life." This election campaign along with the past three years of national leadership has focused itself on dividing our citizens by defining them as victims within ethnic and economic groups. Our President, from his bully pulpit, is telling them they are being victimized by American business as well as wealthier citizens and if they reelect him he will fix the problems by taking money from this group, the wealthier 1%, and distributing it to them. The question our group along with countless other citizens should ask is , "Will this kind of pandering work?" What we know is this type of political campaigning has worked many time in out past. Many of the good old boys in the House and Senate have used the same tactics and it has worked for them in their states. Our President can’t help but regurgitate these leftist-progressive ideas and ideals. (For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he…) This is who our President is… He believes wealth should be taken from the ones who have created it. He believes government should control the economy and the individual while we at the same moment are watching the demise of the second largest economy in the world built by leaders in Europe who thought and preached the same gospel. We watched Russians citizens suffer seventy years under similar leaders with exactly the same set of government controls. Our goal is to flood the House and Senate with as many new conservative representatives as possible and to replace a President who is well liked by over half our population. Can this be done and can we do it? Yes… The answer is, yes we can… We have fought many battles before and our challengers have always regretted the outcomes. This current leading Republican candidate looks like he will be our only choice. You can bet there won't be any surprises in the convention… I had hoped we would have a candidate that had a little more true grit in him…. Ron docnick37@gmail.com Http://theoxfordteaparty.blogspot.com