Below is a message I received from a teacher who is attempting to play a little game that is now all too familiar. In the debate I had recently with the Pro Lakota Levy group, you could hear the same type of fear based placement of a core argument, resembling the message below.(CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THAT DEBATE)
The example of Somalia is a preposterous one. It is obvious that the creators of that little (anti-libertarian) film does not understand the greater aspects of social relationships. The real trouble in Somalia is due exclusively to their tendency toward collectivism as can be seen in this short documentary.It was on the back of collectivism that socialism was brought to that country, then when that fell, as it always does it paved the way for the clan Civil War that is currently taking place. Somalia is the direct result of government meddling at many levels, not the other way around, as the video obviously produced by some New Age Leftists, only able to see a small part of the overall picture interpreted.
The threats by these collectivists are utterances that aren’t worth the wind which carries the sound wave of discontent. Anyone who believes as collectivists do can be replaced by a superior mind quickly and efficiently, because it is the superior mind who avoids such occupations in order to avoid the fools who are currently employed there.The superior mind doesn’t waste their time on the quandary of collectivism. The apocalypse predicted by those employed by government as that body of collectivism is reduced by the tax dollar are unfounded, completely, the world will still turn tomorrow, kids will still be taught by a teacher, there will still be police and firefighters and many others. The term phrased, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease,” has been true. But my solution to the squeaky wheel is not to just put more grease on it; it is to replace the wheel all together with one that doesn’t make any noise, and might even work better. It is in such thinking that permanent fixes reside.
For those who believe that all is right in the world, the video below is something you should see. I recently had a debate on 700 WLW with Julie Shaffer over school levies and how much she believes people outside the “education bubble” make as a wage, which far off the true mark and goes far to explain why educators are out-of-touch in asking the public to increase taxes to maintain their lifestyles even when the CPI index says those same teachers are extremely overpaid. It is that same “education bubble” of academia where they view the world with rose-colored lenses darkened even more with tenure that they cannot, or will not see that in their typically leftist viewpoint of global unity and focus on “world peace” that our enemies stir. (CLICK THIS HOTLINK TO HEAR MY DEBATE WITH JULIE)
And they plot like sinister manipulators, walking among us like the wolf in sheep’s clothing, climbing under the fence to get behind that bubble to eat. Meanwhile the academic looks at the predator and says, “look there at the poor, the downtrodden, the oppressed and offer them your hand, your help, your charity! I say to you my young students to beckon your wealth in their direction, to assist them for they are our brothers and sisters of this world, and deem our respect and understanding.”In this way the teacher leads the students straight into the mouth of the predator to be consumed uneventfully.
So as the teachers and sympathizers of the “education bubble” continue to beat a drum of distraction to preserve their right to shop at Nordstrom’s, an enemy gathers outside of their vision. And as people like me point and say, “there is your end,” they gallantly shrug off the warning.
“Oh, that Mr. Hoffman just hates teachers and so anti-education. You can’t believe anything he says, because he chooses not to join us in the “education bubble.”
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.
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.
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!!!!
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.
In Milgram’s first set of experiments, 65 percent (26 of 40)[1] of experiment participants administered the experiment’s final massive 450-volt shock, though many were very uncomfortable doing so; at some point, every participant paused and questioned the experiment, some said they would refund the money they were paid for participating in the experiment.
Milgram summarized the experiment in his 1974 article, “The Perils of Obedience”, writing: The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects’ [participants’] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects’ [participants’] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.
Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.[3]
The crimes of humanity have always been perpetrated by that 65%, those mindless followers who are too timid to think for themselves. It is they who prop up the dictator, the authority figure and open the door to tyranny time and time again. They were there to collapse the Roman Empire, to crumble Egyptian Civilization, to cause Japan into Feudal conflict. They followed Genghis Khan into a conquest of the East. They propped up the expansion of Napoleons’ Empire. Those 65% have committed enormous evils upon the face of the Earth because they were too lazy to think, and submitted too easily to authority.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
It has been a difficult couple of weeks, the worst of which was the news that my editor had been particularly affected when Hurricane Irene hit the East Coast. She was so affected that she was unable to continue on with the task of editing my new book, since she needs time off to recover from the damage. So the publisher is assigning me someone else, which in the world of publishing is kind of like a “blind date,” you aren’t sure how much common ground you’ll have, and whether or not the relationship will be fruitful. But that’s the nature of business. When devastation strikes people you respect and care about, your heart goes out to them, but the objectives of business must march on.
This is why ISSUE 2 is such an important law. Diana Frey was not the first and certainly not the last union leader or politician who will take advantage of their power position to enrich themselves. And she is not the first to use the static patterns of society to hide their true intentions. In fact, many of the school levies on the ballot this year are using the static patterns of social education perception, sports, college prep, real estate value to disguise the labor union looting of the public treasury where the real intent are excessive wages and benefits for their members. It has nothing to do with the education of children. ISSUE 2 will allow the dynamic elements of society, to question things that aren’t right, and bring it to the attention of those who are stuck in static thinking, which simply can’t see it.
