The so-called "Tea Party Movement" is, on the one hand, grass-roots and, thus, certainly not what Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls it, "Astroturf".  The so-called "Tea Party Movement" is, on the other hand, uncoordinated, disorganized, and "diverse" in the true sense of that.  That's both positive and negative, in my opinion; positive because it's bottom-up, no followers, no sheep; negative because the resulting mass isn't on the same page.  The so-called "Tea Party Movement" is made up, generally, of people with skin in the game that is America, but not skin in the game of gaming America's government.

These are people pulling the wagon, not riding in it.  These are people who work for a living rather than vote for a living.  These are people who are givers, not takers, givvies, not gimmes.

If you want a "million man march", you can get lots of them -- who arise late-morning and usually sit on a milk crate outside a corner convenience store shooting the bull with like bums or urban outdoorsmen -- to come to Washington . . . as long as you have ACORN or SEIU and their ilk provide the free transportation, food and drink, and maybe a few bucks.  If you want poor, uneducated, unemployed, single moms on welfare to march on Washington with their hands out -- palms raised -- seeking increased goodies, heck, give 'em a ride, free childcare, and some grub, and they'll be there.  If you want "seniors" who never saved, never prepared, never budgeted, who are now predictably helpless to come, that's easy as well.

A lobbyist for the sugar industry will be there at Congress' door 24/7 if need be, that because government protectionism is worth 10s of $billions to that industry, his employer.  You'll not expect those who're hurt by that, who actually pay the 10s of $billions there because each of them only pays an extra $21 per year.  Not worth the cost of the trip.

Marches on the Capitol in Washington D.C cannot, in my opinion, be the centerpiece of the "Tea Party Movement" playbook.  First, these are people who just don't "march", don't whine, don't beg, don't organize.  These are people who value liberty, not statism.  Second, these are people who have something to lose by going to Washington, and it's who they are.  They have businesses to run, jobs to perform, families to support, payrolls to meet, taxes to pay, children to raise, customers and clients to serve, rent and mortgages to pay, and in some cases, grandchildren to help with while the aforementioned gets done.  And third, these are people who know that the federal government is to be small, very small, and that most -- by a long shot -- issues are to be left to the states, counties, municipalities, communities or individuals, so sayeth the U.S. Constitution.  Therefore, these folks are invested there, closer to home.

I thought that I was the guy -- albeit by default since I didn't see anyone else stepping forward -- to grab the reins and start a movement.  But, GetAmericaRight failed to gain any traction, so I failed.  That alone should be enough reason to discontinue reading.  That alone should make you skeptical, at the very least, at anything I suggest herein.

Given the criticality of America's circumstance, I both applaud and join and support the "Tea Party Movement".  That, despite my personal conviction that it's over, America is now toast and irretrievable.

I believe that the "Tea Party Movement" should be organized at the "grass- (not "astroturf") roots" level" and that level ought to be by congressional district.  No subsets thereof.  Each state should have someone, some coalition, form to integrate those district organizations within that state to communicate, sometimes collaborate, where the state's two senators are the focus.  Anyone who wishes at the national level should compete to be heard, even joined by these aforementioned groups or coalitions.  It's not that I don't think there is ever a reason for a a national march, just not often or on short-notice or on a weekday.

Each "Tea Party" coalition should focus on (a) the desired national agenda and its congressman's role therein, either working for or against; (b) the desired national agenda and it's senators' role therein, either for or against.  Each group -- organized by congressional district --  should either both support and influence its congressman or work like heck to oppose, influence, and replace him.  Further, each coalition-- collaborating with others in the state -- should do the same with respect to each of the state's senators.

District-level TPCs (Tea Party Coalitions) should have members write to its congressman, call, and email.  Ditto to its senators.  When appropriate, these TPCs should organize and rally at the congressman's offices.  Get voices on news-talk radio stations.  Get video and voices on local tv evening news programs.  Over time, the congressman will recognize the names and faces, and know that these aren't kooks.  When appropriate -- say, immediately before a major senate vote -- these TPCs -- hopefully with some statewide collaboration -- will rally at their senators' offices.  These rallies should be scheduled either during the noon hour or during the 5 o'clock hour, lunchtime or immediately-post-work.

My congressman here in TN-2 has 3 in-district offices, and Tennessee has 9 districts.  Each of Tennessee's senators has 6 in-state offices.  Some congressmen may have more, some less.  Ditto with other senators in other states.  Here in Tennessee, then, if we had the House and Senate meeting in conference to resolve a bill, previously passed by both bodies, we should have about ([9x3] + [2x6]) 39 rallies.

FreedomWorks, sponsor of the 2009 912 Rally is planning another for the weekend of Saturday September 11 and Sunday September 12, 2010.  Their on-the-ground organization and execution in 2009, I thought, was excellent.  Details from them should be forthcoming in the next couple of months.  Great that it was, and that it will again be a weekend.

Washington D.C. should be better prepared in 2010.  In 2009 no one in D.C. was prepared for the immense crowd it received.  From sanitation to subways, from police to porta-potties, from EMTs to eateries, all are likely to be ready next time.

My one suggestion to FreedomWorks would be that, if the rally is to be Sunday, they begin it with an ecumenical religious service, led by, say, a priest, a minister or two, a rabbi, and even an imam (chosen very carefully).

Note that the United States of America has never ever moved to the right.  It has moved -- sometimes rapidly, sometimes slowly -- always inexorably to the left.  If the Tea Party Movement is to save America, and prove me wrong -- and that would be a dream come true for me -- TPCs will have to accomplish that for the very first time.  The federal government must be shrunk, and not a little.  We need to restore the decimated and ignored Constitution.

Just as convicted sex offenders are disallowed within 1,000 feet of a schoolyard or playground, liberal-leftist-socialist-fascist-statists must be prevented from getting within 1,000 miles of Pennsylvania Avenue, either end.  Republicans must be true conservatives, and their feet must be constantly held to the fire and feel the pressure.

Can the Tea Party Movement do that?  Will they?

Tuesday December 15, 2009 at 1:00 p.m. EST there will be a rally at the U.S. Capitol Building and the Mall in Washington, D.C.  The focus will be the so-called "healthcare" bill.  I spoke with my congressman's chief of staff this afternoon.

He informs that Democrats are hell-bent on completing this before Christmas.  He also informs that the leadership wants to adjourn for the "Holidays" Wednesday the 16th.  Thus, push comes to shove December 15.

He told me that the 912 rally had huge impact on legislators' thinking and awareness.  Everyone in D.C. was totally unprepared for the numbers, and they know what the real numbers were, what media have said notwithstanding.  His one caution to me was that the numbers had to be big.  A small rally would have the opposite effect, energizing the enemy, and encouraging them.

The rally is being called, "Code Red", so attendees should wear red.  See here and also here for the latest info.

Half of all Americans are below-average in intelligence.  Duh.  Half of all Americans are below average in income.  Duh.  Half of all Americans are above average in ignorance.  Duh.  These are just statistical truisms.  America's "educational" systems -- pre-k, k-12, colleges and universities -- overwhelmingly indoctrinate rather than educate, and that indoctrination is left-leaning.  America's "news"  media -- newspapers, news magazines, network television, radio news -- are overwhelmingly biased and editorial, and left-leaning.  Garbage in, garbage out.  Much of America is brainwashed.

Liberal Democrats -- whether in schools, on tv, at the coffee shop, or politicians on the stump -- easlily connect with most Americans with demagoguery, soundbites, victimology, focus-group-pretested phraseology, and identification with the underdog.  Heck, almost everyone sees himself or herself in one way or another as an underdog or even a victim.

Conservatives -- that's a subset of Republicans -- counter the liberal spin with data, facts, history and science, all packaged in a logical treatise.  I harken back to my early adulthood.  The line was, "In your heart, you know he's right."  They were speaking of presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater.  I remember thinking that opponent, Lyndon Johnson, must be whispering, "Okay, Barry you're right, but I'll be president."  As Tom DeLay said, Demagoguery beats data."

