Blood Drunk Apoligists: The Lost Fools of Modernism

I was on 700 WLW with Matt Patrick on August 10, 2011 indulged in the topic of whether or not Bert and Ernie of Sesame Street are in fact homosexuals. However, on a more serious note, the topic of the day was school levies and whether or not they should be passed or declined as a way to force change. Prior to my appearance Matt had received many callers that proclaimed passing a school levy is the “patriotic, and caring” thing to do if one loves their community. I argue the opposite.

Channel 9 News always in my opinion, does a fantastic job of covering topics. Brendan Keefe’s I-Team stories are great benefits to our city in the hard reporting that he does. However, and this is the nature of television versus talk radio, there isn’t much time to get into the heart of a matter, because attention is spent on the visual appeal of the stories. In an attempt to bring balance to the story of why schools are failing all over the state, Channel 9 is sitting down with various superintendents all over Cincinnati to put a face to the requests for more money. Channel 9 sat down with the new Fairfield superintendent to explore the topic of why funding was needed for his district.

As seen in that interview, the direction of the story took an emotional turn. It was never asked, why is Fairfield unable to balance its budget based on the current tax supply. It is often discussed that federal money is declining, and state money is also on a downward trend, especially in affluent school districts. So it is only natural that financial expectations must be scaled back, but that is not what’s happening.

I had an argument with family members and friends about a year ago, who are functioning along the same assumption as the school superintendents, the reporters, the teachers, the unions, the radical protestors in London, school board members, parents, protests in Greece and everywhere else, that the world will always continue on as they always believed it would, like their own educations ensured them of a continuity in social existence that was as solid as concrete. The foundations of everything they have been taught since childhood is at stake because their beliefs are failing!

One person who considers themselves “worldly” said to me, “manufacturing jobs are leaving America. That’s a fact. America has to serve “high tech” interests. We have to get used to the fact that our role is changing. We must start saving for our children’s college now, so they can compete in that marketplace!” His utterances were straight out of the union playbook. The talking points are the same everywhere, and predictable.

“But how can you save for something that the cost is raising at an insanely dramatic rate? Is college worth 50K per year? Should 4 years of college cost 200K? Should kids go into debt to go to college? Should public education that is preparing all these kids for college charge 9 to 10K per pupil to educate? Does public education need a teacher with a master’s degree to teach 1st, 2nd, or 3rd, grade? Can public education afford to pay all their teachers over 50K per year?

At this point in the conversation fury builds in the eyes of the apologists, for they do not have answers to these questions. In fact, they find themselves caught in their own dreamlike haze. “Without college a kid has no chance! If you don’t have a degree, you are doomed these days!”

“That’s what you’ve been told,” I’ll reply. “But businesses are learning the hard lesson, which over the past 20 years that a college educated person does not guarantee them a job ready employee. In fact, many young people are proving to not be mature enough to handle the rigors of life until their 30’s these days, and it is costing companies billions of dollars in lost productivity each year, to deal with the learning curve of these immature college graduates who lack common sense, because it has been “taught out of them,” during the education process.

I have a name for these types of people, the ones who argue the obvious; I call them “Blood Drunk Apologists.” The trouble with these types is that they have drunk the blood (metaphorically speaking) of left-wing education concepts and are under the spell of a social order designed to be everything to everybody. They started drinking this blood in their own education process so it is difficult for them to see the truth of the situation now as adults. They are under a kind of voodoo-like spell that prevents them from seeing the truth even when it is right in front of them, because they have built their entire lives around a preconceived notion regarding social structure.

I’ve always questioned education and the methods. When I was a younger guy I wanted to be an archeologist or an anthologist because my interests were in the “big picture” studies of civilization. But I was also interested in politics. I was also interested in other sciences. I was also interested in fiction and literature. I was also interested in fast cars. I was also interested in adventure and danger, and like I mentioned before I looked for jobs in my teens that allowed me to explore all those things at the same time. I read a lot, and it was in those books and the studies of civilization that I was insulated from the spell that was cast on the world around me. While I was reading heavily, the person who was arguing with me about the current state of education was walking around with his pants down around his ankles being paddled by his fraternity brothers in college. Others who have argued with me about this topic were stepping off a bus in boot camp and having their heads shaved and forced to do push-ups each time they answered a question wrong to their drill sergeant. These soldiers signed up for the military so they could qualify for the GI Bill, which would help them go to college, so they could grow up and get a good job!.

There are a lot of ways that people arrive at the pain of adulthood, where at some point they drink the blood of orthodoxy. It is usually brought about by pain, where the instigator of the pain is also the one who provides the relief from the pain, making the victim falsely trust their antagonist. By drinking the blood, they find the pain of life is eased.

Proudly I have advocated to those I care about that such a life of blood drinking is unnecessary, even foolish. Because all one has to do is study history, even passively to see the course of where their actions will take them. And this whole education situation is a major crisis in our country. Education is not the end all-fix all for society building. We have a whole culture of lost souls roaming around like they are under a voodoo daze, unable to think critically. And even if education did work well, it is simply too expensive. Cost controls must be put in place to reign in the out-of-control costs, because even if people determine for themselves that they do want to go to college, and do want to maintain the current direction of public education, the cost increases of 5% to 10% every year cannot continue. There isn’t money to pay for the financial expectations of education even if we taxed our citizens at 100% of their entire incomes, at some point; our society will hit that wall. Because only a very rich society can afford luxuries, and a society cannot be rich if everyone is going to school. Some people have to actually be in the trenches fighting to make something that can be sold to someone else for a profit, that’s the only way wealth is “created.”

Civilizations who forget that facts point to a right and wrong answer and pretentious arrogance that causes critical blindness find themselves extinct, and the face of the earth is a chronicle of such failures. Some of those societies fell so hard they aren’t even in our written records, but all had empires that were vast and complicated, only to be crushed by their own arrogance, because they were under the spell of the blood they had drunk all in the name of social comfort.

Debates such as this current one over education are as old as time itself on a social wheel that has spun repeated time and time again like the scratch on a turntable record. And the current direction is as predictable as a movie we’ve all seen the end of, and those who have drunk the blood and use it as sustenance are foolish enough to believe that somehow the ending of the movie will end differently because they are the current players. Such is the effect of the voodoo spell of Blood Drinking Apologists and their Ignorance of Doom.

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

The Wisdom of Darryl Parks: What congress and the senate don’t want you to know

It was nice to see that Gabbie Gifford was able to make a vote on the house floor for the epic vote on raising the debt ceiling, but in the back of my mind there was something wrong with the timing and ceremony of the whole affair. I didn’t want to admit it to myself, because I don’t want to believe that Congressman Gifford would participate in such a thing, but it seemed to me that Gifford’s return to the house was designed to take the edge off all the fighting that had been going on in congress about whether or not to raise the debt ceiling, and whether or not there would be “revenue” involved.

Such a thought actually makes me feel bad, to question the honesty of congress. I’m sure in her case she has probably wanted to come back for a while. But it was her friends in the house who probably “encouraged” her to return for this big vote in order to show “unity” to the American people. The games of politics are nasty and costly, but I think the treachery and manipulation that these people are capable of has been dramatically underestimated, and based on what I know now about their activities, I would not put it passed congress to attempt to use Gabby Gifford to help make the American people forget about how ugly business in government truly is. When I think such things I wonder if I’m the only one who sees it, that is until I hear Darryl Parks talk on 700 WLW every Saturday morning from 9 AM to 11. While all this government ugliness was unfolding over the weekend I was on my way to The Annie Oakley Festival and had the opportunity to listen to Darryl on my hour and a half trip to Darke County,Ohio. Darryl Parks thinks much the way I do about most things, so it was refreshing to hear him speak with incredible clarity about our nation’s problems as the summer sun began to heat up the day of that momentous broadcast. I think this particular broadcast was so good, and so historic that it deserved over an hour of transition over to podcast for the convenience of those who haven’t heard it, or to be listened to again for those who did hear it and want to listen again. So do yourself a favor and hit PLAY on the link below. Grab a snack and sit back and listen with the clarity of hindsight, now that the crisis has been averted for the moment, and marvel at the wisdom of Darryl Parks.