One of the most popular art forms which exemplify this static and dynamic tendency is the film series Star Wars. When people talk about Star Wars most people will say that they enjoy the older films more than the newer films. The complaint is that the new films are boring and discuss politics too much. Well, I don’t think that’s the real reason. The real reason that people like the older films over the newer films is by design. If Lucas had come out with the new series first, Star Wars would have never been popular.The series would have died off a long time ago. The original series, episodes 4 through 6 are all about Dynamic Quality. The rebellion is a dynamic static pattern confronting the static pattern of the Evil Empire. It’s the classic struggle, the David versus Goliath principle. Goliath did not expect David to simply launch a rock to hit the much larger man in the forehead. Goliath loses because in his static pattern thought there would be a great battle, where he would use his size against the much smaller David to defeat the little man. In Star Wars the small rebellion fires one small torpedo into the giant Death Star to blow it up and end the tyrannical super weapon of the Empire. It’s all the same stuff.
But in Episodes 1 through 3, known as the Prequels, the story is all about the rise of that Empire to power. Those films are about how the good guys, stuck in a static pattern of their own, failed to see the evil of Senator Palpatine who would become Emperor of the growing Empire in his power grabs which occurred right under the noses of the well respected Jedi.
The Jedi Council with all their wisdom and sage-like understanding rooted in thousands of years of defending the Old Republic from aggressive enemies, with the ability to even read the minds of people, could not see the actions of Senator Palpatine who had befriended the Jedi Council and used that relationship against the Jedi to hide his true intentions; the destruction of the Republic and the creation of an Empire of which he would lead.
Lucas knew from experience that the public would reject the Star Wars films if he started with the collapse of a static pattern looked after by the socially good and the evil dynamic was the actual protagonist, Star Wars would not have been so accepted and loved, so he began his story with the collapse of an evil static pattern to be replaced with a dynamic good pattern. Once he had a captive audience hungry for more, he had a portion of society who was prepared to hear his message. This is the message he tried to tell in films like Apocalypse Now, and American Graffiti as well, but never quite hit the mark until he moved the story to Star Wars, a world of his own making to create the tapestry in which to tell such a complex tale that worked at many psychological levels.
Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinborough , had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior.
“The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
1. From bondage to spiritual faith; 2. From spiritual faith to great courage; 3. From courage to liberty; 4. From liberty to abundance; 5. From abundance to complacency; 6. From complacency to apathy; 7. From apathy to dependence; 8. From dependence back into bondage.”
With the tragedy of 9/11 occupying almost every broadcast and social event of the weekend, the common theme which came to my mind was that I felt that the tragedy of 9/11, as terrible as it was, fails in comparison to attending a memorial service for your own country while it still lives.
As the NFL did its tribute, and the firefighters climbed to the psychological heap to lift the flag high about their heads, I thought of the unions behind those firefighters, concoctions of socialism hidden behind a mask of American Pride and I could only shake my head. “They don’t even know what they are,”I would think to myself in disgust. They have no concept of history. Their rituals are only a few generations deep and keep them stuck into a ritual that reminds them of the greatest defeat inflicted on American soil, an attack that went far deeper than buildings falling in the financial district of New York City, or even the terrible deaths which occurred there. The tragedy of the 9/11 attack is that it forced America to change, to become too introspective, and to meditate on the tragedy itself in a vain attempt at recollection.
I looked at the guy shifting gears, because the memorial event was touching and my mind was on it. “Yes, that’s right. I am that guy.”
“Well, I want to tell you, I grew up with firefighters, I’m friends with firefighters, and I stand with firefighters.”
I looked out the window as he spoke and looked at the long lines of firefighters gathered around their trucks and a group of motorcycles all propping up the American Flag from the backs, the riders showing AFL-CIO stickers on their windshields and fenders. “So because you grew up with them you have to think like them?”
The man looked at me with a challenging gaze. “I’m not looking to dispute you with a bunch of ‘fancy’ words. I just want you to know where I stand.”
The firefighters at the service I was at, along with all the armed forces personnel gave me the same feeling that I thought watching the start of all the NFL games, that the memorial we were all attending was not one for 9/11, it was for ourselves. And the events which led to that death was an elusive quality that nobody even saw coming. It is like a death by cancer as opposed to a gruesome death by a visible enemy on a remote battlefield. The death by cancer just eats you from the inside out and the death just happens quietly in a bed.
The men I was looking at were good people, but they are carrying within them something that is destroying their spirit without them even knowing it. It’s rotting them using their static patterns as camouflage. Many of them have no idea they even carry it within them, within their belief patterns which govern their lives.
On 9/11 the tragedy of The World Trade Center was just the needle which injected into the body of our American Culture a disease which would topple our society with apathy. For while we attend memorials and contemplate whether or not firefighters and police should be attached to communist philosophies in the form of labor unions, the enemy moves against us. It runs through the blood of our cultural bodies and is turning the elements of our body against itself, with the aim of destroying it.
The sad thing is, such as in the case of what that guy said to me, that he “stood with firefighters,” as though the prerequisite for supporting firefighters, teachers and police means you must support unionized labor. My question is, why can’t I support those public workers without supporting unionized labor, which is rooted in socialism? I wanted to tell that guy that, but he didn’t give me the chance. He walked off too quickly, and even if he didn’t it would have taken hours of conversation to even arrive at a place where his mind could accept what I was telling him. He is functioning from a static pattern that he spent over 40+ years forming, and that wasn’t going to change in an afternoon conversation with me.
As I watched the guy and his firefighter friends, I thought of the AIDS virus, how as HIV it attacks the immune system of the human body by disguising itself as a friend, then when it is near, it destroys the body’s ability to fight it off the virus, until it’s too late.
America has been infected, and the events of 9/11 has paralyzed America’s immune system and allowed the virus of our enemies to attack us, to overwhelm us, to turn friend against friend on a premise that was a virus to begin with.