Month: December 2010

The Nature of Government

On the morning of December 8, 2010, I went to work as I normally do, only the temperature was hovering just above 10 degrees with a wind chill shaping up to a goose egg. I was riding my motorcycle, as I do all year, rain, snow or tornados, and the explanation for our governmental troubles came to me in the beauty of simplicity.

Many people wonder why I do things like riding motorcycles in sub-zero temperatures, and the explanation I could give them isn’t something they typically would understand from their perspective. I do it for what comes to my mind in the pain and endurance of the exercise. Often, being in such a predicament, which takes a person out of their comfort zones, will clarify thoughts. Since I do a lot of thinking, there are a lot of thoughts to clarify, so driving to work in extremely cold temperatures helps.

On this particular morning, I looked at the cars around me. At a stop light the woman next to me had her heat turned all the way up and she had on a hood, windows rolled up firmly. She looked at me like I was nuts. At the next light was a man in a pick-up truck. He looked like a man that fancy’s himself as a rough and tumble individual, had mud flaps with the silhouette of naked women on them. He refused to make eye contact. I could see his hair blowing in the warmth of his cockpit from the turned up heat, again windows rolled up tight.

I thought this morning of all the books I had read about Native American culture, of Tecumseh, Blue Jacket, the great Shawnee nation, the Five Nations of the Iroquois. I thought of Chief Pontiac of the Ottawa’s eating the heart of his enemies like they were just apples, many times while the victims were still alive. I thought of Chief Seattle and his great speech. And as I thought of those men, and the nature they revered, I thought of President Obama and his famous speech to the Fort Hood victims, “I want to put a shout out to the Native American’s,” or something to that ridiculous effect. It was another car that pulled up next to me at yet another light, with the exhaust from his vehicle dancing around his car and whipping around me in the swirling frozen wind. This guy was a typical suburbanite, well-shaven, clean cut, and looking straight ahead at the road ahead. Again, he didn’t make eye contact, and he reminded me of Obama, just going through the motions of living keeping his eyes on the road ahead, but not willing to look at things to the side of him that didn’t fit his learned behavior. For all I know the guy could live in my neighborhood.

On the rest of my journey to work, I thought of the train trolley down in Cincinnati, Strickland’s letter to Kasich on the high speed rail deal, Obama agreeing to the Bush Tax cuts, I thought of the TSA situation, and I thought about the Lakota Levy that is sure to come again, especially once the unions discover that they will not be able to maintain the level of income they’ve negotiated for themselves when Governor Kasich cuts education even more to get Ohio back on a balanced budget track.

Who is to say that riding a motorcycle in the extreme cold is wrong? Only in relation to the rest of orthodox society is it looked down on. To me, it makes perfect sense. It clears my head, like I discussed, and it saves a ton of fuel. With fuel climbing up over $3 bucks a gallon, I don’t want to pay more for fuel, so I’ll buy less. I have a perfectly nice car in the driveway, but I don’t like to use it for all the reasons described.

Big government types have associated themselves with the green initiative to save the planet from human impact. These are the same individuals that roll their windows up tight to protect their skin from the cold weather. They are not what in my opinion an environmentalist is.

Nature is not a fragile organism. Nature lives in the extreme cold, and the excessive heat and it sends hurricanes to destroy entire cities that humans build for themselves. Yet if you consider what the modern progressive minded person asserts with their big government ideas, you would at first think these people have mankind’s best interest at the front of their minds. But when you look at their actions from the perspective of a motorcycle in the brutal cold of a sunless morning, you see how infantile these people are.

Which is more beautiful, the nature that can be seen from the Appalachian Trail atop Mount LeConte or the nature in someone’s back year where all the bushes and trees are trimmed nicely, and the grass is cut, and every rock placed in the yard was put there by the owner of the property.

The degree to which human beings attempt to alter nature is called government. If you look to the forest, where mankind has not put their feet, nature thrives. Trees grow, animals eat each other, and water flows in the path of least resistance. Trees in the forest compete for light, the smaller ones get pushed aside by the bigger ones, and survival of the fittest is the general rule. In the forest, the will to survive is so great that a tree will sink roots into rock in order to get what it needs. The nature of human beings is not different from the organism of a tree.

In the back yard garden, trees are pruned and sculpted to fit the contours of homes, or other trees. Plants are mulched to assist them to grow, and shrubbery is trimmed and controlled. The grass is cut to a desired level, and in some cases watered to ensure its survival.

Our government is simply a garden of which we all have different ideas of where the plants should go, or what flowers we need to plant and where. But the understanding of it all is that it is purely cosmetic. All the rules of mankind are simply made up in the minds of the human being. In the global neighborhood, what is happening in America, is pruning, where the branches are being cut away so that the other trees in the neighborhood can grow, because the big tree of America sucks up all the water, at least according to these green thumbed gardeners called politicians.

The fertilizer and various chemicals we use on our lawns are simply equitable to the stimulus money government has issued to grow the economy.

From the cold morning of December 8, 2010 it became excessively clear to me that the same people tucked away in their warm cars are the same people that buy flowers for their gardens in the spring, and cut their grass on Saturday afternoons in the heat of a summer day. And they’ll plant a tree in this location or that location hoping that one day the tree will provide some shade. And these people take this same mentality to their business, whether they directly work for government, or if they simply vote in the grand idea of a republic, and the politicians they elect do all those things and more to their lawns. And they believe with all their hearts and souls that the work they’re doing is important, and that they must trim trees, and cut grass or use fertilizer in order to make our world grow.

What they fail to understand is that nature doesn’t need human assistance at all. We are simply guests that have arrived like a pimple on the face of geologic time. Our duration on the plant will come and go without the earth hardly noticing. Global warming and every related issue are only musings from human beings that have an unhealthy belief of their universal importance.

For all the gardens those humans build for themselves will be wiped away in time by the true brutality of nature and its selection of what is beautiful or not, what lives what dies, and what is strong and what is weak.

It never made sense to me why so many atheists and others without some sort of faith to ground their terrestrial selves seemed prone to migrate to the conservation movement so embraced by the left, and why so many young people seem attracted to those mentalities. It’s because their undeveloped minds have not yet worked out their place in the universe. This is why so many senior citizens tend to vote conservative, while the young tend to vote liberal. The young still cleave to the ego based notion that they are all there is. The old know better and have learned after a lifetime of living. This is the difference. The silly, small minded politicians think they can actually improve nature with their juvenile influence. But all they really end up doing in the scheme of things is move some rocks around and plant some trees, most of which are quickly uprooted as soon as a major storm comes.

