Looters of Cincinnati: The end of the line is here

As many said during 2011–without Issue 2–which was repealed by the public unions in Ohio, Cincinnati was in deep trouble. Now in the summer of 2012, Cincinnati is facing a $34 million dollar deficit as the progressive Mayor Mallory pushes for higher taxes to pay for the enormous amounts of money that his street car project is going to take from the Cincinnati budget.

Kathy Harrell Fraternal Order of Police President also is pushing for higher taxes to pay for the high salaries of her members as she extrapolates public safety over the luxury of a street car, because the police and Mayor Mallory are after the same money provided by the tax payers, and they both expect to get it from the property owners in Cincinnati who are being pushed to fund all these projects with their tax dollars.

Issue 2 would have allowed management of the salary structure of the police officers of Cincinnati without drastically decreasing their numbers. To get an idea of what many of these police officers make, CLICK HERE to see what they make just to the north in West Chester Twp. Many police officers make close to six figure salaries by the time all their benefits and overtime are added up. 1000 employees who cost the tax payers $100,000 each per year cost the city $100 million dollars—just to put it in perspective. The actual cost is much higher since many city employees make a lot more than $100K per year. The way to manage those costs is to drive down the wage amounts so that they fit within the current budget. It’s essentially the same problem that tax payers are having with public school teachers. Teachers in government schools expect too much pay. But Kathy will not even consider such an option as asking her members to take a pay cut. Listen to her two years ago the last time City Council tried to balance their budget. You can hear the audio from Darryl Parks show on 700 WLW.

The proposed new tax is $6 per $100,000 of property value which doesn’t sound like much until one considers the impact on businesses with values of $1 million or more. For them, the tax increase is quite steep. For a business, $1 million dollars of value is very much the norm. The average Wendy’s restaurant is valued between $1 million and $1.5 million, so every place of business in the city of Cincinnati is at risk of seeing significant property tax increases since their businesses are all valued close to those numbers. Political looters like Roxanne Qualls reminded city council that if taxes do not increase, then they had better be ready to make serious cuts to programs, which she knows nobody has the political will to do. The prospect of city council members taking a stand against tax increases has led to the rumblings of law suits against those who resist the tax push. She was quick to point out that only 14 percent of a property owner’s tax bill goes to the city. Most of the money goes to the Cincinnati Public Schools and Hamilton County levies, which of course ties in to the stadium debacle for the Reds and Bengals sports franchises.

To make matters even worse, the Cincinnati Public Schools just announced that they are seeking a $51.5 million emergency operating levy—most of which goes directly to the wages of government workers. CPS has cut 200 jobs and finally placed their employees on a base salary increase freeze, yet they still need money to cover their $467.5 million dollar budget. And in just three years in 2015 CPS intends to seek another $65.2 million dollar levy renewal, so the increases against property owners will continue into the next decade easily.

If I were a business owner looking for a reason to locate my business in downtown Cincinnati, to lease a space in Carew Tower or some other downtown location, why would I when I could place my business in West Chester, Mason, or Northern Kentucky with a lot less tax burden? The answer is I wouldn’t. I will put my business where there are the most people with the most money, and the taxes are lowest. And downtown Cincinnati isn’t it. There is too much public housing that creates home owners who do not have a personal investment in the property, so property values will continue to spiral downward because investors would be out of their minds to invest in a community that will only be trashed within 10 years. The high taxes currently have pushed out many good jobs from the downtown area and into the suburbs and the general irresponsibility of the city funds have driven completely out-of-town the type of property investment that helps curtail crime, which creates the need for too many police officers to keep the peace.

One of the reasons Kathy Harrell cited as a risk to the layoff of police officers in order to pay for the street car is that if the number of employees drops below 700 officers, then the city will lose federal funding—which means that the police department already is receiving tax payer dollars from the federal government and they have that money spent. So laying off too many police officers will take away federal dollars that will force yet another tax increase on property when that money goes away. This is not only stupid from a financial standpoint, but makes the 10th Amendment of our Bill of Rights completely negligible, since every school and public employment entity has their hand out to Uncle Sam. It makes the state a servant to the federal government so when politicians in Washington decide they wish to enforce the NDAA Act for instance, our local police that we work so hard to pay for with six figure salaries become military troops who report directly to the federal government to enforce martial law—and that is a serious problem. It allows Constitution burning politicians like Obama to build his own army at the expense of local tax payers under the disguise of safety, which makes self-government much more difficult when a dictator attempts to climb into power.

Mayor Mallory who is a very progressive mayor directly connected to the Obama administration seems to have the same economic ignorance as his friend. Mallory as a mayor of a small city in the Midwest spent a lot of time during his first two years in office visiting communist China so he could take pointers from the mother country of his political ideology. It is from his Chinese friends that he learned that he needed to build a streetcar, and that the ballot language needed to be confusing to get it passed by an already apathetic community plagued with debt.

The sum of the problem is that a vast majority of all the government employees involved at every level of the city government from the schools to city council have tried to solve problems by stealing from one place to satisfy the needs elsewhere. And since the entire system is made up of looters—people who seek to take from others to fill the needs of themselves—they have taken away so much from the tax payers that there isn’t anything left to take.

The responsible thing to do for residents of Cincinnati would be to vote at the ballot box and if that doesn’t work then to vote with their feet. It is interesting that the Cincinnati Area Board of Realtors lobbied against the property tax increase from city council because they will be forced to vote in favor of the CPS tax, since realtors use good schools as a way to sell homes and in people’s minds, passed levies equal good schools which to a realtor equals sales of homes. Tax payers in Cincinnati are much less likely to pass the CPS levy if city council forces a $6 tax hike per $100K home. In Cincinnati there is no end in sight for tax increases because the looters of Cincinnati have spent too much, and made taxes so high that new investment is staying out of the city. And for the same reason that residents do not want to move into high crime neighborhoods to avoid being robbed, investment dollars avoid communities with high taxes, because the politicians are no different from the kind of looter who would rob a person at gun point. Threats of lawsuits, threats of declining police presence violating public safety, threats of a declining community of tax payers who do not approve tax increases are still coercion made under inflicted duress—not under the logic of clear conscious—which is how Cincinnati ended up in the situation that it’s in. The problems were caused by the Looters of Cincinnati and nobody else. These politicians were warned, and Issue 2 was created by forward-looking legislators to attempt to curtail the impact of these upcoming times, but nobody listened and now there is hell to pay. The good of Cincinnati will now make plans to leave leaving only the ugly to reside within the city limits with the rest of the looters. And years from now when archeologists wonder why the city of Cincinnati fell into drastic decline it will not be because it lacked highway access, or a wonderful airport—it will be because taxes were simply too high and that destroyed everything that was good about the city and turned it into just another ghostlike victim of the present economy that is indiscriminate in it’s destruction of anything but the most efficient leaving only the Looters of Cincinnati to feed off each other once everything productive had been consumed.

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This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!! Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.“

Visit the NEW Tail of the Dragon WEBSITE! CLICK HERE!

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

Teacher’s Threaten to Strike in Chicago: The big labor union show with a puppet mayor

Does anyone remember when President Obama told America right after his election in 2008 that The United States had a lot to learn from Europe, and that we should strive to be more like them as a nation? Now, as Spain is begging for a financial bailout, Greece is locked in a civil war in the it’s streets between the communists and Nazi parties, France is collapsing under it’s newly elected socialist president and Italy is failing especially in their economy and is not far behind Spain. When President Obama pointed at Europe and stated that The United States should be more like them, he was saying that it was socialism that America needed to emulate, and within four years of open socialism from the start of Obama’s presidency to the end of it, Europe is collapsing under economic failures directly created by the small little book called The Communist Manifesto. Those who followed the economic policies of Karl Marx have led their nations to financial ruin.

In America, thankfully not quite too late, some are beginning to see the socialist tendencies being taught in our schools and openly advocated by our government. Some in the Tea Party movements and other liberty groups are beginning to fight back in an attempt to save the capitalism that built America from the encroachment of communism. Most notably, the recall election in Wisconsin to remove Scott Walker as governor was the grand attempt by socialist labor unions to maintain their grip on economic power and dedication to expand socialism to every corner of the world.

