Letter to Bill Johnson of the Denver Post

This is a letter I wrote in response to the following article in the Denver Post by Bill Johnson:

“Handguns Make it Way too Easy for Criminals to Kill Good People”
March 23rd, 2011

Just like that.


It is a sentence, or at least a fragment of one, that should have a question mark pinned to the end. But I think I have been around much too long to really ever be surprised anymore.

"Give me all your money," the man waving a black semiautomatic handgun and wearing a black bandana to hide his face barked at the young couple early Friday.
The young woman, Elizabeth Roach, figuring it all a joke although it was 2 in the morning, but also because it was Boulder, yanked the bandana from the man's face.
"I'm not (expletive) around. Give me all your money!" the gunman then replied, firing one shot into the air for emphasis, as if the 900 block of Pennsylvania Avenue was some dusty road somewhere in the Old West.
Somehow still not convinced, the woman grabbed the young man she was with, Todd Walker, 20, by the arm and set out.

"Come on, we're leaving," she said.

At this point, Walker, apparently also still unconvinced, shoved the gunman, who shoved back.

"This is ridiculous. Leave her alone," Walker told the man holding a gun.

The gunman raised his gun and shot Walker once through the heart before running south down an alley.

Todd Walker died. Just like that.
All of it ticks me off. It has since the day I first read it. You have no idea.

Have we really reached a point in our evolution where a young man's life can be taken so cheaply?

I would pose the question to every politician who mattered, but they retreat, frozen as if truly stupefied, for fear of angering every last gun group and gun lobbyist, who you have to know by now got us here and Todd Walker in the ground in the first place.

Not even the president, a half-dozen people slain in Phoenix and a congresswoman shot through the brain, can muster the courage to at last say, enough.
No one says it, and people continue to die.
I have been grinding on this for better than two decades of column writing now, so I know exactly the argument: The gun did not kill Todd Walker. A stupid criminal did.
Stupid criminals I can abide, sort of.
I cannot and will never abide this society's turning a blind eye to the very instrument that allows them to take the life of a kid like Todd Walker.

Handguns, and I have said this so many times, are an abomination in this society. They are the preferred tool of the crazed and weak. They believe it gives them power.
They make good people, like Todd Walker, a sophomore at the University of New Hampshire, where he was a business major and played football, easy victims.
And we should talk about the handgun and Tucson.
Did you know that from the January slaughter there until mid-March, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 2,405 people in the United States have been shot and killed?
Think about that. How can such a number of gun deaths, such violence, be tolerated?
In the days since Todd Walker's killing, Boulder police arrested Kevin McGregor, a 22-year-old sandwich-shop employee. He has been charged with first-degree murder, and prosecutors are considering the death penalty.
Yet more killing.
I tried without success to reach Mark and Pam Walker, Todd's parents. It is never an easy assignment.
Mark Walker, in the Colorado Daily the other day, spoke of his son's killing and called him a hero for trying to protect his companion during the attempted robbery.

"It seems like a really, really silly reason to take a life," he lamented.

When a handgun is involved, it is really, really way too easy, as well.

Bill Johnson writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-954-2763 or wjohnson@denverpost.com.


My letter:

Dear Mr. Johnson,


After reading your opinion in “Handguns make it way too easy for criminals to kill good people” on March 23rd, I felt compelled to reply. I have never replied to an editorial before, so please bear with me. As you will come to find in reading further, I happen to be one of the power-crazed weaklings you label—you know, the people in possession of the “abomination of this society”—handguns.

I appreciate your heart-felt sympathies for victims of senseless violent tragedy. I too share your angst over the death and destruction of human life for such menial reasons. However, I am constrained to point out a glaring hypocrisy in your stage-one thinking pertaining to handguns and their use.

Your mantra claims that Todd Walker, the murdered individual your article speaks of, was an “easy victim” simply because a handgun was used in his murder. Rather than decisively label you immediately as an overly emotional individual with no real education on firearms, I decided to follow your train of thought and ask the next valid question. If Mr. Walker had a handgun and used it to defend his life and the life of the young woman, would you be equally critical of Mr. Walker as you were of the criminal? Would you label Todd as “crazed and weak” and a power-crazed individual using the “abomination of society” to easily victimize someone? If the roles were reversed and Todd used a handgun to defend his life would you continue your rant of being outraged that society continues to turn a blind eye to the very instrument that allows this type of violence? My contention is that you would not because to do so would be illogical and half-witted and I do not think you are stupid or irrational. I believe you are a smart man with a good heart; however, in my opinion, you are misguided in your stance to handguns and violence.

