Category: Movie Review

The Lack of Courage Amoung Us: How much do you make and where does it rank?

How much do you make? Well, the Wall Street Journal has a link that will allow you to type in your household income and see where you rank among other people in America. Just click on that link to go to the WSJ calculator. (Keep in mind teachers at Lakota make $63K per year on average individually. And cops and firefighters in the same community are pretty close to that number as well)

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/10/19/what-percent-are-you/

It also allows you to understand how ridiculous the expectations of public employees are in relation to your own income.

Obviously we have a major cultural problem in this country, which is evident in the State of Ohio over Issue 2. Watching that video I can see clearly the cancerous effects of collectivism and the impact it’s had on the people who have participated in it. These are not the type of people who founded this country, pushed west in westward expansion, and built the foundations which became the greatest country on earth. These are people who have been taught to be parasites on self-reliance, and they are broken beyond repair. This is exceptionally evident in the below video where some union representatives declare they have saved the state billions of dollars in “givebacks” from their proposed contracts. The essences of what they are declaring as a givebacks are items in their contracts that they were promised, but did not collect on. This prompts us to study the nature of these “givebacks” without the distorted lens of organized labor.

In regard to the poll numbers on Issue 2 the difficulty is this, Democrats, who represent a form of collective philosophy anyway, are all together on this issue. They seldom ever have a thought of their own, so this isn’t surprising. Republicans fall into two categories, there are the firm fiscal and social conservatives like myself who are looking to the Tea Party as more representative of their core values, and you have conservatives who are fiscally conservative but socially liberal. Many of these types have used the Republican Party as a networking tool and didn’t have firm beliefs on too many matters to begin with, only when participating in political speak. Two of these types would be Bill Seitz and Bill Cunningham from Southern Ohio, both attorneys who served labor at some point in their careers yet spent much time declaring that someone do something bold in government. Yet that bold thing they never really contemplated, until Senate Bill 5 was passed into law and threatened their understanding of things. So people like this were the first to jump off the ship into that land of neutrality “Can’t we all get along? Can’t we just talk?”

I was at an event the other day where many politicians had gathered. All of them knew both Cunningham and Seitz and we had very animated discussions about them. I offered that I think these guys think public education is all about football scores. They think public education is all about the Friday Night Lights which brings the community together under the banner of sports. The thought of a teachers union doesn’t cross their mind. In Cunningham’s case, the PTA groups and Lakota coaches come into his sports bar in West Chester and ask him, “please support us. You are the only one. Our children’s lives are in jeopardy.” I have a good idea what kind of talk goes on because another sports bar within the Lakota district received the threat of a boycott from one of the principals at Lakota last year working through the PTA organization, which really scared the owner. So much so she came to the No Lakota Levy group for help. The PTA argument was “We will pull our business if you don’t support the Lakota Levy.” So there is no question that similar discussions have taken place with Bill Cunningham who is a businessman first and understands that such a fight would cost him. So it’s easier to just keep focused on those Friday Night Lights, ground everyone can relate with, and ignore all the real problems.

When I say that public employees make too much money, I say that based on what I am willing to pay for them. When listening to the speeches at the beginning of this article, the critical ingredient missing from that discussion is what is the value of these public employees and how much should they make?

Well in regard to West Chester police and firefighters I have shown on a spreadsheet where their problems are. They have police officers who make 70 to 80K per year just in salary, not to mention the other benefits, and that’s too much when you add 100 or 200 more employees to the mix. SEE FOR YOURSELF:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/indicted-west-chester-officer-made-70032-20-yet-the-apologists-think-thats-not-enough/

And the teachers in my community at the Lakota School System make an average of $63,000 per year just in salary. They occupy well over $120 million in budget compensation for just 2000 employees. SEE FOR YOURSELF:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/04/06/pay-rate-for-the-top-625-teachers-at-lakota-schools-yes-the-number-grew-much-larger/

Yet nobody wants to make the declaration that public employees have a value of X, and they certainly don’t have the courage to say what the value of X is. This is why the public employee sector budgets have exploded to where they make 43.4% more than everyone else. CLICK HERE TO READ HOW:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/public-workers-make-43-4-more-than-everyone-else-more-reasons-to-vote-yes-on-issue-2/

One of the reasons nobody wants to touch those numbers is because the radical labor union aspect of the whole business has artificially propped up the value of those workers to build in the cost of their union dues, because unions want to collect the PAC money and if their members aren’t well paid, they may not want to contribute the money. So to me, before we go forward with anything a value must be assessed on the public employee. We must know what a job is worth before we can spend money in a budget on those positions.

To get back to Bill Cunningham, who is a smart businessman, I am sure he would not appreciate all of his dishwashers “collectively bargaining” for a 2% increase every year. At some point in time, a dish washer is a dishwasher and gets paid the maximum level of money for that position. For a dishwasher that might be $14 to $15 dollars an hour. But to pay all dishwashers collectively the same would be ridiculous. Some of them would show more ambition than the others. Some might deserve a 5% increase where some might not deserve an increase at all. But a dishwasher who had been washing dishes for Cunningham over 15 to 20 years won’t be getting $20 to $30 an hour for washing dishes, because that would be above the market price for dishwashers. At some point a cap on what a dishwasher is worth must be established so a budget can be built around that value, and if Cunningham doesn’t establish that cost, he could run his business into the red, which would kill it shortly thereafter.

A teacher is not worth more than 65K per year. I think the budget range should be within the parameters of 45K to 65K. If a teacher thinks they are worth more, than they are free to shop themselves on the free market, but at Lakota I wouldn’t be willing to pay more. It doesn’t mean much to me that a teacher in elementary school has a master’s degree. That SRC which dictates that public teachers pursue a master’s degree is simply an effect of the union lobby in Columbus and means nothing to me. The goal of that provision was to drive up costs, which was foolish. If a teacher wants to get a master’s degree, have at it. Maybe they get a job over someone who doesn’t have one, but the cost of that degree should fall on the teacher, not the property owner.

Police and Firefighters are in much the same range. For a cop to drive around in a police car, I’m not willing to pay more than 65K, and that would be for a 20 year veteran. They might face danger in my community a few times a year, and they are paid for that danger. Firefighters the same, I’m willing to pay a good wage, but not an outrageous one. The way I see it, I could do much of the work they do myself with a volunteer group. Paying them to do the work keeps me from having to do it, but there is a limit and I’ve reached it.

It’s not just Lakota dealing with this situation. The reason we are fighting the tax levies in our community can be seen below. All schools in Ohio are facing this problem which was caused by not setting any limits on how much public employees make. Without Issue 2 giving employees the option to be in a union, or giving school boards the ability to give increases based on merit the collective bargaining situation is forcing these Montgomery County school districts into higher taxes to pay for their contracts. Below are the amounts residents will have to pay in additional property taxes to cover the ballooning salary costs in those districts. These deficits are projected to hit by 2015.

• Huber Heights City School District: $1,273
• Northmont City School District: $1,272
• Valley View Local School District: $1,266
• Oakwood City School District: $1,249
• Northridge Local School District: $881
• Vandalia-Butler City School District: $880
• Mad River Local School District: $869
• Kettering City School District: $862
• Dayton City School District: $387
• Trotwood-Madison City School District: $383
• Centerville City School District: $311

Source: http://www.betterohio.org/blog

Who thinks that the residents in those districts will receive equal pay compensation to offset the cost to their personal budgets? And those residents are obligated to pay those increases forever. In most cases the property tax increases will continue to go up perpetually. They won’t come down. So unless the incomes of the residents increase at the same rate as the public worker, we have a big problem. The taxpayers will not be able to pay, and the reason is because nobody had the guts to tell those public employees they aren’t worth as much as they thought.

The radical union position is that Issue 2 is a union busting bill. I see it as a compromise. I was personally furious when I saw that the governor wasn’t going to make belonging to a public union illegal, because no union should be allowed to exist on a public job. If a union wants to organize in a private endeavor, the market place will decide the result. But in a public job, the situation has been disastrous. I’m happy to support my local firefighters, police, and teachers. But get the SEIU, the AFL-CIO stickers out of your windows and off your license plates. Those are communist organizations operating like a syndicate and I want no part of them! By belonging to a union you bring their corrupt influence into my community which makes you a Trojan Horse, and you did so in order to make all the money you could make. Call it union busting. I call it getting rid of something that should have never been to begin with. It’s wrong, corrupt, and divisive. I would be willing to openly support public employees if I could see which ones belonged to a union and which ones didn’t. Issue 2 would give employees that option, and would allow me to know who believes in what.

Issue 2 requires people to show what they believe, and many people in the middle are just too mushy to take a stand. It’s easy to carry a sign, or to beg for more money, or to take a “can’t we just get along” position just because you’ve profited from it in the past. It takes courage to identify the situation and decide to see beyond the yelling and screaming, past the lies and manipulation to the essence of the problem, and that is unions have driven the cost of the public employee too high. Any future givebacks are already too late, but the union members are addicted now to the level of income they were promised, and the tax base cannot afford it. The man in the second video of this article says that if state money had been restored, many of these problems would go away. Well, no they won’t. That state money and that federal money also comes from the tax payers and while there is much that is spent on stupidity, from my perspective it’s the same kind of stupidity that the public employee is asking for.