Political campaigns are a series of soundbites, all 30 seconds or less, most less than 10 seconds.  Whether it's top-of-the-hour five-minute radio news or an insert in a piece on the nightly news on tv or part of a paragraph in a newspaper or during a televised debate, it's all quick hits.  In a debate the Dem says, " . . . looking out for the little guy . . . tax cuts for the rich . . . corporate greed . . . loopholes . . .  racism . . . women make just 70 cents . . . " all in under 30 seconds, and leave the Republican without a snowball's chance in hades of anything but the first half of a logical treatise on one of the allegations.  Incidentally, during that impotent response the (liberal-friendly) camera will pan to the Democrat, who is either smiling or smirking or shaking his head with horizontal motion.

The game is rigged.  The odds are stacked.  Conservatives care about truth, know that seeing is believing.  Liberals know that truth doesn't matter, only what the audience perceives as truth, what they can be persuaded is truth, and that believing is seeing.  (One might argue -- and have a point -- that conservatives should refuse to play the rigged game, maybe eschewing soundbite journalism for paid 30-minute infomercials wherein they lay out logical and organized fact- and history-based arguments in favor of conservatism and against liberalism, fascism and socialism.)  Any attempt on my part to help conservatives in this game is seriously hampered by my being a conservative.  And I'm an ideologue, not a politician.

Nonetheless, below is my attempt at some soundbites for conservatives in 2010.  Please comment on them, and suggest others.

Government – specifically Democrats – destroyed the black family. Black men will have to fix that, but we Republicans promise to get government programs out of their way. We want black men to once again be fathers rather than mere sperm donors. We want black children to learn what a man should be from their father, a role-model in the home.

Government – both Republicans and Democrats – have bankrupted your children and your grandchildren, even before they’re born. The current leftist-Democrat congress and administration have so crippled government revenues while spending beyond comprehension that America is already on the edge of a cliff.  We Republicans promise to fix that. It will not be easy and not be quick. We’ll stop doing government and start undoing government. At first, most won’t like it. You’ll see what’s lost, but not what’s gained. Your children will. You’re grandchildren will. And they’ll thank you for it.

 

Government for many decades has served as a ceiling. It limits energy production. It limits business potential. It stifles creativity and invention. It enslaves people on welfare and keeps them from being all that they can become. It makes operating a business so difficult that jobs by the millions are taken overseas. We’ll return government to its rightful role, the floor, one that’s level and allows all who wish to succeed.

If you want government to give things to you, you should vote for Democrats. They’ll steal it from other folks for you. If you want government to get out of your way, to quit stealing what’s yours, to allow you to grow and thrive, vote for us, the Republicans. Government has no property or assets that it hasn’t taken from the American people, and it would have been better in the people’s hands than in politicians’ hands.

You know what “Affirmative Action” means? Half the time it means that a black person gets admitted to a college where they’ll fail or promoted to a job where they’ll fail. The other half of the time it means that a black person gets a job or into a college for which they’re eminently qualified, and all the white folks just know for sure that it was “Affirmative Action” that got them there.

“Affirmative Action” is what liberal-Democrat whites do to help blacks because those Democrats just know that black people are incapable of succeeding without their help. How arrogant. How condescending. Part of why liberal Democrats get away with this arrogance and condescension toward, and at the expense of, blacks is that they have Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons as cover. Why do Jackson and Sharpton do it? Follow the money. It’s called shakedowns.

Housing and Urban Development – HUD – is very good at what it does. It develops slums, then leaves it to gangs to run them. It’s how they get all the poor black people in one place so that they have no idea that life could be different and better. It’s how government keeps poor black people dependent on government forever and voting for Democrats.

Of course, then there’s Jimmy Carter and Democrats in congress with the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) to help blacks get to own their own homes. Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd, Maxine Waters, The Congressional Black Caucus, along with Obama’s ACORN and SEIU and HUD intimidate and force banks to offer subprime variable-rate mortgage loans to people who have zero chance of actually repaying. That worked out well for the little guy, right?

Hey, I’ve got a job for you. It pays $7.50 an hour and your expenses for travel and uniforms, etc. will be $8.50 an hour. You want it? That’s exactly what Democrats have just done to America’s doctors. Older docs will retire early. Some younger ones will move offshore. Some will leave medicine. Your medical care will be free . . . and unavailable. That hope and change working for you?

Speaking of jobs, have you ever gotten one from a poor person? People who earn lots of money invest lots of it, and that generates jobs, jobs for you and for me. So, how good an idea is it that Democrats want to increase and increase taxes on the rich? Every time they do, it costs jobs. If you’re smart, you won’t scorn a rich guy. You’ll walk up and thank him.

Want your government to increase taxes on businesses, you know, those evil corporations? Where do you think those businesses get the money to pay those taxes? No, they can’t print it. Either they get it from customers or they go out of business. When you say you want business to pay more taxes, what you’re calling for is higher prices.

It just isn't fair.  If you peruse, say in Forbes, a gallery of America's wealthiest, the faces seem devoid of hue.  So many aging white guys, with a couple of Asians tossed in, presumably for "diversity".  Where are the black guys?  Is Oprah an "affirmative action" inclusion?

In the late Spring I look in our local newspaper at pictures with bio captions (by high school) of the top grads.  There are about five schools represented each day.  You can look daily for weeks without seeing hue.  Lots of fresh-faced white kids, with a couple of Asians tossed in, presumably for "diversity".  Not that it's relevant here, but another thing that has struck me is that in the little bio captions these kids always seem to have listed both a mother and a father.

I was looking at a feature video about a big-city Texas high school.  Immediately after school most of the students would head to the big downtown library.  Obviously almost a century old, with ornate columns, three sets of steps in the front ascending to the entry, a courtyard of sorts with seating-high walls, a couple of "handicap" ramps per ADA law.  Interesting.  The white kids and the Asians climb the stairs, backpacks loaded down with books, and head straightaway through the doors.  The black kids and the Hispanics and/or Latinos -- whatever -- carry their skateboards.  They ascend the stairs, but only part way, then start dashing and jumping their boards in all directions at the entryway and courtyard.

After a couple of hours, the youngsters from within the library begin to appear, departing with tired eyes, but with a look of steely purpose, and walking briskly with a destination clearly top of mind, presumably home.  Meanwhile, most of the skateboarders remain, though a few have opted for a basketball court a few blocks away.

Harvard researchers tell us that black middle- and high schoolers spend one-third the time as whites and Asians studying and more than three times more watching tv.  Then we read that town "leaders" -- worried about boredom among black teens -- propose organizing "midnight basketball" to drain them of some of their pent-up energy.  Black members of school boards in system after system just know that what they see in their schools is unique.  Black boys are sent to detention or suspended disproportionately -- by a factor of three or more -- and that can mean only one thing: teachers -- including, even especially, black teachers -- are racists and biased.  Those same Harvard researchers document that the disparity is true nationwide and has zero to do with racism or bias, but that doesn't influence the locals.

Okay, so I know the peer-reviewed research that shows that IQs among American blacks are -- in the aggregate -- one whole standard deviation (from the mean) below that of whites and a little more than that below Asians -- again, I hasten to iterate and highlight, in the aggregate.  Viewing the bell curve illustrates, then, that only 14% of whites have IQs below that of the average black.  Nonetheless, if blacks coming out of high school account for about 1/7 of the class and if colleges and universities are fair, shouldn't 1/7 of the freshmen class at Princeton, Wake Forest, MIT and Yale be black?

Obviously, the answer is "yes" and that's why our legal system -- including the U.S. Supremes -- has invented "Affirmative Action" discrimination to insure such fairness.  Whew!  Thank you.

Have you -- like I -- ever perused the football or basketball program or media guide for your college or university team?  Have you -- like I -- ever noted the contrast in hue demographics versus the Forbes list or the late-Spring local paper top-grads features or the faces in the library versus outside it?  Hold on.  Don't jump ahead here.  I'm talking about the head coaches.  They are disproportionately white, big time.  That's why the NCAA and the BCA (Black Coaches Association [Note: there is no WCA]) have stepped up to the fairness plate to impose their version of "affirmative action" (discrimination), though some under the umbrella of "diversity". 