Allow me to offer a hypothetical scenario in an effort to further shed light upon the hypocrisy that comes from the attitude that handguns are evil. Let us imagine for a moment that humankind never invented the handgun or firearms altogether. The technology was never discovered, and therefore, the very word “gun” is totally foreign to all humans on the planet. Would you still have written your article with as much revulsion toward the murder weapon if Mr. Walker was murdered with a club or a sword or knife or rock? Although this is a hypothetical question, I feel it loses none of its relevance because clubs, swords, knifes and rocks exist today—along with a myriad of other implements that are used to murder, and yet you only choose to demonize the handgun.

My question, and the question of most of us who do not agree with your stance is: Why? Why are you so adamantly determined to excoriate and misrepresent guns? The logic just doesn’t add up. Any half-wit can look at the surface of this issue and label the physical gun as the crux of the problem; however that makes about as much sense as claiming it is a pencil’s fault for misspelling a word. I fear expressing your anti-gun emotions to any “politician that matters” will be in vain largely because your arguments do not intelligently articulate in a convincing manner that guns are the root-problem and should therefore be aggressively protested against.

Would you support legislation that completely bans handguns, or at least makes it extremely difficult to purchase one? If your answer is yes, then allow me to offer another side of the debate that you have possibly not considered. Constitutional reference and 2nd Amendment arguments aside, banning handguns will only succeed in disarming the law-abiding citizens and significantly hindering their ability to defend themselves against the criminals who will still obtain handguns illegally. For example, current legislation prohibits a convicted felon from purchasing a handgun; however, anyone can easily observe that the legislation does not curtail them from coming into possession of handguns. This is because they are criminals. Another way to put it is that they are outlaws—they choose to live outside of the law. Restrictive gun legislation dose not apply to those that choose to live outside of the law. Unfortunately for law-abiding citizens however, restrictive gun legislation will successfully limit their ability to legally own a gun, and therefore limit their ability to defend themselves against those that do have the guns.

Evil lives in the world. People commit unexplainable acts of cowardice and violence every day. Evil has always been present in humankind, and unfortunately, evil will continue to be a part of the world. Human life has been taken cheaply throughout our history, not just since the handgun came into being. The fact that a criminal has a gun in his hand while he perpetrates an evil act is mostly irrelevant to the genuine root of the issue and the actual evil act itself. People kill people Mr. Johnson—it happens. The fact that handguns exist does not aggravate the issue any more than the fact that knives, swords, baseball bats, and chainsaws also happen to exist.

I own a handgun, yes, one of the “abominations of society” and I have never shot it at another human being nor do I have the desire to ever do so. This is because I am a sane and responsible citizen with a healthy respect for life and the power of firearms. Furthermore, I do not fear firearms because I possess a lengthy education on the proper use of them. Unfortunately, there are plenty of violent individuals, without the proper respect or education, who succumb to cowardice and selfishness and choose to use handguns to perpetrate unthinkable acts. However, according to your fuzzy-logic, by virtue of the fact that I possess a handgun, I will undoubtedly use it in an act of senseless violence because I believe it gives me “power.” Because, obviously, possessing a handgun automatically overrides my ability to make rational decisions, use good judgment and common sense, and reject my natural instinct to respect life. (Obvious sarcasm there…)

Rest assured Mr. Johnson, if I ever found myself in a situation in which my life or the life of another was being threatened unjustly by a “crazed and weak” individual, if circumstances allowed, I would utilize my handgun against that individual in an effort to preserve innocent life and circumvent a violent criminal from creating another statistic that you can later emote about in another article. I would do this with a clear conscience knowing the sanctity in defending one’s own life or the life of an innocent person. Yes, I would use my handgun to protect innocent life, even if that innocent life was yours.

Obama: A War Criminal?