Politicians have been a joke for a number of years and culturally we have dismissed them as irrelevant aspects of our lives. Seldom if ever whether it be a Looney Toons cartoon from the 30’s and 40’s, or a film, television show, or novel, is a politician portrayed in a trustworthy manner. It is universally accepted that as a group, politicians are deceitful, life-sucking aspects of our society who have virtually no benefit to our culture. They make rules that we all have to live by, and they make decisions that cost us money. Yet we listen to the same speeches every election cycle and hope that somehow things will be different with the next politician. Then we act surprised when we find out that politicians have enriched themselves greatly while working in public office. This is the gist of what Darryl was talking about, how can a politician like Mitch McConnell get rich as a politician? Or how does Barack Obama becomes a millionaire between the years of 2004 to 2008 while he was just another senator? The answer is they are making deals, and benefiting from insider trading, many of the conditions they create legislation to help along, a practice that should be illegal, but isn’t because it is the law makers committing the crime who would have to create the law.

Many politicians I believe start their public careers with good intentions, where they really want to help. But the money and power available to them is just too lucrative and they quickly turn to corruption for that age-old pursuit of financial security. There are always exceptions of course, but as a general rule in a governmental body that depends on majority rule, if a majority is corrupt, then the body itself is also corrupt, and that is the case with our general government.

I listened carefully to the complaints of politicians on both sides of the political spectrum as the debt ceiling issue came to a close. They are grossly out of touch insisting on even more money to support a political system that is obviously full of thieves. Those thieves don’t consider themselves looters of course, because they are the law. They see themselves as citizens who deserve the highest respect for their service to their country, but by their actions they are simple thieves, seeking for themselves plunder at the expense of the people they represent no different from a pirate.

You can learn a lot by watching people under duress, and America learned a lot about its politicians as the debt crises unfolded. The demand for more “revenue,” a term used to disguise the real meaning which is “taxes,” from the voting population as a way to manipulate the situation to their advantage from a public guilty of trusting them, rang out from many politicians like drug addicts crying for another hit of “speed.”

The level of corruption and financial addiction has shocked even me, a long time big government skeptic. I did not know it was this bad, I simply suspected as much. But the proof is there for all of us to see. We have a big problem in America. We have to rethink the whole political process and the kind of people we want to fill those seats.

We know the enormity of the problem because the vote that just occurred over the debt ceiling increase amounts to nothing. It solves no problems, it still allows government to spend more than it takes in, and the solution of these parasites is just to send more money to them to cover the gaps. Yet there is praise among the thieves and much back slapping going on for all those law makers are proud of themselves and they cheered in unison when Gabby Gifford came to the chamber and changed the story in the media from a “combative congress finally passes a vote,” to “Congressman Gifford cast her first vote since her tragic accident.” And the nation looked at the image of Mrs. Gifford waving her hand to the crowd, collectively all the fights of the last week dropped away from the memory of voters in favor of the more pleasant story of Gabby Gifford’s amazing recovery.

While all this was going on the thieves took a deep breath of relief as the media attention focused on the recovering congressman and allowed them to scurry away to the cracks they all hide in to figure out some way to spin the situation to their advantage, and attack those darn “tea baggers,” “talk radio hosts,” and “TV personalities” who are telling the public all about the scam they have been employing for decades.

Yet the whole structure is supported by the “revenue” that Americans give those thieves, so we are guilty of subsidizing criminal activity knowingly. After this episode and the information available to the American public if they allow it to continue, they are guilty of a real crime, not one created by corrupt law making politicians, but one of the moral code of the human race, where we are supposed to treat each other fairly, and with honesty and not with the heart of a predator in favor of a life of respect and valor. Because if that’s the case, then all those corrupt politicians are accurate representatives of the demons which reside inside each and every voter, which makes us all guilty in the eyes of the universe.

Thank goodness people like Darryl Parks gets it…………what’s wrong with everyone else?

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

Sleeping with a Sleazy Salesman: The Path of the Obama Presidency

On July 29th 2011 President Obama said “I don’t know why the Republicans in the House are voting for their own bill, it doesn’t have a shot at becoming law. We need to reach a consensus as a nation.” That statement is the reason for this post. What Obama is really saying is “play our way, or not at all.” The Democrats have been very resistant to doing the right thing also, but are misleading the nation with this game, that America can no longer afford. Be sure to watch every video of this one as well as read the text and take your time. This is a history lesson from our recent past that must be remembered right now. Now, let’s study the pattern of behavior which indicates what the true intention of this game really is about for the current President of the United States.

Like many of us, Jim Garvin is trying to understand the most recent comments of President Obama about the debt ceiling. As I watched the video below I felt for Mr. Gavin, because he represents most of America right now. The bewildered look on their faces is one of betrayal, of being lied to. Most of America knows they are being lied to by politicians from one side or the other. What they don’t know is who to blame, how to determine who is lying, and what to do about it.

What Obama and the political class have done with the federal budget is evident in this video. This spending behavior has been going on for a very long time, and represents a sickness in American politics. It is not appropriate to justify this behavior as “it’s just politics.” The American people have this dangerous tendency to deduct from their overall income what they pay in taxes. If they don’t see the money come out of their wallet, if that money is already gone before they even get their pay check, then they have a tendency to not even care what happens to that money. It’s as if their frustration in not having control of how their money is spent; they remove the thought from their minds completely, which politicians are well aware of.

I once knew a black salesman who reminds me a lot of President Obama. In fact, I’d dare say we have all known someone who considers themselves a “slick” talker who can sell anything to anybody and talk a woman out of her panties without them even being aware of it. I once watched this happen when I went for a drink with this guy and watched him work the bar, “Hey baby, what’s happening you sweet thing.”

I watched and listened and rolled my eyes. What woman would ever fall for a line like that? Anyone could tell that this dude was a creepy guy, right?

The salesman slept with that girl about 15 minutes after he met her, and when I spoke to the salesman about it I asked him how he could do it, how he could have sex with that girl, leave her with a fake phone number after he did the deed, then go back home to his wife and have sex with her in the same night, then come back to brag about it at work the next day?

He was a tall, lanky guy who moved almost identical to Barrack Obama. “Do what my brother,” he said to me using his pinky equipped with a gold ring to scratch his forehead. “I did that little girl a favor. Women love what I got’s to give em’ and if I’d given her my real number she’d be callin’ for more. And I can’t have that. She was lucky she got it once.” He noticed the distress on my face so he added, “Dude, listen. Fu**ing chicks is like selling to customers. You have to convince them that what you are giving them is what they need. And by the time they realize they don’t need what you want to give them, it’s too late, because they’ve either given you the money already, or they’ve given you a piece of ass.”

“But don’t you feel guilty taking advantage of them?” I asked.
“My man,” He said. “That’s cute, that you think people should feel guilty about making money, or fu**ing women. If you want a clean conscience, then take it from me, you will die a poor man looking for your next piece of ass.”

I didn’t dislike that salesman, I learned a lot from him. I learned everything I didn’t want to be. So it isn’t some psychological impairment that makes me think of this salesman every time I hear President Obama talk. It’s just that Obama uses the same kind of manipulation that the salesman uses. It may not be for the purpose of having sex with women, but rather to get people to buy what he’s selling. For this kind of salesman, outright lies are normal. In fact, they are so normal that they can even lie to themselves. When Obama sat down with Google to give a town hall type of speech during his campaign in 2008 it reveals a lot about Obama.

In the clip below with Google, Obama talks about patriotism in a way to cover his true intentions and disarm the client, which is the audience. Just like the con artist who wishes to conceal his dishonesty he cleverly uses gifts to keep people focused on the topics he chooses. For this particular crowd, it is discussions of technology. Obama guarantees every home in America will get broadband access under his future administration, and that his administration will stand up to the light of day by putting ear marks and bills online for all to see. He also talks about saving the planet with green jobs which is appealing to progressives naturally, even if it’s impractical and warped with idealism. When I watched this speech I thought of my old salesman friend who might say, “baby, I’ll by you a diamond necklace if you’ll suck my big **** out in my Cadillac outside.” The girl hears, “Cadillac” so maybe this guy has money. She hears “diamond necklace,” so maybe she can steal this guy away from his present woman. And sucking on something appeals to a natural biological urge many women have and gives them an illusion of control over a man because such an act is an act of trust, since the genitals of a man is the most delicate part of his body. The same types of buzz words are used in this interview, except it’s not sex that is for trade.

