Many of my current friends are about 30 to 40 years older than I am, because it is during this phase once the body has withered away, and sexual fulfillment is not the primary objective of the adult mind followed by a sense of sacrifice to a child. (I’d put the order of necessity for women the other way around, for men, it is as I listed it) It is these older minds who finally begin to see things as they are, unfortunately death is breathing down the necks of these fine people, so it’s often too little too late. They contributed their share of madness into the fabric of social existence confusing necessity with their biological urges and now in their later years they wish to fix what they helped to wreck through the ignorance of their youth. To my way of thinking, “youth” extends well into the late 50’s of some of these people. Some people don’t get “wise” until their 60’s or 70’s. But most do get there eventually because as the strength of their bodies leaves them, their minds increase to compensate.
She wasn’t the first to make such a proclamation. Over the years people would say to me, “You are just like Thoreau.” They seemed astonished when I’d reveal to them that I had never read him, at least until fairly recently, after the encouragement of my daughter. The reason I never gave Thoreau a chance early in my life was because I partially blamed him for the Hippie Movement. It was high school English that taught me that Civil Disobedience was the model of the Civil Rights Movement and it was enjoyed by Ghandi also. Well, I thought Ghandi was a pacifist who should have led India to a violent conquest of his enemies, and this whole starvation thing never made any sense to me. The idea of self-sacrifice for a greater caused always seemed immature. Just as the idea that Christ died on the cross to relieve me of my sins never made sense either. I spotted a long time ago in those Christian studies a series of looters who sought to place themselves between the people and their God as a kind of toll keeper, and they use Jesus, the pacifist as a gate to collect the toll. Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience wreaked all these elements and I refused to read it in high school for that reason, again in college, and in my adult life until my daughter told me my rebellion was misplaced.
For those who believe that all is right in the world, the video below is something you should see. I recently had a debate on 700 WLW with Julie Shaffer over school levies and how much she believes people outside the “education bubble” make as a wage, which far off the true mark and goes far to explain why educators are out-of-touch in asking the public to increase taxes to maintain their lifestyles even when the CPI index says those same teachers are extremely overpaid. It is that same “education bubble” of academia where they view the world with rose-colored lenses darkened even more with tenure that they cannot, or will not see that in their typically leftist viewpoint of global unity and focus on “world peace” that our enemies stir. (CLICK THIS HOTLINK TO HEAR MY DEBATE WITH JULIE)
And they plot like sinister manipulators, walking among us like the wolf in sheep’s clothing, climbing under the fence to get behind that bubble to eat. Meanwhile the academic looks at the predator and says, “look there at the poor, the downtrodden, the oppressed and offer them your hand, your help, your charity! I say to you my young students to beckon your wealth in their direction, to assist them for they are our brothers and sisters of this world, and deem our respect and understanding.”In this way the teacher leads the students straight into the mouth of the predator to be consumed uneventfully.
So as the teachers and sympathizers of the “education bubble” continue to beat a drum of distraction to preserve their right to shop at Nordstrom’s, an enemy gathers outside of their vision. And as people like me point and say, “there is your end,” they gallantly shrug off the warning.
“Oh, that Mr. Hoffman just hates teachers and so anti-education. You can’t believe anything he says, because he chooses not to join us in the “education bubble.”
Naturally I get a lot of email that is derogatory in nature. Taking the positions I have on issues tends to draw attention from the empire builders who drape themselves particularly from the mantles of public service. A good many of those emails I can’t share, because they are too mindless, derogatory, or simply vile. But one email I received and the banter between this guy and myself I would consider to be an interesting study of psychology.
Mike Stefanov has sent you a message On Tue, Sep 27, 2011:
You have some good messages but you really devalue them with statements such as this; “When they want to be paid well, they all stick together. But when one messes up and does something stupid, like the pedophile at Lakota, then the teachers act like he acted alone and they should not be judged because of him. So which is it? All for one and one for all………..or, judged by independent merit?)”
Your insinuation that the pedophile may not have acted alone is deplorable. You should be ashamed to equate other teachers with the trash of a pedophile. Your message is getting lost by some of your attacks on teachers. I think that you would have many more sympathizers to your cause if you did not spew the vile hared that you so often do. Putting all teachers in the same basket with the other pedophiles is classless. It would be like someone putting all Catholic priests together because there have been a few that have abused kids. Pedophiles can be found in every walk of life and in every occupation. Keep spewing your hatred and your message will soon be falling on deaf ears.