The NFL (National Football League) requires that before any team hires a new head coach it must include in its applicant pool and interview at least one black candidate.  There are, I think (off the top of my head), eight black head coaches for the thirty-two teams.  That means that blacks are disproportionately represented relative to the percentage of the population at large.  Nonetheless, the NFL continues to require "affirmative action" (discrimination).

There are 22 blacks among the 64 offensive and defensive coordinators in the NFL.  To the NFL that means that fairness dictates that there be 10 more blacks, half of the 64.  To the 22 it must mean that every time there's a head coaching vacancy they have to pack their bags and jump aboard a plane, regardless of whether they're actually being considered.  They (the 22) oughta band together and demand big money for agreeing to interview.

There are thirty NBA (National Basketball Association) teams, and at my last count nine black head coaches.  So again, blacks are disproportionately represented.  Despite that, the BCA continues to whine.  Of course, as I see it, the self-defined mission of the BCA -- as with the NAALCP (National Association for the Advancement of Liberal Colored People) -- is to whine loud and whine often.

Okay, finally let me get to it, get to my real point, get to what has my boxers all in a bunch.  It is incontrovertible that both the NBA and the NFL discriminate against white athletes.  82+% of NBA players are black.  65+% of NFL players are black.  Blacks account for about 15% of the population.  Independent auditors have carefully assessed, then told me flat out that I'm no Lebron James.  At 5'7" and a vertical leap of 4 1/2", I may not be a crowd draw, but I demand my due.  Fair is, after all, fair.

It is incontrovertible that  America's colleges' and universities' football and basketball programs both discriminate against white athletes. 46.1% of NCAA Division 1A football players are black. 61.1% of NCAA college basketball players are black.  Blacks account for about 15% of the population.  These schools keep recruiting guys who run fast, jump high, hit the trey, dunk backwards, dribble with either hand, pass without looking, and irrelevant factors like that.  If they were employing the right  - i.e., fair -- criteria, 85% of players would be white.  I demand a piece . . . and justice.  I deserve hope and, thus, change.

Don't get me wrong now.  This isn't about me.  I see myself here as a Jesse Jackson or an Al Sharpton, you know, one of the Justice Brothers.  Big-time football and basketball will obviously be better off with more "diversity".  It's conventional wisdom.  It's settled science.  It would be just.  It would be fair.  And Yao Ming may be big, but he's not enough.  The token Chicom.

So, how do we make this work?  First, we think like government "civil rights" bureaucrats.  Never mind what the NBA or NFL want, what the colleges and universities want.  They may own the game and own the programs, but property rights don't stack up against "diversity" and fairness.  Never mind what fans want, and will support and pay for.  The free market is clearly flawed, self-serving, unjust.  What's needed is a sorta Title IX for short, slow, white guys who can't jump.

The original Title IX served to devalue testosterone in favor of pony tails.  Our new "Title IX"-type initiative will discriminate against endomorphic body types with fast-twitch muscles, disproportionately characteristic of West-African-origin people especially males.

_____________________________________________________________

Sidebar:  Later, we'll take up the pesky issue of those ectomorphs with slow-twitch muscles and  disproportionately large hearts and lungs, so characteristic of the East-African-origin guys -- like the Kenyans and Ethiopians -- who keep dominating distance running, whether track, cross country, or road racing.

____________________________________________________________

It'll be just like ignoring SAT and ACT scores and high-school grades and class standing in college-admissions decisions in favor of "diversity"  and "richness of life experience."  It'll be just like refusing to promote fire fighters because they're not black enough.  Perfect solution.

CNN reports here that golf balls are "humanity's signature litter".  Just in the United States alone, there are 300,000,000 golf balls lost each year.  And it takes between 100 and 1,000 years for a ball to biodegrade.  Moreover, in the core of the ball are harmful chemicals which, when released, can harm both flora and fauna.

Now, I've been an active supporter of both the First Tee Program for kids and the Wounded Warrior Project for wounded veterans and their families.  Sorry, kids and sorry war heroes, I've gotta rethink here.  We may well  be endangering or injuring some snail darters and seaweed.  Maybe, we need to at least mitigate the devastation by going to treehugger.com to begin using biodegradable tees and balls.

Golfers could also contribute toward saving and sustaining the planet by leaving 13 clubs in the garage, and playing solely with a putter.  Studies show that fewer balls are lost and fewer golfers are able to tee off since a typical putter-only round takes 11 hours to complete.  Both the strategy and the unintended consequence result in fewer lost balls in the global aggregate.

I beg for some brainstorming about this crisis.  If guys don't go out with their buddies to engage in sports, we can assume that birth rates will increase and we could face a population-bomb crisis.  If guys get discouraged with golf and switch to tennis, this will result in a precipitous increase in CO₂ exhalation per player per hour, and the global-warming crisis will be ever-more exascerbated.  If golf-course revenues are seriously hurt, many might close and revert to being cow pastures.  Uh-oh, worsening the precipitous methane crisis.  Algore alert!


Postscript!!  Shortly after publishing the above, I tuned in to the Rush Limbaugh Program, and he started talking about this.  Dr. Roy Spencer, Climatologist at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, emailed Rush to inform that zinc -- the alleged dangerous chemical element in golfball cores -- is 95% of the content in a penny.  And 400,000,000 pennies are lost each year.  Now I could see that as justification for doing nothing about my golf game (such that it is) and golf charity.  But, that's not how I am.  I just want to add the admonition to my fellows that we avoid using pennies as ball markers.

Thursday November 5, 2009 in the early afternoon there was a terrorist attack at the U.S. Army's Fort Hood.  The apparent sole-perpetrator was an Islamist who gunned down 43 people, killing 13 and wounding another 30.  The victims were Fort Hood military personnel, soldiers either preparing to ship out for duty, soldiers having just shipped in from duty, and some bystanders.

It is no surprise here that CNN, ABC and PBS "news" people, et al, are reporting this  as a possible case of PTSD with the shooter as victim.  After all, the shooter is Muslim, a devotee of the religion of peace.  After all, what could have set him off to do something so crazy?  And there's also the matter that this would have to be a brand-new disorder.  "PTSD" would have to stand for "pre-traumatic stress disorder" since this psychiatrist hasn't done anything yet other than talk with people.  Of course, when deployed, he'd be in the rear, not in combat.  Such PC drivel is standard stock in trade for these folks.

What is of surprise to me, however, is the handling of this Islamist by the United States Army.  Up until July, Major Nidal Malik Hasan was psychiatric fellow at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland and a captain.  In late Spring he received both a poor performance review and a promotion.  Following graduation from Virginia Tech in 1997, Hasan enrolled in the military's Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences in Bethesda.  Following that schooling he did an internship, then a residency, then a six-year fellowship, all at Bethesda.

In his off hours for all of those years Hasan gave speeches, chastising infidels, and imploring conversion to Islam.  He was combative both on-duty and off-duty, and explicit regarding his disagreement with American involvement both in Iraq and Afghanistan.  According to an aunt, he had sought a discharge from the Army.  He was not a closet Islamist.

Was it an actionable clue to intelligence people when  Islamic men enrolled in pilot training, but didn't want to learn take-offs and landings?  I think the clues here were as clear and as actionable for U.S. Army superior officers and the clues were repeated and repeated by Hasan for years.  What made it clear to Hasan that it was time?  Impending deployment overseas to support a war against Islamists.

Nidal Malik Hasan resided within the U.S. Army and "prospered" there for a decade, became an officer, was even promoted to the rank of major.  Enlisted -- even sgt. majors -- and even lieutenants and captains had to salute him and follow his orders.  He wasn't just allowed to infiltrate the mammoth Fort Hood Army base; he was placed there.  And as an obvious radical Islamist was even not proscribed from owning and possessing personal firearms and ammunition.  The wolf was in the hen house.

