Category: The Delphi Technique

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

Lakota Mismanages Taxpayer Money: The reason behind pay-for-play sports

Listen to this teacher from Wisconsin in the clip below right before the recall election of Governor Scott Walker. It is these kinds of public employees that have driven up the cost of education at every school in the United States and is what they more often than not seek to teach our youth.

It is those kinds of employees who have created a situation in my home school district of Lakota that are devastating for the parents sending their children to the school. At Lakota over $160 million dollars of tax payer money is already allocated toward educating the students of the community, however, according to the teachers union, that’s not enough. The average wage per employee at Lakota is $63K per year and makes up approximately 80% of the total budget. Yet the Lakota School Board along with superintendent Mantia has said that they don’t have enough money, so they seek to twist the arm of the tax payers in a hope to pass a school levy. They do so at Lakota by cutting busing for students, and have been charging to participate in sports programs. This has enraged many in the community who expect participation in sports to be part of the public education experience. The fees at Lakota during the school year of 2012 will be the highest in the State of Ohio at $550 per student per sport with no cap for families. You can read in more detail the article from the Cincinnati Enquirer about this issue in case you missed it.

http://westchesterbuzz.com/2012/06/01/the-price-of-pay-to-play-lakota-to-have-highest-fees-in-region-next-school-year/

I have spoke with many parents in Lakota, many of them upset that the cost of passing a school levy for them individually is far less than paying $550 per sport for their child. If the parents have 2 children in school and each of them play two sports, that particular family is out over $2000 a year, so they have said to me that they will vote in favor of a school levy so they can save money, even though they don’t agree with the politics.

I have told these parents that the system is rigged this way by the OSBA to push school boards like the one at Lakota to place the financial pain back on the parents so that union contracts can be satisfied without interruption. I told them that if they allow themselves to vote yes for a school levy because they want to save the $2000 in fees, then they are simply tools of organized labor.

The cause of the school fees is not lack of money; it is mismanagement of the money given to the districts by the tax payers. Cutting sports is proportional to the cuts of busing in that sports costs are somewhere between 1% and 2% of the total budget. When a school board cuts their support of funding sports, they do so in order to cover the expense of heavily padded labor contracts, and they hope the imposition on parents will force tax increases on the community to cover the labor demands.

In Southwest Ohio 82 percent of the 49 school districts are charging pay-to-play fees for high school sports yet just across the river in Kentucky such fees are rare. The strategy is designed by the Ohio School Board Association to extort money through financial hardship to force tax increases. In Kentucky union membership is not required, but in Ohio it is. Public schools in Ohio are a closed shop, and this forces labor costs up through collective bargaining who seeks to gobble up all the tax dollars for their union interests. This leaves no money left for sports, leaving children struggling to pay for their fees. It’s a dirty trick organized by teacher unions to manipulate taxpayers, and it’s rather disgusting.

The public sector unions at their heart are socialist organizations intent on open communism. That is why so many of the radical teachers who advocate leftist policies are drawn to big labor public sector jobs, because it keeps them out of competitive work environments which is the only place that communism works– in theory—in the minds of the extreme liberal, in their utmost fantasies. Communism in real life does not work, and it never works—and that is what the cause of the sports fees are. Parents are forced to accept small bits of communism from radical teachers because they don’t want to pay the extraordinary fees to play sports. The extortion tactic forces upon the family trying to give their children the best of everything, higher taxes that go on forever, so to avoid the school fees they must accept the taxes. It’s a dishonest practice that should be viewed with the same anger that the theft by a common criminal is viewed, because the intentions are the same—theft, extortion, and coercion through financial torture. What else is it?

Personally, I do not want to pay for teachers who think the way that educators shown in the video above think. I would seek to terminate their employment from my district because they are just creating trouble for our nation to solve later with incorrectly educated students. Many political looters speak of the need for education, but they always leave out the most important part of education, and that is getting a “quality” education. A district that does not manage the extraordinary taxes that the Lakota district already pays is yielding to the radicals of the unions at the expense of parents and children. School boards are not in pursuit of quality, but simply a lottery ticket of hope that if the district pays for a teacher that they are going to get the desired results. Most often, they do not. All too often the money buys a left-winged radical intent on bringing communism to the minds of our children and teaching them failed economic policies, and that is not acceptable.

