The Great Debate at Lakota: Julie Shaffer and Rich Hoffman on WLW

Julie Shaffer who is running for a Lakota School Board seat and representing the Pro Lakota movement came on 700 WLW and debated me on Doc Thompson’s show. Julie had some good points from her view-point, and I maintained my usual opinion. It was the public response to this debate that I think is most telling. WLW is widely heard by all demographics in the adult population all across Ohio so the callers who responded to our debate speak volumes of the values our communities currently embody. Click the video below to listen to that very important broadcast. (BE SURE TO LISTEN TO THE WHOLE BROADCAST)

One thing that came up constantly during the debate is the controversy over numbers. Julie interprets them one way, I interpret them another. But the facts are the facts in spite of what one side or the other wish to see. As to my facts, I look at them without attempting to make them speak slander. And the summary of this whole Lakota Levy Debate is this—what is the value of a teacher and how much should we pay them?

It is my opinion that years of radicalism in the teaching profession have distorted the actual value of the service. This leaves us with the difficult position of discovering what the market value is of a teacher, and that is what these levy defeats all over Cincinnati are all about. We are establishing what we as a community are willing to pay for a teacher.

That teacher radicalism can be seen easily in this recent Letter to the Editor published in The Pulse Journal pointing at me for having a lack of respect for teachers.

What many people don’t understand is just how much teachers cost. At Lakota during the school year of 2009-2010 the average pay of a Lakota teacher was $62,331. The following year it was $63,727 and mysteriously went up even with a pay freeze and step increase freeze under a new 3 year contract. Why? Well, it is because of the teachers laid-off that Lakota cut to meet its budget reducing it by $12 million. How many of those new teachers were really good and how many teachers paid top dollar but aren’t so good kept their job? It was the lower paid teachers who were taken out of the equation, which drove up the average salary. Over the span of time shown above approximately 60% of the teachers received “step increases” of around 3%. This is the kind of thing that has driven up the labor costs and made school levies a necessity, because the schools perceive they need the money because they do not recognize a limit to what is available to them. To put this in perspective, the cost of those increases were around $2.1 million. The savings of the busing cuts is $2.8 million. So it could be said that the busing cuts at Lakota were needed to pay for the increases the teachers received over the last school year.

Even though administrators at Lakota have not received an increase of any kind over the last three years, they do average a pay rate of $80,747 a year. At that rate of pay, who would think they’d need a pay increase. Julie and I discussed on the air two versions of what we believe the average pay to be of a person living in West Chester is. I said the average person is making 50K per year, which included professionals of all types with various degrees. Julie thinks it’s over $70K per year which explains why the people on her side don’t understand the problem.  They live in that “Education Bubble” which sees the world through the eyes of academia, which is idealistic in its interpretation of the information they see, and that view is clearly out-of-touch. That can be heard in the callers that followed our debate.

(BY THE WAY, TO SEE THE REAL NUMBERS FOR YOURSELF, HERE IS CNN MONEY MAGAZING’S REVIEW OF WEST CHESTER. THIS SHOWS HOW MUCH PEOPLE AVERAGE IN INCOME.)

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2010/snapshots/CS3978246.html

It is irresponsible to ask a community that is suffering from record foreclosures, where business owners have to lower their lease rates to keep their business tenets, because the taxes are so unattractive, then you compare that reality to the world of Julie Shaffer and her Pro Levy teachers and one can only wonder how the teachers don’t see it.

In a late night meeting with Superintendent Mantia where she reached out to those of us in the No Lakota Group hoping to earn our trust in her ability to get control of these crazy costs, that we told her flatly, Lakota should pull the levy, it should then ask the teachers to take a reasonable pay cut to bring that average teacher salary into the mid-50’s. Mantia in my assessment understood our point of view, and she understood the conditions outside of that education bubble, but indicated that the levy was already in the process.

One of the No Lakota Members in our group then said,Those Pro Levy People have 30K in money they raised from last time that has been sitting in a bank since last fall, and it’s burning a hole in their pockets, and we think that’s why you guys are going through with this levy.”

Mantia shrugged her shoulders. “I just got here, gentlemen. I’m trying.”

We shook her hand and wished her well into the rainy night knowing that we had more in common than we did in differences. The only difference is she’s in charge of that “education bubble” and we want to pop it. Because the people within that bubble need to share in the world the rest of us live in. Because then and only then can a realistic discussion about the value of a teacher be ascertained.

For the answer to everything, CLICK THIS LINK:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/09/18/the-answer-is-c-who-runs-society-the-engine-or-the-boxcar/

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

Rich Hoffman Hates Teachers: A stick in the waters of life

Naturally I get a lot of email that is derogatory in nature. Taking the positions I have on issues tends to draw attention from the empire builders who drape themselves particularly from the mantles of public service. A good many of those emails I can’t share, because they are too mindless, derogatory, or simply vile. But one email I received and the banter between this guy and myself I would consider to be an interesting study of psychology.

A guy named, Mike took exception with the comments I had made about Ryan Farhenkemp, the Lakota teacher recently found guilty of child pornography while on his teaching job. Mike didn’t like that I associated the teaching profession in a negative way by insinuating that the perversions of Farhenkemp made other teachers guilty as well. So he sent me an email to “correct” my thinking as I suppose he fantasized his action to be. For two days he and I bantered back and forth on the topic and I thought it was going in a productive direction, only to end unfortunately on a negative.

Below are the contents of this discussion:

Mike Stefanov has sent you a message On Tue, Sep 27, 2011:

You have some good messages but you really devalue them with statements such as this; “When they want to be paid well, they all stick together. But when one messes up and does something stupid, like the pedophile at Lakota, then the teachers act like he acted alone and they should not be judged because of him. So which is it? All for one and one for all………..or, judged by independent merit?)”

Your insinuation that the pedophile may not have acted alone is deplorable. You should be ashamed to equate other teachers with the trash of a pedophile. Your message is getting lost by some of your attacks on teachers. I think that you would have many more sympathizers to your cause if you did not spew the vile hared that you so often do. Putting all teachers in the same basket with the other pedophiles is classless. It would be like someone putting all Catholic priests together because there have been a few that have abused kids. Pedophiles can be found in every walk of life and in every occupation. Keep spewing your hatred and your message will soon be falling on deaf ears.

On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 12:29 PM, Rich Hoffman wrote:

Don’t count on it but thanks for the comment. In the case of that particular teacher, people knew what he was up to, and didn’t say anything. That doesn’t make them as bad as the pedophile, but they aren’t innocent either. The statement was a general statement on collectivism, but your interpretation is fascinating.

Keep in touch,

Rich

Mike Stefanov wrote:

Rich,

Thank you for the reply back. Just FYI; it was the Lakota SD that brought this particular pedophile to the attention of the authorities. If it were not for some at Lakota that alerted the authorities, this sick teacher may still be amongst the students.

As I alluded to in the other email, some of your messages are good but do not cause them to be viewed as untruthful by distorting the facts that you are presenting. Smart people will see through your distortion of facts. I view myself as a Libertarian but the bending of facts can be construed in the wrong way. Your enthusiasm can be commended but it must be tempered with truthfulness. I do not appreciate your attacks on teachers that actually are honest and hard working. I see through your distorted message. Keep bending the truth and spewing hatred and the message will be lost. History will back me up on this. Ronald Reagan must be turning in his grave when he sees what the GOP has become.

Mike Stefanov

On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 5:37 PM, Rich Hoffman wrote:

Good points, Mike. I’ll keep those views in mind and in perspective.

Thanks,

Rich

(Now here comes the going south portion)

On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 7:57 AM, Mike Stefanov wrote:

You do that, Rich. Keep those views in mind. I am one that may have given you support but will not because of the manner in which you degrade teachers. I have been fortunate to have had good teachers. Teachers have made a positive influence on my life and they have had a positive role in the life of my children as well. There are some bad teachers but there are many more that are good. Bad and incompetent workers can be found in every occupation. Education is not alone in this.

I have been blessed that I have had a good life and have been able to afford just about whatever I want to. I have an income that is in the 99th percentile. I have a nice home. A lot of this success can be traced back to having quality teachers. From what I can glean about you it appears that you are most likely unemployed and have had bad experiences in school. If you are employed you occupation is most likely menial and you more than likely have a middling income. This misfortune has caused you to become bitter. If you think that the Lakota SD is so poor and you don’t like it, just move to an area that would be more to your liking and more affordable for you. In the meantime, don’t continue your attempts to lessen the quality of the schools. Additionally, you are having a negative impact on the value of my home and that is not welcomed by me. The amount of additional taxes that I will pay is nothing compared to the amount that my home will depreciate by because nobody wants to move to either Liberty Twp or West Chester due to a school system that is subpar.

Believe it or not, I like minimal government. I am a Libertarian. I don’t like any more than you do. However there are no free lunches and paying for a quality school system is money that is well spent.

Mike

Rich Hoffman Replied:

You were doing so well, Mike, then you had to come back with that.
I am certainly not unemployed, or underfunded. That’s cute that you’d make that assumption. As for school, I don’t think it does enough and gets in the way of the ambitious. I wouldn’t say I had bad experiences or good ones in school. I think it wastes the time of children to create jobs for the adults. I find it hard to believe that you are in the top 1% with your beliefs.

Bitter, me? I’m not bitter about much of anything. Don’t confuse lack of respect for bitterness.

Rich

——————————————————————-

Mike seemed in the end more concerned about proving to me that he had value as a person, and he sadly associated that value with money. This tells me a lot about the contents of his mind. He represents many of the teachers whom he is defending in this exchange with an assumption that money equals value. He misses completely many of the points I have been making because he does not have a mind to understand them. So he came back to me at the end of this exchange with accusations that I’m unemployed and somehow bitter about the teaching profession as a whole.