Unfortunately for such con artists sometimes they get caught in the lies they tell and this is the case where Harry Reid and President Obama had spoken against the increase of the dept ceiling in 2006. Reid explained that it was only because he was playing politics and it was wrong, so now in 2011, he’s right and everyone should buy into a debt ceiling increase. Obama had perhaps the worst statement. He said that his perspective as a senator was basically not as enlightened as that of the President, where more aspects of the economy must be considered. Without question in some future speech Obama will say that the President of the United Nations must consider the entire world, and not just the affairs of the United States, which is a job he is openly campaigning for.

On occasion there have been people like Mr. Gavin who recognize that something is wrong and they’ve questioned Obama. Such was the case with Joe the Plumber during the 2008 campaign. All the guy did was ask a question and Obama talked the situation into a 5 minute speech trying to justify the scam. Obama would have done better to give a short answer and move to the next topic, because it made Joe the Plumber a celebrity, which the left then proceeded to destroy Joe’s character any way they could. But it was Obama who made the mistake in this exchange. He knew that Joe was seeing through his campaign rhetoric and Obama, the salesman wanted to see if he could overcome Joe’s opposition. When words failed, Obama became very touchy openly putting his hand on the shoulder and arm of Joe the Plumber. This is very similar to a man who has been confronted by a scorned woman and uses touching to take the edge off the woman’s anger, knowing that touching helps psychologically break down the barriers of mental resistance to an idea.

With many of the positions Obama has taken, Muslim radicals seem to have gotten a free pass under his administration. He behaves very strange for a guy who claims that he’s a Christian. The trouble with a man who claims he’s a Christian and not a Muslim is that in politics it is calculated that a Muslim could not be elected, because people are tense over the aggression of many fundamentalists.

Christianity has been attacked by the Obama administration mysteriously. So if Obama is pretending to be a Christian when he is in fact a Muslim then he is deliberately misleading the pubic for political gain. And if he is willing to do that, what else is he willing to mislead the public on? That is the trouble. A man should be willing and able to stand on what they believe, not what they think people want them to believe. Such people are no different from people like that salesman who lie about how much money they have to sleep with a woman. They will say anything to get into the woman’s pants. But even the best of them get caught in their own lies. Here Obama lets it slip that he’s a Muslim then corrects himself to being Christian. Was it an accident? (More on this later)

In this next clip Obama continues to ridicule Christian faith. For a guy who again claims he’s a Christian, he seems pretty angry about it. I mean I personally don’t care if he’s a Muslim, or an Alien from some other planet. My concern is why does he feel he must hide it? Why be misleading?

Glenn Beck shows the Michelle Obama clip where she stated this was the first time she was proud of America. I personally can’t ever recall any upper level politician saying something like this. To me, this clip reveals much of what type of conversations go on at the Obama dinner table, when the cameras aren’t running. Michelle, at the time being inexperienced at deceit in politics spoke her mind, and has since learned to put a softer edge on what she say’s publicly.

To know who Obama is you have to watch all his speeches, not just the ones where he attempts to appeal to all of America, the people like Mr. Gavin. Here is Obama among his people at the Campus Progress meet talking about alternative fuels. Campus Progress is a progressive organization designed to build a progressive political base which is in direct competition against people like me, who are American traditionalists. Progressives hope to erode the effectiveness of traditionalists by appealing to the naivety of young people hungry to rebel from their parents. The trouble with progressives is they attempt to undermine American Politics with a Trojan Horse mentality, by breaking through the barriers of American’s defenses and destroying that opposition from behind those defenses. That’s alarming because Progressives know that their ideas cannot compete directly with traditionalists so they seek the subversive route. Here Obama congratulates the creation of Progressive Leadership and the role of young people in the future.

Knowing that traditionalists will reject much of what Obama is trying to implement, he seeks to appeal to young people by admitting that he smoked marijuana, a lot. When Obama says that he is angry that Washington plays politics, and nothing gets done because of the grid lock, remember that the only reason Obama made this statement is that he was tapping into the same political demographic exploited by Bill Clinton when he played a saxophone on MTV. It’s all about politics.

I hate to bring it up because the relationship that President Obama has or had with Bill Ayers cannot be ignored even though a discussion about that relationship is as contentious as talking about the birth certificate issue. For those who don’t know who Bill Ayers is listen to him talk about his life in The Weather Underground. Obama launched his political career with Bill Ayers as a supporter in the living room of The Weather Underground leaders.

Here is a video with radio interviews of Bill Ayers where his life parallels Barack Obama’s rise to fame. Bill Ayers is a very manipulative and radical hater of the American way of life. He has demonstrated the extent of just what he is willing to do against the American Government. He is an open enemy to all things American, and the government knows it and has known for years exactly where he is at all times yet he’s been free to continue his radical movements with other methods instead of the radical violence of his early years. He’s a retired professor at the University of Chicago. In a new edition of the Bill Ayers memoirs called, Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Anti-War-Activist, he added a new afterword about Barack Obama describing the blogospheric characterization of their relationship as “neighbors and family friends” (“In 2008 there was a lot of chatter on the blogosphere about my relationship with Barack Obama: we had served together on the board of a foundation, knew one another as neighbors and family friends, held an initial fundraiser at my house, where I’d made a small donation to his earliest political campaign.”).

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ayers

Obama tried to back off the Ayers connection, but the evidence was just too overwhelming. Now this video isn’t from Fox News, it’s by CNN. Ayers is a man who is willing to do anything to accomplish his objective. When he and his wife bragged about the rise of Barack Obama as a political power in Chicago politics there is no question that Ayers at some point told Obama, “They’ll harass you for knowing me. That’s OK. It’s worth it to have one of our kind in The White House. When they ask don’t feel bad in denying you know me. I’ll understand.”

One last warning about Barack Obama, a look into his past, this video was done in 2008, well before Glenn Beck. Tony Rezko was a major fund-raiser for Barack Obama. Rezko and several others were indicted on federal charges in October 2006, for using their connections to the state boards to demand kickbacks from businesses that wanted to do business with the state. While the others pleaded guilty to the charges, Rezko pleaded not guilty and was found guilty of 16 of the 24 charges filed against him. Rezko also worked with Rod Blagojevich who was just convicted this year in late June of 17 counts of wire fraud, attempted extortion, bribery, conspiracy to commit extortion, and conspiracy to commit bribery, as well as trying to sell President Obama’s former Senate seat in exchange for political favors. This is the circle of associates around President Obama. All these people have displayed the ability to look straight into a camera and lie about their innocence or provide misleading information.

Source article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Rezko

I’ve said a lot on these pages about looters, people who primarily look at public service positions as a way to enrich themselves off tax money. Look at how Michelle Obama and her husband behaved before he became President of the United States. This is how Obama got some of his money that he is so proud of when he state, “people like me are willing to give back some.” Obama has been bragging about his wealth even as far back as the Joe the Plumber question, which I didn’t realize until I just recently looked at it again.

Obama has shown that he will lie, especially in politics. There is no question that he will and has been caught many times as shown above. Listen to him in this CNN investigation.

When you listen to Obama speak about the budget below look at his record. Here he lies 7 times in a 2 minute speech.

Being Muslim is not a problem, as discussed. But lying about it so that a person can get elected is a big problem. Here is convincing evidence that Obama is a Muslim which is proof that the man will lie about a seemingly insignificant issue. So what does anybody think he’d do over a really big issue?

The reason this whole Muslim issue is relevant can be shown from this statement about the condition of the flag and the Muslim faith as told to Dale Lindsborg ‘s Meet the Press from Sunday’s 07 Sept. 2008, 11:48:04 EST, Televised broadcast. The then Senator Obama was asked about his stance on the American Flag.

I had forgotten about this whole issue until a friend of mine reminded me of it after reading other stories I have stated about President Obama and his position over this recent budget battle. The text below is quite startling.

General Bill Ginn, USAF (ret.), asked Obama to explain why he doesn’t follow protocol when the National Anthem is played.

The General stated to Obama that according to the United States Code, Title 36, Chapter 10, Sec. 171…

During rendition of the national anthem, when the flag is displayed, all present (except those in uniform) are expected to stand at attention, facing the flag, with the right hand over the heart. Or, at the very least, “Stand and Face It”.

‘Senator’ Obama replied:

“As I’ve said about the flag pin, I don’t want to be perceived as taking sides….” “There are a lot of people in the world to whom the American flag is a symbol of oppression….” “The anthem itself conveys a war-like message. You know, the bombs bursting in air, and all that sort of thing.”

