Upon the announcement of the 2013 Lakota levy both sides of the issue began voicing their opinions, and one fellow that represented how the typical YES voter for tax increases thinks left a series of comments favoring the levy which can be seen below. The guy named AJ Malott isn’t a bad guy, just a person who sees public education as an entitlement similar to Social Security and Medicaid, and he believes that the older residents in Lakota should be willing to pay for his children’s education because he is paying for their senior oriented retirements. He also makes a point to mention No Lakota Levy, which is a group I played a large part in formulating so explanations are in order. First, let’s see what AJ thinks.
And another thing, isn’t it interesting that the so-called leader of the NoLakota levy group owns a contracting company? Is he expecting an influx of work when no one wants to buy/build/remodel in the community? People only want to invest in their homes if they feel connected to their home and community, and plan on staying.
I thought we were smart by moving into the Lakota district 4 years ago BECAUSE of the support and quality of the schools. So, yes, lets put that in jeopardy so other millennials whom are starting their families do not want to move here. And, then those who want to move because they don’t want to pay the taxes can experience declining home values. Then, it can be a lose-lose situation for all.
With the exception that they claim that the older generation doesn’t want to pay for schools for the younger generation. Well, doesn’t this whole system we have designed center around everyone paying their collective share. When one group decides they want to opt out (the seniors), it puts undue pressures on the other groups. So, if they can do it, I’m not sure why our generation can’t do the same thing. You pay for schools and I will continue to pay into benefits I’m sure I’ll never see any of.
You know, I am finding it really difficult to continue to pay that Social Security and Medicare tax out of my paycheck. I look forward to the next generation of politicians that feel the same way, and look to make cuts to those “entitlement” programs. If you don’t want to support my child’s future, why should we support yours.
In that article which the commenter referenced, Bob Hutsenpiller gave a statement representing No Lakota Levy’s position. He simply said any tax hike will be a tough sell to older residents in Liberty and West Chester Townships. This prompted AJ Malott to assume that he was in a position to offer critical review about Hutsenpiller. Bob went on to say “Lakota officials should continue its recent budget cutting while the seniors, retirees and residents of the district go through these rough economic times. Most of the seniors of the Lakota district are contemplating moving out of the district just to reduce their tax burden.” For saying that, Malott felt entitled to deliver a subtle attack in order to defend his child’s “right” to a free education. So before going into a dissemination of Malott’s comments which represent the average levy supporter in all public schools, I must put a book end into my involvement with No Lakota Levy prior to this upcoming campaign. To discuss that I have to refer back to a Middletown Journal article from the summer of 2011 where members of No Lakota Levy without my agreement attempted to make a deal with the Yes Vote group at Lakota. I was tipped off about the event by the reporter covering the story. The article can be seen below.
Members of the No Lakota group are in disagreement about whether they would support a levy if Lakota puts one on the ballot.
West Chester Twp. resident Mark Sennet spoke to the board of education Monday, saying the No Lakota group would support a “conservative” levy in 2012 if the board would bypass the election this November.
However, No Lakota member Rich Hoffman, who has typically spoken on behalf of the group, said no discussion had occurred at a meeting about supporting a levy, and he was holding fast to his stance on never supporting a levy.
Hoffman said there may be a split in the group, but he thinks the 50-and-older crowd will stand with him.
Sennet said Lakota officials have made “a valiant effort to try to work and control spending,” but people still need time to recover from the economic crisis. He said he and several developers would be on the board’s side if it waited for November 2012.
“We acknowledge that there were changes made,” he said. “The businesses had to make changes. The citizens had to make changes, and we were glad to see the union and teachers and board agreed to a pay freeze. But if the levy were to pass, then I guess that would be good for the community.”
Board member Ray Murray said he was pleased the business community is recognizing the district’s transparency and how it is listening to the community.
“There are going to be people who are not going to ever say yes to anything, and there’s nothing you can do about it,” he said. “We’ve got to generate more revenue. We can’t survive on a 2005 budget.”
Former For Lakota levy chairwoman Sandy Wheatley said the board and district representatives have been mending fences with those in opposition since the last election.
Needles to say, the kind of “fence mending” Wheatley was talking about was an attempt by the levy supporters to split up our group. As she stated in her comments, there would always be people like me who would say NO to a tax increase, so the Lakota administration attempted to cut deals and split up our group so they wouldn’t have an opposition for the upcoming election in 2011, which of course didn’t work. Prior to forming No Lakota Levy Sennet contacted me about joining forces as in the previous levy I had been doing my own thing. He had been working from a group with a different name. When he asked me to join his group, we called it No Lakota Levy which went on to defeat the next two attempts. But before the second attempt under that name, Sennet had decided that the kitchen was too hot for him. The social pressure of not supporting a levy impacted him, which was what Wheatley was referring to. I witnessed some of the most open extortion I have ever seen through charity events, boycotts, and behind the scenes manipulation that was rancid with sinister intentions. By the second levy, many of the people in No Lakota Levy didn’t want to be seen at meetings with me because they were afraid that such associations would harm their businesses, even though No Lakota Levy was saving them tens of millions of dollars in taxes. In private meetings they liked my company, but they didn’t feel comfortable associating with me in public, for fear that the Levy Addicts would connect the dots and find out that they were members of No Lakota Levy. Bob Hutsenpiller was the exception.
Once Lakota hired Superintendent Mantia her mode of operation was to apply even more pressure on the business community “mending fences.” It didn’t work by the 2011 attempt in November so Mantia went to work with new strategies in the winter of 2012. After my events with Sennet at No Lakota Levy, I wasn’t sure I wanted to handcuff myself to playing such a front man while so many others stayed in hiding for fear of being associated with an anti-tax group. I played along for a while, but did not like the direction the rest of the group wanted to go. The emphasis on public image of No Lakota Levy was becoming much more important, and I didn’t like that, and I wanted out. I felt it would be better for No Lakota Levy if people like Hutsenpiller spoke on their own behalf, and we discussed it in meetings about future levy attempts by Lakota. But I was very good at my job, and so long as I was there, it allowed the people who were most effected by commercial real-estate taxes to use me as a shield, which was giving Lakota the illusion that their “fence mending” was working in their favor.
I meant it when I said that in the next election Lakota would have to deal with No Lakota Levy on one angle, and myself on the other. I don’t like to mend fences, because doing such a thing only benefits the people who build the fences to begin with, and those fences were built by Lakota politics. I don’t like deals, peer pressure and financial decisions made under coercion and I prefer to call a spade a spade. But I am glad to see Hutsenpiller speak reasonably representing his stance. The amount of money that Lakota is asking people like him to pay in additional taxes is bewildering. It is just a shame that others like him are so cold with their tongues. Without question, they will be NO Votes in the upcoming election, but they are careful what they say in public because they will have to see people like AJ Malott at social events frequently who have no idea how much money the tax increases cost a business, and can never hope to comprehend. Those phantom business owners don’t want the ramifications of being out of agreement with the “fence builders” like Lakota’s current superintendent, for fear that the lack of “cooperation” will have a dire cost against their livelihoods. Unlike their contemporaries in public education, the business owners cannot raise taxes to cover their costs. They have to actually nurture a customer base.
Every time there is a new Lakota levy there are new people like AJ Malott who come and go from the community. They move to Lakota for the nice green space, the shopping, and the schools, but they don’t know much about the character of the area. I grew up in Liberty Township and I know what kind of place it has always been. It was named after the American Revolution just as the City of Monroe to the North and Hamilton to the West were named after key members of the American rebellion. And most of the long term residents I know who have lived in the area most of their lives have that kind of blood deep in their veins no matter what their economic or social status proclaims now, Hutsenpiller is of that type. They are free spirits who resent “fence mending” as much as I do. They will do what they must for their businesses, but what they think in private is an entirely different matter. The people who support these school levies are typically young people who are newer parents, or people who came from progressive places like New England, or California so they don’t really understand the argument against school funding and public education in general.
For me, I want to argue against the entire premise of public education, not just the ridiculousness of the funding. I am encouraged to see other people rise to the occasion to make those points, which free me up to make the larger arguments. The Lakota Levy to me wouldn’t mean much in financial investment, it’s the essence of the implication that is the problem. I spend more on a typical dinner than the levy would cost my residence. But the real cost of the levy is against the business owner, people like Bob Hutsenpiller who cannot build enough buildings to possibly cover the tens of thousands of dollars his taxes will go up if the levy passes. Bob is not alone. There are dozens of people like him who will pay millions in additional taxes if the levy passes, and it is a shame they don’t do more to defend themselves, instead of getting stuck in the political trap set by people who want to “mend fences” when the entire cost of the materials for the fence come from the business owner.
The Fox News documentary special The Great Food Stamp Binge, hosted by Bret Baier was so good that I am going to include the complete text of their blog posting concerning that wonderful episode within the contents of this document. If you missed it, fret not. I have it below which can be seen in its entirety with six parts. I suggest you watch it and share it with as many people as you can. Everyone in America needs to see this documentary. It is a work which explores the treacherous extent of the welfare state in our current economy. There was a catch phrase during the documentary when Bret Baier stated, “when does the safety net become a hammock,” which I thought was particularly good because the information as provided was extraordinary and deeply revealing. It paints a picture that points to an astonishing danger that is going to hit every American in the wake of the Obama presidency that will be very painful to overcome. The welfare state and attack of the FDA with all other government agencies that are openly advocating more dependents upon the parental hand of statism are hard at work to remove from American culture the notion of independence leaving in the wake a society of moochers and disconnected serfs. Watch, learn and share the following:
Once upon a time this was called food stamps, but the modern world is all about branding and image, not accuracy or substance. Thus, a snappy new name was needed.