The unsettling aspect of this discussion is that Mike believes so strongly in this exchange that he took considerable time to try and convince me that I’m wrong, and even when I gave him an honorable way out, he came back for more.

There are many Mikes out there and they vote. They bounce around life like twigs in a raging river. They go with the flow of popular sentiment even if that direction is one of destruction, and they forget that once they were part of a tree that had broken away from their roots and now find themselves soaking wet and directionless going wherever the river takes them.

Mike obviously wanted to prove to me that he was a person of value, which actually makes me feel for the guy. There are so many people like him that it would be easier to count those who are unlike him.

This doesn’t make him right or wrong, but simply an interesting scientific behavioral study which can provide insight into the kinds of nonsense “thinking” people shake their heads at in contemplation. It must be a terrible thing to have no control over one’s destiny, and to just go with the flow. I personally can’t imagine such limitations, so it never ceases to amaze me to observe the conditions of such types, and the utterances which emanate from their condensed lives as they travel aimlessly down the rivers of life.

For the answer to everything, CLICK THIS LINK:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/09/18/the-answer-is-c-who-runs-society-the-engine-or-the-boxcar/

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

“The Tea Party is Racist”: But they like Herman Cain, how can they be both?

The comments from the actor Morgan Freeman over this last weekend citing that the Tea Party are racists and have a sole purpose in removing President Obama from office because he’s black proves how little so many people who vote truly know. Click this HOTLINK to see a recent article of mine where I play the video from Freeman. Without extrapolating further the authority by which any value in Freeman’s opinion dictates, let me just say, Morgan Freeman is looking for a convenient outlet for his lack of understanding.

Herman Cain is my pick of the Republicans so far running for the 2012 election and I think he’s black. I didn’t consider his skin color until Morgan Freeman made me think of it. As I watched the Freeman interview I said to the TV, “Hey, wait. That’s not true, Herman Cain is black. The Tea Party is trying to replace a black progressive with a black conservative. It has nothing to do with the word, ‘blackness.’” It’s more like replacing someone who can’t do the job with someone who can.
I like Cain because he has more experience than our current president and he seems to understand the concept of limited government. Virtually everyone agrees that our tax system need reforming, including President Obama, and Cain has a plan. It’s called the ‘9-9-9’ tax plan. Check it out!

Saturday Night Live did a skit involving Herman Cain as an “unelectable” candidate. They also made fun of the fact that Cain was the CEO of Godfather Pizza, as if that “small” amount of experience did not qualify Cain for the Presidency. As I watched and considered the two weekend comments together I could not help but conclude that the “Progressive Machine” was functioning with full steam applied. Many in the media are afraid of Cain, because he is a black man, and he’s articulate, quite intelligent and he has a plan to straighten out an actual chaotic situation of government with solutions. That makes Progressives nervous because they need chaos to survive.

President Obama had virtually no experience at doing anything when he ran for President. Herman Cain has actually had success as the head of a company. The implication is that because it’s a pizza company, somehow the effort contains less merit. The media considers “community organizing” much more valuable, apparently.

I was happy to see that Herman Cain won the Florida Straw Pole. The reason for these debates is to show who the strong candidates truly are over time, and Cain is emerging as one of the stronger candidates even though the orthodox media and political machines wish those candidates to be Mitt Romney or Rick Perry. You see, the static patterns of society know what to do with people like Perry and Romney, and the media has already decided they will not allow Ron Paul a seat at the table even though Paul is a fantastic candidate. But Herman Cain is fresh, and Presidential. And he’s a black man. The only knock against Cain (according to the media) is that he’s a conservative.

What would the Progressive Community do if Herman Cain turned out to be the Republican Nominee? They would not be able to say that conservatives are racist because they nominated a black man. And the Tea Party likes Herman Cain. So how could the Tea Party be racist yet at the same time support Herman Cain?

Herman Cain proves the hypocrisy of our modern society. I don’t care what color Herman Cain’s skin is. I really didn’t think much about it. I simply thought Cain was the best of the offered candidates. I have heard that many people would support Herman Cain but are afraid to because he’s “unelectable.” What does that mean?

There is a belief that if the media will not endorse a candidate, that a person running for the Presidency cannot become President. So even though people may think Herman Cain is the best guy for the job, somehow the good people of the United States must settle for someone like Mitt Romney because the media will support them. It would seem the media has too much power and have themselves become a corrupt nobility who view their role on the world stage as reformers, not reporters.

The media does not create policy, even though they did create President Obama, the empty promises behind their strategy is immediately evident in the collective media’s utopian naïveté, because Obama is lost when it comes to any kind of management. Obama’s economic plan is one concocted by a small army of fools displaying an unprecedented ignorance and evidence that America’s education system is a failed institution—because it produced these fools.

Herman Cain’s ‘9-9-9’ plan will raise about $1.768 trillion in raw tax revenue and economic growth using numbers similar to the Obama Administration’s own estimates, will bring in an additional $1.4 trillion more creating $2.17 trillion which matches the $2.16 trillion in tax revenues collected this year, and it takes away all the corruption and lost money that thrives like a virus in the chaos of our current progressive tax system.

That’s a much better system than President Obama’s plan of taxing the social minority of 235,000 millionaires and billionaires, (you know, people like Obama) that already pay 40% of all Federal taxes. Obama seems to leave all the trouble of the current tax code on the shoulders of the “rich,” such as the fact that the bottom 50% of all wage owners pays just 3% toward taxes. And about 47% of all American households pay no federal income tax at all. Those are the Obama supporters. Of course they will endorse a candidate that will steal money on their behalf…..and it’s legal. “Go after the rich Mr. Obama and loot us some of that Obama money!”

Cain’s plan makes taxes fair for everyone, and it just makes sense. It solves a problem that progressives created, and this is why the progressives will not support Herman Cain even if he is a black man. Because the issue is not about the color a man’s skin, the color is just a deterrent from the real issue which is that progressives need chaos so they can have excuses to expand government even more and with each encroachment for American society to become less free.

The agenda is not to have a black president, but to use the guilt of racism to advance a political philosophy supported by the intellectual elite, which make up the media.

For myself, I will support Herman Cain to the ends of the Earth because I believe in the man, and I think he has the best plan I’ve heard for reforming the tax code and starting the country on the right course. And I believe Herman Cain will support American’s more than Agenda 21 and that makes him the ideal guy in my book to take America to the next plateau of greatness which it deserves after a waltz with the demons of discontent. (CLICK HERE TO UNDERSTAND WHAT AGENDA 21 IS)

Clearly we are two America’s and a confrontation is inevitable. Hopefully, that confrontation will stay at the ballot box. That’s why I will be voting for Herman Cain in 2012.

For the answer to everything, CLICK THIS LINK:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/09/18/the-answer-is-c-who-runs-society-the-engine-or-the-boxcar/

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

The Money Hole: Facts and Facts and more Facts about why Issue 2 is needed in Ohio

I have been a fan of John Stossel for years, particularly when he was doing work for 20/20 which I watched every Friday night. Stossel is what a journalist should be, he digs deep for a story and he never takes anything at face value. For my money he has produced some of the most stunning documentaries over the years which have been a tremendous service to American society. One of his more recent documentaries, The Money Hole is one of his best. In that documentary which you can see below, John Stossel shows why America is in a financial hole, what has caused it, and how do we get out of it. For my readers in Ohio, or anywhere else in the world where government spending is out-of-control, I’d urge you to watch John’s documentary so to gain insight to the problem. If you are in Ohio and are confused about ISSUE 2 this documentary will help you. It is the kind of waste that John outlines in this video production that Issue 2 is seeking to get control of, and why Issue 2 is so important to the future of our state, which will then have implications for the entire nation.

John Stossel is not a Republican. John is not a Democrat. John is what might be called a “libertarian” a person who believes in extremely small levels of government. Stossel would most likely tell the story that he didn’t start off this way in his journalism career. He like many in the media who studied from institutions where pictures of Walter Lippmann loomed like a God down the halls of journalism, had a progressive view of the world until his reporting drove it out of him. His conclusions observed in the fields of living did not match what he had learned in college, and he made adjustments to his belief system to incorporate this new data.

This adjustment of political sensitivity occurred for the same reason it occurs in other journalists who continued to push the edge like Bill O’Reilly. Journalists who actually go against the grain, like they are supposed to, learn what works and what doesn’t. Unfortunately, a majority of the journalists out there know what John knows, but they don’t act on it because the editors and producers they work for not only admire the picture of Walter Lippmann, but they wear his picture around their necks like a religious icon. This is why more reporters don’t do as John Stossel has done, and that’s forged his own way, and do hard hitting stories like you can see in The Money Hole.

Stossel isn’t unfair when he does a report. He sits down with all sides to get a story and you see that in The Money Hole. He sits down with union leaders, democratic politicians; in fact he sat down with a representative from every side of the Wisconsin dispute over collective bargaining reform, which is similar to what Issue 2 in Ohio is doing.

A lot of people didn’t know until a few years ago, just how bad the public sector unions have been on our government. It is reporters like John Stossel that has exposed this cost for all to see. It is only a matter of time that the public unions recognize what an imposition they have been to the tax payer and join the rest of us in that negative assessment. But the beginning of that assessment came from the reports of John Stossel, who did this kind of reporting before it was fashionable.

I became interested in education reform when another documentary by Stossel called Stupid in America showed me how ineffective our public education system had become, and what stood in the way of fixing the problem. He did that documentary before there was ever a film called Waiting for Superman, or Glenn Beck was a household name. Stossel has been doing this kind of reporting service for a long time, and it’s always been unpopular, but he has never wavered from stepping into the fire to bring back a story to share with the rest of us.