Obama continued:, “The National Anthem should be ‘swapped’ for something less parochial and less bellicose. I like the song ‘I’d Like To Teach the World To Sing.’ If that were our anthem, then I might salute it. In my opinion, we should consider reinventing our National Anthem as well as ‘redesign’ our Flag to better offer our enemies hope and love. It’s my intention, if elected, to disarm America to the level of acceptance to our Middle East Brethren. If we, as a Nation of waring people, conduct ourselves like the nations of Islam, where peace prevails – – – perhaps a state or period of mutual accord could exist between our governments ……”

“When I become President, I will seek a pact of agreement to end hostilities between those who have been at war or in a state of enmity, and a freedom from disquieting oppressive thoughts . We as a Nation, have placed upon the nations of Islam, an unfair injustice, which is WHY my wife disrespects the Flag, and she and I have attended several flag burning ceremonies in the past.”

“Of course now, I have found myself about to become the President of the United States and I have put my hatred aside. I will use my power to bring CHANGE to this Nation, and offer the people a new path. My wife and I look forward to becoming our Country’s First black Family. Indeed, CHANGE is about to overwhelm the United States of America.”

Dale Lindsborg, Washington Post

This compelling story brings us to one central question, addressed by Mr.Garvin in the start of this article outlining the behavior pattern of one of the most subversive American Presidents in our history. This President was launched into politics by radicals and crooks. He is a public sector looter as defined by the work of philosophy Atlas Shrugged and gained his wealth in that fashion. He has shown that he will lie about his religion. He will lie about his associations. And he will be misleading about his true political intentions.

Just like the salesman who had slept with the girl, without question the girl felt used when she attempted to call the number and found out the smooth talking salesman had lied to her and even given a false number. She had believed everything the man had said because she wanted to. She wanted to believe that there were people who actually told the truth, especially when they spoke so wonderfully, and were pleasant to look at. Normal average everyday people like the woman in the bar, and millions of Americans of all different political affiliations want to believe that there is good in people, especially attractive people.

Sailors have told stories for generations about sirens that used their songs of seduction and elliptical attractiveness to lure those men to their deaths with enchantment upon the hidden rocks disguised below the surface. But it’s not just beautiful women who perform this seduction. Sometimes it’s fast talking salesman with gold rings. Its governors, mobsters, and senators, who use public office to enrich themselves, its radical reformers who hate America and launch a fellow board member into a path to the presidency from his living room, or it’s the President himself, who has his eye on a prize most American’s can’t even conceive, because the audacity of the deception defies credibility. That deception is the end of America as we all know it and a prized position with the United Nations heading that organization toward global concerns.

Lies are not hard for those types, and in this budget battle the fight isn’t over fixing the budget, or even the debt limit. The fight is over our ability to fix it, because the intent is to collapse America as a world power. And the fear from thousands of radicals like Bill Ayers is that their 40 year strategy to end America under the smile of a good-looking, smooth talking President is in jeopardy, because it’s no longer just the radical right, the conspiracy theorists, the Fox News junkies who see the problem. It’s the average, every day people like Jim Garvin who have the look of who just fu**ed me! And why did I let them do it!

Many women have woke up to an empty pillow on the morning after a drunken binge. Now America is about to roll over and see that there is no head in that pillow, and that while we slept the man we brought home not only took advantage of our condition, but also stole all our money, and material goods and headed home to the object of their true desire, a marriage we did not know about until it was too late and we’ll only have ourselves to blame.

Rich Hoffman

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

Sheriff Jones, Spokesman for the S.B.5 Repeal: Speaks at the West Chester Tea Party????

Years of dealing with prison inmates prepared Sheriff Jones well as he faced a Tea Party crowd with his arms crossed, mustache pointed out to the multitude of more than 350 who deeply support his position on immigration reform, but were heart-broken with the knowledge that Jones was set to be an anti-S.B.5 spokesman. The controversial bill passed by Governor Kasich early in 2011 takes major steps into limiting the monopoly control of public sector unions against the tax payer, and the Sheriff being a public worker himself is against such reforms.

I went on 700 WLW with Doc Thompson July 20, 2011, the day after, to discuss the monumental event which felt more like a civil war where family member against family member were fighting it out from ideological differences and in this case only one side is right, and one side wants to keep the status quo to their benefit.

The West Chester Tea Party has a great group, and this was the first time I had been to one of their meetings which was held in the phenomenal Entertrainment Junction situated right of I-75 at the Taylorsville exit. Entertrainment Junction is one of the largest indoor train displays in the world and the entrance is a replication of Old West Chester and would be just as home at the Epcot Center in Disney World as it is in the heart of West Chester. Visually, it is one of the most visually spectacular venues to hold a Tea Party meeting that exists anywhere. So it didn’t take much to convince me to attend, since I look for excuses to be near model trains and displays of creativity which permeate from every orifice of this incredible venue which is the home of the West Chester Tea Party on a regular basis. The tipping point for me was the Sheriff himself.

Sheriff Jones worked with a group of us from the Liberty Twp Tea Party on a video that we did about immigration reform. You can see that video below. I’ve seen the Sheriff on several occasions since then and respect him for his love to fight, because we share that love. But he’s been on the opposite side of arguments with the Tea Party before, so this S.B.5 issue isn’t the first. During the winter of 2011 he was pushing for a sales tax increase in Butler County that I and other members of the Tea Party resisted him on. You can read that article here: CLICK.

But this event was different, because Sheriff Jones represents exactly what the problems are in reforming government to a smaller, more accountable organization. He epitomizes the best of what the public employee has to offer, so the opponents of S.B.5, which includes Progress Ohio, the exact opposite type of organization as that from the Tea Party is using the Sheriff and his reputation to hide their malicious intentions with budget breaking government expansion. So that makes Sheriff Jones the enemy to reform which hurts.

But that didn’t stop many of my friends, all readers of this forum, some I had met, some I had met for the first time in person at this venue, from coming to this meeting ready for a fight. My friends are at all different levels of political involvement, and it was fun for me to be near so many of them in one place. As my wife and I parked our motorcycle when we arrived, we were instantly hit up by a couple of them who had their cars decorated with symbols of FREEDOM. There was no shyness in these people, as they were poised for battle not with guns and bayonets, but hand-made signs, T-shirts, bumper stickers, and books, which are in many ways more powerful than actual weapons. Knowledge is power! I barely put my kickstand down before I found an armful of patriotic T-shirts and reading material that will find their way into future posts on these pages.

The deeper I proceeded into Entertrainment Junction toward the meeting, the more it felt like a family reunion from Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom. I knew I had a lot of readers, but I had been assuming that many of them were people angry with me. As I signed in, I realized how much this web forum had grown, and I had a new idea of just how many people are reading it everyday, which I take as an extreme compliment. I started this site not to represent any particular Tea Party group, or any group of any kind. I wanted it to be the purest voice I could offer, without money involved to corrupt it, to feed the many Tea Party’s and others out there who want information that the newspapers won’t or can’t cover. So I was very enchanted to find so many people wanting to shake my hand and tell me how much this forum means to them. As I took a seat in the front of the room, I was surrounded by over a dozen direct fans and many others that I had just had the pleasure of putting a face to. Two of my friends, (two crazy women) took a seat on the opposite side of me from my wife and were very vocal during the meeting, especially with Sheriff Jones.

Cyd is a name that contributes frequent comments to Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom, and had never met Sheriff Jones before when she walked up before the event began and said, “Hi, I’m Cyd, and we are going to kick your ass on S.B.5.”

The Sheriff being well-trained at threats and opposition looked at her for a moment calculating the best response. “Go ahead and kick it,” he said. “We’ll see.”

In the middle of the large conference room were hundreds of seats surrounded in every direction by model train displays. I couldn’t help but be impressed. As the meeting progressed and it was time for Jones to speak he stated his position on immigration reform, which is a no-brainer with a group like this. Then he spoke about S.B.5.

“I know everyone in this room is probably for Senate Bill 5,” Jones said, over his crossed arms, feet positioned confidently to match the width of his shoulders, projecting a willingness to fight anyone who cared to challenge him, which I’m sure was the intended effect. “My wife doesn’t agree with 100% of what I say, so you guys aren’t any different.” With that statement the Sheriff had skillfully taken the edge off an otherwise hostile crowd. The women on my right, Cyd and her best buddy Jorjann were very rambunctious standing up at times to cheer or protest what they were hearing.