All this change is a direct result of the Obama administration’s surreptitious undermining of the law in the Stimulus Act in 2009 and the disingenuous gutting of President Clinton’s overwhelmingly successful Welfare Reform law. This was achieved by administrative fiat in 2010.
As I watched the rough cut with Fox Editor-at-Large Peter Boyer, I found myself at a loss for words.
I don’t know whether I was more saddened, or angered by the interview John Roberts did with an apparently healthy “surfer” who happily lives a life of leisure in Southern California subsidized by the taxpayer.
It was simply mindboggling to listen to this grown man explain the logic he uses to justify taking food aid — and thus free food — rather than working and paying for it himself.
This great government giveaway is being undertaken and I can’t help but believe those that truly need help are still going hungry.
As we continued to watch I began to see what was behind the SNAP program. It is about changing the mentality of the nation, of Americans.
Take this example, from “The Great Food Stamp Binge,” of what is nothing short of social engineering or reeducation. In North Carolina social workers actually got an award for breaking down the “Mountain Pride” that makes some from that state reluctant or unwilling to take handouts. They actively fought the tradition of tightening your belt and taking care of yourself when times get tough.
There is much more in this excellent program — it is a thought provoking, well told story and I urge you to watch it.
Certainly, there are many in this country, who need the help. The idea that Americans go to bed hungry or get sick due to malnutrition is one that should appall any morally sound man or woman. And that is what makes the SNAP initiative utterly foul.
After watching I realized why I was angered by those who take, but don’t need, and frustrated for those who are given, but don’t want. This great giveaway is being undertaken and I can’t help but believe that those that truly need help are still going hungry. Millions of tax dollars are going to people who aren’t our neediest, it is a disgrace.
Many of you have probably heard the Chinese proverb, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” The SNAP program is one big fish giveaway that leaves people reliant rather than reliable. The government is on a mission to sign people up – one in seven in this country already receive food stamps — and the taxpayer is footing the bill for, what I believe, is a tragically misguided plan.
The lawsuit against Apple by the Department of Justice is an astonishing maneuver made by an organization that is under criminal investigation itself. Yet even with all the scandals that it is currently being scrutinized for such as cover-ups, criminal deceit, and murder, the Department of Justice is engaged in an outright attack against the Apple Company for an e-book price-fixing anti-trust busting lawsuit. For a review on my thoughts about anti-trust cases created under the Sherman Act, please refer to the following link, where I break down the history and hypocrisy of these government cases revealing what is really behind them.
The federal government operates currently the largest monopoly on the face of the earth with their vast support of price-fixing through government labor unions. For examples of price-fixing that is much more destructive than anything Apple has done look no further than the local teacher at your government school, look at your friendly neighborhood IRS agent, or any bureaucrat working for the federal government in virtually any direct capacity. The government is not qualified to pass judgment against Apple for price-fixing. But in this case, as in most anti-trust cases, the intention is not to find justice for the “public” but to shake down the prosecuted for money through bribes, court settlements, or campaign donations to political parties. If the roots of this case were traced back to a cause, one of those three issues was the motivation. Because Apple did not grease the wheels of government “properly” they are now being prosecuted. It is that simple. For proof examine the statements below as reported by CNET regarding this anti-trust case, and read carefully the words used by Justice Department attorney Lawrence Buterman.
Apple shouldn’t “be rewarded” with the same sanctions as the e-book publishers that settled with the U.S. government, the Department of Justice argued ahead of a court hearing Friday. “Apple has been found to have orchestrated and facilitated a…price-fixing conspiracy — amongst these very publisher defendants,” Justice Department attorney Lawrence Buterman wrote in a letter dated Thursday but made available for viewing Friday. “Apple should not be rewarded with the same terms received by those that chose to settle to avoid the risks of litigation.”
The Justice Department last week issued its proposals for ways “to halt Apple’s anticompetitive conduct, restore lost competition, and prevent a recurrence of the illegal activities.” The three big pieces of that proposal were that Apple would end its existing agreements with the five major publishers, let other e-book publishers’ link to their own bookstores in iOS apps, and staff an antitrust monitor to evaluate its business for five years. Apple fired back last week, calling the government’s proposals vague, overreaching, unwarranted, and even “draconian.”
In a filing Wednesday, the five major book publishers weighed in, arguing that one of those stipulations — ending the existing agreements — would completely eliminate a pricing model that’s become the industry standard. The publishers also said it would break agreements the Justice Department made with each of them when they settled.
Hachette, HarperCollins, Holtzbrinck (also known as Macmillan), Penguin, and Simon & Schuster filed an opposition to last week’s proposed remedies against Apple by the Justice Department, arguing that the plan would “effectively eliminate the use of the agency model” for e-book distribution for the next five years.
“…Under the guise of punishing Apple, they effectively punish the Settling Defendants by prohibiting agreements with Apple using an agency model,” the publishers wrote, adding that the move “directly conflicts” with the settlements the publishers reached with the Justice Department before the Apple case went to trial.
“Despite achieving their stated goal of returning price competition, Plaintiffs now seek to improperly impose additional, unwarranted restrictions on the Settling Defendants, thereby depriving each publisher of the benefit of its bargain with Plaintiffs,” it goes on to say.
The “agency” model is where publishers set e-book prices to retailers, while retailers get a commission. That’s as opposed to the “wholesale” model, where publishers set the list price and the retailers can sell it at whatever price they want. (Read CNET’s in-depth explainer here.)
Basically what all that means is that the Department of Justice wants to shake down Apple because they did not settle out-of-court as the five major publishers did so to avoid a damaging public court case. The DOJ is using this excuse to inject its authority into the company for five years to monitor Apple business practices. The DOJ also intends to use this case “to halt Apple’s anticompetitive conduct, restore lost competition, and prevent a recurrence of the illegal activities.” Those are amazing statements by a government entity that is itself a functioning monopoly excessively guilty of anti-trust violations of their own. They are even more amazing statements considering all the other criminal investigations that the DOJ is currently under itself, but cannot be prosecuted for because there is no higher law enforcement authority than the Department of Justice—who works directly for the President of the United States. (This is why it’s important what kind of president Americans elect).
There is only one motivation by the Department of Justice in this. They do not care about the pricing of e-books on the open market. They only care about entrenching themselves into the publishing business any way they can so that content can be “influenced” in subtle ways. The message to the five major publishers couldn’t be clearer. They took the settlement like most companies would, to take the path of least resistance. It didn’t mean they were guilty, just that they took the option with the least immediate cost to them. The real crime is that the Department of Justice injected itself into the capitalist marketplace with socialist standards of regulation that do not belong in America. If not for Apple and those five major publishers, there wouldn’t be an e-book market. The DOJ is functioning from a socialist economic model whereas the publishers and Apple are operating from capitalism. Apple is not guilty of anything but operating as a capitalist enterprise. The DOJ is operating as a socialist enterprise. The difference between the two is one of philosophy, not function. The Department of Justice view of itself might be more appropriate in China, or in Europe where socialism and communism are practiced much to the restriction of ideas and financial enterprise, but they have no place in America and never had since the concoction of the Sherman Act so many years ago. The anti-trust busting that has been so publicly advocated by the government is simply the actions of a gang of thugs who want to shake down the profit makers of a capitalist economy under the guise of “equality.”
Every American should be outraged by the attack of the Department of Justice against the Apple Company. If it can happen to Apple, it can happen to everyone. Microsoft as a company never recovered after their anti-trust case in the 1990s. And now Apple, without the leadership of Steve Jobs to pull them back out of the mud after this incident with the DOJ will find themselves overly, and needlessly cautious toward anti-trust accusations that will directly hinder their marketing strategies, and innovation for many years to come. The cost of this lawsuit against Apple by the DOJ will resonate for the next century in America not in lost competition, but in lost innovation by a company that is among the best that America currently has to offer. The government, as usual, is standing in the way of prosperity, hindering capitalism, and openly seeking to undercut technological growth through a thuggish strategy of short-sighted shakedowns against a good company to appease a blind and stupid mob who democratically elected criminals, scumbags, and despots to enforce laws that they make up as they go to serve only themselves and an ever-expanding government.
To state that Lakota, like most government schools these days, is operating as a deceptive enterprise built upon open manipulation of the taxpaying public and are dangerously malicious is not inaccurate. Lakota has said recently that without levy approval in the fall of 2013, the distinct “will” decline. Those are words from an Enquirer article featuring statements by Lakota Superintendent Karen Mantia who told the school board, “We have balanced our budget but now we’re at a baseline and that is not a good place to be.” This prompted school board president Joan Powell to declare, “We are in danger of becoming a second-class district.” Lakota and its administrators are pushing a 5.5 mill levy for the upcoming November 2013 ballot which will raise the taxes per $100,000 in evaluation by $192 based on the premise that they have cut, and cut, and cut till they can’t cut any more, and if they cut any more, every citizen in the district will suffer. Well, the Lakota members of the administration who have said these things are guilty of deception, manipulation, and malicious action, because there is a very important factor that they did not reveal to the public in these levy talks which they did discuss in the same newspapers at the start of the 2013 year. However the issue is a bit complex prompting me to explain the situation with one of my bullwhip economic videos. Check it out. I explain to Lakota what they should already know themselves. I use a bullwhip to cut a soda can in half as a proper metaphor to what is in Lakota’s employment future.