All the policies of mankind fall under this description. So is this a proclamation of anarchy? No. When I go to the forest, I walk the trail, which is not natural, but created by man. I build a fire with the wood that falls from the trees. And I leave the campsite looking the same as it did before I arrived. If I build a home with what the forest provides, I do it understanding that within 100,000 years everything I create will return to nature including every item a human ever created.

Notions like Social Security, Wiki Leaks, Communism, teacher contracts, health care, all laws, all government and every roadway built will be swallowed by nature in a relatively short time geologically speaking.

If the human race wanted to truly survive, it would copy nature. Not try to corrupt nature with their undeveloped ego desire to build a better garden. America was modeled after nature, as envisioned by John Locke in the late 1600’s. But during the growth of government periods, particularly in the 20th century, America has become a land of gardeners instead of the natural element.

Our society needs to ask how much we want to spend in taxes to supply a garden that is purely cosmetic to begin with. Because that’s all any of it is. It’s just gardening by gardeners that have the audacity to believe they can do it better than nature.

I ran into a community once that reflected some of what I’m talking about. It was a little neighborhood on top of Mt LeConte that serves tourists wishing to climb that mountain. I’ve been to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge many times and Mt LeConte is the big mountain approximately 10 miles from downtown Gatlinburg which looms over the town. It is the highest peak visible from Pigeon Forge and is an unmistakable monster of a mountain. From the ground you’d never know that speckled across the top is a community of cabins, with some residents that work up there, and guests renting cabins to stay for the night. There’s a mess hall and a couple of rest rooms to facilitate everyone’s needs.

From the top of the mountain, in that little village, all the great monuments of Pigeon Forge are almost completely invisible. The community resides over 6000 feet which doesn’t sound like much compared to mountains in the west, or in the Himalayas but the top of Mt LeConte has its own weather patterns. Its peaks are often submerged in a cloud layer and take the full brunt of weather patterns migrating across Tennessee and Kentucky from the west. But at such a height all the monuments of tourism are just little specs. Nothing looks too complicated from that vantage point.

From atop that mountain, the world makes sense. The people you meet up there say hello and are generally happy to see you. What everyone shares that arrive at the distant land is they had to work hard to get there. There’s only three ways that will get you to the top. You have to walk and climb, you can take a llama, or you can be dropped off with a helicopter, which brings supplies to the top of the mountain. It’s as primitive, yet as civilized of a place as anywhere I’ve ever been. On that mountain perspective is easy, just like in the harsh cold on a motorcycle in mid December. That rugged paradise is virtually a stones throw from downtown Gatlinburg with all the tourist spots, yet the two worlds are diametrically opposed.

That’s when it is easy to see the only difference between the two is the inventions of man, which are transitory at best. In Gatlinburg you run into thousands of people and say hello to nobody. On top of the mountain you say hello to everyone because everyone respects each other because everyone worked hard to get there.

Nature requires one thing and that’s respect. Respect for yourself. Respect for the power of nature. And respect that each moment could be your last.

In the politics of mankind, their laws mean nothing because politicians cannot create respect. And no amount of tax money or social program will give someone respect for anything. They can make a garden look nice, but nobody truly respects the garden because it’s contrived and manipulated by the gardener, and artificially watered and fertilized.

Nature is the only true gardener.

Rich Hoffman

http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior

www.overmanwarrior.com

Ted Strickland and the Passenger Train of Doom

Below is a letter from Ted Strickland pleading for John Kasich to reconsider stopping the passenger Train of Doom idea that has been in the works for a number of years, and is a progressive project embraced by that philosophy.  There is more to the letter than just words.  What Strickland and progressives in Ohio are doing is setting the stage of creating doubt as Kasich works on the 2011 budget. 

I had no idea prior to David Little being hired to come after me for the Lakota School levy, that there was even a Progress Ohio group. I discovered it while looking over Little’s resume.

Sure enough, Progress Ohio is a progressive group dedicated to progressive ideas; another aspect to our government that I hadn’t known was a major legislative influence working diligently within the State of Ohio toward goals the electorate is not aware of.

When considering how to simplify and reduce the size of government, or to reform education, groups like Progress Ohio place themselves as a barrier to that goal.

So it is with no surprise that Progress Ohio was one of the first to publish the letter from current Governor Strickland to Governor-Elect Kasich written on December 7, 2010 about all the reasons in the world why the 3C&D passenger rail service should not be cancelled. The letter was hand delivered to Kasich, but was posted in digital form on the Progress Ohio website within hours. That is how the game board is set up.

You can read that letter here before my comments below.

The trouble with these progressive groups and politicians, just like the trouble with organized labor, is that they are eternally focused on what was, and their measuring sticks are in the past. They need conflicts like racism, and the traditional labor strikes to advance their position.

The passenger rail is one of those items, built by a long string of progressive minded politicians, and yes, Bob Taft, a republican is one of them, passenger rail is part of a dying culture. The world is growing away from regional things like rails, and even highways and buildings, and moving toward more electronic, home based applications. Yet Progressives have entrenched themselves around such concepts and they stand firmly in the way of true progress which can only be explored in innovation and much, much smaller government.

Virtually everything mentioned in the letter from Strickland is an echo from the past where the true intentions are control and restriction, not options.

Ohio’s youth won’t stay in Ohio because there is a train. They’ll stay here if there are jobs, if there are opportunities, and if they can have a good quality of life. None of those things government can provide truly. Only private industry and individual innovation will solve our problems.

Such letters as the former governor sent only serve to cloud the issue with contrived facts and distorted opinion rooted in a lack of intellect.

I hope Kasich does for Ohio what Chris Christie has done for New Jersey. 

Letters like this dribble from Mr. Strickland show what is wrong, and Progress Ohio is the foundation people like Strickland stand on.  And Progress Ohio is what is standing in the way of real progress by holding on to the past.

Forget about trains!

Remember, Strickland was governor when Glenn Beck covered this issue on his radio show last summer.

Getting things under control will be painful, but if we do it now, we can fix it. If we wait too long, the damage will be too great.