As to Issue 2 in Ohio, if the evidence present by John Stossel, who has no skin in this game, and is certainly not a “republican stooge” or “corporate crony” can arrive at the conclusions shown in The Money Hole, then why can’t all tax payers see it? Well, like John showed in his documentary, politicians have spent a lot of money on ads which program the fleeting mind of the average person to repeat like a parrot whatever message those politicians intend. The trouble is that to preserve a free society, or even to eliminate corruption within a government, it requires the people of that government to think, and ask questions. But just as thousands and thousands of students graduate from journalism in college each year, there are only a few who end up like John Stossel, the same ratio can be seen among the tax payer base. Everyone knows the problems, but few have the courage to face the problem squarely, even if it personally affects them, to do the right thing. Many of these union members in these public unions who are double-dipping, and abusing the “rules” for their own financial advantage know they are doing wrong, and they hide their guilt in the collectivism of their unions, for it is easier for them to live with themselves when they know their union brothers and sisters are also “gaming” the system for all it’s worth. And they don’t want to see the documentaries that John Stossel produces.

This is why even when the facts are placed out in the open for all to see, there are still people who will not see those facts. They refuse to see because the realization of those facts will indicate that they are bad people to participate in such a bad system and they believe that if they just shout louder, then they can prevent people like John Stossel from putting the truth in front of their faces to look at. But Stossel doesn’t budge, and he’s not going away, and now that it’s been exposed, The Money Pit of government, it is only a matter of time before major reforms are enacted. Many of the crimes shown in The Money Pit were done while the public wasn’t paying attention, and now, thanks to reporters like John Stossel, a few of us are now looking at this problem armed with facts, and not just intuition. And it is what we do with those facts which will bring about the dawn of a whole new age.

When new age happens, be sure to give thanks to people like John Stossel for his part in exposing the truth when there were many who tried to drown it from ever being seen, even by their own eyes.

For the answer to everything, CLICK THIS LINK:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/09/18/the-answer-is-c-who-runs-society-the-engine-or-the-boxcar/

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

We Are Ohio’s Commercials: Cincinnati State goes on STRIKE!

Oh, how absolutely adorable. The new ad from We Are Ohio below says that Teachers, Firefighters and Police have “saved” us money by taking wage freezes and cuts in furlough days. Only in government would a group of people declare a savings in money that hasn’t even been spent yet.

That sort of pulls on your heart-strings, doesn’t it? I suppose what the ad is telling us is that since these public unions took cuts, that they somehow deserve a payoff for their sacrifice? That’s what it says to me.

How about this next ad, featuring a neighbor of mine, Eric Abney, why wouldn’t the firefighter be there? Issue 2 doesn’t get rid of firefighters. It only deals with the negotiating process of public employment. But according to Eric, the kid in the video would have died if Issue 2 were a law.

Not so, in fact it is this type of radical view of the world, and the public union’s hostile approach toward management that created a system that clearly is one-sided. As far as Republicans giving tax breaks to their “corporate friends,” well, they are doing that in an attempt to bring business to the state, because believe it or not, businesses that actually provide jobs don’t like to pay taxes to a system that wastes their money, and then keeps trying to hose them for more money. Business tends to go to states with low tax rates. That’s why Ohio has to manage its costs better. It’s not just the politicians in Columbus who want Issue 2. I want Issue 2 because it will give me more control of these costs locally, especially at my local School Board at Lakota. I’m tired of levy, after levy, after levy, and this whole idea that we aren’t supposed to manage those costs is ridiculous. Because it’s education, we are supposed to turn off logic and toss money into a bottomless pit. YES, THEY REALLY THINK THIS WAY!!!!

One of the biggest drivers of teacher salaries is this whole concept of radical striking, where the teachers walk off the job in order to either drive up their wages, or obtain some other perk. Because of a teacher’s ability to strike, which they have abused over many years, education has migrated in cost to an extraordinary level, which dictates more school levies. The only reason public unions “negotiated” this year on their contracts and gave anything back, as they are now claiming in the ads above, is so they could claim to have done so in an effort to repeal Issue 2. I told you dear reader this many months ago, that they would attempt to do this. But what brought them to the table with their hat in hand was the fact that Kasich signed Issue 2 into law. If the unions can repeal the Issue 2, they will resume back to their previous, “high spending,” ways, but in the meantime they are calling it a “sacrifice.” I call it they “have no choice.”

As evidence of this tendency have a look at these teachers at Cincinnati State as they walked off the job yesterday over the lofty goal of “working less.” Yes, that’s right. The teachers at Cincinnati State want to work 20% less. That’s what they are willing to walk off the job for. Issue 2 will prevent teachers in the future from being able to walk off the job, which to me sounds like common sense.

What in the world made those professors believe that they were somehow “entitled” to walk off the job and extort more money from Cincinnati State, because that’s what they are doing? Issue 2 will prevent an employee who receives tax money from being able to walk off that job, since we are led to believe that those public jobs are “essential.” Cincinnati State can’t afford to not continue with classes. So they are obligated to replace those teachers who are striking with employees who want to work. (Here’s a hint, I could re-staff the entire school with new employees by the end of next week. Give me a call Cincinnati State if you want the help, because here’s the secret. Those jobs are replaceable. If those people will walk away from a kids’ education then they aren’t of any real quality to begin with. Dump those striking employees while you can.)

Some of the fault for these teachers high opinion of the services they offer to the community comes from politicians, who are even more clueless than the teachers. Barry Obama is a spokesman for union labor and recently spoke in Cincinnati trying to tie the urgency of fixing the Brent Spence Bridge to the plight of teachers. Barry’s assumption is that teachers are valuable regardless of performance, so more money spent means better education, so if we just through money at teachers without any kind of management of that money, then somehow education will improve. Listen to the Reverend Barry Obama. The audience was full of union people so they were very responsive. (CLICK HERE TO SEE MY REVIEW OF OBAMA SUPPORTERS)

Something seems familiar about that speech…………….ummmm, what is it?

Well, that’s how progressives sell their programs. Obama put teachers on a “spiritual pedestal” and too often it goes to their heads. Ironically, the teachers at Cincinnati State walked off the job the day after Obama gave his speech. But notice in all this discussion that there isn’t any debate about how much money is fair or justified in these public employee positions. The assumption is that we need to be at the teachers mercy because the teachers are performing a high moral task. (For the reason of this mentality CLICK HERE to see my article on how authority figures establish themselves)

As usual, Glenn Beck does a good job of connecting all the dots. Issue 2 is but one small attempt by the public to fix a lot of nonsense and inequity that has been going on in public service. And the first thing that the “less thoughtful” do when they can’t win an argument based on facts instead of emotion, is they resort to violence or racism, and this has given rise to the declaration of class warfare.

Surprisingly, a guy I like quite a bit, Morgan Freeman is one of those who are uncomfortable with the kind of information that Beck and many others are putting out which questions this whole system of public worker entitlement. And it would seem that Mr. Freeman is more intelligent as an actor than as a true thinker, because he is doing the same thing that all the opponents of Issue 2, are doing, he’s trying to hide the facts of the matter with the emotional race card.

I would have expected more from him, but this goes to show the condition of his real mind, and Morgan seems to be just as influenced by the reverend like rhetoric that progressives use to seduce people away from the facts.

But Issue 2 is not about cutting jobs, or hurting teachers, firefighters, or any public employee. It’s about managing the costs which funds these activities with our tax money. Currently there isn’t any management, it’s a one-way street at the negotiating table, and the public unions know it. And they can’t argue to that effect, so they attempt to divert voters away from the truth with emotion and fear disguised in “spiritual” delivery.

What nobody questions is the value of a job, and what that job does, and just like the reverend of a congregation who speaks with seductive eloquence, the goal is to hide the fact that many of those in public service have learned to “steal” money to enrich themselves on the public dollar.

Notice here Dennis Gannon the labor leader of Chicago who gave a similar speech a year ago which sounds oddly just like Obama’s recent speech, and these kinds of talks are very exciting to union members, because they want to believe that they are essential to the marketplace, and somehow deserve to be placed on a pedestal, high above the control of any management. They would have you dear reader believe that Issue 2 is something they are above, and they cannot do their jobs if they are not given the right to negotiate for our tax money without opposition of any kind.

But like everything, all you have to do is follow the money to get at the truth. Dennis Gannon just yesterday secured a $158,000 dollar pension which should come out to 5 million dollars over his lifetime after being rehired for only one day after his retirement. See that article at The Blaze for more detail. (It pays to be a labor leader; again this week in Cincinnati Diana Frey gave a guilty plea to her theft of $750,000. See a pattern?)

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/chicago-union-boss-scores-massive-158000-public-pension-after-being-rehired-for-only-one-day/

That’s what is really behind the emotional ads of Issue 2, those who work in public service to continue this “lottery ticket” existence, where the average worker makes 43.4% more than the private sector employee. It’s always about money. It’s not about safety. It’s certainly not about the kids. It’s about money and benefits.

So it will be up to you dear reader to see through the smoke, the emotion, and the haze to the truth. The truth is easy to see if you dare look, and life will continue after Issue 2 maintains its status as a law. But if you really want to put an end to the enormous amounts of corruption and manipulation, accompanied with the massive spending of our tax money, then you better protect Issue 2. Otherwise it will go back to how it was, where the teaching unions will walk off the job over just small increases in their health care coverage, or to just simply do less work as the teachers at Cincinnati State are doing. And you will look back to this day and wonder why you didn’t have the courage to Vote Yes on Issue 2.

http://action.freedomworks.org/5152/yes-on-issues-2-3-ohio-jobs/wt/?src=widget

For the answer to everything, CLICK THIS LINK:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/09/18/the-answer-is-c-who-runs-society-the-engine-or-the-boxcar/

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

What People are saying about ISSUE 2 in OHIO: DIANA FREY GUILTY!!!!!!!!