The cost of the levy for the average property owner is quite excessive. The figures I used in the above video were off the top of my head, which I refined further below. Most homes in the Liberty Township/West Chester area are well over $200,000 each. The tax increases on homes per year at $200,000 with voter approval of a new Lakota levy will be $384 per year. At $300,000 a year, which is not at all uncommon, the taxes will be $576 more per year. And at $400,000 which is quite the standard in Wetherington, Beckett Ridge, and Four Bridges, the tax increase per year will be $768 per year. But that’s not all. Commercial property is taxed at the same rate as residential property. Buildings that are valued at $5 million will go up on that one building $10,000.00 in additional taxes. Buildings valued in this range are typically small strip malls housing several small stores and that cost will be passed down to the 5-7 tenants, who are all small business owners. Their costs per year will increase about $2,000.00 each, and that’s tough on people with small margins and continuing rising costs in other areas. In many cases, a tax increase like what Lakota is proposing could shut the doors on many small businesses operating at minimum margins.
The assumption by the government school of Lakota who does not have to do anything performance wise to obtain their profit margins except beg for tax increases, is that if residents can afford a home that is $300,000 to $400,000 in value then they can afford to pay a little more for a tax increase to “help the community’s children.” They also believe that a property owner with a strip mall or restaurant that is $1 to $5 million in value will happily absorb an extra $10,000 in yearly taxes because they are already “rich.” What’s a few thousand dollars to a “rich” person? As ridiculous as that sounds, it is precisely how the administrators of Lakota think, and those who jump on the bandwagon to support the levy. This is why I call them Lakota Levy Zombies, because they mindlessly pursue tax increases without considering what the impact of that increase will have on the people who pay it.
But worse than anything is the carefully concealed study performed by the McKibben Demographics group who co-conducted an enrollment study for Lakota late in 2012 at a cost of $20,000. The results of that study indicate that by the 2022-23 school year Lakota will have lost 2,300 students due to declining enrollment trends. What this means in terms of jobs at Lakota is that the staff will have to be cut by at least 85.1 teachers who would normally teach 27 children per class. By 2022 Lakota will have to reduce their work force to meet those new enrollment needs. Over the next 10 years Lakota will save $5.1 million in just teacher salary at an average wage of $60K per year. That does not consider all the six figure administrators that Lakota will not need to manage those 85.1 teachers. Lakota will have to close down school buildings and consolidate resources that could easily save between $10 million and $15 million dollars without cutting a single program to the community just because the enrollment numbers will be less. The projection numbers at Lakota were over 18,000 students during the 2010 school year but will decline to 14,950 by the year 2022.
In addition to those numbers Lakota’s treasurer Jenni Logan stated that Lakota has lost 672 students to other public, community, or private schools, which is a trend that is likely to continue. Lakota has over the last couple of years taken away busing because their tax increases did not pass. They have also cut electives for students, and they have raised sports fees. Parents have reacted by voting with their feet and simply leaving. Meanwhile Lakota administrators continue to brag about the “tens of millions” of dollars they have cut out of their operating budget attempting to sell those cuts as a “sacrifice” to the quality of their education service, but in all reality, the cuts have been on par with the reduction in enrollment. In just the last couple of years from 2010 to 2012 Lakota has seen a drop of around 1000 students. By 2015 the enrollment numbers will be around 15,913 and continuing down from there. If Lakota continues to complain, and sell themselves as ineffective, more people will vote with their feet and simply leave the community taking their children with them, exacerbating those numbers further. If that happens Lakota could see a yearly enrollment of 10,000 by the year 2020.
The cause of the decline in enrollment according to Mckibben is that the population in the Lakota district has aged. Over the next 10 years most homes will be those of empty nesters as the current average age of the Lakota resident is 40.7. McKibbean explained this trend to the Lakota school board at a January 28 2013 meeting by saying, “You have a very high graduation rate and very high post-secondary participation rate. Your kids graduate, go off to college and don’t come back.” However, McKibbean declined to finish that statement. He didn’t want to insult the people who paid $20K for his study after all. The reason kids don’t come back to the Lakota district after they graduate college is simple, they can’t afford to. A twenty something with an average college debt between 50K and 100K cannot afford to purchase a home in the affluent Lakota community where average homes range between $200K to $300K. I know this first-hand because I have children in this age group, and they have moved back to Lakota to buy a nice home of their own in that price range and they looked all over the Cincinnati area for the best opportunity. They are unusually successful as a professional couple. They were able to buy a home in the Lakota district. They are unlikely to use the Lakota school system to teach their children, however they are tax payers in the community. But most young people their age are so saddled with debt; they can never hope to make enough money to purchase a home in that price range. This means families with children who might want to use the Lakota school system will not be able to afford to move into the community because property values are so high. Only successful adults with grown children will be able to continue living in the Lakota district. That is what is driving the Lakota enrollment decline.
Yet, even knowing this information, Lakota’s administration is ignoring it choosing instead to pick and choose their facts. They want to give their teachers who average in salary over $63K per year a raise when the collective bargaining agreement with the union is up in 2014. They are not planning for any reductions in force, or even working their salary structure to meet the community budget established through the election process. Instead, they are relying on fear tactics to win over voters which is dishonest, and negligent. Fear tactics like saying “Excellent with Distinction” (at Lakota) is in jeopardy without new tax money. We are in danger of becoming a second-class district.”
Without context the situation is complicated at Lakota, which is why I explained it with a bullwhip economics video. Most people take these professional government workers at their word which is a mistake. People are too busy in their lives to compare the notes of what was said in the media by Lakota eight months ago and what they say now after they examine Lakota’s need for more tax money not due to economic conditions of the Lakota community, but the administration’s own desire to cave under the union demands for a collective bargaining agreement in 2014. To say anything other than the truth is misleading and after all that we’ve been through at Lakota the administrators still think the taxpaying residents are too stupid to see through their sham. The facts of the matter is not that Lakota needs a tax increase, but rather they need a major employee reduction of nearly 100 teachers and administrators over the next 10 years. They should be able to achieve such a reduction with tax decreases over the next decade instead of the other way around, but they will never utter such a truth—because that’s not what they are about. As government workers they want to do one thing, and one thing only, to grow jobs through government off the backs of tax payers never putting their eyes upon reality in a hope that the formula will never collapse on itself. But the formula is in serious jeopardy, not just at Lakota, but every school district in the country that is filled with an aging population that isn’t having as many children as they once did, and the children they do have aren’t making enough money to support the tax demands of the growing government. The recipe for disaster is upon us, and is just now beginning to be seen in the embattled land of Lakota, in Liberty Township/West Chester, Ohio.
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What is the strongest beacon for freedom in the world today? Is it Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, John Stossel, or any other modern commenter, publisher, or financier? I would say not. Is it the multitude of freedom oriented websites like FreedomWorks, or American Thinker? I would say not. Rather, I would say that it’s a new force to the entertainment world. Several years ago the former Fox News star Glenn Beck started his own news organization called The Blaze—which is changing the way the news is delivered. As an online publication that rivals traditional magazines like Time, Life, and People it also specializes in providing the latest scoop on news stories in the way that made the Drudge Report so important to the art of breaking news stories. But it’s not even The Blaze that I’m speaking about—not as a website based news source. In January of 2013 Glenn Beck created The Blaze Radio Network which is an all internet radio station that broadcasts online outside of FCC regulation. Normally these kinds of operations are fly-by-night and built with pure heart, but little money. Well, not anymore. Glenn Beck has invested a considerable amount of his personal fortune into the new Blaze Radio Network and brought in top talent like Doc Thompson and his partner Skip to provide 24 hour a day seven days a week news and entertainment radio that is unparalleled anywhere.
I was very disheartened to learn that my friend Doc Thompson was leaving Cincinnati. I have been a talk radio fan all my life. I used to lie in bed as a kid and listen to radio broadcasts from 700 WLW and WMOH till the pre-dawn hours while the rest of the world slept, literally and figuratively. During my working years, I would listen to talk radio through long hours of 2nd and 3rd shift hard labor. As I grew older and had started participating in talk radio actively I enjoyed being more than just a listener, especially on Doc Thompson’s Cincinnati show. I respect the art of being a talk show host. But Doc was a bit too freedom oriented for the sports talk stations of Cincinnati, and was too big of a name to put on a station that didn’t have a voice equaling his own booming enunciations. So it didn’t take long before Doc moved on to the Detroit market leaving a void in Cincinnati, and the freedom movement that was so strong here.
