Line Starts Here

November 24, 2008 · by ConCon · in

Former dwelling of people.More of your cash for/from the ever lovin’ government:

The purpose of the money is “to purchase foreclosed or abandoned homes and to rehabilitate, resell, or redevelop these homes in order to stabilize neighborhoods and stem the decline of house values of neighboring homes.”

[...]

If you hear a clock ticking, it’s because South Dakota should receive its share ($19.6 million) in the first quarter of 2009. (click here for your state’s allocation) Then, states have 18 months to commit those funds to projects.  That’s operating at light speed for the federal government!

While $19.6 million is a lot of money, there’s going to be tremendous interest in it.  Currently, South Dakota’s plan calls for 20% to go to Sioux Falls, 20% to Rapid City, and 20% to the Indian Reservations.  But let’s get down to the details.  How can your rural community use this infusion of capital?

Infusion of capital, indeed. Why do neighborhoods need to be stabilized again? I realize that I keep saying some of the same things, but government has no business being in the business of business. This includes, most definitely, the business of real estate.

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Narrative to Rule Them All

November 24, 2008 · by ConCon · in

Remarkable characters may hold one’s interest for a little while. Unique settings may enchant. Particular events may excite. However, it is narrative that makes a story connect with its readers, listeners, and viewers. It is narrative which glues all the parts together and makes them whole. It is narrative that keeps people wondering just what happens next.

For good or for bad, whether the story is real or fiction, it is the narrative that people believe or disbelieve. Through history, those who have been successful in convincing groups of people to follow them have done so by either creating (or in not a few cases, hijacking) a narrative by causing the people to believe. I could list so many examples, but I don’t think it would add anything here. You know what they are.

In the most recent presidential election, a remarkable narrative won. Those of us who did not believe the narrative lost. Those who did believe also lost, but they are still inside the story.

It is time to create a new narrative. One might think that it is the only way to move ahead. Given that, what’s the difference between the new narrative and the one a majority of the folks just bought into?

It must be true.

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Why It Matters

November 22, 2008 · by ConCon · in ,

You’ve got 10 minutes? I hope so. Please watch this, or come back when you can.

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Socialism is Part of The Problem

November 22, 2008 · by ConCon · in ,

Steve Chapman says we’re focusing on the the wrong thing:

Accusing Obama of socialism is unwise for three reasons: 1) It’s not true, and 2) it makes the accuser sound like an idiot, and 3) it distracts from Obama’s true inclinations, which are worrisome enough.

These days, no one believes in socialism — defined by the late, left-wing economist Robert Heilbroner as “a centrally planned economy in which the government controls all means of production.” A socialist wouldn’t favor government aid to the automakers or the banks. He’d propose that the government take them over and run them for the benefit of society. But you haven’t heard Obama or anyone else suggest that.

[...]

Obama also seems to regard the nation’s productive sector as a laboratory for well-intentioned policymakers. In his “60 Minutes” interview, he praised Franklin Roosevelt for his “willingness to try things. And experiment in order to get people working again.” What he overlooks is that experimentation creates uncertainty, and uncertainty discourages businesses from doing what they are supposed to do.

Actually, some people are suggesting just that. (Oh and does anyone remember Maxine Water’s statement on the oil industry?) I agree with Mr. Chapman that Obama may not technically be qualified as a socialist, based on the definition used in the above quote. However, socialism is much more than a centrally-driven economy. It becomes, effectively, government control of everything (including education, healthcare, information, etc).  Perhaps a more useful working definition of socialism here in the United States is “Now don’t you worry, Uncle Sam knows best.”

Obama’s on-the-record statement about experimentation is, as Mr. Chapman states, a serious issue. My contention is that this desire to have the government meddle with/control things is indeed an outworking of socialist thinking.

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Hopped Up on Taxes

November 22, 2008 · by ConCon · in

One pint, more or less.Been thinking about taxation. I know a government must have some way to pay for necessary things, so I am not against taxes outright. I do believe that the current heavily graduated (read: progressive) tax system is wrong on so many levels (yeah, I got the pun).