The proper reaction to the extortion measure of school fees is to force the district to pay the money where the district desires it. If the voters wish for their money to be spent on busing, then the school board should do that. If the desire of voters is to have their money spent on sports, then the school board has an obligation to do so. But what has happened at Lakota, and 82% of all schools in Southern Ohio is they take direction from the OSBA to protect the labor contracts of teachers with gold plated benefits that the tax payers do not enjoy themselves, and that is why the children and their families are made to suffer. There is no other reason, and the public reaction to these extortion methods are the task of our day to define for generations to come. Appeasement today only leads to tyranny tomorrow, and for the parents who would rather pay the tax than the fee, that is exactly what they are choosing, which their children are watching—and learning.

The solution is not to yield and allow the mismanagement to occur, because it does not solve the problem. Letting it go, only delays the problem for some future time for a future family, which is how we arrived at this situation in the first place.

____________________________________________________________

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

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!


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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

Scott Walker WINS!: Standing up to the communists of the labor movement

I did a rather extensive article that will follow this one on Karl Marx for one primary reason, to show why the battle between Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin and the labor unions is the battle of our age between communism and capitalism. What Bill Clinton and Walker’s rival are talking about below is disguised socialism. Labor unions are an invention of communism, and for every union member who professes otherwise, they do not know the roots of the movement or why it came to be. Labor unions are movements toward outright communism created in the mind of Karl Marx. The middle class talked about below is the code word in communist circles as the proletariat Marx attempted to push into the bourgeoisie class to knock them out of power. The attempt here is to paint Walker as a man of the rich, “the bourgeoisie” from The Communist Manifesto. The speech below is pure communism that Lenin might have made in the early days of The Soviet Union and this is what the fight in this country now is all about.

I know many people will think that calling the union labor movement a communist movement may sound extreme to many, but that’s what it is. Communism with softer versions of socialism disguised under the flag of progressive politics is what Bill Clinton and Barack Obama want for America and on the night before the recall election millions of labor union leaders and members are silent, because they know that this recall election is a fight for American idealism.

Scott Walker has been one of the few men in this country who has had the guts to stand up to the union thugs. In Ohio, where John Kasich appeared to have the same type of guts, he has now caved under the pressure and is now a defeated man. I saw it in his face the night before the Issue 2 election even though he spoke well. In the months that followed, he quietly attempted to reach across the political aisle and repair his party relationships. Personally in the local Tea Parties many took me aside and told me not to support anti union attempts during an election year, because Kasich had to carry the state for the Republican nominee. My response was to go my own way because I will not grant labor unions a seat at the table that demands my tax money. I do not support them, and that’s all there is to it. The labor unions and the communism they represent needs to be eradicated from the American dream. It needs to be pushed back to Europe where it belongs in the bankrupt countries there; because that’s where The Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx leads countries. It is because of Karl Marx that Greece is failing and Spain is going to pieces economically. As of now it is Sweden, the only former socialist country of Europe that has made a complete reversal of political philosophy rejecting Marx and the Keynesian economics that followed in favor of capitalism–for proof, look at the marketing position of the store IKEA. They finally figured it out.

In Ohio the labor unions petitioned to remove collective bargaining reform from the law, and the unions won. Kasich now has the legacy of loss behind him without the courage to fight again. But in Wisconsin the labor unions have tried to completely remove Scott Walker as governor, because of his reforms on “collective bargaining.”

In Ohio, there were many Rhino Republicans who had without knowing it embraced socialism in America. Many of them were making great livings off it as attorneys, so when they realized the extent of “collective bargaining” reform and what it would do to a world they helped build on the foundations of communism, they did not back Kasich, and left him out to dry, which was a tragic mistake.

But in Wisconsin, the Republicans have held together, and Scott Walker has not backed down from the fight in any way. That’s why he’s going to win tomorrow, and that will be a wonderful thing. It will be a tremendous step for The United States to take a bold step away from socialism and move back toward an economic system that is dedicated to capitalism. Walker will win because the union is out of money, out of ideas and nationally at sites like this one and many others, people are starting to fight back against the communism of labor unions. Popular opinion is moving away from labor unions because people are finally starting to figure out what they’ve always been.