There are other voices, but on FCC controlled radio stations, they are somewhat handcuffed by their station managers, and the advertisers who essentially control the content. Doc has been a breath of fresh air wherever he has worked, but the stations he worked for never allowed him to utilize his full potential of talent consisting of humor, deep political analysis, and a tremendous range of topics that he can discuss. But more than anything, Doc is the opposite of the kind of radio host that Howard Stern has been—he has deep convictions and tries to be a good person. He wants to do good with his microphone, and that has hindered him during his long career………..until now. Glenn Beck hired Doc Thompson in January to start off his new Blaze Radio Network with the 6 AM to 9 AM morning show just ahead of Glenn Beck’s national show and the gloves have come off. For the benefit of my readers here I have placed two of Doc’s recent shows on the following video clips so that they can be listened to on demand in their entirety. I would suggest playing them and filling your day with their contents. There is a lot of comedy, loads of great information, and some deep sincerity from Doc and Skip which is typical of them in what I consider to be one of the best radio show in the history of talk radio that was only made possible because of Glenn Beck’s innovative, and bold investment in the enterprise.
The reason I consider The Blaze Radio Network to be the purest beacon available for the freedom movement is because it is free, and it is not under the regulation of the government in any way. This allows the programming on the Blaze Radio to be unusually unconcerned with regulators who can threaten to pull their license if at least a balanced approach to statist concepts isn’t adhered to. Every television, and radio station in America is typically concerned about these federal regulations, and it does water down the content, even on programs like Rush Limbaugh’s.
Doc and Skip are for the first times in their life completely free as talk show hosts, and they are making excellent use of that liberty. Before any organization can hope to be a beacon of freedom to the listeners they service, they must in fact be free themselves. Because of the commitment of Glenn Beck into The Blaze Radio Network, it is the most “free thinking” broadcasting anywhere in the world. It functions the way that The Constitution intended with the 1st Amendment of the Bill of Rights, to use free speech not in a destructive way to boost ratings with sex, and deviant discussion, but with high quality content from people who care deeply about the topics they discuss. And for the first time, radio hosts who work for The Blaze have a boss in Glenn Beck who is just as committed to liberty as they are.
I know Doc Thompson personally. I have been to dinner with him where he and Skip would not stop doing research for their radio show even at 1 AM in the morning. Doc never turns off his engine. He never completely shuts down. Radio work and the matters of current events are his number one passion. He is constantly analyzing material for his shows, and he ruthlessly looks for fresh content. Doc is one of the hardest working people I know, and in entertainment/news, this is certainly the case.
Doc has been fighting for a chance to do what he is currently doing for more than 20 years of radio in cities all over the United States. In one of his darkest days of recent past, he never let up off the gas. I remember vividly when his wife Yuna Lee left her television job in Richmond, Virginia so she could finally marry Thompson after several years of a long distance relationship. Finally they were going to be together, living not only in the same house, but in the same city. Yuna boldly left her job to take a job at Channel 2 in Dayton where she works to this day. But the very moment the two were married, Doc lost his job in Cincinnati. He was always a bit too passionate, too “wholesome,” and too “Tea Party” for the Cincinnati stations, which left him jobless again looking for a home. Even in those moments when he was most tempted to change his style to fit the producers of radio shows, he didn’t. He held tight for a syndication deal because he knew he was that good and he needed someone to believe in him with financial backing.
Glenn Beck was that guy, and the benefit to freedom is that finally Doc Thompson has NOTHING in his way to be a serious pain in the ass to statists, progressives, communists, union thugs, race baiters, education empires, and every parasitic entity hanging from the halls of government. For the first time in his professional life Doc Thompson is free to provide the kind of radio that hasn’t been conceived since the very early days of radio broadcasting before the FCC put its claws into the lives of every radio listener. Doc takes full advantage of this freedom, as evidence in the over 5 hours of broadcasting played above. I hope you took full advantage of those clips to let Doc’s voice bring the sounds of freedom to your ears. The Blaze Radio Network it has nearly replaced all my old news sources. I play it all the time, at home, in the garage, in my back yard, in my car, on my iPod—especially during flights, on vacation, in the middle of the mountains, and in the deepest valleys while camping. Because The Blaze is broadcast across the internet, and podcasting is always available on Soundcloud, every show Doc and Skip do can be listened to on demand. By loading his segments onto my iPod I can attend business engagements pausing his information, then resuming when my time frees up. When riding my motorcycle, I can broadcast Doc into my helmet through my iPod, which is a completely new technology. Years ago the only way to listen to a radio on a motorcycle was to have a bulky device attached to the handle bars. Now I can hear Doc anywhere at anytime of day and the information is free. CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO FIND DOC’S BROADCASTS ON SOUNDCLOUD:
For traditional radio talk show listeners, The Blaze Radio Network has a full staff that broadcasts out of New York the news at the top and bottom of every hour just like most other AM stations. They are doing much better work than Fox News is, and certainly leaps and bounds above CNN, MSNBC, or any other news source. The Blaze guys are on top of just about everything 24 hours a day 7 days a week. They are always there.
For these reasons listed above Doc Thompson on The Blaze Radio Network is the best and most authentic example of a voice for the freedom movement that there is in the world. Doc works harder, plays harder, and has the tools in his tool box given to him by Glenn Beck to be a monstrous success, which he and Skip are well on their way to becoming. What they are doing is the wave of the future, and the most effective form of new media there is. I trust The Blaze in ways that I have never trusted any other news source. Their news is good even when they don’t agree with what the other side has to say. Such as in this example:
The Blaze is a game changer in the news business, and Doc Thompson working for the Blaze Radio Network is a game changer in the world of radio. The radio business will never be the same again, now that Doc Thompson is loose and able to communicate the truth where it lives most brilliantly, at The Blaze operated by Glenn Beck and managed by hundreds of wonderful people who deeply care about the state of America and it’s role to the rest of the world who look with longing eyes toward the freedoms that only we have. I would recommend dear reader that you tune in to this wonderful tool for freedom and support it with your attention which will be mutually beneficial for many years to come.
It is impossible to have any kind of republic which is the governing principle of The United States if the people who make up that republic are not intellectually engaged. There is no way to elect representatives to the republic if such disinterested manner is placed on elections. The fault of this social awareness of course falls on the education system which has failed to ignite in the minds of the youth any interest in such things, even though a passive interest in the affairs of the American Republic is more important than learning mathematics, English, or even general history. Instead, schools have allowed their teacher unions to lobby law makers into watering down the education curriculums into radicalism against American tradition to fulfill progressive strategies—the same kind of strategies that have destroyed Detroit in the present day. The public education system chose radicalism focused on social issues over republic representation of quality as a teaching method. The result is a society of lost minds who do not know what to do with the facts of our day. A vast majority of the American public is disconnected—and happy to proclaim it, because their public school institutions have taught them that such a social position was good.
I remember what it was like in public school and I hated every moment of it. In my entire 13 years of attending I can’t remember a single day that I enjoyed. At an early age I had the deep suspicion that the teachers wanted nothing to do with any truth. They were intent to reshape minds into a direction guided by some invisible hand that went by the name of “legislators.” The reason I didn’t enjoy school was because I liked my mind, and didn’t want it shaped by anybody but me. I remember feeling this way even in kindergarten. Naturally teachers didn’t know what to do with me because I wasn’t following the “formula.” So I was in trouble all the time and being much more stubborn than they were, I held out like an inmate in a prison for 13 years always looking for that graduation day where I’d be free of them once and for all.
I could tell many stories about my public school days, but the short of it was that I was always in trouble, my parents were constantly called with attempts to shove me in some direction which I continuously resisted. I was constantly grounded as a student at home because of my rebelliousness at school making the experience a miserable one for my young mind. And all along, I had a very keen understanding of what I was resisting. I was resisting the tendency to be a social buffoon. As I moved into high school the pressure escalated and I pushed back even harder and a lot of people were hurt. Once I was able to drive and have a job of my own, the groundings at home, the constant peer pressure at school to be a mind numb debacle for the human race began to subside a bit because that long desired goal of being free of the public school system was near. To let “them” know they had not beaten my mind into submission I routinely wore a sport coat to school with a tie to let the statist know that they had failed utterly in their breaking of me—and I relished the audacity. The constant detentions, the threats, the many, many trips to the principal’s office, the calls to my parents, the attempt to pit other kids in the school against me had all failed spectacularly and I enjoyed seeing the looks of disappointment on their faces.
Back then I had a USA Today newspaper delivered to my first period class which I carried around with me and read throughout the day. The newspaper was a window to the outside world. It was like a light through the window of a prison cell that was way too small for me, and I enjoyed reading about disruptions in the Middle East while the students around me were passing around love notes to each other declaring how drunk they wanted to get at the next Friday night football game. I had a few friends, and they thought like me for the most part—people brought together by common values. In some cases those friends were intellectually smarter than the rest of the administrative staff with genius level intellects, and in some ways other friends were physically superior to even the best athletes, and were heavily recruited to play sports for the school which were declined out of sheer rebelliousness. At the Friday night football games my friends and I would sell those same stupid kids cases of beer out of a car trunk saving them the disgrace of trying to buy beer from a convenient store only to be turned away by a clerk who carded them. I enjoyed this because it allowed me to punch back at society from two fronts, I was thumbing my nose at the laws politicians made for underage drinking, and I was violating the stupid policy of letting the school believe football games were anything but an excuse for the kids to get drunk. This would go on right in front of the school administration and the police both of whom had no idea what to do about the practice. I had learned at an early age the hypocrisy of statism and knew that there was nothing they could do to me. They had already punished me in every way possible for over a decade, and as a young high school kid I was making as much money as most of the kid’s parents between all my jobs. Earning money was my freedom from the statism of public education, and the first minute I could do it, I did. I mowed lawns, worked as a bus boy at an upscale restaurant for tips, and started dating girls who were in their mid-twenties when I was 15 and 16 who would then buy the beer I could sell to the high school kids. Around the time I was doing all this the Tom Cruise film Risky Business came out and when I went to see it, I realized that I was living that life, except more violently.