Our president has declared war on another country without congressional approval. Is he going to be held accountable for this action, or will this matter be shrugged off and Obama given another complete pass to continue to be a total failure of a Commander in Chief?


In 2007 Obama told the Boston Globe:

“The President does not have the power under the constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”

In a press conference on March 21st Obama said:

“The core principle that has to be upheld here [military action against Libya] is that when the entire international community almost unanimously says that there is a potential humanitarian crisis about to take place, that a leader [Qaddafi] who has lost his legitimacy, decides to turn his military on his own people, that we can’t simply stand by with empty words. That we have to take some sort of action.”

So, by Obama’s logic, if this so called “international community” is involved, then the US Constitution is irrelevant? Since when does the president cease to be answerable to congress and the American people regarding involving the country in a war? What is the “actual or imminent threat” to our nation from Libya?

Several presidents over the past 40 years have been notorious for committing acts of war on other nations without proper congressional consent. Kennedy sent “advisors” to Vietnam which were later involved in combat action against the Viet Minh, Johnson had the controversial Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which committed the US to combat action in Vietnam, Nixon bombed Cambodia, Clinton brought US military action against Kosovo and Somalia then left those places in a mess, and now Obama moves the US into Libya. It takes an act of congress to make war on another country—whatever the reason, humanitarian or otherwise, and Obama failed to seek congressional authorization. What is this “international community” that the US is apparently answerable to according to Obama? Are we not a sovereign nation with our own Constitution?

What Obama has said about Libya could easily describe Saddam and Iraq even going back to before Operation Desert Storm--the very same Saddam and Iraq that Obama and democrats blasted the Bush administration for being irrelevant to the War on Terror. Furthermore, if circumventing a “potential humanitarian crisis” is the reason Obama is citing for declaring war on Libya, then why doesn’t he declare war on any number of the dozen or so other countries in the world in which humanitarian crises take place. Why was Obama totally silent during the humanitarian crises in Iran during the beginning of his term? There are “humanitarian crisis’s” happening every day in our own southern states pertaining to illegal immigration and the injustices and intimidation of ranchers and farmers. Does our own federal government do anything about that? Absolutely not. And don’t tell me the Bureaucracy of “Homeland Security” and Border Patrol is an acceptable answer.

By the way, Bush did get unanimous authorization from congress in October of 2001 to conduct military action on any nation that harbored, supported, or was sympathetic to terrorists.

Where is the “international coalition” here? Despite no congressional approval, military action against Libya thus far has been solely American—the US is conducting the operations, the US is supplying the operations, the US is financing the operations. As far as Qaddafi and all Muslim terrorists around the world are concerned, the 112 Tomahawk cruise missiles that exploded in Tripoli last Saturday came from the US—not this phantom “international community” Obama speaks of.

How many wars can one nation be involved in and still maintain some semblance of functionality on the home front? Our nation is currently reeling with economic distress, the highest unemployment in 30 years, ever increasing prices, fear of inflation, fear of tax increases, a large illegal immigration problem, political discourse, war fatigue, decreasing morale in the military, many states are virtually bankrupt, and our Commander in Chief commits the nation to yet another war-front! What is his goal? What is the plan, strategy, endgame, anything? The fact that we have no idea is further proof that this administration is dangerously incompetent and completely in over their heads. Even Hillary just announced that if Obama gets another term, she’s out.

Aside from all of the glaringly bad decisions and indecisions the Obama administration has made domestically, ultimately it has been our president’s embarrassing failure as our Commander in Chief and foreign policy blunders that have really reinforced my resolve that the election of Obama was a shameful mistake that America must remedy in the next election cycle. I know every president has flaws and makes mistakes, and we will never be able to elect the “perfect” individual; however, Obama has proven he was not ready for the job of president. His past which contains absolutely no leadership experience, to our detriment, is catching up to him.

Obama’s first impression on the world pertaining to war matters was anticlimactic to say the least. He dithered on Afghanistan for over six months when we needed decisive action, strategy, and leadership. Under Obama, the US is a stagnate-occupying force in Iraq with no real direction on how to proceed. He completely dismissed the Iranian uprising, thus being absent on a crucial international opportunity to stand for freedom and democracy and denounce tyranny and oppression. He has now inserted the US into a third front on wars against Muslim nations (so much for his tireless outreach to the Muslim population…).