When a politician talks about the “working man” they are talking about the type of middle class peasant addressed in Karl Marx’s The Communist Manifesto. The labor unions in America are not American concepts at all. They are ideas of Karl Marx and for every firefighter, police officer and socialist leaning school teacher who attempts to fly the American flag to cover their European envy they deserve all the ridicule and tears that fall from losing a way of life they have forced on the American people with “FORCE.” The labor unions got where they are today not with peaceful exchange, or “working together” with politics from the other side. They did it with coercion, and mass numbers all serving the needs of the “collective,” and until Scott Walker came along, along with Chris Christie, nobody stood up to the organized labor who have operated like the mob of public sector employment for years.

http://web.gbtv.com//shared/flash/video/share/ObjectEmbedFrame.swf?width=400&height=254&content_id=22016425&property=gbtv

I have a lot of Wisconsin readers here at the OW. Walker will win, but do not take it for granted. The communist labor unions will all show up to vote, so you must also. You must show up and take your state and your country back from these maniacal bandits–these looters of the public treasury, and you must do it boldly. Tomorrow night, when the results come in, then celebrate that you were the first to do what nobody in America has had the guts to do, and that is to stand up to the big labor unions, and face everything they can throw, and still prevail. The Scott Walker victory tomorrow will be a tremendous win for The United States in a fight to preserve capitalism in a nation filled with the cockroaches of communism embodying the labor movement. But victory is not victory until the last vote is read, and the final numbers are released. Take nothing for granted until that moment, and prepare to pop off the head of the great beast called communism.

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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 and friend us on Facebook!

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

Public Schools are not “SAFE”: Statistics on the dangers of tax payer funded educaton

Parents, did you know that your child is not “safe” in public school? Below you will see some very important and verifiable statistics that show 15% of all students in public education are and will be sexually abused by a member of their school staff during their careers. Even in excellent schools like Lakota, and Mason here in Southern Ohio, we have seen scandal after scandal from teachers who cannot keep their clothes on, or want to take the cloths off of their students.

Most taxpayers in my district will pay between $2000 to $6000 in property taxes per year to the Lakota School System, which is a lot of money, and the way the system is set up, those property owners must pay that price for every year they own property in the district–even once their children have grown up and left the home. That sum of money is equivalent to purchasing a big screen television or very high-end computer every year–forever. Yet if those purchased items misbehaved, or harmed our child in some way, we would expect the manufacturer to compensate us. However in public school, when a teacher misbehaves we usually just let it slide and let the administrators handle the situation as they see fit. We just flush the money we spend on education down the toilet and consider it a loss, even though the taxes are very high, and the quality of the product is very low. When we discover that teachers are harming our children, we just blow it off and let the school off the hook with some strongly worded letters and maybe a small rant at a school board meeting.

15% of students being harassed in some sexual way by employees of a school district is a very serious issue, and as reported here at the OW, it’s happening all over Cincinnati. The news received just in calendar year 2011 would confirm the statistics below. Have a look.

These days it would appear that homeschooling is the best method of teaching a child. Children learn better from homeschooling than any other method as proven by testing, even when the teachers are not qualified with master’s degrees and the hiring practices of a local school. Most parents however will say that they are too busy to teach their children at home, or they’ll say they are already paying the taxes, so they might as well use the service. Well—it is those types of parents who will likely discover that their child has been abused in some way at a public school, and deep down inside the child will resent the parent for placing them in a dangerous situation.

Public schools are not safe. The labor unions at these institutions have said for years that the ONLY option is their government school–but it is not. There are vouchers, and private schools, and if the parent cannot afford those education programs, homeschooling is the far more appropriate method, even if the parent is not scholastically minded—it is still better for a child to learn from their parents than any collective blob of public education teachers.

If you love your child, you should never send them to a public school of any kind. The statistics are against you. Chances are your child will become abused in some fashion or another while in school, and it will be the fault of the parent for placing their children in harm’s way. The warning has been given, the statistics show that public education facilities, “public schools,” are not safe environments, but are simply methods of government creating jobs and fulfilling a social agenda of their own making. They are not created to care for the individual needs of any child. They are created to establish a collective being that can be implemented into the blob of society for a lifetime of abuse and lack of self-esteem. And the fault is in the parent who sends their child to the public school knowing that they are playing a dangerous game in a minefield of statistics that are stacked against the child in order to enjoy the costs of a supposedly “free” public education.

____________________________________________________________

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

Why you should not be a Soldier, a College Student, or a Gang Member: The Crushing Weight of Collectivism

My daughter and nephew had some interesting discussions with me over the Memorial Day Weekend that I felt deserved sharing with my readers here at the OW. Their comments are the same that everyone thinks, but fail to identify and it starts with a simple question—why do I feel the crushing urge from society to squash my soul into some type of conformity, and why is that urge allowed to do so?

