Month: July 2011

Obama, Keynesian Economics, and Public Labor Unions: Lakota Schools try for another levy

John Boehner In a statement released by the Ohio Republican Saturday night — just a day before talks with President Barack Obama — Boehner said the “White House will not pursue a bigger debt reduction agreement without tax hikes.”

Tax hikes………………….the only way out for groups of politicians who have promised, and promised, and promised so much to so many, yet know they do not have the money to pay it back without more taxes. For those types of politicians the English economist John Maynard Keynes provided them with a way to loot money from the public in the appearance of good will, and still purchases political power for themselves. About the same time another economist named Friedrich Hayek came on the scene to refute Keynesian economics and this battle has been going on for nearly 100 years.

That video is a very clever way to articulate the two economic theories. Here is a bit more about these two economists at an economic conference. There was a time in the 70’s, when Jimmy Carter had used Keynesian economics to spiral the nation out of control, that Keynes was dismissed as relevant. Ronald Reagan had used the philosophy of Hayek to resurrect the economy in the 80’s with Reaganomics, much to the dismay of Keynesian fans who are typically Democrats and Progressives.

It is these two economic theories that are at play in these recent school battles where public schools claim to be broke and believe that spending is the way to improve education, solve all social problems, and maintain an infrastructure of expanding government by teaching into the very young the principles of Keynesian economics, submission to authority, and the role of big organized labor in the fabric of social engineering. So it comes as no surprise that on this day of July 11th 2011, the Lakota School District, the 7th largest district in the state of Ohio and one of the wealthiest decided to put another levy on the fall ballot. Being an institution of education structured by their labor unions around a Keynesian economic model, the school board understands nothing else. They have as a district done exactly what the federal government has done on a national level, and that is spend themselves into oblivion leaving tax hikes as the only way out.

It’s funny that Hayek doesn’t get any respect in these videos because in real life he doesn’t, even though his economic theories are proven more relevant, and far superior. The reason for the lack of popularity of Hayek is that politicians don’t like him. Politicians looking for a vote like to give things away in order to buy those votes and Keynesian economics provide them with the excuse to do so. Public schools are absolutely no different. Schools give away college electives, busing, and school sports in a political trade for an endless supply of tax revenue to support their Keynesian economic views.

This is the reason a school district like Lakota believed that if they spent $50K on a search for a new superintendent, and then paid that superintendent $165K per year over the assistant superintendent who was making only $105K per year, that they would have success in balancing their budget deficit. The school administration believes that if they spend more money, they will automatically get better results.


This belief system of course comes from the union labor influence, where they purposely take advantage of not just the administrator’s economic ignorance in matters such as these, but also the tax payers. Unions are big government advocates who subscribe religiously to the Keynesian model. Hayek’s economic theories are a severe threat to them.

Schools are currently facing a bust cycle, because the cost of education is artificially high. Facing this bust cycle in Ohio, Governor Kasich signed Senate Bill 5 into law to help school boards deal with this natural cycle and still maintain the level of education services that are needed for our society to function. This has drawn national attention from of course President Obama who is very friendly to union labor and Keynesian economics. Over the 4th of July holiday the NEA (National Education Association) voted to pass a $10 tax on their union members to support the Obama reelection bid.

Source article:

http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/obamas-price-10-tax-for-union-teachers–you-pay/question-1945813/

This isn’t just happening on a national level; in Ohio the OEA (Ohio Education Association) is mandating a $50 fee from all its members to fight Senate Bill 5 in order to raise 20 million dollars to repeal S.B.5 in November. Firefighters are demanding $100 from their own members. All that money comes from the taxpayer indirectly. Artificially high wages for these public sector jobs makes fees of this kind feasible to be used against the tax payer in lobby power purchased from these massive public union memberships and that’s a big problem.

Source article:

http://www.redstate.com/laborunionreport/2011/04/07/ohio-unions-to-mandate-more-money-from-members-to-fund-sb5-campaign-fight/

What the unions are doing, and Obama is perpetuating in his refusal to deal with the Republicans demands to cut spending, is trying to prevent the natural bust cycle that is facing the nation by throwing more money, (our tax money) at the situation to maintain the promises they have made to themselves and their members for decades.

The average teacher at Lakota makes over 60K per year, which is much more than the tax payers who pay their salaries. This is justified by state law citing that various degrees obtained by teachers in the state of Ohio must be compensated accordingly. It does not matter that the residents of Lakota do not need kindergarten teachers who have master’s degrees, and are being paid by the community for those degrees even though the market cannot support such concepts. The union lobby using membership funds have shaped the law to suit their Keynesian economic model which is a severe flaw that is detrimental to anyone who pays taxes.

So again, our community will be in for another fight against the Lakota School System as organized labor have embedded themselves into our politics so deeply that they can dictate what type of economic strategy our elected officials use to deal with the financial realities of our times.

The difference between now and in the past, where the NEA, the OEA and presidents like Obama and many other progressives have pushed Keynesian economics to satisfy their political deals, is now people are learning about the tricks that have been played on us all for many years. The millions of dollars of lobby power, the fear mongering that money spent equals success, the strikes to artificially drive up wages, all that is coming to a close because people are learning.

And my response to this recent attempt by Lakota to pass yet another school levy when the tax payers of the district are already heavily taxed, just as we are nationally, it is the expectations that must be attacked, and will be exposed heavily in this next campaign which I look very much forward to fighting this fall. The fight is over a failed economic theory by Keynes and the economic intelligence of Hayek. That battle is underway and there will be a lot of broken hearts in the meantime, but the fight must be fought because without the fight, there will be no tomorrow as we know it or expect it. Depending on the victor of this battle tomorrow may or may not be left to our decisions. And I will fight this battle on the side of Hayek!

Good luck Lakota, you’re going to need it!

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Casey Anthony is Walking Free: But the real murder is far worse than a drunk party girl

This is another one of those articles where the video is just as important at the text. So take your time.

No matter what you think about the Casey Anthony trial and her being found not guilty of murder for her 2-year-old daughter in Orlando, Florida there is more at stake than just the freedom of a Casey Anthony. The emotions of this case have proven to be too much for many people to take.

Interesting how the Judge went lighter on that lady after she claimed to be bi-polar and under medication. When Casey was found not guilty, the opinion of most in society was anger as a collective gasp swept the nation.

Casey was a party girl like so many young girls these days, and her paternal instincts were seriously compromised. Her priorities were obviously vacant in the events that led up to the death of her child.

Even Skyline Chili in Clearwater Florida is openly upset about the not guilty verdict and are protesting in their small little way.

700 WLW did a fantastic job of covering this trial, and once the verdict was read, the outrage emitted from the 50,000 watt flamethrower of the Midwest. Darryl Parks had some particularly riveting analysts.

Casey Anthony is a persistent liar. So much so, there is almost no way to tell which thing she says has any semblance of the truth.

The real trouble with this verdict is the indication that society, which the jurors represent, is having more difficulty thinking critically when given evidence that requires firm decision-making skills. This is a shocking tendency among young people who have been raised in a progressive society to expect experts to do their thinking for them. Listen to this juror explain her thinking. Imagine a room full of people just like this juror, who have been bred to accept what is told to them through commercials, TV shows, newspapers, tabloids and online media, they have lost the ability to think critically.

