Keep the Sequester Cuts

We may need to clean house in Washington.  The politicians, on both sides of the aisle, appear to be ready  to restore the spending eliminated in the sequester.  How can they seriously deal with our budget and think of increasing spending?

We are already on a financial time bomb.  There is no way to diffuse it.  It is only a matter of time before our financial system collapses.  The politicians only hope that it will not happen on their watch.  Thus the perpetual kicking of the can down the road.  Addressing the real issue will be messy and politically unpopular.

Our other problem is the growing government.  Weekly we hear about more government intrusion in our lives.  Government interference may seem benign now, but the power of government can easily be turned for evil.  We have to stop government growth now.  It only grows because we let it.

A whole new slate of legislators might be the answer.

History in the Making

The lawmakers in the U.S. House now have the attention of the nation and the world, as they have scaled back the government.  We call it the "shut down."  Now the government spending is bumping up on the debt ceiling, and something has to be done.

This is a Hobson's choice.  If they raise the debt ceiling, we go further into debt.  We continue to add to the future troubles.  If they don't raise the ceiling, then they set in motion the financial catastrophe that has been building since the Reagan years.  There is no good way out of this.  They tell us that this is complicated.  In the details, it is.  In principle, it is as simple as a piggy bank.

Government is a monster that needs to be fed money.  It consumes money faster than we can earn it and mail it in.  It grows every year by design.  Some have grown tired of feeding the monster, wishing that it would be satisfied.

The next step may make history.

A Long Time to Pay Off the Debt

We are fooling ourselves if we think that we are ever going to pay off the U.S. national debt.  

What is the national debt, anyway?  Think of it this way.  Imagine that you get an allowance of $10 per week.  But you end up spending $11 per week.  You have a spending deficit of $1.  That extra money has to come from somewhere, so you borrow it from your sister.  After the first week, you owe her $1.  But you keep up that spending pattern, and every week you borrow another dollar from her.  After 12 weeks, you owe her $12.  That is your total debt, not including the interest you owe her.  You add up the deficits to determine your debt.

Our national deficits have recently been over $300 billion, and according to the National Debt Clock  our national debt is over $16.7 trillion dollars.  The numbers are so big that we can’t really understand them.  

Let’s put those numbers in perspective thinking of these numbers in terms of time.

There are 86,400 seconds in a day. 

A million seconds is about 11.6 days.

A billion seconds is about 31.7 years.

A trillion seconds is 31,710 years.

The earliest records of human history date back about 5000 years.  So one trillion seconds is more than 6 times as long as human history.  History itself has not experienced a trillion seconds.

So, if the U.S. never borrowed another penny and began paying off the debt at a rate of a dollar per second, we would pay off the debt in about 529,557 years.  If we paid off the debt at a rate of $1000 per second, it would still take us over 529 years.

Another War?

The US looks determined to take on another war, this time in Syria.  It was terrible for the Syrian government to use chemical weapons on its population.  But we cannot be the world's police.

We are involved in numerous conflicts all around the globe, and have been for generations.  Unfortunately, many times politicians lead our country into war for political reasons.  Presidents grow in popularity when they start wars.  Thus, it takes very little rationalizing for presidents to lead us into war.

We interpret US national interests so broadly that virtually any excuse works to take us into war.

The American public allows this war mongering, not considering the problems with world-policing.  The more we intervene, the less moral authority we have.  The flimsier our excuses for war, the less moral authority we have.

Here we go again...

Healthcare Revealed

Universal healthcare was supposed to fix so many problems. Every day we now learn more reasons why it was too good to be true.

Today Delta Airlines announced that compliance with the law will cost them $100 million.  Government interference in the marketplace always has unintended consequences.

It amazes me that anyone is surprised at the debacle.  The legislation was rushed through with contrived urgency.  No one had a chance to read the bill thoroughly, much less debate or refine it.

No one could predict the effects of such far-reaching changes in the healthcare market.  But sending the industry into chaos has one clear benefit for power-hungry politicians:  government will be called in to straighten out the mess.