On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 12:29 PM, Rich Hoffman wrote:
Don’t count on it but thanks for the comment. In the case of that particular teacher, people knew what he was up to, and didn’t say anything. That doesn’t make them as bad as the pedophile, but they aren’t innocent either. The statement was a general statement on collectivism, but your interpretation is fascinating.
Keep in touch,
Rich
Mike Stefanov wrote:
Rich,
Thank you for the reply back. Just FYI; it was the Lakota SD that brought this particular pedophile to the attention of the authorities. If it were not for some at Lakota that alerted the authorities, this sick teacher may still be amongst the students.
As I alluded to in the other email, some of your messages are good but do not cause them to be viewed as untruthful by distorting the facts that you are presenting. Smart people will see through your distortion of facts. I view myself as a Libertarian but the bending of facts can be construed in the wrong way. Your enthusiasm can be commended but it must be tempered with truthfulness. I do not appreciate your attacks on teachers that actually are honest and hard working. I see through your distorted message. Keep bending the truth and spewing hatred and the message will be lost. History will back me up on this. Ronald Reagan must be turning in his grave when he sees what the GOP has become.
Mike Stefanov
On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 5:37 PM, Rich Hoffman wrote:
Good points, Mike. I’ll keep those views in mind and in perspective.
Thanks,
Rich
(Now here comes the going south portion)
On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 7:57 AM, Mike Stefanov wrote:
You do that, Rich. Keep those views in mind. I am one that may have given you support but will not because of the manner in which you degrade teachers. I have been fortunate to have had good teachers. Teachers have made a positive influence on my life and they have had a positive role in the life of my children as well. There are some bad teachers but there are many more that are good. Bad and incompetent workers can be found in every occupation. Education is not alone in this.
I have been blessed that I have had a good life and have been able to afford just about whatever I want to. I have an income that is in the 99th percentile. I have a nice home. A lot of this success can be traced back to having quality teachers. From what I can glean about you it appears that you are most likely unemployed and have had bad experiences in school. If you are employed you occupation is most likely menial and you more than likely have a middling income. This misfortune has caused you to become bitter. If you think that the Lakota SD is so poor and you don’t like it, just move to an area that would be more to your liking and more affordable for you. In the meantime, don’t continue your attempts to lessen the quality of the schools. Additionally, you are having a negative impact on the value of my home and that is not welcomed by me. The amount of additional taxes that I will pay is nothing compared to the amount that my home will depreciate by because nobody wants to move to either Liberty Twp or West Chester due to a school system that is subpar.
Believe it or not, I like minimal government. I am a Libertarian. I don’t like any more than you do. However there are no free lunches and paying for a quality school system is money that is well spent.
Mike
Rich Hoffman Replied:
You were doing so well, Mike, then you had to come back with that. I am certainly not unemployed, or underfunded. That’s cute that you’d make that assumption. As for school, I don’t think it does enough and gets in the way of the ambitious. I wouldn’t say I had bad experiences or good ones in school. I think it wastes the time of children to create jobs for the adults. I find it hard to believe that you are in the top 1% with your beliefs.
Bitter, me? I’m not bitter about much of anything. Don’t confuse lack of respect for bitterness.
The Cincinnati Enquirer did a tremendous piece on the front page of its paper which explored the reason behind the rash of tax resistant school board candidates running for positions all over Cincinnati. Michael Clark had interviewed me for that article weeks ago and had put a lot of work into gathering the scope of personalities in the article. You can read that article here for reference: CLICK THE LINK.
Shortly after my talk with Doc Thompson I met with Tiffany Teasley of Fox 19 for an interview about the new Lakota Levy. The Yes Lakota people were launching the first of their MOVE FORWARD seminars later that night and Tiffany wanted to know what I thought about it. You can see that interview at the link below.
I told Tiffany exactly what the Yes Lakota people would say hours before she even had the opportunity to interview them. “They’ll say that they need this levy passed so Lakota can move FORWARD. Without the money they’ll fall backwards. Yet they can’t explain to anybody why. They just ask for money to be tossed into a bottomless pit as if by burning the money, education will move forward.” I knew what would be said because it’s the same tired public union rhetoric that has been used and proven false for decades. The assumption by public unions is that taxes can always be increased to fund excessively high expectations.
Off camera, Tiffany asked me, “So how do you view your role in this levy, this time around? I remember last time they (Pro Levy Lakota) accused the No Lakota People of just saying “no,” and not offering any solutions,” Tiffany asked.
