We argue about Governor Palins’ ability to step in for Senator McCain
in case he dies in office. There is nothing like having a wake before
the person dies. She is not running for President. Senator Obama is
running for President with his lack of experience. So how do you argue
for his inexperience versus Sara Palin’s inexperience when she is
unlikely to have to step in for Senator McCain. Let us not forget one
of the most famous inexperienced Vice Presidents, Harry Truman. He
owned a haberdashery. Selling mens clothing. He was in the dark
completely about the war and the atom bomb. Yet when thrust into the
Presidency by Roosevelts death grasped the concept of dropping the bomb
and saving thousands of our military. Duh, Roosevelt could have dropped
the bomb earlier but was too much of a patrician. Elitism personified
who fought every social change until blackmailed by the union
president. Yeah you don’t need degrees to make a calculated choice just
good advisors and the will not to sit on your hands thinking about what
to do.
Crazy Old World just keeps turning along.
We argue about
McCain’s campaign staff members being lobbyists. What do retired
Washington politicians do but become lobbyists. What about Senator
Obama. The national press likes to show him as someone that worked
their way through Harvard. This stretches all credulity. I had the GI
Bill and still had to work fulltime to pay my way through a State
college. So what is the truth? Senator Obama aligned himself with a New
York City Councilman that linked him to a Moslem living in Texas that
has problems with the Jewish Holocaust. This “esteemed” person called a
Saudi prince that then “asked?” Harvard to enroll Obama as a personal
favor. This Prince then paid all of Obama’s expenses and college costs.
Now tell me he doesn’t owe someone some big favors. So what is the
difference. At least McCain has American friends not foreign backers.
Crazy Old World just keeps rolling along.
President
Bush has a lot of baggage and decisions to answer for but so do all the
members of the Senate and Congress. Let’s not forget the former
President William Clinton. Wasn’t he the one that the national press
referred to as a Rhodes scholar when all the documents I’ve read say
Fulbright scholar. Major difference, Rhodes scholar equates to proven
genius while Fulbright scholar equates to a political gift for up and
coming politicians based on who you know not what you know. Clinton was
also the one that pushed the free trade agreements that was going to
keep people in their own country and promote trade. We bled jobs,
killed unions, lowered living standards for thousands, took away
benefits to create a medical mess. Bill Clinton also encouraged lenders
to lower the qualifications for mortgage loans creating a low initial
payment and almost destroying fixed rate mortgages just to get people
into their own homes. This was based on the hope that in five years the
homes would have value that people could parlay into downpayments in
the future. Also people would get raises that would cover the balloon
payment. Trouble was with the the trade agreements no one was getting
raises, benefits were destroyed and when it came time to pay the piper
these same people could not afford the monthly payments. Mass
foreclosures, and a still questionable future economy based on someone
using taxpayer monies for someones personal altruism. Since when did I
agree to ruin my life and waste my years of hard work and savings to
give away what I earned.
Sure is a Crazy Old World that just keeps limping along.