My motives were to use capitalism to escape statism, and as a kid who grew up in the 80s under President Ronald Reagan, that was at least possible. As I look around at kids today, having raised two of my own and meeting many of their friends, I don’t think they even have those same opportunities. Instead of reading a USA Today, kids at least have the internet on their phones to escape from the statist environment, but instead of reading about current events, they keep their minds on entertainment related topics. For me I was able to beat my captors by being smarter than they were. And when that didn’t work, I was more willing to resort to physical confrontation than they were. It was no secret then and it’s no secret now. I still live by those same rules—because they work. As I look at the public education system now, I am sure there are kids trapped there like I was, but even lack a president to admire. Most of them have been put on Retalin or some other drug to numb their active minds, as public schools have found that the way to beat students like me was to get them on mind numbing drugs so early that nobody knows what kind of genius they could become. They call this these days ADHD. I openly campaigned for Ronald Reagan in the 7th grade when the other students were busy contemplating which bands were good over others, but since him, there hasn’t been a president that young people could even get excited about.
For me the fight against statism has always been present. I fought it then as a captor stuck within the system. Upon my graduation traveling back from UD arena in Dayton I passed the future superintendent of Lakota schools on I-75 south, a man who tried to pin me down with every trick known to the book of school administrators. I slowed down to match his speed and look him in the face. My friend sitting in the passenger’s seat toasted him with a beer. Between him and me we were living the movie version of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. The future superintendent had tried to catch me time and time again for doing something wrong and often I would do things just to prove to him that I couldn’t be caught. On that day now that I was free of them, I slowed my car down behind his speed and dropped back about 200 yards. Then I gunned the engine to my Pontiac Firebird and flew past him on the highway at 110 MPH. I drove by him so closely that my passenger’s side mirror almost hit the mirror on his car. I maneuvered so closely to him because I wanted the air from my car to rattle his at that high-speed. Many reading this will wonder why I was so aggressive about this maneuver, and those that came before, and many that came after. Because I hated him, I hated the school, I hated the administrators, and I hated the system they all represented. For many, hate is a strong word, but for me, hate is the correct term. I hated him, and I wanted him to know it.
I hated that system then and I hate it now because it produces the kind of people who can watch a city like Detroit die of progressive philosophy without feeling an urge to defend the city from the parasites. There is no fire in the minds of the people Matt called on the air, because that fire was put out by their public schools, and that is why I hate them. I like to see fire behind the eyes of human beings. I like to see energy, passion, and imagination, and too often those elements are destroyed in children before they get out of their first year of kindergarten. Some manage to retain some of those traits and not be destroyed completely, but virtually all lose massive amounts of their future potential in those first two years of public school. I didn’t know in the early days why I fought, but just knew that I should. I am proud now that I have a grandchild to say that I have never yielded to statism, and I never will. But it always makes me sad to see so many lights out in the minds of mankind. And Detroit, as Matt proved, is bankrupt and morally lost not just because they ran out of other people’s money to give away, but because the light is out in the minds of the residents—a light that was put out during their years in public education.
‘’American Exceptionalism tends to set off tempers from the type of people who have been taught their entire lives that America should follow the trends of the rest of the World and not proudly proclaim the wonderful attributes that have come out of the freest country in the world-such as capitalism, human rights, individual freedom, and quality of life that is unmatched anywhere.’’ Did Rich or El Rushbo write this? Funny I was a Rush baby, some of us grow up and actually learn history, economics, free-markets, and real Conservative, ex. Russel Kirk, TS Elliot, Edmund Burke, and M.E. Bradford (who was originally appointed by Reagan for national endowment position, but sidelined by Bill Krystol for neocon Bill Bennett (Lincoln lover)).
The listener’s name is Ben Cowan and he is attempting to display that he has the superior argument by stating he has grown up and away from the way of thinking of Rush Limbaugh. People who use such arguments with a direct attack like that try to gain supremacy through insult instead of the quality of their statement. Cowan then proceeds to establish that he has a vast knowledge of history to draw upon as if I do not. He has obviously not read the more than 2 million words here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom, so if he starts now he may be qualified to make such statements in about 6 months. But until then he is functioning from ignorance. I enjoy the work of T.S. Elliot particularly “The Wasteland.” The point of his statement is to say that Cowan has evolved intellectually into thinking beyond Rush Limbaugh which is supposed to qualify everything that follows as fact, and everything he says about me as inferior to his arguments. This is a trick Cowan learned from the progressive intellectuals which he reveals further in the next section.
Notice how weak Rich’s arguments are that he portrays anyone who gets frustrated with Decepticons aka neocons using the term American Exceptionalism as someone who supports Obama or his ideology. As to Rich’s Bill Maher clip, I actually agree with some of Bill’s sediments in this clip. This is probably the only time that I have agreed with Bill Maher, but our solutions and reasons are much different. Did you notice how I separated the two complaint/Solutions without emotionally driven comments like Rich uses?
Prof. Kevin Gutzman liked this part of the main article ‘’Under the American Constitution, slavery was abolished- a move happened nowhere else in the world.’’ If the point is that slavery wasn’t abolished under the US Constitution outside the US, well duh. Slavery was abolished in Haiti, Cuba, Brazil, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Barbados, Bahamas, Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad, and Nevis. –Response by Prof. Kevin Gutzman (Author of Who Killed the Constitution).
Cowan attacks my arguments as weak without identifying the argument which is an anti-concept trick that was perfected by the political strategist Saul Alinsky. It is used, copied and heavily studied by radical groups to this day. People like Cowan pick up the behavior through observation and interacting with people who use the method. The premise of his attack is that my statement about Obama and his ideology is weak because it points to American Exceptionalism as strong, and that such a broad brush is not appropriate under the terms Cowan established in his anti-concept. By my definition of American Exceptionalism I am stating the concept “America is good.” The reason this angers people like Cowan, who believes that he is an evolved conservative to some degree, or just defining himself as some degree of libertarian, is that he has accepted that the concept of American Exceptionalism is a myth at some point in his past and he is defending his foundation beliefs from the concept of goodness. He then uses Bill Maher as validation to support his theory in the same fashion that he uses Kevin Gutzman as a crutch the way most academics use quotes and references to support collectively their own thoughts and beliefs. The implication of their need for reference crutches is their insecurity to their own thoughts. They attempt to build a public consensus by pointing at others and what they say as if to justify their own thoughts. The truth about slavery is that The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage was the first Americanabolition society. It was founded April 14, 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Anthony Benezet and others, and held four meetings.[1] Seventeen of the 24 men who attended initial meetings of the Society were Quakers, or members of the Religious Society of Friends. Thomas Paine was also among the Society’s founders. It was reorganized in 1784[2] as the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage,[3] (better known as the Pennsylvania Abolition Society) and was incorporated in 1789. At some point after 1785, Benjamin Franklin was elected as the organization’s president. The society asked him to bring the matter of slavery to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He petitioned the U.S Congress in 1790 to ban slavery.[4]
During this time there were similar movements happening all over the world as many were questioning the practice. But the big driver in changing the culture of slavery was The United States in their fight for independence. Once that revolution was won other countries looked at their own situations and made adjustments. Smaller countries like Haiti, Cuba, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Barbados, Bahamas and so on were able to abolish their slaves more quickly than larger countries with more bureaucracy. My example of American Excepetionalism is that if America had failed in their revolution then other countries would have stepped back from such a task. It took America to lead by example. Cowan would then point out that many of those movements took place at the turn of the 1700s into the early 1800s. Yet they were using America as their example as many of the discussions taking place in the colonies from those Philadelphia meetings were exported all over the world through commerce. When America defeated the British, many countries became more embolden in their pursuit of individual freedom and passed anti slavery mandates. Sadly, many of those same countries Cowan mentions would submit to socialism just a few years later falling back into social slavery of a different type.
Capitalism is great and the best system in which people can move up and down mobile in a free society. Capitalism predates the Union of States and American Exceptionalism. Did it occur to Rich that Britain lead the 1st industrial Revolution, followed by Meiji Restoration in Japan, and the 2nd industrial revolution was led by the United States.