Yet in the city of Chicago, President Obama’s favorite city, it is socialism that rules still as the teachers union for the Chicago Public School system voted by a margin of more than 75% of it’s members to impose a potential strike in mid-August 2012 if the CPS management cannot come to contract terms with the Chicago Teacher’s Union which expires on June 30th 2012. You can read the announcement of this strike at the website of Progress Illinois seen below, which is Illinois version of Progress Ohio. (Special note, all such “progress” groups are essentially socialist/communist advocates. They use the name “progress” to hide their real intentions, which is to follow the path of Europe. So beware of them all. They are anti-capitalist—and therefore anti-American.)

http://progressillinois.com/posts/content/2012/06/11/whats-next-after-ctu-strike-authorization-vote

It is clear in this proposed Chicago teachers strike why the unions are against voucher schools and privately run schools, because under capitalism, if free enterprise were involved in education, the government schools would not be able to maintain a monopoly and tactics like these massive teacher strikes would not work, because parents would have options in case their children’s school teachers did strike.

The issues that the CTU wish to strike over are of course wages. Currently, the average wage rate for CTU teachers is $69,000 and under the new contract the CTU wants a 29% increase over that amount. Another stipulation is the teachers of the CTU are upset that the teacher work day will increase by ten percent from 420 minutes to 460 minutes a day. At 460 minutes of contracted work, that comes out to a work day of 7.6 hours. The audacity of such expectations is that those CTU employees are so incredibly out of touch from what the average American is experiencing that they don’t see that such an expectation is ridiculously foolish. The CTU employees are suffering from the same inflated viewpoint that citizens in Europe expect which is bankrupting the entire Euro zone.

The first thing any rational person would ask when listening to the CTU demands is how on earth could they expect in this day and age to succeed with this insane, and unprecedented strike attempt. Well, the answer is in whom the mayor of Chicago is, the former White House Obama heel licker Rahm Emanuel, who at his heart is a big time progressive, pro union advocate. The union leaders of the CTU would like the public to believe they are locked in a mortal battle with the Mayor Emanuel, but I will declare this—that the whole thing is a political stunt and the Mayor is in on the act.

Emanuel and the labor leaders of the CTU plan to allow the threat of a strike to percolate and gain media attention during the summer of 2012, and at the last-minute, Emanuel and the union leaders will strike a deal, and both parties will declare victory over the charade imposed upon the tax payers of Chicago. Their combined hopes, along with the White House are that unions all over America will use Chicago as an example of strength and follow with the same type of strike attempts in every city in the nation. The unions desire a victory after the paralyzing loss in Wisconsin so they are staging one in Chicago with the progressive Mayor Emanuel to prove that the extortion attempts of old still work, before the unions lose all their members due to ineffectiveness.

The goal for all involved is not to bring relief to the tax payers of Chicago or even to help one single child, but to spread the socialism which is crushing Europe all over America. The unions realize that they must move fast, or they will be completely out of power within a few years, so they need to radicalize their base with a victory in Chicago, which Rahm Emanuel is poised to give them.

The fight in Chicago is nothing more than a WWF wrestling match. The victors are already determined, and are simply staging a fight on behalf of the American people. The staged fight is designed to breathe life into unions bent over with defeat as tax payers everywhere are beginning to fight back. Progressive know that if they don’t rally their troops now, it will be over for them in America very soon, because Europe is failing miserably under socialism/communism and the dream of a communist worldwide utopia so fantasized by the political left for so many years is quickly evaporating like a puddle of water on a sidewalk in Columbia, South America. It is communism that these progressives on both sides of the Chicago labor dispute desire, only they won’t tell the taxpayers that. What they show is a mayor who must come to the negotiating table with the CTU, forced there by the threat of a strike, to negotiate a collective-bargaining agreement and preserve the union way of life into the future. Their attempt is as futile as the fools of Europe marching in the streets and setting police officers on fire to protest free government support for their lazy, unproductive lives. And such a description is the antithesis of your local school teacher who complains that $69,000 a year is not enough money for only working 7.8 hours a day.

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This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!! Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.“

Visit the NEW Tail of the Dragon WEBSITE! CLICK HERE!

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

The Film Industry Bubble: Mello Yello pays me a visit before “Prometheus”

After my article a few weeks ago on the soft drink, Mello Yello the marketing team noticed and contacted me to let me know they appreciated my dedication to their product. You can see their comments from that first contact at the bottom of that posting.I have only ever drank one kind of soft drink, and that is Mello Yello, so I was particularly impressed to come home on Friday to a box from the Coca Cola company in Atlanta, Georgia. Inside the box were a number of Mello Yello marketing items that the company had sent me that made a good day even better.

They sent me a T-shirt, a long sleeve shirt, a hat, a pen, a notebook, and a thank you note, which meant a lot coming from a company that I have silently been very loyal to for a number of years. I had just enough time to open the box and scan through the items before getting ready to take my kids and their significant others out to the movie theater to see the long-awaited Prometheus. So I put on my new Mello Yello T-shirt, and my Mello Yello hat, and I grabbed the Mello Yello notebook with pen to give to my oldest daughter, and we left for the movie.

Of course I looked like a walking billboard for Mello Yello when my daughter let me into their townhouse where I gave her the notebook. She tends to write almost as much as I do, so I knew she would put it to good use. I also knew my kids would get a kick out of seeing all the Mello Yello gear, because in our family, it’s well known my love of Mello Yello. We don’t all get together as easily as we used to because we all have busy lives, so getting the Mello Yello clothing in time for our long-planned movie was a nice addition to a wonderful evening.

For Prometheus my wife wanted to see it on the IMAX screen at Showcase Cinemas in Springdale, which I think is the best movie screen in the Cincinnati area. Of course the film was in 3D like they all are these days, just like film producers promised when they flew me out to Los Angeles a few years ago to do a fire whip sequence and prove out the use of a 3D camera system for Real D 3D with Peter Facinelli. I had at that time a lot of skepticism that audiences would flock to theaters to put on 3D glasses and watch a movie with just a little extra thrill factor. Women who go out on dates spending a lot of time fixing up their hair just right I didn’t think would be interested in putting on glasses that would smear their make-up. People who naturally wear glasses have to now look through two glasses to see anything in a 3D movie, which is a pain in the neck. But Hollywood was committed to the idea of 3D just prior to Obama becoming president because they were pushed by theaters owners all over the United States to justify their investments in state of the art projection systems, giant theaters, and comfortable seating.

Hollywood like the education industry is facing the same kind of economic bubble that the housing industry has already experienced, and it’s bursting. In Hollywood, it was the films of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg in the 1980’s that set the modern idea of what a “blockbuster” was. Every year since the release of E.T. and the last of the original Star Wars films Hollywood has tried to copy the box office numbers of those films by pushing for larger stunts, larger and louder explosions, and faster paced film techniques driven largely by the music video generation created by MTV. Most of the films Hollywood produce each year falls short of executive expectations, but the pressure has been on for quite some time to get larger box office totals as the entertainment unions have driven up the financial expectations higher and higher. Leading actors now for a picture make between $20 million to $30 million, so budgets for a typical summer blockbuster are now up over $150 million dollars routinely. Hollywood has increasingly had to rely on overseas sales to complement their box office take domestically in order to justify their massive up front investments. Revenue streams are changing for the industry as well, as ticket prices have went up to compensate the increasingly high budgets for films, technology has made it so people can often watch films at home more comfortably than at a movie theater. Just the other day I was at Wal-Mart where I looked at a beautiful 70” big screen LCD television that was just over $2,000 dollars. Hollywood now has to find a way to give people an experience at the theater that they can’t get at home, so 3D is their solution. And it’s failing.

I say 3D is failing not with pleasure in my voice, but sadness. I love the movie theater experience, which is why I made a tremendous ritual of taking all my kids to a movie and spending $100 on tickets that cost over $15 each to see Prometheus with my Mello Yello gear on to create memories that will last a lifetime. I wanted them to have a great night out at the movies where going to the theater is like going to a sacred mythic temple as modern mythology is bestowed upon the moviegoer.