All during the Memorial Day holiday we celebrate the soldier slain—who gave up their lives so that we could have freedom. We celebrate their collective sacrifice so that we might live. While traveling during this holiday it can’t be mistaken that many so-called motorcycle riders travel in packs down the highway riding in formation with a leader at point. Families gather and social peaking orders manifest into their hierarchy of established seniority. The middle-aged parents sacrifice to care for their elderly parents. The young parents sacrifice to care for their infant children and the youth are seeing their individualities being slowly destroyed and forced to yield to these forces of nature—the reality and maturity of adulthood where compromises are to be made in favor of the collective whole.

The soldier who cannot figure out what to do with their life joins the military to delay a hard decision and hopes to get opportunities in funding college later, because college is so expensive. When the young soldier steps off the bus and into basic training they are given a short hair cut and told to wear the uniform of The United States soldier. Their drill sergeant makes fun of their parents, their loves, and their individuality in an effort to push out individual desires in favor of service to others—into collectivism. The military makes a soldier out of the young person in basic training with a well established formula. The soldier is supposed to learn to follow orders without question.

The young student who gets wonderful grades in school and loves to make their parents happy goes to college and is urged to sacrifice their individuality in favor of a collective by selecting an occupation for life that serves society whether it be an architect, an engineer, an attorney, or a doctor. Their professors will over the course of four years impose the values of the collective upon those students. If a fraternity or sorority is involved, the student will yield much of their individuality to group brother and sisterhood through similar humiliations that destroy the sanctity of the individual as the soldier endures through basic training. Thus you see the source of 90% of society’s modern social problems where legions of lost adults parade about taking jobs that pay moderately well, but at a cost, the loss of their individuality and love of personal freedom. This is why most people in society follow the mandates of socialism even if privately they claim to abhor such collectivism. The motorcycle rider believes they are bastions of individuality as they travel in packs and dress in leather which is a look established by the collective will of “motorcycle riders.” The soldier is told thank you for your service, even though inside they won’t reveal that they ran in front of bullets on command from their superiors because they were more afraid of disobeying orders than of dying or being maimed. The soldier does not have the luxury to consider that their “orders” may actually come from some former dope smoker such as President Obama as he sits with his feet on a desk trying to sneak a cigarette hit behind Michelle’s back. Because the solider has been “trained” to do what they are told without question, and they are told this is honorable, even though inside there are moral dilemmas.

Then there is the middle-aged college graduate who finds themselves drinking too much just to feel relief from crushing social weight. On one hand there are their elderly parents and the lifetime of serving their expectations. Then there are the expectations of their friends and neighbors. Then there are the expectations of their own children, and the desire to steer those children into a life of comfort so that they might have a better life than the middle-ager. As the middle-ager drinks and feels the tinge of numbness coming from the alcohol, they know that what they must do for their children is relieve that “crushing weight” that my daughter and nephew were specifically speaking to me about. So they attempt to guide their children into one of the paths mentioned, the soldier, the college student, or even the gang member. The young child is told to join a group and assimilate, and that process brings much pain to the child that causes a period of rebelliousness, body piercings, tattoos, malicious sex, tumultuous relationships and other catastrophic conditions as the individual yields to the crushing force of collectivism.

I told my nephew as we watched children playing nearby that society goes wrong because it is schizophrenic. On one hand we teach our children individuality from a very young age, we care for and nurture them as individuals and embrace them as unique creatures in the field of space and time. The toys we give them are designed to bring out and establish individual thought, cognitive ability, and rationality skills. But as the child gets older we begin to pull those traits away from the child leaving it a husk of its former self. This leaves the typical teenager a shell of its built up potential which it seeks to fill with collectivism, encouraged by the parents.

The crushing weight my daughter and nephew were talking about was the organism of collectivism to consume the lives of individuals in order to sustain itself. Collectivism in itself is a consuming entity just as the sun through nuclear fusion consumes hydrogen nuclei, or fire consumes oxygen. Collectivism can be seen as an entity that consumes individual human lives to feed its voracious appetite for destruction. As I explained to my nephew, to the organism of collectivism it regards the consumption of individual lives with the same regard that we consume beef at our dinner table. We don’t consider the life of the cow we’re eating, we just eat it. We don’t care what kind of life the cow had at the pasture, what it saw and learned in its lifetime, we only care that it was born, and was slain so that we might eat it. Collectivism looks at human existence in the same fashion.

It is assumed that collectivism is superior to individualism, and it is not. Without the efforts of individuals, there would be nothing for collectivism to consume, and it would die of starvation. All advancements in civilization were done by the few who broke through these temptations of collectivism and brought individual talents to develop new aspects of human existence. It was they who endured and carried on their backs the crushing weight attempting to compress them into service of the collective. As I told my daughter at a McDonalds while we were traveling during the weekend—don’t avoid that crushing feeling. Learn to carry it, build up your strength so that you can push back.