After the Sheriff’s speech he took questions which I was one of the first in the form of an open debate. I expressed my mixed feelings about him and Bill Cunningham and how they had wanted change, but are now resisting change because they think the change was too much? I said I thought they’d be the first to stand behind a hard-nosed governor who made a tough clear-cut decision that was knowingly unpopular but much-needed for the necessary reforms in government. I also said to him that I thought it was unfortunate that he was being used by organized labor as a spokesman to hide all the terrible situations in the state teachers unions that are the real target of S.B.5.

His response was that he could only speak for himself, and he stated that whatever his budget is, he lives with. If he has too many officers, he lays them off, but he meets his budget.

This prompted another question from another friend of mine, who stated, “Sheriff, it is obvious that you are the exception to the rule, but the rule is that many do not operate as you do, especially in education. They do not make the hard decisions that you make and this is why we need S.B.5, to protect us from cost overruns by governments less skilled than you.”

This appealed to Sheriff Jones and he took that more as a complement and didn’t dispute the fact. All he could really say in response is, “I’m just the Sheriff.”

There were many other questions along those lines with similar answers. But for me the climax of the evening came from a teacher who stood proudly and proclaimed, “Sheriff, something must be done. I am forced by my union to pay dues to things I do not support. I must watch as principals and administrators who are corrupt get away with excessive dishonesty and we all know it. The teachers union is all about power and I want out of it. What am I to do?” She went on for quite some time like that and the room had grown so quiet that a spider crawling on the wall behind the Sheriff could almost be heard. The Sheriff really didn’t have anything to say to all that. “I’m just the Sheriff,” he offered.

At the end of the meeting everyone shook hands. “Good luck,” the Sheriff said to me as he stepped from the front to leave toward the back of the room. I believe he sincerely meant it. I think if he wasn’t a public employee himself responsible for many personal friends and family members who are in law enforcement; he’d be on the same side as I am. He is a victim of circumstance. But that still doesn’t change the fact that he’s on the “other” side on this issue and is unfortunately a figure that must be dealt with because of his proudly self-proclaimed, “BIG MOUTH.”

The teacher and I found each other after the meeting and had a long talk. “Thank you for your blog,” she said. “I read it everyday and I love it.”

That took me by surprise a bit. She went on to tell me stories about how she teaches her students about Atlas Shrugged, and Lord of the Rings, which left me wondering how many other teachers were out there just like this woman, caught in a terrible system, wanting to break out and excel….to be great, and to really teach their students things instead of some union enterprise dictating her stamina.

I asked her why so many teachers were willing to pack up on a bus and carry a sign against S.B.5. “They are scared to death,” she said.

“Of what,” I asked.

“Of the unions. Nobody wants to step forward, it’s very risky.”

In a nutshell she had just made the statement of why we need S.B.5. Sheriff Jones and those like him in the public sector are just protecting the status quo. They don’t want change because that change will be painful to them. But S.B.5 is needed for women like the brave teacher who stood up at a Tea Party meeting and proclaimed that change was needed, that she wanted to be free of the tyranny by a terrible union that is holding her back as an employee so that the average can flourish and the best can be suppressed. And her union dues are used to purchase political influence, against the teachers will, and she wants out of it.

S.B.5 will not only help tax payers control their local costs more effectively, but it will be the first step into freeing good teachers like the woman who spoke up in a model train filled room full of eager, heart-broken patriots, facing a Sheriff who is the spokesman for big labor and getting back the non-committal answer……..”I’m just the Sheriff.”

After the meeting some of my other friends, people who have been with me for a long time, back when we did the video with Sheriff Jones for the Liberty Twp Tea Party, invited my wife and I to Graeters to have some ice cream. We met them there as the sun set and heat storms dotted the horizon. We ate our ice cream outside on the patio by a cleaver looking fountain. My friends wanted updates on all my wife and I’s recent activities and we swapped stories as the wind picked up and cooled down a day that had been well over the 100’s in heat index during the day. Warm air was rapidly escaping into the emerging clouds building in the darkness above. I could smell rain building in those clouds but I didn’t care. As I finished my hot fudge sundae I thought about the Sheriff and how soon he’d be on TV, speaking against S.B.5 on spots already purchased by groups like Progress Ohio. The Sheriff would be speaking based on his limited experience as “Just the Sheriff.” But millions of voters would believe everything he said because they are too lazy to get the facts. Meanwhile, there are many thousands of teachers stuck in a bad system just like the woman who spoke, and I wondered if people would come to their rescue. Would they have the courage? Would they do the right thing?

The remainder of our friends left for the night leaving my wife and I to ride home in the sputtering rain on our motorcycle. My wife pushed her head against my back to prevent some of the heavy rain drops from pelting her, because at speeds over 40 MPH each strike of rain is like being jabbed with a needle. But for me, there is no place to hide, to tuck my head away for protection, which appeared to be the appropriate metaphor for what was happening. S.B.5 will be painful for many people. It will be painful for the public sector unions. It is painful for people like me who have to go against people who would otherwise be friends if not for their position on repealing the bill. But the right thing to do in protecting S.B.5, and that is for the benefit of all society, is to take the pain and trudge ahead, to not become distracted and crash with indecision.

As I pulled the motorcycle into the safety of our garage from the lightning filled skies and pouring rain, my wife and I were soaking wet, but happy to have arrived home intact. And the day after the election in November will bring a similar emotion even though the pain in getting there will be difficult. Because in the game of politics, the statement, “I’m just the sheriff,” means “we will not dispute facts, but argue emotion, in the pursuit of a political system that has been built by generations and it won’t end on my watch.” But it has to end now or later, and at some point in the very near future it will end whether we decide for ourselves to act, or circumstances force it upon us, because the rain clouds are forming and it will rain.

Rich Hoffman

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

Learning what a Republic is: The Continued Lessons of Star Wars

I could not help but notice at my favorite book store that many of the works that I used to only find online, are now in stock, on the shelf. Work by Thomas Paine, John Locke, and all the works of Ayn Rand are easy to find, and this is fantastic news because people are hungry for knowledge. The Federalist Papers are even now stocked on the shelf in abundance. Ten years ago it was only law students who bought copies of it, now it’s an older man in his upper 60’s as I watched him thumb through it’s pages prior to purchase.

Political discussion is often not just about the topics on the nightly news. Recently, a friend of mine gave me a copy of The Original Argument, which was endorsed by Glenn Beck as a way to explain in today’s language the meaning of The Federalist Papers. I enjoyed The Original Argument so much that I read it twice while on vacation recently, and it occurred to me that The Original Argument was not a rule book so to speak intended for lawyers, but it is a political philosophy that speaks a truth established by 4000 years of human history. It does not belong in the political science section in a book store, but in the philosophy section.

But as a friend of mine uttered in frustration the other day, “what are we to do about all this!” The frustration of thinking all their lives that everything was OK in the world, and that politicians were sleazy, but not considered downright evil, and finding out that in fact there are many things that have been going on that people are just learning about because they are reading again, can be very overwhelming. Catching up on 200 years of American history in the span of a year or two like many Tea Party enthusiast are doing can send a person to burn out quick. So it’s important that people remember to have fun along the way. It’s even better if people can learn while they are having fun. Fans of Glenn Beck will notice that Beck is an obvious Star Wars fan. It will also be noticed that there are a lot of Tea Party patriots who are increasingly creating Twitter accounts along the lines of “Jedi Patriot” and “Empire Fighter” in an obvious homage to Star Wars. In our modern age, Star Wars has become a form of modern philosophy, not just simply entertainment. Star Wars is a great way to think about all the things that are going on in the world around us, while also taking a vacation from the intensity of those revelations. After all, the film The Phantom Menace was not about a young boy who grew up and became Darth Vader. That is just one of the sub plots. The Phantom Menace was all about a senator who wants to be emperor, and he uses many people in obscure ways to create the circumstances that will allow him to grab power for himself. It’s all in good old-fashioned fun, but the sincerity behind The Phantom Menace is actually incredibly sophisticated, which is the genius of Star Wars.