Prior to our film beginning I watched the previews for the newest rendition of Spiderman, and Batman, and half a dozen 3D extravaganzas that I could see will end up in the same scrap heap as Battleship and John Carter. It’s not to say that those films are bad, or don’t have a market niche to fill, but studios are forced to spend over $100 million to make those films because of expectations, and ticket prices are simply too high, most people will wait to watch those films on video, or Netflix. Every movie cannot be Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Pirates of the Caribbean, or The Avengers. Most Hollywood producers are fearful to attempt these days to develop original material because the risk is simply too great. Even a popular book like John Carter may not be enough to guarantee success. As I watched the previews prior to Prometheus, I knew that 75% of those films would be box office disappointments. They were dead before they have even arrived, because of the laws of quality described in Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The Hollywood producers and entertainment agents more than ever are chasing dreams like the founders of California’s gold rush. They are digging for gold where it’s been discovered instead of looking where nobody has discovered it yet, because they are functioning in the back of the “train” so to speak.

Needless to say the film I took my family to Prometheus was spectacular, and it should have been for $100 bucks. I had no regrets in seeing that movie especially since everyone enjoyed the film tremendously. But as I stood in the lobby of Showcase Cinemas afterward in my bright yellow Mello Yello gear a wave of sadness swept over me realizing that the financial structure that made the whole movie theater business run was about to bust. Prometheus represented the best that Hollywood had to offer, and at $15 dollars a ticket, it barely seemed worth it. I can’t image paying that kind of price for a lesser movie, yet the movie industry is counting on it, and they will be disappointed.

The same holds true in the movie industry as it does with President Obama not understanding that European economic models built around socialism is the cause of their failure, and The United States allowing for a mixed economy of a little socialism here and there sprinkled with bits of capitalism is what has caused Obama’s failed economy during his presidency. He’s as clueless as the typical film executive who will find themselves out of a job in a couple of years because their films failed to meet the market expectations. Hollywood is looking for the Justice League to fill the market void of George Lucas retiring. That was on my mind because just a few days before Mello Yello sent me all that merchandise I received a press release from Lucasfilm stating Lucas was officially retiring, and that Kathleen Kennedy was stepping in to help fill the void at that billion dollar film company. Kennedy is a long time assistant to many Spielberg films and now she’s going to work full-time at Lucasfilm. This is a serious indication that Hollywood’s creative core is aging, and moving on to other things, and the next generations of Hollywood filmmakers and other above-the-line talent are functioning from the back of Pirsig’s quality train, and will fail under the heavy expectations.

I thought it was appropriate that I was wearing a Mello Yello T-shirt on a night when I was having all these thoughts. Way back in 1994 and 1995 I wanted to buy a Mello Yello T-shirt, but then frustrated executives at Coca Cola were upset that the soft drink did not perform equivalent to Mountain Dew, so they pulled the drink for a bit and changed it to the soft drink “Serge,” so I didn’t get my Mello Yello shirt. This went on for a while until executives at the Coca Cola Company realized that this would not boost their sales, so they had sacrificed a very good drink just because it arrived late to the marketing gate, and if they had held strong, they might have made real gains through the late 90’s into the next century. Mello Yello made its triumphant return slowly, and is just now beginning to be purchased in the northern states of America. The same day I went to Wal-Mart to see the big screen television, they had three 12 packs of Mello Yello on their shelf. My wife bought all three of them. A couple of years ago, Wal-Mart in Ohio did not carry Mello Yello at all.

Mello Yello has always been a great drink, but it was judged based on the blockbuster success of Mountain Dew, and it suffered as a result. The same thing is about to happen in the film industry. Many films will suffer as film executives lose their jobs in the years to come due to the entertainment bubble collapsing under the enormous weight of expectation. And like Mello Yello, I have my brands of filmmakers that I support valiantly, and Ridley Scott is one of them. When my “brands” make a film that I know they poured their heart and soul into it, I go and see them. The next film I feel passionate about will be Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit. I will pay top dollar to see that movie as a kind of vote for what I think success in a movie should be, to help curb the disappointment from an industry that expects too much, and is collapsing under inflated opinions. Twenty years from now, like my previous twenty years of supporting Mello Yello, I’m sure some of these very good film studios will re-emerge from the wreckage that is about to become of the film industry, and I’ll be there to support them as I was to see the great film Prometheus and one of the great offerings of the year from 20th Century Fox.

I proudly put my Mello Yello gear away when I got home that night and contemplated all that you read here today. And because of that, it means more to me than the moment that I opened it. In capitalism, whether it’s a movie, or a soft drink, the idea came from the mind of a capitalist, and millions of people enjoy the results of those thoughts—and every instance is a thing of beauty. I cherish Mello Yello because it’s been through so much as a company and even with all that, they still have the swagger about them to send me a box full of Mello Yello fun on the eve of taking my family to see the film Prometheus. It was an evening of ideas, and capitalism, and crushing expectations. But at the end of the day, it is the ideas that burn not so much brightest, but longest that survive. And Mello Yello survives, in the same way that many others will endure as great minds who think at the front of the train emerge to give great ideas a place to materialize. Each time I wear my Mello Yello T-shirt, it will not be out of blind devotion to a soft drink, but out of reverence to a company that I cherish because it makes a great product, and has had the tenacity to weather the storms of economic betrayal to arrive at a day when it can please the taste buds of millions.

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This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!! Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.“

Visit the NEW Tail of the Dragon WEBSITE! CLICK HERE!

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

No Levy for Lakota in 2012: Rich Hoffman agrees with the Lakota School Board?

For the first time in over a year, I agree with the Lakota School Board. They should not put a levy on the ballot this November for the 2012 election. At this time, the current board president Ben Dibble is giving indications that they will not pursue a levy request on the fall ballot. This is a good thing in that it respects the wishes of the voters in the last three elections, and recognizes the economic conditions of the community. To put the community through another dog fight in a year when weary home buyers might not wish to purchase a home in the Lakota district because our campaign fight has been on the radio and in the papers both locally and nationally each week would not be wise.

http://westchesterbuzz.com/2012/06/07/enquirer-exclusive-report-lakota-levy-is-very-unlikely/

It was nearly a year ago when I attended a school board meeting and everyone was getting along for the first time in a long time. I spoke openly with several members of the board, and key administrators prior to their last levy attempt. Lakota seemed to be on the mend, and a new superintendent was coming to help balance the budget.

When Superintendent Mantia came from Pickerington, she sat down with me and the members of No Lakota Levy and attempted to tell us what we wanted to hear, which kept the peace for a few weeks. But behind the scenes, there was scheming going on, which of course got back to me. Another election came and the proposed tax increase was defeated by over 18,000 votes. Some of the credit for that loss could certainly be given to those of us who brought information to the public about how ridiculous much of the current Lakota spending was. But much of the loss can be attributed to the declining housing market. Residents used to be generous with levy increases because the values of their homes were well outpacing the taxes. Now that taxes are high, and prices are falling, people don’t have the extra money to throw away at a public school, and many businesses are barely hanging on by a thread. A tax increase just might do many of them in, with an economic climate that by all indications in hindsight will be called a great depression.

After that November 2011 defeat a small band of pro levy supporters decided they were going to get me back for “hurting” their children’s lives by denying more tax money to the school. The belief was that if No Lakota Levy could be talked out of working with me, the tax opposition would be removed. What these agents of seduction did not know was that it was the members of No Lakota Levy who approached me after I did my own independent work in fighting the levy in the spring of 2010 to join forces and help them. My behavior was the same as it had always been, I brought my supporters with me and expanded their efforts. When Superintendent Mantia and other board members attempted to befriend members of No Lakota Levy who they assumed were the leaders, they left me out of those conversation because they rationalized that I was just the radical “hired” lobbyist that could be fired if the leaders of No Lakota Levy could be convinced.

While this politicking was going on behind closed doors, and through emails and phone calls, several of the radical pro levy supporters still upset at me due to the November 2011 election began a smear campaign against me, some of them going to the Kroger Store on Cincinnati-Dayton road during Saturdays in February and conducting a survey against my name, attempting to slander me publicly in the doorway as people went into the store. Some of my anti-levy friends were giving me word that this was going on publicly and within the school itself and that Mantia was stoking the fires personally. Politically I could see why she would do such a thing. After all, she was paid a quarter of a million dollars a year to come to Lakota from Pickerington to pass a school levy and I was her primary opposition. So she figured that by removing my credibility through constant attacks, and trying to divide and conquer my friends in the No Lakota Levy, that she could remove the tax opposition since she knew that many of the property owners in No Lakota Levy were very concerned about another public battle over a levy.

