The Violence Worker!

D-Day

Today is the 66th anniversary of Operation Overlord, more commonly known as D-Day.  Since then, an army or two of writers have tried to find the right combination of words that sum up our gratitude for the heroic men who assaulted those beaches to save the world from a great evil.  We've striven to encapsulate the enormity of their task in mere words.  We struggle to wrap our minds around the courage of those men who stepped off of those landing boats and waded straight into hell on earth.  The National D-Day Foundation has confirmed 2499 American troops died that day.  Thousands more were wounded.  We are grateful to all of them.

My only purpose is to remind you of that day.  Like all the rest, I do not have the words to properly put it into any kind of perspective.

God bless our Armed Forces and their families, and God bless America.

VW

Europe Is Crumbling - Are We Next?

Much of Europe is teetering on financial collapse.  The amount of money needed to sustain their socialist welfare systems is exceeding their ability to generate enough taxes to feed the beast.  Simply put, their alligator diet far exceeds their lizard ability to provide.  Free healthcare, extravagant public pensions systems and generous welfare benefits are crushing the productive class.  The gravy train is coming off the tracks.

That's Europe, you say.  Well just how far behind them are we? 

Social Security is broke.  They are paying out more than they are taking in.  There is no lock box with your money safely stashed away.  That money is long gone.  Spent years ago.  There isn't anything left but an IOU in a binder in some office somewhere that says the government will pay it back.  The only money that Social Security now has is what you are contributing today.  LBJ opened up the lock box to fund his great society.  I read a good way of putting it once.  The government gives you an IOU buy printing a piece of paper and telling you they have the funds.  Sort of like you writing yourself an IOU for ten million dollars and then declaring yourself to be a millionaire.

Folks, we are tapped out and Washington and your state's only answer is to demand you pay more and more. 

Conservatives are often accused of being negative.  We are, if you listen to some on the left, against all of this progressive stuff they keep coming up with.  Oddly enough, one of their usual canards extolling the virtues of the socialist way is to bring up Social Security. We've tried to offer up solutions for the Social Security mess.  When we did, the liberals shot it down saying the system was fine. 

The bottom line to all of this is this:  We are approaching (if we haven't already reached it or even surpassed it) the point where our debt is unsustainable.  And by that I mean they can't tax us enough to pay for it.  My grandchildren already have a tax liability in the tens of thousands of dollars and they are seven years old and under.  Greece, Spain, and Ireland are already on the verge of collapse.  I suspect we are closer than we'd like to think.

We need to reduce spending.  Most of our spending is in the way of entitlements and frankly, we need to cut as much  as we can.  That even means me, I guess, since I get a government pension.  If that means it gets reduced, then so be it.  I'll take the pill with everyone else.

Our only real answer is to reduce the size of government and not just in nibbles, but huge bites.  When government employees are making thousands more than their civilian counterparts, we have a problem.  We also need to find a way to rein in this imperial Congress.  When Nancy Pelosi's liquor bill is more than I make in several years, we have a problem.  My company doesn't fund my beer tab, yet we apparently think it's necessary to keep Pelosi and her entourage well oiled with expensive hootch.  The Republicans are just as guilty at times thinking that we owe them all of their perks. 
The job was never meant to be a career.  Congressional pensions should be eliminated in favor of a cash payout equal to one year's pay at the end of two terms to compensate their retirement fund for their service.  If they stay after that, they get a base salary, no more retirement. 

At some point, you become a serf to the government.  You already are to some extent. Do you own your home?  Not really.  I don't care if you have a clear title and deed, you don't own it.  Don't pay your property taxes and see how quick the government takes it away from you.  The lord expects the serfs to pay tribute to live under his protection.

There ain't no free lunch, folks.  The government doesn't have its own money.  It has YOUR money.  It spends YOUR money and it takes YOUR money with the force of the law and a waiting jail cell if you don't give it to them when they ask.

The party is over and we just haven't left yet.  The hangover is coming.  Socialist Europe is crumbling and yet there are a lot of people who seem to want to push us toward that end.  Santayana admonished us that the lessons of history are often repeated if not learned.  Socialism has never worked and it won't work just because Barack Obama is now President.