The stench of hypocrisy coming from this president, his administration, and the democrat-party-biased-media regarding war is staggering. Where are all of the war protestors now? They couldn’t contain themselves when Bush was in office, but now they got their guy in the White House, so all is quiet. By the way, at least eight Marines lost their lives in Afghanistan last week. Did the media make a peep about that? When was the last time we ever heard anything, good or bad, about the war on terror? It seems once Obama took power it basically vanished from the media’s vernacular. But of course the death of Michael Jackson, Tiger Woods’ girlfriends, Charlie Sheen’s melt-downs, and Obama’s brackets for March Madness make much better cover stories for anything that could potentially shed a negative light on Obama and his failed handling of these wars. Must be nice to have a large portion of the media covering for you all the time…

The Truth Comes Out

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/03/09/npr-president-schiller-resigns/

Big surprise…

The curtain has finally been pulled back to reveal NPR executives for what they truly are: liberal ideologues with a warped and fearful outlook of anyone and anything that does not fit their social-political paradigm.

This story underscores a concrete example of how certain liberals or “progressives” at higher media or political levels view you—the conservative. They label you as stupid and racist. Of course the irony here is that they label you as fearful of many groups of people such as Muslims, homosexuals, immigrants, minorities etc. and yet it seems that they are in reality fearful of conservatives.

Maybe we could coin a new phobia: Conserveatiphobia…

Say nothing of the blatant anti-Semite remarks from Schiller in the video.

Logical thinking and genuine honesty dictate that generalizing an entire group of people is not intelligent or even rational. Labeling the entire Tea Party as “racist” is simply a hasty generalization that does not hold any concrete evidence or proof; however, it seems logic, proof, evidence, and truth do not matter to the staunch liberal or “progressive”. Labeling the entire Nazi party of the Third Reich as fascists however is not a hasty generalization due to the multitude of historical proof, evidence, and objective deduction from their actions. By the way, didn’t the Nazis also dabble in the generalization of an entire people as being inferior, stupid, inhuman, not to be given any real credence or platform? Sounds eerily familiar from what we find continually coming from the hard-left in the political spectrum today.

The blatant political and ideological slant to the left demonstrated by the Main Stream Media is becoming more and more obvious all the time. How can a person take them for “objective journalists” anymore unless they themselves subscribe to the same brand of leftism in the first place?

Although this NPR story comes as no surprise, the unfortunate reality of it is, their mindset is not isolated. The White House, Executive Branch, Senate, and the majority of the large media outlets on TV and in print are full of individuals of the same disposition.

Another Demonstration of the “Religion of Peace”

The prime suspect in the murder of two U.S. Airmen in Germany, Arif Uka, confessed to specifically targeting Americans. Authorities have stated that the murderer has ties to **big surprise** Islamic fundamentalist groups in Germany.

When is the spin on this religion as a “religion of peace” going to end? Are there peaceful Muslims who denounce murderous behavior from other Muslims? Yes, of course there are; however, these murderous zealots are by and large all Muslim.

And Obama is “outraged”…


Well, he should be. Especially given the fact the Muslims are his “brothers” and he has taken such great strides toward praising them, backing them up, and apologizing to them.

Wait for it…

Some left-winger is going to call me a “fear monger” for simply stating the obvious.

November 2nd: A Referendum on Out of Control Government

Upon opening our mail last Friday, my wife and I discovered first-hand another reason to not vote democrat. A pleasant letter from my health insurance provider candidly informed me that my monthly premium is set to increase by $55 a month effective December 1st! Knowing that this was going to be a nasty consequence of Obamacare, I wasn’t surprised in the least, yet reading that letter just reinforced my resolve against the current democratic monstrosity in Washington. I know some deniers out there will simply dismiss my complaint as a hypersensitivity to a grim fact that health insurance premiums traditionally increase annually. I am aware of this fact; however, the annual increases have typically been about 1% to 3%. This increase is a whopping 25%! Furthermore, this comes in the wake of the health care takeover that democrats forced upon us in the name of lowering our health care costs! They plainly did nothing to help lower our costs. In fact, these types of premium increases are happening across the country, and some insurance providors are even dropping coverage all together. So much for the lie of “…if you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor…”