So government creates the mess, then charges in to fix the mess.  Seems like we have seen this pattern before.

The Other Side of the Story

All the protests and media reports about the Republican legislature in Raleigh have led the public to believe that our state government now works against the public good.  The tipping point seemed to be the treatment of our teachers and the education system.  All over Facebook I saw posts about the evil legislature gutting the education system and giving teachers the shaft.

I kept thinking there must be another side to the story.  No one would be so cold and heartless.  While the news media should have offered to provide the other perspective, I never saw one story explaining the Republican point of view.  It was like the whole party went behind locked doors to invent ways to subvert the will of the people.  The legislators were portrayed as out of touch, stubborn and stupid.

Then today I saw a link posted offering the other side of the story.  http://www.ncgop.org/nc-house-republicans-state-education-spending-the-facts/  Now granted, this comes from the Republicans, so it is politically motivated, but no more so than the complaints of the Democrats.

The Republicans let themselves be demonized by the media without effectively getting out their side of the story.

The media are also to blame, because they fail to answer the obvious question:  What could the Republicans possibly be thinking?

And the public should be ashamed for mindlessly buying the outlandish, biased reports from the media.

Don't We Know This Trick?

I have said for years that you can't lead people where they don't want to go.  I was wrong.  You can lead people where they don't want to go if you trick them and lie to them.  This is what tyrants have been doing throughout history. 

Right now our politicians are cleverly working to create civil unrest.  Economic disaster awaits the collapse of the dollar, and current policies have guaranteed more severe fallout ahead.  Politicians use the media and government agencies to create greater divides among us, along race and economic lines.  The health care law seizes control of a huge sector of our economy.  College loans are now all handled by the federal government, making indebted students slaves to the state.

When everything falls apart, it will require more government intervention, perhaps even martial law.  The public will cry out for more government control to help settle the upheaval in society.  The government will be more than willing to use the heavy hand to control the population.

Here is the trick:  use government policies to create unrest in society, then let government swoop in to save the day with even more control.  What's the definition of tyranny?

Moral Mondays

The Moral Mondays movement in Raleigh seeks to call attention to the (apparently) immoral actions of the Republican led NC legislature. 

They object to the legislature's effort to allow taxpayers to keep more of their own money.  It must be moral for the government to seize money from citizens and fund various welfare programs.  How dare the government stop taking so much money to give to other people?

The government is the bully who can take away and give to anyone he wishes.  When the bully considers stealing less, the beneficiaries scream, and enlist others to scream for them.   It seems to be motivated by selfishness, the very characteristic the beneficiaries condemn in others. 

The real irony is the Moral Monday demand that abortions not be restricted.  How can terminating the life of unborn children be considered moral?  It seems that their standard for morality is that which makes their lives easier.  No wonder moral standards vary. 

The Priesthood of the Media

A priest is a mediator between mortals and a god. 

The priests of the Roman Catholic Church served as the mediators between God and the people of Christendom for centuries.  The Church guarded and interpreted the scriptures.  The priests  instructed them about proper worship.  Reformers of the 1500s challenged the role of priests, asserting that people needed no intermediary to communicate with God.  Many paid dearly for daring to translate the Bible into contemporary languages, providing for the masses unfiltered access to the word of God.

Today the media serve as the priests of the political progressive movement. 

Seeking to honor their deity and further the cause, the media control the flow of information.  They create news by polling the public and reporting only the “helpful” results.  Scandals are dismissed.  Hard questions are never asked.  They worship the political machine with its good intentions, as it advances the progressive political agenda.  The media dutifully report this large, growing government’s version of the truth.  Even as the government oversteps its Constitutional limits, the media believe that the honorable agenda is being served.