Here the prosecutor for the case speaks on The View about how shocked he was on the not guilty verdict.

I feel sorry for the retiring prosecutor. I’ll say what he refused to acknowledge, and that the system is irreparably broken. Casey, a young woman with her priorities obviously misplaced, coming from a family of poor value thinks nothing of telling lies. What good is she on the stand swearing an oath to God? If she doesn’t believe in God, or care about the ramifications of a lie, what good is her oath, and word on the stand? The jurors aren’t much better than Casey, they are people collected from across the state and sequestered and represent to the best ability of the law to provide a fair jury of Casey’s peers, but they have obviously lost that good old fashion sense of right and wrong, of the ability to make a moral decision, because they have been infected with progressivism. And the court system which is a good ol’ boy game of politics and manipulation proved completely inept for not the first time. It’s a tangled mess of broken people trying to find the truth in darkness but without a flashlight.

This trial looks to cost taxpayers over $4.5 million to achieve nothing. It was a trial in pursuit of the truth, that had a mountain of evidence, but even with all the money spent, and nearly three years of investigating, it lacked jurors who could ascertain the information and pass judgment. And that is the real crime which has been revealed and that criminal is progressivism. Every character in this drama is a victim of progressivism, a prophecy predicted by Ayn Rand in her book Atlas Shrugged. The very same neglect these jurors showed to the mountain of evidence presented by the prosecutor is the same neglect citizen’s show toward the government tendency toward socialism, or property owners toward their schools and the union manipulation of their tax dollars. When people lose faith in themselves, and look to professionals to tell them what to do, and in the Anthony trial it was two combative attorneys who told jurors conflicting stories, the jurors proved they had lost the ability to make a decision without being spoon feed the facts. And that is the travesty of this trail.

Casey Anthony will be back on the party circuit grinding away the night with other young sluts and their dyed hair, tattoos and alcohol fueled neglect as they seek to fill the spiritual emptiness of their lives with other empty people equally lost because progressivism has lied to them. They will therefore lie to everyone else, honor is no longer valued, and murder has little value because life has been cheapened by progressivism.

This all comes back to the opening comments of Bill Cunningham of 700 WLW. This party girl was putting her little girl to sleep with chloroform so she could party it up with her friends. In doing so it appears that the prosecution proved that Casey killed her little girl in this process, probably by accident. The dead girl was put into the back of the car and driven around for over a month while Casey tried to figure out what to do about the body. In the meantime, Casey was out partying, getting “wasted” and having sex with multiple partners, again, according to the prosecution. So the moral outrage from the general population is how Casey could do such a thing. And from the youth culture, people under age 35 who have been taught in public education that collective consensus is best over individual decisions, and that going to college means lots of cheap sex and excessive drinking while responsibility in life can be delayed until their mid-twenties. These young people are more and more just like Casey Anthony, liars, cheaters, and morally bankrupt children of a progressive nation who are numb to murder because their goals in life are focused on the party, and not the responsibility of living. That’s why this case is a case of national relevance and a thermometer of our current moral state.

Most of the viewers in this case are just as guilty as the woman who shouted out in court then pleaded with the judge to go easy on her. She wanted attention in a big national case for her own selfish reasons, but lacked the courage to stand by her convictions and fell to her knees before the law withering under the pressure of the law which only has the power to regulate the weak while the truly evil walk free to tyrannize again. So shout at the TV, protest at Skyline, and talk among yourselves about the injustice of this case, but when real courage is required to prevent these murders well before they ever happen, you will be the morally bankrupt souls that supports through your inner demons people like Casey Anthony, and contribute to the evil that rots our society. Casey killed her daughter with neglect, but American’s are doing the same to their country with the same type of neglect. So in the end, everyone is guilty, and that’s why Casey Anthony is being set free.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Suggested Reading:

http://afewcentsaday.com/Store.html

The Kentucky Speedway: The Dream of Jerry Carroll

I used to run a manufacturing line that built Corvette fascias in a Mason, Ohio plant which would require me to travel to the Corvette manufacturing plant in Bowling Green Kentucky every so often to inspect the rejected fascias for defects and process improvements. The fascia was the entire plastic front end assembly that contained the headlights, parking lights and basic connections for electronics. The fascias were the most visible part of that assembly and was to be built-in such a way that it could be taken straight off a rack and put onto a car. If you drive a Corvette from 1994 to 1997 chances are, I built the front end of that car. Take off the fascia and you’ll see that you have my signature there because I signed every one of them.

As that contract was being completed for the last model year of that particular design, the Corvette Plant wanted a lot of these fascias so I worked 2nd shift and 3rd shift every day 7 days a week for approximately a year and a half to meet the contract demands, those shifts being the most difficult to staff with quality labor. Yes, I worked 16 hours a day for that entire span every day of the week except for holidays. I did much of the work myself, including fab opts, basic trimming, quality control, transportation to the paint line, paint line inspection, and liaison to the Bowling Green plant, all while managing three to four employees per shift just for that particular line. One of the ways I kept everybody’s head in the game was to perpetually run broadcasts from 700 WLW, which filled the long work hours with entertainment.

It was during this time in the mid-90’s that Jerry Carroll was lobbying to build the Kentucky Speedway down in Sparta which officially started in 1999 and spent a lot of time on WLW promoting his massive project that would bring NASCAR to the Tri-State. Many of those broadcasts were like the one heard here by Darryl Parks as he covers the historic opening of the raceway after a decade long battle to bring such high-profile racing to reality.

I had the opportunity to watch Sparta, which is about 40 min to the south of Cincinnati turn from a field of empty land next to Interstate 71 where the property wasn’t even being farmed into a world-class racetrack that is attracting hotels, restaurants, casinos and shopping centers, and possibly even an airport.

It was the vision of one man and his mind that brought all this activity to life. In the interview below, when Jerry talks about the small mindedness of NASCAR, it must be remembered that he had to take NASCAR to court to even get their attention. His goal was to bring a NASCAR race to Kentucky. End of story! How he got there and who he had to run over to achieve that dream was not a consideration. That makes him a great American!

This is why the Kentucky Speedway is such a magnificent and epic story. It is truly about the vision of one man who defied the odds to make a dream come true which then creates true economic activity to a region that didn’t have it before. America was built by people like Jerry Carroll. His fight is the same fight that education reformers are fighting, Tea Party advocates, tax reformers, anybody who sees that there are possibilities, but come up against powerful monopolies, and government is a powerful monopoly, and tries to get the fools to see that they are standing in the way of real growth.

The video below shows just how far-reaching this dream has spanned. Richard Petty, The King, showed up to bless the new track, and when Petty shows up, you know that the dream has been achieved.

The kinds of fans that come to a NASCAR event are unique. The fans are as innovative on a small-scale as Jerry Carroll is on the large.

Government is no different from NASCAR in that the decision makers are often gun-shy and comfortable, and unwilling to take a chance. This doesn’t make them bad people, but it does make them unqualified in the realm of being a dreamer, and in America they have no right to regulate the dreamer.