The films of Star Wars consist of only 6 two-hour movies and that is what a majority of the fans think of when they hear the name of Star Wars. But for fans who wish to dig deeper, Star Wars tackles many of the problems of our modern times using the language of mythology and the latest entry to that mythology is the MMO computer game called The Old Republic due out later this year and it’s something my wife and I are looking very much forward to.

Glenn Beck uses Star Wars metaphors to explain many of the complicated topics of our day because Star Wars is the only work of art in modern times which attempts to tackle the complicated nature of human failure and evolution as a species. Star Wars is a basic tale of good and evil, but it goes much deeper. With over 100 books, the 6 movies, cartoons, video games, comic books, amusement park rides, Star Wars is a formidable aspect of modern culture which I’ve written about in detail at this article: CLICK HERE

What is even bolder within this Star Wars mythology is this whole new path the franchise is taking in exploring The Old Republic. There are now two novels and two videos games with the addition of the computer game being previewed here, which explores what life was like in The Old Republic which takes place over a thousand years before the events shown in the films most people are familiar with. The idea of the Sith, the villains in Star Wars is to explore the influence of evil and this is done not just in a spiritual way in these stories, but also in a political way. It is the first work of art that I can think of which has mass appeal that attempts to do anything like this. It does not limit itself as an examination of religious influence, or political study, but as an all-encompassing investigation through the story lines of what causes the rise and fall of civilizations.

I am a fan of the works of writers like Thomas Mann and his Magic Mountain, and Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West, and I will state in that context the collected works of Star Wars are every bit as sophisticated and meaningful. In Star Wars the entire galaxy is part of a republic. Not a democracy, but a republic. This is similar to what planet Earth is facing in whose political philosophy will emerge as the world shrinks, will it be a republic like what the United States has had so much success with, or will it be various degrees of socialism similar to what Europe and many eastern countries have experimented with.

The most important contribution is that in the galactic government of Star Wars, it’s a republic that is pursued, and provides an interesting model for how Earth should proceed. It is the Republic of the United States of America that should teach the rest of the world how to be a free people, produce their goods under the umbrella of capitalism, and interact with one another with respect under that accepted philosophy.

What gives me hope is that Star Wars is the best education device that young people have to counter what they are learning in public education, and politicians who crave socialism where the philosophy of a republic is not taught to them. It is entertainment that is providing the best education to society, and because of the popularity of Star Wars it is evidence that many people are learning about it.

Glenn Beck understands that Star Wars is a modern work of political philosophy and science. When people who love freedom want to know how America is supposed to function, books like The Original Argument are fantastic. But it cannot be disputed that free life will always stay within the confines of the United States borders. As the evidence of illegal immigration have shown, millions of people all over the world want to become a part of the Republic of the United States and we owe it to those people in America to help not just open our borders to them, but to expand the freedom we experience to those far reaches of the globe so that there can be a grand Republic of Earth. And to get an idea of how to do that, Star Wars is the best work of art available to help show how that process should look, and what type of hurdles will stand in the way, so that freedom can be experienced by anything that breathes world-wide.

So before going crazy, choking on all this information that has always been there, but is being re-discovered, it is good to have a device that can give your mind a vacation. For me, it’s a love of pirates, and Star Wars. Star Wars allows the mind to swell without limits without becoming lost in the fantasy. And I look very much forward to the age when the kids who are growing up with this expanded universe of Star Wars start to run the country, because that is a time when things will dramatically change for the better, because they will understand that America is a republic and not a democracy and the only hope the entire world has for freedom.

Rich Hoffman

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

S.B.5 IS UNDER ATTACK: Do you have the courage to keep it?

That video created a hail fire of anger among the public sector union class over the weekend because it was evidence to them that the side protecting Senate Bill 5 is able to muster up the support of high-profile national names too, like they have been doing. Unions hate competition!

The public union sector class, which is what we should call them, as they claim to be the entire middle class for voter identity, was able to gather 1.3 million signatures to repeal Senate Bill 5 after John Kasich signed the bill into law that went into effect on July 1^st 2011. It is because of S.B.5 that the OEA (Ohio Education Association) all over the state of Ohio scrambled to pass their teachers union contracts, so they would be grandfathered in when the bill became effective. The union knew that they needed to appeal to the masses if they hoped to successfully repeal the bill in the fall election by putting on a softer, more cooperative face. But even more important, they needed to protect their members from budget cuts before S.B.5 could be used against their tyrannical grip on local tax budgets. The effect of these contract negotiations placed districts like Lakota, which is the 7^th largest district in the state of Ohio into financial solvency again where before the contract negotiations the finances were grim.

That is just a sample of what S.B.5 as a bill will be able to do for the tax payer. The out of control costs that are currently at play in all government positions, especially teaching positions, can be managed finally by the local district. There is a lot more costs that must be managed which will continue to make school districts fiscally viable.

The same people against Senate Bill 5 are used to push environmental issues. Notice how it’s always about children. Progress Ohio, who has produced many videos like the Anti S.B.5 videos shown here is a progressive group which seeks to “progress” society into the progressive trends that we have been traveling down, and they are at the front of the labor movement politically. You can learn a lot about these types of people by studying what they think is important. The children are put in the front row used as props, and the topics are always emotional. This is why these people cannot be allowed to give themselves pay increases, which is what has been happening. They have no monetary discipline. It’s ok to hire people like this to be a park ranger, but they are an overly emotional group that exaggerate everything, and are not capable of firm business decisions. Anytime money is at play, business decisions must be firm, and understood.

Saturday I received this email from a friend of mine with thoughts about the upcoming Lakota levy, which even though the school board solved their immediate problems with the new contract is looking to cover the cost difference lost in state funding and federal allocations in the upcoming years, and they seek a tax increase instead of the options sent to me in the email by my friend.

_______________________________________________________________________

Rich,

I hope you are well. I continue to track the ridiculous actions of your district. What is not making sense is why deficit spending platform is not the main theme against a levy. In addition, there is no need for a levy, even under their current June assumptions until 2014. Therefore, there is more time to make them:

1. Updated and renegotiate health care and not continue to carry such egregious increases in assumptions upwards of 9.5%

2. Change the split of health coverage with employees

3. Remove pickups for employees

4. Remove administrators raises

5. Remove step raises

6. Look more closely at their revenue assumptions

a. 2010 the district collected over $75.6 million – 2011, they say they will only collect $71.4 million. Ask for a “BUDGET TO ACTUAL” NOW THAT YOU HAVE YEAR END TO SEE IF THEY UNDERSTATED REVENUES BY $5.1 MILLION.

b. If they understated revenue in 2011 by $5.1 million, you need to carry that forward for 5 years and you pick up $25 million in revenues

7. Benefits are not impacted at all, yet the community is suffering. That MAKES NO SENSE

My thoughts for your day. Let me know if I can help!

________________________________________________________

I have a lot of people who work in various education positions all over the state who send me information like this. They are frustrated with the way the system works and want to see changes made. This guy is one of them.

My response to him was that until school boards use S.B.5 to bring their costs down, the real costs such as what he assessed in his email to me, then this school tax levy game will continue. As of right now, the school board knows the unions will never go for removing step increases, taking real pay cuts to bring labor wages in line with the private sector, change the health care coverage, the union won’t agree to even one thing on his list, let alone all of them. That is why Ohio needed S.B.5, because collective bargaining has driven up public employee costs since 1983 to such an extent that now it is abusive to the tax payer, and has been for some time.

It is these same public sector unions who have tried to label John Kasich as a Wall Street Stooge, as though Wall Street were the ultimate evil in the world. And they of course hate Newt Gingrich who is a presidential candidate who has advocated unpopular big government warnings.

Many forget, because their memories are shallow that it was Newt and Kasich who balanced the budget in the 90’s in the Federal government which Bill Clinton reluctantly went along with. And these are the guys who are involved in solving Ohio’s budget problems which can be seen as a microcosm of the nation’s problems.

The public union, big government types know this and they have their own weapons they plan to use. Of those, is Bill Cunningham of 700 WLW who has for a long time considered himself a libertarian/conservative, but is mysteriously in favor of big public unions. Bill is the guy at the end of the above Kasich video shaking his hand. Cunningham seems to only advocate change so long as it doesn’t interfere with his income where his real allegiance appears to be his law practice, which of course employees many public employees who work hand in hand with public sector union employees every day and has made him personally wealthy. One of those is his own wife, who is a current judge in Cincinnati. Sheriff Jones of Butler County, who is my neighbor and a fellow Tea Party supporter over immigration reform, is one of the charismatic Republicans who the unions have targeted to help lead the march in repealing S.B.5 this fall. The TV spots are being planned for this as I write this article featuring all the great feats that your local police and firefighters are doing for your community, kissing babies, helping old ladies across the street, and why they need S.B.5 repealed.