Economists like to classify the population of the United States from a
range of poor to rich with a lot of middle class niches between them.
We happily go along with these ratings because we like to feel
superior. I believe the real truth is not based on currency and
property but power and influence. Taken the population then divides
into the Capitalist Kings, those that run major industry and determine
their own path. Next come the Political Princes, these are the ones
that sit and determine the path for the rest of us, the Populace
Paupers.
Since the United States crossed the Hudson River in it’s
expansion to California, the power of self dtermination has evaporated.
We no longer mark out a plot of land and subsist. We are told what we
can spend and where we can spend it and how much we are allowed to
spend. Choices have become totally illusionary. The last vestige came
about in the twenties and the institution of the temporary tax to
support the war effort. This tax is the demarcation in history when we
stopped controlling our earnings. You realize now that I am talking
about the income tax. After the war when we did not burn down city hall
or march on Washington, the Political Princes came to realize their
power. The Populace Paupers no longer had control of earnings. Ding,
ding, ding the silver ball carooms into the wall and bumper racking up
power points for the Political Princes.
Next came Prohibition, a
small test to see how far the Princes could dictate our leisure time
and see what happens. If it wasn’t for organized crime profiting from
the legal deprivation we could now have grown up without ever knowing
about the pleasure of a little buzz. Illegal profiteering had to be
stopped. Not only was there revenues that they could tap but anarchy
was about to destroy the fledgling beauracracy of the the Little
Princes. Their comfortable niche was being threatened. Too lazy to work
among us and too stupid to create a business, their very existence
relied on our complacency. So let them get drunk. Ding, ding, ding the
silver ball drops a little down from the top hanging onto the side. The
Princes saw a chance to solidify their positions. Investment ran wild
people obviously had too much money. Investing in the markets and
profiting, the unknowing Paupers were creating wealth. They could
possibly join the ranks of the Capitalist Kings further reducing the
rank of the Political Princes. Tada, bells and whistles going off, the
lights flashing and distracting until the Princes pulled the rug out
from us. TILT the great depression. Even those not invested were
affected. The Princes taught them a lesson. Absolutely no longer any
self determination. The Paupers were taught how ignorant and dependent
on the Princes we had become. Like the Roman Empire we were given bread
and circuses, this time bread lines and Hollywood.
We would have
been stuck in this doldrum forever but the second world war intruded on
our complacency. We could nationalize a goal. We could make money. The
Princes, were now ducking and hiding. None of them wanted to be
noticed. This was going to well for them, as long as we didn’t lose.
Our focus was now for the greater good with rationing and the Princes
exclusion from the depravation the Paupers willingly accepted it for
the common good.
So now we bounce along dropping and rising but
stuck on a playing field neither going back nor dropping through the
hole. The Princes are now drunk with their power. War on poverty, war
on drugs, war on Saddam, and we lose each because we cannot concentrate
on any one thing. We just go where we are told and do what we have been
trained to do, eat, drink, and watch TV. Now the hole at the bottom of
the table Is beckoning. The Princes have spent our inheritance by
diluting Social Security to nothing but figures on a spreadsheet. Now
they are moving to lock in their power and position by imposing $10,000
of debt on every man woman and child with the $700 billion dollar bail
out. I am sure the Capitalist Kings are thanking them for this gift.
Is
this the last go on this table? If I only didn’t care about the
perception of me as a gelatinous slug leaving a slime trail throughout
the world, I’d run for office. I wouldn’t even need a honeymoon period
to lose my naïveté. I already know the game. Oh well, down to the
bowels of the table waiting for someone to put another quarter in the
machine. Ding-a-ling, ding everybody.