But the story changes.  The government is caught deceiving the media.  Journalists’ phone records are subpoenaed.  The attorney general offers to speak to the press “off the record.”  Reports show that telephone companies have been forced to provide information about all their customers’ phone calls for at least seven years.  The IRS  hinders the work of the government’s political opponents.  The overreaching government begins to impinge on the freedom of its priests. 

The god has betrayed the priests.  The priests are dumbfounded.  This good, progressive government now seems to be less than holy.  The priesthood has lost its leader, and no longer knows how to spin the news.

The media now understand the painful truth that the Founders knew all too well:  Power corrupts.  It corrupts even those with good intentions.  It corrupts progressives and conservatives alike.  Power weaves corruption into the culture of countless government agencies. 

The deeper the corruption, the more difficult it is to expose.

A system of checks and balances can help keep people honest.  Government is not divine.  It always tends toward corruption.  The media-priests only awoke when they themselves were burned.  May the media learn to hold the government accountable.  And may we the people hold one another accountable.

Finally the press wakes up

Today the press finally acknowledged that there is substance to the Benghazi story.  The authorities chased down the Boston bombers right away, but apparently ignored the siege of a U.S. consulate.

Pressure from the press would have put Benghazi on the front page right away, but the main-stream media bought the story from the White House.  But now, it sounds like there is more to the story.

The press has an important role in a free country.  They must look for and expose abuse of power.  It's about time they dug for facts and asked the hard questions.

Agree with Me

Farmers were denied entry at a screening of the documentary film, “Gasland, Part II,” recently.  Apparently the promoters did not want people in the audience who did not agree with the thesis of the film, that fracking is bad.  http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/04/23/fracknation-filmmaker-claims-group-farmers-was-barred-from-gasland-part-ii/?intcmp=features

Politicians have been stacking crowds for years.  Only those who will cheer for the candidate are allowed in the audience.  When a trickster gets through and begins shouting or heckling, it causes a stir.  Agree with me or shut up.

I understand the desire to have a sympathetic audience.  But we need to be careful not to stifle honest, open debate.  The climate of political correctness has had a chilling effect on free speech. 

Because certain beliefs are assumed to be true, and are rarely challenged, there are certain things that cannot be said. 

• Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. 
• The pro-choice movement supports the right to choose who is a person. 
• Politicians (many, if not most) are motivated by political self interest and power.
• Both major political parties work to gain and retain power more than they work to support and defend the U.S. Constitution. 
• The news media are motivated by their own self interests of ratings and revenue; big government stories produce big audiences, so the media are biased toward bigger government. 
• Printing money will ruin our monetary system; it is only a matter of time before it falls apart.
• Personal morality is essential for civilization.
• Morality cannot be defined by majority vote.
• Guns owned by citizens protect citizens from government tyranny.
• Scientific evidence for Darwinian evolution has enormous gaps.
• Religions that encourage lying to advance their religion are dangerous.
• Entertainment often distracts citizens from the important issues.

Those who agree with the politically correct party line are given the microphone.  In the media, all we hear is one perspective.  When we hear it enough, we tend to believe it.  Even if it is not true.

Gun Control

The gun control advocates sense that the time is right to make some big changes.  The emotional tide is right.  There is far too little discussion about the reason we have a Second Amendment to the Constitution. 

The Founders had lived under the tyranny of England, and knew that citizens need protection against overstepping government. 

The real motivation behind gun control is not safer schools, but tighter government control of every aspect of life.  It is one thing to fear a rogue criminal with a gun.  It is another to fear the authorities who can systematically limit your freedoms, and ultimately put you in prison--or worse.

Hello again

It's been over three years since I have posted anything on this blog.  Even so, people have occasionally found my blog, and apparently read something.

I had even forgotten how I logged on to the blog.  I had my daughter, who was home from college for the weekend, help me break the code.  Now, I'm back in business. 

Ah, yes...where shall I start?

How about a quote?  I heard Ravi Zacharias say on a video blog:  "Any stigma can beat a good dogma."  You may speak the truth, but if people can malign you or your ideas, then your message won't be heard.  Well said, Ravi.