Rich Hoffman

http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior

www.overmanwarrior.com

Utopia

A book I liked quite a bit is Plato’s Republic. Anyone wanting to understand the problems of our current age should read it.  Because the political left, and especially the radical left, get many of their elementary ideas from Republic and it’s theory of Utopia later explored more deeply in the Sir Thomas More book of the same title. 

To those that think it is a radical idea I propose that communism is making a push to take over the American way of life, and that there is real danger of that movement from within our borders, check out this article. Tear Down the Empire. 

Below is the definitions of Utopia from Wikipedia, which expresses the universal themes.

Utopia (pronounced /juːˈtoʊpiə/) is a name for an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system.[1] The word was invented by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempted to create an ideal society, and fictional societies portrayed in literature. It has spawned other concepts, most prominently dystopia.
The word comes from the Greek: οὐ, “not”, and τόπος, “place”. The English homophone Eutopia, derived from the Greek εὖ, “good” or “well”, and τόπος, “place”, signifies a double meaning.

Utopia is largely based on Plato’s Republic.[2] It is a perfect version of Republic wherein the beauties of society reign (e.g.: equality and a general pacifist attitude), although its citizens are all ready to fight if need be. The evils of society, e.g.: poverty and misery, are all removed. It has few laws, no lawyers and rarely sends its citizens to war, but hires mercenaries from among its war-prone neighbors (these mercenaries were deliberately sent into dangerous situations in the hope that the more warlike populations of all surrounding countries will be weeded out, leaving peaceful peoples). The society encourages tolerance of all religions. Some readers, including utopian socialists, have chosen to accept this imaginary society as the realistic blueprint for a working nation, while others have postulated that More intended nothing of the sort. Some[who?] maintain the position that More’s Utopia functions only on the level of a satire, a work intended to reveal more about the England of his time than about an idealistic society. This interpretation is bolstered by the title of the book and nation, and its apparent confusion between the Greek for “no place” and “good place”: “utopia” is a compound of the syllable ou-, meaning “no”, and topos, meaning place. But the homophonic prefix eu-, meaning “good,” also resonates in the word, with the implication that the perfectly “good place” is really “no place.”
Another version of this concept is found in the Panchaea island, of the “Sacred History” book of Euhemerus, a writer from the 3rd century BC.

Plato’s Republic will never work. We know that now. It’s been tried in governments since the book was written around 380 BC. I think it’s time we reject the theory all together and instruct the intellectuals that work for us off public money, to put a sock it.  Utopia and Republic are both works of fiction and have just as much social value as Star Wars in the scheme of things.  To build political movements off such ideas are foolish yet that is what has happened. 

Rich Hoffman

http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior

www.overmanwarrior.com

The Standoff!

I’m going to try something different.  I spend a lot of time thinking about abstract concepts, and piecing together things that don’t always easily appear to connect.  I can give a lot of evidence as to why it’s important to think outside the box, and I can even help some that are close to being able to think that way, cross over that invisible line and begin practicing it.  

 

But for the general person busy with their lives, that need information quickly, and in a form they understand, fiction is the best way to lay out an argument.  As an artist, the best way for a writer to convey an argument is with a work of fiction so that the concept can be held up to reality and measured.  The following short piece is from a work connected to my Symposium of Justice novel. And I will begin letting out small bits of that work to support some of the concepts discussed at this site.  

 

So enjoy this small work titled The Standoff, and think of it in an abstract before trying to apply any meaning.

Fletcher appraised the massive influx of the troops as they surrounded the parameter of his property.  He noted that they stayed off about 100 yards.  They were going to try and take him by force as opposed to an air strike.  That was the best option for him, although it wouldn’t have mattered either way.  The result would be the same. 

He knew they’d try to gas him out, and if that didn’t work they’d shell his home.  He could see the mortar placements set up at the appropriate range.  He could also see the snipers stationed strategically in the distance.  Many of them were well over 100 yards, and he thought he could see most of them.  He suspected that there were others hidden on the rooftops, and in trees that eluded him, but that wasn’t important.  Knowing the details of their where-a-bouts where not important to his strategy, in fact, that was their intent, to overwhelm him.  He would do fine as long as he didn’t allow himself to get lost in the details. 

He had heard that the devil was in the details by more than one person in his life.  But the devil seeks to corrupt the mind with those same details by pulling the mind into his domain where he can corrupt and inflict doubt.  Very few human beings in their entire lifetimes found a way to master the art of details. 

Misty walked up next to him and gently placed her hand on his shoulder.  “There’s too many this time.”

“This is no different than before.”  Fletcher was aware that he sounded harsh, but he was mentally prepared for war.  “Whether it’s ten or ten thousand, their failure is in their trust that numbers will be to their advantage.”

“What will you do?”

“I want you to take the kids and go to the grocery.”

“The grocery?”

“Yes, don’t react to this as if anything is any different from any other day.  You take the kids and go to the store.  Bring back some food for later.  That will keep you safe and off my mind.”

“They’ll never let us leave.”

“Yes they will, they can’t afford to have women and children slaughtered in this media event they are holding.  They’ll be glad to see you go.  They have not formally charged you with any crimes and you can move about unimpeded.  To restrain you now will only irritate me further and they won’t risk that.  They seek a peaceful end before the day is out.  That is why they’ve already lost.  Because I seek war, and blood and I will spill it at their expense.”

“But what will you do?”

“I will lure them away from the castle.  They think I built it to hold off an onslaught.  Their strategy is to get me to emerge from it by lack of choice.  I will do so quickly at the beginning of the fight.  I will go into their lines where their mortars, snipers and heavy weapons will destroy their own people.  I will not stay here on ground they dictate.”

“Can you get out there that fast?  That will be a lot of ground to cover.  They’ll have lots of open chances to take a shot at you.”  Misty was not a military woman, but in her marriage to Finnegan she had learned his ways.  She had seen enough to make the kinds of observations that would make a general proud.  She had seen Fletcher do amazing things and was accustom to his late night workouts.  She knew his mind believed he could manipulate physical law with sheer confidence, and had seen it work on much smaller numbers.  He had survived incredibly the standoff at the river last year at Ben Carter’s residence against a small attachment of elite troops and the police force of Fort Seven Mile.  That day Fletcher had returned to her covered in scratches and holes penetrated his clothing where bullets had narrowly missed him hundreds of times.  She had called him lucky where he refuted her with similar characters in history.  George Washington had dodged similar odds when he acted heroically at Fort Duquesne having his body riddled with bullet holes that had never found their mark.  Stonewall Jackson had showed the same kind of valor needed in the battle of Bull Run to defy all odds.  And General Patton also survived numerous brushes with death, and Fletcher often cited how both Jackson and Patton had suffered silly accidents that either caused amputations, or were paralyzed prior to their deaths.  It was a fascinating fact that some of the great minds of military like Patton believed that he was directly reincarnated from Hannibal. 