Sheriff Jones is the same guy who has openly stated that he doesn’t understand where all the jobs in Hamilton have gone, as he marches to the FOP drum of union brotherhood. So economics is not his strongest topic, but using emotion to win elections is. After all, this is the same guy who wants to sue Mexico for all the illegal drugs coming into America. Here’s a hint Sheriff Jones, they left because union wages closed down Fisher Body in Hamilton, Norwood and other places. The union’s wages and benefits were just too steep to cover those costs, so they left. My grandfather worked there, and I know what kind of pension he had, and even when I was a little kid, I wondered who was paying for him and his friends when they were in retirement. It didn’t add up. In fact many people in my family were or are union people. And they are wrong to blindly follow union mandates just to protect their pay check. They’ve all been told.

The union strategy of course is they think people like Bill Cunningham, Bill Seitz, and Sheriff Jones who are Republicans with connections to Fox News can somehow offset swing voters into doubting the validity of S.B.5 into a repeal. What is forgotten is that these Republicans are the types who have built their lives around public sector service, so they do not have an objective opinion. To them politics as usual is the only politics there is.

To people like me, politics as usual is simply too expensive, and cannot endure. It is a shame that the police and firefighters unions have jumped in front of the teachers unions to shield them and muddy up the fight for reform, because it will also expose how bloated those services are in the dispute. Emotion will not win this battle, this time.

Listen to Glenn Beck explain the pension pyramid at about the 7 minute mark to understand the beginning of the problem. Glenn Beck is 100% right when he says that these problems can only be sustained for one generation. Politicians like Sheriff Jones and Bill Cunningham are part of that generation who voted for the whole thing, and it is difficult for them to admit to themselves that they brought us to this terrible crises. So they defend their mistakes just like a person caught in a lie tries to justify what they’ve done. But the facts are the facts.

There is no question with 1.3 million signatures public union membership has tipped the balance of power perilously close to ending what the American republic was founded on. When employees can vote themselves raises, which public sector unions have notoriously abused at the expense of the tax payer for years, even the big government President FDR himself cautioned us against it. President Kennedy was the man who through executive order, made public sector unions legal, which should have never been done.

Click here to read President Kennedy’s fatal error:

If you want to know the truth, of why these public sector unions want to maintain the status quo, all you have to do is follow the money.

Click here to see what West Chester police and firefighters make, which is within Butler County, Sheriff Jones’s territory and FOP brothers, to see what they are protecting…………………

…………..go ahead, you want to know the truth don’t you. CLICK HERE:

And Lakota, one of the largest schools in the state of Ohio also located in Butler County. Why do you think the OEA wants S.B.5 repealed? Go ahead, CLICK HERE:

It will take a very high voter turn out to protect Senate Bill 5. Nobody is asking anybody to take a rifle into a field and defend their liberty from tyranny……….not yet. You still have the opportunity to protect yourself from an ever-expanding government by simply showing up to vote. The unions will certainly show up, because their income which they get exclusively from the tax payer depends on it. So they will be there. It must be expected that they will have almost 2 million voters who will show up and cast a ballot in November. This is why it is dangerous to have too many government workers. When they outnumber the tax payers, they can enact policies on their own at tax payer expense. They can vote themselves raises, which is why they make so much money, and management is powerless to do anything about it, because Ohio Revised Code created under union lobby power has prevented management controls and driven up the costs.

So in November, If you don’t see through the smoke and mirrors and allow yourselves to be conned, you will not only be responsible for higher taxes which will come your way in order to pay for all these elaborate public employee salaries and pensions as the system collapses on itself, but you will have turned away from an opportunity to march toward the America as it was intended to be in favor of an American headed in the direction of Europe. And it will be your fault, because John Kasich along with the house and senate did exactly what they said they would do, and that is stare the problem in the eye and do the hard thing even when the status quo makes threats and harasses them.

Click Here to read about how the SEIU threatened Ohio Senators in a restaurant, to attempt to threaten them into not voting in favor of S.B.5. CLICK HERE!

They gave Ohio S.B.5. The question is now, as a tax payer, do you have the courage to keep it?

Rich Hoffman

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

Why Gordon Ramsey is Great: quality, honesty, tenacity and fun

One of my nicknames from people who deal with me professionally is the Hoffmanator. This name comes because most people don’t enjoy dealing with me when they are trying to pull something over my eyes or, they are having a difficult time meeting the production demands of whatever project we are working on. These tendencies of mine are well-known to my family. About a year ago my kids told me, “Dad, you should watch Gordon Ramsey on TV, you’d like him a lot!”

I sort of grumbled that most things on TV are a waste of time, and I have better things to do with my time than watch some chef cook a bunch of French cuisine. My impression of chef’s was that they were flakey, liberal, and socially worthless. However, my wife finally did get me to watch a few episodes of Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares and I’ll have to say, Gordon is my kind of guy!

For many of the reasons I have come to like Chef Ramsey can be seen in this interview.

Ramsey makes it a habit of going into a restaurant that is failing, and within a week identifying the weaknesses of the business and turning things around dramatically. It takes tremendous confidence to do this, and a unique ability to understand every aspect of a business which Gordon Ramsey excels at, and accounts for his meteoric rise to fame. He is uniquely talented, yet humbly approachable. Being one of the best in the world at what he does has not removed Ramsey from his working class roots. As seen in this next clip he is quick to cut to the chase and focus on the immediate faults that are holding back a restaurant from achieving success.

Gordon is primarily about quality. He is not afraid of hard work and despises people who take short cuts to avoid work. He is a relentless pursuer of quality as seen here where he shuts down a Mexican restaurant. His definition of quality is precisely what Robert Pirsig was conveying in the excellent book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The pursuit of something good cannot be achieved by those who scramble to hide themselves in the cover of the crowd, to live a mundane existence complacent to the world around them. Quality starts first with the mind and transcends to the actions of the individual. A person of poor quality in the mind will of course transfer all that into their daily actions. Since Gordon is a person of inner quality, it is easy for him to spot the faults of others who allow their inner faults to translate into material faults in the restaurant.

Ramsey because of his background, an abusive father who beat his mother regularly, a brother who fell to drug abuse, an athlete who almost made it pro, has the unique ability to have learned everything there is to know about food. He did not waste his life away on drugs, reckless pursuits, ego driven social status, he set out to be the best he could be, and as a result, he knows everything there is to know about his field of endeavor. He can sit down even when the cooks in the kitchen are trying to pull the wool over his eyes and immediately identify the troubles with their preparations.

In this next clip I can’t even report how many times I’ve had to do something just like this, even with people who “outrank” me, for the sake of saving whatever endeavor we’re working on. The human mind is a tricky playground, and the kinds of things that motivate people are infinite. However, a bully, a man of small inner value who seeks to redeem himself by forcing the submission of others to his rule is extremely common to varying degrees. In the case of this next clip the manager of a restaurant has allowed his own ego, his need to be in control, to get in the way of the needs of his business. To this man everyone but him is to blame, yet the ultimate problem, and all the employees know it, but are afraid to reveal it, is the bully himself…..the manager. Once Gordon learns this, he deals with it honestly.

We all know people who buy the fancy sports car to deal with male erectile dysfunction, hair loss, or whatever failing indicates a personal loss of testosterone or even personal pride. We all know the type of man who wishes he were a playboy, where women are falling all over him because he wants to be the “stud” of the herd, to live the life of Hugh Hefner, which is only an image. Such people often seek political office or ownership of stores and restaurants so they can achieve a respect that they believe will attract women to them. A dead give-away is a gold bracelet, or necklace, a hand with multiple rings on it, that kind of thing. Men like that are weak behind their flashy exterior. As a general rule, if they were happy with themselves, they wouldn’t be attempting to project a false image. There are millions of them out there, and it can be a terrible experience if you find you are the employee to a person like this.