VW

Now, It's Visceral

The passage of this healthcare bill is the last straw.  It's personal.  The Democrats can no longer call themselves "Democratic".  They don't care what we, the people, think.  If you came away thinking the Democrats care one whit about you, you are either stupid, or...well, your stupid.  You are an idiot.  If you think this bill will in any way make healthcare cheaper, reduce the deficit, and/or create jobs, you are permanently stuck on stupid.  You are incapable of rational thought.

The Democrats like to charge that Bush "shredded" the Constitution. He did nothing of the sort.  Yesterday, however, the Democrats did not just shred the Constitution, they recycled it and made it into toilet paper and are now wiping their collective Socialist asses with it.  Again, if you think this is anywhere close to what the founders of this nation envisioned, you are as stupid as a post.

The beginning of the end to freedom started with FDR and his so-called "New Deal" which actually lengthened the Great Depression.  Social Security, which was enacted during his time is now bankrupt.  The Democrats started robbing it in the sixties to pay for LBJ's "great society".  Instead of money in an account with your name on it, there is nothing but a stack of moldy IOUs.  It's all been spent.  Medicare is also about to go broke.  They pretty much robbed it to help pay for this fiasco they just passed.  Now they ask - nay, demand - that we trust them with this.  Once more, if you think you can trust this group of thugs, liars and crooks, you are stupid, perhaps even a moron.  Your IQ is equal to that of a week-old, used condom. You should most likely not be allowed out without supervision.  I'm not kidding.

Now that the Democrats have showed us that they care nothing for your opinion and think you are too stupid to think for yourselves (and you might be if you agree with this healthcare bill), it's time to go to work.

I know, we are all fired up, but sometimes, the flames have a tendency to die out after a few weeks.  We cannot let this happen.  If you are angry, you need to stay angry.  If you are fired up, throw gasoline on that fire.  Every time you feel like slowing down, look at a picture of Pelosi, Reid and Obama and remember what they did to liberty last night.

Decide to fight.  Work to throw these bums out of office.  Give money and time.  Make it personal, make it your fight.  Do not let up.

I will surely be doing my share.

Fight them by any legal means you can.

On June 18th of 1940, things looked pretty bleak for the British Empire.  France was about to fall and Churchill knew that as soon as Hitler was done with France, he would turn the full weight and might of his war machine on Great Britain.  Churchill encouraged his countrymen to fight what seemed like a hopeless battle.  It's now our turn.

To paraphrase the great Winston Churchill:  Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if America and her freedoms and liberty last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'

It's time to fight.  This time, it's visceral!

VW

History? It's History!

I love history, but the study of history for most people is often equated with crawling on broken glass.  It's slow, painful and pointless – or so some folks think.  I will say that the way most people teach history is usually slow and painful.  Since our abilities to record history has greatly expanded during the last 200 years or so, there seems to be a whole lot more for students to learn.  In North Carolina, they seem to think that not teaching US History prior to 1877 is the way to fix the problem.

As the North Carolina curriculum stands now, ninth-grade students take world history, 10th-graders study civics and economics and 11th-graders take U.S. history going back to the country's founding.

Under the proposed change, the ninth-graders would take a course called global studies, focusing in part on issues such as the environment. The 10th grade still would study civics and economics, but 11th-graders would take U.S. history only from 1877 onward.

They do have a point. You can't teach it all and Global Studies is not history.  You can bet it is some politically correct crap aimed at making students less American.  I also understand the challenge to teach a world history class.  At best, only the briefest of outlines could be presented.  Even then, there would be huge gaps. When it comes to teaching American History, there is a similar problem.  There is simply too much material to cover in a school year.

One could spend years just studying the Revolution and the founding of this country.  To spend a just few weeks on it doesn't even begin to do it justice.  However, skipping it all together is just wrong.  As George Walden, a former British Member of Parliament, once said:

A country losing touch with its own history is like an old man losing his glasses, a distressing sight, at once vulnerable, unsure, and easily disoriented.

I would argue that the most important part of our history is our founding.  We need to at least how we got started and what were the issues that drove those men to risk their lives and fortunes.  If we do not know that, then we can easily be disoriented and get lost.