It is the dreamer, the risk-taker, the innovator who should always rule in America. They should be listened to intently with the highest honor for they are the people who move the world. They are the people who can end poverty, who can increase revenue, who can bring changes that benefit all of mankind.
The typical progressive who finds NASCAR racing barbaric and crude are missing the symbolic meaning of the sport, and that is in a lawless rejection of progressive policies when prohibition ruled and the good ol’ boys from the hills hit the road to outrun the law. When they weren’t running moonshine they raced each other, and NASCAR was born. The races of NASCAR improve automobile technology in complex ways that defy measure and are important events that have improved the lives of every single citizen in the world who drive a car. When a car crashes in NASCAR at over 150 to 200 MPH nobody expects the driver to die anymore. The safety equipment that protects these drivers has found their way into our family cars.
But nothing happens without dreamers like Jerry Carroll. Nobody in government would have thought to do such a thing as building a track where he did. Government does not create; it just consumes and gets in the way of the dreamers who actually make a difference where those difference really matter.

The Belterra Casino is in Indiana, but it would have never located there unless they anticipated the future business of the Speedway, just up the road. As the years come to us by way of the future, that road from Belterra to the Speedway will become something that will rival Las Vegas and it all started with the will of one man, a man I listened to intently late at night with sweet pouring off my face as I built parts for a Corvette Plant in Kentucky and dreamed of things that had not yet come to be through the radio broadcasts of 700 WLW.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Thanks Glenn Beck: Good luck on the path of authenticity

Glenn Beck is one of those unique individuals, who no matter how he arrived at where he’s at is truly an authentic person. Because of his lack of willingness to play politics, social games, and his hunger for knowledge, he has been able to say and do on television what few people in the history of mankind have been able to achieve, he’s been able to pull out of civilization the good in their nature instead of playing to their fears. Tyrants typically achieve the kind of popularity that Beck has by playing to the worst in human nature. Beck has done the opposite, he has gained mass appeal by bringing out the good, and to me that is a phenomenal achievement.

It didn’t come as a surprise to me when Beck made the announcement that he wanted to back off. I saw him in Wilmington and he seemed tired. I couldn’t blame him; after all there had been so many people who threatened him and his family. Who in their right mind would want to put themselves out there like he has for all this time? But during his last episode when he spoke about why he wanted to leave his Fox show, he stated he wanted to leave with his soul, and I thought that was incredible.

Soul preservation has always been extremely important to me. I have made all my major decisions in my life with that concept in mind, including quitting college for the third time, because I did not feel I could be authentic to myself by kissing the ass of the college professors who controlled my grades. In my professional life I’ve done the same, I do not kiss ass, play games, or suck up in any way to people who consider themselves my superiors. I never have. Any success I have had is by default, where everyone else had failed and I was the only one standing that had a solution. And once the solution was presented and people are making money again, those services are highly sought after. But I never did it by playing golf with the boss, or telling the president he had on a nice tie. As a matter-of-fact, it was just yesterday that the president of a company that I have to deal with told me, “You are a piece of F**cking work, you know that!” He was furious with me because I do not pump his ego, which is something he is used to. I speak to him like he’s any other employee I have ever dealt with. I dread dealing with losers like that guy, because they are power-hungry fools that acquire those positions by default, by playing politics. Not by talent, but by the networks they build through socializing, and they disgust me. So I deeply appreciate a person like Glenn Beck who says, “You know, I’m at the top of my game, but I don’t want to lose my soul, so I’m going to take a chance to retain my creative ambition and not just settle into complacency because the money is good.” I wish every person in the world was like that. I’ve always been like that, but aside from Glenn Beck, and my wife, and maybe a few other people I’ve known over the years, nobody else is.

So I will miss Glenn Beck at 5 pm each day. But I wish him well on such an ambitious project such as what he is about to do in launching his own online network. I love what he is trying to do. I think giving up the Fox platform is a mistake, but I love his honesty and ambition.

[kyte.tv appKey=MarbachViewerEmbedded&uri=channels/451373/1363672&tbid=279961&p=1011&height=384&width=320]

Only time will tell how successful Beck’s future endeavors will be. If he stopped right now and retired, the world would be far better off than it was, so anything he does in the future will only make it better, because the man himself is a good one. He may feel guilt about his past mistakes, but he has more than redeemed himself in his gifts to mankind. For too many years it has been the extremists on the far left that have moved The Overton Window so far to the left as it is today. And now because of Beck, whether he continues to have success or not, have pulled that window a bit more to the right, where people like me and an army of others can continue to drag the political spectrum back to the center where it has always belonged.

[kyte.tv appKey=MarbachViewerEmbedded&uri=channels/451373/1397207&tbid=279963&p=1011&height=384&width=320]

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Lakota Spent $100,000 on Nothing: and now they are asking for more money

The article below is what is appearing in the Cincinnati Enquirer July 8, 2011. I gave a brief interview at the close of the meeting. There isn’t any reason in the world why the Lakota School Board should put a tax on the ballot. S.B.5 became law on July 1st which is why all the unions rushed to pass their contracts during the spring, to get those contracts grandfathered in. The school boards now have a tool to deal with the budget short-falls in the coming years, yet they don’t think in terms of cost reduction by way of wages and benefits renegotiated with Senate Bill 5, only cost expansion. The financial crises is self imposed. When a school board votes to spend 50K on a superintendent and pay her 165K yet overlook the guy who was doing a good job for only 105K, blowing a total of 100K on costs they didn’t need, it is clear that these administrators just don’t get it. No wonder all the school board knows how to do is ask for more money. It is very disappointing to see that the school board is putting up three options, which is essentially playing good cop and bad cop by making the smaller number look more digestible to voters. It’s very disingenuous and insulting.

___________________________________________________________________

LIBERTY TWP. – Residents may see a tax hike ranging from 4.5 to 7.5 mills on the fall ballot if Lakota school board members agree on a millage amount.

The board is scheduled to choose a final school operating tax millage – 4.5 mills, 6.5 mills or 7.5 mills – to propose to voters in November. It will pick one of the tax options at its next meeting on Monday.

Regardless of the tax size, it became clear during Thursday evening’s board work session that the third tax issue in a little more than a year is headed for the Nov. 8 ballot.

Annual school tax cost increases for a $100,000 home would range from $137 for a 4.5-mill operating tax to $199 for a 6.5-mill tax to $229 for a 7.5-mill tax.

It took four tries in 2004 and 2005 before voters in Liberty and West Chester townships last approved a new operating tax. An operating tax helps pay for daily operations of the 18,300-student district, including employee salaries and benefits.

But voters in 2010 twice rejected operating taxes, and the defeat in May 2010 was by one of the largest margins in Lakota’s 54-year history. In November 2010, voters defeated a 7.9-mill operating levy.

Lakota is among the nearly half of Southwest Ohio’s 49 school systems that are considering or planning to put a tax issue on the Nov. 8 ballot.

Despite cutting $10.2 million in personnel and programs for the upcoming school year, Lakota faces a budget shortfall of $14.6 million by 2015 and requires more local tax revenue to remain solvent for the five-year projection required by the state for all public school districts, said Lakota officials.