I am in favor of the Fair Tax because it offers a way to hugely (and I mean that in the non-hyperbolic sense of the word) improve the process and profit of collecting needful tax from citizens. Practically speaking, there may be too many people who have a vested interest (there’s another pun) in ensuring that the current system of taxation remains as it is: unfair, complicated, progressive and above all, able to be gamed if you have the enough lawyers.

In support of furthering our education in a greater understanding of taxation, I bring you the beginning of a parable:

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.
If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this…

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

Go ahead and follow the link for the rest of the story. While you may not be surprised, I think it may just cause you to think about taxes a bit differently than you have previously.

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Wired to Worship

November 22, 2008 · by ConCon · in ,

A place set aside for the express purpose of worshipping God.Several things have come together in the last few weeks which require some organization and explanation. It all started with the reactions of the crowds to Obama during the campaign. The remarkable reactions to him probably reached its zenith at his victory celebration in Chicago the night of November 4-5. This reaction on the part of his supporters made not a few people wonder at the level of support, nay worship, which Obama engendered.

This worship was part of what caused Peter Hitchens to write the following:

Anyone would think we had just elected a hip, skinny and youthful replacement for God, with a plan to modernise Heaven and Hell – or that at the very least John Lennon had come back from the dead.

The swooning frenzy over the choice of Barack Obama as President of the United States must be one of the most absurd waves of self-deception and swirling fantasy ever to sweep through an advanced civilisation. At least Mandela-worship – its nearest equivalent – is focused on a man who actually did something.

He nails it, in my opinion. Here’s a bit more from Ben Stein (via an email that’s going around), not on the election per se, but on the issue of worship:

I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren’t allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

I personally believe that we (humans) were made to worship. If you attend a church which teaches the Westminster shorter catechism, you are so familiar with the following that I don’t have to more than mention the first few words and you could complete the rest:

Q. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

Sounds like another way of defining worship, to me.

So, why do we worship other things? I believe that the answer is both simple and complex. Allow me to address the simple part first: we worship other things because by disbelieving in or desiring not to worship God, we are left with an innate desire to hold up something which can be worshiped in its place.

Here is the more complex answer. We worship other things because (after we have arrived at the simple answer just mentioned above) we seek fulfillment, excitement, a connection to power, etc. The statement, made several times by Obama during the campaign of

We are the change we’ve been waiting for!

is nothing less than a call to worship ourselves, and by extension the person in whom all of us who are hoping for change have vested our desires: the agent for change himself.

In closing, let me say that I believe we cannot not worship. If the proper object of worship is unavailable, we’ll find something. The good news is that whether we worship nature, ourselves, or a remarkable man from Illinois, it is often only a matter of time before we figure out that something has gone wrong. The question this time is if that knowledge will come soon enough.

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Time to Man Up

November 22, 2008 · by ConCon · in

The topic: sensitivity training. The result: a useful essay which concludes with the following thoughts:

My parents – remember them? – taught me at an early age that what people said or thought or wrote about me did not have the power to hurt me – only I can allow them to do that. My self-worth, self-respect and self-esteem are earned, and not given, and are therefore mine – impervious to anything in the outside world, which is why I am willing to sit at this desk, as the only one of 24 happy, smart, creative people, and look like some reactionary nut case for being enraged about the fact that we willingly submit ourselves to insults to our personal honor and integrity that our forefathers would never, ever have countenanced. And I am ashamed on behalf of them. But just me. No one else thinks anything of it at all.

And so, with smiles and good will all around, behind a plate of donuts and cartons of morning orange juice, we again fall another step from the adult world of action and consequence, to the warm, friendly, everlasting childhood of kindergarten, where no one’s feelings can ever be hurt and teacher is always there to make sure – in her gentle but firm way – that there will never be harmful consequences to your actions because your actions will be so curtailed in advance that offending someone – like feeding and housing yourself – are things that we simply no longer have to worry about any more.

And the endless sleep, in the warm, clean, fluffy bed, continues unabated.

Forever.

Just remember, it’s for your good since you are apparently too ignorant to understand that somebody might hurt himself/herself if you are allowed to make a mistake.

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Can’t Trust Veterans?