I'll also be the first one to say that the history we learn is often flawed or in some cases, downright made-up.  I'm reminded of my third grade history class which was the history of Michigan, the state where I was born and grew up.  The first lesson consisted of teaching us how Michigan got its shape.  On the first page was an illustration of an Indian kneeling beside the earth and placing his left hand on the North American land mass in order to slow down the earth's rotation.  When I went home that day, I excitedly told my Mom all about this exciting new thing I learned.  Mom, who happened to have a goodly share of Indian blood in her and looked it, taught me a huge lesson.  She pointed out that it was highly doubtful any Indians even knew that the earth was round, let alone knew that the area that we now call Michigan was shaped like a left palm print. 

Even though I have a great love for history, I learned a valuable lesson that day about what gets taught.  There is an old African proverb that says that if the lions told the story, the hunters would not be heroes.  I understand that history is often shaded and jaded by who records it.  That said, there are certain events and people that should be taught to students and that includes our founding as a nation.

Perhaps a better suggestion might be to make it two years, combining the second year with the civics.

Another point of agreement is that the history of the 20th century is rarely presented.  The events that shaped the last century should be required to be taught.  Ask the average teenager to tell you the difference between Stalin and Hitler and you'll usually get a blank stare.  They might know the name Hitler, but Stalin, who was an even bigger monster, hardly registers. 

History is not just a recitation of names, events and dates.  History is our story.  It is how we got to this place from that place.  History is what binds us as a people and makes us a nation.  It is as important as mathematics and grammar and to leave out  some of the most important parts of our history will make it that much harder to to understand some events that happen later. 

One last thought.  Why start at 1877?  Other than some Indian battles here and there out west and the swearing in of Rutherford B. Hayes as President, not a whole lot was happening.  It seems almost arbitrary.

VW

Happy Independence Day!

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!!!

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

233 years ago, these words headlined a document that literally changed how the world thought about government and what responsibilities government had to the governed.  This was not a laundry list cooked up over an all night ale session; this was a list of grievances presented by men who were well aware of the importance of their words.  This document was a culmination of oppressive acts committed over a period of time by a petty tyrant king.   Perhaps they did not have the prescience  to know how much their words would change the world, but they had to know how those words would effect their world.

These were not a bunch of uneducated farmers.  Most of them were classically educated men.  They were familiar with the works of Hobbes, Locke, Bacon and others.  They were the liberals of their age.  A liberalism dedicated to making men free from a tyrannical government and its lust for power, tribute and taxation.

Sadly, liberalism today is much different as it seeks to enslave mankind to a government, rather than free them from such oppression.    If we are to remain a free people, unencumbered by oppressive taxation and control of the citizenry through oppressive government meddling, we need to return to the roots of the tree of liberty. 

It will be a difficult chore as long as the news cycle is dominated by a dead, drug addicted, freak show.  It will be difficult as long as we are bombarded with the message that only government can help you or heal you.  It will be impossible as long as we are ridiculed by the intelligentsia for believing in a God and in Natural Law.  It is those two things that the Socialists fear the most.

For now, enjoy today and what freedom we have left.  We are not yet wards of the state, but it's coming.  It might be then that the tree of liberty will have to be watered.

VW

Flag Day 2009

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

VW

Corporate Corruption

I don't have much time to post much this evening so I shall point you here for an excellent treatise that pretty much describes what went wrong in Corporate America and the subsequent meltdown that ensued.

Here's a teaser:

Mediocrity breeds corruption. The business world is crawling with affable, industrious, intelligent people with nothing to distinguish them from ten thousand other affable, industrious and intelligent people, but who very much would like to be rich. Except by winning the equivalent of a lottery or marrying up, their chances of becoming rich are quite poor. They joint a fraternity at college to make contacts, and went to business school to network. They have no friends, only contacts, as their entire social life from freshman year onward has been a struggle to get to know people who might help them. They live in silent terror that they will fall off the corporate gravy train and never have the chance to clamber back on.

It gets better and the solutions make sense.

By way of Blogs for Victory

VW

We Are Broke

Watching the American economy die is like watching a massive train wreck.  You see two engines coming at each other at full throttle and you have to watch.  You can't close your eyes and you can't stop them.   You just continue to watch in horror as the two behemoths race toward each other, hell bent for total destruction.