Jenni Logan, treasurer of the Butler County district that is the second largest in Southwest Ohio, told the board that “we are still in a spending deficit” even with recent and extension budget cuts.
Board President Joan Powell said “deficit spending is an untenable position”.

In the last school year, the board has made historically deep cuts including eliminating busing for thousands, renegotiating its teachers labor contract and freezing almost all types of pay.

As the seventh-largest school system in Ohio, it is also the biggest district in the state to earn a top rating of “Excellent With Distinction.”

Laurie Clark, of West Chester Township, said one of her two children will lose bus service when classes start in August.

“I’m worried that without a levy there will be bigger classrooms and we’ll see more teachers go. This is such a great school district, and I want to keep the quality as high as it has been,” said Clark.

But Rich Hoffman, spokesman for anti-school tax group “NoLakota,” said the board needs to look at further cuts rather than residents’ wallets. He said Ohio’s SB5 law, which curtails public school workers’ powers of collective bargaining, is in place and should be used to further reduce Lakota’s expenses.

“”SB 5 became law (and) school boards now have a tool to deal with the budget shortfalls in the coming years,” said Hoffman. “Yet they don’t think in terms of cost reduction by way of wages and benefits renegotiated with Senate Bill 5, only cost expansion.”

The board is scheduled to make the first of two state-mandated votes to put a tax issue on the fall ballot at its meeting 7 p.m. Monday at Lakota’s Central Office, 5572 Princeton Road, Liberty Township.

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I won’t be at the meeting when they make their final selection of one of the three choices, because I know they have already chose the smaller number, hoping that it will not be such a hard number to digest.  I have other plans for that particular evening which are far more important.  So I’ll look forward to another good fight to defeat that next levy. 

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Over a Million Signatures to Repeal Senate Bill 5: Gained from an emerging police state

The following article should be viewed like a movie. The videos here are extensive, and in the order presented, tell a compelling tale. That tale may have truth, they may be filled with conspiracy theory and thus paranoia, and the opinions many be in the context of such paranoia. However what cannot be disputed is that in 2011 the police and all authority have a lot more power and intrusive capability than they did a decade ago. They are also more expensive as wages and pensions are destroying budgets everywhere. Politicians hungry for the FOP vote are quick to add more and more police to make tax payers feel safe, but the subtle strategy is to create so many government employees through union membership, that politics can be steered where desired.

Police officers and other public union employees in Ohio gathered up more than a million signatures to put a repeal of S.B.5 on the November ballot, a bill that would give communities more management control of their costs. For anyone concerned with a smaller, less intrusive government the union control of public sector employees is deeply concerning. The sheer volumes of public employees that don’t want any changes are displayed in the above and below videos. In fact this very issue is the primary topic of my new book tentatively called, Tail of the Dragon due out in 2012, where politicians use public employees and their families, to shape policy. They do this with excessively high pay which turn republican’s employees into democratic votes due to the luxury of the rate of pay. These public employees no matter how dangerous the job or any other condition is making an average of 30% more than the private sector job, and that buys votes. This is why the public sector unions do not want S.B.5 to stand as law and will fight with everything they have to maintain the status quo.

In some way or another we all know that the status quo is spiraling out of control. Everyone wants police officers to protect them from criminals, but that doesn’t mean we want bored cops parked on the side of the road to pull us over for speeding tickets, seat belt violations, or DUI check points. And lets face it, for every police officer hired, that officer is going to be expected to do something, and if there isn’t a lot of crime in a neighborhood, who is to say how many police officers even need to be on the payroll of the tax payer.

But according to the FOP union, there isn’t a limit. They want an infinite amount of officers and will always ask for more. This is why S.B.5 is needed, so that management can control this tendency somewhat, because over-staffing is causing budget deficits. And to justify the over staffing, law makers (politicians) keep inventing new jobs for these positions which ultimately push up against constitutional limits.

The following video is why it is entirely possible to have too many police officers, and just how dangerous it is to give them too many rights to “protect and serve.” Do you want Mr. Wesley Cheeks to have the right to break down your door in the middle of the night just because he suspected you of a crime? I’m sure Mr. Cheeks is a nice guy but is he worth 60K per year to be a cop, or even a 100K per year with unlimited overtime? Should Mr. Cheeks be given any level of authority over any of us? How many cops are on the current staff in your neighborhood that is just like officer Cheeks?

When Cheeks was pressed about the validity of the law he started to say dumb things, the kind of things that were really on his mind deep down inside, particularly when he says this “isn’t America anymore.” It might have been an accident what he said, but he revealed his political inclination. Do you think this officer would vote politically in a way that his FOP president didn’t tell him to do? Do you think this guy is capable of independent thought at all? I don’t and that makes him dangerous, because he is simply a soldier that will carry out his orders and he gets his orders from politicians, and we know they can’t be trusted. So this is the essence of the problem looked upon without emotion.

Here’s another case of police abuse over political motives. Listen to this guy. This is a separate case from the one above, yet it is so similar. Why do these police seem to be protecting the Obama Presidency? It’s an FOP condition, and Obama is friendly to labor unions. It’s that simple. So here you have a case were police officers are using the law to influence elections. It may be in just a small way, but if hundreds of officers, or even thousands across the country are all doing the same thing, the impact can actually be a percentage point or two in election participation or actual voter results. It’s harassment intended for a political objective.

It does my heart good to see people like the V-Man putting on a mask and protesting some of the police abuse that is going on in his community. Now, who can argue with The V Man? Is he wrong? In my experience, when police need a levy passed, that is when they do the drug raids. That is when they start the campaign of showing how much work they do. That’s when whatever dangerous situation they participate in gets reported in the paper. The trouble is, the police always know who the drug dealers are. They always know where the crimes are committed, but they often put it on the back burner until they need to use their endeavors to gain a political advantage. There will be a lot of that kind of behavior as the vote for S.B.5 gets closer. But the V-Man brings up what the police do most of their time, hang out at the station and wait for something to happen. And when we hire too many cops there are a lot of cops to sit around waiting for something to do.

So if people are starting to fear the law enforcement, if the TSA is reaching for union protection, which only increases the number of union voters that will shape public policy, which is incredibly dangerous, it can be concluded that the United States is already in a police state. We know that the Indiana Supreme Court recently voted to allow for unmolested entry of police officers into homes of suspicion. That means that if a law enforcement officer wishes to enter you home you have no right to prevent them from doing so. Here is a reasonable argument that the United States is now a police state.

Now have a look at a full length documentary called Police State 4, which the V-Man referred to above from Alex Stone. It’s over two hours long, so you might want to grab some popcorn. It’s a well done documentary that brings up a lot of great points. You don’t have to believe everything in it. But if you watch it critically, you must recognize that we have a dangerous trend in America.

Here’s another documentary called Invisible Empire also produced by Alex Jones. The facts are hard to dispute because the behavior we have seen over the last decade prove how quick certain factions of government were prepared to expand the police powers from what they used to be to what we are seeing today. This documentary is also over 2 hours, so you better grab more popcorn.

The war is happening all around us, as shown in this Alex Jones radio broadcast where he talks about Ron Paul going after the TSA. It’s a shame that Ron is virtually alone in this endeavor.