Fletcher believed that in the heat of battle great men rose to great achievement because their minds were focused on the task and their beliefs manipulated all the events on the battlefield.   Where some would believe that some sort of force such as karma was responsible for balancing out the lives of these same men be subjecting them to freakish accidents, Fletcher believed those men despised times of peace so intensely that their strong minds actually attracted the negative events that sealed their fates. 

It was not unusual for him to stay up late into the night reading volumes of books and would tell her of his night time adventures when she awoke for breakfast.  Alexander the Great, Frederick Nietzche, Socrates, Galileo, and many others found illness, and social castration part of their later lives leaving only history to vindicate their work into a respectable status.  Nietzche was a favorite of Fletcher and she was shocked to learn that copies of the fourth installment of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, arguably Fletcher’s favorite book, only saw a printing of 40 initial copies. 

Fletchers other favorite book was The Book of Five Rings by the undefeated samurai Miyamoto Musashi and she knew that Fletcher’s standoff here was modeled from his study of that book.  It was Musashi that had been independent of any social clans in Japan, and offered himself as a samurai for hire.  That left him a target to every political entity and forced him to survive many battles where he was severely outnumbered. 

Fletcher had already achieved much of what Musashi had.  His standoff at the river should have been enough.  There would be stories told for years about his exploits and if he were not considered an outlaw, society would make him the hero of the nation.  Quietly, the political powers that made up “The System,” had shown an interest in making peace with Fletcher.  Once his identity was revealed, and it was known that he had wealth, they sent representatives to make peace, but Fletcher could not be bought.  He sent them away with the same audacity that he had these last two visitors. 

Was it madness that looked out across the yard and showed no fear at 5000 troops with the taste of blood in their throats for his death?  She wasn’t sure.  What she did know was that if she stopped him he would be perpetually unhappy.  Even though social duty may dictate that she talk her husband out of this, he would never-the-less be arrested and thrown in jail for many years at this point so there really wasn’t any turning back.  After all, nobody in history had survived a standoff of this magnitude.  Nobody but Buddha had ever done such a thing. 

Fletcher Finnegan did not attribute himself with the Buddha, but there wasn’t any other image that came to her mind as she studied her husband gazing calmly out the window.  Mara, the evil one had tried to prevent the enlightenment of the Buddha with temptations, one of the most dramatic of which was a massive army that promised the Buddha annihilation if he did not remove himself from his immovable spot.  She was never completely clear why Mara called off his army and left the Buddha to his enlightenment.  She could see for herself that Fletcher’s calm resistance to this army would not bring peace.  He would have to go and fight and all logic would guarantee his destruction. 

At any other time in history, if this would have been Christ, he would have been captured uneventfully and killed brutally.  In fact, in all of history she couldn’t think of any time that surrender was not considered the noblest thing to do, and that didn’t make any sense to her.  Even with the world seemingly at her doorstep wanting to kill her husband and destroy everything that was her family, she couldn’t think of another time where another human being would be poised to make such a stand.       

It is said that Mara, the evil one, tried to prevent this great occurrence.  He first tried to frighten Siddhartha with storms and armies of demons.  Siddhartha remained completely calm.  Then he sent his three beautiful daughters to tempt him, again to no avail.  Finally, he tried to ensnare Siddhartha in his own ego by appealing to his pride.  That, too, failed.  Siddhartha, having conquered all temptations, touched the ground with one hand and asked the earth to be his witness.

“I will give them nothing to shoot at.”  Fletcher was aware of her thoughts, but did not remove his war readiness.  He knew she understood.  “You have to understand, they want only for this event to be over.  The shooters out there rely on the next man to take the shot, and nobody is solely responsible, which is why they will fail.  They have spent their time from arrival to now with fat thoughts like their leader.  They trust that mass alone will do the job even though they have been instructed by their superiors to take this situation with utmost seriousness.  The men behind those guns will be looking for where they think I’ll be.  At the distance they are placed they will be severely restricted in movement.  To get a clear shot at me, they will need me to be as still and predictable as possible.”

She looked at what he looked at, and noticed that most of the infantry was in the front.  “Are you going to use the tunnel?”

“When we built the place, I suspected something like this would happen eventually.  It comes out right in the middle of their mass.  It will take away their guns and put them at close range for hand to hand combat.  Many will seek to back away from the fight when it starts but will trample their own in an attempt to make their guns useful.  I will use their confusion as my troops.”

“But you said they would probably resort to the B2 bomber.”

“They may try that, and if that’s the case, you and the kids need to be far away from here, at least forty miles.”  He turned to her.  “Do you understand?” 

“And this town will be annihilated.  All the work you’ve done to bring justice to this community would be for nothing.  Thousands of people will be killed, and for what?  If you surrender you could save them all.”  She said that knowing what his reaction would be, but she felt she needed to say something. 

“Save them in what way?  They are all on strings they can’t see, living lives that aren’t their own.  It is not me that brings death to them.”

“But your actions brought them.”

“The responsibility to annihilate this community with nuclear destruction will be up to executives.  We’ll see what happens.”

“If you last that long.”

Fletcher doesn’t offer a response.  Her point is clear and he isn’t in a position to make promises.  Fate is much of what you make of it, and he was making his moment by moment.  He was in uncharted water here. 

“There is no way to camouflage any of this but as an act of terrorism.  You will be labeled an enemy of the United States.”

“You know I love this country.  Most of its history was formed on war, and this is no different.  You know that.”

Misty paused a long time.  Troop movements had settled down and everyone was in place.  “I know you do.”

“Only in the context of history will anyone understand.  Long after the dead from today are buried and their relatives evaporate into earth.  When the sensibilities of orthodox behavior align society into rational thought, much more will be understood.”

Rich Hoffman

http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior

www.overmanwarrior.com

Citizen Kane…….A Lesson for the Future of our Children

There are few films that are as good as Citizen Kane. Orson Wells produced, wrote, directed and starred in that wonderful masterpiece of cinema glory.