Yes, it did occur to me, yet Britain failed in their economy falling to socialism as they allowed Keynesian economics to ruin their capitalism, and Japan of course could not leave their feudal social functions once they submitted themselves to an emperor. To this very day many large countries make the mistake of attempting to emulate Japan for their manufacturing standards believing them to be of higher quality than American standards. The failure in this thinking is that the Japanese place themselves before their individuality in nearly every case. Their programs of lean manufacturing work well as their people do not question the methods. Their service to their country and business come before their own desires. American strength in manufacturing has always come from their ability to think outside-the-box as individuals, not blind compliance to a greater good such as country, company, or even community. America adopted foreign lean manufacturing methods as a direct assault against the American labor unions which infected manufacturing from the Red Decade with communist philosophy. It was the only way that companies could force the unions to not destroy their businesses with non-productive effort. Because the unions put a lock on productive output, American companies were forced to use foreign collectivist methods perfected abroad to keep the unions from destroying their companies that were legally allowed to organize against industry for the collective gain of the many. Even with these severe handicaps most new ideas still come out of The United States. Most literature, films, music, art and technical innovation are generated by free people with the prospect of profit blowing wind into their sails. Even with all the best lean manufacturing techniques produced for collective motivation of work forces, creativity is what makes American Excptionalism. Creativity is what is missing from all other countries that have stepped away from capitalism, and to this day seek alliances with others to disguise the fact that they are nations of suppressed thought praying to their religions for inspiration. In America, innovation is invented because the mind is free—that is the backbone of American Excepetionalism.
‘’Americans have been taught by their gov’t that the United States gained everything it achieved by consuming too many resources and stepping on the rights of others across the world.’’ -This is what would be taught at a progressive college, that so called conservatives send their kids to and help support and perpetuate. Many fake conservative send their kids to progressive colleges so Johnny and Suzie can watch people run into other people on Saturday afternoon and ‘’what’s the score of the game mindless thinking.’’ Again, Rich is using the absurd progressive logic to lump real Conservatives like myself into, to push ‘’American Exceptionalism’’, which is the progressive rights term invented by a Frenchmen, and used to spread democracy by force to any country whether they want it or not.
Not sure that I disagree with Cowan here. He uses my name in a way that implicates that my statement is wrong, but then he agrees with it, because I had just said the same thing. Americans have been taught such things as I stated and most colleges are infected with progressive thought. If Cowan doesn’t believe such a thing I’m not sure what planet he’s living on.
I enjoyed Rich’s definition of a neocon! How terrible of the social freedom of the people in the 60’s. Was Steve Jobs one of those people?? A neocon or decepticon is someone who left the Democrat Party to join the Republican Party in which they brought their FDR progressive foreign policy with them. They also brought the mentality that morals should be controlled through the Fed gov’t. They were Nationalist that the great founders feared, and why some didn’t sign the Constitution fearing the Union would end up like as it is now.
Steve Jobs had a good idea and left his indoctrination education to invent his own way. He used capitalism to bring a great product to market, so not all people who smoked dope, and listened to the garbage music of the 60s was a diabolical hippie menace. I would say that George Lucas was cast of the same mold as Jobs, and I’m sure that George loved the 60’s although he was more of a loner than his friend Francis was at their first studio set up in San Francisco where hippie mania was rampant. Somewhere in that drug induced haze Star Wars was born which I love. But these guys are rare examples that managed to rise to the top even as statism was increasing to put shackles on the mind of mankind by suppressing capitalism. The second part of Cowan’s statement I agree with for the most part, even though it’s pretty general. The real situation is more complicated, but Cowan is learning so I’ll give him a gold star on his paper for at least thinking.
The founding fathers wanted to be immortalized for their writings and their accomplishments ‘’Fame of our Fathers’’, they however were very humble; they had humility which Rich doesn’t seem to grasp! Jefferson studied Scottish philosopher David Hume, Switzerland’s decentralized country, the Indians free trade, and the ancient Greeks who prior to Alexander the Great were successful for centuries with their small [r]epublics in which Math, Science, Art, Philosophy, architecture, and sport was mastered in small [r]epublics of people. Jefferson wasn’t arrogant as to say he created our ‘’written gov’t’’ on his own without researching other countries and philosophers. Rich’s progressive right term “American Exceptionalism’’, he points to ‘’American Experience’’ of 1776, which I noted to Matt Clark in my response.
‘’The benefits of capitalism and the American Experience produced a unique type of person that had only been contemplated by philosopher fantasies prior to the declaration.’’ Again the arrogance of Rich’s comments, Madison and Jefferson both used Adam Smith’s a Scottish Philosopher book ‘’Wealth of Nations’’ as a guide to preventing a National Bank and advocating the market to work!
As to Cowan’s point, there is nothing “progressive” about my term other than such an identification about American Exceptionalism is needed to defend what’s good about The United States against the progressives. Other than that, Cowan is indulging himself in wishful thinking to believe that I adhere to something because of some progressive invention that has not been carefully considered from all angles. In this paragraph the real weakness of Cowan begins to emerge, his real gripe with me. As a victim of a mixed economy he believes certain things. As a flawed human being who probably has events from his past that he regrets, he chooses to maintain a view of the world that supports notions that flaws make humans, “human.” Many people wish to believe such things because it would be hard for them to get up every morning and put on their shoes. But I am very aware of the origins of Jefferson’s belief and studies of Scottish Common Sense, which I have written about elsewhere, CLICK FOR REVIEW. I have said on many occasions that the work of John Locke was inspired by the pirate Henry Morgan, which then also showed the colonies how to shake off a nation the way that Morgan took on Spain nearly single-handedly with their presence in the Caribbean. But the fact remains that these elements came together not in Scotland, England, Spain, or France where they were talked about. It was only in America where the dialogue was able to move away from dinner tables, congregations, and card games to become part of the governing philosophy of a country on the rise.
Now to deal with the “arrogance” portion of this debate–being humble is a taught theory by statist oriented groups, be it religion or government to force compliance of the masses to the desires of institutionalism. Grace in victory and humbleness are often confused to be the same thing by people like Cowan, but they are not. It is often perceived that confidence is “arrogant” by those who lack it which is to say that such a declaration is just another anti-concept. By calling me arrogant Cowan hopes to dismiss everything I have said and place himself in high esteem with a reader who identifies their internal value with humbleness, which is sheer nonsense. The concept of serving God with humbleness may be what the majority of human beings believe, but that belief was created during the Dark Ages of Europe and should be confined to the corners of one’s own home. Humility and “duty” to something greater than oneself is a statist concept that was created by the churches of Europe to maintain political control over their flocks. Under the rules of engagement for people like Cowan he is quick to associate humility with arrogance so that he doesn’t have to deal with the root cause of the word. It is the tendency toward humility that Eric Holder continues to lie directly to the American people, it allows Barack Obama to lie about the impact of the scandals he’s at the center of, it allows scum bags like Anthony Wiener to lie, lie, and lie again to anybody and everyone about his sexual lust for other women making his wife look like a buffoon who will forgive anything just so she can be married to someone in a powerful public office—like her mentor Hillary Clinton. These predators all have in common a desire to use the humility of civilization to hide their true intentions. Humility is not a good human trait, kindness is, intelligence is, even compassion, but not humility. Yielding to ones faults, which humility implies, is a sin against the individual soul of every human being and people everywhere will continue to live in bondage to social parasites so long as they believe in the kinds of things that Ben Cowan believes, that humility has value, and equals arrogance. More on this in a bit because it’s not the only time Cowan uses the term. But as far as how to behave when you win, the following videos are from the bullwhip competitions that I was at when Ben started this little fuss through Matt. Notice my behavior when I win. I expect the same from every American. You don’t rub people’s face in it, but you don’t cower away from it either. When you have something to be proud of, be proud of it.
‘’Life in virtually every facet is better in America because of the philosophy of personal independence that is much larger than the ‘’American Experience.’’ This is so obnoxious, that is the American Experience, limited gov’t. The founders referred to their states as countries, they didn’t speak in homogenized tongue like Rich! The South traded throughout the world (off the backs of slaves) and the Northern States were protectionalist!
This is the kind of thing that caused Cowan to start this dialogue off with an anti-concept attack instead of fact based thought. He does not understand the American Experience in spite of all his supposed education and conservative thought. He doesn’t understand it as a graduate of Rush Limbaugh thought so he finds my statement, “obnoxious.” He lacks perspective to see the world through common sense instead of memorized standards which is why he surrendered his statement to some implications of racism and isolationism—both agreed upon violations of universal understanding. The American Experience is being born in a free country with no hooks into the soul of the child. Many believe that the World Bank owns us all, but at least philosophically, in The United States there is at least the assumption of personal freedom that is held in high regard. In America one does not have to social climb to be successful. That is a European trait. One does not have to marry someone else to become powerful. That is a European, and Asian trait. One does not have to become a member of the political class to gain wealth. That is a European trait. In America one can be just about anything they want to be and they can be it anytime they want to. Just as a byproduct of American culture, which is a direct result of the American Experience, look just at Comic Con in San Diego. America is dedicated to the products of the mind, and no place else in the world is there anything like Comic Con. There are other countries that attempt to host such events such as the recent Star Wars Celebration in Germany, but the products displayed there are not developed in other countries, it is in the United States that they were created. Or consider the British Invasion of music that came out of England during the 60’s, a period that Cowan seems to enjoy. They came to America to be superstars as England had too small of a stage to gain such fame. That is the American Experience. Cowan because of his very weak position again took a page out of the progressive notebook of anti-concepts and attempted to use racism and isolationism to gain control of victory in the debate without having any facts to cover his emotional lack of understanding about the American Experience.