There is without any question a dangerous expansion of law enforcement and the intrusions by them upon America. They are becoming more and more a branch of military service intent on controlling our population. The problem with the conspiracy theories is that they often appear to come from radicals, so the message gets lost. I do not think that the government planned 911 so they could expand government police power into a new world order, gradually taking away the freedoms of Americans so they are more equal to other nations throughout the world. Because the trouble with these global advocates is that if everyone wants to move to the United States, and doesn’t stay put in their home countries, then globalism will never take root. Global government needs to frustrate the plans of the freedom lover who climbs in a boat and rows to America to flee their tyrannical home governments. So taking away the freedoms of Americans helps control the aims of the world in this way.

We know that the CIA and the FBI and who knows what other organizations are funded by the America tax payer use manipulative tactics to achieve an objective. I think with 911, globalists probably working as sleeper agents within the United States government, and had been fanning the flames of Muslim extremists hoping for an attempted terrorist attack that would be caught before the deaths occurred. The intent all along by the globalists would be to expand government with a branch of government such as Home Land Security. If such a thing happened it wouldn’t be the first time subversive groups like the CIA got caught with their foot in their mouth. America has propped up many current terrorists in a subversive fight with other nations that the our relationship with the United Nations prevented, but the desire for nation building was still present. It is naive to consider that such tactics are not being done on us all, just as it has with other nations.

Whatever the reason, police powers are expanding, and the unions that protect them are not allowing for staffing adjustments, or wage reductions that can allow management bring not only their costs in line without raising taxes, but also to reduce the amount of officers needed for a community or city. There are so many union regulations and inefficiencies, and so much dramatization going on with these law enforcement positions, that true staffing levels cannot even be considered. Instead, under union, and political motive, law enforcement just continues to grow perpetually. S.B.5 is a bill that will help with some of the wage level issues that we are seeing, but it doesn’t go near far enough in preventing the rapid expansion of government employees that we are seeing and the justification of those positions by trampling over the constitutional rights of American citizens. The window for doing anything about controlling this emerging police state is closing where such action can still be done peacefully, with just a simple vote.

The question is how willing are Americans to let their freedoms erode before they say enough. If they declare it now, they can do themselves a favor later. But if they wait too long………………………………………it won’t be a good thing.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Home Away From Home: Beach bums, hippies, and strippers with their socialist dream

The difference between those who love capitalism and those who love socialism are displayed vividly while I stood on the balcony of our condo in Florida at Cape Canaveral. In our unit and units all along the coast are people who own the units to rent out to NASA personnel, or own them outright as second homes, a place to visit away from their primary residence. In some cases, the owners of the condos have made these paradise palaces their year round homes.

This year we had to be in Gainesville for a wedding anyway, and I was up against a writing deadline for my Tail of the Dragon novel, where my editor wanted a chapter breakdown with intended themes spelled out for production meetings, to make it easy for all the people who haven’t read the book to understand the direction of the editorial content. So the decision was to combine a sort of vacation while I accomplished that editorial task down at the condo.

The following video is something I shot while at that fine place, as a rolling storm moved in.

I spent a lot of time on this trip working on my tasks while looking out over the Atlantic to the south where frequent storms were brewing over the horizon of the Earth in the proximity to the Bahamas. It is easy to put things in perspective from such vantage points. I know many of the people who are in these units all up the coast experience similar emotions, that’s why they come, and that’s why they work hard to have a second home, because they want to have these perspectives, to relax from the rigors of their professional lives.

These condo units are only a building deep in this particular location. Down the coast at Cocoa Beach where hotel chains take over, there are more tourist oriented shopping along the primary roads. But up at the Cape, the area between the condos and the main road is a complex grid of single story homes and much smaller, less luxurious, residences. Typically the people who live in these homes are the people who work in the service of the various restaurants, hotels, and shopping centers. Some of those people are just beach bums, and they are that way by choice. They chose to spend their day surfing, riding skate boards around and smoking cigarettes.

All over this resort area are stores that sell memorabilia that have the “peace” sign on them. T-shirts, medallions, stickers for cars, magnets, you name the merchandise, there are plenty such items with the peace sign on them. If you look closely, and a lot of the people who stay in our condo unit don’t, as is the general rule all up and down the coast, these beach bums, skate boarders, strippers who are working at the gentleman’s clubs and sun themselves professionally all day long, that share the beach with the rest of us, are open socialists.

Many of those people don’t know they are socialists. Most of them don’t even know what country they are in. Most of them don’t even know much about the NASA space program except for the occasional rocket that takes off roaring into the heavens. What they know is that they have bought into a “hang loose” life style that is popular at all beaches. They like to “party” which involves frequent intoxication, and they like carefree sex. They despise commitments, and steady jobs.
From my balcony I watched these people pass beneath me to gain access to the beach, and I savored the fact that our condo kept me above all that activity. I couldn’t help but think that if the government offered these people free government jobs, free college, free housing, free food, they’d all take advantage of the programs and they’d freely vote for the politicians that gave them those things. They don’t want to work for nice things, but they are happy to receive nice things if someone in the government wants to give them something. I also noticed the jealous looks up at our balcony as my wife and I would look down upon them, or as my daughters would walk passed them in their journeys to the beach. They would look at my daughters like hungry dogs knowing that the women were well out of their league, and desiring to be equal in some way.

Studying these people for a couple of days it was very obvious that these beach bums were socialists. They would be very attracted to a government that came and told them they could also have a nice condo with a beach front view, that somehow they could be elevated to the level my family was experiencing because somehow they deserved to have the same thing we had by some socialist default.

It doesn’t matter to a socialist what it takes to have a home like those condos. They simply have nothing to lose. When they purposely make decisions in their lives to have nothing, to have no commitments, to have a “hang loose” attitude toward life they cannot expect to have the same things in life as a person that works 60 to 100 hours a week. Yet they do expect to be equal. And by experience, most people have some streak of laziness in them, which is why at this beach front property, the ratio is clear. There are more of the lazy types than the people in the condos. Because there are fewer people who want to work hard so they can have their own condo.

Now if they chose to live their life in this fashion it’s not for me to judge them. But the problem occurs when it comes time to vote, because these people will vote for candidates that will give them something for nothing just to purchase their votes. And that something given is something generally taken from someone like me, and to me that is robbery.

Personal decisions will lead a life to the sum of its exploits. But political tampering artificially props up people who would otherwise fail miserably at life, and would be forced to alter their lifestyle into something more constructive. I couldn’t help but notice in those jealous eyes the desire for welfare, and health care while they rot their days away as beach bums wearing the “peace sign” and singing hippie songs on the beach at night while smoking marijuana and thinking the whole of their existence is authentic. It’s not. Those lives can only continue because the government takes from those in the condos and gives it to those in the shacks even though the people in the condo’s worked hard to earn it, and the people in the shacks chose to live the life of the poor and un-ambitious.