Today, Diana Frey the former President of CODE, a public sector union she started, submitted a plea of guilty to stealing over $750,000 from her members. Without question, Frey represents what’s wrong with public sector unions, and reveals the tip of an iceberg of the amount of money that gets swallowed up by chaos, confusion, and centralized bureaucracy centering on public sector unions. More often than not, these union leaders do not get caught, and it is the tax payer who replaces the money lost with increased taxes.

American Thinker recently published an article I wrote about the situation surrounding Issue 2 in Ohio, which seeks to correct this public union mess. For a review on what Issue 2 is CLICK on this hot link to learn more. I am happy with the article, and even more pleased that I received positive comments and email from as far away as South Africa, and Nigeria. People living in those places can see how the situation in America is shaping up. To understand what exactly that situation is, CLICK HERE to learn the specifics. To read the original article I wrote for the American Thinker click the link below.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/09/the_barbarians_of_issue_2.html

What I found fascinating was the comments accumulated over the first 24 hours. American Thinker is widely read all over the nation, and apparently all over the world so it was interesting to get some outside perspective on how they view Issue 2, so I am posting the comments obtained over the course of the first day, because they say a lot about how a vast majority of the people truly feel. I include those comments in their entirety below. They appear as they do at the link above, but I feel they deserve their own isolation as a study specifically unique to the topic of Issue 2.

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COMMENTS ON AMERICAN THINKER
Showing 23 comments

kentfromohio Yesterday 06:55 AM

• As my name indicates, I live in Ohio. Northern Ohio to be exact. It is an area that is following the trailblazing path set by Detroit in terms of political leadership, and its embrace of dependency on the government for all. John Kasick and Republican legislature altered the course of Ohio from economic despair back toward hope one year ago in the same way that Scott Walker led Wisconsin back from brink. Issue 2 is Ohio, as a state, attempting to make the destiny of the entire state what Cleveland sports fans are accustomed to feeling – utter despair. Issue 2 is the state having on the ballot a chance to turn the wheel again so that we are driving off the cliff. Issue 2 will offer the voters the chance to undo all that has been done to save the state in the past year. It is a complete roll of the dice taking away the power of the valid elections we just went through and asking the voters for their input on what our elected officials just did in passing Senate Bill 5. Will the voters be fooled by millions of dollars in paid political lies? Who knows?…
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Quartermaster Yesterday 08:02 AM

• I used to live in Ohio and left when I could not find work. I hope that the voters of Ohio sustain SB 5, but I have little hope they will. The rust belt exists in Ohio because of militant unionism, and the state has been dominated by union interests for many years. Here’s hoping that’s changed.

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Ron Kozar Yesterday 08:19 AM

• Mr. Hoffman’s article is superb. My only quibble concerns his portrayal of JFK’s executive order establishing public-sector collective bargaining as “well-intentioned” when, in fact, the intention was to reward big labor for its loyalty to the Democratic Party.

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Juannieboy Yesterday 08:52 AM

• Setting the fear tactics on the TV commercials aside, I believe many working class Ohioians will vote to repeal this common sense law even though it is in their own best interest not to. Too many voters have sons, daughters, family members, neighbors, etc. that work for the government…..Sadly, they will vote with their hearts and not their heads.

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Questioning Yesterday 09:12 AM

• “When President Kennedy signed Order 10988 into law…” Actually it isn’t law and I strongly urge President Palin to make rescinding this mess her first official action. I also question the ‘heroism’ of the police and fire fighters that are saying, in effect, they must be compensated for something that is inherent in their jobs? Something they knew about before they went through the very stringent testing and training to get the job? Seriously? First off, they aren’t heroes. This is a very misused term today. Being in the military or working as a firefighter or policeman doesn’t automatically make one a hero. Now that doesn’t mean there aren’t heroes in this mix, there most decidedly are; but they are in the distinct minority. And that is as it should be. And no REAL hero ever ASKS for money!!!!! OMG; most are embarrassed they got into such a stupid position in the first place. Do we need to acknowledge heroism in America? Absolutely, but let’s not get carried away. Let’s stop cheapening the actions of true heroes. True heroes respond to a heartfelt ‘thank you’, not a check.

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Keith Vlasak Yesterday 09:41 AM

• I live in Ohio too. The ads I’m seeing do not frame the issue very clearly — and I’m also seeing a dozen ads for the unions for every one that isn’t. And the Cleveland news media is all in arms about how poor teachers (that is, the most devoted humanitarians to have ever walked the earth) are being laid off. No one seems to be making the connection. People are sick of schools asking for more money all the time and vote down levy after levy … and no one is explaining that Senate Bill 5 is a tool to get the spending increases every year under control.

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Lizzie Yesterday 10:09 AM

• You need to fight the unions with facts. Here in my little town in Wisconsin, we turned the tide via a letter to the editor of the local paper publishing the salaries of every teacher in town. In Madison they published the salary of a bus driver who made more than the Mayor or Chief of Police. The unions may want to run a fact-free campaign but that’s only because the facts are their worst enemy. Don’t let them get away with it.

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Gunny G Yesterday 11:08 AM

• I have no sympathy for anyone or any state still embracing unionism. I was in Lima Ohio 4-5 years ago and it was a wasteland and the moniker of “Rust Belt” is highly appropriate. ANY city that is highly unionized is either toast or about to be toast yet people continue to support them.

Liberalism, like insanity, is doing the same thing over and over and over, with it failing each time, but they expect a different outcome the NEXT TIME they try it.

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Gatorgirl Yesterday 11:30 AM

• The ‘we are at the gate, man’ comment went right over Boehner’s head. Sometimes the repubs are stupid. Ohio has a chance to save their state, let’s hope they realize that.

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pyeatte Yesterday 11:32 AM

• The public-sector collective bargaining unions are a true cancer. Why they are allowed to exist is a mystery to me. Even that old liberal FDR advised that we never allow public employees to form unions with collective bargaining. He knew the of the evil corruption that would fester between politicians and public unions. The first act of fumigation is for the state to not collect dues on behalf of the union and of course not require union membership as a condition of working for the state.

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Keith Vlasak Yesterday 12:38 PM

• The ads I’m seeing on Cleveland and Toledo TV from the firemen are about how the “politicians” want to keep the firemen from negotiating for enough firemen to do the job (with pictures of one fireman running in and out of a burning building. Nowhere do they say what they mean is they want to negotiate “No Layoffs.” Isn’t that what’s causing the Post Office to go bankrupt?

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wigman Yesterday 02:48 PM

• When governments take about 50% of ones income in taxes and it’s just not enough, I say stop. It’s more than enough. The public is tired of funding your vote buying scheme. Stop now lest the majority become enslaved to the fewer and fewer.

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rephil Yesterday 03:05 PM

• Pa state employee 20 years, union steward, and a conservative, just today tried convincing fellow employees we are tying our own noose. When the public finds out and they will, some of the benefits and some of the abuses of benefits, we will have walked up the steps to the gallows uncuffed. In the 1990’s the family medical leave act was signed into law, well deserved. Now 15 years later the majority of employees where i work have a green light to miss work with benefits and pay without consequence. This has created an overtime nightmare, and management wants a way out. The union only digs in deeper and always backs a member whether they are right or not. Cooler heads are not prevailing and I fear the final outcome is another well paid job gone before the next guy can support his family as I have.

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teachkids Yesterday 03:20 PM

• As an Ohio teacher, I teach in a state that mandates teachers of the public schools to join a union. I favor Issue 2 because, if passed, I no longer need to pay “my fair share” to those unions which support candidates and issues that are contrary to my personal beliefs.

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teachkids Yesterday 03:39 PM

• As a public school teacher in Ohio, I must join the teachers’ unions or pay what they call my “fair share” of the dues if I choose not to join the unions. The difference between the full dues and the fair share is miniscule. I favor the passage of Issue 2 because I will no longer send my money to organizations which support issues and candidates that are contrary to my personal and religious beliefs.

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Patriotsharon Yesterday 04:27 PM

• We must understand that the taxpayers can no longer sustain the payouts in pensions and healthcare. We are all broke and need to level the playing field so it is fair to all. We love all of our public employees and appreciate the services they provide but unless we can control the escalating cost of these services we will be force to massive layoffs. PLEASE VOTE YES ON ISSUE 2 TO TURN OHIO AROUND!!!!!!

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cheech Yesterday 07:20 PM

• Living in Ohio also I do not share the optimism others from Ohio have expressed. Ohio voters are as ignorant of the facts behind issues as others around the country, more so I believe. SB5 will go down in flames and the voters won’t realize what they’ve done till the day of reckoning arrives and taxes will have to be raised to meet the growing demands of the Unions.

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NoHyphenJustAmerican Yesterday 10:25 PM

• I read the back and forth from the good citizens of Ohio. Tough situation. Looks like Gov. Kasich is about to be tested in his own “finest hour” to lead the good guys to victory. All over the USA we’re praying for you.

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squareknot Yesterday 10:39 PM

• I simply note that a mere observation that if Mr. Obama asks folks to pair their fair share” than I see no problem in unions doing what their “boss” requests of them (and others) ..pair their fair share under Issue 2.