I recently watched the film again on a snowy December day. I had always loved the film, so it was refreshing to see it again after a decade or so since my last viewing. Wells did something special in Citizen Kane released in 1941, he managed to attack a concept that many Americans spend their entire lives pursuing, and that is wealth, and demonstrate that no matter how much wealth a person acquires, it will not buy them love, or any real power.

With the snow falling outside my window, and watching Kane die an old man in his giant mansion built in Florida called Xanadu, which looks to me to be an early vision for what Walt Disney would create 30 years later as the Magic Kingdom, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Kane all over again.

Kane had amassed a tremendous amount of wealth by his 25th birthday from money he received in trust from his legal guardian who raised him after his mother and father essentially sold Kane away for money to a very wealthy businessman. Kane as a five-year old standing in the snow with his favorite snow sled was betrayed by his father, who apparently abused him, his mother, who wanted to protect him from his father, sent Kane to be raised by a self-centered power monger only concerned with profit.

Kane boldly slapped away all his wealth once free of his legal guardian and only wanted to run a newspaper so he could use the paper to fight corruption. Kane was a valiant figure of morality and virtue.

Over time Kane lost his way in the pursuit of love. He loved two women he managed to push away because deep inside, Kane himself had felt rejected and therefore didn’t truly love himself, and thus, could not offer any real love to the women in his life. This pretty much ruined Kane, because over time, he realized he was powerless to truly obtain the things he needed in life because he couldn’t love.

In the end, on his last breath he states simply, “ROSEBUD.”


Rosebud was the sled he had when his mother sold him away, and was his last true recollection of a chance for a real home with a family that loved him, which he’d spend the rest of his life trying to recapture.

What I suppose struck me about this film is the truth of it. Wells hits the nail on the head, and time has proven it. Many critics will argue to this day that Citizen Kane is the greatest motion picture ever made. So there is certainly some resonance to the story, something deep and primal that we can all relate with. Writers are only as good as their experience, and Wells was unique in the way that Disney, Lucas, and Spielberg have been. But not many others in spite of all the study of Citizen Kane in film classes across the country. I think Scorsese came close in the film The Aviator about Howard Hughes, but even the great Scorsese falls short of the surface simplicity, but underlying complexity of Wells. Filmmakers today are just too scatterbrained to make good films. They have elements of good films, but often fall terribly short of the intended result. MTV has changed all the rules, and these days nobody really knows what they are. Quentin Tarantino is the new bench mark for film makers because in Pulp Fiction he demonstrated the ability to tell a story out of order much like Citizen Kane was filmed, and this fed into the short attention spans of the modern MTV audience, conditioned to quick cuts, and non-liner story telling.

This led me to consider our current society. How many Citizen Kane’s are we producing as a society? Because back in 1941, Kane’s story was considered tragic, coming from a broken family like he was. Today it’s common place. Forget about the money. Many of the kids today won’t have a chance to even have Kane’s wealth to stumble through life with. Most of them will be so entrenched with student loans and other forms of debt that they’ll have all the problems of children missing essential guidance from their parents, compounded with excessive money trouble. No one will convince me that parents, who drop their kids off at a day care facility in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon, and barely speak to their kids once everyone gets home, are doing their jobs as parents. The damage to the children is extensive. Everyone just accepts these practices now, but they are really only a few decades old, where both parents are out of the house and kids are being raised primarily by institutions. Once kids get to grade school it’s basically the same routine. Parents are expecting teachers to do the job of parenting, which of course is not possible. Teachers try, but it’s not the same. Kids end up raising themselves for the most part, and now that online gaming, Facebook and Texting make instant communication possible; the parent is a much less significant role in the lives of their children.

I wondered on this snowy December Saturday what the world will be like when all these kids from today grow up and realize they don’t have everything they need from their parents, because in many cases their parents are on their second or third marriages and lived train wrecks of lives that no child would want to emulate.

I imagine the resentment will be epic.
If you’ve never seen Citizen Kane, you should watch it. It’s very insightful.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Ten Rules to Live By

I do sympathize with the many who question my intent as they try to ascertain my motivations and political positions. “Do I want a political office,” writes one beleaguered email sender. “You want publicity,” writes another. “You want to stay in the times of the caveman,” says yet another.

I read and listen to such things with humor because it would take a lifetime for many of those people to understand what and why I think the way I do. I was doing much of this work before I ever entered the Lakota School Levy issue, and I’ll be doing the same work long after it passes. It just so happens that time and fate have intersected over the issue of education funding.

So as a contribution of insight I offer something I wrote back in 2004 in my book, The Symposium of Justice. It’s the Ten Rules for Living as displayed in the back of the book and discussed in the chapter called, The Overman. (Hint, this is where the term Overmanwarrior comes from, the term reminds me of these ten rules) It is my hope that this list might provide the needed insight for those that seek an answer to their lingering queries.

The following appears on page 187 of The Symposium of Justice, Cliffhanger’s Ten Rules to Live by

1. To honor women, they are the pillars of society.

2. Stand as an example of the highest moral order.

3. Avoid mental depletion such as intoxication, and ignorance.

4. Pursue learning like a person on fire pursues water.

5. Live with integrity, where values are in line with behavior.

6. Live the given life, not the dreams of others.

7. In a crisis handle everything calmly and without confusion.

8. Be capable of firmness in the heart.

9. Sorrow is everywhere, accept it with a smile.

10. Resist hiding in numbers, stand as an individual contributor.

I wrote the Symposium of Justice to teach my kids the values I wanted them to carry into adulthood. But I offer it to anyone looking to improve their life. I live by those values and it has always worked for me. When you are living by those principles, no amount of money, no official title, and no peer acceptance can surpass the benefits. The key to fixing the world is within you. Fix that and you fix the world. . All such things are purely cosmetic aspects to a social existence. Participation in any and all will ultimately lead to an empty life laced with dissatisfaction. So read of the above list what you will. Live your life and maybe make your own list. Because one thing is certain, and that is nothing is truly certain. All you truly ever have is what you build inside yourself and can therefore offer others in the form of relationships.