Everyone with their mouth on the public tit is in the same boat, and we’ve hit a wall that will either dramatically drive up taxes, or dramatically reduce services, because the values are inflated, and have been for 20 years. And the situation to fix it takes courage, and unfortunately, courage is in short supply.

For the rest, it doesn’t take much courage to Vote YES on Issue 2 in the privacy of the ballot box. The union won’t report your phone number to their thugs like we know is happening in the telephone polling, where you are afraid to give your true position. I understand that it can be scary. But when you get into the booth, and it’s just you and that voting card, VOTE YES on ISSUE 2 or you can sign your name to the devastation that follows, because everyone who takes a passive position on this matter is a contributor to the problems that will follow.

For the answer to everything click the link below!

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

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

“Vote for a Dog before Jamie Green or Julie Shaffer”: the public education syndicate

“Vote for anybody but Jamie Green or Julie Shaffer for the Lakota School Board! I don’t care if it’s for a dog, don’t vote for those two, because they are tax and spenders and will set Lakota back to what caused this financial problem to begin with.” That’s what I told an audience at the West Chester Tea Party in a fiery excerpt from my 30 minute presentation. Earlier in the day Doc Thompson and I spoke about Lakota and the revelation of a “Deep Throat” who has been feeding the No Lakota Campaign sensitive information including the quick tip to Joan Powell’s endorsement letter asking people from her “inner circle” to endorse those two school board candidates over the others, including an incumbent who’s trying to hold her seat in Linda O’Conner. You can see more about that situation at this link:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/the-joan-powell-school-board-scandal-a-lesson-of-what-not-to-do-at-lakota/

The video below starts with the short segment Doc and I did together on 700 WLW then ends with the West Chester Tea Party speech. Doc couldn’t attend since he had to speak at an Empour U event about trade with China. And I couldn’t attend his event because I had to speak in West Chester. But this issue over the Lakota Levy is an important one because it’s happening in our own back yard. So go pop some popcorn, grab a drink and sit down and watch the video below by clicking on it. You’ll hear all about why you should VOTE NO on the Lakota Levy, and all the reasons that Issue 2 (the collective bargaining reform bill) is such a wonderful bill that you should VOTE YES on. I cover a lot of ground, so have a seat and fasten your seat belt.

Afterwards I was told by a few people that they enjoyed my passionate speech. It’s a statement I hear a lot. Well there’s a reason for that, because when it comes to public schools and the unions, I see a bully, and that bully is attempting to use our children to enrich themselves. I do not see the activity between the unions, especially the education unions, to be any different from the behavior of Al Capone and other syndicates. (YES I SAID THAT! STUDY YOUR HISTORY BEFORE YOU OPEN YOUR MOUTH) The difference is, the education unions don’t take the extra intimidation methods of actually killing people, but they certainly participate in thuggish behavior, extortion, public manipulation, and political exploitation and I don’t like it and find NO social value in their behavior. The wrongs committed to our communities are so obvious to me that it drives me into a fury, and I want my community to be free of their dominance.

Is that too bold of a statement? Am I over-exaggerating the level of these crimes, and yes, they are crimes? No. When Wisconsin was going through its collective-bargaining reforms, the unions were saying much of the same things they are in Ohio. But guess what, Wisconsin is thriving as a result of their reforms. Have a look for yourself.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2011/07/wisconsin-schools-buck-union-cut-health-costs

Virtually everything the unions are saying about Issue 2 is a complete distortion of the truth. In the speech I gave there were several people who asked questions, which are hard to hear, but I saw in the eyes of an audience of well over a hundred people a hunger for the truth. And they were responding to what I said. They have seen for themselves that our lives would be greatly improved without the union domination of our public schools and our other public services.

As I said during the speech toward the end, “After Issue 2 holds we will still have teachers, we will still have cops and firefighters. We as a community will still employ those people. But we are not going to do it completely on their terms.”

An example of the thuggish behavior that comes from the unions and their apologists can be seen in the letter below, which I read to the audience. I get several of these letters each day, and I used this one because it was one of the cleaner, and better articulated letters I had received. So I place it here to view for yourself.

_______________________________________________

Union Apologist to Rich Hoffman:

• You know what a-hole. My kids are now suffering because the Levy didn’t pass and a-hole’s like you will probably cause the next levy to fail which means they will suffer even more. No buses for HS – limited for junior high and elementary. Honors, sports and any type of arts cut or extreme costs to parents. I bet your kids are out of the house. Do you give a damn about the kids! They suffer. Our schools decline and property value’s decrease. That last one might interest a greedy SOB like you

My response, to the union apologist:

• You want to know why your kids are suffering…………………..look in the mirror. If you are going to endorse this kind of behavior, you are clearly part of the problem.

• If your kids grow up to be not what you expected, you can blame yourself. Don’t push it off on me that you are an insecure parent.

________________________________________________

Many of these so-called “great teachers” that people like Julie Shaffer, Jamie Green and Joan Powell advocate is actually quite worthless. They cost too much money, spend too much time pushing leftist ideology onto our children and have an extremely inflated impression of their value to society. I know of many instances of this going on by some teachers, because the kids are coming home and telling their parents who are then telling us in the No Lakota Levy group.

The threat that Lakota would lose its best teachers unless we throw money at them is preposterous and a flat-out lie. I would argue that Lakota lost some of its best teachers in the lay-offs of the teachers who were at the bottom of the seniority base. We keep the older, expensive and complacent teachers by a union contract, and we let go of the bright-eyed new teachers who are much cheaper, because the union contract says to. When I was giving my speech I forgot to mention this, even though it was on the tip of my mind, the myth that just because a teacher has experience it automatically makes a teacher “better” is just that, a myth. All it does is make that employee expensive, and if an employee prices themselves out of their market value, that’s their problem, not the tax payers. Under no circumstances should the public be required to subsidize inflated value because the law says to!!!!! The law was created under this “mob” mentality of the union lobby, and holds no water in my mind! NONE! And I will fight it! I will not be robbed of my money to fulfill myths without a fight! Thus, my passion over this issue!

The newest threats in this theft are candidates like Jamie Green and Julie Shaffer. Taken as individuals, they are nice people; at least I think Julie is. But ideologically, they are dangerous, because their beliefs help feed the monster that is union labor and its syndicate style rule over the state of Ohio. The extortion that takes place to rob us of our money, and prevents management of that money is a crime to me, and my anger at witnessing those crimes drives me in a passion that people notice when they are around me. I have fought bullies all my life and I will so long as I live. And the most recent bully is those from these public sector unions who are given power by the complacent minds of people like Jamie Green, Julie Shaffer, and Joan Powell. People like that should never be given responsibility in a community setting, let alone the important job of school board. So I’ll say it again, vote for anyone to the school board but those names, even if the only option is a dog, because you’d do better for the community to have a member wag its tail and do nothing, than electing radical activists who eat out of the hand of the teachers union to the public demise.

For the answer to everything click the link below!

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

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

Indicted West Chester Police Officer made $70,032.20: Yet the apologists think that’s not enough

The West Chester Police did a good thing and that’s act quickly on an internal investigation of one of their own.  The nine-year veteran 37-year-old David Busemeyer was investigated and indicted by a grand jury of three felony charges, obstruction of official business, obstruction of justice and attempted tampering with evidence. Busemeyer is of course innocent until proven guilty, but this entire internal investigation is a reminder that public servants are not perfect. And I don’t expect them to be. What I expect is for West Chester to do exactly as it did, and that is bring about justice even when it involves their own.

However, in light of Issue 2, where the rhetoric has been turned up, and those pandering types use public servants to prop up their own political positions, I keep hearing that public servants do not make very much money, that police start at 35K a year, and that firefighters make 55K per year, and that teachers are not getting rich off their jobs. Well, I’ve shown at this site that teachers at Lakota make an average of $63K per year and are doing very well relative to the rest of the community. The police and firefighters in my community are also doing quite well, which I wasn’t aware of till the last levy was approved. After the approval of that levy I started looking at the numbers which resulted in the below spreadsheet.

Because this officer had been named and indicted by a grand jury, I was curious how much this particular police officer made, because according to Bill Cunningham and many others who are supporters of collective bargaining and union labor, these guys don’t make very much money. So I took a look at the spreadsheet below and sure enough, David Busemeyer is on there. At only 37 years old and nine years on the force he is making $70,032.20 as of 2010 numbers, since I received that information during the winter of 2011.

That’s not bad money. In fact, that’s quite a bit more than the average tax payer, even in West Chester. Have a look at my list.