A technically “good” father might tell their child to yield to the collective so that the pain would go away–the invisible monster that consumes the lives of individuality with a brainless hunger. Most of society is in service of this monster, so I’d be lying to her, because there is a pride to be had in surviving that gauntlet of conformity to arrive at a place few people ever reach, a feeling of independence and self-reliance that is provided by The United States Constitution. Sadly very few Americans fully grasp that the freedom we are protecting is not the freedom to “serve” society in any way—but the freedom to live, think, and feel as we teach our very young children, before we pull the rug out from under them with notions of conformity.

As I told my daughter and nephew, until more people push back knowingly against all types of collectivism, the crushing weight they are feeling now in their early twenties to adhere to the great beast’s wishes will be overwhelming. And when they feel it, they must not seek to alleviate the pressure through alcohol consumption, because it causes the loss of wits, or sexual depravity, because it causes a loss of personal pride—of a strength needed to push back against that crushing weight. I explained that I always pushed back against those forces with the ultimate weapon that collectivism despises, I’d read, and fill my head with thoughts, and if my kids wished to maintain themselves into adulthood, that they will make a point to keep their minds full and active and their spirits uplifted; but to never look to collectivism as a pain relieving redemption. The act of avoiding the pain is the first step toward the complete destruction of the individual. It is the individual who holds the keys to mankind’s ultimate survival which cannot exist fully until the beast of collectivism is slain entirely.

Even though most everything stated in this article goes against what most people learn in their lifetimes, it doesn’t make it incorrect, the facts of collectivism cannot be ignored. Most of the misery people feel in their lives comes from this schizophrenic duality of collectivism consuming individualism, and the desire for individualism to live and thrive free of collectivism. The two do not go together, and cannot be mixed like mashed potatoes. The choice must be made and it’s not an easy one. But to make it correctly, all one has to do is look into the eyes of a child, and there they will see their own fates and everything they were ever meant to be, but lacked to courage to live out.

____________________________________________________________

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

Real Estate at Lakota: The Beauty of Captialism shown at Costco

I truly do feel sorry for the real estate agents who used to look at the school districts of Lakota, Mason and Fairfield, Ohio to help sell their homes. Because the housing bubble collapsed, and values have plummeted back to reality, it has forced many to look at other aspects of their communities for value beyond the schools, because communities are not just for young families just beginning their lives, but are for the adults who still remain long after the children have grown. And that reality has been difficult for many to grapple with as the changing economic situation has forced a re-evaluation of many values.

To the neurotic parent who believes that their child is somehow the responsibility of the community to raise and care for, or the real estate agent who wishes an easy home sale off such neurotic parents, your luck has run out, and you are learning that the world in fact did not revolve around you like many thought the sun once did around the earth, but that it is you who serve the community. You are not unwelcome. We do want you to sell homes, and we do want you to buy them. We also want you to enjoy the shopping, the restaurants, and the businesses that make up our community, but you must understand that it is the earth that revolves around the sun—and this is a devastating realization for the selfish school levy supporter.

I have never said once that Lakota could fail as a school during my fights against higher taxes. I have always expected Lakota to be among the best in the state even if at its very best it will fall well short of my personal standards since it thrives as an institution of collectivism, as all public schools do. But I have said that the cost of public education should be cheaper while the quality remains high. An example of what I expect from Lakota and Mason is for them to learn from the Costco business model where that wholesaler is able to offer all its products to customers at a 15% reduction on average, which is the job of its purchasing agents. Costco still offers excellent quality products, but at a much lower price than most anywhere else, and in public education this should be the goal.

I was thinking of Lakota while I was at Costco with my wife the other day, and I realized that if Lakota were to remain a great school in these changing economic times, it would have to find a way to lower its costs while still providing a superior product. That is the name of the game, and the success of how that game is played will dictate the future real estate value of our communities. High taxes just aren’t attractive to new buyers who may not see the kinds of value increases that took place in the Southern Ohio since the 1980’s.

I often wondered how long people thought real estate values would escalate as they have over the last 20 years. When I was in high school gas was under $1 per gallon and a $100,000 home was a mansion. These days $100K doesn’t buy you much of a home and gas is close to $4 dollars per gallon, all in just a very short time, which points to the mismanagement of the economy by the government in general. The home expectation in the Lakota School District is that the costs should be at least $250K to $500K and that simply isn’t sustainable. Home buyers are realizing that there just aren’t enough buyers to drive up the cost of their homes making the property ownership a good investment that outpaces the taxes with levy approvals. This means that once a buyer buys a home, they may not be able to sell it for more than their purchase price even if the school is excellent. So other aspects of the community must be made more appealing, such as lower tax costs, and a more business friendly community with less red tape from meddling trustees and zoning boards.