Back home these differences aren’t so obvious. The people in the suburbs generally work harder so they can have a small palace outside of city limits. The un-ambitious tend to take up residence where the government gives them things and usually that is far enough away from the ambitious to not cause too much analysis. This is why there is a dispute with Hamilton County at expanding public housing, because nobody wants to live near public housing, just like people don’t want to live near a dump. And this is why we should have school choice because a parent who doesn’t want their kids to be surrounded by kids with parents who lack ambition should not imprison children trying to work their way out to a better life, so they can have a house in the suburbs some day, or maybe even their own beach front condo. But government won’t do that for them, and it won’t do it for the beach bums either. Government will only succeed in robbing those who live in the suburbs and the condos by giving that wealth to the socialists so that politicians can maintain their addictions to power in public office.

Remember wherever there is the sign of peace; it’s indicative of a political socialist. Like all sinister things in life, the truly dangerous are camouflaged with good intentions, like the idea of world peace that the hippies, beach bums and strippers find so appealing.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

College is the Root of an Evil: Call it what it is, an excuse to expand government.

Ok, school administrators, you did this to yourself. Up to now I have played this game lightly; I’ve allowed the rhetoric that your types have openly spouted without really digging into the real source of the public education mess. I have heard one too many times from a superintendent of a school system the funding crises so eloquently exhibited in the below chart by Henry Payne of The Detroit News.

I received a note in the mail of that cartoon from a friend of mine who sent me a copy of The Mackinac Center’s Impact newsletter which had that cartoon, so I had to take a picture of it to use here, because it shows exactly what school districts and public unions have been doing to the tax payer. The charts seen on this page can be found at:

http://www.educationreport.org/pubs/mer/article.aspx?id=12096

Much of the cost that is being twisted around to justify school funding is in teacher and administration wages, which has been covered in great detail at this site. But the reason for these highly paid employees have their roots in the necessity for college education. We are told that because of state law, which the public sector unions have lobbied for, that teachers with masters degrees and doctorates will be compensated for those degrees by contract, regardless of the real market value of those degrees. And the need for these types of educators is to prepare children for college, which is turning out to be an epic scam within the society of America. Colleges in our culture are proving to be destructive, financially, and culturally, and that bubble is about to burst. John Stossel did a fantastic documentary on just how that bubble is collapsing.

College is one of those topics that most Americans have bought into, and they have done so looking for that promise that their children wouldn’t have to suffer when they grew up, that their children would have a better standard of living than the parents had, and in this process one of the greatest scams in world history has been perpetrated.

This scam is shown in great detail in the very good documentary called Indoctrinate U.

For your convenience, you can now see the complete film Indoctrinate U right here. I have it listed below in 9 parts. Take the time to watch the whole film.









So if college is such a destructive force in our society, why are we spending so much money to support it? Why are we preparing our children in the 7th and 8th grade for it and spending money in public education for something that is a rather passive choice for unmotivated children to find their way in the world? Why should we pay for the ignorance of parents who believe that they can purchase success for their children and make up for all their bad parenting?

I have a list on this site that has tens of thousands of hits which proves the most successful people in the history of the planet never went to college, or dropped out of college. There is a tremendous amount of evidence which proves that college actually hold kids back from achieving success.

Colleges have tried to claim they are the creators of original ideas. Most of the time, innovators have to leave college to let their ideas grow. Most often, colleges succeed in allowing people to delay their lives while they find themselves pursuing a degree they pay way too much for, in order to get their foot in the door to a job interview. Colleges are not making American society better. Yet we are spending an enormous amount of money to prepare our kids for these places. Why?

Much of the rhetoric about why we must fund public schools at the level we currently do is for college preparation, and the facts are beginning to come in that college will change in the years to come. College is not for everyone. College is needed for the sciences, and advanced mathematics and perhaps literature. College is needed for perhaps only 10% of the entire American population. In the years to come, many schools will fail. The college bubble will collapse very, very soon. The advancement of it now is purely for the prop up of the big business aspects of education, and that is the source of the upside down presentation of funding needs by trickster education advocates. College, like much of public education is a scam used to obtain an enormous amount of money for the employees of that business offering services that are ghostly thin in their relevance. College is a hindrance to innovation and is simply an adult child care service for parents and their children to delay the hard decisions in their lives just a few years longer. College is simply allowing our youth to be immature longer, and we are paying fortunes to allow them to do so. And the cost of that immaturity is devastating to the American economy in lost GDP and innovation.

So school administrators, people are beginning to see through your presentation for what it is. Your demands for more funds from an already over-taxed society is arrogant, and functions on the presumption that people are truly stupid, and you are about to get a dramatic wakeup call that will be very painful. Because the bubble is bursting and you are riding on the surface, and will soon find your support completely evaporating under your feet.

Modern education is all about creating government jobs and advancing the policies of FDR. And it’s a scam. Call it what it is.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

The Fireworks Superstore on Exit 141 in Tennessee: a pillar of freedom

On a trip that had the main computer system of our mini-van go crazy on us while visiting a ghost town in Florida, had an accident with a crazy woman from England when she backed into the front of us at a stop light in Cape Canaveral, blew a tire in Georgia, and had the ABS system fail completely just north of Atlanta we had our share of transportation problems on our most recent trip through the south.  And all day long while driving back to reality my son-in-law wanted nothing more than to stop and get fireworks from a dealer for a Fourth of July, 2011 celebration at our home when we got back.  Because of all the trouble with the car I wanted to set a goal for the last really big place on our way home on I-75, a place I had taken my kids when they were very young, and it stuck in my mind as embracing everything that reminded me of just how great America is.  It’s the Fireworks Superstore at exit 141 in Tennessee, a palace of patriotism! 

Predictably, the place was wonderfully cheesy and had been kept up in the same manner as I had enjoyed some 20 years before.  A quick glance around the store revealed many names that are rooted in rebellion and danger, because in many ways that’s that fireworks represent.  And before buying fireworks, you need a general understanding these days of what they do. 

   

Open circuit

An incomplete electrical circuit

Orange book

The United Nations publication for classification and testing of dangerous goods

Oxidant

The component of an explosive that supplies oxygen for the reaction of the product

Palm burst

A color break with palm tree core

Parallel circuit

An electrical circuit in which the current is divided between several igniters. Less easy to test for breaks.

Paste

Commonly used to cover shells to enhance their burst

Pattern shell

A shell of fewer stars that creates a pattern rather than a sphere

Pellet

See Star

Peony shell

A shell whose stars do not leave any trails

PIC

Plastic Igniter cord

Pigeon

A specialized type of firework which travels to and fro along a horizontal rope

Piped match

Raw match enclosed in a paper or plastic tube

Pistil

The central core of a shell. Often a complimentary or contrasting colour to the main burst

Plug

See Bung

Portfire

A thin walled tube filled with slow burning composition used to light other fireworks

Propellant

Composition used to produce force e.g. A rocket motor
   

Punk

Slow burning lighter for small fireworks

Pyrotechnic

Generic term for any item which react in a self sustaining chemical reaction and generally produces a light effect. Pyrotechnic articles are different to fireworks and generally are used for stage and theatrical uses

Quickmatch

Raw match enclosed in a paper or plastic tube

Rack

Apparatus for firing rockets or mortar tubes

Rain

Shells containing long burning stars that fall all the way to the ground.