To see my original article on this spreadsheet click here:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/03/12/oh-what-big-teeth-you-have-how-much-to-police-and-firefighters-cost-in-west-chester/

The trouble with “collective begging” which is the union term that Cunningham has adopted to refer to the “collective bargaining” reform bill of Issue 2 is that “collective bargaining” is not practical, is expensive, and allows employees who can’t achieve large wage levels under their own merit to make excellent wages under that system. Using West Chester purely as an example since it’s my community it’s not a big deal if David Busemeyer makes $70,032.20 if there was some sort of evaluation procedure that delivered him that type of wage. Maybe he does a lot of high risk work, or maybe he can speak in several languages and act as a translator for illegal immigration busts. But under collective bargaining, EVERYONE makes that kind of money. All a public employee has to do is show up for work, do what they are told within the union rules, and keep their nose clean, somewhat, and they will receive an automatic increase based on their collective bargaining contract. And instead of one employee making great money, you have hundreds making that kind of money and every bit of it must come from the tax payer.

Cunningham’s comments are the same as the typical politician. He’s pandering to the masses, which is no different from when Barry Obama does it, or Jessie Jackson, or Bill Clinton. Cunningham knows that many of his listeners during the day are public servants. Cops have on 700 WLW in their cars as they sit on the side of the road watching for speeders. Teachers have it on in the teacher’s lounge, and firefighters having it on in the firehouses. Cunningham seems to have always cared more for pandering than the actual truth which used to make me mad, but like one of my readers told me the other day, Willie Springer has no credibility. He lost that a long time ago.  It’s important to know that Willie is a brand name to a creation.  He is a lawyer.  He has a restaurant in West Chester where many teachers, PTA members, and coaches of sports teams for Lakota attend, so there is profit in pandering.  That seems to be why he supports a levy in my district even though he doesn’t live there.  He’ll pay the extra tax for his business because the school pandering will fill the seats at his sports bar.  I often assumed that what he said he believed, because I would, but he’s no different from an actor in a movie or on a TV show.  He’s a radio personality who has attached his role as a lawyer to the public sector worker as his listeners, the “voice of the common man” even though he is wearing a Mercedes shirt, which tells much of the story in itself.  It’s a cute gig until he starts taking official positions, where he comes out sounding as foolish as Sean Penn or some other radicle actor.

I hired Willie about 15 years ago to be my spokesman for a line of T-shirts I was producing to help get out a message I had which stated, “TAKE AN AX TO OUR TAX.” We were making the shirts at cost during the 1996 election season to bring high taxes to people’s attention. Rob Portman actually bought one from me, and I took one down to city hall and gave it to Roxanne Quals, the mayor of Cincinnati at the time. Willie was hired to do our commercial which we ran on 700 WLW.

I was set to go on with Bill Cunningham during his 9 PM show on a summer Friday night. As I was headed to the station Cunningham had on a segment where he had strippers on doing a live strip show while Cunningham did play-by-play commentary. My wife told me, “This is the guy you’ve hired to be your spokesman?”

I said, “No, he’s a conservative. Willie is just doing this for ratings.”

My wife said, “And you’re going to go on behind this?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Doesn’t this compromise your message?” My wife said. “You hate Howard Stern because he has no ethics. You hate Jerry Springer because he’ll do anything for money. How is this guy any different? And you’re going to go on his show and let him pretend he’s a conservative. You’re going to acknowledge his existence? You’re going to even give him the time of day?”

I knew she was right, so we turned around and went home. I called his producer and told him that I wasn’t going to go on behind a room full of strippers. So Cunningham kept the girls in the studio till midnight, and they had a grand old-time laughing and carrying on. And from that day on, I knew that Cunningham the personality was not the same as Cunningham the man, which was very disappointing, because I wanted to believe in him.

In the video above, Cunningham has fantasies that his words actually carry weight, and there is a certain percentage of the population out there who would listen to advice from Jerry Springer, Howard Stern, or Bill Cunningham. Those types of personalities try to be everything to everybody, and actually believe in nothing. But then again, most lawyers are that way. They’ll believe whatever you tell them to, so long as the money is green.

However, this business of Issue 2 is serious, and people like Cunningham just muddy up the water with the revelation that he has always been a Democrat, and was only a conservative for the benefit of his show. They take advantage of the ignorance of the masses who are too busy with their lives to look into anything for themselves. Yet the spreadsheet above shows what the union supporters don’t want you to know, and that is “collective bargaining” has allowed too many people to make too much money. Getting pay increases in large groups is a concept that could only work in government. In the private sector it puts companies out of business. In government it causes tax increases.

Apologists attempt to pander to everyone so they hope to divert our attention to the corruption of the federal government and the war in Afghanistan which is terribly expensive, rather than what’s going on in our communities.  All they are doing is trying to divert attention from the immediate problems. I can’t do much about those federal issues, but I can in my backyard. And getting these public employee costs under control is my obligation to my community, not to get side-tracked on some diatribe by a radio/television personality. People like that are no different from politicians who will do anything or say anything for a vote.

In the end, whatever happens to Issue 2, the collective bargaining system will collapse on itself. If the unions get their way, they will be solely responsible for the catastrophe that follows. School levies won’t go away, and neither will police and fire levies they’ll keep asking for money to satisfy their collective bargaining contracts while the rest of us suffer through stagnate wages that have topped out. Issue 2 isn’t about fairness, it’s about survival, and those that are trying to get rid of it are no different from those soccer players who crashed in the Andes mountains portrayed in the movie ALIVE.

They ate their dead…………………and became cannibals.

SEE MY ARTICLE ON ALIVE HERE:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/22/its-the-end-of-the-road-budget-problems-for-everyone/

I wonder what that officer really did to have the investigation actually bring about an indictment.  My question was why did that officer make so much money?  What was the evaluation process?  How many times was his life in danger the previous year?  What does he do from the start of his shift to the end?  The answer is we don’t know, because collective bargaining gives pay increases to all employees equally, so the evaluations done are just customary, since they have very little meaning to actual wages.  And that probably had something to do with why this officer wasn’t detected as a potential problem by his management, until something bad happened.  And that system will continue because people like Bill Cunningham are willing to give people like this a blank check of entitlement, which empowers these groups of public workers to believe they are far more important, and valuable than they actually are. 

For the answer to everything click the link below!

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

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

The Next Civil War: Unions versus Right to Work is happening now!

I recently did an article about Issue 2 where I compared the details of that very good bill to the aerospace company Boeing, building its new manufacturing plant in South Carolina. To see that article click the link:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/issue-2-could-save-your-community-where-did-the-jobs-go/

Issue 2 is not about firefighter safety, or police ability to do their jobs. It’s not about teachers instructing our children. Issue 2 for Ohio is about keeping jobs in the state because to the south, the Right to Work States is soaking up all the manufacturing jobs. For the unions, repealing Issue 2 is about keeping control of the states that aren’t yet Right to Work states. As you can see by observing the map below, the states in Blue are Right to Work states, with South Carolina being part of the southern culture of maintaining independence from organized labor efforts.

http://www.redstate.com/laborunionreport/files/2011/02/right-to-work-map.gif

We are in the midst of a Civil War of a different kind, where the goal of the war is the unions struggling to maintain their power base. They fear that more companies will do as Boeing is doing, and that’s locating their business in the southern states, so that those companies do not have to worry about radicalized labor practices.

Unions in the private sector share much with the public sector but as with the circumstances around Boeing, there is nowhere to hide from a public sector union. They embed themselves in our communities and force tax increases upon demand. There is no competitive edge in public unions and we cannot escape by moving the enterprise to another country. Unions in the public sector are unconscionable in that they force employees to take part in them whether or not the employee wishes to, and the public is forced to support them with increased taxes without choice in service. In Ohio by law if a teacher wants to teach, they must join a union. Does that seem right? Why should any public employee be required to join a union as a condition of employment? The fight over Issue 2 is the radicalized portions of these public unions who are hiding their true intentions behind their members, who simply want to be employed. The union leaders are seeking to control the spread of Right to Work States and if Issue 2 holds, Ohio will go a long way to moving in that direction. This leaves the militants desperate to act.

All the history shown in that video is true. The map tells the whole story. In the north where militant unions took control, they have embedded themselves in our political process and driven up taxes. That video shows how we have arrived to this point in time involving Issue 2. Notice that the bill talked about in 1981 never had any impact, because the union lobby prevented the reforms, just as they are doing with Issue 2. Ohio cannot begin to attract business to Ohio if the public unions are bankrupting our communities. And militant union behavior is not something large companies want to be a part of. They would much prefer to establish themselves in the south where the people there enjoy their independence. And if operating in the south is too expensive, then the companies will just take their operations to another country completely, leaving the union thugs of the north jobless and desperate, seeking a government job so they can have a safe-haven for their beliefs, because unions have destroyed virtually every industry they’ve penetrated. It would seem only the entertainment unions have been able to survive because the public has been willing to support the increases in ticket costs to support those inflated expectations.

I can see belonging to a public union as an option, but I cannot see being told that I was under legal obligation to join one. I have no tolerance for the militant behavior that comes from public unions, the over exaggerations they employee to manipulate the public. Every time I hear cops proclaim that they are willing to take a bullet to keep me safe I shudder in anger. I would happily become deputized by my local Sheriff and run into a building under gunfire. Heck, I might even pay to do it, because danger of this kind is a privilege to a man. I wouldn’t think of charging for such a thing, because the danger is the payment! Or to the firefighter, let me become a volunteer and I would gladly run into a burning building to save a gold-fish, not to mention a human being. And I’d do it for the thrill of feeling the heat and smelling the smoke. And I’d do it without expecting a dime because I might save a life and bring ease to someone’s mind who is my neighbor.