Do we expect the "news" media to kneel at the altar of PC crapola?  Do we expect such from college professors?  Do we expect such from k-12 government-school teachers?  Do we expect such from the Hollywood elites?  Do we expect such from an Obama and a Pelosi and a Reid and a, well you know the roster?  Yes.  Yes. Yes.  Yes.  Yes.  Do we expect such from the ranking officers of the U.S. Army?  We'd better not.

About a half-century before The Great Depression philosopher and “classic liberal” professor, William Graham Sumner, of Yale developed a lecture against “progressives” titled “The Forgotten Man.” “As soon as A (a progressive) observes something which seems to him to be wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it over with B (another progressive), and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine . . . what A, B, and C shall do for X.” Sumner said that what was wrong was the indenturing of C to the cause. C is the forgotten man, the one who pays.

In FDR’s first great speech he promised to champion “the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.” At that moment in 1932 presidential candidate Roosevelt flipped the meaning of “liberal” on its head, ending the focus on individualism and substituting a focus on groups, reinstituted slavery (C), and trash-canned the Constitution. FDR went to war against C (mostly private enterprise) and substituted X for C as Sumner’s “forgotten man”. Still today – three-quarters-of-a-century after FDR’s speech – liberals (new meaning) obsess about groups. They make as X such as Blacks, Hispanics and Latinos, Gays and Lesbians, the Disabled; refer to them as “communities”; and try to make them “vote for a living” rather than work for a living (as individuals do).

Atop the list of groups or communities for liberals is "The Poor". Aside from the fact that the Constitution does not enumerate any power to the federal government to rob from Pete (C) to pay Paul (X), there are other problems with liberal (new meaning) thought. First, except for the small percentage which is mentally or physically disabled, poverty is a behavioral disorder. Second, poor today doesn’t mean poor tomorrow and visa versa. Third, the average poor person in America today is richer and wealthier than (a) the average middle-class person in, say, France today, (b) the average middle-class person in America in1960, and (c) the average rich person in most of the world today. Fourth, they’re fat.

Only about an eighth of persons in the lowest quintile of earners remain there after two decades, and many are in the third or fourth quintile. Some from the top quintile go bankrupt, lose a business, and drop into the lowest . . . temporarily. For a young person the formula for not being poor is simple. First, graduate from high school, even a government school. Second, get and keep a full-time job, work hard and improve skills. Third, get married before bringing a child into the world, stay married, and don’t have a child until it can be afforded . . . by you, with your money, not Pete’s (C’s) money.

Many Baby Boomers learned as teenagers an “entitlement mentality”, thanks to FDR’s New Deal. Then as those youngsters were approaching adulthood, locking in their fundamental values which would guide their adult lives, the New Deal got supersized by LBJ and his Great Society, and then the Hillary Rodhams became A’s and John Kerrys became B’s. Being “on welfare” got mainstreamed for Xs who didn’t follow the young-person formula (society’s Pauls) and paying for welfare became a growing tax and burden on Cs (society’s Petes). Even at that, a recent Knoxville, Tennessee mayoral candidate called for a “living wage” for X’s, this despite the top 50 percent of earners paying 96 percent of all federal income taxes. Giving money to "The Poor" doesn’t reduce poverty one bit. Behavior modification will. Learn the formula. Follow the formula. Discipline.

“The rich keep getting richer while the poor keep getting poorer”, is the consensus. Democrat presidential candidate John Edwards says, “. . . there are two Americas, not one . . .” Democrat presidential candidates all echo in sync. Obviously not buying the conventional wisdom, I wrote October 14, 2007 that a high percentage of earners in the lowest quintile had moved up even to the middle quintile or higher during the last two decades; and that some from the top quintile had gone bankrupt. And I wrote that for a young person the formula for not being poor is simple. Did I get letters? Of course, the writers who claimed they couldn’t get out of poverty had all violated at least two proscriptions from my formula. Former Texas congressman Tom DeLay once said, “Demagoguery beats data.” Nonetheless, let us forge forward with some data.

A U.S. Treasury report, published in November 2007, confirms that Democrat prexy candidates and consensus are wrong and that Pete is right. Between 1996 and 2005 income earners over age twenty-five increased their earnings in real dollars by an average of 24 percent. Of those who were in the lowest earnings quintile in 1996, their earnings grew by 90.5 percent by 2005, almost double. The second-lowest quintile earners had their earnings grow by 34.8 percent. The third, fourth and fifth quintile folks achieved gains of 23.3, 16.6 and 10 percent respectively. The actual data, then, suggest that while the rich keep getting richer, the poor (of 1996) for the most part (a) aren’t poor anymore and (b) are getting richer even faster than the rich. The conclusion would be even more dramatic if earners under age 25 were included, and if “other income” were counted. (Welfare transfer payments, subsidies, IRA payouts for retirees, etc. are about 75% of “income” for “the poor”.)

There’s a lotta class and wealth envy in America these days. Demagoguery achieves that. So for those who can’t be happy unless the evil rich are getting hosed, here are more data. Splitting the top quintile further, of those in the top ten percent in 1996 their earnings grew by a mere 2.9 percent while the top five percent lost 6.8 percent. The top one percent lost 25.8 percent of their earning power during those ten years. Is that cheering I hear from the whiners? A return to the demagoguery I see and a rejection of the data? Treasury research data show that: (1) Being poor for most folks is a life stage (young, unskilled and inexperienced) or temporary condition (lost a job or business or just got whacked by a house fire or medical emergency). (2) Talking about “the poor” ala Edwards, Clinton, and Obama makes as much sense as talking about “the pregnant”. They’re both temporary conditions, not groups or communities. (3) At least between 1996 and 2005, the sorta-rich kept getting slightly richer while the super-rich kept getting poorer while the poor kept getting richer and the middle class wasn’t doin’ bad either. Herein repeated is the young-person formula for not being poor. First, graduate from high school, even a government school. Second, get and keep a full-time job, work hard and improve skills. Third, get married before bringing a child into the world, stay married and don’t have a child until it can be afforded – by you and with your money, not Pete’s money. I recommend teachers share this (data, not demagoguery) and discuss this with every freshman in high school. Except for someone with a major disability, poverty is a behavioral disorder. It’s a choice. Behaviors have consequences.

The previous tableaux have applied for decades. America has been a land of opportunity for those who were industrious and made smart choices. Illegal discrimination has been subliminal, for the most part unintentional, and most injurious to the discriminator. Since January 20, 2009 – and to a lesser extent in the couple of post-election months preceding – the landscape has radically changed. My earlier-stated and iterated formula is now invalid. The formula for not being poor in America is neither understandable nor executable by an individual. The “American Dream” can no longer be sought, only “hoped” for.

Unemployment is 9.8% nationwide, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor as of October 2. That rate has doubled in 22 months, and the numbers have risen from 7.6 million to 15.1 million. I hate to report this, but that’s the good news.

That’s the “official” unemployment statistics, what’s known as “U3”. “U6” measures U3 plus those who became too discouraged to continue to hunt, plus those who took part-time or significantly-lower-skill positions, plus those only marginally-attached (temporary). That rate as of October 2 – again according the U.S. Department of Labor – is 17% n nationwide.

The U6 unemployment rate as of June 2009 (the latest I can find) for black teens is 56%, U.S.-born Hispanic teens is 47%, black young adults with a high school degree is 44%, black high school dropouts of all ages is 41%, U.S.-born Hispanic young adults with only a high school degree is 35%, all teens (16-17) is 32%, young adults with only a high school degree (18-29) is 30%, and all Americans 15.9%. In Michigan, California, and a few other states these percentages are much higher yet. According to even the N.Y. Times the U6 for Oregon reached 23.5%, 21.5% in Michigan and Rhode Island, and 20.3% in California in late Spring.

Technically, America is in a recession. And amid that recession the federal government passed and imposed an increase in the minimum wage, thus to exacerbate the above figures, minorities as always hardest hit. In reality, however, America is in a transformation, one imposed by the federal government with malice aforethought. The “recession” is manufactured via government fiscal and monetary policy, by the substitution of the rule of an oligarchy for the rule of law, by the intentional trashing of the U.S. Constitution and the dismissal of the Declaration of Independence, and by the successful takeover of America by liberal-fascist statists hell-bent on erasing liberty in favor of tyranny. The “recession”, then, isn’t a phase; it’s structural.