No school, political party, or career choice can give you that

Those are the values I live by.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior www.overmanwarrior.com

Michelle Obama’s abuse of the American Taxpayer

In America, we do not have royalty. We do not want royalty, and we do not want to pay for royalty. What you are about to read will disgust you. Below are the costs that the American Taxpayer must contribute just to Michelle Obama, whom I would proclaim shouldn’t be paid any of the below costs. Not a single dollar. First is the cost of her direct staff and their positions. Second is the cost of her trip to Spain followed by the sum. It should be of note that she is the first to have a staff this large. These costs are completely foolish expenditures.

First Lady Michelle Obama’s Servant List and Pay Scale
The First Lady Requires More Than Twenty Attendants (That’s 22
Attendants to be exact)
1. $172,200 – Sher, Susan (Chief Of Staff)

2. $140,000 – Frye, Jocelyn C. (Deputy Assistant to the President and
Director of Policy And Projects For The First Lady)

3. $113,000 – Rogers, Desiree G. (Special Assistant to the President
and White House Social Secretary)

4. $102,000 – Johnston, Camille Y. (Special Assistant to the President
and Director of Communications for the First Lady)

5. $100,000 – Winter, Melissa E. (Special Assistant to the President
and Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)

6. $90,000 – Medina , David S. (Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First
Lady)

7. $84,000 – Lelyveld, Catherine M. (Director and Press Secretary to
the First Lady)

8. $75,000 – Starkey, Frances M. (Director of Scheduling and Advance
for the First Lady)

9. $70,000 – Sanders, Trooper (Deputy Director of Policy and Projects
for the First Lady)

10. $65,000 – Burnough, Erinn J. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social
Secretary)

11. $64,000 – Reinstein, Joseph B. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social
Secretary)

12. $62,000 – Goodman, Jennifer R. (Deputy Director of Scheduling and
Events Coordinator For The First Lady)

13. $60,000 – Fitts, Alan O. (Deputy Director of Advance and Trip
Director for the First Lady)

14. $57,500 – Lewis, Dana M. (Special Assistant and Personal Aide to
the First Lady)

15. $52,500 – Mustaphi, Semonti M. (Associate Director and Deputy Press
Secretary to The First Lady)

16. $50,000 – Jarvis, Kristen E. (Special=2 0Assistant for Scheduling
and Traveling Aide to The First Lady)

17. $45,000 – Lechtenberg, Tyler A. (Associate Director of
Correspondence For The First Lady)

18. $43,000 – Tubman, Samantha (Deputy Associate Director, Social
Office)

19. $40,000 – Boswell, Joseph J. (Executive Assistant to the Chief Of
Staff to the First Lady)

20. $36,000 – Armbruster, Sally M. (Staff Assistant to the Social
Secretary)

21. $35,000 – Bookey, Natalie (Staff Assistant)

22. $35,000 – Jackson, Deilia A. (Deputy Associate Director of

Correspondence for the First Lady)

The total cost is $1,591,200.00 per year just for the First Lady.

There has NEVER been anyone in the White House at any time who has
created such an army of staffers whose sole duties are the facilitation
of the First Lady’s social life. One wonders why she needs so much
help, at taxpayer expense, when even Hillary only had three; Jackie
Kennedy one; Laura Bush one; and prior to Mamie Eisenhower, social help
came from the President’s own pocket.

Note: This does not include makeup artist Ingrid Grimes-Miles, 49, and
“First Hairstylist” Johnny Wright, 31, both of whom traveled aboard Air
Force One to Europe .

Now let’s look at her August trip to Spain.

Air Force 2 Round trip $180,000.00
Air Force 2 on the ground for 5 days $250,000.00
Hotel and Meals
$300,000.00
Per diem $75,000.00
Limo cars $70,000.00
Overtime pay $150,000.00


Total $1,025,000.00

Total cost spent just on first lady on these two issues $2,616,200.00

This is a person that doesn’t understand that she’s a public servant. I would argue that all First Lady’s should not exceed what their family budget allows. None of the above is necessary for the nations business and should have been paid by the Obama family. 

Not the tax payer. 

Rich Hoffman

http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior

www.overmanwarrior.com

Individuality and Thinking Outside the Box.

I never planned to become so involved in education policies. By contrast, the things I’m interested in are so far away from structured education that they might as well be from another planet.

Fortunately, I understand why I feel this way. And I’ve covered it elsewhere in my other bodies of work. Google (institutional failure Rich Hoffman) and you’ll find much of what I have said about the dismal failure of thinking from within the conventions of a box.

My endeavors against the school levies are not an anti-education position for me. I’m not looking to destroy the schools, or to single handedly defeat communism, as some have said. But where my personal work and the work of standing up against the deceit of school systems looking to wrestle property tax money from residents in order to feed an institutional monster intersects with my personal interests and that is why I am involved. That is where the cowboy hats, and bullwhips come into the picture, because for me, those are symbols of individually and freedom. I think I’ll let Nicholas Cage explain it best for me. The following clip is from Wild at Heart, one of David Lynches greatest.

Individuality is what I’d consider to be the paramount trait of the human condition. Through individuality everything can be fixed. If everyone cared for themselves, there wouldn’t be a need for large institutions.

Progressives look at government as a job creation measure that assists the masses. I view the progressive kind of help to damage the individual gumption of mankind. And much of that progressive teaching is going directly to our youth through the school system. And that is where the schools cross over and interfere with my interests as an artist.

In my art, the promotion of bullwhips, cowboy hats, firearms, motorcycles, etc are all rooted in individuality, which I see being the elements lost in our American culture, and the key to the preservation of society. It is a long standing American tradition of one person making a difference. When a majority of Americans believe such things, they will therefore vote and participate in the republic. Films used to display such individuality, are embraced over a long span of time. Progressive themed films come and go and people quickly forget them. But films rooted in American tradition and individuality have staying power. In the following clip, Clint Eastwood takes over an entire town and punishes it for its corruption in the film High Plains Drifter.

Another American idea of one person taking on several others when grossly outnumbered, Clint Eastwood, Fistful of Dollars.

Star Wars was essentially a western set in space. One of the most popular characters in the entire Star Wars saga by most every survey was Han Solo. Another was Boba Fett, and Fett only has a couple of lines in the entire six film series. What both characters have in common are that they are both faithfully individualistic characters. This provides some insight into what the psychology of mankind if analyzed without filters will chose. In a classic scene from 1977, Han Solo kills a bounty hunter in a cantina. Notice Han shoots first and in cold blood. Solo is a survivor. He has a bounty hunter there to kill him, so why not shoot first.