“Issue 2 is the kind of solution I had in mind, and once the election was over, I started talking to elected representatives about creating legislation that would fix the problem. That was the start of Senate Bill 5, which would become Issue 2. I was not alone in this as many others did the same thing contacting their representatives and demanding something be done. It was not created by some evil Republican conspiracy in some oppressive mountain of doom, where busting unions was the goal. It was started by people like me who asked our elected officials to provide relief from the incessant tax requests by cost overruns in the public sector. Kasich is simply doing what people like me asked him to. Shannon Jones wrote the bill listening to her constituents, who are simply sick of politics as usual and want an end to it. I know it because I know most of the people who were giving her an earful of complaints about this constant barrage of school levies year after year after year, and no matter how much money we give them, they find a way to spend a nickel more. That has to stop and Shannon listened to her constituents, at least the ones who bothered to let her know.”
Most of the people supporting a repeal of Issue 2 are people who profit from the squandering that has been going on. As I came back to my office after speaking with Tiffany, Bill Cunningham was stating that he would support a repeal of Issue 2 and that he stood with public workers. Cunningham like many of the cops and firefighters he’s defending have lived well off the government, so he really has no choice but to take a position against Issue 2.Through his legal work, and his wife who is a current Judge in Cincinnati, he has been a benefactor of public service, and cannot take a hard stand against it now, so he is part of that 50% who still support repealing Issue 2. But as the facts of the matter continue to come out, and it is realized that the public union position against Issue 2 is simply airless rhetoric, as credible as the Move Forward Campaign at Lakota, and dozens upon dozens of other schools all across Ohio, people are waking up.
Over the next month some of those 50% will either convert their vote to a Yes for Issue 2 out of the guilt they feel deep inside, or they won’t show up to vote, unable to vote against themselves. Because good people will emerge in the final hours of Issue 2 and do the right thing. As more facts reveal the true extent of the public sector union abuse, the good among them will do the right thing and that gap will narrow even closer as the election looms near. The days where public unions rule our community budgets is over, because like I told Tiffany on the delightful autumn breeze that carried my voice during our interview, “It used to be that the school levies would just keep coming and coming and coming until they finally pass them. After all, that’s what’s happening here in Cincinnati. Well, I can say for myself, that if Issue 2 does not pass, then the public unions will see it come back again, and again and again, until it does pass, because we will not take no for an answer. Reforms of public service will occur now, or in the future, but reforms will occur.”
Normally when I’m on the radio with Doc Thompson of 700 WLW I have a little fun ripping to shreds the misconceptions of education spending, because the values do not equate, so there is much fodder to be achieved. But on Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 my daily ride by motorcycle was met with a wall of mystic fog, and the wind called adventure to my throttle as I stormed into the cool morning on that steel horse headed for work. But upon arriving at my office and turning on the radio I was informed of school delays due to the fog and this sent my mind into a torrent which could be heard in my voice during that talk with Doc.Gone from my intonation is that happy banter, although I tried. The replacement thoughts which rushed back to me from the years past set my mind ablaze with a unifying theory which encompasses much of what is wrong in this modern age.
My first thought was not whether or not everyone was alright on the bus, or even the driver of the garbage truck. My first thought was that I would now be late for school and was granted by the grace of God a few extra hours of time to myself to read a book, draw pictures and write in my journal while the rest of the kids stepped off the bus holding their heads, rubbing their shoulders and looking for somebody to give them some level of pity.
Blood running freely and me trying to fight back the effect of shock, “Nobody, why?” “Rich Hoffman, you can’t continue on like this. You have to find a groove and get into it, this constant resistance to authority that you are prone to will have to stop one of these days or you will die before you get there.”
So I can testify that I am utterly baffled by these overprotective mothers who lug around their large cabooses drowning in perfume as if to compensate for the disaster their bodies have become, who have always pointed at my lifestyle as though it were forged in the image of a devil. To me, dressing a kid in a helmet to ride a bicycle down the street is too much.To not let a kid fall down and bump their head or know what it feels like to see the life blood of your body running out before you, forcing you to act quickly to stop it, those are the experiences that make good, strong adults. Pain builds character, and I’d never consider going back in time to avoid any of it.
Shiva; Sanskrit Śiva, meaning “auspicious one”) is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. God Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything which happens in the world and is the main aspect of life.