It can be noticed that much of this union trouble comes from these northern states, because in the south, they won’t put up with it. In the south they have a strong tendency toward self-reliance, and tend to look down their noses at organized labor. And this is why they are experiencing economic growth in the south. They do have their share of public unions, but the people who live in those states seem to much less tolerant of the kind of extortion they employee upon the public. You don’t see protests like we’ve seen in Wisconsin and Ohio in places like Nashville and Dallas, or even Charleston.

Ohio is trying to compete with the south for future business. Issue 2 is not about hurting public workers, as they’d have you believe. They are a group that is in denial, and they believe their union leaders who think that they can hold these unions together when economic circumstances are pulling them apart. The unions are failing because they allow for a level of selfishness that can only be supplemented with militant behavior.

The firefighters and police of today who are running the face of a repeal attempt of Issue 2 have changed their militant behavior from what was seen in the video above, where firefighters took illegal strikes and actually started fires burning down homes and businesses, then preventing citizens from trying to put those fires out. In fact, at a recent debate over Issue 2 a labor attorney Steve Lazarus informed us that the reason for the collective bargaining law of 1982, which Issue 2 seeks to reform, is because police went on strike in militant behavior similar to the firefighters. The claim was that too many officers were being killed or injured, but my feeling is that officers were using the deaths of their union brothers to drive up wages for themselves by declaring unsafe working conditions which no witless politician had an answer to. So the politicians did what they do, they threw laws and money at the squeaky wheels of the labor unions.

The militant behavior of the modern age is not much different. The public unions are threatening the violence of the past if they don’t get their way. When they gather, there is a pretense of violence in their behavior. Their collective mass is meant to threaten us. They are using the threat of “safety” or the lack of it to pave the way for behavior yet undefined. They leave it to the imagination of their targeted ads. They implication is clear.

What they are all in denial over is that if the private sector has lost their jobs to foreign manufactures, because the labor costs are much lower in places like China, India or Brazil, and when companies like Boeing needing a stable work force knowing that they can’t get it in Washington because of union radicalism Boeing is attempting to move to a southern Right to Work state, and now find themselves in trouble with the Federal Government because of it. There is no quick remedy to solve this debacle. The unions and their radicalism have brought this situation upon themselves. The private sector is making 43.4% less now than the public sector because the private sector has to make financial adjustments competitive to the world marketplace. The public unions don’t want to change and they certainly don’t want to see what they’ve done to community budgets, and they are threatening various forms of militant behavior if they don’t get it. The union militants want higher taxes to fund their uncompetitive wage demands no matter what the cost to society. (WHO DO YOU THINK IS BEHIND THESE OCCUPY MOVEMENTS) CLICK THIS LINK TO LEARN WHO THE UNIONS ARE BEHIND THOSE PROTESTS AS WELL; IT’S JUST ANOTHER FORM OF MILITANT.

For the unions the battle is about the map shown on this article. The unions want to remove the blue from those states that have Right to Work options for their workers, because union leadership is out for political conquest. Meanwhile states like Ohio are pushing back, so that they can be just as competitive as the southern states and the unions are set to do anything to prevent that from happening.

That leaves the fate of Ohio in the hands of you, the voter. Are you going to cave in to the union militants who will drive up your taxes and reduce the number of public employees you can have, because the current budgets cannot support the number of employees we currently carry, because wages in the private sector are not what they used to be? And there are not enough wealthy people to loot in order to rescue these despots from their own greed which creates a chain reaction of failure of which they are solely responsible for. Ohio is trying to fix this discrepancy in Ohio with Issue 2, which among many reforms; the most powerful one is in returning the “option” of belonging to a union to the employee. If you do not support Issue 2 by voting YES you will be responsible for what follows, because Issue 2 was created to fix the problems coming on multiple fronts, and becoming more competitive on the map between states that are Right to Work and those that aren’t.

For the answer to everything, CLICK THIS LINK:

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

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

Issue 2 Debate in Ohio: “The Spoiled Class”

The Labor Movement the more I look into it is a sinister aspect of American culture. Their recent promotion of the protests all over America is clearly nudged by the same advocates who look to the rich in order to fill their basket with tax money so that they can loot from it in a mantra they have embraced for years. Now they are using the innocence of our youth to add fuel to the fire of discontent that often rages in a young mind. I will cover this aspect in great detail in another post, since the origins of these protest run deep, but all can be said to be advocated by a new class of American. This new class is not the “upper class.” It is not the “lower class.” It is not the “middle class.” This new class is called the “Spoiled Class,” and I have seen and heard them first hand in my own community.

I was impatient at the Issue 2 debate which took place on October 3, 2011. As my wife and I arrived at the Lakota East Freshman Building at 7 PM to see Bill Coley take on Steven Lazarus representing the local firefighters in a debate over Issue 2, the collective bargaining reform law. I was impatient because my Tampa Bay Buccaneers were playing the Indianapolis Colts on Monday Night Football and anyone who knows me understands how much I love the Bucs! So I had thought about skipping this debate so I wouldn’t miss the game. However, I also like Doc Thompson and the Liberty Twp Tea Party and both were involved in putting on this debate, so I reluctantly recorded my game to attend this event.

As we walked across the parking lot I saw that several firefighters had arrived all wearing matching t-shirts declaring that they wanted to repeal Issue 2. In the flat bed of a large F250 pick-up truck was a sign, VOTE NO ON ISSUE 2! I noted that most of the usual Tea Party crowd did not seem to be present and were replaced with these protesting public workers. This in itself was not surprising. I expected this to be the case, since this was a meeting created for the benefit of public knowledge.

Inside I noted that the public unions filled the seats in the center of the large auditorium, and the people I knew to be the regular Tea Party members of the community took to the outskirts to observe the strange behavior of the collective union body. Doc Thompson was the MC and instructed Senator Coley and Counsel Lazarus the rules of engagement for the debate. There were microphones at each end of the room where members of the community could come up and ask a question. Doc would take questions from each side of the room switching back and forth till around 8:30 an hour and a half later. I had a list of questions to ask in case people were shy to get started, but my focus was to film the event, and get home to my game, while not lingering too long. That video can be seen here. Of course it’s long; my battery power was running out at the end, so I had to be diligent in my power use. I would have brought my AC supply, but in my mind I didn’t want the event to go on longer than an hour and a half, because my game started at 8:30!!!!!

I was ready with my list to step away from the camera and ask my questions to get the evening started, which wasn’t necessary because a steadily line began to form. Listed below are my questions and I fully expected part of them to be brought up during the event.

Issue 2 questions

1. Why is it necessary to support an extreme labor union position in order to declare support for our Firefighters?

2. Why are the firefighters allowing themselves to be out in front of the larger problem involving the much needed reforms with teachers? It would appear that the teacher unions are using the good name of the firefighters to disguise the targets of the needed reforms brought forth by Issue 2?

3. Why would teachers protest the provision in Issue 2 that prevents striking? Firefighters can’t strike, neither can police, so why should teachers be allowed to strike if their positions are so important to our communities? Without Issue 2, they’ll still be able to walk off the job.

4. One of the provisions in Issue 2 is it makes joining a labor union optional. Wouldn’t we still have firefighters and police and teachers even if the employees didn’t wish to participate in a union?

5. How are overtime costs regulated in the fire and police departments? Is it true that a senior officer nearing their retirements work more hours to boost their retirement amounts, so they can show a higher yearly salary, boosting their retirement amounts?

6. How specifically will Issue 2 take away public employees?

7. How specifically will Issue 2 make conditions unsafe for police and firefighters?

8. (To Lazarus) Do you agree with the level of protests and rhetoric that occurred around Issue 2 when it was Senate Bill 5?

9. Why is it so important to remove binding arbitration?

10. Why is it so unfair to ask public employees to pay a fraction of their health care costs?

11. In what way have public employees made sacrifices when they have an edge of 43.4% in benefits over the private sector that pay their salaries? Wouldn’t a real sacrifice be in equalizing the benefits of the public worker with the private worker?

12. (To Lazarus) According to the recent Monroe City contract with its 33 firefighters the union proposed a 15 percent increase in wages spread evenly over three years — 5 percent in 2011, 5 percent in 2012 and 5 percent in 2013. Why does the union think this is appropriate, because in three more years there will be more increase requests?

13. (To Lazarus) Do you think increases of 3 to 5% a year is acceptable even if the CPI index from the private sector doesn’t provide the same level of compensation.

14. Dealing with 33 firefighters like the situation in Monroe and their requests for good wages for their public service takes on an entirely new meaning when it comes to school teachers where the district must employee up to 1500 employees, such as the case at Lakota. The cost of the teachers on the community is much greater for the teachers because of the number of employees. Without Issue 2, what type of management control would the public employee attorney suggest?

15. How can we continue without Issue 2, because collective bargaining has only worked well for the public worker, leaving the community facing higher and higher taxes? It would seem that collective bargaining has been good for public employees, but not the people on the other side of the table. How is that fair?