Raw match

Black powder coated thread used for linking fireworks

Repeater shell

Usually a cylinder shell with timed bursts at regular intervals

Ring shell

An aerial shell that produces symmetrical rings of stars often have a rope tail to control orientation of the break

Rising effect

Often a tail effect on a shell but can be external attachments to a shell that break off during the rise to create special effects

Rocket

Aerial effect propelled by a motor

Rocket cone

A device for firing flight rockets

Rocket motor

The power unit behind a rocket. Typically made by pressing black powder into a choked tube

Roman candle

A cardboard tube with a stack of timed comets or bombette units

Round shell

A shell in the form of a sphere usually containing colored stars

Safety area

The area around a fireworks display site between the spectators and fireworks. Not including a fall out zone

Salute

Report or loud bang

Saturn shell

A chrysanthemum break with an outer ring of a contrasting color

Saxon

A bar with centre pivot with drivers at either one or two ends which make the bar spin on a central point.

Screecher

A whistle unit with a hole through the centre. This increases the burn speed and therefore the sound

Sequence

The pattern in which fireworks are detonated in a display
   

Series circuit

A circuit arranged so the current runs through each igniter in turn. This enables and breaks to be detected

Serpent

A spinning tube used in candles and shells. Usually with a report unit

Set piece

A ground firework. Generally static

Shell

The most spectacular of fireworks propelled with a lifting charge from a mortar and a bursting charge that charge to a star composition in the air after a predetermined delay

Shell delay

See Delay fuse

Shell of shells

An aerial shell that contains smaller shells ignited when the main shell bursts and subsequently produces small secondary bursts

Short circuit

The accidental completion of a circuit which causes the current to not flow through the igniter

Shot

The single functioning of a roman candle or cake

Smoke

Air suspension of particles from incomplete combustion of a composition

Smokeless powder

A powder containing nitro-cellulose and nitro-glycerine as it does not produce much smoke

Spark

Typical effect caused by incandescent particles ejected form the surface of a burning composition

Sparkler

Wire coated with pyrotechnic composition that gives off small sparks

Spider shell

A shell containing a small number of large stars producing a symmetrical burst. Sometimes called octopus shells

Splitting comet

A comet with an internal charge of flash powder which when ignited splits the comet into several pieces.

Squib

Electric igniter

Star

A pressed unit of composition usually spheres or cylinders used in shells, mines, rockets and roman candles

Storage

The holding of fireworks prior to their use. Premises must be licensed for amounts above a certain quantity

Strobe

A pulsing on off star effect fired from candles and shells and ground based effects

Tail effect

A comet star secured to the outside of a shell to give a tail to the rising shell

Tiger tail shell

A shell made up of a solid ball of composition to produce a substantial tail effect. Sometimes with a small shell break

Titanium

A silver metal used in the production of maroons and grebes

Top fused

A shell where the shell delay is lit separately from the lifting charge. Often found in large Maltese shells

Tourbillion

See Serpent

Transportation

The process of consigning a load of fireworks. Subject to heavy legislative control

TREM card

Documentation required when transporting fireworks of any quantity. Transport emergency card. Provide information for emergency services

Trunk

A large tail unit often used on palm and willow shells
   

UN classification

The assignment of a packaged firework into the UN classes for fireworks

UN compatibility group

The G or S of 1.3G or 1.4S. The compatibility group indicated what a particular item may and not be transported with

UN Hazard code

See UN number

UN Mark

A complicated mark assigned to a particular packing box for dangerous goods

UN Number

A four-digit number assigned to hazardous goods. Explosives always start with a 0 e.g. 1.4G fireworks are UN 0336. Used to identify a dangerous item in the event of an emergency

Volley

A mass firing of rockets or shells

Water firework

Aquatic fireworks e.g. shells or water gerb

Water gerb

A floating gerb with a weight and cork float.

Water shell

See Aquatic shell

Waterfall

A curtain of coloured or silver sparks that falls vertically. Composition is made from an aluminum alloy

Weeping willow

See Willow shell

Wheel

A rotating piece attached to a post in the form of a saxon bar or wheel with driver units

Whistle

A tube containing composition of potassium benzoate and potassium silicate. On burning the composition creates oscillation in the tube and creates a whistle effect which is amplified in the tube

Whizzer

See Hummer

Willow shell

A shell containing charcoal based stars with a long burn time which often fall to the ground

Fireworks and participating in controlled destruction is important to the celebration of any July 4th ceremony.  And cheesy fireworks stores only enhance the celebration.  As I walked through the store I contemplated why that was, why one of my favorite towns of Gatlinburg, which is far from the sophisticated wine county of the Bay Area, has so much appeal to me.  So much so that I feature the town in my new book, Tail of the Dragon so prominently, and the reason is, that such cheesiness is uniquely American.  Shops like the fireworks store with all their contents are loud proclamations of businesses that are not subjected to state control by the government.  They, like the stores in Gatlinburg Tennessee with the multitude of t-shirt shops, the large amount of Ripley’s Believe it or Not’s that line the street, are ideas in someone’s head that have been translated into reality and they are unique in the world. 

There are places in the world like Niagara Falls, Canada, and areas in Hong Kong among a few others that have attempted to take a page out of the American handbook in their tourist spots to capitalize as we have, and I always find it refreshing to see.  Because in such places, capitalism is trying to pop its head out and grow.

But in the United States, we take it for granted that our nation’s highways are filled with these types of things, and while the progressive high brow, European lover may frown down on this activity, it is because they fundamentally embrace socialism, and they know such places are a threat to their attempt to manipulate the United States into a country of their vision.  For me, such places as the Fireworks Superstore on exit 141 are the epitome of freedom and the polar opposite of progressive  vision, so they are like temples of independance. 

John Stossel understands this too, and did a wonderful segment recently exploring this topic. 

Gaudy flashing lights are wonderful and I enjoy them wherever they exist.  I may not enjoy the moral position behind them, but I do enjoy the freedom of the entrepreneur to have the opportunity to come up with and implement an idea, no matter how ridiculous it is. 

That is what we celebrate on the Fourth of July, freedom to come up with an idea no matter how gaudy, and the freedom to explode stuff and pay homage to our past rebellion which allowed us to form the greatest country on Earth, the United States of America.  So when you pass a fireworks stand on the highways of America, salute them for the freedom they represent.  They are an important reminder of just what America is and what it can be, and are a part of that thin line that exists between tyranny and freedom.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Being a Hero: The greatest gift you can give to a child

I will make some people very angry with what I’m about to say, because as we’ve discussed at this site on many occasions, the education bubble is bursting, the housing bubble has burst, the tolerance of federal police powers is bursting, and another bubble, a much larger bubble is about to not just burst, but will explode, and that bubble is the value of family and the ability of third parties to fill the role of a strong parent or family mentor role.

Human beings have a gestation period of growth that extends well beyond their time in a fetus. Human beings do not just plop out of their mothers like a small calf, find their footing and start eating. Human beings are complex creatures that require at least 13 years of constant parental nurturing. And in many cases it takes even more than immediate family members to contribute to those children’s success in life, because being a mentor is what young human beings need more than even water.