A gradual smaller American economy, a weaker America, a poorer America, a more-government-controlled America has been the new norm . . . for a century at least.  A geometric decline rather than arithmetic is the this-year-new norm.  Given this new reality, America’s run-of-the-mill, everyday, garden-variety, college –graduate homemaker is focused on what? Dancing with the Stars, American Idol, Entertainment Tonight, People, Sudoku, the crosswords, and youth sports. They are convinced that the 401k-now-201k will again become a 401k or 501k, despite the near-impossibility of said happening. So, what’s the new paradigm? How does a young person avoid becoming poor? What should she or he do?

Governor Bradford of the end-of-the-15th-and-beginning-of-the-16th-century Virginia Colony recognized a disaster in the making.  It was the commune, based on "to each according to his needs and from each according to his abilities."  The Colony had experienced a 25% annual death rate for its first two years, mostly from starvation.  He asserted leadership, and got commitment to individual liberty and property, each family owning its own plot and reaping its own harvest.  The result was surplus, and trade with both England and the natives (Indians).  Resulting was the first Thanksgiving, whereat both the Indians and the settlers celebrated the new prosperous reality.

From his pre-Adam-Smith aha-experience (eureka) discovery, we have finally returned full-circle.  And I think it important to note here that if the Constitution had been honored, defended and protected, and adhered to, this could not have happened.  Mohamed El-Erian, ceo of Pacific Investment, said on Bloomberg October 5th that today's unemployment picture -- with its depth, its breadth, its demographics, and its seeming hopelessness -- is and will be the "new norm".

Entrepreneurs and their small businesses know exactly what they want from government:  nothing.  Leave me alone.  Get outa da way.  Executives at what used to be small business, but are now large, know exactly what they want from government as well: either nothing or provide protectionist policy that mitigates stiff competition.  For great examples study either General Electric (GE) or Archer-Daniels Midland (ADM) . . . or both.  As many small and mid-size business have gone under, along with some large (but not deemed "too big to fail"), those jobs are now gone, never to return.  In recent decades at least, more than 70% of new jobs have been created by small business, and today's federal government is systemically discouraging anyone from taking on the incredible risk of entrepreneurship.  So, what’s the new paradigm? How does a young person avoid becoming poor? What should she or he do?

Last Thursday I had my annual physical exam and semi-annual check-up with my internist.  After some lab tests and the like, we sat down and he asked me if anything were "bothering" me, you know, like coughs or headaches or chest pains and the like.  And I said, "Yes".  I said that I wondered whether he'd still be my highly-valued doctor two years hence.  We agreed that he might not.  When the President or Speaker or Majority Leader talk of cutting "healthcare costs", what they're actually talking about is cutting medical-care prices.

When the federal government takes over the "system", its sole motivation will be to reduce its costs.  To do that, they will dictate that my doc cut his prices by, say, 20%.  His overhead is 65%; his costs are what they are.  His pre-tax  will, therefore, drop from 35% of gross to 15%.  Then, the following year the federal government will dictate that is original price be dropped 40% total or another 20%.  At that point, he'd be working an entire year in order to lose money . . . structurally.  What would he do, cut overhead or just get out?  He'd get out.  Hey, he could just accept a lower standard of living, become a homemaker and stay-at-home dad, and leave it to his wife to bring home the bacon.  Woops, she's also an internist.

Though we didn't discuss, it, my guess is that they'd move, leave the country.  So, what’s the new paradigm? How does a young person avoid becoming poor? What should she or he do?  Heck, how do you and I avoid becoming poor?

It's difficult to read through those U6 demographic statistics and not have the mind wander to contemplating what the impact might be on burglaries, robberies, gang activity, drug consumption, assaults; with increasing anger and anomie the impact on homicides and rapes, arsons.  It's difficult to hear the El-Erian assessment without wondering  just who it will be that pays the more-than-$900,000 per household in unfunded American obligations now in place.  But, those aren't the questions here.

And then there's this guy.

Why should there be "health insurance"?  There shouldn't.  Health is a matter of nature and nurture, of genetics and lifestyle.  Why would I start a company to insure health?  Insurance is the sharing of risk.  Where's the risk in health.  Either nurture doesn't matter because of nature, or nurture does matter and is manageable by the individual in question.

Americans' lifestyles are less-healthy than many others around the world in developed nations.  We exercise too little, are sedentary too much.  Too much meat, not enough fruits and vegetables.  Too much tobacco and alcohol and other drugs.  Too much murder, assault, rape, and gang violence.  All of these negatives, however, affect us based on personal choices and behaviors.  And behaviors have consequences.  Each of us is granted by our Creator, however, with the unalienable right to liberty, to choose for ourselves.  One consequence of that right is that each of us has an unalienable right to stupidity, and many exercise that right . . . regularly.  You can't fix stupid?

Among companies that provide -- as part of compensation -- some level of medical (not health) insurance, leaders have developed and encourage participation in "wellness" programs.  It has been demonstrated that healthy workers are more productive workers.  Also demonstrated has been that investment in wellness lowers company medical insurance costs more than cost of the wellness programs.

The contention, however, by proponents of a womb-to-tomb government-involved medical-care system that incentivising healthier diet and appropriate exercise will lower medical costs is bogus at best, disingenuous more likely.  What's smart for company executives is that their wellness programs postpone medical costs, say, until after retirement.  Then, those former employees become beneficiaries of Medicare and, in some cases, Medicaid or both.  It is irrefutable fact that sooner or later we all die.  The statistic that as much as 2/3 of our total lifetime outlay for medical care occurs in the last year of life still holds.  What those smart companies did was to reduce their costs while pushing them forward onto the government, and also likely increasing the drain on Social Security as those folks live retired longer.

Why is there no private-sector company offering flood insurance?  If you live near the shoreline of the Mississippi River, you'll definitely want flood insurance.  If I had a private insurance company, I'd see you as a bi-annual claim just waiting to happen and suck me dry.  If you live in downtown New Orleans, ditto.  If as a private-sector insurance guy I offered you flood insurance on your $100,000 riverfront homestead, I'd have to charge you about $60,000 per annum.   If you live atop a mountain, you won't want flood insurance, though as an insurance guy I'd need you to buy it to share the risk.  Why does FEMA offer "flood insurance"?  You have to ask?  It's the government, that's why.

Suppose you're a private-sector insurance gal, and you get a frantic phone call from someone wanting fire insurance on his house.  He wants it now and says he'll pay the first month's premium over the phone.  You say that someone will have to come out and inspect the place first, and you can schedule that for tomorrow.  He says he can't wait, because the house is in flames, and won't be there tomorrow.  He points out that he called you first, even before calling the fire department.  Would you make the deal?  You might, from a business perspective, see that as about as smart as offering ex post facto flood "insurance" to post-Katrina homeowners in the Big Easy, or life insurance to someone with terminal liver cancer.

In today's "healthcare debate" -- even as citizens with more than two gray cells to rub together know that what's being floated is either  the achievement of socialized medicine or another significant increment toward that end -- there is talk of  a role for private-sector insurance companies.  These entities are not now, nor have they been for decades, in a free and competitive marketplace.  Liberal-leftist fascism has emasculated them, regulating them such that they aren't really in the insurance business.  Analogous would be requiring the people living atop mountains to buy flood insurance, people in Iowa to buy hurricane insurance, the deaf to buy coverage for hearing aids, and the homeless to buy homeowners insurance.  A major focus in today's "debate" is whether "insurers" should be required to provide coverage for "pre-existing conditions" without surcharge.

This would be like requiring the fire-insurance gal to agree to insure the guy whose house is ablaze.  This would be like requiring the homeowners insurance rep to offer a flood insurance policy to someone whose house was already underwater.  So, when you get sick, you buy insurance . . . for awhile.  When you have stage-four lymphoma, you call Travelers or Blue Cross, and tell them that you'll pay for coverage at $100 per month for a couple of months, and send them the $300,000 tab for your care.