It’s not because I’m old that prices are so much different today. It’s all about inflation, not just at the Federal Reserve, but of the perception of what we get out of the investments. Many baby boomers have thrived with the low-interest rates and plentiful jobs America had through the 90’s when Bill Clinton and all his scandalous ways operated with a Republican house and senate to balance the budget and maintain that the era of big government was over. This was Clinton riding on the coat tails of Ronald Reagan’s economic policies of the 80’s and Alan Greenspan’s handling of the Federal Reserve.

During this time, there was a lot of money to be made, and baby boomers made it by selling properties and buying new properties with the equity of their investments building fortunes with foundations as stable as a house of cards. Greenspan was a very devote fan of Ayn Rand and was part of the Objectivism circle she had in New York, and even with the influences of a mixed economy, and a gradual push for more and more socialism in America, Greenspan held the economy pretty well together until his departure in 2006. That is when Ben Bernanke took over and by 2008, America slipped into a recession as a number of economic bubbles simply collapsed from years of pressure.

The criticism of Greenspan was that he was naive as to the sheer greed of individual investors and corporations who were prone to take the money and run instead of behaving like Reardon from the classic book Atlas Shrugged, or the principles of Howard Roark in The Fountainhead, both novels that Greenspan loved dearly. But such greed is due to other social factors and not the merits of capitalism, which are directly derived from weaknesses in a mixed economy, with a bit of capitalism sprinkled here and there for show and tell, with socialism making up the structure. As Greespan pushed for privatization of Social Security and other government programs, Democrats pushing socialism prevented those discussions, and the spending spree of the Bush Administration caused Greenspan to use every economic trick available to hold off the inevitable bubble from collapsing. But without Greenspan, Bernanke was no match, and the real estate bubble burst and the nation has plummeted into a depression.

The greed of the self-interested wither it be the Bilderberg group of world financial powerhouses using Bernanke to their ill intentions, or the desire of socialists like President Obama to collapse America under a George Soros plan to destroy America and give rise to a one world government headed by The United Nations where scoundrels and cut throat politicians like Bill Clinton is positioning himself for a key position within that new government, the rules have changed. It can no longer be taken for granted that just a few economic tweaks will solve all our problems, or a company can simply hire a lobbyist in Washington to fend off the political looters from stealing all their corporate profits.

Real solutions are needed in this modern age beyond just shuffling money from one place to another.  During the time of Greenspan residential real estate was sold almost exclusively on the school system it resided in, and now that has changed. Teachers unions not recognizing the changing economic factors continued to strike and make labor threats to drive up their wages, because they saw an opportunity to capitalize on the real estate trends. At Lakota the average teacher wage in 2001 was around $45K per year. Now just a decade later the wages are $63K per year yet nothing changed other than a strike attempt by the teachers in 2008. The service is the same, and the expectation of the community has not altered.

But those days are over. Now a community must actually work to keep itself solvent, and homes must improve on their actual value based on the merit of their competitive market circumstances, and not just the school systems they reside in. School districts themselves must do like the district governments, and that is keep their tax signature low so not to scare away investments. Local governments should not be naive on the opposite end of the political scale as Greenspan was toward private business and not properly accounting for the greed of a collective, which with all the protests members of the political left launched at Greenspan and President Reagan, they have shown to be just as greedy as the average Wall Street looter. The teachers, the fire fighter and the police officer have been just as ravenous as the executives of Enron or the Ponzi scheme of Bernie Madoff. The greed of the mob on both political sides has burst the bubble of the American economy, and now we must all survive.

Lucky for the districts of Lakota, Mason, and Fairfield, there is time to make adjustments before they end up like the have-beens of Sharonville, Princeton, and Reading. The schools could be removed from the economic equation and these areas would still be wonderful places to live because of their location and quality of living. The thing that would kill these areas in the future is in allowing themselves to be crushed by high taxes, which would then push those economies into Monroe, Trenton, and back to Middletown, which was devastated once before by the labor problems at A.K. Steel and the diminishing industry there. The solution for all these communities, particularly Monroe Schools, who is currently on an academic emergency is to take a page from the Costco playbook and find a way to offer the same product with the same quality or better, but with a 15% reduction in cost. If schools embraced that concept suddenly many economic factors would fix themselves with a fury. The only reason it hasn’t happened yet is a stubborn refusal to see the obvious—because greed stands in the way of reality in the minds of the public educrat.