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Sutzinger Yesterday 11:38 PM

• I live in Dayton, Ohio, home of the uber-lib Dayton Daily News, the only newspaper in town. Each day of this week, according to the front page story on Sunday, the DDN will use one union, ex. Monday Firefighters, Tuesday Policemen, Wednesday Teachers – you get the drift, to attack and thoroughly discredit SB5 (Issue 2). No alternative views will be printed. The Gestapo will not allow any dissension. If you read the paper and watched the horrific ads the unions are running, you would believe that if Issue 2 passes, we will have no fire fighters and all our houses will burn down.

In the editorial page on Sunday, a comment was made that certain union members ALREADY PAID the princely amount of 15% of their own health care. Neglected is the fact that the rest of the non-union world, should we be fortunate to be able to buy health insurance, pays at least 50% of the cost. So the union members, who pay 15%, ignore the fact that the remainder is paid by us the taxpayers.

I hate libs, I hate unions, I hate the DDNews. Pray for our state. No suggestion is made in any of the issues this…
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inthisdimension Yesterday 11:49 PM

• This isn’t hard. In about April, 2012, the House needs to pass legislation as follows: recognizing that Federalism precludes the passage of National Right-to-Work, the Feds simply rejects any Block Grants, highway or other infrastructure spending to all non-RTWStates. The States can do what they want, but Fed money won’t be coming your way. And, yeah, that includes the abolition of prevailing wage laws…

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Sandra45036 Today 02:27 PM

• A YES vote should be the choice of all people who favor freedom and the American way of life. The current mandates are unsustainable. The public sector worker’s unions spent millions of dollars of union member dues to guarantee the election of a democratic governor, senate and house so that in 1983 all of the union demands were put into the Ohio Revised Code. These union mandates are completely bankrupting the state. Eventually the state will run out of “other people’s money.” The unions seem to believe that they are entitled to receive everything they ask from us. If we object, then we must face the consequences of their wrath. It is one thing to go after adults, but when they use the children in the classroom they go too far. Few know that unions are not accountable for retaliation, intimidation and violence. Currently the Department of Labor and the Obama administration are proposing a regulatory change on newly classified “persuaders.” One study lists over 9,000 reported incidents of union violence.

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The sum of what I read among those contributors is that most everyone agrees that Issue 2 is something that is necessary for the health of Ohio, but most are skeptical as to whether or not Ohioans can overcome the Public Union Empire to hold on to the law. The public unions clearly do have an empire that actually involves a large sector of the media. The discussions about the Dayton Daily News should come as no surprise. James M. Cox who was the founder of the Dayton Daily News, and was born in the same county (Butler) as I currently reside and was a major progressive who ran for President on the Democratic ticket and even supported Woodrow Wilson and FDR, so it is no surprise that publications under Cox support his politics, just as union members tend to vote in favor of their pay checks, even if their position is wrong.

Read more about James Cox here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Middleton_Cox


People like Cox, who would go on to become Governor of Ohio are the architects of this Public Union Empire, and yes, the media does not want to learn that their leader was wrong, just like members of the media have a hard time understanding that Walter Lippmann was out-of-his-mind wrong on many of the progressive ideas he advocated. Those media types carry much of the blame because they stood behind the expansion of public unions, and helped perpetuate the current crises.

But without question, regardless of how those in a public union feel about it, the state of Ohio cannot afford to carry the number of employees that it has who are making 43.4% more than everyone else with overall compensation, the math just doesn’t add up. The more government employees there are, the harder it gets to compensate them what they expect. The fault rests on all members of the Public Union Empire who advanced a progressive agenda without considering what would happen when the whole house of cards started to collapse. They never thought that far ahead to their peril.

That leaves those of us with reason to vote in November to keep a law that will allow us to manage the costs of this massive Empire. Of course the members of that Empire won’t be happy. They would like that Empire to continue forever. But it can’t.

The only question is when the Empire gets dismantled, do we get the opportunity to manage it or does it collapse under its own weight? If Ohio votes to keep Issue 2, then we can avert a major economic disaster this year, while there is still time to save the structure of the services we employee in those sectors. If we do not maintain Issue 2, and lose it to the Public Union Empire, then financial catastrophe is on the horizon for every single tax payer in Ohio, because it will either require massive layoffs of public sector jobs, or major tax increases. There isn’t any middle ground.

So what will it be? I can say for myself, I will vote YES, and regardless of the outcome, I will know that I did the right thing, even if it is hard to do.

For the answer to everything, CLICK THIS LINK:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/09/18/the-answer-is-c-who-runs-society-the-engine-or-the-boxcar/

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

The Buffett Rule: The sad position of Barry Obama

What? The President said he’d veto any proposal that did not include tax increases……oh, I mean “revenue.” I thought this President was all about “compromise.” (Auh Oh, I better be careful. Someone might send this article to Attack Watch.)

The President of the United States continues to be a complete joke. He is maybe one of the most incompetent administrators I have seen in a long time. I believe he is WAY over his head in this job of President. I knew what the President was going to say before he even got up this morning, but the recklessness for which he says it is stunning. I’ve known for a long time in fact what the President would say, because Barry Obama is simply a puppet that speaks what his political party desires, and if you know who they are, you can predict what will come out of the president’s mouth. So as my new article on Issue 2 was published in American Thinker, which ironically is partly about how Obama is basically a spokesman for labor unions, part of my mind marveled at how convoluted this President continues to think. (See that American Thinker article here)

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/09/the_barbarians_of_issue_2.html

Doc Thompson of 700 WLW was interrupted by the President during his broadcast, and had some things to say about the merit of Barry’s little speech which will lead to what I’m about to say. Listen to that broadcast here.

People like Barry Obama, and many in his party and some from the Republican Party are not acting in our best interest. For many years there has been a plan to turn The United States Republic into something else.

Enter Norman Mattoon Thomas, who in 1944 made the statement you will see included in the fine little picture included here. Take a minute to read that before continuing.

Now, how about that? Are those the words of some conspiracy theory, Tea Party, radical? No, those are the words of a real person who along with an army of like-minded pacifists helped usher in the radicals 60’s movement with the aim of bringing Socialism to the United States. You can see in his own words the method by which he and his friends intended to do this, liberalism.

The key to me in listening to the President’s speech was why do I have to pay for all these social programs that are attached to liberalism, if I don’t support liberalism? Why should I support any liberal program, especially knowing that socialism has always been the goal? Why would I knowingly choose to fund my own country’s destruction by funding liberal policies? That doesn’t make any sense.

Much of what Barry Obama stated were “essential” programs that must be funded by my tax money are programs created under the umbrella of liberalism, or as shown by Mr. Thomas, “socialism.” So why do those programs deserve to be funded at all?

The President mentioned that some of that tax burden of which he wishes to fund using the wealth of the “rich,” would go to fund education. OK, so what does education entail? Is education making sure children learn to read, write, and do math, or is education actually liberal, (socialist) instruction? And is a teacher a mentor, or someone who is supposed to teach a child the basics? And is a teacher worth 40K a year, 50K per year, or 60K per year? If it is determined that a teacher are essential mentors and instructors of basic instruction and are worth 60K a year in salary, then how many teachers are performing at this level, all of them? Because currently we pay in taxes a value which assumes that every teacher is performing with spectacular results, the best of the best, even when we discover they are having sex with kids and other indiscretions during school hours. Not all teachers mind you, but some. (Here’s the trouble with taking teachers as a collective in assessing value. When they want to be paid well, they all stick together. But when one messes up and does something stupid, like the pedophile at Lakota, then the teachers act like he acted alone and they should not be judged because of him. So which is it? All for one and one for all………..or, judged by independent merit?)

GET THE POINT?

In Ohio out of the 612 school districts they are collectively running at a $8 billion dollar deficit, 96% of which is compensation costs. According to President Obama, tax payers should just pay the money to close that deficit gap without asking why the gap exists or without having an intelligent discussion as to whether or not the compensation for those teachers is worth it, because I see an awful lot of children graduating from high school these days who aren’t very smart.

That small example could be greatly expanded to include Medicare, Social Security, The EPA, the entire Department of Education, and Homeland Security. In fact I could probably put down a whole book just on the wasteful programs built by liberalism, as a subtle march toward socialism, that simply cost too much money and don’t deserve my hard-earned money.

The President mentioned again that people “like him” should make a sacrifice, to dig deep into their pockets to pay their fair share of taxes. Well, no WE shouldn’t. First of all, Barry Obama became wealthy because of his public service. Without politics, Barry would still be organizing rallies in Chicago and smoking joints like a lot of his union brothers. He certainly wouldn’t be a millionaire, because he doesn’t make anything or manage anything that can produce a profit. Second, what is a “fair share?” Why is it fair to require me to fund programs I think are ridiculously foolish and are weakening our society, in my opinion? I have no intention of ever receiving a Social Security check, so why should I continue to pay? How is that fair, that some absentminded fool politician came up with some looting law for me to work extra hard to pay for, when if I kept the money, could have done something more productive? The tax to me is just legalized robbery. It’s going to groups I don’t believe in to fund philosophies I have no faith in, to support an agenda I find detrimental to the future of the country. So why do I have to pay again? How is it my obligation, because some incompetent manager like Barry decided I had to pay?

It’s easy for a looter to give away things; because they can just take away from “the rich” anytime they need to refill themselves. And that’s what all these tax increases are. If the wealthy were a minority group representing bloc voters, Barry Obama would never think of insulting the wealthy the way he does. He only does it because there aren’t that many wealthy people, so if they all vote against him in the next election, he could care less. He’s all about taking from those who have, and giving to those who don’t, and there are more people in the world that don’t. So it works out from his stand point, which is a premise of socialism.

Just like Mr. Thomas knew that people would never accept socialism at face value, so they changed the name to liberalism, progressivism, the enlightened philosopher kings of Plato’s Republic. But the reality of their mentality is socialism. Just like the reality of demanding more taxes is simply no different from a thief holding a victim at gun point to rob them of the contents of their wallet. It is purely relative as to whether or not the robber has a gun or a whole country with the IRS, CIA, ATTACK WATCH or any other weapon at their disposal. The intent is the same, and that is to loot those who have so those that want it can have it.