The auto insurance industry seems to be fairly sensible.  Risk is shared, but those deemed higher-risk pay higher premiums than those deemed lower-risk.  Urban higher versus rural lower.  High-crime area higher versus low-crime area lower.  Teenagers higher versus middle-age lower.  Couple of accidents and a couple of tickets higher versus no accidents or tickets lower.  Zoomzoom car higher versus 4-door sedan lower.  None of the insurance companies offers fuel or oil or lube or tire-rotation insurance.  None offers carwash or brake-job insurance.  Would be nonsensical.  Wouldn't be "insurance".  Indeed, both thinking rational auto owners and insurers see the wisdom in high-deductible -- say, $2,000 or more -- policies.  Why?  Everybody gets scratched and/or dinged.  Can't go to the mall without that.  It's the big crashes that are the budget busters, and with those there can be some financial risk sharing.

So, let's talk about insurance bennies.  How'd we get where so many Americans think that they shouldn't themselves have to pay for medical care; not procedures,  not prescriptions, not tests, not check-ups, not dental cleanings, not eye glasses, not condoms, not birth-control pills, not Viagra  (Wassup widdat?), and certainly not power chairs?  A century ago one of the top-five killers was diarrhia.  (Some will see that assertion as a blowback to my most-recent previous thread.)   Now, lots and lots of Americans think that no-cost-to-them MRIs, cat scans, joint replacements, micro-surgeries, "miracle" drugs and the like are rights.

In the current "debate", those on the left and, indeed, some of those not thought of as on the left eschew the idea of high-deductible plans, of people paying for everyday, routine, predicable basics themselves.  The first nickel is to be "covered".  Doctor visits for check-ups, annual eye exams and the resulting eyeglasses, dental cleanings, mammograms, STD screenings, abortions; everything.  For them from the get-go, risk and actual insurance are off-the-table.  Free markets and free choice are off-the-table.  Personal responsibility and unalienable rights -- all of them -- are off-the-table.

There is rationing in everything.  Only so many hours in the day.  So much to do; so little time.  So many wants; limited cash.  Shall I buy steak?  Can I afford it?  At issue here are (1) who will ration -- the individual (exercising liberty) or the government (exercising tyranny) -- and (2) supply and demand, with price the arbiter in a free market, or severely-limited supply from the government and infinite demand from consumers, with government bureaucrats the arbiter, based solely on government cost-containment.

Why did employers get involved?  Because of the government.  Did the government require it?  No.  The government -- early on in WW II -- tried to rewrite the laws of supply and demand.  The guv didn't want wages escalating and taking money away from the war effort (Remember, they were Keynesians), so they capped them.  Employers now couldn't compete for a scarce resource -- employees, given that so many men had become GIs -- by offering more pay, so they used their ingenuity and offered non-wage bennies, like medical insurance.  Why didn't the government crack down on those pesky-miscreant employers?  For FDR and his fellow liberal-leftist fascists having individuals dependent -- even if to employers rather than the government -- was an incremental step in the desired direction.  It was a small step toward where our latter-day liberal-leftist fascists are today as we speak.



Everything with which the federal government is involved is a mess.  Veterans Administration (VA) hospitals, clinics, and treatment are a tragedy for our wounded warriors and their families, and a blight on American culture.  Medicare is unconstitutional, bloated, corrupt, bureaucratic, and soon-to-be bankrupt.  Medicaid is unconstitutional, corrupt, and grossly-inefficient.  SCHIP is everything wrong with Medicaid, and on steroids.

Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP all serve to discourage and disincentivise personal responsibility among those who could and should take care of themselves.  They also discourage and disincentivise acts and organizations of charity for those incapable of taking care of themselves.

For Americans who would seek out and avail themselves of true medical insurance for the very same reason that they seek out and avail themselves of homeowners, auto, flood, hurricane and fire insurance  -- i.e., to mitigate the financial devastation of "the big one" -- state governments nationwide have unconstitutionally (14th amendment) regulated and manipulated insurers such that there isn't a marketplace where they and those wishing coverage can freely negotiate.

International intellectual-property law is inadequate and enforcement is selective.  The result is that patents and copyrights infringement is near-ubiquitous.  A pharmaceutical company can invest a $billion on a project that fails, then another $billion one one that succeeds.  On the second one, a company in, say, Asia steals the formula and produces the drug itself, already a $billion ahead of the game.  Then, the socialized medical system in Canada will negotiate for a bulk buy from the U.S. firm at a price a mere fraction of what Americans pay.  That is accomplished both because of the threat of ignoring a patent and by the pharma company violating U.S. laws against "predatory pricing in restraint of trade."

It's a menace, say "environmental" groups, characterizing today's American toilet paper.  Soft, plush, multi-ply -- think tush-friendly -- rolls of the disposable staple, even for urban outdoorsmen, are killing mother earth. Apparently, we're literally wiping out our pristine forests. These always-mad-and-unhappy champions of anything anti-capitalist -- Bless their little hearts . . . a pantload -- are lobbying (aka "whining") for mandating that all toilet paper be made from recycled paper products.  Greenpeace, always somewhat cheeky,  has had a 4 1/2-year campaign against Kimberly-Clark, the makers of Kleenex and Cottonelle.

According to the forest products industry, 5% of forest production goes to toilet paper and tissues, 26% to cardboard containers and packaging (with about half from recycled), and 3% to newspapers.  Large old-growth trees yield long fibers while small young trees and recycled paper yield short fibers.  Long fibers equal soft while young and recycled equal rough.  With reverence strictly reserved for things non-human, the "environmentalist" tree huggers opine that for mature, old-growth, majestic redwoods and other trees,  this is a cruel and  ignoble and unworthy end.  A stain on our culture, as it were.

Producers say that they want to cooperate with the environmentalists (aka "anti-capitalist quivering lip biters"), but consumers keep demanding "soft".  Seems to be a matter of taste?  And it's one thing to face off with Greenpeace or even Algore, but one doesn't want a pom-pommed cheerleader or debutante to get her thong all in a wad.   It's called "butt floss".  Take a crack at that!

When I queried frequent-commenter to gumballs, JT, he said that "recycled resulted in a smear campaign."  I countered that the gubmint was test-floating the idea of bailing out newspapers.  Since fewer and fewer people are reading those rags, maybe they could go straight from the press to slicers, there to be made into 4"-wide strips.  All of downtown D.C. could transition from rolls to stacks.  With what's been coming outa there recently, there are thousands of legislators, staffers, lobbyists, press corps and czars who've been spending lots and lots of potentially-productive time sitting above porcelain. 

Who knows, maybe the N.Y. Times and Washington Post will make more sense read "backward".  Heck, if we formatted bills in columns and sent them also to the slicer, maybe Congressman Conyers could take some quiet time to read them a couple of slices at a sitting.

Maybe, if we made it less comfortable, these "leaders" would tighten the sphincter and dump less.  Indeed, we don't need another march on Washington.  What we need is a million-septic-truck roll on the Capitol so we can spread -- redistribute? --the wealth.  I'm just flush with anticipation.

Of course, when the loaded trucks re-cross the beltway, we'll now have the ecological problem of having to change our poop-to-pulp balance.  What do you want as legacy, pristine forests or poopy deserts?  Maybe, we can get NASA to take the D.C discharge and launch it  -- using biofuel --to another planet.  I'd ask for planet nominations . . . but that would be way way way too easy.

I went to a Knoxville (Tennessee) Tea Party April 15, 2009.  It was well-organized (by local citizens), well-conducted, well-attended by thousands.  I spent the first half talking to a twenty-something guy, who said that he was a student at the University of Tennessee.  He asked if I knew who paid for it all.  I asked if he did.  He said that it was Roger Ailes of Fox News who put up big bucks to get people to come.  I knew that he had been duped.