Many times the person participating in this arrogant behavior isn’t aware of their fault. They live in a state of self-delusion where easy gold-digging women have helped them build that illusion. They often don’t have many quality people in their lives, because they push them away to maintain the illusion. That’s why when Gordon Ramsey spots it in someone; he tells them how it is. He doesn’t do it to hurt them personally, but to actually help them. People who are suffering under their own delusion need to hear it, for the sake and quality of their own lives. So Ramsey will oblige.

Ramsey has been so successful, because his unique combinations of first class knowledge and unpretentious demeanor have let millions of people into the world of culinary art. What is quite remarkable is that Ramsey has had his success in socialist countries such as England yet the principles of success do not care about political philosophy. Success only knows success. Ramsey has had so much success that he is doing multiple shows now. Here he is on Master Chief talking to another guy I like a lot and that was Albert.

I was really rooting for Albert on that show. I know a lot of Albert’s in the world and I like them very much. They are honest, do not hide what they are, and are wise because of their survival of hard living. Ramsey enjoys people like Albert too, but Albert was only a few dishes deep in creativity and to be true to the intent of the show, favoritism without results has no place.

Chef Ramsey is not some stuffy old elite. He’s an energetic boy who loves to play and have fun. He is an infinite source of energy that people find themselves drawn to. My thoughts on his success is that he has managed to find a market niche in a field that government doesn’t understand, so he has been able to apply free-market principles to restaurants. Nobody has gotten in his way because food is an industry that every human being on Earth enjoys, and other than safety regulations it has very little government interference. So the opposition to quality and creativity are not in place. I notice that the restaurant employees of America and in Europe are different. The American’s talk back a lot more. I would love to see a show where Ramsey comes up against the Culinary Union Local 226 in Las Vegas, where they refuse to do certain things he demands because of union rules. But refreshingly, in the culinary world, the kind of labor nonsense that we all have to deal with in public sector unions and other organizations are vacant, allowing people who are truly talented like Gordon Ramsey to excel.

I’m glad my wife and kids talked me into giving Ramsey a chance. I have more faith in television as a result, that everything on it is not some brain-dead monstrosity hell-bent on a progressive agenda. I’ll watch just about anything with Chef Ramsey in it these days. He has even given me an appreciation to what my wife does in the kitchen every day and night as I have been looking over her shoulder to study what ingredients she’s using in her own culinary masterpieces.

Ramsey does what any person of good quality should do, and that is selflessly improve the world around them with honesty, valor, sincerity, and innovation while enriching themselves with everything they can. As Gordon Ramsey improves on his $100 million dollar empire, he deserves every bit of it, because in his wake he builds the world up instead of tearing it down, and shows people how a simple thing such as food can improve the lives of people in every way possible.

Rich Hoffman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rich Hoffman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rich Hoffman

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

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

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

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


Open circuit	An incomplete electrical circuit
Orange book	The United Nations publication for classification and testing of dangerous goods
Oxidant	The component of an explosive that supplies oxygen for the reaction of the product
Palm burst	A color break with palm tree core
Parallel circuit	An electrical circuit in which the current is divided between several igniters. Less easy to test for breaks.
Paste	Commonly used to cover shells to enhance their burst
Pattern shell	A shell of fewer stars that creates a pattern rather than a sphere
Pellet	See Star
Peony shell	A shell whose stars do not leave any trails
PIC	Plastic Igniter cord
Pigeon	A specialized type of firework which travels to and fro along a horizontal rope
Piped match	Raw match enclosed in a paper or plastic tube
Pistil	The central core of a shell. Often a complimentary or contrasting colour to the main burst
Plug	See Bung
Portfire	A thin walled tube filled with slow burning composition used to light other fireworks
Propellant	Composition used to produce force e.g. A rocket motor

Punk	Slow burning lighter for small fireworks
Pyrotechnic	Generic term for any item which react in a self sustaining chemical reaction and generally produces a light effect. Pyrotechnic articles are different to fireworks and generally are used for stage and theatrical uses
Quickmatch	Raw match enclosed in a paper or plastic tube
Rack	Apparatus for firing rockets or mortar tubes
Rain	Shells containing long burning stars that fall all the way to the ground.
Raw match	Black powder coated thread used for linking fireworks
Repeater shell	Usually a cylinder shell with timed bursts at regular intervals
Ring shell	An aerial shell that produces symmetrical rings of stars often have a rope tail to control orientation of the break
Rising effect	Often a tail effect on a shell but can be external attachments to a shell that break off during the rise to create special effects
Rocket	Aerial effect propelled by a motor
Rocket cone	A device for firing flight rockets
Rocket motor	The power unit behind a rocket. Typically made by pressing black powder into a choked tube
Roman candle	A cardboard tube with a stack of timed comets or bombette units
Round shell	A shell in the form of a sphere usually containing colored stars
Safety area	The area around a fireworks display site between the spectators and fireworks. Not including a fall out zone
Salute	Report or loud bang
Saturn shell	A chrysanthemum break with an outer ring of a contrasting color
Saxon	A bar with centre pivot with drivers at either one or two ends which make the bar spin on a central point.
Screecher	A whistle unit with a hole through the centre. This increases the burn speed and therefore the sound
Sequence	The pattern in which fireworks are detonated in a display

Series circuit	A circuit arranged so the current runs through each igniter in turn. This enables and breaks to be detected
Serpent	A spinning tube used in candles and shells. Usually with a report unit
Set piece	A ground firework. Generally static
Shell	The most spectacular of fireworks propelled with a lifting charge from a mortar and a bursting charge that charge to a star composition in the air after a predetermined delay
Shell delay	See Delay fuse
Shell of shells	An aerial shell that contains smaller shells ignited when the main shell bursts and subsequently produces small secondary bursts
Short circuit	The accidental completion of a circuit which causes the current to not flow through the igniter
Shot	The single functioning of a roman candle or cake
Smoke	Air suspension of particles from incomplete combustion of a composition
Smokeless powder	A powder containing nitro-cellulose and nitro-glycerine as it does not produce much smoke
Spark	Typical effect caused by incandescent particles ejected form the surface of a burning composition
Sparkler	Wire coated with pyrotechnic composition that gives off small sparks
Spider shell	A shell containing a small number of large stars producing a symmetrical burst. Sometimes called octopus shells
Splitting comet	A comet with an internal charge of flash powder which when ignited splits the comet into several pieces.
Squib	Electric igniter
Star	A pressed unit of composition usually spheres or cylinders used in shells, mines, rockets and roman candles
Storage	The holding of fireworks prior to their use. Premises must be licensed for amounts above a certain quantity
Strobe	A pulsing on off star effect fired from candles and shells and ground based effects
Tail effect	A comet star secured to the outside of a shell to give a tail to the rising shell
Tiger tail shell	A shell made up of a solid ball of composition to produce a substantial tail effect. Sometimes with a small shell break
Titanium	A silver metal used in the production of maroons and grebes
Top fused	A shell where the shell delay is lit separately from the lifting charge. Often found in large Maltese shells
Tourbillion	See Serpent
Transportation	The process of consigning a load of fireworks. Subject to heavy legislative control
TREM card	Documentation required when transporting fireworks of any quantity. Transport emergency card. Provide information for emergency services
Trunk	A large tail unit often used on palm and willow shells

UN classification	The assignment of a packaged firework into the UN classes for fireworks
UN compatibility group	The G or S of 1.3G or 1.4S. The compatibility group indicated what a particular item may and not be transported with
UN Hazard code	See UN number
UN Mark	A complicated mark assigned to a particular packing box for dangerous goods
UN Number	A four-digit number assigned to hazardous goods. Explosives always start with a 0 e.g. 1.4G fireworks are UN 0336. Used to identify a dangerous item in the event of an emergency
Volley	A mass firing of rockets or shells
Water firework	Aquatic fireworks e.g. shells or water gerb
Water gerb	A floating gerb with a weight and cork float.
Water shell	See Aquatic shell
Waterfall	A curtain of coloured or silver sparks that falls vertically. Composition is made from an aluminum alloy
Weeping willow	See Willow shell
Wheel	A rotating piece attached to a post in the form of a saxon bar or wheel with driver units
Whistle	A tube containing composition of potassium benzoate and potassium silicate. On burning the composition creates oscillation in the tube and creates a whistle effect which is amplified in the tube
Whizzer	See Hummer
Willow shell	A shell containing charcoal based stars with a long burn time which often fall to the ground

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rich Hoffman

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

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