This has been a difficult post to start, but because it is so difficult I needed to put it out there and see what happens. The difficulty is asking questions without being insulting or being perceived as a bigot. These are questions based only on my own life experience and it has been a long one. I am 61 years old and I feel blocked from asking questions about a candidate that for all the signs will be our next President. This becomes a race card played in a game of solitaire. This is a self policing activity that should not be but is.
My early life began in a racially mixed neighborhood. My father was a welder and bought a house in a predominantly African-American area of Trenton, New Jersey. The children on our block were mostly white from Polish immigrants. We played together. I think each of us had best friends and other kids that we hung out with after school and weekends, but when the games began to expand like stick ball or war everyone was included. We had a community park with a swimming pool that did not exclude anyone. We had two movie theaters within walking distance with twenty-five cent Saturday matinees that you just went to depending on the availability of a quarter and the movie playing. The most prejudice I ever became aware of was during one of the serials they ran. It was a Batman and he was fighting the Japanese. You have to remember this was in the 1950’s not that far removed from World War II. My father, a wounded Navy veteran explained the references to “slant eyed devils”. I know alot of the younger people would say that I was viewing the past through rose colored glasses, but it was a time of prosperity in Trenton, New Jersey. Factory jobs and unskilled labor went begging for employees and no one sat home. We had US Steel, Roebling Wire Works, Van Camp, huge industrial plants throughout. It was pretty much a time that our parents all worked next to eachother and the only suspicion came from a new influx of Puerto Rican residents. They were more colorful and noisy. So racial prejudice did not exist in my world.
We moved from that neighborhood when my brother and I became school aged. Not because of the racial mix but we went to the school associated with our church. This neighborhood was mostly white lower middle class factory workers. In that sense it was our white ghetto. The residents surrounded their own little area of stores, churches, schools while still being close to work. It was more convenience and familiarity with like minded people that created the neighborhoods. Friends came from nearness more than anything. The prejudice came from which school you attended. There were four Catholic schools within blocks of eachother and there was always a friendly rivalry because of basketball, but we all shared the parks and fishing holes without fights. Looking back I could not tell you if there were African Americans nearby or not. It just was never a conscious thought one way or the other. After high school I enlisted in the Navy during Viet Nam. Our ship never seemed to have any problems although there were some grumblings that never amounted to anything. It is difficult being out at sea and having hates. There was no place to go and no where to hide if you carried those biggotted thoughts with you. Nearness, at the least, stifled any ill will. The first time I became even aware that there might be a problem is when the navy instituted rap session for the black crew members. i am not saying they did not need a place to vent about their feelings, but this was how unaware I was about racial issues. I looked at the officers and petty officers as white rich kids who could afford to go to college, unlike the rest of us from poor working class families.
When my tour of duty ended, I took advantage of the GI Bill. Everyone just assumes that this pays for everything, it does not. If you have a family, rents, payments, food to buy, we got a fixed amount of money up to a maximum of $175.00 per month if you attended full time. This just about paid for a community college and I had to work full time at unskilled jobs, stock boy, MacDonalds, a canning factory, just to make it through and pay for gas for the VW Beetle I drove. Oh and by the way, my mother was widowed in my Sophomore year of high school. So now that brings up the first question. How did Barak Obama go through four years of college, and Harvard law by working his way through? Too many reporters just print PR handouts without question. I have not heard that he had a scholarship, so how did he get this leg up on life? Something does not add up. It does not sound as if his Grandparents or mother were rich. I had high SATs, graduated with honors and no one would lend me any assistance. When I went to a bank for a school loan I would have had to have my mother put her house up for collateral.
My experience after graduation, I think, gives an answer. As I said, I graduated with honors in Electronics Technology. Between classes I offered to tutor anyone that wanted to go over the classes. Most of the inner city students could not keep up because of poor math skills. You need enough Algebra to find one unknown value for digital circuits and some Trigonometry to calculate alternating current circuitry like audio componenets. I worked with them on my free time between classes and believe that without me they would not have graduated. When I went out into the job market, I found a big disappointment. The first employer I went to was IBM. After an extensive interview I was turned down for a job in their computer division because of the color of my skin. Here were the same students I had tutored being hired for a prestigious job with a large corporation because of a QUOTA. The person interviewing me offered me a job running around the state fixing IBM selectric typewriters because they needed to fill a quota. He also said that if I took the job I would have the job in the computer division because within a year or two the minorities they hired would be gone because they would not be able to last. I was shocked. I actually believed in having to show quality and skill not skin color. So is this part of the reason that Senator Obama succeeded so well in life while I struggled.
I did eventually get into the computer field with two other companies, Storage Technology and Amdahl Corporation. They still followed the quota system to stay out of trouble but that was because they both hired Mexican Americans in their plants to do the manual labor, while the engineers were white.
After the years I spent with those two companies i took a civil sevice test and went to work in State government. I found more unofficial quotas. The best paying jobs went to political appointees, mosstly women and minorities. I spent twenty years successfully working on projects such as the integration of all the disparate email systems in the various Departments, automating an accident records system that had over 800,000 accidents per year and made the data available for analysis, automating an entire division, and the last project a voter registration database of 6,000,000 voters but the harder part was having twenty one separate fiefdoms give up control and use the statewide system. For these efforts I have never received a promotion or bonus, but instead watch people be appointed to be my boss because of race, gender and political connection.
Sour grapes, not really. I did make enough money and no one could say the projects were not interesting. I point this out because I wonder how much of Senator Obama’s life is a pass because of his race. I have seen a Governor be annointed by the press without question, until those voices in the wilderness actually started asking questions that refuted the entire fantasy that PR people created and the lazy press accept and propogate as the whole truth. I have seen a political scholarship expand to a genius’ Rhodes Scholar. How many Hillary Clinton gaffs get brushed aside as slip ups. I hear how Senator Obama, as brief as his career was, be annointed by the press as the savior that will unite the world. Well the question becomes does he unify the country by dragging everybody down or raising everyone up. So far it sounds as if he will surrender to our enemies, and tax us to the point of poverty to unify the world. These problems just cannot be talked about in nice terms but we need hard facts of his plans not just a Wonderland view of the state of the future world from the liberal press.
I hope this is not perceived as a racist diatribe but if it is too bad. I experienced this life. I have no regrets nor do I harbor ill will because of race or gender. I did get my degree, a loving wife, two sons that have made their own way in life, and a well deserved retirement so I can start all over again for the next twenty years. I just do not want to be fooled again. It is even scarier that if these questions do not get asked because of race. You can leave comments but unless you are part of the Obama staff I really do not want anyone to answer for him.