However…………I didn’t get a chance to ask a single question, partially because I couldn’t step away from the camera as long as would be required as the union members were not shy about asking questions. Of course I knew the answer to all those questions, but I wanted to ask them to allow the two personalities speaking to answer them for the public benefit. You can see most of those answers in my articles on Issue 2 listed here: CLICK THIS HOT LINK TO READ.

I came to this event with the intention to have an open mind toward the union position. What I witnessed from my unique position as a spectator behind the lens of a camera was a group of people whom I believe are nice people. I think if they were my direct neighbor I might lend them a bucket or a water hose if they needed it. But collectively, what I saw of these people was a deeply selfish group, completely consumed with self-interest. They seemed immature in a juvenile sort of way and it was obvious that what they were doing at this Liberty Twp Tea Party event was to use mass to intimidate the opposition, a mode of operation that they have done for years.

Now I’ve been to these events many times, and I know who speaks and who doesn’t, and during the course of the evening, most everyone sat in their seats and gapped at these public employees as though they were watching animals in a zoo. The behavior of the public employees seemed foreign and un-American. I encourage you dear reader to watch the entire video, because you will see for yourselves how the public unions booed and hissed at the things that Senator Coley was saying. It was a radical behavior that seemed completely out-of-place in a forum of adult discussion.

I feel badly now, for with all that I have said and written about how destructive the public worker has become not only to the national economy, but to themselves. I feel badly because even though many view my comments as harsh and overly critical, I realize now after that episode of the Issue 2 Debate that my comments have not been harsh enough. It is evident to me that the public unions do not represent the middle-class in any way shape or form. They are a new class onto themselves. The name of that class is the “Spoiled Class.” They are citizens of our community who have become so numb to anything beneficial that they no longer appreciate what it took to give them anything at all. They seem to be no different from the spoiled child of the very wealthy who will scream at the top of their lungs, “I DO NOT WANT TO GO TO DISNEYLAND IN CALIFORNIA. I WANT TO GO TO DISNEYWORLD IN FLORIDA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

The entire evening of the debate, even though I thought Senator Coley did very well, was about health care premiums, and the wages of the politicians themselves. The public unions seem to have absolutely no concept as to where the money comes from, because as Lazarus stated, “The public worker pays taxes too.” Those taxes come easier when the wage and benefit differential makes paying the taxes easier. For the public worker paying taxes is like passing the hat in revenue they all share. For the private worker we contribute to the hat, but get nothing back but cry-baby employees who never seem to be happy and are corrupted with union radicalism.

I thought Lazarus did well also. He is a very good attorney and it has been an army of people just like him arguing on behalf of public unions for years who have driven up our taxes. Lazarus showed exactly why we need Issue 2. People like Lazarus have made good livings off representing the public worker, and taking advantage of politician who weren’t as cleaver as him, and easy to take advantage of. Coley tried to explain the process, but the public workers didn’t want to hear it. All they wanted to hear was that their health care costs wouldn’t go up, and that the politicians were going to take a pay cut. Speaking to them was like speaking to a child who hasn’t yet learned to read and understand information on their own.

The “Spoiled Class” cannot be reasoned with. They cannot be appeased. They do not wish to negotiate unless it is in their favor. They are selfish, short-sighted, corrupt, and are in need of a basic education to even have a foundation discussion with. They are the epitome of a virus in the human body threatening eternal sickness, even death if allowed to continue. The “Spoiled Class” is a self-destructive group of parasites who negate any potential they bring to society in their public work with 10 negatives for every positive.

They like the spoiled child are not even capable of seeing anything beyond their own concerns. The “Spoiled Class” collective disposition is only out for what they can achieve in mass and even that has a selfish prerequisite.

And that was what stunned my Tea Party friends on this evening. They were thinking just as I was, that yes, these public workers are every bit as bad as we feared they were. They are an uncaring lot who live in a totally different reality than the rest of us.

Issue 2 is about 10 years too late. I think Issue 2 isn’t nearly strong enough and is too late to save our society from the termites of our culture that is the public worker. Even the attorney Lazarus instructed us that the reason for collective bargaining to come about in the first place was to protect the citizens from striking police officers. That is the same as saying that we must take the form of extortion that is collective bargaining over another form of extortion called walking off the job. This tells me that the employees who would consider either option is a radical that isn’t worth the tax money I must produce to employee them. For such people are not worth my hard work. They are not worth one bead of sweat on my brow. They deserve no effort what-so-ever of my labor for their sustenance; for they provide me with virtually nothing in exchange for the great deal that I give them with my taxes.

I feel toward this “Spoiled Class” just as I would the spoiled child who would complain about my choice in vacation spots for their entertainment. Their ungrateful demeanor prompts me to get back in the car and take them back home, for the effort of their enjoyment brings me only headaches.

It is our fault for allowing this “Spoiled Class” to rule as they have. We have allowed them to ruin our lives in toil toward their aims, to shut their screaming mouths for fear that they might embarrass us. We created the “Spoiled Class” and I would suggest that we dismantle it for their own good. Because the mental condition of the “Spoiled Class” is that of a psychological weakling. They are dependents who only have strength in collective numbers which is an insect-like trait, and this should not be allowed to be a mode of operation for any member of the human race.

Issue 2 needs to be passed and passed quickly. The longer this behavior goes on, the closer the human race de-evolves back into a primitive rubbing sticks together for fire, or catching food with a rock, because the path of the public workers will take us in the direction of a primitive where they cheer like hunters who have just slaughtered a woolly mammoth to the demise of everything the human mind cherished as good once upon a time of skyscrapers and industry.

As to fairness in labor negotiations all one must do is look at the 43.4% edge the public workers have over their employers, the tax payers, to see who has benefited from collective bargaining without Issue 2. (IT ISN’T THE PRIVATE SECTOR)

For the answer to everything, CLICK THIS LINK:

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

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

The Harsh Reality of the World Economy: Learn about money and why you may be a looter

The greatest peril of an oncoming tragedy is in attempting to convince the people who do not yet see it that catastrophe is about to occur. When watching a football game, it is the really good coach who does not panic, makes adjustments at halftime then comes back out to attempt to win the game after he has educated his team to a new strategy. The bad coaches fail to identify the problem and leave fate to hope that the situation of their team will improve on its own.

Those of us who can see problems way out ahead of most everyone else have been sending out the alarms that America is falling behind for a long time now. Darryl Parks of 700 WLW is one of those “visionaries” and frequently has elements of his programs that are incredibly revealing. We have been attempting to make those halftime adjustments and tell those around us who don’t see so clearly that peril is in front of them. We try to say that if American society does not make adjustments suddenly, there is a very good chance we are going to lose big in the economic game of the world marketplace.

To understand just how severe the world marketplace is, by way of population and the amount of jobs available to those people, listen carefully to this broadcast with Darryl Parks. The facts are broadcast for all to hear, and upon hearing them, you’ll understand more clearly what I’m going to say next. (CLICK THE VIDEO TO HEAR)

20 years ago when I made the decision to stick with manufacturing, many people chastised my decision. They simply didn’t understand, and I’d try and reason with them, that the world does not need more lawyers, it does not need more teachers, technology is making them less important to the education process, and we do not need more doctors, nurses, X-Ray technicians, insurance salesman, politicians, and the like. None of those jobs produce anything. They are simply a service oriented occupation that falls in the same category as a grill cook at McDonalds, “service.” What is needed is manufacturing jobs, things that America actually makes, loads on a truck and is delivered to some paying customer.

Even as a child I would scratch my head at the labor strikes and protests I’d see at places like Armco in Middletown, now known as AK Steel. I saw labor disputes at the Norwood car plant where they built Camero’s and I’d wonder what those people were thinking. But back then manufacturing jobs were abundant and the parents of the next generation who didn’t want their kids to “work for greedy management” (indirect rhetoric created in the union halls of America) wanted better for their kids. So they sent their children to college to become teachers, lawyers, and doctors and now there isn’t anybody to build anything. The Norwood plant is gone now, just like most of the American Steel Industry. And the tax base cannot afford the public employment of the extremely high expectations promised to those public sector people because there isn’t any manufacturing anymore to support government looting with a progressive tax system. America has become like I warned 20 years ago, a service industry and not a manufacturing giant, and it is the labor unions that played a huge role in killing American manufacturing.

In regard to the protests over Issue 2 and the other collective bargaining reforms taking place all over the country, I would think many of those people should be grateful every day that they have a job to go to. In fact, the reason we are creating Issue 2 is so we can keep all those people employed. But greed is ruling their minds. They are not job creators. They are employees in a service industry, who maintain what we currently have.

The trouble with trying to convince those who are causing us to lose this game that they are guilty of the act is in their lack of understanding the true value of money. To the public worker, the protester, the teacher who expects to live like a member of some royalty because they are a member of academia I leave for them an article I wrote some time ago, a piece about the value of money, so that they can see where they are wrong, and make those adjustments so they can get back on our team and help us win this game. But until those public workers get a grip on that basic concept, my words have as much meaning to them as if I were trying to explain quantum mechanics to my dog. So please take this moment to educate yourselves. They owe that to the rest of us who have seen this problem for a long time, but have had to put up with the arrogance of their poor understanding.