I offer the following thanks to the democrats in power, (sarcasm intended):

Thank you President Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Harry Reid and all the democrats in congress for taking food off of my table in difficult economic times. Thank you for overstepping your limits afforded by the constitution and force-placing your utopian dream of a government ran health care system upon the entire country.
Because of your reckless disregard of what the majority of Americans wanted, let alone the constitution, and your arrogant endangerment of our entire health care system, I will now have to spend less money at the grocery store, or on my kids, in order to accommodate the new $55 monthly bill handed to me by my insurance company—courtesy of your horribly misguided health care law.
Similar to millions of other Americans, my wife and I do not have much disposable income; we live paycheck to paycheck on a budget. We are the epitome of the “average American citizens” you claim to have an interest in assisting. A new $55 a month bill is not easily absorbed by our budget. We will have to cut costs in the only variable expense areas we have: groceries, gas, and what we can do for the kids.

**************************************

The midterm elections today, November 2nd, will not be about restoring the republicans to power. Republicans may be uniquely positioned to be the undeserving beneficiaries of a destructive congress which has lost the faith of the American people; however, republicans currently fair equally as bad as democrats in the polls. This election is not about republicans or democrats; it is a referendum on the out of control party currently in power that refuses to listen to the majority desires of the American people. It may be fair to assert that they care about what some Americans think; however, they have made it painfully clear they absolutely do not care about what conservative Americans think--a dangerous thing to do given over half of this country still identifies itself with conservative principles. 

The horrible legislation that we will have to endure because of the current failure-of-a-congress and presidential administration is staggering. Just for starters, the health care takeover, Stimulus, Bailouts, Cap and Trade, has crippled American business and will ensure slow economic growth for years to come—possibly indefinitely if not reformed or repealed Their inability to make a decision regarding the Bush tax-cuts has solidified business and consumer apprehension and lack of confidence in the government’s ability to back policy that will actually help revive the market. They have demonstrated a sluggish attitude toward getting people back to work in the private sector by extending unemployment benefits to a point where many people have actually stopped looking for a job—and why not, the federal government is paying them to stay home!  The current party in power has demonstrated they posses an utter apathetic attitude toward national security and a retreatist and defeatist attitude to our mission in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have offered a dangerously low level of support for our only Ally in the Middle East: Israel. They have shown no desire to uphold federal law pertaining to illegal immigration. If debt was one thing they were so concerned about from the Bush administration, then they can just consider themselves an extension of the bush administration--on steroids.

They do not deserve to keep their jobs—we are a weaker and more vulnerable country as long as they are allowed to have Cart Blanche to enact their bad policies. Single party rule is not working. Given the state of the economy, unrelentingly high unemployment, and low consumer confidence, why would anyone be adamant about keeping the current party in power? One of the main benefits that Americans enjoy, over other countries, is that we have traditionally been a country with smaller government, yet bigger individuals. Immigrants come to this country in droves to benefit from this reality. If nothing is done to reverse the path we are currently beset upon, I am convinced authentic America--as it was designed to be from our founding--will become extinct.

I am so fed-up with lawmakers at almost every level—state and federal. I am absolutely of the opinion that, at this point, if an individual has been in politics for ten years or longer, republican, democrat, or independent--they need to go! They have done their time, and they have utterly failed. Being a politician should not be a carrier path, it should be temporary time spent to serve one’s country. The carrier politicians have been busy writing legislation and enacting policy that is totally incongruent with what is best for the prosperity of the country. They need to get out of the way of the breath of fresh air the country so desperately needs. We need new faces, new blood, and new politics in Washington. We need citizens who have worked hard in the private sector, ran businesses, signed paychecks, hired people, created jobs, and actually held leadership positions. Our very own president had never held a leadership position in his life until he was sworn in as our Commander in Chief.

Republicans and democrats have bilaterally failed. If tomorrow we find that the democrats have lost their majority in either the House or the Senate, it will not so much be a victory for republicans as it will be a rejection of the current party in power—a referendum. And if Republicans do not do everything in their power to right the country from its current course of failure, God willing, they will be voted out in 2012 too.