I live in New Jersey. That about says it all and explains some of my bitterness. The other cause of my bitterness is the sometimes irrational belief that right makes might. Some of the top politicians have been indicted, convicted and imprisoned since the Federal Prosecutor began investigating what should have been internally investigated by the Department of Law and Public Safety, thank-you madam Attorney General and all your predecessors.

 

Aside from the criminal activities of some elected politicians we have the honor of having the highest automobile insurance rates, and our politicians make having it mandatory. We also have the some of the highest property taxes in the nation. The biggest reason for the property taxes is that schools are funded by property taxes. So if you do not own a home and have a dozen kids the village pays your way with our taxes. When the elderly, on fixed incomes, can no longer afford the taxes it makes no difference to the school board, the State or Department of Education. The amazing thing is that the funding levels are based on a flawed study done by a well meaning educator that saw low scores in urban centers and high scores in suburban areas. By the way each area has its own school board, superintendent and budget regardless of the fact that there are any schools or students in the location. The educator published his findings in a book and showed that money is the predictor of success in education. The reason, he speculated, that inner city children did not do well in testing and successfully completing high school is because the richer areas within the counties paid more per student. Since inner city property is not valued as highly as suburban areas the balance had to made up by state funding. So if a rich area raised the per capita cost of educating a student the now called Abbot District received a windfall increase in funding to match the suburbs. The cost per student is now near the $17,000.00 mark per student. So now we go into a dead mans spiral. The well meaning folks in the suburbs want the best for their children and regularly approve school budgets without even thinking about it. This automatically gives the same raise to the inner city school boards. The trick is that Abbott Districts were defined by some formula but now the surrounding municipalities have been included in the formulas and dispersing of monies. The surrounding areas are called Costello Districts. Funny, Abbott and Costello Districts, until you get your tax bill. So along with parents that think every school should have all the amenities possible we now have to educate the children of illegal immigrants at the same $17,000.00 level. This gets more and more hilarious when you find the educator conscientiously examined his findings ten years after and found the Abbott Districts have not improved. On any given day over 50% of the students are truant and almost 50% of the teachers are not in that day. He wrote another book and found that what was the better predictor of a student’s success is not money but parental concern. No one wants to look at this with the same fervor as the money spending model. Money is the easy answer, drain the tax payer. Parental behavior is unenforceable. So even though the study and reality show that money does not help we continually override the voters finally voting against school board budgets. It would seem the Hillary Clinton’s scientific paper expounding that it takes a village to raise a child does nothing more than make an excuse to continue throwing money down a rat hole with no end in site. Someone told me to be careful about my tax philosophy. They accuse me of thinking too much like a Republican and irrationally stop all taxes. This is actually far from my philosophy. I see the need for the future to filled with happy, educated adults, with two car garages and all the latest electronic gadgets, but lets face it working at McDonalds is never going to pay for these things. We will end up as a backwater country to be used as a lesson in stupidity. By trying to bring everyone up to the same level you are supposed to raise the lowest to the highest, not lower the highest to the lowest. Continuing to drain the populace will lead to losing the best and brightest.

 

Someone has got to make the decision to measure the value we are getting for the dollar. If the programs are not working then cut them lose as fast as possible and try something else. This not only goes for education, but the war on drugs is an abysmal failure, and the war on poverty is leading to total capitulation. Raise the white flag in surrender because the current crop of candidates to lead this country into the future all has the same mentality. We are marching along and the end game is being narrowed down to accepting absolute dictatorship, total anarchy, or a total revolt that puts government back into the role defined by the original constitution and out of the role of social engineering.