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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.“

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

Reds Pitcher Aroldis Chapman Arrested: Behold the Superman

I listened with a level of fascination to the public outcry over Aroldis Chapman’s recent arrest for excessive speeding and driving without a license after being clocked going 93 miles per hour on I-71 on his way to the airport to pick up his girlfriend. The very same people who sit in the stands and cheer the Reds relief pitcher throwing fast balls up to 105 mph and is nicknamed the “Cuban Missile” because of his national heritage, turned their backs on the supposed reckless antics of Chapman during his late night run across Ohio to meet the flight schedule at the airport.

I can speak with complete authenticity that I understand Chapman’s situation, as I have been in precisely the same circumstance many times. As I’ve discussed here many times, I love to drive fast. In fact it’s the subject of my upcoming novel Tail of the Dragon, and the theme of that novel almost mirrors exactly this situation with Chapman. So I have to comment on this issue which I feel very passionate about.

Many of the weak and timid minded—the types of people who lobby to create some of these ridiculous speed limit laws in the first place think that 90 mph is fast—and it’s not. It’s only fast compared to their slow, cumbersome minds. I drive that fast in our family mini-van, and I don’t think anything of those types of speeds, and I have not come close to crashing in over twenty years. So with a car of the quality that Chapman was driving, a Mercedes built easily for speeds of up to 150 mph, 90 mph is not a problem. While behind the wheel of a car like that, Chapman is in no danger to anybody, not even himself. I’ve driven faster than that for many of the same reasons, and I find it appalling that people are making such a big deal about Chapman’s need for speed.

This arrest of Chapman is a great example of how the laws of our society reflect the level of tyranny politicians have injected upon the human race. The speed limits are set to the soft minded of our people, of the lowest skilled, and pander to their slow reflexes and timid natures. Our laws do not encourage such types to think faster, to become better to adapt to the world around them—the laws pander to society’s weakest links in the same manner that everywhere in our modern age there are parking spaces reserved for the handicapped and physically ill. The intentions of such laws are out of compassion to the collective whole, and the average of that collective is brought down to a ridiculously low level of tolerance because the weak links of society bring down the standards for all of us and that simply isn’t fair or representative of freedom.

I have never been able to live within the speed limits of society. I find the limits the rest of civilization places upon itself to be mind-numbingly dull and ridiculously slow. The complaints I heard about Chapman were that he might have killed someone, and that he was behaving as though he were above the law—and each of those statements drove me closer to an eruption of anger that I haven’t felt for a number of years. Those who complained about Chapman’s speed and behavior are the same kind of people who have pushed for the overly regulated world that we currently live in. Government serves those docile personalities who are too lazy or apprehensive to compete in the rest of the world with those who are better than they are, who are faster, and who are stronger. It is those complainers of Aroldis Chapman who have brought socialism to the United States pushing capitalism into a dark corner of our social tapestry.

Many athletes find it very difficult to turn off their superior reflexes and talents when interacting with the rest of society in normal life. On the football fields and baseball diamonds of professional sports fans pay their tickets to see these superior human beings compete on the field of battle and they are cheered on for being who they are—for being what God created them to be to the maximum limit of their talent. That is why they are being paid such large amounts of money because the professional athletes are the first handers of society; they set the pace everyone else strives to achieve. The second handers are those who sit in the stands and watch the players play their game, they are the ones who cheer on the superior athlete to accomplish what they as second handers cannot.

In sports it is the fence that protects the second handers of society from the first handers on the field. Or on TV, it is the TV screen, or the radio that protects the masses from the superior men and women of athletics. When I heard the panic reaction from society about Aroldis Chapman’s excessive speed, I heard fear from society in wanting the assurance that they are protected from the interaction of the first handers. They want assurance that the laws created to protect the second handers will protect them from the superiority of Aroldis Chapman and the other superior minded human beings who stand above the rest in talent and intelligence.

When looked at in this way it is obvious why society has so many laws, and that is to protect the life of the second hander from competition. When I have passed by other highway drivers at double their speed I can feel the hostility from those drivers as they peer at my disappearing vehicle. They wonder why I can’t drive as slow as they do. What do I have to do that is so important that I can’t wait in line on the highway like the rest of them? Why am I so important? What makes me better than they are? For me, I drive fast to leave these types of mentalities far behind because there is nothing worse than a long trip staring at the lumbering tendencies of a second hander, a weak, “socially conscious,” broken link in the chain of society. The sight of them is not something I wish to observe for long periods of time, and I seek to move out ahead of them.