The reason Barry is so incompetent is that he can’t see that even if he took all the wealth the “rich” had, then what would happen then? When that money is gone what happens next? If Barry gets reelected President, what will happen two years from now when taxes won’t fix the problem and spending is still on an upward trend and the rich have simply moved to Hong Kong, or Singapore to hide from the long arm of the Government? What will that bamboozled president do then? Who will he rob then to take care of his own “special interests,” his voting bloc, his political contributors which move his mouth to make words come out? Who?????????????

He’ll do the same as the gambler who has lost his whole fortune in one night at the tables; he’ll roll the dice again, and again, as long as we let him. Just like the gambling addict, he will continue to sprinkle illusions at even himself because he is fully committed to the strategy of those who came before him, people like Mr. Thomas, even when there is no money to bet with any longer, and his credibility has long since left him, because the foundations of his beliefs were wrong to begin with, and everything he is, and hopes to be will require him to steal from someone else so that he could be something………….anything in the age-old tragedy the likes of which made Shakespeare seem so prophetic.

Look in Barry’s hand there if you doubt what I’ve said here and shown you.  To see what that book is about check it out at this link:

http://www.amazon.com/Post-American-World-Fareed-Zakaria/dp/039306235X

For the answer to everything as to why labor unions fail, check out this link:
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/why-public-labor-unions-fail-the-science-of-stagnation/

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

The Answer is “C”: Who runs society the engine or the boxcar?

In this article, which may seem long, but if you take the time to read and watch the videos here, I will promise you a new level of wisdom gained that will give you insight into a world that was once invisible to most of the population. Better than all that, I will tell you why. But for some reference you might want to refer to my articles on Static Intellectualism and patterns by clicking on this hot link.

To provide testimony for everything you will read and see in this article I would like to present to you a simple game called, “The Answer is C,” presented by Doc Thompson of 700 WLW. Listen to this short little contest and study the questions and answers by the public.

The lesson to that game is that the participants, 3 out of 5 were completely unable to see beyond the Static Patterns of what they understood a multiple choice test to be. When the callers were waiting on the line to go on the air they were focused on the hope that they would be able to understand the question and provide an answer so that they could win a gift card to Frisch’s restaurant. What the listeners didn’t consider, because their static patterns would not allow them to see it, was that Doc Thompson told them the answer ahead of time. In fact Doc told the callers the answer at least 20 or more times in that short 6 minute broadcast. The answer to the questions is even in the title of the game! Yet 3 out of 5 people missed the question even when given the answer. WHY? And what does it have to do with our current political trouble? Well everything.

In our fundamental education at public school, our first real experience outside of our parent’s homes, progressive philosophy imported from Europe has taken over the essence of that education, because the Victorians of progressivism marketed those values into curriculums at all levels. The traditions of our daily habits and lives still come from our parents, but our social values are largely shaped by our experience in public education, so in creating a static pattern for all human beings, if the progressive mentality wished to become accepted, it had to do so through education, which is why to this day so many who work in education are considered leftists, democrats, progressives and unionized radicals. It is because the people drawn to that field of endeavor, education, found that to advance in the static patterns of that culture they had to adopt those progressive ideas. This created a large group of teachers at all levels who tend to be progressive thinking people whom every child in America is then exposed to as a competing social idea in shaping the static patterns of the child.

This has created the trouble of young people being liberal leaning when they first leave school. It is after those children live life for a few years and raise a family of their own that they begin to see the error of progressive/liberal thought. Young people are attracted to characters like Van Jones and the kind of speeches people like him make at the below progressive conference. Government dependence is an attractive concept to young people who are uncertain about their ability to compete in a very competitive world.

Progressivism is attractive to the down-and-out also. The illegal immigrant, the welfare recipient, the unhealthy, all are the types who are drawn to the Van Jones message. After all, by looking at the receipt to the right which was found in a Menominee, Michigan grocery store parking lot you will see why. For the non-competitive, life under government security allows them to purchase lobster and steak with food stamps while the competitive fund it. The error of what Van Jones preaches is that the system only works so long as there are competitive people out there willing to produce. I shudder to consider what would happen if the truly innovative, and hard-working decided to do as the characters of Atlas Shrugged did in that classic novel, and that’s stop working just as those people who are collecting food stamps are doing. Progressivism fails when everyone in society just gives up trying. Progressives fail to understand that someone has to be the engine, the producer, the driver. Progressives are simply cars that are drug behind the train engine and the more cars there are just carrying passengers, the harder it is for the rest of the train to pull.

When Van Jones talks about the success of Germany and China taking care of their people what he fails to mention is that China is not exactly a free country. They do not share the same values as the United States. You are not even allowed to have more than one child per family, let alone decide all other aspects of their life. And Germany is just now recovering from the fall of the Berlin Wall where the West was finally able to merge with the Soviet controlled East. Once capitalism was able to work in Germany their country began to produce again. In China it was when Hong Kong was transferred back to China from the Capitalist tendencies of England in the year 2000. Back then there was a lot of fear as to what would happen to Hong Kong under Chinese rule. Would China bring down Hong Kong into a communist province or would the communists attempt to accept Hong Kong and the great economy that was flourishing there? China decided to adapt, reluctantly, and their economy is flourishing.

But Van Jones won’t tell anybody that, and nobody bothers to ask the question, because just like in the game that Doc Thompson put on, where he even gave the answer at the start of the question, the callers still got the answer wrong. The same types of people are at those progressive events. The goal of progressive public education is to make competition less attractive, except in sports which are used to fund the whole enterprise. But for the regular student, competition is being frowned down upon. Progressives have always known that by eliminating the competitive tendencies in a child, who will grow up into an adult and accept their philosophy, that stifling personal ambition was the focus all along, but ambition toward altruistic goals are greatly rewarded. Thus the static patterns of modern society have been shaped, and even when proof that the choices people have made are wrong, they generally cannot see why, for the same reason that people answered the questions wrong in Doc’s game.

But not everyone is falling for it. More and more young people are leaning in the direction of conservatism. I would say that in social representation, they are the 2 out of 5 who answered right. These people have the ability to see that there are serious errors to the social patterns that have formed around them and they are beginning to emerge, which was the topic of a recent discussion on GBTV.

Another young person who has emerged out of this public education static pattern of progressivism is the radio personality Matt Clark who is a freak of nature. He is way ahead of the curve at his young age. He is the type of person who would have gotten all Docs’ questions right immediately. He’d be the first to say, “Why are you asking me this question, Doc, because you already gave me the answer?”

This is the terrible condition people like Matt will always suffer from. Matt is a smart young man, but so are people who are progressives. I would venture to say that George Soros is smart, after all he’s a billionaire so he did something right. Van Jones is smart. Barack Obama is probably smart taken one on one. But all those people are suffering from a failed understanding built within their static patterns. Their failure comes from their education to begin with. So it’s not a matter of intelligence. I know a lot of smart people who are really, socially stupid. Some of them suffer from having traditional parents and a stable household, but try desperately to merge those values with the values they learned in public education and college and what happens is a mess of personal ideology which prevents them from seeing the obvious, because their static patterns are fundamentally broken.

Matt Clark however managed to come out of college recently much like the young people on GBTV, and they are fully aware of what is wrong and can see it clearly even if the rest of the world can’t. Even without a life of experience behind Matt, he can see the error of what Nancy Pelosi’s progressive philosophy is advocating, even though Nancy seems oblivious to her hypocrisy even as she says it.

If you’ll remember back to Doc’s contest, 2 out of 5 callers got the answer right. Well, if you think about it, that same ratio seems to be evident in the nation as a whole. The country leans slightly to the right of center. The people right of center to varying degrees are aware that something is wrong with progressives. The one’s who are close to the center know it, but can’t articulate it. But the further to the right that you get, the more obvious it is. Somewhere out there to the firm right is the libertarian who wants very little government at all, because they simply don’t trust government to do anything right.

This isn’t so much a question of does those on the left have a right to exist or not. People are free to believe whatever they want to believe. But when policy is formed to reflect one point of view over another point of view and the security of maintaining that philosophy requires the looting of everyone to maintain the philosophy of that one side, a big problem emerges. And that is what we have found has happened with the progressive leaning public sector service jobs we’ve created in our American culture.

The trouble here is that many police and firefighters seem to lean in a conservative direction politically, unlike teachers who overwhelmingly are liberal, yet all fall under the category of public service and are all guilty of the kind of explosive growth shown by Nick Gillespie from Reason Magazine.

All states must find a way to deal with this terrible situation. In Ohio the discrepancy of public workers versus private workers is 43.4% in favor of the public workers! Yet strangely people can’t see the answer even though it’s clearly spelled out. Just like Doc’s game, 3 people out of 5 still got the answer wrong, and in this case with public unions, the idea of a union is a progressive position which has been embedded in our culture through education. And when the static pattern of those beliefs are challenged, as they are in Ohio with Issue 2, the public unions even though they are politically represented by conservatives and liberals, all unite under the static pattern of union radicalism to protect the advancements their progressive unions have imposed on society for decades. Ohio passed a law to help close the gap in that huge disparity between public and private workers because after all the burden of paying for everything in the progressive platform requires the private citizen to carry the entire burden of an enterprise. The whole of any public sector position rests on the shoulders of private enterprise, and the same is true for government itself. Yet progressives routinely forget this and believe that they exist as an entity all their own. So police, fireman, and teachers all pulled together to collect 1.3 million signatures to repeal the bill passed by Governor John Kasich to close the disparity gap and make Ohio more economically attractive to outside investment and prospective homeowners (tax payers). Because of the repeal attempt by the unions, Ohio must vote to keep the bill known as Issue 2.