Seeing all this going on, and hearing the kinds of things that were being said infuriated me and I went on my now famous rant which I fully intended to weed out the instigators who were causing me so much trouble. I had my suspicions, but I had to know for sure who was responsible for what in the smear campaign against me and how they all connected. Sure enough, after I put up a tempting post here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom it was Julie Schafer the Vice President of the Lakota School Board and my political rival over the tax increases who posted my comments on her Facebook page to enrage the fires, as predicted. Behind the scenes the superintendent solicited community support from big time liberals like West Chester Trustee Cathy Stoker in an attempt to bring down the wrath of the community on me. But in essence it was only about 70 to 80 hard core levy supporters and they had come out by name in their online comments in the Enquirer and Facebook pages giving me the information I needed to use in the next levy fight.

Predictably, my friends in the No Lakota Levy wanted political distance from me, because for years they had been victims of threatened boycotts from those same 70-80 hard core levy supporters who profess to speak for over 100,000 Lakota school district residents. The backlash in the media was considerable and conventional politics would have dictated that I was finished. If I had a conventional life, I might have lost my job, my family, even my nerve with the offensive that the pro levy group at Lakota attempted. But I do not have a conventional life, and my reputation is so well known and respected that my core supporters never wavered from me for a second. The desired hope was that by removing me from No Lakota Levy the websites I ran would all be shut down, and I would drift off into obscurity. What the levy supporters did not know was that my support base had only increased as a result of their actions, not decreased. In the chess game of politics, you might call that a “checkmate.” I’ve played a lot of chess, so most of these moves were planned way back in August of 2011, anticipating the move of the opposition, even baiting them to make the moves desired. Sometimes it’s one thing to consider the strategic options, it’s another to actually see them do it, and once they did, it did infuriate me into a rage that I still feel.

It is sad that the whole ordeal must be looked upon as a game of winning and losing. Sadly, the losers of this game have managed to punish the parents of the district with extremely high fees for extracurricular activities and busing costs which should all be included with the high taxes we already pay. Ben is right that the budget from the state is not yet set, so there are unknowns. And it’s difficult to tell how much more homes in the Lakota district will lose in further value as a result of the economic conditions. Finally, some Lakota administrators are starting to learn that they can save tremendous amounts of money by combining jobs. This summer there are two assistant superintendents who are retiring, and Lakota is only planning to replace one, which will save a six figure salary, which is significant. If they did that 10 more times to 10 other positions they would save a million dollars. If they did it 20 times, they would save 2 million dollars, then Lakota could afford to have busing, free sports and many other things just by asking the employees to do more, which is quite appropriate under the conditions.

But ultimately, not putting a levy on the ballot in 2012 prevents me from unleashing the mountain of bad PR I am holding to unleash during the next levy attempt. I have not done it yet because I don’t want to scare away potential home buyers. But I also don’t want to see a levy increase ruin community businesses and push people out of their homes. For those in the Lakota district who brag about their $5,500 property tax bill each year and their ability to pay it, they do not understand that $20 or $30 extra in monthly taxes will end many property owners mortgages, because many don’t have the extra money to pay higher taxes due to many economic factors.

The people who have written to me, and campaigned against me who do brag about their ability to pay $5,500 tax bills are typically young. They typically have young children and have been fortunate enough to have good jobs that pay salaries which enable them to have a lifestyle that disregards such a high tax. Since they are young parents they are chemically induced to give “everything” to their children without question, so their decision making skills are greatly lacking and they have a lot of growing up to do. For the rest of us in Lakota, the “old timers” the people who have raised children and understand the costs, and appreciate the value of things, we know that a higher tax will destroy our community, so we are opposed. We also know that circumstances do change in the course of a long life, and many of those $5,500 property tax payers will lose their jobs within the decade and will find they are not so well positioned in the future to pay such a high tax. The radicals of further taxation do not have a blank check to attack those of us with logic. They cannot dish out such aggressive advances without expecting to be attacked back. That is simply not how the game is played. Most of the people I know who have been around for a while think such well paid young parents are fools because they are tossing their money away cheaply, without consideration, and we know there will come a time within the next couple of decades that they will pay dearly for their lack of vision. Such people will not be allowed to destroy our community with their short-sightedness.

But I am personally glad that at least Ben sees the logic of the situation, and it is my hope that the school board will finally begin to manage the money we give them, and not put the community through another bloody levy battle, because there are homes that need to be sold, and leases that need to be signed. Lakota just graduated a lot of students, and there are not more students coming in behind those, so Lakota is looking at a whole decade of declining enrollment and the layoff of hundreds of future employees. A new tax will not be needed for many, many years. Hopefully, the school board will now listen to the 18,000 who voted against the last levy attempt and not the 80 crazy radicals who make a lot of noise, but not much sense. Because the fate of our community will be determined by what happens in 2012 and 2013, and a tax increase would send our district into the category of Princeton, and Evandale, instead of Indian Hill. The choice is always structured around tax rates, because that is the blood of an economy. And it takes leadership to see that blood flow, and be willing to do the hard things to preserve the future with the least restriction to the economy as possible.

There is of course more to the story, which will be revealed soon. But for now, there may be a small period of peace before Lakota seeks again to ask for higher taxes in the form of a levy. If Lakota does good things, I’m happy to report those here as well as the bad things. But Lakota has to give me good things to report, like turning two six figure salary positions into one, to help balance the budget as they did with the assistant superintendent positions. So we’ll see what the future holds, but it’s a good start to hear Lakota talking about managing the money they already have instead of trying to solve their management problems with higher taxes.

____________________________________________________________

This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!! Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.“

Visit the NEW Tail of the Dragon WEBSITE! CLICK HERE!

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

Gargoyle Sunglasses: Protecting the eyes of Rick Stevens in “Tail of the Dragon.”

As those who have read it are learning, I inserted some of my personal favorite places and things in my new novel Tail of the Dragon quite on purpose. The picture below is a scene from the book where the supercar in the story is just beginning to receive the kind of damage it will encounter during the greatest car chase in the history of car chases. The $20 million dollar restored Firebird running on vegetable oil through a 700 HP diesel engine conversation sustains tremendous damage through its frequent encounters with police and military forces. Some of the worst damage comes from the .50 caliber machine gun rounds which leave tremendous holes in the heavily armored classic car. But that isn’t the only armor in the picture. Featured in that photograph are my favorite pair of sunglasses called Gargoyles, otherwise known as “EYE ARMOR,” since they are reputed to deflect a .22 caliber bullet. In my novel Gargoyle sunglasses are the preferred sunglasses of Rick Stevens, the hero of Tail of the Dragon because like the car he drives, he needs armor to help him achieve his objective.

I included Gargoyles into the story of Tail of the Dragon because for over 20 years they are the only sunglasses that I have worn, and that will never change as long as I can buy Gargoyles. I am so passionate about Gargoyle sunglasses that once in Cancun, Mexico I had lost a screw to a pair of Gargoyles that were 10 years old and I had to face the intense sun of the Yucatan without protection. I went to a sunglass specialty shop looking for Gargoyle sunglasses so I could purchase a new pair. Much to my disappointment the store only carried Oakley sunglasses and Ray Ban, along with other similar brands—but not Gargoyles. The owner of the store almost sold me a pair Oakley’s that were very close in style to my Gargoyles. The cost of those Oakley’s down in Mexico was nearly $500 American dollars. As I put them on and looked at myself in the mirror, I felt like I was cheating on my Gargoyles, so I handed them back to the owner, and told him I’d buy more Gargoyles when I got back to the states. He seemed to admire my loyalty to Gargoyle sunglasses and swore that he would carry them from now on. He offered me a small jeweler’s screw with the correct threads to put in my old pair of Gargoyles for no charge and I was able to walk out of his store with my old sunglasses fixed.

I much preferred to face the intense sun of the Caribbean with my 10 year old Gargoyle sunglasses over a $500 pair of new Oakley sunglasses that looked very sharp, but just did not feel like Gargoyles. Gargoyles had been a part of my daily life for over 20 years. I can count on one hand the days I left my home without my Gargoyles. I am so passionate about my Gargoyle sunglasses that I put them on just to go outside to get the mail. I seldom ever let the sun hit my face without having Gargoyles on to shield my eyes with armor from the world outside.