We were told that Social Security will most like be broke by 2041 and medicare will be insolvent in about ten years.  America's bond rating is close to being downgraded which means the cost of servicing our debt will increase way beyond what is now predicted.  We are spending almost 50 cents more than every dollar we are taking in in revenue.

The term for that is unsustainable.  We cannot continue to spend like this, but we are and in fact, the Obama Administration is about to make it worse by adding in billions upon billions for health care . 

Sometimes I wonder if I'm wrong on this.  It seems that most of the country is blithely going along as if nothin will happen.  The Obama administration is telling us the recession is ending, but there is absolutely no hard indicator that confirms that.  In fact, Consumer confidence continues to fall.  There are some folks out there starting to sound the alarm, but it's almost like voices in the wilderness.

I hope I'm so wrong about this.  It's like the above described train wreck; you hope you are dreaming and when you wake up, there will be no carnage. 

I don't know what will happen to this country if the bottom falls out.  Frankly, it scares me.  Happy endings are only in the movies and this scenario cannot possibly end well.

Pray we wake up before it's too late.

VW

Islam Day

In Hawaii, they decided they needed an "Islam Day" to celebrate "the rich religious, scientific, cultural and artistic contributions" of Islam.  There is no doubt that Islam has contributed much to those things.  A huge example would be algebra, which was first developed by a Muslim by the name of Muhammad ibn Musa Khwarizmi back in the ninth century.

Other religions have contributed much to the world as well.  So why don't they have a Christianity Day or a Judaism Day?  How about Buddhism Day.  I'm willing to bet there are a lot more Buddhists in Hawaii the Muslims.

I suppose one argument that might be made is that we have Christmas, but it's not quite the same.  Christmas isn't about celebrating the contributions of Christianity to the world.  It's also become so secularized that Christmas is almost devoid of much that is Christian outside of a church service. 

I'm generally a live and let live kind of guy.  I believe in liberty and part of that is freedom to believe in whatever deity, philosophy, creed or system that you want.  So long as you aren't trying to hurt people or practicing other illegal activities, more power to you.  You are also free to be an atheist or a doubter.  It's an American thing that even some Americans have trouble dealing with some times.  This appears to be one of those times.

There should not be any day set aside for Islam.  Not because of what happened on September 11th, 2001(although that should be a factor), but because there should be no day set aside for any faith. 

VW

Up Next: Hyperinflation

For awhile now, I've been writing about our impending financial melt down.  There are now more and more people starting to sound the alarm, but I fear it may be too little too late.  Granted, it's not a sure thing, but if I was a betting man, I'd bet a couple hundred trillion Zimbabwe bucks on it.  There is time to reverse policy, tighten the money supply and live within our means, but the Democrats are in charge and they are dead set on spending as much as they want with no thought to the harm it will cause.

This from an Op-Ed in the San Fransisco Examiner:

Santayana’s maxim — those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it — has grown threadbare from heavy use. But it unavoidably comes to mind this week, as President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill blithely put the final touches on the chief executive’s proposed 2010 federal budget.

With an unprecedented deficit that’s approaching $2 trillion, this budget proposal is a surefire prescription for hyperinflation. So every senator and representative who votes for this monster $3.6 trillion budget will be endorsing a spending spree that could very well turn America into the next Weimar Republic. For those too young to remember, that was the period in Germany in the years between the two world wars when people needed wheelbarrows full of money to buy a loaf of bread.

That's if you can find a loaf of bread on the shelves. 

The presses at the mint are working overtime.  The money supply is at it's largest ever and expanding.  Unless the fed pulls the brake and stops printing, the only result will be hyperinflation. 

I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but this just has to make you wonder what is going on.  Are the Democrats really that stupid?  Maybe they just don't care.  Maybe they want a collapse and the resultant chaos.  After all, that's right out of the Socialist's playbook.

Bailing out the bankers maybe just a ploy.  It looks like they are feigning to save something they intend to actually destroy when all is said and done.

I wish I could be more upbeat, but I do not see this economic train wreck ending well.

VW