I spent the third-quarter of that rally asking myself why I was there.  I don't protest.  I don't picket.  I don't chant slogans that rhyme as part of a gaggle.  I don't beg for stuff.  I don't want the government to do anything, certainly not for me.  For years I've watched choreographed rallies, populated by people who picket, whine, chant, and carry professionally-printed-and-distributed-by-organizers signs.  These are always in the afternoon and during the week, since the participants don't have to get up in the morning and don't have jobs and it fits the drive-by news cycle.  These are people who vote for a living.  Before the fourth quarter, I left.  And I want to now apologize to the organizers from my now-hometown and all who were there for abandoning them.

I've written in previous essays hereon that I think it's too late, that America is toast, that what's coming for America is a replay of 20th-century Argentina.  And I've laid out the analyses and case for my conclusion.  Nonetheless, for six months post that conclusion, I started GetAmericaRight and tried to make it work as an organization to turn the Republican Party into a true-conservative force in time for the 2010 elections.  I failed at that, I infer, for lack of talent.  We got almost no traction.

It's now ten months post that conclusion.  I was invited a few weeks back by the first woman chairman of the Blount County Republican Party, Susan Mills, to join with others here in the Knoxville area to go to Washington D.C. to the 912 Rally.  Though I've never been a member of any political party, I've known and respected Mrs. Mills for years.  I not only accepted, but invited some others, who also accepted.  Some 90-ish of us travelled on two busses, stayed in Chantilly, Virginia next to Dulles International Airport Friday and Saturday nights, and took the Metro into D.C. Saturday morning.

Fellow Knoxville FairTax activist and supporter, Randy Ceccucci, called me at 8 a.m. to ask if I were at Freedom Plaza, the gathering and starting point.  He said that the Plaza was already packed, that despite that the march to the Capitol wasn't scheduled until 11:30.  I explained that I was still in Chantilly and that it'd be awhile.  The Metro was not only operating a regular weekend schedule, but was performing track maintenance.  Either they didn't know what was coming or didn't care.  To understand the scene, picture the trains in Tokyo where there are police on the platform pushing and pushing people into the doorways like sardines so as to max occupancy.  From the Vienna station we passed some thirteen stops, platforms jammed with rallyers, but with no-nil-nada-zip-zilch nanometers of space aboard.  We finally arrived at Freedom Triangle station at about 10 a.m.

When we exited and passed the Reagan Building to Pennsylvania Avenue, the march had already begun.  We joined the procession.  Capitol Police had ordered the march to start because Federal Plaza, the surrounding streets, and west toward the White House were already jammed, and the Metro just kept spewing more by the tens of thousands every 14 minutes.  The Nation's Capitol clearly was not prepared for what happened to them -- on many levels -- Saturday September 12, 2009.

I saw signs -- large, small, huge, colorful, brilliant, funny, insightful, inciteful; but none profane, over-the-top -- held both by marchers and folks standing to the sides.  Then I focused on the people.  Old and young, individuals and families.  Costumed and practical-for-walking, though lots of red, white and blue.  A tapestry of race and ethnicity.  Polite, yet enthusiastic.  Considerate of their fellows.  These were, as I, not people who vote for a living.  They were people who work for a living, for a life, for a family, to make their communities and nation better.  Before reaching the Capitol I knew why I was there.


Addendum: September 15:  A rally of leftists and gimmes also has a "tapestry of race and ethnicity" and sex orientation and gender, etc.  There each group (aka "community") has different signs, different chants, different agendae.  Each wants government to grant them more rights . . . and goodies.  At the 912 Rally there were no groups, no communities, just patriots.  Last Saturday there were a couple million American patriots on the same page.

What was it all about?  The rally's purpose came in a couple million shades, one per participant.  The theme -- mine, the speakers, the signs, the shouts, the conversations -- however, was liberty versus tyranny, freedom and personal responsibility versus statism; about a huge and growing federal government versus a very-limited government with only enumerated powers.  The rally was all about the lost Constitution and our need to restore it.  It was about the currently-ubiquitous word "trillion".  Federal debt, this year's staggering deficits, future debt already committed of some $63,000,000,000,000 (That's trillion), along with a current agenda hell-bent on "remaking" America; they're all part of the mix as well.

Why now?  Slope.  America has been moving inexorably left for 220 years.  It was nickel and dime for the first 120, but then the speed picked up.  There was Teddy Roosevelt, followed by Woodrow Wilson, maybe our first liberal-fascist.  The speed leftward slowed after him, but then came FDR.  Wilson and FDR both knew that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste, and they created crises, then used them to move the country as fast as possible toward statism at the expense of liberty.  JFK ran out of time, but LBJ put the pedal to the metal and the march toward statism on steroids.  Nixon only tapped the brakes a tad while Ford couldn't find either the accelerator or the brakes.  Carter was a dingbat (Think Edith Bunker), but still moved us leftward.  Reagan faced Democrat majorities in congress, so the train kept rolling west.  Clinton was only successful around the edges.  The Bushes (41 and 43) together probably moved us farther left than Clinton could, but he (Clinton) spent a lotta time otherwise focused and occupied.

All of the above history was "frog in the pot of gradually-heating water".  Beginning November 2008 Americans felt the heat.  They experienced sorta-warm to simmering to boiling . . . quickly.  TARP, bailouts, government takeovers, a trillion here and a couple trillion there.  Liberal-fascist statists had been succeeding incrementally, yet inexorably, much to the delight of liberal-fascist statists, of gimmes (those who vote for a living), and of career bureaucrats.  Meanwhile, conservatives -- those who love liberty -- were busy working for a living and adjusting to the latest and greatest government intrusion and restriction and taxation.  For way-too-many, only this year did they receive their wake-up call.  I remind that I think it's too late.

What's next?  I believe that the USA is toast.    I think that way too many Americans are both ignorant of the Constitution and fail to understand American exceptionalism.  Those who are neither ignorant nor lack such understanding are busy working and supporting everyone else day in and day out.  Those who vote and whine for a living, along with those who govern and wallow in power for a living will prevail 'cause that's their game.  If in mid-October, when congress seeks to pass "healthcare reform", six million Americans rally at the nation's Capitol to intimidate their elected officials, I'll reconsider . . . gladly.

Thanks to Glenn Beck, Van Jones is no longer one of President Obama's czars.  Below are identified those remaining.  As you'd fully expect, I have absolutely no agenda in laying this before you.  We at gumballs provide; you decide.  I suppose if one did have an agenda, one might wonder who should go next.

Senior Advisor to the President:  Valerie Jarrett    from Wiki     NY Times     earlier NY Times     video     long video on economic agenda   Malkin


Maybe, the answer -- just maybe, I'm thinking -- might be "all of the above" and -- especially and --  the guy who hired them:  President Barack Hussein Obama, the perp-in-chief.  Before it's too late?  I think it already is.

For those who happen here, not having read any of my last half-dozen or so posts/essays/columns, what follows may lack sufficient context to digest.   That said, I remain unpresupposing enough, that I won't actually recommend your going to, and investing the time and energy, to read those prerequisite materials.  For those of you kind enough to have been following my regular demonstration that I'm at least an order of fries short of a Happy Meal, (a) thank you and (b) grip this and rip this.

I, drpete, have volunteered to serve as Benevolent Dictator of the United States of America for a very-limited time.  I'm 67 1/2 now and would like to no longer be BD by the time I hit 70.  Here's what I'd do.

Repeal the 16th and 17th amendments to the U.S. Constitution, then pass HR-25 and S-296 the FairTax.  It will then again be that the people are represented in the House of Representatives and the states in the Senate.  The FairTax will replace all federal taxes on businesses, income taxes, capital gains taxes, estate taxes, and payroll taxes; that with a 23% (inclusive) sales tax on all new goods and on services to retail consumers.

Seal and secure the borders, using fence, lazers, unmanned drones.  Anything within, say, 10 feet of the foreign side of the border will be zapped into oblivion.  High-tech-protect ports of entry.  Change U.S. law such that children born of illegals do not become citizens and make the law retroactive to January 1, 2000.

Pass the Randy Barnett-proposed amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Sunset Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, and Social Security.  Sunset all pensions and other benefits for federal elected officials, effective the day they leave office.