I consider my eyes very valuable as I have 20/10 vision. I have always been very concerned in resisting the ultraviolent light thrown off by the sun and prefer filtered sun light through a good pair of sunglasses. I have done this since I was 9 or 10 years old. Gargoyles first came on the market in 1979. They were worn by Clint Eastwood in the movie Sudden Impact, and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the film Terminator. Dale Earnhart in NASCAR would make Gargoyle sunglasses part of his public image. I bought my first pair as I was working as a gunsmith in a shed I had set up behind my house and noticed that many of the shooters at the time were wearing Gargoyles to protect their eyes. I used my FFA license to qualify for a discount at wholesale dealer I had for gun parts who happened to sell Gargoyles. My discount made the $89 sunglasses at the time cost only $64. So I bought a pair for me, and a blue pair for my wife.

My love of Gargoyles has remained since that day in late 1989. However as the 1990’s came along and the old 80’s movie stars became older and less popular Oakley sunglasses began to take over as the most popular type of sunglasses. Oakley’s were the choice of the basketball player Michael Jordan so they became the next fashion craze in eyewear along with Air Jordan tennis shoes. Slowly over time, Gargoyles began to fade into obscurity as they had been carried by Sunglass Hutts all across the nation, but in the late 90’s those chain stores began fading as EBay and other online shopping outlets cut into the profits of those typical mall establishments. When Dale Earnhart had a crash that would cause his death, ambition for Gargoyles sunglasses seemed to disappear from the public completely.

I could no longer find Gargoyle sunglasses at a store, so I wore the same pair for over 10 years and never contemplated buying another pair even if I had to go for the rest of my life. Then we had the accident in Cancun where I had discovered that I had lost a screw to my sunglasses while climbing around in a cenote in the middle of the Yucatan Peninsula. Even though I had managed to fix my Gargoyles, it had become apparent that I would have to find a replacement pair eventually.

Once we returned to the states several more months went by and I intended to look for new Gargoyles but didn’t get around to it. Then about 7 months later for my birthday my wife gave me a present that was kind of small in relation to how excited she was about it. I opened the present and it was a new pair of Gargoyle Sunglasses she had found online at the new website for Gargoyles as seen here:

http://www.gargoyleseyewear.com/

I was of course elated to have a brand new pair of Gargoyles for the first time in a decade. I remembered all the times my other pairs of sunglasses had helped me avert disaster, particularly on my motorcycle where gravel would fly up from a truck in front of me on the highway and send projectiles at my face. On one instance I was hit in the face with many small pebbles from a cement truck as I was flying by the vehicle at over 100 MPH. The small rocks dug into my skin and caused blood to run down my face from many places, particularly my forehead. But my Gargoyles protected my eyes allowing me to squint through the pain while I recovered without crashing.

My loyalty to Gargoyle sunglasses is alive and well today, so for the character of Rick Stevens in a story that requires the character to endure billions of dollars of damage from bullets, missiles, broken glass, splintered wood and intense wind gusts, the only eyewear I would even consider are Gargoyle sunglasses. It is for that very reason that Gargoyles are the sunglasses used in my new book Tail of the Dragon. Because when the whole world seems to be coming down, and only speed can save you, it is Gargoyles that I would turn to time and time again to protect my eyes so they can survive to fight another day with the ultimate in eye armor. There is no substitute for a character who is the first breed of a new kind of superman, and such heroes deserve to have their eyes protected as the world throws danger in large doses at the most vulnerable spot on the human body—their eyes. When it comes to sunglasses “function first” is always the first consideration and when it comes to function, none function better than Gargoyles.

____________________________________________________________

This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!! Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.“

Visit the NEW Tail of the Dragon WEBSITE! CLICK HERE!

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

Wayne Allyn Root Speaks about Scott Walker: Diana Fray goes to jail

I would have loved to hear from the Bill Cunningham speaking with Wayne Allyn Root on the day after the historic Wisconsin recall election of Governor Scott Walker, as opposed to the same Bill Cunningham who campaigned against Issue 2 in Ohio working against his friend, Governor Kasich who faced a similar battle in Ohio. The good Bill Cunningham had a wonderful conversation with Root on 700 WLW relishing the first major victory against the mobs of public sector unions and the tyranny those groups have inflicted upon America, as Walker emerged victorious with a 53-47 victory.

The big difference between the Scott Walker situation in Wisconsin and the John Kasich situation in Ohio is that Kasich had a law to defend, Walker had to defend himself. The unions targeted the Republican reforms on collective-bargaining in Ohio by seeking to repeal the entire law. The unions spent millions of dollars and collected more than enough signatures to attack the collective bargaining reform law to keep it out of their lives. The cost has been just as predicted, many schools, police, and fire departments have had to layoff workers to meet their budgets, because Issue 2 was repealed in Ohio during the November 2011 election. The unions were fighting on two fronts, as they also had to spend their national time and money fighting in Wisconsin gathering signatures to recall the governorship of Scott Walker removing him from office entirely, just because the unions didn’t like him.

The audacity of this attempt says everything about what union politics represents. Their attempt to remove a sitting governor not for corruption, or unethical violations against the state constitution, but for reforming collective-bargaining and being too aggressive for their liking was the primary motive. The public unions tried to do against Scott Walker what they have done to every governing body for more than 80 years, and that is impose their collective will upon politics to shape legislation to their liking. But Walker stood strong during the entire attempt to remove him from office, and the Republican Party stood with him firmly, which led to the first major victory against the union mob in union history.

Kasich was not so lucky. Republicans did not stand behind Governor Kasich the way they did with Scott Walker because too many Republicans had climbed into bed with the unions over the years, and could not pick a side in the modern civil war going on between public and private sector jobs. When Issue 2 was defeated, it was a sign that the labor unions advocating open communism could not be beat, so the situation looked grim for Scott Walker.

When Bill Cunningham was growing up, unions seemed to be an unstoppable force. My own dad is about the same age as Cunningham and told me before the first time I went on WLW to speak with Scott Sloan about the tyranny of the teachers unions, “The unions will get you. You have to watch what you say.” My dad, like Cunningham saw firsthand all through the 60’s and 70’s how labor unions driven by communist leaders would destroy the lives of people who stood in their way. To speak out against the unions meant conflict, and many people wish to avoid conflict, so they yielded to the unions for many years which resulted in disproportionate budgets favoring the public unions. Politicians seeking to hide their part in the scam promoted tax increases to hide their fear of the unions.

All public unions function in virtually the same way. Whenever a union president faced a city council, township trustees, or a school board, the standard behavior is to use their union members to protest ANY wage reductions, or insurance premium increases with radical displays and public threats. Most recently, it was Diana Fray who just received 51 months in prison for her theft of a quarter million dollars from her union to take vacations and purchase real estate. She went from being a crusader for the collective mob of her union to a criminal within only weeks of being discovered for her crimes. The only thing that changed was a slight shift in public acceptance. Labor union presidents steal money all the time from their employers with the threat of force. They do not earn pay increases based on merit, but upon coercion. This is how unions have managed to extort so much money from the companies they work for, and from the tax payers, is through threats and intimidation. The only difference for Diana Fray is she didn’t just steal the money from the tax payers, but from her own union too, which in a world of twisted reality, finally crossed the line.

The unions threatened Scott Walker with even death during his first year and a half of office, attempting every trick of thug manipulation used since unions began. They chanted, they attempted violence, the issued death threats, they attempted public humiliation and finally they attempted to use the force of law to batter Walker out of office.

But what Walker has been the first to do on a large-scale is to show the formula for beating these collectivists which every state and local government can now see for their own eyes, and that is to show that the power of the individual is more powerful than the collective mob if the individual simply does not care what the mob thinks, feels, or considers. Walker like Kasich was hired to do a job through an election and if people didn’t like the results of that job, they can vote him out in the next election. Kasich had his efforts cut out from under him as a result of the union referendum. Many voters simply did not vote in favor of keeping Issue 2 because they lacked the courage to show up at the polls, which yielded Ohio to the power of collective force represented by the unions. The unions attempted to remove Walker from office because they wanted to stop the reforms he initiated, and did not allow him to run his full term because they knew that Walker’s reforms would solve many budget problems. They knew if people saw this secret for themselves, they would no longer support public labor unions. So the unions attempted to do what they know best and that’s force a man from office because he went against their wishes.