The solution is very easy for those of us who can see, just like many people listening to that broadcast with Doc Thompson were shouting at their speaker saying, “HE’S TELLING YOU THE ANSWER IN THE TITLE!!!!!!” Yet there are others, who are stuck in a learned static pattern who make up the progressive labor unions, which transcends political ideology in this case and have turned into a radical group who are insisting that the answer to our public problem still rest in some progressive solution when it is the progressive platform that has created our trouble to begin with. The equivalent to this would be one of the people in Doc Thompson’s broadcast insisting that the answer to the game was in fact A, B or D, anything but C, when the only correct answer is C.

And that’s the real problem. Progressive thought has devastated our country and 2 out of 5 people are seeing it. Those 2 people are beginning to make up the new group called the Tea Party, they are part of the 2 to 3 million people who make up the Glenn Beck audience, listen to talk radio, and read articles like my 500 readers a day here. They know something is wrong, and like Matt Clark, and the kids on GBTV are starting to look for ways to solve the complicated problem and they are doing it without of any hostility toward progressives. They just want to solve the problem.
But now we see what the real agenda has always been among progressives. Now that progressives see those 2 out of 5 people are starting to question them, the unions are seeking to use the other 3 to form an army to force the 2 to comply with their view of the answer even if their answer is wrong.

That’s where this situation has become out of control. Now that some of us are trying to fix the problem we are learning why progressives want unions to begin with, to not only fund political endeavors, but to use them as a civilian ground force. I think the young, and forward thinking Matt Clark has the situation nailed in this broadcast where he plays clips of the current leaders of progressive politics who are actually saying as much. Matt takes the situation and plays it a bit over-the-top, but I think it deserves to be.

It wouldn’t be the first time a political uprising formed under the nose of a current culture. Such things take place over a long period of time and do not happen quickly, and anyone who has studied the Art of War by Sun Tzu, which I have, understand that the most desirable way to conquer a country is without firing a shot is by using the “subtle” to overtake a culture. In this case it was the infusion of progressive politics almost a century ago which has led to a confused society that on one hand thinks it’s fighting for traditional American rights, like many of the cops and firefighters believe they are doing, but find themselves simply foot soldiers in a civilian army designed to topple American Capitalism. The way you perform the invasion is from within the country, not with planes, tanks and nuclear weapons. You do it while the passive citizens, trained under your progressive institutions paid for with progressive taxes, wave flags of peace in the air and greet those progressive invaders with open arms and perhaps even a place in their beds. Those young students so unsure of themselves won’t believe that the answer is “C” even if you tell them the answer until life proves to them that everything they believe is wrong, and over the course of their lives from age 20 to 50 they finally learn how wrong they were. They finally find out that being conservative was the way they should have always been, because traditional values worked in the past and they will always work in the future.

I can say it now because by the time this hits the net, my wife would have already given the present to my sister who is about to have baby twins. My wife has made a blanket for every baby that is born in our family. She’s done that for 20 years, and these twins are just the most recent. These blankets are unlike anything you could ever buy at a store, and they are intended to provide a sense of security for the young child as they form those crucial static patterns of their lives. It is the static patterns of life that people form their beliefs around and a blanket of security made with love from a treasured family member is extremely important to the life of any child. But when progressives started to attack those traditional values by undermining the family unit to be replaced by progressive education which created an unstable static pattern for these young children to grow up confused and pulled in a thousand different ways only to learn in their 50’s that the whole process was a mess and needs to be reformed completely from the ground up. That rebirth needs to be built upon the static pattern of American Tradition, which is a topic of its own. Click here to see a sample.

But the focus of this all along has been to weaken the United States with progressivism and to use its own people as the army. The recruits of this army are those 3 out of 5 who simply can’t see the truth even when you place it right in front of their face. You can spell it out for them implicitly, but they still won’t see, because their static patterns are wrong to begin with, so they cannot see it even if they tried.

The work rests on the 2 out of 5 to do all the work anyway. They must carry the whole burden of this failed philosophy called progressivism and replace it with what worked before progressives brought their nonsense to the whimsical Victorians of early New York City, to culturally launch the nation into a static pattern of degradation much to the pleasure of our enemies.

And yes dear reader, the United States has enemies. It has since the beginning. The War of 1812 was England’s last attempt to recapture its colony; for fear that the young nation would leave it behind, which it did, in just one short century. And that growth exploded upon the world scene and brought freedom to the far corners of the world, until progressives stopped that growth with litigation, unions, and social reforms centered on civil rights.

It wasn’t the progressives who initiated the civil rights movement, it was the American Transcendentalists, and I’m thinking of Ralph Waldo Emerson specifically. Progressives did what they always do, and that is to loot the idea from those who created the idea to begin with proving that the all-American novel Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand should be required reading for every single child in grade school because it is a work more important than any literary work produced in America since its inception. Because Atlas Shrugged provides the blueprint on how to live in an America free of progressivism and it shows what life would and should be like in absence of that philosophical disease called the progressive.

This entire essay is a sincere hope on my part to share with you, the reader a world that should be obvious. To those who already know that the answer to Doc Thompson’s questions is in fact, “C” thank you for bearing with the length of this article, for it will only confirm what you already know. But to those of you that don’t know that the answer is “C” but instead is “A,” “B,” or “D,” I hope you just learned something that can help you to not be such a drag on the rest of society, and to join the rest of us who are trying to make the whole thing work well into the future.

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

Attack Watch: Brought to you by Dictator Obama

One of the great things about Glenn Beck is that he’s spent the money he’s made off his books, his subscriptions, and his shows and reinvested it back into the message he’s been committed to. You won’t find Glenn Beck running around with some stripper in a New York hotel, or find that he has used any of his money to abuse anybody in society. Regardless of whatever mistakes he may have made in the past, I sincerely believe the person he is today is a good person who just wants the truth, the same as me, and millions of other Americans who simply don’t like the progressive direction of our country.

When Glenn Beck launched his new GBTV network I wasn’t sure what to make of it. So far what I’ve seen I like a lot. I am very impressed with the $20 million dollar set he built, and better yet, he has no boss, no middleman to steer his topics into the “collective” direction of an editor or even a network owner. Glenn Beck is the owner and he has used his success to purchase his freedom from the grid of politics and he is truly free in a way that few people ever achieve to function authentically, and to use his gift of insight for all it’s worth.

A sign that Beck is achieving that success can be seen in President Obama’s new Attack Watch website, which I find disgusting, but also revealing, for it shows just how juvenile politicians as high-ranking as The President of the United States truly is. Listen to Beck discuss it from the set of his new show, totally free of any editorial censoring, which I believe has triggered this move by the president and his staff.

After I saw this episode with Beck I checked out the website for myself and the very first thing that came to my mind was the way that East Berlin used to engage in similar propaganda to prevent its people from trying to escape over into West Berlin. Obama is actively looking for dissidents to his administration so those dissidents can be targeted. Of course people like Beck will be targeted, but as I read the intent of that website it became clear that the goal of Attack Watch wasn’t so much after Glenn Beck, but it’s intended to target people like me and the material I publish on this site, which I stand behind proudly. But the nature of this type of information set my blood into a boil, so I contacted Attack Watch and turned myself in with the note shown below, which is the exact text that I sent to Barack Obama and his minions running Attack Watch.

Dear Attack Watch:

I will have to report myself. I am embarrassed at this administration and his support of public unionized labor. And he has put himself on the front line of Ohio’s Issue 2 and is very responsible for his own attacks and false information. The fact that he supports this site says everything about the guy.

Rich

Shortly after I did this I heard that Doc Thompson was covering this very issue on 700 WLW so I called in at about the 11 minute mark and confessed what I had done, that I had turned myself into Attack Watch. Doc and I had some fun at the expense of the President over his Jobs Bill and this tyrannical Attack Watch website, which the President deserves. CLICK TO LISTEN:

The parody that Doc and I were talking about can be seen in it’s entirety below. I am proud to see it produced but sad that the humor of it isn’t too far off from reality. For it is an accurate representation of the mentality of this President. This isn’t a new tactic by would-be-dictators. The Gestapo similarities are undeniable. If the President and his staff wanted to confirm everything “crazy” that critics like Beck have said about him, he just confirmed it with that website.

I would recommend that everyone take the opportunity to turn themselves in to our own American Gestapo by dropping a comment into Attack Watch and let them know what you think about a President who spends an enormous amount of money on theory, big labor support, and massively expanded government built with a theory of altruism that is naïve in its foundations, yet is sold to America with the same fast talking nonsense that we might see from a used car salesman. If I thought the Obama Presidency was a joke before the advent of Attack Watch, I am more convinced of it now than ever. If such a thing had been around during the Bush administration, the progressives would have taken Bush out of office with a posse and a rope. Yet Obama supporters write him a blank check on intelligence, of which they have all shown to be bankrupt, and not worth the paper the check is printed upon. Because this whole experiment has nothing to do with race or even party, it’s all about a massive progressive who believes just like the charismatic tyrant that if you “LOVE” him you’ll vote for anything he says. Well, only a fool does that, and I suspect that anyone who isn’t a fool will end up on the Attack Watch list at some point in time, because this is not the action of a President of a free country. This is the actions of a dictator, and that is the harsh reality.

Now, to make it simple for all those silly people who are willing to feed the Gestapo Dictator of Attack Watch information about me, which I have no doubt will happen, I have listed links to a small sample of the dozens and dozens of articles I have written about this President whom I do not believe is qualified to manage a McDonald’s, let alone a country.  The evidence speaks for itself.   