All that is left to do is vote, hope and pray for the true change that is needed bring the county back to excellence and prosperity. Today the country decides what path it will take: the path of large government, wide-spread government dependence, and a lower standard of living, or the path of smaller government, individual prosperity, and traditional American Exceptionalism. Today I will vote. Today I will part of this decision.

Conservatism: The Common Sense Lifeline in a Common Senseless Storm

Disclaimer:

Although I have read Mark Levin’s book Liberty and Tyranny, and consider myself an economic and social conservative, I do not intend for the purposes of this essay to regurgitate Levin’s concepts in Liberty and Tyranny. I decided to add this paragraph to inform the reader that Levin’s book is an inspiring look at conservatism vs. liberalism, or Statism as he refers to it, and many of my own thoughts and writings may tend to reflect concepts in Liberty and Tyranny. Although I by no means plagiarize Levin, I agree whole-heatedly in much of the roots, mechanisms, and elements of conservatism that he subscribes to.



Conservatives believe in the concept of equal opportunity, not equal outcome. The conservative believes in the opportunity for everyone to make their own fortune, better their position in life, and freely pursue and realize their goals and dreams. This concept has been roundly referred to world-wide as the American Dream. Never has this concept been referred to as the Russian Dream, the Ethiopian Dream, the Iranian Dream or the Canadian Dream. Always the American Dream. Millions of immigrants to this country over two centuries can attest to the draw and inspiration the American Dream can hold over the human spirit. As long as every individual has an equal opportunity to create, achieve, thrive, and succeed--those that desire to chase after what they want will do so, and ultimately make better themselves and the society as a whole. This is a large reason why the true conservative believes so ardently in limited government. True conservatives comprehend the concept of “the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.” Trying to explain this truth to someone resigned to the notion that government is the answer to all of our problems is an exercise in futility. They would rather hand over their money, rights, and liberty to government for the sake of propagating the mystique of equal outcome—a fallacy that has never been successful, and never will. The Founders also staunchly believed in a limited government with enumerated powers, and the empowerment of the individual through liberty from too much government intrusion. Further strengthening the Founders model of limited central government is Federalism. Through Federalism, individual States have the ability to govern and tailor legislation to their own unique culture and socioeconomic landscape without the stigma of a large central government ruling from afar.


The conservative also comprehends the notion that, even when afforded equal opportunity, not everyone will rise to the mantel of achievement or desire to work hard to accomplish a goal or dream. This concept goes hand in hand with the reality that equal outcome is a false utopian dream. Some people will simply choose to live off of handouts and the work of others. However, as long as they live in a civil society which provides them equal opportunity to accomplish a goal or dream, if they choose to work for it, hope remains intact for the individual and the civil society.

Some actually choose not to live by the laws established by the society they live in, and ultimately, reject cooperatively contributing to the civil society altogether. Illegal immigrants come to mind. They have just as equal an opportunity to become a legal citizen as anyone else; however, no matter how good of a person they are at heart, they choose to reject the law and live according to what suits them, despite how damaging their actions can ultimately be to everyone else.

Such is life—and the conservative understands this; however, the conservative rejects the idea that those that work hard to achieve, create, accomplish, and pursue their American Dream are obligated, or worse yet, indeed forced to provide for those that choose not to achieve, work, or follow the laws of the land. This is one major reason why the conservative yearns for entitlement program and tax reform. The conservative believes in empowering people with the opportunity to make their own success.

One of the many entitlement program reforms the conservative seeks is social security reform. Individuals need the opportunity to plan their retirement savings in a manner that may yield a more successful return on their investment—in essence, keep the money they work hard to earn. And I don’t intend to indicate that everyone should stop paying social security taxes tomorrow and just dump all their money into the stock market—that would be foolish and unrealistic.

As it currently stands, social security is little more than a massive government mandated Ponzie scheme—transferring money from people who pay into the system to others who do not in an attempt to force the utopian dream of equal outcome. Many of the people drawing from social security end up receiving more than they ever put in—those on disability for instance. This reality alone should demonstrate how crucial social security reform is. Furthermore, social security is not some massive trust fund out there in a government bank account that people pay into with the hope of drawing the money out when they retire. The 6% social security tax that is eliminated from your every paycheck has already been spent. It is not sitting in savings earning interest waiting for you when you retire. Social security is a completely unfunded entitlement program which is in fact bankrupt; however, the government continues to write the checks anyway, understandably so, because it’s not like they can just turn the entitlement faucet off tomorrow. Plans need to be made, strategy mapped out, and some sacrifices taken, but the leftist in government drives on as if social security is an entitlement for all and in fact a blank check for the future.