However, later, and under pressure from his progressive friends, Lucas changed this scene 1997 to where the bounty hunter shot first, which turned out to be a joke among Star Wars fans that felt betrayed by the edit.

Here is one of the most humorous satires on the subject.

What this tells me is that people see through the thin vale of progressive thought. Movie goers do not like “team” players. Look at the James Bond franchise. In the modern era, Bond has been watered down as they have tried to make him more “human.”

But the James Bond that I grew up with was a survivor that always had a smart answer and enough wit to escape any situation.

Bond single handedly takes on some of the world’s most dangerous villains. He doesn’t work well with others and frequently thumbs his nose at his superiors. That is the key to Bond’s success.

Yet, in socialism, it is desired to remove such individualist traits. Here is the reality of socialism expressed well in the film Brazil.

Here is another scene from Brazil of an individual getting revenge on a symbol of the STATE.

In fact, Brazil should be seen by everyone. What are you waiting for? Go rent it now!

The fact is movies are boring when they involve flat characters that don’t have individual attributes that are defined and charismatic. The only way socialist principled films work is when shown in a negative light.

This clip from THX-1138, another GREAT FILM!

Here is a great speech by Jeff Bridges playing the wonderfully individualist Preston Tucker.

The point of all this is that collectivism does not work. It never has, and never will. And telling society to get into a box that it doesn’t want is wrong.

In my own work, I’ve dedicated my life to living, thinking, and teaching people to live outside the box. So I am not a fan of funding an education system that is teaching people to live inside a box. I’m fine with teaching reading, writing, arithmetic, college prep, and basic social skills. But the sex education, the counseling, the physical education crosses the lines, because all those types of social concerns have been reduced to a level of collectivism that paves the way to a much less individualistic society.

I already felt that public education leaned in a direction that went too far in that direction. But I put up with it because my community desires the services, so I go along with it for their sake. But, I see many, many aspects that are wrong with public education because the emphasis is not being applied to individualism. Only in sports does our society embrace individual traits fully, and that is a failure in social value.

I have spent a lot of my time figuring out what those values are, and have committed my life to preserving individualism. And I was doing this well before the Lakota Levy ever came to be.

Being involved in a political issue, I will tend to have a different approach because personally, I despise politics. The films I have displayed here provide some insight into my belief structure. The people I look up to are not the types that do what they’re told without question. I have no desire to become a politician, a board member, a congressman, even a governor or president. None of those jobs would be enjoyable for me.

As a concerned citizen, I’m fine to call things as I see them. But being a lover of individualism, I don’t require the approval of anyone else to act. I don’t need the approval of another to approve of my attire. And I don’t require any approval to weigh my comments in the context of history.

I am happy to share that lack of burden with others in order to free them of such shackles, because the answers are outside of the box. Not in it. But you have to enjoy the freedom of living shackle free.

So it is not of any offense to groups like unions, and political organizations that are wishing to maintain the status quo. I don’t pass judgment on your collective actions until you ask me for money, because at that point, you are involving me in your action. At that time, action on my part must be taken to eliminate the grip of your collectivism on my life style.

So criticize and belittle from your perspective the images of the traditional cowboy. But as evidence to what the true nature of mankind enjoys from the psychology of the darkened theater, I know that my position is supported by the infrastructure of individualism embraced by the masses from the vote of the movie ticket and film history.

The concepts taught by modern progressives are simply flimsy musings of sociological theory. And as for the direction of a one world identity, I would direct the world to the cowboy, not Al Gore or any like him.

And that is the platform I stand on. And that is my commitment for every endeavor I become a part of. There isn’t any class that can teach you to defend a position held within the institutional box-like thinking. The only kind of thinking I truly value is from outside the box.

Rich Hoffman

http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior

www.overmanwarrior.com

Doc Thompson and the Ponzi Scheme of Busing Cuts

It was a cold day in December, approximately 1 month after the vote that defeated the Lakota School Levy when I went on the Doc Thompson show at The Big One. Two weeks earlier, the school board voted to cut the busing to over 9,000 students. Once that was announced, I received a fair amount of email proclaiming that it was my fault that busing was being cut.

This infuriated me. It’s one thing to have an intelligent discussion about budget issues. It’s quite another to have open extortion that is endorsed by organized political entities and leaving the blame on my doorstep. That is something that I will not put up with.

Doc Thompson shares with me a hope that we can cut through the extremist talk and arrive at a place where we can all have an intelligent conversation about education reform. Anybody with a brain can see that comments about cutting busing and not dealing with the excessive wage amounts is foolish. Wages and benefits comprise over 75%. Busing is less than 2% of the total budget. An intelligent group of budget analysts would obviously attack the 75% first. Not the 2%.

This led to a lively discussion on with Doc during his morning show. Click to listen to the segment.

Literally every education oriented law implemented; every mandate issued from the state has the imprint of the teacher’s unions in it, including the law that says the state must have step increases for teachers. What idiot legislature voted for that and made it a law?

That’s what we’re dealing with here folks. It’s a Ponzi scheme, except this one is created and enforced by government officials under the lobby power of the teachers union and their money. I understand that districts in Columbus pay out around $900 per teacher to the union, and that money then gets turned into political lobby power, typically toward the Democratic Party. In order for this to work, teachers need to make enough in salary to support their contributions to the union, so the union can continue to support the lobby power against the taxpayer by buying the votes of legislators. And as the wages continue to escalate in accordance with the step increases, at a rate in many cases of 9% a year, it doesn’t take long for a district to find itself in financial trouble once their tenured teachers arrive at their step increases at the same time.

That’s where Lakota finds itself. The public isn’t asking the school system to cut their budget of $160 million. We’re asking them not to let it grow any larger than that. But according to the school district, they are powerless to stop the increases to meet the step schedule, because the step increases are a state law.

What? You think calling this whole issue a Ponzi Scheme is unfair, or overly dramatic? Read below the definition of a Ponzi Scheme.

Ponzi scheme
From Wikipedia

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to separate investors from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from any actual profit earned. The Ponzi scheme usually entices new investors by offering returns other investments cannot guarantee, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent. The perpetuation of the returns that a Ponzi scheme advertises and pays requires an ever-increasing flow of money from investors to keep the scheme going.Still think it’s too radical? The bail out comes in the form of property tax increases. And if you don’t pay, they’ll make sure the tax payer feels the pain. The game is intentionally made complicated so nobody can ever fix it, and the average tax payer doesn’t want to take the time to figure things out.