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/s-b-5-passes-the-good-of-money-whats-missing-in-our-culture/

If they can’t understand that, then there is no way they can help the rest of us win this game.

For the answer to everything, CLICK THIS LINK:

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

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

The Transcendentalist: Wizard of Lakota and why taxes are evil

The video below is my most recent presentation on why fighting the Lakota School Levy is a worthy cause.

As you are most likely a frequent visitor to this site, you know the rest of what I will say in regard to that video. My opinions on this matter of taxes run deep and have perplexed many. So in an attempt to address the multiple questions I received recently as to my motivations, I will spend the rest of this article going into the deeper reasons as to why more taxes are a sinister proposition at multiple levels. But I will caution you reader that the information here may be difficult to digest, especially at first.

The assumptions as to my political affiliation are robust, and have been for some time. “Are you a Republican, Mr. Hoffman? Surely you are one of these Libertarians if not.” My comment in that they might fathom just a fraction of my position is that I tend to look to Republican’s because they most closely resemble my beliefs in this current Static Pattern of social understanding. I do enjoy the message of Libertarians, but find that their positions on drugs and regulation do not completely reflect my own. I would always favor lack of regulation over regulation of any kind, but I do not believe the free market would work as smoothly as they believe it would because people are lacking a level of spiritualism in their foundations that I think is important to self-regulation, and its missing.

Upon hearing this, my critics automatically assume, “Oh, so you are a devout Christian and the church is your guide.” Again, I cringe in frustration at the necessity the masses have in slapping a label onto someone so they can better understand a concept. It is a weakness left over from our childhoods, where we first learned to read by association and memorization, and those Static Patterns formed over the first 10 years of our lives relied heavily on labeling others to understand the world around us. By the time we are ready for more advanced learning ability puberty hits, and suddenly our minds are filled with an urge to insert our genitals all over a member of the opposite sex, and much of our time is invested in this pursuit. This goes on for many up until the time that they start a family where the mind shifts gear to sacrifice for the young children we have brought into the world, who are starting the process of associated learning from the start, and as parents our minds return to that savage level of understanding to be replayed again through our children. It is these parents who are particularly susceptible to collectivism since their minds are already in a mode of sacrifice biologically as they would put their own lives before their own children. They are easy prey for the liberal looters.

In Ayn Rand’s literary work, which I adore, this is why children are left out of the equation, because it is in the raising of children that selfish impulses are sacrificed to the altruism of a child’s needs. Rand solved the problems of social looting by properly identifying the cause and reactions, but she avoided the impact of family, as dose another of my favorite writers Henry David Thoreau. The adult mind even in this mode of child rearing is still engaged in the biological pursuit of genital appeasement, typically with the opposite sex so the development of greater levels of understanding is put off till some future date.

Many of my current friends are about 30 to 40 years older than I am, because it is during this phase once the body has withered away, and sexual fulfillment is not the primary objective of the adult mind followed by a sense of sacrifice to a child. (I’d put the order of necessity for women the other way around, for men, it is as I listed it) It is these older minds who finally begin to see things as they are, unfortunately death is breathing down the necks of these fine people, so it’s often too little too late. They contributed their share of madness into the fabric of social existence confusing necessity with their biological urges and now in their later years they wish to fix what they helped to wreck through the ignorance of their youth. To my way of thinking, “youth” extends well into the late 50’s of some of these people. Some people don’t get “wise” until their 60’s or 70’s. But most do get there eventually because as the strength of their bodies leaves them, their minds increase to compensate.

My beliefs are that a human being has an obligation to themselves and to society to achieve this level of understanding much, much sooner. They should make love with their women and men in their teens and 20’s, but return back to their books thereafter and not linger aimlessly in drunken splendors. And when they raise children they should not avoid the act of self-sacrifice on behalf of the child or lose the selfish needs of their minds and bodies. The mind needs food after all just like the body needs food and sex, and I believe many people fall into the trap of feeding their bodies, but starve their minds, until their bodies start dying. Then, when it’s too late, they start taking care of their minds because it’s all that’s left.

So be it to say that I am at odds with most everything in society, because I think mankind has placed short-sighted limits on itself. Yet I have not lost touch with where people are in the world and I understand their reluctance. Where Nietzsche went mad by his early forties, and Thoreau was dead by age 44, I see in both men a tendency to question as I have, and feed their minds at an early age. But their mistake is the opposite of the modern neurotic. They sacrificed feeding their bodies to some extent by feeding their minds, leaving them sickly in their middle years proportionally out-of-balance mentally and physically which doesn’t work either.

I have found that balance in my life, and I did it early, and I raised my family around these ideas. It was my daughter who put me onto Henry David Thoreau. “Dad, this guy is just like you. You should read him.”

She wasn’t the first to make such a proclamation. Over the years people would say to me, “You are just like Thoreau.” They seemed astonished when I’d reveal to them that I had never read him, at least until fairly recently, after the encouragement of my daughter. The reason I never gave Thoreau a chance early in my life was because I partially blamed him for the Hippie Movement. It was high school English that taught me that Civil Disobedience was the model of the Civil Rights Movement and it was enjoyed by Ghandi also. Well, I thought Ghandi was a pacifist who should have led India to a violent conquest of his enemies, and this whole starvation thing never made any sense to me. The idea of self-sacrifice for a greater caused always seemed immature. Just as the idea that Christ died on the cross to relieve me of my sins never made sense either. I spotted a long time ago in those Christian studies a series of looters who sought to place themselves between the people and their God as a kind of toll keeper, and they use Jesus, the pacifist as a gate to collect the toll. Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience wreaked all these elements and I refused to read it in high school for that reason, again in college, and in my adult life until my daughter told me my rebellion was misplaced.

In history this wouldn’t be the first time this has happened, where a good message gets lost behind a teacher who attaches their view of collectivism behind an artist who is quite the opposite. The Nazi used the Übermensch idea to justify their tyranny upon the world. (Ubermensch comes from Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra one of my favorite books) The Fabian Socialist George Bernard Shaw in his play Man and Superman written in 1903 also took the idea of the Ubermensch to attempt to formulate in his mind the justification for socialism where the central planners could work in behalf of the “middle class” because it was the supermen who knew better than everyone else. Taint of an original idea is particularly corrosive to minds not prepared to handle it, so returning back to the original concepts is crucial when the tyrants of existence misuse the keys of knowledge with their corrupted desire to loot from the world to fill themselves. This is always the danger. In fact, you have just learned a secret about me. I see this whole Fabian debacle as so epic that I have went back and dusted off the term ubermensch to use as my own focus. That is where the term overman comes from. So revisiting the past to get to an original idea is not uncommon to me and due to my daughter’s coaxing, I gave Thoreau a chance.

It was in reading the book Walden that I felt I was reading some of my own personal notebooks, and I instantly understood why my daughter said what she did. I felt angry that I let a couple of teachers turn me off to Thoreau at an early age by presenting the material in a stale fashion, as they typically do. I felt betrayed in much the same way as I did when I discovered Shakespeare because my wife had given me a collection of his works as a Christmas present.

Without going any deeper into this topic of similarities of thought I must get to the point of this article. The modern terms shaped by the contemporary mind is only a fragment of what it started as. And as American’s dust off their knowledge and revisit the Constitution and the ideas of the Founding Fathers it is useful to study the origins of those thinkers rather than take the word of some modern fool who says and does things so that they might sneak a peek at the undergarments of their superiors, and thus rise in the world with a false interpretation of an ancient text over dinner in Manhattan. Much of modern interpretation is shaped on the pillow of a bed where two heads exchange the juices of sex.

So what do I believe, what is my political affiliation? I am a Transcendentalist. I believe the “middleclass” is an invention of the tyrant types to keep the minds of man occupied with climbing a social ladder which they control, rather than just taking the elevator, which the tyrant does not control. (THE ELEVATOR IS IN YOUR OWN MIND) America is a land of the free, and is intended to reject social classification. For nobody is free if they do not free themselves from the desire to belong to a class, and they are not free if they are limited to a political party or even a religion, a Transcendentalist is open to the truth wherever it comes from and regardless of the pain that knowledge brings.

I believe in self-reliance. I do not wake up in the morning and consider how much work I must do so that others may live off my efforts. My goal of each day is to do as little as possible on behalf of others so that I may have more time for myself. The measure of that comes as such, what is my obligation to my wife, my kids, all our pets, my debts, my taxes and my extended family (parents, siblings, and such)? After all those needs are filled, what do I have for myself in daylight left? To my way of thinking if I have taken care of my obligations before noon and the rest of the day is mine, I am successful. But if my taxes increase and push that time to 1PM or even 2 PM then I have been robbed of my time. And if government expands and asks for another levy, another hired tax collector, bureaucrat or politician, then the risk of attack on my time may push my daily freedom to 4PM or 5PM.