Scott Walker showed as Hank Rearden did in the book Atlas Shrugged, that the coercion of the labor unions, like the coercion of the law, did not have any real power that they did not steal from someone else. The unions do not have better ideas, they are not the best employees, they are not the most efficient–they fail in every conceivable way. They only succeed when they can force others to act against themselves by coercion. Scott Walker did not yield, and because of it, the unions have been exposed for not having any legitimate power or claim to greater portions of the public treasury. All the unions have is the threat of force, of being a potential menace to those who are in love with peace. This has been a profitable formula against conservatives who would rather make money than fight, and would rather appease than argue. In the mind of the conservative, they can always make more money, so they give away their treasures hoping the looting mobs of the public unions will leave them alone, but it only made the situation worse. Each time the mob came, they asked for more and more money until the public had simply had enough.

Now that it has been seen, this resistance to the mob rule of the labor unions will begin to escalate, and organized labor will continue to fail in pockets all over the country, and it should. Taken as individuals, the union members are just the same as the rest of society. They are not evil incarnate. But in the collective body of a public sector union, the mob becomes the most evil entity on the face of the earth. They exist only to rob, and pillage anyone they can so they can secure wonderful communist lifestyles for themselves exhibited so well by Wayne Allyn Root in the broadcast above. The life of the union member requires the looting of others to survive, which is why they are one of the most corrosive forces in politics today. Finally, people are starting to stand up to them, and have realized that the greatest power there is in the entire world that is more powerful than any gun, any protest, any public display against the mob is to simply learn to say “NO.” Saying “no” takes away the power of the union and everything they represent. It stops the ability of the collectivist parasites from further extracting from the taxpayers any more money without revealing that they are actually functioning as a gang of thugs with one purpose, to loot and destroy everything until there is nothing left—and thus fulfill the life of a treacherous parasite.

Yes, it has been a good week, Scott Walker will remain governor of Wisconsin, and Diana Fray will go to jail for several years to live with the other criminals of existence, which is where she and every union member deserves to go who attempts to live off the work of others without a care to the lives they destroy in the process. The only sadness I have is that Ohio had a chance to be the first, but in the final hour, they blinked and the unions prolonged the inevitable for just a few more months until Walker finally beat them. Most of the time the only difference between victory and loss is in the courage of other individuals to rally to the cause of courage. In Wisconsin, there was courage—but in Ohio, there was not—and because of that, many people will lose their jobs in the long run and the misery will be extended because people did not have the guts to make the right call at the right time and instead played politics at the expense of honor.

____________________________________________________________

This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!! Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.“

Visit the NEW Tail of the Dragon WEBSITE! CLICK HERE!

Visit and friend us on Facebook!

http://www.facebook.com/tailofthedragonbook

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

Cliffhanger Ranch and the Wonders of Capitalism: McDonalds in the Appalachian Mountains

The American Hiking Society’s National Trails Day in Coeburn, Virginia is an annual event that takes place in the heart of Wise County. It’s in this location that a good friend of mine is building the Cliffhanger Ranch and Adventure Outpost on the front door of the Jefferson National Forest heavily used by equestrians all over the eastern United States. The designated weekend set for this celebration of outdoor endeavors was June 1st through the 3rd 2012 and I was invited to come and perform several bullwhip shows for the groups of horse riders, mountain bikers, hikers, kayakers and many others who found their way to the ranch as an oasis of adventure.

It was a pleasure to attend this event. While doing shows in remote places like the Cliffhanger Ranch and Adventure Outpost there is always a real opportunity to witness life the way America was always intended. The people who participate in events like The American Hiking Society National Trails Day are typically those who appreciate the kind of adventure the outdoors brings, and it’s refreshing to speak with such people. For my wife and I the trip to the Ranch was a wonderful experience as it took us through the heart of America in the land of Appalachia.

From Cincinnati the best way to get to the remote portion of Virginia that houses the Cliffhanger Ranch is the Mountain Parkway through Eastern Kentucky. My wife and I stopped at a McDonalds on the journey through Stanton, the gateway town to the Daniel Boone National Forest. The next area just to the south is the Red River Gorge and Natural Bridge locations. Everything south of that is a no man’s land for many in America. The locals know well about the majestic magic of the town Jackson nestled deep in the Appalachian Mountains about 25 miles south of the Red River Gorge area on Rt. 15. Then of course further south near the Kentucky/Virginia border is the historic town of Hazard.

It had been several years since I had been south of Red River Gorge so I warned my wife that she should enjoy this particular McDonalds, since I wasn’t sure if Jackson, or Hazard would have such places to eat. Those towns are about as remote as anywhere on earth with only towns in Alaska and the upper states of America comparing. In small towns like Stanton the philosophy of America is alive and well. Washington politics seems like a remote concern. Three firefighters ate next to us at McDonalds and I noticed their t-shirts did not have the typical AFL-CIO emblem on them. In towns like Stanton, Jackson, and Hazard the meaning of volunteerism is alive and well. These towns in the south do not like unions and the corrosive, mob like behavior of big city outsiders and their big government ideas connected to labor unions. The inhabitants along the Mountain Parkway are ruggedly independent and damn proud of it. Yet, they are also friendly to one another. When I hear labor unions in the north claim that the world would fall apart if not for their labor union membership, those advocates have not traveled in the south, which is home to most of the country’s right-to-work states.

On the way through Jackson there was a pretty serious accident. A pick-up truck had flipped over on its side in the middle of an intersection, the driver was seriously injured. On the scene were a couple of police cars, and the fire department, only the firefighters were obviously volunteers. Some of the firefighters directing traffic around the accident were dressed in the cloths of their professions, and had shown up because they were on call. The driver was being cut out of the car as we drove by and I noticed that all the emergency personal at the scene seemed to be very competent and were very composed functioning without panic. I saw a similar scene further south where there was another accident on Rt. 15 which is great road, but very dangerous if drivers aren’t paying attention as it winds through the Appalachian Mountains. Again there were many plain clothes emergency personal on the scene, a lack of union identification, and a genuine lack of panic. If the same accident had occurred in the northern states, the police and firefighters would make a much more audacious show of their emergency care. Compared to the same type of personnel in the mountains of Kentucky the public workers in the north are much more neurotic, and panic driven, since they tend to dramatize their heroics to drive home their “social” importance in order to pass tax levies.

As my wife and I pulled into the town of Coeburn, Virginia I was impressed to have passed at least three Wal-Mart’s from Stanton to the Cliffhanger Ranch and at least four McDonalds, which really surprised me. I tried to imagine executives at McDonalds planning to build restaurants in remote towns like Jefferson and Hazard, Kentucky far away from highway access. The miracles of capitalism become apparent in such places. I have often marveled at how many McDonalds restaurants exist along highway I-75 from Detroit to Miami, Florida and that by itself is a magnificent achievement on behalf of capitalism. Only capitalism allows such a convenience. An overabundance of McDonald’s restaurants will not be seen anywhere in China or in Siberia, Russia. Only in America can such things happen, because it is capitalism that made it so.

As my wife and I paused a couple of times to enjoy a sausage and egg McMuffin and enjoy the mountain air at several of these restaurants just for the pleasure of stopping, I suddenly felt a bit silly for being concerned that Stanton would be the last sign of such convenience for over 150 miles. When I was a kid and visited the site near Hazard, Kentucky where my grandma and grandpa grew up deep in the heart of moonshine country, gas and food was hard to get unless you killed it yourself. Now, there was a lot of new construction along Rt. 15 south of Mountain Parkway and there was no shortage of McDonalds restaurants. Since 1961 McDonalds has more than 12,804 locations and they open a new store every four hours. It is because of capitalism that remote places like Jackson and Hazard have the smell of coffee and hash browns waltzing with the misty aroma of mountain air early on a weekend morning as old men sit with their friends and read the paper, and traveling families relish the menu of their home towns with a familiarity that is refreshing and more than satisfying to their minds than the hunger of their stomachs. It is McDonalds that joins everyone under the umbrella of capitalism.

The will of capitalism and of mankind in general can be seen in full glory in that wonderful drive from Stanton to the Cliffhanger Ranch. Where human beings wished to build a Wal-Mart, if a mountain was in the way, they simply blasted through the mountainside. If mankind wished to put a road through a mountain, they simply removed the mountain. In Southern Kentucky, mankind had decided that it was not subservient to the power of earthquakes which made the mountains in the first place along the fault lines of geologic plates. Man had proclaimed itself as powerful as any force on earth by moving and shaping mountains in a more organized fashion than the chaos of Mother Nature and her temperamental neurosis.