The system is destined to collapse because the earnings, if any, are less than the payments to investors. Usually, the scheme is interrupted by legal authorities before it collapses because a Ponzi scheme is suspected or because the promoter is selling unregistered securities. As more investors become involved, the likelihood of the scheme coming to the attention of authorities increases. While the system eventually will collapse under its own weight, the example of Bernard Madoff demonstrates the ability of a Ponzi scheme to delude both individual and institutional investors as well as securities authorities for long periods: Madoff’s variant of the Ponzi scheme stands as the largest financial investor fraud committed by a single person in history. Prosecutors estimate losses at Madoff’s hand totaling roughly $21 billion, as estimated by the money invested by his victims. If the promised returns are added the losses amount to $64.8 billion, but a New York court dismissed this estimation method during the Madoff trial.

The scheme is named for Charles Ponzi,[1] who became notorious for using the technique in early 1920. He had emigrated from Italy to the United States in 1903. Ponzi did not invent the scheme (Charles Dickens’ 1857 novel Little Dorrit described such a scheme decades before Ponzi was born, for example), but his operation took in so much money that it was the first to become known throughout the United States. His original scheme was in theory based on international reply coupons for postage stamps, but soon diverted investors’ money to support payments to earlier investors and Ponzi’s personal wealth.

Knowingly entering a Ponzi scheme, even at the last round of the scheme, can be rational economically if there is a reasonable expectation that government or other deep pockets will bail out those participating in the Ponzi scheme.[2]

But to intentionally mislead the taxpayers, and to force further impositions against the community with such silly cuts like busing, and special needs programs is ridiculous and deserves to be called what it is.

Extortion………………………………..

Again, here is the definition of extortion —-Extortion, outwresting, and/or exaction is a criminal offense which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person(s), entity, or institution, through coercion. Refraining from doing harm is sometimes euphemistically called protection. Extortion is commonly practiced by organized crime groups. The actual attainment of money or property is not required to commit the offense. Making a threat of violence which refers to a requirement of a payment of money or property to halt future violence is sufficient to commit the offense. Exaction refers not only to extortion or the unlawful demanding and obtaining of something through force,[1] but additionally, in its formal definition, means the infliction of something such as pain and suffering or making somebody endure something unpleasant.[2]

Does cutting busing fall under “making somebody endure something unpleasant.”

This is a clear issue. Let’s call it what it is. And we have to know what it is before we can figure out how to fix it.

Rich Hoffman

http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.NoLakotaLevy.com

Lakota Finance Truth Regarding Busing

Lakota made a decent decision in re-thinking its plans to cut busing. Unfortunately, they are still making cuts in busing when in all reality, that is the last thing in the world that they should be cutting.

The new proposal will allow students in kindergarten through sixth grade living 1 to 2 miles from their school will be able to keep their busing for the rest of the year.

This is an obvious attempt to buy some time and to look as though the school system is working with the community.

There is some very grim news looming on the horizon for public schools all over Ohio. It looks as though Governor Kasich will cut the budget to education 15 to 20 percent. That means there won’t be any quick fixes at the state level to fix the funding problem. I am hopeful that the funding structure can be fixed during the Kasich administration, but the first priority for him is to cut the budget deficit in Ohio that is over 8 billion dollars.

That means that schools trying to maintain the status quo of what they are accustomed to in funding levels, will try to put more levy proposals on the ballots this upcoming spring to avoid the pain. What they should do is deal with the real numbers they’ll be dealing with when Kasich also cuts many of the state mandates that will save millions to districts, because that is the plan as I understand it, and will change the amount of money school districts need.

When you have to deal with budget cuts, and we’re not asking Lakota to cut their budget, We’re asking them to put a cap on the budget and live within it, is that substantial cuts have to be made.

I’m going to attempt to answer some mail here that I don’t have time to address individually.

• There will be changes on the school board when we have another election. There are a lot of people that want to run. However, and I know school board members that currently sit on boards all over Ohio that tell me how the Levy University works up in Columbus, and how they are singled out if they don’t follow the union line. So it will take more than just one school board member to affect change. Changes to the board will require changes in culture, and that’s the phase that the Lakota School System is in.

• Busing is one of the items taught at Levy University in Columbus to extort money from the community. Kevin Bright, superintendent of Mason has taught the class, so there is a local connection. He is the superintendent at Mason that currently makes more than any state governor in the United States.

• To the union reps and teacher, yes the community does expect the same education results to our children even with reductions in money. Education is not a sports team. We can vote for sports teams and other entertainment with the purchase of a ticket. We can only vote for wage levels in school systems and school board members with a vote. Lakota has said no twice. We currently pay approximately $11 dollars per 1000 in property taxes to support our schools and we’re telling you to live within that amount. If you can’t, quit and we’ll hire people who can do it.

• Schools are not alone in the budget crises situation. We have problems in Cincinnati ranging from the stadium deficits to the request in Butler County to having an income tax. All across the state and the nation government entities are trying to sustain the level of income they’ve manipulated for themselves at public expense. They did this while we were all sleeping and busy with other issues. But now we’re out of money. We’re individually taxed too much, so we have to pay attention now and start saying no, so that service levels can be paid a wage that is more manageable. But we still expect the police to show up. We still expect the teachers to teach. We still expect government to do its business. But we do not want to pay excessively for those services. Again, if you don’t want to do the job, we’ll find someone else to do it for a wage we’re willing to pay. End of story.

2011 will be a tough year. But if we pay attention to the basic issues, we’ll get through it together. Teacher’s unions will have to make compromises or get out of the way. That’s all there is to it. You won’t be allowed to extort our communities at the expense of our children.

I know Kasich is going to have a tough time when he gets to office, so I have joined his Captains for Kasich program. And I invite you to join me there, because we will need a considerable defense for the aggression that the teacher unions will put forth once it becomes obvious that the education culture will have to change in order for education to survive and continue to educate our youth properly. The unions will fight the change every step.


You can contact me for Captains for Kasich at:
http://captainsforkasich.com/an/profile?contactId=98ccd083-9ace-454e-95b4-9e24698c7282

I also started a Twitter account because so many people asked me to.  Join me to receive direct updates.

http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior

Rich Hoffman

http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior

www.NoLakotaLevy.com