When most of a day is consumed in this way, I consider those thieves who stole that time from me to have committed a crime. They took something from me that wasn’t theirs. Because it’s my goal to go the other way, I wish in my life to reduce my daily obligations from noon, to 11PM, and eventually down to 9AM. To be successful in life by my view if I woke up in the morning at 5 AM and had fulfilled my obligations by 8 AM I would consider myself incredibly successful as a human being, and I have admiration for anybody who lives as such. This is why I make it a point to wake up early and go to be late. Because the time for myself is something I treasure incredibly, I have never been bored in my life, or contemplated what to do next as if waiting for something to happen, only what to do among the infinite possibilities.

But I have no tolerance for looters who wish to steal my day away because they lack comprehension and their education has utterly failed them in complete totality. The looters of life seek to wake up at 9 AM and take from me my labor so that they can pay off their debts which are committed to midnight. They purchase their time for themselves at my expense. They may work from 9AM till 11AM but are too tired and collectively rely on their social brothers and sisters to supplement the rest of their day over the next 13 hours by the looted accumulation of my labor. To the looter’s mind and the Fabian Socialist, the Marxist, the liberal, the progressive, the labor union, they think it’s appropriate to force me to work till 5 PM, the same time that they will complete their obligations. But it is they who indebted themselves till midnight and it is their irresponsibility which is the point of contention which created the need for my stolen time to save them from their own toil.

I do not consider the making of money to prop up my opportunities for social recognition which translate to sexual opportunities. I am married, when I want sex, I tell my wife, and then I return back to my books. I do not work hard to have a car which impresses my peers. I ride a motorcycle all year, even in the rain and snow so that I can have adventure, and lessen the cost obligation daily, so that I may have more freedom of my day at less cost. I do it for freedom, so my work load is fulfilled quicker in the day. I do not seek to hob-knob with the powerful in the palaces of power and at dinner parties so that I may prop up my social status. I do that on occasion for my work, but I do not do it for leisure because it takes away my freedom daily. I’ll take the hot dog over the steak if it earns for me 15 minutes more of freedom each day. The work is part of my obligation, but once fulfilled each day; I want my time to belong to me.

I do not wish to carry on my back the poor. My knowledge of them is that they chose to be poor. I offered a poor man a job once, and he turned me down in favor of begging. I know the poor; he was not the only one, but the one I most often think of. They think like the political looters who seek to make me feel guilty and give away hours of my day to them in exchange for a lack of guilt. But if I free myself of that guilt, I do not feel compelled to give them my time, for we both have two arms, two legs and a brain. I can make use of my time for my resources, and they can to. If everyone thought about their time the way I do, the world would be pretty much fixed. For in my daily plans I did not say that I would wake up at 5 AM and own my day starting then. I am aware that I must give some of my day to somebody who relies on me, so it is my task to become more efficient in what I can produce in the fewest hours so that the remainder of that time is mine.

Government, all government lacks this understanding. Even some of my friends who are Republicans are just now learning that the golf games, the nice dinners, and the homes all over the world are nice, but if they run your work into the late night hours to have them, are actually chains of servitude. And even among my friends I have seen a tendency when this debt is realized to steal the time from someone else to recover their loss. Politicians are notorious for this. Most of them being narcissistic by nature anyway and are confused concoctions of human flesh struggling to fill their bodies with food and sex and their poor minds get almost no development during their political careers. This makes them highly inefficient thinkers which translate to legislation and other policies which seek to seduce away the hours of our days to balance the budgets of their errors. God knows they won’t pay for their own mistakes, so they steal from others to cover their debts.

So what is my political affiliation? Well, it doesn’t exist in the contemporary. It exists in the past that I might make use of it in the future. I do not seek to rewrite the works of Nietzsche or Thoreau, but to incorporate them into my own observations like men around a campfire might exchange stories. But the looter, men like George Bernard Shaw, and Hitler, they seek to erase the name of Nietzsche and Thoreau from the original ideas, and change a few sentences here and a few there to suit their purpose then use those classics as a way to steal time from their fellow citizens in a pursuit to fill their bellies with food, and bring attention to their genitals and to do it with as little of their own time invested.

The goal of the tyrant is to sleep as long as they want and to go to bed at their leisure but to never be responsible for their commitments. They simply steal it from others. And Tyrants are not always in the largest positions among the most politically active. Most of the time they come from those whom we trust most, who carry the innocent expression, as the role of the tyrant is not necessarily to kill its enemies. It is to simply steal away our time in a battle that is invisible to our naked eyes, but leaves its impression upon our souls daily.

For it is more than just being tired that you feel at the end of a hard day of work when you turn on the television to have the mindless programming message your senses with something new and less mundane. It is the knowledge that it is 7PM and your day is still not your own, and you are tired and wish to go to bed soon. Your body may be satisfied from food, and sex, but your mind wants to be free and soon you will be asleep and you’ve given it nothing, and it protests as you seek to drown it with the noise from the television. And that is when you wonder why you voted to tax yourself more, because you didn’t have the guts to say no, when the hand of a looter extended into your vision asking you to bail them out from their chosen servitude, you obliged committing yourself to 24 hours of the day to everyone but yourself.
And to me, that is no way to live, and it’s not what America was intended to be. Freedom is more than words in a Constitution, or the amount of money you have in the bank. It’s a state of mind that requires food daily to live and survive the stress of modern interpretation.

For the answer to everything, CLICK THIS LINK:

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

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

Quandary of Collectivism: But you need my job to make you safe!

Below is a message I received from a teacher who is attempting to play a little game that is now all too familiar. In the debate I had recently with the Pro Lakota Levy group, you could hear the same type of fear based placement of a core argument, resembling the message below.(CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THAT DEBATE)

_______________________________________________________

Mr. Hoffman,

I’m voting NO on issue 2. Issue 2 is unfair, unsafe and hurts us all. It takes away the voice of workers in the workplace and they will be unable to negotiate on important issues such as working conditions. Issue 2 will cost the state of Ohio a POWERFUL PRICE. When the good teachers leave for states where they are given a voice in the workplace, who will replace them? Teachers who are less able who can’t get jobs anywhere else.

_______________________________________________

What is easy to see in this small exchange is a kind of lobby attempt that can be seen in its exact duplication of tone on a larger scale over national issues. That is, those who work in government have strived to make themselves appear much more valuable than they truly are in a natural attempt at self-preservation. The tendency of that lobby is to attack the presumption that the world would be better off without the government workers creating needless bureaucracy, and they use examples like the teacher above citing that somehow all the good teachers will leave the state of Ohio if Issue 2 survives, or as in the below example, the world would be like Somalia if libertarians had their way. The government lobby message is the same everywhere……………….”You need my job to make you safe.”

It is in that keyword “safety” that the panicky young mother tunes her ear to the television. “I want my baby to be safe, so I should listen to them,” she says to herself. Or the grown man whose father ran off with another woman when he was a child, leaving he and his mom to fend for themselves, he thinks, “My mom needed the help of government. I’m glad government was there for her.” Or the old man facing his own terminal life who votes or the latest fire levy.  “It could be me they call to save my life.”  A thousand perplexed souls contemplate the same quandaries daily and it is these government types who capitalize on those primal fears to propel the security of their livelihoods in an unrealistic attainment of financial gain. But each time those government lobbyist open their mouth, the rhetoric is the same. The words are changed to fit the circumstances, but the intent is always to plant doubt in the minds of the tax payers that every government job created is needed. So when it is asked why does government seem to always expand, why is it so corrupt? Why is government so imposing? The source of the problem is in the desire of government to provide a job. In this way it grows like a virus unchecked by an immune system and destroys everything in its path in order to maintain the Static Patterns established by society in its pursuit of eternal safety.

The example of Somalia is a preposterous one. It is obvious that the creators of that little (anti-libertarian) film does not understand the greater aspects of social relationships. The real trouble in Somalia is due exclusively to their tendency toward collectivism as can be seen in this short documentary. It was on the back of collectivism that socialism was brought to that country, then when that fell, as it always does it paved the way for the clan Civil War that is currently taking place. Somalia is the direct result of government meddling at many levels, not the other way around, as the video obviously produced by some New Age Leftists, only able to see a small part of the overall picture interpreted.

The trouble with these documentaries is that they are often older than the minds of the modern socialist, whom was educated by a teacher similar to the one who wrote the opening statement of this article. Taken independently, I’m sure that teacher is a wonderful person. I’m sure there is a child who calls them a parent. I’m sure they are someone’s sibling, and is someone else’s child. I’m sure they shop at the same stores as the rest of us and it is their money that helps move wealth through our economic system, and that has intrinsic value. But the destruction comes from a belief in collectivism, a hope that government, and its expansion will bring justice and prosperity to everyone if only they worked for a big collective entity.