And this is the beauty of places like the Cliffhanger Ranch and Adventure Outpost. My friend is offering a permanent facility that preserves the ruggedness of nature and individual adventurers the ability to enjoy it. That is the responsibility of capitalism, to capture and preserve such places so they will not disappear. But it is also the responsibility of capitalism to build McDonalds in every corner of the globe if possible so the quality of life can be improved for all. Families instead of spending half the morning preparing for a large breakfast can now do more with their time since McDonalds has made it easy to get quick food while on the run, or just providing a wonderful gathering place for locals to stay in touch with each other. And when outdoorsman wish to get away and listen to the locusts singing their summer songs in the heat of an afternoon, it is the Cliffhanger Ranch and Adventure Outpost that is there for the weary adventurer looking to enjoy the cold water of a river from their kayak, or the mastery over a majestic animal while horseback riding through the Jefferson National Forest. At the end of the day at the Cliffhanger Ranch high atop a hill looking down into the National Forest as a raging bon fire threw its heat to the night sky it was capitalism that made it all possible. Because these days, as opposed to only 30 years ago, such remote places are accessible to be enjoyed without giving up the benefits of productive human life.

Just a few miles from the location of that raging bon fire was a Pizza Hut, a Long John Silver’s, many gas stations, and the Lonesome Pine Raceway hosting races on Saturday night. In town the cars could be seen on their trailers heading to the track and it was capitalism that made it all possible, the cars, the restaurants, and the Cliffhanger Ranch and Adventure Outpost. Those combinations are wonderful reminders of what America the beautiful really means. It’s not just the mountains, the forests, or the horses carrying their riders on glorious weekend adventures that make America the subject of song and jealous hatred the world over. It is capitalism that makes it all possible, and is why the rest of the world cannot enjoy these combinations, as it is in capitalism that the adventures of mankind’s mind can thrive and preserve the world not as mother nature handed it to the human being in her random, manic depressed state, but that the human being can carve the world into the image of their wildest imaginations.

The Cliffhanger Ranch and Adventure Outpost is the most recent endeavor in that far-flung part of the world to capture the great outdoors while still embracing the wonders of capitalism so that youth and families all over the Eastern United States will not forget the pioneering spirit that began to carve Virginia into the land of adventure that it is today. It is not intended to hang on to the past by stopping the future as most environmentalists attempt to do, but to serve as a reminder of who we are, and how we got here, as McDonalds and the miracles of capitalism continue to expand the human imagination into uncharted territory of a future that is coming at mankind with treasures not yet discovered.

____________________________________________________________

This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!! Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.“

Visit the NEW Tail of the Dragon WEBSITE! CLICK HERE!

Visit and friend us on Facebook!

http://www.facebook.com/tailofthedragonbook

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

“Screen Guide for Americans”: Ayn Rand, Walt Disney, and Ronald Reagan tried to warn America

Even when I was a very small child, my mother would make references to me that I reminded her of John Wayne. It wasn’t because I was a big guy, or because I spoke a certain way, or even that I sat around watching his movies—which were too boring for my 9-year-old mind back then. She said it because I had uncompromising ideas about right and wrong, and had the kind of clarification she enjoyed from her youth when she watched John Wayne movies with her daddy. And it was moments like those, between daughter and father, or father and son that The Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals was dedicated to in 1947. They were devoted to promoting American values in films, and were particularly famous for identifying communist infiltration into the movie business. You can read more about the MPA here:

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

Now these were not a bunch of crazy right-winged radicals from the fringes of society. Among them, were Walt Disney, John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Ronald Reagan, Cecil B. Demille, Clark Gable, Ginger Rogers, and Ayn Rand. In 1947, these were mainstream entertainers and box office heavy weights that helped preserve American culture. To this very day no one could question Walt Disney’s patriotic love when they visit Walt Disney World and can see everywhere that Disney treasured his country and showed it in his films whenever he could. And there can be no question that many consider Ronald Reagan to be one of America’s greatest presidents ever. These were good people and in their day they recognized a fight, and they did their part to combat it.

These dedicated American entertainment personalities recognized that communism was a threat to the world of their time. Even Ronald Reagan had been tempted to join the Communist Party in his 20’s before he realized what it was. All these men and women working in Hollywood had come to recognize that communist propaganda agents had been seeking jobs in Hollywood to subtly “change” the culture of America. These are the classic “change agents” who are wide at work to this very day using The Delphi Technique in local communities to advance progressive agenda items by Saul Alisnky methods of manipulation created in the 1960’s and 1970’s. In 1947 Hollywood, the “change agents” were not as subtle as they are today, and Americans still cherished ideas that resisted the aims of these “change agents.” This is why The Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals commissioned Ayn Rand to present a guide for movie studios to use in spotting the attempts of the “change agents” to infiltrate their films and subtly bring the ideas of communism to the American people using American movies as the delivery method.

I have placed below the entire guide for you use. It is a wonderful, unpublished work of Ayn Rand and it needs to be seen and shared. You should read it, and do so very carefully. What you will read most likely will shatter your world, as you believed prior to reading the below information that you understood what was going on in the world, and you now realize that you did not. When reading this pamphlet you will see today, that everything Ayn Rand and her fellow members of the MPA were trying to warn America about came true, as a new breed of actors, actresses, producers, and a movie going public began to graduate colleges and high schools where the exact same infiltration of communist propaganda had been taking place. Rand with this short work managed to help production companies hold off communism for a few short years but the MPA was dissolved in 1975 as most of the members aged and died off, leaving a new generation raised with communist propaganda to openly subject the American public to everything Ayn Rand warned about in the below document. Now in the first decades of the twenty-first century, communism is entrenched in American culture to such a degree that the values mentioned in Ayn Rand’s Screen Guide for Americans seems out-of-step and “old-fashioned.” Many of the same people who today wonder why Ayn Rand is such a popular novelist, or why people still enjoy John Wayne movies, or why people flock in droves to visit Walt Disney World in Florida, will hesitate to follow the values of those artists because society has become more “progressive” and such ideas are no longer valid–socially. People may still enjoy them in an “old fashioned” kind of way, but they will not act on that respect since strong ideas of personal freedom, individuality, and righteousness are frowned upon by a society that has been defeated by the communist plague given to America during the Cold War through movies, television, music, public education, college and virtually every newspaper and magazine in print. The warnings were given, and below you will have the opportunity to go back into a time capsule and measure just how far America has fallen by reading the ancient words of Ayn Rand from 1947, in a document many in the current “progressive (socialist) movement” wish you not to see. Here it is, and I suggest you read it all. Copy it and carry it around with you. And certainly send it to a loved one.

This is how serious the situation is. The guide below could now be used in every part of American life, and it will become clear that the communists achieved what they wanted, and they did it using the methods outlined below.

Many who know me understand that I am dedicated not to the kind of America we see today. I have personally rejected most of what society has determined is “good” in a world gone mad with pure evil. I want nothing to do with it, because the world of ideas many hold valuable now are derived from the parasitic concept of collectivism which is the face of evil on planet earth. I made the decision to go against the grain of society as a very young boy, which is why I reminded my mother of John Wayne, and that won’t change.

Now, conservatives in Hollywood are very difficult to find as most projects that have messages outlined in Ayn Rand’s Screen Guide for Americans will never get “green lit” since many financial backers in the motion picture industry have an “agenda” driven by political ideology shaped by communist infiltration of American culture in virtually every aspect of their lives. But the guide from Ayn Rand is still true. Just because it’s “old-fashioned” does not make it any less relevant today than it was in 1947. The only thing that’s changed is the people who read it, not the meaning of the words on the page. The gap in thought between then and now are all the reasons that another 60 years of “progressive” thought and evolution will deliver the human race to the precipice of destruction, as this is the only fate of a parasitic culture. That is what any group of collectivists is, whether it’s a simple bacterium invading the body with sickness, or a society of school teachers who believe in the works of Karl Marx. All collectivists are wrong, and are parasites to the strength and virtue of the individual. It is only the individual who faces each day with a sense of right and wrong, to navigate the world by holding up their portion of it that anything happens. And it has always been the individual who has been attacked by the blob of collectivism, as Ayn Rand, Walt Disney, and Ronald Reagan tried to warn us all about in 1947 with the Screen Guide for Americans, only to have that voice of reason shut down in 1975, and for The Guide seen above to disappear except for a few obscure locations online. Well, you have it now dear reader. You have it in your hands what 50 years of progressive infiltration attempted to suppress. Now—make use of it, and do not hesitate!