I learned about these types of magicians in 1992 when I sat on the steps of the Westin Hotel in downtown Cincinnati and watched Bill Clinton give his acceptance speech. I had supported Ross Perot and it was the Perot vote which split the Republican Party and allowed “Slick Willie” to become president. You see, it was not the present day which produced this new “anti-government” movement. It was alive and well in the Westin Hotel and the lobby was full of others just like me who were sick of the sell-outs of Bush Senior, and the con artists like Slick Willie. While Reagan provided a short reprieve from the corruption anxiety, which started with Lynden Banes Johnston, Nixon, then Carter, people like me had enough, and we wanted Ross Perot as president, not Slick Willie. The people gathered in the Westin Hotel, along with thousands all over America that night were beginning to call themselves the “Reform Party” which was the seed for what would become the Tea Party 15 years later.
Meanwhile, also funded by people like Soros, and the American taxpayer, the other arms of Shiva are working another angle to weaken the resolve of the average American. Here Stephen Lerner tells his union followers how to create a crisis so they can gain power, which is a strategy Clinton mastered during his presidency, and Obama has been successful as well. They’ve employed it well even when progressives did not even have a representative in the White House. Progressives have used this very strategy to completely baffle George Bush Sr. and George W. Bush overwhelming them strategically forcing them to act in foolish ways using these very same strategies in the legislative process.
Lerner now that the Tea Party has been exposing the progressive methods, is using outright intimidation as the next level of defense. After all, that’s how they advanced their position in the first place, through the 60’s radicalism. The Delphi Technique outlined by Saul Alinsky says that the middle-class, the true middle-class do not have the stomach for conflict and will avoid it at great cost. It is they who Lerner seeks to appeal to, by threatening them with violence, then by also appealing to their sensibilities. Lerner is basically saying to the middle-class, “We are you, and will fight on your behalf. So go back to sleep, we’ll take care of things.”
All these different arms of Shiva can be confusing and require all of us to develop the ability to watch all arms at the same time to understand what the intention of the whole magic trick is. Here my buddy Matt Clark explains how the left is using all this power to gain social change. Some of the big names he’s talking about are people like Bill Clinton, people like Al Gore, and people like Barry Obama to fulfill the agenda Stephen Lerner is advocating. The goal of that agenda is a weakening of the United States by yes, even a President, for the greater goal, or at least how progressives interpret it to be, which is a one world government that functions under socialism. That is why Bill Clinton refused to say that Democrats need to also learn to compromise. This is also why he mentioned that the Governor of Indiana was his friend even thought that particular Governor is a hard lined Republican. Clinton was showing that he can “compromise” and reach “consensus” but he did so by still painting one side as completely and morally wrong. That’s why we call him “Slick Willie.” Notice how Van Jones uses almost the same language as Bill Clinton. Is that an accident? No……..they all study the same literature and get their money from the same sources.
And if there is any doubt as to how to how low Bill Clinton will stoop, and what moral code he lives by, look beyond the sharp “blue” backdrops which are designed to appeal to the visual respectability of his Clinton Global Initiative to the real man behind the mouth.
In studying this particular arm of Shiva, know what that arm represents. So I am placing here for your convenience a review of the life of Bill Clinton for your enjoyment in a much-needed revisit to the lack of integrity that man has not only for himself, his family, but his nation. He only wants to be powerful, loved and remembered for something important. He is looking to the United Nations for some level of immortality in which to hide his many crimes over a great many years.
But Clinton is just an arm of this Shiva which truly seeks the destruction of American in order to give birth to something else. If you dare attempt as “they” do, those progressives, Shiva may be the destroyer to those of us who like America the way it’s been. But Shiva is also the transformer, the facilitator of rebirth which will bring the world to a new awakening of socialism. In their minds socialism will work if there isn’t any competition among any nation, for that has been the missing piece. Socialism could not work so long as all the nations of the world sought to come to the United States to live so they can be free. But if that freedom were removed, then the people of the world would have no choice but to stay put, and adopt for their own good, the socialism sponsored by the United Nations, by a President from the United States who will for the first time in history rise above his country to help lead the world to a greater good for all, the ultimate altruism of justice and compassion, where Shiva, and Mohammed, and even Jesus Christ will sit at a table together and be at peace.
What I found fascinating was the comments accumulated over the first 24 hours. American Thinker is widely read all over the nation, and apparently all over the world so it was interesting to get some outside perspective on how they view Issue 2, so I am posting the comments obtained over the course of the first day, because they say a lot about how a vast majority of the people truly feel. I include those comments in their entirety below. They appear as they do at the link above, but I feel they deserve their own isolation as a study specifically unique to the topic of Issue 2.
That leaves those of us with reason to vote in November to keep a law that will allow us to manage the costs of this massive Empire. Of course the members of that Empire won’t be happy. They would like that Empire to continue forever. But it can’t.