Collectivism is a naive concept conjured up over puffs of marijuana smoke in the college dormitories of America and it is in that naivety that people like Barry Obama formulated his belief system that teachers and public education are the salvation of the world, that would break down the barriers to everyone and reach into the villages of faraway places like Somalia and help the starving. Collectivists like Obama and the billionaire George Soros believe they can correct the part of themselves which they deem broken to be redeemed in social salvation. They are no different than Said Barre, the Somalia dictator. Even with all the evils of Barre, there are plenty of people who believe he’s a hero. Collectivists are ultimately the most selfish group on planet Earth, because they are typically flawed people who seek to redeem their own personal imperfections through philanthropy, and social reform, as if they can out-pace their internal demons with acts of charity.  (SEE MY ARTICLE ON JIM JONES)

It is collectivism that is the villain, and rhetoric is the mask that attempts to elude notice as it sneaks into American culture. The teacher who wrote me the letter was using rhetoric to mask the truth, that they can be replaced rather easily and they hope to scare me into believing otherwise, and the producers of the “Libertarian Paradise” film hope that the masses have just as shallow of historical knowledge as they do. And Barry Obama hopes that people will forget what he truly intended for America, a breakdown of the walls we had to the world, so that the world can share in our prosperity. After all, Obama has roots that come from a region of the world that thinks much like Somalia. Kenya is right next door. They all have in common the terrible disease of collectivism, which limits their minds and thinking to barriers in reduced social understanding. And that is why they fail time and time again.

I have been involved in the employment of people for quite some time, and I can personally verify that much of what people will tell you are laced with self-interest. Even in the most collective society, self-interest is the key ingredient. If a person believes they will be better off individually through collectivism, then they will seek to obtain in mass the fruits of that plunder, thus the labor movement. When the teacher says they must stand against Issue 2 to collectively bargain they are saying they want to dominate the process through collectivism so that they can en mass achieve the same results as the clans are performing in Somalia, individual gains reaped from brute force. And when those methods are questioned by the public, they already have the infrastructure in place to bring hardship to their employers in the form of a strike. Its military maneuvers at this point, not negotiation over tax money for the paying of government employees. And the mask is always one that says, “You need me. Only I can perform this task, so you must give me overtime to do it. Only I can do this job so you must put up with me and not hire a replacement.” Sometimes, you believe them, sometimes you don’t, but I have learned over time that after terminating dozens and dozens of employees and losing employees to disputes when you call their bluff, I have always been able to recover the achievement you hired the labor for in the first place, and the doomed promises predicted by the radical rhetoric never comes true. Because the rhetoric is only a mask and behind it is a soul with no real teeth who hopes that the public doesn’t catch on to their scam and pull the plug. Because in the world of collectivism, that world is financed by the tax dollar, and if tax payers stopped giving collectivists so much money, suddenly they are in real trouble. If government stops expanding, they suddenly lose the security blanket they built their collective lives around. So they will lie, cheat, mislead and conjure up any string of facts to justify their existence.

But that existence is coming under fire more and more, as the truth is seeping out from behind the collectivist’s masks of deception. And there is real fear in their eyes of what will become of them if those of us who produce decide to turn off the facet to their livelihoods. We are learning that the teacher asks for too much and does too little. We are learning that the government bureaucrat spends much time and money creating laws that get in our way of doing what we want, and it’s not worth it. And we are learning that community organizers who were forged in the radical sewers of human thought will have appeal to the weak and down-trodden who are willing to turn to collectivism for salvation they couldn’t achieve squarely on their own merit, and elect such a fool as President of a global village tribe, without considering that the tribe will break into an ideological civil war because society cannot be run by the weak collectives and their central planning.

The threats by these collectivists are utterances that aren’t worth the wind which carries the sound wave of discontent. Anyone who believes as collectivists do can be replaced by a superior mind quickly and efficiently, because it is the superior mind who avoids such occupations in order to avoid the fools who are currently employed there. The superior mind doesn’t waste their time on the quandary of collectivism. The apocalypse predicted by those employed by government as that body of collectivism is reduced by the tax dollar are unfounded, completely, the world will still turn tomorrow, kids will still be taught by a teacher, there will still be police and firefighters and many others. The term phrased, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease,” has been true. But my solution to the squeaky wheel is not to just put more grease on it; it is to replace the wheel all together with one that doesn’t make any noise, and might even work better. It is in such thinking that permanent fixes reside.

For the answer to everything, CLICK THIS LINK:

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

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

The “Education Bubble”: The enemy gathers outside of it

For those who believe that all is right in the world, the video below is something you should see. I recently had a debate on 700 WLW with Julie Shaffer over school levies and how much she believes people outside the “education bubble” make as a wage, which far off the true mark and goes far to explain why educators are out-of-touch in asking the public to increase taxes to maintain their lifestyles even when the CPI index says those same teachers are extremely overpaid. It is that same “education bubble” of academia where they view the world with rose-colored lenses darkened even more with tenure that they cannot, or will not see that in their typically leftist viewpoint of global unity and focus on “world peace” that our enemies stir. (CLICK THIS HOTLINK TO HEAR MY DEBATE WITH JULIE)

While the teachers inside this bubble teach our youth pacifism, our youth are becoming less inclined to identify evil for what it is. In fact, many of our adults have the same difficulty, as we have all been educated in the same places. It is not the fault of public education so much as it is the fault of those within the “education bubble” to allow themselves to be seduced by the messages of peace that were created by socialist sympathizers early in American history, and should be viewed no differently than when the farmer takes his flock of cattle to the slaughter-house, petting his animals as he leads them to their deaths. The farmer will drive away from the slaughter-house with money in his pocket, but his cows will leave in pieces, their necks slit and drained of the life. Those in the “education bubble” are like the farmer. They don’t intend harm to their flocks, but they do crave that safety from within academia where they chose to reside, and will at great effort labor to stay there and turn their eyes away from what goes on outside that bubble, even if it means selling away their cattle for money.

I would place the blame on why Americans do not seem able to identify this Middle-Eastern threat on the shoulders of academia, because in their methods of self-preservation, they have allowed the arrogance of an enemy to grow to dangerous proportions. They have lulled society to sleep with empty promises and a pursuit of material wealth accompanied by a healthy dose of altruism, all designed to dissect sectors of modern society from their strongholds of belief.

The academic will scoff at my utterances and those of Glenn Beck because they don’t want to believe in those threats. They do not want to consider that the foundations of their beliefs are but blinders to a menace so magnificent that it threatens to erase any progress mankind has made and cast it back to tents in a desert valley, erasing from the minds of all any trace of skyscrapers, Wall Street trading, or even automobiles. For the rage that dwells within the predators of man care for nothing of invention, peace, love, charity, or reaching for the stars. Their hungry eyes are on the fresh meat within that education bubble which they would consume without reverence or mercy.

And they plot like sinister manipulators, walking among us like the wolf in sheep’s clothing, climbing under the fence to get behind that bubble to eat. Meanwhile the academic looks at the predator and says, “look there at the poor, the downtrodden, the oppressed and offer them your hand, your help, your charity! I say to you my young students to beckon your wealth in their direction, to assist them for they are our brothers and sisters of this world, and deem our respect and understanding.” In this way the teacher leads the students straight into the mouth of the predator to be consumed uneventfully.

The media personality is another type of academic within the “education bubble” who looks everywhere but at the predator in hopes to maintain their fantasy of peace. As they prepare their news stories to met the most recent deadline, and news of a predator in their midst proves unmistakable they utter to themselves, “If only I could take such violent minds to the streets of France to dine within sight of the Eiffel Tower and later that night make love on a veranda overlooking the city at night, then these predators would not want to cut the head off the innocent. If only I could save them from themselves then I would be a type of hero who offered myself to save their lives.” Shortly thereafter, the disillusioned media personality will bury their faces into their hands when they realize too late that it was they who left the gate open to the predators to slaughter their friends behind the “education bubble.”

The enemy is now everywhere and our eyes are no longer trained to see them, because the “education bubble” has failed us. They are in our government, they wear suits, and look like everyone else, and they study everything we do. The enemy is so diverse these days that the enemy doesn’t even know it’s the enemy. They believe they are social servants. Thus, the training provided from within the “education bubble.”

As teachers and other public servants chant at the statehouses all over the nation to protect their “collective bargaining” rights, and their view of the world that was built within the “education bubble” they do not see that the fight they are engaged in is one of manipulation. They were taught to provide a military type distraction in two ways, first to bankrupt our financial structure and deplete our manufacturing base; second they are to draw attention away from the real predators as they maneuver into position to attack. Within the “education bubble” we are taught to think in terms of quarters and semesters. The enemy is taught to think in decades and generations.

So as the teachers and sympathizers of the “education bubble” continue to beat a drum of distraction to preserve their right to shop at Nordstrom’s, an enemy gathers outside of their vision. And as people like me point and say, “there is your end,” they gallantly shrug off the warning.

“Oh, that Mr. Hoffman just hates teachers and so anti-education. You can’t believe anything he says, because he chooses not to join us in the “education bubble.”

And they wonder why I wish to pop that bubble so that they can finally see………………………………

For the answer to everything, CLICK THIS LINK:

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

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

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

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

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

Below are the contents of this discussion:

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

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

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

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

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

Keep in touch,

Rich

Mike Stefanov wrote:

Rich,

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

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

Mike Stefanov

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

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

Thanks,

Rich

(Now here comes the going south portion)

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

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

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

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

Mike

Rich Hoffman Replied:

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

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

Rich

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

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

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

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

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

For the answer to everything, CLICK THIS LINK:

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

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