November 22, 2008 · by ConCon · in

One whom we should honor.I realize I’ve been writing quite a bit on gun-related issues these days. I’ll not apologize, but I will say that such matters are weighing heavily on my mind (and my keyboard). Here is another item, this time in reference to the NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007 (aka Veterans Disarmament Act). The bill was passed in response to the tragic murders of students at Virginia Tech. Here’s part of Bungalow Bill’s take:

The Veterans Disarmament Act (VDA) removes gun rights from our most important citizens, those men and women who served in the armed forces protecting freedom. The VDA states that any veteran diagnosed with post traumatic stress syndrome will automatically be listed on the federal gun ban. Up to 140,000 veterans, according to Gun Owners of America, have already been disarmed and/or placed on the registry to prevent ownership of any new rifles, shotguns, or handguns. The act doesn’t stop there. Any person who has had a restraining order, handed out like candy on Halloween, or diagnosed with ADHD are banned as well.

[...]

I have to ask, for those who have served, what keeps the government from going back into the medical records of millions of service men and women? The military offers counseling for depression in its medical facilities. Who is to say the government won’t target these former members next? A wife leaves her husband while he is serving overseas, and he sees a counselor. Will that be a red flag? They will abuse this law.

[...]

What stops the government from requiring Ted Nugent, for example, to be tested. The Motor City Madman turns 60 next month and has energy unknown to most 60 year olds. Could the government consider Uncle Ted ADHD? I believe it’s a real possibility, and it’s a possibility for everyone else who has taken the legal road of registering your firearms. How are you going to defend yourself if they are providing the doctors?

[editor: emphasis of last sentence mine]

Remember, it is not enough to have laws protecting a personal right in place. It is also essential to ensure that those laws are not abrogated by indirect, dare we say, “commonsense,” measures such as what Bill has pointed out. If you or I have been adjudged as “crazy” by some government medical board, it might be next to impossible to prove otherwise. Many a totalitarian state has simply declared whoever disagrees with it to be insane, by definition.

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Scribbles by the Founders

November 21, 2008 · by ConCon · in , ,

Original Second Amendment scribbles.Evan Schwartz is concerned that we do not live in the here and now with reference to the Second Amendment and Washington, DC:

The issue, of course, is scribbled on a piece of paper more than 200 years old. The Second Amendment to the Constitution guaranteed people the right to arm themselves in order to form state militias. Nowadays most Americans are too fat to even make it on the bus to basic military training, but that does not preclude them from owning multiple guns, in their minds.

The Second Amendment guaranteed people the right to arm themselves. The same amendment also speaks to the citizens participating in the militias. Those are two separate things–as the US Supreme court (the modern one, not the one from really long ago) reaffirmed in Heller. Of course, that position had already been clearly limned by an American named Tench Coxe, who was also, unfortunately, writing almost 200 years ago. Here’s a bit more from Mr. Schwartz:

The NRA and other interest groups have seemingly limitless funds to throw at things like the Firearms Regulations Act, but they need to understand reality. Reality is that little thing that exists despite a document that was written before the invention of child gunlocks, penicillin and “The Matrix.” It was written before presidential assassination attempts or Virginia Tech.

I sense a bit of document-ageism in the preceding statements. Are we to discount everything that was not written in the last generation? If so, are we not to find out, to our shame and pain that history does repeat itself and we should have studied more history and spent less time on, well, whatever one studies in place of history these days? Do we throw away everyone from Adam Smith to Abraham Lincoln because their ideas predate the iPod and Botox?

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Too Big to Fail

November 21, 2008 · by ConCon · in

The principle first espoused in Washington, DC (in these recent economic times, that is) has apparently spread to the Supreme Court of Canada:

Obese people have the right to two seats for the price of one on flights within Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Thursday.

I understand that there are some obese people whose obesity is based on medical conditions outside their control. However, even in those cases, the responsibility for covering the cost of the second seat is the individual’s–not the airline at the direction of the court, which has found a “right.”

Look, I’m taller than average. Simply put, I have to pay a premium for my shirts and slacks to get them in the right size. Should I file suit (sorry, just realized the pun there) to force the clothing retailer to give me the clothes for the same price that average people pay?

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