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/03/24/the-presidential-fool-the-office-of-barack-obama/

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/07/30/sleeping-with-a-slick-salesman-the-path-of-the-obama-presidency/

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/04/11/obama-is-an-illegal-president-hes-spent-over-10-million-hiding-his-birth-certificate/

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/looters-and-thieves-of-american-government-the-list-from-government-gone-wild/

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/09/11/the-great-and-powerful-o-government-and-casinos-are-basically-the-same-thing/

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/the-wisdom-of-darryl-parks-what-congress-and-the-senate-dont-want-you-to-know/

Enjoy……………….and there’s a lot more where that came from. 

For the answer to everything as to why labor unions fail, check out this link:
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/why-public-labor-unions-fail-the-science-of-stagnation/

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

Graveyards and Government: Why do we need more taxes? Ask The Brakeman!

When I hear the President discuss the details of his Jobs Bill, the same question comes to my mind as it does when a local school or a city discusses their budget demands for raising taxes, and that is, why does the government assume that every job created in government deserves to be funded, and that the funding of that job dictates higher taxes?  Just because some politician in Washington, or some board of education member either at the state level or local level makes a decision and creates a job, the merit of that job never gets questioned……….why?

Why is it our obligation as a tax paying base to subsidize bad decisions made by politicians who have long since left office, leaving in their wake a turbulent chaos of bureaucracy, so that their puny minds could relish in the creation of a job, when in fact the merit of those jobs add little to the overall society? It would seem that politicians like Obama are so emotionally attached to certain jobs like teachers, police, firefighters, BMV workers, administrators and the like that they never measure the productivity of those positions against the taxes it takes to maintain them, and that is a catastrophic error.

If the United States is not number one in the profession of teaching, then why would we spend so much money to maintain that mediocre status. Or why would we spend more money, when other countries which exceed our education statistics, do more with less money spent per pupil? How many firefighters does it take to run a community given that there aren’t exactly fires and emergencies every single day, could much of that staffing be done equally well with a volunteer staff instead of an army of full-time employees, the same with police? What are the measurements as to how many you need to keep criminals in check? Who is asking those questions…………nobody? How many workers does it take to run a Bureau of Motor Vehicles? Couldn’t some of the traffic regulation be reduced to help with staffing of these bureau positions?

The trouble with government is every time someone like Obama wants to make a name for himself, and history has produced millions of those types, they “create” a job and expand government just a little bit more. And the cost of that expansion is what drives our taxes higher and higher in order to maintain the growth. This is why politicians are in such a panic over the sudden desire from the public, of which I am a proud part, to reduce government, because those expansions are part of a politicians “legacy.” To a politician removing a government program is similar to taking away their tombstone once they’ve been laid to rest in a cemetery.

My family explored a cemetery hidden away in the hills of Eastern Ohio a few years ago which was supposedly haunted. As we sat in the dark with cameras and other recording equipment waiting for a ghost to come up out of the ground and dance with the evening mist which engulfed us, I looked at the tombstones laying all about, mostly eroded away beyond recognition. The cemetery itself was about 150 years old and the town which housed the residents had long ago disappeared. This cemetery no longer had relatives who came to visit. These people were simply forgotten by a town that no longer existed. (TO SEE SPECIFICS ON THIS TYPE OF STORY SEE MY ARTICLE ON THE GHOST TOWN KERR CITY) CLICK THE LINK:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/07/01/the-ghost-town-of-kerr-city-a-metaphor-for-planet-earth/

To the people of a ghost town, all the activity of the town seemed so important while the town lived. My daughter and I looked at the tombstone of “The Brakeman” in the misty, haunted night where civilization wasn’t even remotely connected. The night air called out no hints of mankind’s existence from this place, as we waited for the ghost of The Brakeman to walk the cemetery at night, as legend said he does occasionally.

The Brakeman worked the railroad of the nearby town and had an affair with the wife of his card playing friend who was in charge of all the freight which left the town. When the friend found out about what the brakeman had done with his wife, he challenged his friend to a card game where he got The Brakeman drunk to the point of passing out. At that point the estranged husband laid his friend “The Brakeman” across the railroad tracks to be killed by the passing train, which happened within the hour, decapitating completely The Brakeman. Now legend has it that the ghost of the headless Brakeman roams the cemetery at night, and that’s what we wanted to see for ourselves in spite of all the reports from people who did exactly what we were doing, but suffered from being driven insane by curses that the angry Brakeman casts upon anyone who disturbs his grave. That’s the story anyway.

Strange things did happen that night, but not the expected “strange stuff.” But as we sat there waiting I thought about how important sleeping with that man’s wife had been to The Brakeman. How important all their jobs had been to the people of the town, even how important the man’s marriage to the cheating wife had seemed to the killer. Now here we were 150 years later waiting for a ghost to appear from that time and show us some hint to a mystery which occurred so long ago. And all the things that seemed so important to the people of this graveyard back when they lived were no longer even relevant to the order of the universe. The people were all decayed away and forgotten. Even the tombstones proving their existence was nearly gone. In another hundred years nobody would even know this graveyard ever existed.

This is the secret behind government expansion, and what is truly behind the words of politicians like Obama. Government programs and created jobs are the “tombstones” of the politician. They hope that when they are long gone, dead to the world that society will remember that they were good people once, and that their legacy will live on in some way. Social Security is the tombstone of FDR. Medicare is the tombstone of LBJ. I am 100% convinced that when those presidents signed those government programs into law that they thought to themselves, “people will remember me when I’m gone. These programs will outlast a tombstone.”

That is what is behind almost every government program created. It’s behind nearly every law created, every building built, every bridge that spans a river; it is in the infantile mind of the spiritually cumbersome which seeks some measure of immortality in the form of something that will carry their memory beyond the tombstones of a cemetery. And this is the mentality behind the President’s Jobs Bill, and the anger of many who think like him that people would “dare” to reduce the size of government by eliminating government programs, or even entire branches of it, because to them, this would be equivalent to desecrating the grave of the dead, for the impact, is the same. The fear is to be forgotten so nobody ever knew they lived. People like Obama understand this at a primal level and will protect those who came before him in hopes that someday someone will protect his tombstones in the form of created legislation. Isn’t that what Obama Care is after all, a memorial to Obama for all eternity?

When I was a very small kid, I actually took a tombstone from a graveyard and hid it in the basement of our house. I wanted to study it. My mother was aghast and demanded I put it back where I found it, which was an old cemetery I had found deep in the woods near our house. She told me the ghost of that man would track me down all my life, that God would be angry with me for desecrating the grave of this poor man. I was confused by her anger so I drug that tombstone the 2 miles back to the graveyard and put it back the best I could, wondering why my mother was so upset about it. I found out later that she had done the same thing when she was a little girl and her parents, my grandparents had put the fear of God into her, and she never did such a thing again. I asked her if she actually believed the Earth would swallow her up and she’d be damned to hell for all eternity if she took a tombstone, a simple rock with writing on it that the process of natural erosion would destroy within a few hundred years anyway. Why did human beings think such things are actually sacred? Well, the only answer she had was that it was wrong to do such a thing. And the rationality is just as simple when speaking about reducing a government program, or a law. All those things are just memorials to the deceased when taken down to their most elementary function.

I’ve explored graveyards all over America since then and seen and done things that many would consider sacrilegious to the religions of the Earth. I have done these things with the view toward science, not just belief, and this lends itself to the proper perspective in understanding the nature of a problem. And this is the case of government. It grows and expands not out of necessity, but out of fear……..fear of the lives that make up that government growing old and dying off to be forgotten by the world. This is the fundamental error behind many of the human beings who roam this Earth. They are living their deaths by planning for it their entire lives, wondering how they will be remembered instead of living the life that is before them one day at a time and when the time comes to leave this world of the living honorably to join with the greater mysteries of existence, most of mankind clambers with the fingers of both hands dug deep into roots of the living and while they hope that there is an afterlife, they don’t truly believe it. So they seek to be remembered for “something.” And this is the catastrophe of politics. It allows the small-minded to use tax money to build memorials in their honor, and that is not the role of government. And it is not the responsibility of the tax payer to make people who view themselves inwardly as “worthless” to project an outward appearance of “worth” long after death robs them of life and confines their Earthly bodies to a cold, decaying grave.

What I learned in my many trips to the graveyards of the world is that many people are dead long before they ever come to these places, and memorials are the most common form of hiding that fact from themselves. But deep inside, we all know the motives, including people like Obama. His ghost already haunts him, and he is doing what politicians all do, he spends money, he runs for office, and he runs, runs, and runs hoping he can outpace his own ghost, because when the ghost finally catches up with him, he will face a crises that no law or memorial can hide him from. On that day, he will be wrecked with that grim reality that his life was no more important than anyone else’s, and that when he dies, he will be forgotten just as everyone is because within a few millenniums all the laws of politics will be gone forever and the Earth will have recycled the human race many times over and the world will be plagued with the ghosts of those who just never understood what happened, like The Brakeman who just wanted to have sex with his friend’s wife in a town in Eastern Ohio in a moment of passion. Death came so quick that the man never knew what hit him and he still roams around sadly looking for a town, for a people, for a world he knew but is now erased from the world except for a few eroded tombstones.

Every politician ever known or yet created will suffer the same fate as The Brakeman, and no amount of money, of government program can protect them from the fact that they are living a death and their ghost will soon come to claim their bodies erasing their footprint from the mind of mankind forever.

So knowing all that, why should the rest of us pay for memorials to those weak-minded fools?

For the answer to everything as to why labor unions fail, check out this link:
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/why-public-labor-unions-fail-the-science-of-stagnation/

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