Walt Disney should be honored as a great entrepreneur that used determination, creativity, and thrift which is missing in today’s culture. People don’t know what thrift is, these days!
Rudolf Diesel a German inventor invented the diesel engine, which we use very much in the Union today. I could see German’s going around saying this is German Exceptionalism. I have never heard German’s speak in that tongue, but I detest our countrymen arrogantly beating their chest say we are the Awesomest of the Awesome! People don’t like pompous people, they are attracted by humility, what you don’t have Rich.
This is where I get really angry, and why I took a few days to cool off before answering Cowan directly. Let me start on a positive, which I agree with Cowan on the thrift issue. I would like to see a return to that type of mental exercise. And the German’s would have every right to proclaim German Exceptionalism. It was they who produced some of the finest engineering feats in the world during the 20th century and even as members of the European Union, they manage to be so productive that the rest of their European neighbors continually want to borrow their money. German BMW and Mercedes automobiles are fabulously engineered earning them the right to beat on their chest about that particular field. But here is where people like Ben Cowan are deeply flawed human beings bringing in the front door the tyrants of our modern age because they fail to project the proper mentality to combat attacks from villains who prey on humility.
When making a point that most of society will reject people who do not display humility he is right, but wrong. Being “liked,” being “popular,” or having people think you’re “awesome,” is the furthest thing from my mind. I don’t have humility because I don’t want it Cowan. I do not conceal from hangers in my closet skeletons of shame, I do not fear violence by my attackers, or need to be liked in any fashion. I do have people who like me, who share my values, but I have no desire to be liked by people who do not share my values, which is very few. If I had such a thought I wouldn’t say half the things that needed to be said in this day and age. Even people who read here every day get angry with the things I say. But it doesn’t change my stance and it never will. When you start caring what people think of you, you are finished in the philosophy business. When you desire to be loved, you are prone to be corrupt, to be bought, to allow enemies to gain emotional leverage over you. People should like you because they share your values or respect you, not because you pander to their own weaknesses. It is that process that has turned our entire society into a nation of fools led by idiots, and I would guess that many of them think just like Cowan.
Cowan believes he stands on high moral ground backed by historical fact, but all he stands upon is a pile of his own metaphorical feces created by years of such thinking. It is because of this weakness in him personally that he attempts to skirt around the edges pretending to be a sophisticated conservative that is beyond refute. But in reality he is a child of the mixed economy that has bought into some of the statism that is rampant in American culture, much of it culminating in the 1960s a period Cowan appears to enjoy.
A defeated person uses an emphasis on humility, weakness, or accusations of pompousness to justify their lackluster existences. It is easy to be an armchair philosopher, a casual listener of a radio broadcast, and a Facebook junkie that comments on things other people do. It is quite something else to be the leading edge of an ice breaker, to crash through all opposition knowing that the pain will never ever go away so long as there is ice to smash through. To the broken ice, the ice breaker is a villain, a un-compassionate destroyer, an uncompromising force of sheer will and something to be feared. To me the value is in the ice breaker who can smash through the progressive ice even if people like Ben Cowan have built cities upon the ice believing that the surface was sturdy underneath. They believe such things until they see the ice breaker coming and to cover their fear of seeing for the first time the waters under the ice, they attempt to direct the ice breaker somewhere else so that it doesn’t violate the cities of thought they have built upon progressive corruption. That is the motive behind their diatribes of humility, arrogance, and pompousness. Notice in the events shown in these clips that I was competing in as Cowan sent me his half-baked diatribes, that I don’t rub anything in when I win events. But I don’t show modesty either. If you are good, you are good and should not be ashamed of it. People like Cowan mistake pride, confidence, and determination for evil vices created in the courts of Europe for the determined strategy of controlling the masses to limited thinking and self imprisonment by social shackles.
Instead of comparing us to China, India, Spain, and Russia, how about you compare us to Switzerland, Estonia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Chile. We are the 10th freest country in the world now! Using the left/right paradigm gets old. It is now Nationalism vs. Federalism, Limited gov’t vs. Central planning. Obviously you want the Fed Gov’t to plan social cultural norms. Steve Jobs was a capitalist; he listened to the Grateful Dead and was an advocate of LSD. I don’t own any apple products, but luckily he was never jailed for 20 years with your authoritarian leaning positions. How many jobs did Steve Jobs create Rich?
I didn’t try and put Matt on the defensive. ‘’American Exceptionalism’’ comes off as arrogant to the average person and turns them away from limited decentralized gov’t that the good founders embraced! It also gives the average person the mentality that we need to export our awesomeness to other nations, which is the opposite of the founders. ‘’American Exceptionalism, is a term that Hitler would have embraced if he were American, getting people to believe in the good of the state. He detested divided gov’t and decentralization. He wanted to instill Nationalism in the German people, and he commended Lincoln in his book Mein Kampf for Nationalizing the US and trampling the states. No critical thinking allowed in their worlds, similar to Rich’s.
And here is why I find Cowan such a repulsive parasite that is more dangerous than the average progressive, because at least those threats are easy to identify. Cowan sells himself as a logical conservative, but since his value system was threatened by my statements he has retreated to comparing me to Adolf Hitler! Cowan, America needs to export its awesomeness to other nations! You bet your ass! I’ll say it again. “AMERICA NEEDS TO EXPORT ITS AWESOMNESS TO OTHER NATIONS!” Other countries would be much, much, MUCH better off if they adopted American ideals of independence, economic freedom, and creative enterprise.
As for celebrating in sports, I don’t watch those main stream sports! I play sports that are gentlemen’s games, where you can call a penalty on yourself because the people who play have virtue! Humility and lack of explaining in a story of how the Union came about and how the founders studied other countries to help craft written documents such as the ‘’Declaration of Independence’’, ‘’Articles of Confederation’’, and ‘’The Constitution’’ is what is missing today. Broad rhetoric and arrogant phrases ‘’American Exceptionalism’’ detour people from discovering our founding generation’s great works!
Just as the definition of Welfare 250 years ago, ‘’it was a deliverance from evil’’, which now means gov’t assistance. The American Experience is the correct term in which to use! I have served my country and I am a small business owner and it makes me upset when people use terms that confuse people into thinking the person is bragging about America or is trying to invade another country and impose its Exceptionalism on them! So let’s teach kids limited gov’t and to promote trade with countries we don’t see eye to eye with. Encourage kids to read about the great risk takers and inventors of our country and the rest of the world!
Finally what Ben Cowan is really about; he considers himself a gentleman, something of a Victorian gentleman at that. Well, dude, it was considered against the “gentleman code” to attack during bad weather or other adverse conditions, but George Washington attacked the Hessians at Trenton anyway against every kind of “gentlemanly” code of conduct there was, early in the morning, right after a holiday, and during bad weather. Then again at the fall of Yorktown, Cornwallis attempted to send his surrendered sword by Deputy General Charles O’Hara to give to General Rochambeau. When Rochambeau rejected the offer O’Hara had to give the sword to Benjamin Lincoln because Washington refused to allow Cornwallis to avoid acknowledging the American General as his superior in combat. Cornwallis was a gentleman. Washington was gracious in victory, but demanded respect—which is a lesson we should all be embracing! I can only imagine what kind of “gentlemanly games” Cowan is talking about, Croquet, basket weaving, coin collecting? I hang around knife throwers, gun marksman, and bullwhip artists. CLICK HERE FOR REVIEW. The “gentleman code” is just another anti-concept. There is a difference between being respectful of other people, and then pawing off inaction, indecision, and just plain being a pussy to behaving like a “gentleman.” Cowan, you be a gentleman all you want. I’ll take the win, I’ll take the American Excepetionalism, and I’ll take the freedom that comes with it. You keep the European terminology and keep calling me arrogant. It lets me know I’m doing the right things.
There is more wrong than what’s obvious when a beached pilot whale struggled to get back into the water at Sea World in Orlando for about 25 minutes before trainers finally went to push it back in. The crowd witnessing the event protested in fury. When no trainers appeared to help the struggling animal after about 10 minutes, Carlo De Leonibus pulled out his cell phone and started filming stating heroically, “I went and told a SeaWorld employee in a dark blue shirt who said it was normal and that it was fine, playing etc.,” De Leonibus wrote in a description of the video he posted on YouTube. “I went back to the bleachers and began recording. What I saw changed my view of SeaWorld forever. The crowd becomes furious, yelling to save the dolphin. After an additional 10-15 minutes after my recording they sent two dolphin trainers in to push the dolphin back in.” You can read more about the story at the link below.
Carlo believes that he saved the day for the poor “dolphin” by putting pressure on Sea World employees to react to his media coverage. But sadly, the truly disturbing aspect of this entire situation is that Carlo should have had a better understanding of the situation before reacting so poorly to his panicked 11-year-old daughter which is why Carlo was at Sea World with his family—to celebrate her birthday. It was Carlo’s job to explain to his daughter that the creature was not a “fish” and would not drown because it was out of water. The animal was not a dolphin, but was a breed of whale related to dolphins. It was a mammal and breathes air just like all people in the world. The pilot whale could have remained out of the water for hours and been just fine. The Sea World staff knew that the best way to teach the whale to survive is to let it learn how to put itself back into the water on its own, rather than waiting for someone to come and save it.