I fully comprehend that many people currently benefit from social security. I work in the financial industry and see first-hand how social security is in fact some peoples’ only source of income. I know there are those receiving social security that paid into it during their entire working career, and thus earned it—my grandparents for instance; however, they are receiving a diminished return on what they actually paid in. Furthermore, once they die they cannot transfer the remaining social security they are entitled to over to their heirs—another nasty consequence of the government controlling an individuals retirement. Social security is a perfect example of how government has attempted to force equal outcome, and failed miserably.

Leftists, or progressives as they prefer to be called, put full stock in the concept of equal outcome rather than equal opportunity. Ironically enough, they claim to be the champions of equal opportunity; however, a closer look at the programs and legislation they support will quickly reveal the truth. As believers in equal outcome, they believe in redistribution of wealth and go as far as to label the “rich” as evil—that they require punishment through heavy taxation—as if they do not pay enough taxes already. Contrary to the progressives mantra that the wealthy do not pay their fair share of taxes, as it currently stands in America, the top 40% of earners already pay 70% of the tax burden. How much more do they need to pay? 60% of the population is paying 30% of the tax burden and in 2009 alone, 40% of the people didn’t even end up paying income taxes at all, they received a tax return. Just look on the IRS website and note the tax brackets. The “rich” already pay between 33% and 35% of their gross income to federal taxes, and if the Bush tax cuts from 2002 are allowed to expire, that will increase to 39.6%. So, by and large, who is paying the majority of the taxes in this country? Do the math…

Some might say, “You just want to protect the rich while the middle and lower class suffer!” My response is two-fold: First off, the ignorance of the aforementioned mind-set is staggering to say the least; however, unfortunately many people feel this way. Of course I want to protect the rich, or rather the “wealth” in this country, but not in an unethical money-mongering way as the anticapitalist incorrectly presumes. Protecting the wealth and those who have accumulated it is mostly an economic necessity!

For the sake of stimulating some rational thought, I would ask the leftist to contemplate the following questions:

• Who do you think are the job creators, entrepreneurs, and property owners who largely employ the “middle and lower class” in this country?

• Who are the people that own businesses, hire people, and help create competition in the market, ultimately leading to decreases in price?

• Who do you think took risks, created businesses that gave way to product innovation and technology advancement in this country?

• Who spends higher volumes of money in the private sector, thus stimulating the economy way more than government ever can?



The answer to all of the above questions is not government; it is those evil rich people that leftists want to tax to death!


Here is some ‘Economics 101’ food for thought:

If more tax revenue is the ultimate objective, raising taxes can actually be counterproductive to the end goal. Raising taxes constricts businesses and limits the ability to hire more people, take risk, expand, and spend. Getting people back to work will make more progress toward creating tax revenue simply because there will be more people in the workforce paying taxes. Imaging how much more tax revenue the government would benefit from of the country was back to 4% or 5% unemployment as opposed to the 10% we are currently at…
Raising taxes—any kind of taxes for anyone--in a recession is counterproductive to recovering from the recession because it stifles growth and does not  facilitate sufficient job creation.   This is one of the many reasons why taking on such incredible amounts of debt (the Stimulus, Bail-out’s, Obamacare, etc. etc.) is so detrimental to our overall economic progress. 