Why should Aroldis Chapman spend an extra 40 minutes on I-71 driving from Kentucky to Columbus, Ohio because the laws of the socially average wish protection from the superior driving skills of people like Chapman? It’s not Chapman’s task to restrict his God-given talents to live within the limits of the physically slow. It is the task of the physically slow to improve themselves and strive to be better. It is their task to recognize that a man of superior driving ability is coming up behind them rapidly and they should move out-of-the-way so not to cause an accident. It is the job of the inferior person to yield to the superior person. The superior person should not rub the nose of the inferior person in the muck of their own existence. But the superior person should encourage the inferior person to help them become better. The task of the superior person is not to be less than they are in society just to be “fair” to the second hander. That simply isn’t fair to people like Aroldis Chapman who is clearly one of the supermen walking on the earth presently.

This week the Ohio Highway Patrol is cracking down on seat belt violations and charging thousands of dollars in fines generated by the courts. DUI checkpoints are set up to alter the freedoms of individuals with impunity and all those laws were initiated to make the masses of society feel, “safe,” to pander to their fears and insecurities. There are simply too many rules, and they greatly restrict a free society in unnecessary ways and defy common sense. I’m not saying that there should not be speed limits of any kind or rules of any kind. But they should not be set around the parameters of the weak links of society. In Ohio, 65 mph is simply too slow. The speed limit should easily be 85 mph. I would argue that the only reason the laws were created in the first place were to appear to satisfy the whims of the panicky voters, the second handers so that revenue could be generated by the fines for breaking the law. The politicians will point to the fearful public and profess that the laws were created by request, but the real motive is to generate additional tax revenue for the state. That is the reason for all these laws, not the protection of its citizens.

Aroldis Chapman is not just a superman because he can throw a 105 mph fastball and has hundreds of strikeouts to close out victories for the Cincinnati Reds. Chapman even though he is a young man has learned to disobey certain laws in society so that he is not confined to a mundane existence. Chapman was born in communist Cuba and had a chance to compete in the Beijing Olympics but was suspended for attempting to defect from his tyrannical home country of Cuba. President Raul Castro met with Chapman personally and gave him a second chance because the second handers of Cuba wished to use the strength of Chapman to win sports awards for the nation of Cuba and gain world-wide respect, so Chapman was allowed to play in the World Baseball Classic. While participating in the World Port Tournament in Rotterdam, Netherlands Chapman attempted to defect again, to escape the communism of Cuba, and on his second attempt he was successful. He quickly established residence in Andorra and then petitioned Major League Baseball to be granted free agent status. The Cincinnati Reds jumped at the chance, and signed Chapman to at six-year contract worth $30.25 million. To gain all this it cost Chapman his relationship with his mother and father, two sisters and a girlfriend who had given birth to a newborn baby.

If Chapman would have followed the rules, he would still be a prisoner of communism allowing Cuba to loot his talent for a fraction of the cost he is able to get playing for the Cincinnati Reds. He left behind everything to gain everything and it’s his recognition that risk would buy him freedom that allowed him to become what he is today. It’s his tendency to break the rules that earned him freedom his parents could only dream about, and Chapman took the step to take it for himself, which will ultimately benefit his entire family much more than if he allowed himself to be picked apart in the best years of his life by the looting communists of Cuba.

Without question, Chapman sees this situation with the speed limits in The United States the same way. All he wanted to do was pick up his girlfriend at the airport. But he found himself arrested and thrown in jail by the second handers who are attempting to turn The United States into Cuba with more and more laws every day. And the same people who cheer Chapman on the pitching mound turned against him during his arrest, because they see in Chapman a superman that escaped the safety behind their televisions and radios and was functioning like a superior man in the world of the meek, and it scared them. It was not Aroldis Chapman who is in the wrong, he’s simply doing what he’s always done—it’s the weak-minded second hander who created the pathetically low-speed limit in the first place not to protect their lives from danger, but their minds from the reality that they are simply second handers and socially worthless next to the likes of a first hander like Aroldis Chapman.

I like Aroldis Chapman more than ever now. I was a fan before, but now my respect has doubled. I may actually go out and buy one of his jerseys to declare my support of this fine young man who is being ridiculed in society for being too “big” for the average standards of the political class and their pandering mobs of safety seekers.


____________________________________________________________

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