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last - Winston Churchill

Does anyone ever read or study history? Neville Chamberlain had success of the Irish Treaty of 1921 to guide him with his policy of appeasement with Nazi Germany.  Mr. Chamberlin thought he was dealing with like minded leader. Hitler was permitted to devour Czechoslovakia prior to World War II. The thinking was that Nazi Germany would be satisfied with this action. Believing that it was inevitable anyway, that it gave time to build the defenses of the British Isles, and in a practical sense that was over there and of little importance.

According to Paul Kennedy in his Strategy and Diplomacy, 1983, appeasement is “the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and compromise, thereby avoiding the resort to an armed conflict which would be, expensive, bloody and possibly dangerous.”

So what happened? 72,709,600 deaths attributed to World War II. How many deaths would there have been if the world governments took Hitler to task and isolated and attacked him? No one knows but it seems reasonable to believe that it would have been fewer and defintely would not have included the world. Wison’s League of Nation’s Covenant was the natural outcome of a man born to appeasement. He was elected on the premise that he would keep us out of war.

In the early days of World War I, Wilson was determined to maintain neutrality. He protested British as well as German acts; he offered mediation to both sides but was rebuffed.

Finally the reality of German U Boats and sovereign rights to the oceans aroused the people and him to enter the war. Doing nothing early on starts to show a pattern in the high cost of appeasement and negotiation.

Believing that Stalin was both a like minded rational world leader and someone that he, Franklin Roosevelt could manipulate, allowed Stalin to wait while Warsaw was demolished before entering it and suppressing another nation.  An elitist, President Roosevelt felt himself smarter/better/more sophisticated than a son of a cobbler, President Roosevelt allowed the devastation of the nation of Poland for the same fuzzy thinking that appeasement is better than conflict. We see how Stalin gobbled up Eastern Europe and ruled as a dictator, everything we fought against Hitler during Word War II. He must have laughed at Chuchill and Roosevelt while he took possession of all Eastern Europe and then proceeded to annihlate any opposition from his own country men.

Some would say appeasement is the rational and mature aproach to the choice of armed conflict. That presupposes that you are dealing with like minded leaders that want to resolve differences before using armed conflict. We still have that sense of smuggness that believes in negotiation and appeasement as an answer to the difficult problems facing us. Negotiation is viewed as the rational approach to a bad situation. Going to war is the barbaric response to differing viewpoints. I would like to point out that the Iraq war is not a sign of stupidity or barbarism. Saddam Hussein was the barbarian in the mass elimination of the Kurds that disagreed with his tribe. I think tribe is the key word. That area was nothing but tribes at one time until it became an industrialized by the national oil companies in an effort to appease the idigneous population so that they could grow their profits. Now the oil companies and in turn us, dance to an OPEC band, at one time little more than wondering nomads with hereditary titles to sand and sky.

So what do the current crop of candidates want to do, pull out of Iraq. Its costing us too muchin money and lives. Iraq is over there and maybe they will not bother anyone in the location. There will be no more ethnic cleansing. Israel will not be bombed. The war will not spill over to a world conflict just because of oil. this is from two candidates that are essentially hypocrites. One too young to be a part of the selective service and did not volutnteer for national service but wanted a nice life as a Harvard graduate with a law degree and a need to rule this country. Or maybe Hillary’s plan that regardless of circumstances she will pull the troops out in six months. Both of them ignored the history of appeasement and its costs. Hillary the person that treated high ranking military aides as busboys in the White House. her and her draft dodging husband that seem to despise the military. That same smug attitude of superiority that President Roosevelt showed to Stalin. As President Clinton like to describe himself “a politcal wonk” he could make things work that no one else has been able to succeed and the arrogance of Hillary that seems to want ot destroy a political party in the lust for power and control. In the end there is only one rational attitude and that is Senator McCain. We are there. We have a goal. Lets get it done and come home. Too bad that does not play well in the affluent suburbs. These yuppies that believe in throwing money at problems and for who the phrase NIMBY was coined. So lets prove to the world that we do not have the stamina for a just fight. We have not wanted to win since World War II. Vietnam and Koread showed that we should just negotiate and give them what they want so they do not bother us. Isn’t that how organized crime makes money extorting those that do not want or will not fight back. Give a little get a little.

 

“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. ” Franklin Delano Roosevelt First Inaugral Address.