____________________________________________________________

This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!! Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.“

Visit the NEW Tail of the Dragon WEBSITE! CLICK HERE!

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

YOU ARE BEING WATCHED: The real life version of the novel “1984”

Best-selling author Glenn Beck and best-selling author Brad Thor along with many others speak in great detail just how bad our privacy has become in America. Do yourself a favor and take the time to watch these videos so you can understand the reality of the situation. While you watch these clips keep in mind that the government’s behavior is all funded by your tax dollars. You still have control, for now. But lack of action on your part will bring about a complete police state within a few short years.

It’s here right now, and it won’t get better without your action. Now, make sure to share this with a friend or family member so they can learn about this very important topic!

____________________________________________________________

This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!! Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.“

While you wait for Tail of the Dragon, read my first book at Barnes and Nobel.com as they are now offering The Symposium of Justice.

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

Building Star Trek’s U.S.S. Enterprise: How to create 10 of them, not just 1 with Objectivism

Dan over at Build the Enterprise.org made national news last week when Yahoo News featured his 20 year plan to build an actual U.S.S. Enterprise that costs approximately $50 billion a year for the next 20 years at a total cost of $1 trillion dollars. (CHECK IT OUT!) Even though that is a huge price tag in a country with an already $15 trillion-dollar deficient, he justifies the cost by pointing out that in 2008 the United States spent nearly that much on the controversial Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Most people can agree who are not involved with politics that many of the bailouts the government spent money on during this depression era economy have been a complete waste, and the money was more or less tossed away with no R.O.I., so why not commit our science and military assets to the construction of an actual U.S.S Enterprise to begin an actual jump into a renewed space race?

Dan has it all figured out regarding how to engage in this massive project. His timeline has the first 9 years dedicated to research of the technology needed to build the project, with component testing followed by 11 years of manufacture and construction in space. At the conclusion of this assembly period the Enterprise will be ready for a moon flyby and be perfectly ready to begin routine 3 month flights to Mars. The benefit of Dan’s Enterprise design as opposed to the traditional NASA approach is that this Enterprise version will allow full 1g gravity for its 1000 occupants using ion propulsion electrically based from a nuclear generator to transport from the Earth to Mars and back again in 250 days. This means that the physical deterioration typically endured on the human body during long space flights will be eliminated allowing space travelers to roam about in an environment that is not much different from how they typically work and indulge in recreation today. For many of the U.S.S. Enterprise travelers their residences, work and leisure would be in a kind of giant shopping mall experience. They would eat, sleep and walk about just as they would on earth, and this would solve tremendous duration problems currently experienced by astronauts in zero g environments.

Dan’s plan is fantastic, and should be explored seriously by private investment. This would be a worthy goal for companies like Google, Facebook, and other giant corporations that have been able to generate tremendous amounts of capital. I disagree with Dan on two basic things which he has overlooked, primarily because he’s an engineer and naturally doesn’t deal with political science—that no government should be involved in this endeavor and that taxes should never be raised, which he proposes.

During this 20 year span of building the U.S.S. Enterprise the people of the entire world need an entirely new philosophy from which to think from. A philosophy is a kind of play book like any football player understands–it’s the way a sports player attacks the game as designed by the head coach. The philosophy of the team and its ability to adapt to changing circumstances will often be the exclusive factor between success and failure on the field of play. In the game of life, the same is true.

Currently mankind’s philosophy is rooted in Plato, and Immanuel Kant. This must change to one based more on Aristotle and refined by Ayn Rand. It will take a massive shift in human consciousness to accept these changes and avoid two hundred more years of stagnation, which is our current path because politicians and world governments think that Star Trek is for entertainment and the minds of geeks, as they hold onto their non rationality based philosophies given to them by Kant.

The process of this happening is already underway. The Ayn Rand Institute is publishing the extensive work of Ayn Rand which is selling well. It has taken most of a century already for Americans to finally begin to accept her work, and her philosophy of Objectivism is just the kind of national strategy that would bring about not just one U.S.S. Enterprise, but many. There is absolutely no reason the United States should settle to have just one of these ships, but ten. But to have them we would also have to reinvent the way our current government in the United States operates. We would have to reinvent education, political science; the emphasis on our wealth creation and many other factors for it to work, but ironically the blueprint was already created by Ayn Rand nearly a century ago. Click here for an introduction into Objectivism.

I don’t propose Objectivsim as a personal preference, but as a viable solution. Dan needs a nuclear reactor to provide power for his Enterprise. America and the world need Objectivism as the thought process to build Enterprise deep space vehicles and space stations. It’s simply a thought structure that is needed to execute the sum desired.

As to the design of the Enterprise opposed to other designs, it is the U.S.S. Enterprise that is so well-known to millions and is a part of the public consciousness. It is true that other designs could be created, but why? Science fiction has already done the work of concept building, and society has come to recognize it. It is no different from NASA using Jules Vern’s classic novel From the Earth to the Moon to model their approach to space craft design over 70 years before the first rocket. Using Star Trek as the model for further space development is perfectly acceptable, and highly justified. The country that creates these U.S.S. Enterprises holding over 1000 people per flight to colonize space, manufacture goods outside of earth’s atmosphere, and mines for rare metals and other resources on other moons and planets solves many of our current worldly problems in a very short time. A vehicle the size of the U.S.S. Enterprise could hold not just one manufacturing facility within it, but many. The future of zero z manufacture and science is of utmost importance, and extremely practical.

For all the sci-fi geeks out there who want to see this happen in their lifetime I suggest you read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead just as you’d read any work of fiction for Star Trek. Forget what your teachers and others tell you about Rand, because there are many functioning in our society who are just as scared of the future as there was during the dark ages of Europe. We are about to experience a tremendous breakthrough that hasn’t been seen since 1492 where adventure and discovery will change the human experience forever. But there were many who insisted that the earth was flat and that sea monsters would eat all ships that left the horizon. And ship building design didn’t change at all for another 400 years. The politicians, teachers, and leaders of science currently on a government pension want to keep the world closed off from new discovery because they are functioning from the failed philosophy of Immanuel Kant and this will hold the human race to the earth for another 400 years of imprisonment.

I spend a lot of time at this site showing readers how cancer could be cured right now, how food could never run out, how energy could be properly harnessed if not for the interference of politicians and world leaders who have broken ideas about how life should be because they are functioning from the wrong philosophy. A few weeks ago there was a similar sensation on Yahoo News about the next generation of flying car, which was cool, but didn’t come close to the great design of Paul Mollar out in California. Paul Mollar’s Skycar is a design that has been around for two decades and it works. But he can’t get our government to get behind him because of politics. There is a lot of money tied up in the current automotive industry, and nobody has the political will to upset the apple cart. So a great idea has been put on the back burner until society grows up, and into the idea of a personal car that can take off in your driveway and land wherever you want it to. This is because people in society are functioning from the wrong philosophy. Objectivism is the philosophy needed to expand our technological and mental barriers. CLICK HERE TO SEE THE REAL SKYCAR.

The same fate will befall Dan’s fantastic plan of building a U.S.S. Enterprise as has happened to Paul Mollar’s Skycar, the political will is not there because too many people function from the wrong philosophy. Before the first bit of research can be done on the U.S.S. Enterprise, America would have to change its current path of thinking away from Kant and into Rand, or to put it more technically, away from Plato, and more toward Aristotle. That is the key to being able to arrive at a space port in the middle of Iowa to leave earth and arrive at a future U.S.S. Enterprise waiting at an orbiting dock to leave for a Marriott hotel on the planet Mars within the next hundred years. The future is there, and great ideas like Dan’s are springing up and are conceivably possible. But it is our current human philosophy that is the major impediment, and that must change before any new developments can occur on the long human quest to push the limits of the imagination and arrive at a place of new understanding and high adventure!

____________________________________________________________

This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!! Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.“

While you wait for Tail of the Dragon, read my first book at Barnes and Nobel.com as they are now offering The Symposium of Justice at a discount which is the current lowest price available.

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

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