I want to ensure that the wealthy and the business owners in this country can keep what they have earned (insert concept of American Dream here) and keep spending the way they do and thus keep their means intact to create jobs, initiate more business innovation, and positively stimulate the economy. This is not a left or right political issue. One either accepts basic economic principles, or they reject them and insert their own emotion-based or dogma-based ideologies. Businesses do not hire more people when they are stifled by heavy tax burdens and uncertainty in the marketplace, and businesses definitely do not hire more when they have zero confidence that the government is not going to help foster an economic recovery by getting out of their way. This is why under the Obama administration unemployment has been allowed to soar and has failed to go back down. The American business construct is showing its lack of confidence in this congress and administration. Bear in mind, the democrats have been in complete control of both houses of congress for the last four years—and the White house for the last two. Furthermore, as long as we demonize and punish wealth in this country we will stifle and constrict the entrepreneurial spirit that is traditionally unique to this nation and ultimately, is the spirit that creates jobs! Punishing wealth creation in this country effectively stops risk-takers in their tracks, does not incent businesses to take chances, and overall, darkens the American Dream. Why would anyone work as hard as they can to earn wealth when it is just going to be punished and taken from them anyway? Why would anyone get off their butt to go earn a living and contribute to the economy when the government will take from the earners and redistribute to those who choose not to earn?

Unfortunately, America is overrun with government full of leftists and progressives. This means our own government leans more toward the concept of forcing equal outcome and legislates accordingly. Under the rule of those that believe equal outcome can be governed, legislated, or created, some very destructive things occur. People who work hard to earn, create and achieve are forced to pay for those who do not so that the illusion of equal outcome can be upheld. Thus, the leftist supports higher taxation and government controlled entitlements.  They just forced healthcare upon the entire country as a government-provided entitlement. Rather than empowering the individual with equal opportunity to work hard and create their own wealth, and spend their money they way they choose, equal outcome believers must force their ideology upon the populace because it does not naturally exist. The equal outcome utopia requires a lot of government programs and regulations. Inflating government is an expensive enterprise; however, it is necessary in the mind of a leftist because equal outcome must be legislated. To the conservative, growing government and increasing government programs equals taxes, taxes, and more taxes and ultimately less freedom, choice, and liberty. The conservative comprehends that the believers in equal outcome will choose to raise taxes in order to financially facilitate their inflated government and throng of government programs. They will not eliminate or reduce the programs set in place, for the programs are required to facilitate their utopian dream. Unfortunately taxes can never be raised high enough to pay for it all, so another destructive consequence of the leftist utopian dream is inflation, and a lousy dollar. In order to keep interest rates artificially low, they then have to print more money. This can lead to the cost of products and services going up, yet does nothing for income or standard of living—and actually, standard of living will decrease during inflationary periods, damaging the very people they claim to support the most—the lower and middle class.

Further legislating economically destructive policy, the Leftists in government then may decide to raise the minimum wage in an effort to project the notion that they are thinking of the “little guy”, that they support the “average” working American. They will propagate many heart-wrenching stories of how hard it is for the middle and lower class citizen to make a living and raise a family—they must be given more money for their hard work—they simply must! Unfortunately, all a forced wage increase does to the economy is force prices to increase yet again. What once was a $5 burger at your local diner will become a $7 burger in an effort to offset the increase in cost of doing business.  Furthermore, they may (and actually did) legislate bad policy which entitles people to a home--even if they do not qualify for the mortgage.

The sick part of this destructive spiral is that it was the leftist’s bad economic policies which made it difficult for the average citizen to make a living in the first place and ultimately, guess who is going to be there with open arms, entitlement programs and welfare when the individual is disenfranchised, bled dry, and broken? The very same leftist! This keeps those disenfranchised citizens voting for the leftist rather than against. I am undecided as to whether the leftist is simply an economic imbecile with no concept of the future or the “big picture”, or a sly genius subtly orchestrating a massive strategy to keep people dependant on government and thus voting accordingly.

"Those Voices Don't Speak for the Rest of Us"

What is so amazing about the speech Regan was giving here is it was given in the 60’s! It’s as if he were giving insight directly to us in our political climate today. We have a dysfunctional, arrogant government bent on passing legislation that is against the will of the people, and their actions will fundamentally change this nation for the worse—yet, they press on. Cap and Tax was just passed in the House. Are they genuinely trying to break the country, or are they just so insulated and out of touch with the American people and how to improve the economy that they pass reckless legislation under the mantra of “hope and change”? Meanwhile, our President plays more rounds of golf in 20 months than his predecessor did in eight years!


It dosent matter. The majority of the people in the country are against this administration, this congress, and the direction they are taking us. And it is up to us to bring the run-away train to a screeching halt before our country is unrecognizable.