Release restrictions on (a) drilling for oil and natural gas in ANWAR and  Prudhoe Bay in Alaska; the Gulf of Mexico offshore from Florida, Alabama and Mississippi; the Atlantic off the Carolinas and Virginia; in the Pacific off California, Oregon and Washington; as well as (b) eliminating most regulations on the construction and operation of oil refineries in the United States; and (c) eliminating most regulations on the construction and operation of nuclear power facilities.

Use the bully-pulpit of the BD to create an understanding that the United States of America has an enemy -- at least one -- hell-bent on its destruction, Islamofascists.  The enemy is not a nation, not a signatory to the Geneva Convention, and not protected by the Geneva Convention.  The terrorist threat they pose is real, dangerous, cannot be eliminated, just reduced.  Our investment in that reduction shall be measured in ROI and trade-offs as should any and all investments.

Eliminate the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Health & Human Services, Homeland Security (including FEMA), Housing & Urban Development, and Labor, along with almost all agencies know by an acronym.  Remaining will only be that explicitly enumerated in the Constitution.

Eliminate the Federal Reserve Bank, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and do with their functions whatever Dr. Walter Williams recommends.

Repeal the Wagner Act, the federal minimum wage, and Davis-Bacon Act.  The unalienable right to liberty trumps all three.  There may be no collective bargaining.  Busnesses mayn't and neither may labor.

Make "earmarks" illegal and nullify prior earmarks as can be.

Repeal the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law.

Put in place severe penalties against employing or housing illegals, then aggressively enforce.  As found, illegals are to be deported to the border from whence they entered.  Establish a "guest-worker" program with private-sector agencies working with prospective employers in the U.S. and sources abroad.  Guest workers will be time-limited, e-carded, placed, and paid only through those agencies.

Eliminate all forms of international welfare.  Resign from the United Nations and deport it.  Resign from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.  The Agency for International Development (part of the State Department) will be eliminated.  Resign from NATO.  Treaties will henceforth be on ad hoc and quid pro quo bases.

Eliminate all forms of domestic welfare.  All medical, poverty, tariffs, price supports or controls, affirmative action, quotas, set-asides.  Eliminate PBS and NPR.  Eliminate federal grants to "faith-based" and "community-based" organizations.

Identify 50% of the land area now owned by the federal government and place it for sale.  Also eliminate 80+% of regulations on allowable use of private land imposed, e.g., by the EPA.  This is to be handled as recommended by Dr. Thomas Sowell.

Rescind Executive Order 13166 by President William Jefferson Clinton.  Make English the official language of the United States and its government.  Encourage the 20 states, not already having done so, to make English their official language as well.

When the above has been accomplished; and when the financial indebtedness of the United States has been reduced from some $63,000,000,000,000 (That's trillion) to less than $6, 300,000,000,000 (That's still trillion) or by 90% and the annual deficit is negative, i.e., surplus; and when the FairTax rate has been reduced from 23% (inclusive) to 5%; then, this BD will go cruising, golfing (still badly), and never again to be heard.

I'm revisiting a question I asked hereon vis-a-vis Barack Obama during the campaign, i.e., Who put that turtle atop that fencepost?  It's not that the President isn't bright, isn't literate.  Certainly, he's not undereducated.  And he is eloquent.  It's not that the themes of this administration are inconsistent with the themes he's had for a long time.  President Obama just seems to be lacking in the savvy and moxey, along with the analytical competence, to create the puzzle with which we are presented. 

He can put the puzzle together for us . . . but, only with the teleprompter at his sides.  His public persona has been ubiquitous, and we've seen him in campaign mode for more than two years now, but despite all of that, I cannot picture his chairing a meeting with a six-pack of expert advisors, then raising his hand and putting forth his palm to indicate that he's heard enough and has made his decision.

The crises fell into place as if choreographed.  Chuck Schumer brought down one bank with his loose lips as if on cue . . .  in the critical pre-election days.   The legislation roll-out, both deep and wide, frenetic of pace, both sweeping and lengthier than Atlas Shrugged and War and Peace.  We're coming to know who hasn't read the 1,000-plus-page bills, but who knows who wrote them?

The shortage of cabinet-type nominees who must be confirmed by the Senate; that along side the plethora of czar appointments, all of whom report directly to the prexy, none of whom require Senate approval . . . or any scrutiny or public exposure.  The vacation to Martha's Vineyard, announced only at the very-last minute, when the prexy was on a roll with daily gaffes, almost ala Veep Biden.  The Kennedy permanent-dirt-nap inaugural, timed perfectly to fill the news-cycle gap while the prexy was officially out-of-pocket.

I think it arguable that this Turtle-in-Chief was selected by an oligarchy as many as 5-to-6 years ago, that the chosen one (TIC) was then put through finishing school for grooming.  It may have been relatively late in the game that the TOTUS (teleprompter-in-chief) was added to the team.

Remember the Wellstone Memorial?  He was lionized by one liberal-leftist flack after another, who then went on the rail against then President George W. Bush and Vice-President Richard Cheney.  Cheney was there as and in courtesy and representing the White House.  He was driven from the hall.  Class act, those liberal-leftist-statists  The line, not from the Memorial, that I most remember is that Senator Paul Wellsone "was one of the most-generous persons I've ever met . . . with other people's money."

Will we get the same with a Kennedy Memorial?  This "Lion of the Senate", I remember for having walked away and left Mary Jo Kopechne to drown at Chapaquiddick, for inventing the verb "Bork", for impugning then President Ronald Reagan personally and with malice aforethought, for "borking" Clarence Thomas and every other Republican-President Supreme nominee for the last 48 years.  I also remember Ted Kennedy for his chutzpah in being even more generous than Paul Wellstone . . . as with liberal-leftist-statists in general . . . with other people's money.  In addition, the youngest of the Kennedy brothers is absolutely legendary -- save for in the leftist news media, aka "mainstream" -- for his outlandish transgressions of decency and the law, and against women.  Lots of hush money has been used to "spread the wealth".

George W. Bush regularly gave more than 10% of his gross income to charity.  Cheney, while veep, gave 77%.  Leftists excoriated Cheney for just trying to get a tax deduction.  Liberal-leftist-socialist-statist icon, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a hero to Democrats, gave 3%.  Jesse Jackson -- bilker-in-chief -- who claimed to live a life of compassion gave less than 1%.  Robert Reich, champion of a "living wage", was so compassionate that his charitable contributions have averaged 0.2%.  As Junior Massachusetts Senator, John Kerry gave all of $175 in 1993, then tapered to $zero in 2005.  Hopefully, his new status as Senior Senator will perk that up.  Of course, on the way to running for POTUS in 1998, then veep Al Gore forked out a spread-the-wealth $353.  President Obama, who made $1.7 million just before moving into the Oval Office, stepped up with 1%.  Getting back to the subject at hand, the late Senator Kennedy got a bigger tax deduction for his sailboat (entertaining) than for his charity, usually a bit less than 1%.

All of the above can be categorized as "anecdotal" evidence if one wishes to generalize to liberal-leftist-statists in general, but that's not to whom I was generalizing.  I was talking about the population liberal-leftist-socialist-statists-high-profile "leaders".  As to the liberal-leftist-statists in general,just because someone will still accuse me of cooking the numbers, heads of conservative households contribute 30% more than liberal ones.

My next-door neighbor has his flag at half-staff.  I have never seen one moment or one example wherein I thought Ted Kennedy had one iota of redeeming social value.  As worthless as armpit hair.  With a forty-eight-year career in the U.S. Senate, it's hard for me to think of a human being alive who's had a more-devastating effect on America. 

I'll have to mute the radio every 30 minutes for the news breaks, avoid the newspapers, and any tv news coverage (including FNC) until this fawning "Camelot Sunset" show is over.  Otherwise, I'll just puke.  I'll leave all the "news"-media hoopla to the nation's dumb masses (Read that aloud quickly three times), that in honor of the TH censoring system which will not allow me to properly use former Vice President Cheney's first name, as he liked to be called and known.  This "news" "story" should be shovel-ready.