Over the weekend I read on Twitter that we can not be frightend of the Republicans. That we need to stand up against them. Where do these people live? Are there armed blackshirted groups standing on corners watching your every movement, listening to every utterance. If the people in this country truly fear that deeply their neighbors, sons and daughters then I might have to ask, What are you ashamed of them finding out about you? Pretty much everyone believed that the Republicans would not win the Whitehouse this November, so is there fear that the Democrats might lose? They have the poster children for the ideal candidate in Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obamma, so pick one and get on with it. But maybe they are seeing thier saints have clay feet. Everyone thought Senator Clinton would walk away with the nomination, and then came Senator Obamma. We all started to see a side of the Clintons that no one wanted to admit had always been there. There is something sleazy about an 18 year old worried about his viability to run for President if he avoided the draft. Senator Clinton appears like a deer in the headlights. There seems to be some deep seated desparation within her that does not want to admit defeat. They both appear to be a husband and wife wrestling tag team when the one on the outside of the ring obviously pretends not to notice the out stretched hand for the switch. Well both Clintons come with a complete book of misspeaks, lies, nitpicking legal wording of an answer instead of a clear resounding yes or no. Now along comes Senator Obamma, who no one took seriously because of his lack of experience until they remembered that William Clinton was elected as a former governor of the State of Arkansas, not a glowing recommendation. Senator Obamma comes with his own baggage in the form of his minister for all intents and purposes appears to be a Black Racist. There is also the lingering shadow of his and his wifes friend Jesse Jackson. Where are the rest of the Congressional leaders? Everyone seems to be hiding in the shadows. Opra Winfrey supports him what about Bill Cosby? Barrack Obamma seems to be saying that he will provide the tools but he cannot work them as well. John McCain or George Bush III as they lable him. Here is someone that did his duty during Vietnam, survived as a prisoner of war, is admantly independent, yet he knows the president and tells a probable outcome that once we committed to the war we will be there in some form or another for many years to come. A reluctant but pragmatic statement.

So here we are, only a few months away from picking someone with an inordinate and unreasonable need to be president, a possible black supremacist, and a war monger. What are we to do? Ignore our real external enemies for the made up terrors we paint our opponents to be. Possibly ignore the propoganda  and chose the candidate that best fits our ideals. This country is too large and powerful to make a mistake that would destroy our futures forever.

The carpenter grabbed his hammer and with each strike missed or bent the nail he was trying to pound into the roof. Shouting damn stupid hammer he continued in his fuitless task. Pretty stupid isn’t it? What’s the difference between our presidential candidates and the carpenter? Nothing. The military didn’t up and decide to invade a country. They are under control of the Commander in Chief and ultimately all of us and our elected representatives. So don’t blame the hammer for the failure of all of us. Let the hammer do what a hammer does best, put nails into roofs and walls. And please do not sit there talking about a failed policy. Since when is the policy of the military branch to hold still for the status quo. They are there to win. Otherwise do not send them. They are not supposed to enforce a policing policy. They are there to pound that nail down flat.

This whole debacle started when no nothing politicians started trying to run the wars, instead of telling the military what they want and sending them out with a mandate to bring home the win just short of not complying with the Geneva Convention and the general rules of war. We had that unholy trio of Lyndon Johnson, Robert MacNamara, and General William Westmoreland. Each with there own agenda, something to do with self aggrandizement. They didn’t seem to understand the concept of cannon fodder or maybe they understood it all too well. I will not argue the validity of that war or anyother, just the fact that the military should be left to do their job. Their ownly self interest is to come home alive. MacNamara knew of the lies, of inflated body counts, dropping ordinance in empty jungle, not bombing Haiphong harbor the one target that would have ended the war quickly.

Teddy Roosevelt had a saying, Walk Softly and Carry a Big Stick. I would like to add an addendum, Use the Stick if necessary. All debate of the rightness and necessity of war should be done prior to firing a shot not now in the middle of it. I cannot help but feel the sorrow for those that listen to the prattle of the no nothings and do nothings expounding on when they were against the war or for it. That date is immaterial. The date that matters is the day it started with a clear no holds barred win at the end. these are the dates that matter.