The only question is when the Empire gets dismantled, do we get the opportunity to manage it or does it collapse under its own weight? If Ohio votes to keep Issue 2, then we can avert a major economic disaster this year, while there is still time to save the structure of the services we employee in those sectors. If we do not maintain Issue 2, and lose it to the Public Union Empire, then financial catastrophe is on the horizon for every single tax payer in Ohio, because it will either require massive layoffs of public sector jobs, or major tax increases. There isn’t any middle ground.
So what will it be? I can say for myself, I will vote YES, and regardless of the outcome, I will know that I did the right thing, even if it is hard to do.
What? The President said he’d veto any proposal that did not include tax increases……oh, I mean “revenue.” I thought this President was all about “compromise.”(Auh Oh, I better be careful. Someone might send this article to Attack Watch.)
People like Barry Obama, and many in his party and some from the Republican Party are not acting in our best interest. For many years there has been a plan to turn The United States Republic into something else.
That small example could be greatly expanded to include Medicare, Social Security, The EPA, the entire Department of Education, and Homeland Security. In fact I could probably put down a whole book just on the wasteful programs built by liberalism, as a subtle march toward socialism, that simply cost too much money and don’t deserve my hard-earned money.
The President mentioned again that people “like him” should make a sacrifice, to dig deep into their pockets to pay their fair share of taxes. Well, no WE shouldn’t. First of all, Barry Obama became wealthy because of his public service. Without politics, Barry would still be organizing rallies in Chicago and smoking joints like a lot of his union brothers. He certainly wouldn’t be a millionaire, because he doesn’t make anything or manage anything that can produce a profit. Second, what is a “fair share?” Why is it fair to require me to fund programs I think are ridiculously foolish and are weakening our society, in my opinion? I have no intention of ever receiving a Social Security check, so why should I continue to pay? How is that fair, that some absentminded fool politician came up with some looting law for me to work extra hard to pay for, when if I kept the money, could have done something more productive? The tax to me is just legalized robbery. It’s going to groups I don’t believe in to fund philosophies I have no faith in, to support an agenda I find detrimental to the future of the country. So why do I have to pay again? How is it my obligation, because some incompetent manager like Barry decided I had to pay?
Let me guess. The pro union faction will declare the new report that Andrew Biggs from the American Enterprise Institute just released is false, which states clearly that public sector workers are being paid 43.4% more than private sector positions, and that many of the costs are the type of secondary costs that many in the private sector don’t even consider because they are only known in public sector service. The unions instead will declare that all the information contained in that report is somehow misleading and concocted by the “evil John Kasich” from his throne of power. (This shows what a poor grasp on reality those people function from)
That’s why I’m putting up the original video of Andrew Biggs where he explains how he arrived at the information and discusses how other information that had been floating around prior to this report is fundamentally wrong due to several errors of judgment, which this report corrected.
Public workers even if they gave back half of all their benefits to the taxpayers in order to be more equal would STILL be out ahead of everyone who pays their salary. That is where all the hidden costs of state budgets are. They get lost in the chaos of big government and explain why those employees are so expensive. The more government workers there are, the less efficient they are, because personal accountability is decreased. That is the subject of this Doc Thompson discussion on 700 WLW in a recent broadcast where he reveals how inaccurate states have been in issuing unemployment insurance. Doc continues on to discuss the new AEI report after this stunning revelation. The terrible performance discussed in this broadcast could be translated to virtually any form of government. This is the problem with politicians who “create” jobs just for the sake of filling seats with bodies without any concept on performance.
For your own reference, feel free to read the whole report for yourself. You can read it at the link below:
• Ohio public employees receive nearly the same wages as comparable private workers (2.5 percent less, although that’s an average disguising some of the education professions with lower level administrative work, such as those who issue the insurance payments. Teachers along with police and firefighters are very guilty of uncontrolled overtime payments, and double-dipping retirements which are paying the same employee twice and driving up the cost of staffing those positions.)
• Fringe benefits for Ohio public workers are more than twice as generous as those paid in the private‐sector, meaning that when pay and benefits are taken into consideration public workers receive 31.2 percent more in total compensation than private‐sector counterparts.
• Ohio Public employees enjoy significantly greater job security than private‐sector workers. That job security has an economic value equal to approximately 10 percent of compensation.
• Even if the provisions of SB 5 were implemented in full, it is very likely that Ohio public‐sector workers would continue to enjoy a substantial compensation premium over private‐sector Ohioans.
Rich Hoffman