In our family, I am that uncle that every kid wants to be near, because I know what being a mentor is all about. In life I am a lot of things, a professional businessman, a writer preparing a manuscript for a national release, a political watch dog, a commentator, a Wild West Arts advocate, an adventurer, my list could go on for some time. But what I am most and my kids know this, my wife understands this, and all my nieces and nephews and brother and sister- in-laws have come to expect, is that I am a family mentor. I am that person who when those young people are out there in the world doing whatever, they think of to bounce what they are doing against what they want to achieve.

One of my nephews wanted me to be the Best Man at his wedding recently because I had a tremendous impact on the young man growing up. For me it was an odd experience because with him it was as if he were grown up and graduating from life close to an equal, while in the audience of my best man speech at the reception were many other young people who I am currently just as important to and I take that role very, very serious.

I’m writing about this on the 4th of July for a reason. Our society has come to believe that public education, college, day care, neighborhoods, sports, and many other social programs can give young people what they need to become successful adults. They can’t. The progressive dream of “it takes a village” will only make a village of idiots and followers. Psychology and psychiatry are such new fields that they have been recklessly incorporated into society with incredible relevance, and have contributing to that expanding social bubble that is about to burst. The reason that social bubble is unstable is because it was built with flimsy, careless ideas and not supported with the value of heroes.

One of the greatest faults of the progressive is the notion that “I’m not perfect.” Or “I am no expert.” Progressives, for their own vision of social order desire a world of socially trained experts in a particular field of endeavor, just like in a village, where there are hunters, basket weavers, people who build the fire for cooking, those who cook, that kind of thing. In our society we have lawyers, doctors, teachers, fireman, police, accountants, and we teach people to move into one of those fields of endeavor and to know everything about their learned field, but those same people are expected to not know anything about other people’s responsibility. This is why unions get so mad at people who can see through their scams, like with public education. They are the professionals and the society at large is supposed to take everything they say without question.

Well, if you’ve ever studied the way young people learn from adults, they learn by copying. This is such a powerful tool that kids born in the south will develop a southern accent purely on copying the speech patterns of the people around them. When you throw a child into education methods, and child care, then deny them an adult to look up to, you’ve doomed that child to a life of misery. There will always be exceptions of course, but most children if they are surrounded by adults who refuse to be mentors to their children, will doom those children to a miserable life when they grow up. If a child grows up to become a bad person, where they don’t know how to balance a check book, they can’t maintain a stable relationship, where they turn out neurotic and psychologically flimsy it is the fault of their parents.

Parents these days have bought into the lie that they can be bad, shallow people and still raise good kids, because those parents have bought into the lie that the village can raise their children better than they can. They cannot.

A young man wants the men in his life to be the best, the strongest the fastest and smartest at everything. The young boy has an innate instinct that this is important to their development because a young person knows that the value in learning something should come from the best so they have the best chance at success. Young girls want to know that their mothers are the, prettiest, and wise creations that have the answers to everything. Moms must be experts on everything. And fathers must always know what’s best. This is the key to the successful raising of children.

A child does not want to hear from his parent that they are incompetent fools who are scared of something in life. Children want to believe their parents are immortal, larger-than-life, supermen and women of high quality because that is who the child is going to copy and the child wants the chance to be all those things themselves.

At the wedding mentioned, as is the standard for my involvement in any wedding, I do not attend bachelor parties. I do not indulge in drunkenness. I do not sit with strippers in Vegas, even when my own brother was married and every male member of my family went to see naked women, I did not. I didn’t because I would ask the young people who look up to me not to do such things, and if I want for them a good life, I must do my part and stay away from any kind of mortal revelation that indicates weakness. You have to lead by example. You can’t send children to public school and hope you can “cheat the system,” while you’re off doing bad things. Kids will see through it. You cannot have a “do as I say, not as I do approach.”

Children expect their parents to be living gods on Earth. They expect parents to know it all, this is why when children hit their teenage years, and the parent has given them a mundane outlook on life and the teenager gravitates to their friends, to spite the parents who let them down with low expectations, the child will go through an excessive rebellion phase. The parent is expected to have high expectations in their children, but the parent is expected also to lead by example. If the parent does not lead by example, the child will lash out in a last-ditch effort to save themselves, which will most often accelerate the failure.

On our way to Kerr City last week, a ghost town in the middle of Florida’s rugged interior, far away from the tourist spots, my niece was with me, my daughters, my son-in-law and my wife. She received a phone call from a friend of hers that was upset that my niece was spending the day with us instead of wanting to do something with the caller.

“You want to hang out with your family? That’s weak,” said the caller in a frustrated voice. “I thought you were my friend?”

My niece tried her best to appear conciliatory, “My family is cool, and we’re looking for a ghost town. I’ve lived in Florida for 7 years and I didn’t even know there was a ghost town and my Uncle Rich is taking me to see it.”

“You sound like my mom,” the caller retorted. “You’d rather hang out with your family than your friends. You’re becoming just like my mom.”

The call ended as my niece looked out the window for a moment. I watched her through the rear-view mirror for a moment until she regained her composure.

“She’s just jealous that I have a good family and she doesn’t,” my niece said finally.

My wife looked at me from the passenger seat then turned around to address my niece. “That’s right honey, if your friend was given the same chance, to go with us, she’d become suddenly very supportive.”

And that’s been my experience with young people. When my kids were growing up, our house was always filled with their friends who preferred to come to our house and spend time because at our house those kids were getting what they were looking for, someone to emulate.

Family is very important, much more so than progressives want anybody to believe. So as we celebrate the Fourth of July, it is important to know that enjoying freedom today is good, but it will evaporate tomorrow if there aren’t people who believe they are heroes entrusted to guard it. And those people are our young people today. They need adults to look up to so desperately, they need to believe in something and that belief must come from their family.

I’ve always thought these things, but now that I’ve seen my behavior translated over a twenty year period in open opposition to the progressive movement which I’ve fought against for longer than that, the evidence is coming out dramatically in favor of my beliefs. And when my nephew who was now 26 wanted his Uncle Rich to be his Best Man when he had plenty of options, particularly from people his own age, I consider it a high honor, and even more telling, just how important all the things I taught him were. My teachings endured through all the hard teenage years, the drinking years, the girls, the friends, the social propaganda, to the most valuable foundations the young man wanted to remember before embarking on the adventure of marriage. That’s how important being a mentor is to young people.

So before you busy people reading this scurry about your lives in selfish pursuits, going to that gentleman’s club while on that business trip while your wife drops the kids off at day care so the two of you can make really good money, play golf with your friends and go out to eat every weekend, think about what you’re doing. When the young people in your family ask you a question, they expect an answer, and if you aren’t confident enough to live up to their expectations, they will resent you because you are their gateway to adulthood and if you give them crap, they will grow up and become crap, and it will be your fault, not theirs.

The future is in the hands of each and every one of us, and when the bright eyes of a child looks up to you and asks a question, make sure you have the answer. The fate of our nation depends on this very trait, the extended gestation period of the human child continuing to grow outside the womb so it can observe the world around it and adapt however required to the conditions of its survival. If the child is surrounded by fools, it will grow up to become a fool. If it is surrounded by heroes, then it too will grow up to become a hero. The choice is yours…………………….

 

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
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