It is terrible when you have over seven hundred channels on cable and you get hooked into a panel discussion. State politicians going on about hospital care. The one politician stood up to declare that “the costs are outrageous and this is where government has to step in and help those in need.” On face value it sounded right and moral, until I thought long and hard about the words,” government must step in.” Aren’t we the government? Did anyone ask me, when I had to have the bone shards in my elbow removed from an armed mugging that shattered it, if I wanted to have my insurance company pay the surcharge for someone else who does not have insurance? It would seem to me that between the surcharge and state grants for hospitals we have created a state that Nikita Krushev would be proud to call his own. He did not need to bury us we dug our own hole. We lost the revolution our founding fathers fought and died for. We no longer have the the kings but we have our own dynasties of Rockefellers, Kennedy’s, Bush’s and now the Clinton’s. We have gained one thing at least. We now have taxation with representation. The cheap politician of the Tammany Hall days, with their nickel cigars and a drink to get a vote has been replaced by cheap politicians that use our money to get reelected repeatedly while they drink single malt scotch and smoke Cuban Cohibas. I did not get a shot of whisky or a puff on a cheap cigar. I just got the bill.

I reviewed the New Jersey state constitution. No where in there talks about the ludicrous amount of property taxes we pay to educate the children. We have educators without certification making over $80,000 a year. No where in the constitution states that my insurance premium is there for someone that is not a relative to tap into and I cannot even claim a deduction. There is not a mention that someone that does not save a nickel is given a house without a downpayment because housing is too costly in this state. The governor must get a lot of laughs in his million dollar condo overlooking the Hudson river while having happy hour for the residents. The constitution clearly states the role of government. Our state laws do not resemble the original intent of the constitution. Volumes of laws have been tacked on as responses instead of well considered judgements. No wonder the politicians got rid of Judge Bork whose only sin was to state that he believed in the literal words of the constitution not the reinterpreted words that gave us the mess we have today. Imagine allowing the rabble to vote on constitutional amendments to define our country instead of back room meetings and long lunches of our elected officials. I think the Ten Commandments are the real inconvenient truth and need total reinterpretation to fit our lifestyles today. We can probably get rid of nine of them, maybe just keep thou shall not kill unless it is a war.

People what are we doing to ourselves? Is our collective guilt destroying our country? In a country that supposedly accomplishes its agenda on the basis that majority rules we certainly twisted that up to suit some politicians election ambitions. When does the majority become the minority? What happens when the majority decides to join the minority? Do we get Canada to pay for everything?

This so reminds me when I took a tour of Admiral Nelson’s flag ship, the winner of the battle between England and the Spanish armada. On the tour below decks our tour guide pointed out the punishment area. Someone that had broken a rule would be have his legs strapped between two cannons. It was there that the prisoner would be forced to weave his own cat o’ nine tails and present it to the bosun’s mate. If the bosun accepted the whip then the prisoner would be beat with it, if not he had to go and reweave it again. Somehow I am beginning to feel like that prisoner with the bosun refusing my efforts. “Give us more, mate.”  How did we become trapped in a country that is partially communist and partially capitalist with the politicians as the biased referees? Too many questions and not enough answers, but here is a thought. Everyone should have the necessary amount of shelter, clothing, education, medical treatment but if you would like more go to school for your education, get a skill or a trade, work and pay for the extras yourself. One day they will unshackle my legs and I’ll take the whip and flog the bosun.

Does a lazy nudist wear clothes? Do fish ever get thirsty? Did I pique your interest? If you never find out the answers will it haunt your every waking moment? Probably not. Then why do we care whether Barrack Obamma, Hilary Clinton, Mitt Romney or John McCain win the primary election? Do you know how many people were injured or killed in Afghanistan today? Has anyone come close to finding a cure for cancer? How about the unsung heroes in our hospitals that have brought someone back to life by their skills. Do you know any of the teachers in your local school system? What are their credentials?  Where are your children right now? Will the bridge you drive over collapse? Is the person across the street in need of a smile and a wave? Aren’t these questions more important than the petty bickering of politicians? The real question is why aren’t we considered for political office? Why are we always stuck with all these insiders? Originally the founding fathers saw property owners serving a fixed amount of time in office because they had a vested interest in doing the right thing to keep the nation prosperous and safe. A real news story would be that someone not anointed by the party got elected by a massive write in vote.