Even worse than not having the knowledge about such elementary matters, the father actually cursed in front of his family in outrage that Sea World personnel were somehow not privy to his divine understanding of science. Upon hearing the hapless father who was filled with good intentions I immediately felt sorry for his daughter. She has no chance at life with parents who don’t know or understand such basic scientific facts, or lack the patience to get the information if they don’t know. Their first instinct was to protest like a bunch of radical buffoons to help a mammal that they thought was a fish by attempting to create a public relations nightmare for a wonderful company like Sea World.
More about pilot whales can be learned about at the following link:
This is just another failure of modern society which is addicted to radical institutionalism learned from their public educations. What the families in outrage at Sea World witnessed was a natural occurrence that they were at the marine park to learn about. But they assumed that their collective protest had more power than the nature of reality. Because of their vast ignorance, which they had every opportunity in their public school biology classes to learn about, or the countless documentaries that have been produced by the Discovery Channel, the Learning Channel, PBS, The History Channel, and National Geographic, they were still ignorant to the fact that the animal was not dying on the side of the pool, but was simply stuck and the trainers wanted it to learn how to save itself.
The perception of the protestors reflects accurately the new age of welfare recipients where nearly half of all Americans are on some type of welfare. Their view of the world can be heard in the protests of the crowd at Sea World. They believe that Sea World to be good guardians of the world’s sea life, should help such animals from struggling and that it was inhumane to let the creature flop around in agony. The first instinct when the protesters saw the animal stuck on the side of the pool was that “someone” should help it, instead of thinking first that the animal should help itself.
Another serious issue percolated to the surface as even conservative news outlets covered this Sea World story favoring the view of the Carlo De Leonibus types. That issue was a general assumption that Sea World’s employees or even the corporation of the amusement park was somehow implicitly at fault because their emphasis was on “making money,” and were automatically up to no good because they are a capitalist endeavor. Few news outlets came out and said such a thing directly, but they certainly implied it. The assumption was that the mob of fans who wished not to see the flopping “fish” on the side of the pool knew better for the proper life and care of the pilot whale than the workers of an evil corporation.
The behavior of the De Leonibus family and the media in general points to a social failure that is quite catastrophic, the sheer lack of general education, the allowance of the youth to lead the adults with emotional pleas, and the desire to use activism to change the behavior desired by the masses is a dangerous sign that the human race is failing at an alarming rate in basic intelligence. It is simply just stunning that the father in this case didn’t tell his daughter—“the pilot whale will be just fine, it breathes air just like you and me.” And if the father didn’t know that little fact, he could have looked it up on his cell phone instead of trying to play a “gotcha game” with Sea World by recording the natural occurrence in order to stir up public outcry against the park.
I love Sea World. The service they do throughout the world for marine life is unprecedented. The knowledge they bring mankind is a true treasure. And for the good life they bring to animals that would see a far harsher existence outside the amusement park in the wild, any animal living at Sea World is lucky. They are fed every day at predictable times and they don’t have to contend with natural predators. A pilot whale in the wild that finds itself beached on some remote island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean doesn’t have any Sea World personnel to push it back into the ocean. It has to figure out how to get back into the water on its own, and once there has to worry every day about being eaten by a great white shark or even a killer whale. It is just pathetic that so much was made about an animal at Sea World doing something that is natural in the animal kingdom to receive so much panicky scrutiny from half-baked minds and radical, ignorant, protesters. Especially protestors who think it’s better to use the “F” word in front of their children while also teaching little girls that they can get what they want by crying, screaming, and being a panicky mess all the while supplementing the behavior with a complete lack of wisdom, logic, or even a desire to learn otherwise.
Two of my earliest writing influences were Sol Stein whom I took a direct computer class with in the early days of the internet in the mid 1990s and the Science Fiction writer Linda Nagata. Both writers helped me work on the craft of writing leading to The Symposium of Justice in 2004 and Tail of the Dragon in 2012. During that time with Linda where she lived in Hawaii and I in Ohio I would mail her copies of my work in hard copy form back then—she’d mark them up and send them back with comments. That went on for a while and at the end I had digested so much science fiction that I felt it had spilled over into my own writing interests. I read all the books she recommended which tended to be Hugo and Nebula award winners and I read religiously the “Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy” so that I could take her advice and similar career path toward the realm of writing. To learn science fiction and fantasy writing better I read a book she recommended called Hatrack River by Orson Scott Card and soon felt I was drowning in the genre. As much as I enjoyed those types of works, my interest was in politics and philosophy to a much greater extent than I had imagined, and I found myself trying to go into a different direction than what Linda did. I had to find my own path through the forest, and I wanted nothing to do with the paved road that she had taken which required winning Nebula and Hugo awards. The more I thought about it, the less I was interested in appeasing a panel of judges who oversaw those award panels.
At the same time all this was going on one of my nephews whom spent a great deal of his childhood in my care was urging me heavily to read Orson Scott Card’s treasured Ender’s Game series starting of course with the first book, aptly named. He declared to me that Ender’s Game was the best book he had ever read and that I would love it. I had no doubt that he was correct, but I knew Orson Scott Card from Hatrack River and wasn’t crazy about combining alternate history and fantasy together in that book. But worse than that Orson Scott Card reminded me of Linda as he was a winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards which was a path I had decided not to take. So I told my nephew that I would read the novel when I got around to it.
It took around 15 years but upon hearing that Harrison Ford was staring in the upcoming 2013 movie version of Ender’s Game I thought I should finally get around to reading the book before I saw the film. I had written a few novels of my own and had picked a rather difficult path through the forest on a road of my own making that was well established, so I could easily now put behind me my reservations about letting those early writing influences contaminate my thoughts with their strong presence. I bought the novel on my way to Florida to begin reading at the beach while on vacation, but more pressingly I wanted my nephew who lives near our vacation destination to know that I was physically reading the book after promising him I would for over a decade.
I started reading the book toward the end of my vacation and it took me a bit to get passed the much studied writing techniques that were so familiar to me from my writing instruction with Linda. But after I let myself get into the story and drop away all the rules of plot, paragraph structure, and character development, I found myself enjoying the novel the way my nephew knew I would. As many who follow me daily on my blog know I have put a major emphasis on the failures of societies that become philosophically committed to collectivism, especially lately. The reason is that many of the modern political problems that defame the world currently have their root cause in social collectivism. Once I learned that collectivism was the villain of our age I have been able to apply it to virtually every problem not because once learned the mind sees it everywhere by default, but because it is the cause of most human problems. Ender’s Game is essentially about two societies that are colliding, an insect oriented species that uses collectivism as a military weapon to destroy their enemies and a society on earth that has attempted to duplicate the methods of the insect species to beat them. Ironically, only one very promising student in world history figured out a strategy that would give earth a chance to destroy the alien threat and that is the young child Ender Wiggin trained from a 6-year-old boy to become a general of the International Fleet against their interstellar enemy.
The novel explored themes of sacrifice, honor, and individual integrity in ways that were more philosophy than science fiction. Upon closing the book I felt I had read a remarkable story from Orson Scott Card which explains why there are 14 books in the series written from 1985 to 2013. Now I understand why they are so popular. If I had read them back when my nephew had first mentioned Ender’s Game I might have saved myself a lot of headache in working out my own explorations into the folly’s of collectivism. Orson Scott Card certainly did a wonderful job of arriving at many very interesting conclusions that are without question deeply inspired from the Cold War of the Reagan years.
If the movie comes close to how excellent the novel was it should be quite a treat during the Holiday Season of 2013. I’m glad that my nephew was so persistent in trying to get my attention with the novel because it was well worth my time. My July has been an unusually busy month, so it took me a few weeks to get through it not because the pacing was slow, but rather I took my time to absorb it like a fine wine, which is exactly what I thought as I closed the book. I had thought about many of the problems presented in Ender’s Game from much more terrestrial angles, so it was a real pleasure to read them in the context of a heavy science fiction story that has much more to offer any serious reader than just spontaneous entertainment. Ender’s Game is an important work for our times that belongs right alongside Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon.
When it was time to leave, President of VietnamTrương Tấn Sang, reportedly offered Obama a gift as the American President was visiting recently — a copy of a letter sent by Ho Chi Minh to Harry Truman. Obama stated “we discussed the fact that Ho Chi Minh was actually inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the words of Thomas Jefferson. Ho Chi Minh talked about his interest in cooperation with the United States. President Sang indicated that even if it’s 67 years later, it’s good that we’re still making progress.” I have told some of this story before. Review by Clicking Here. Of course Obama neglected to tell the rest of the story which he no doubt already knew but used this conversation with Sang to attempt to quell the newly fueled Tea Party movement which has gained momentum in the wake of the many Obama scandals with an obvious attempt to misdirect the current offensive. Read more at the source article at The Blaze.
In 1911, working as the cook’s helper on a ship, Nguyễn Ái Quốc (later known as Ho Chi Man) traveled to the United States. From 1912–13, he lived in New York (Harlem) and Boston, where he worked as a baker at the Parker House Hotel. Among a series of menial jobs, he claimed to have worked for a wealthy family in Brooklyn between 1917–18, and for General Motors as a line manager. It is believed that, while in the United States, he made contact with Korean nationalists, an experience that developed his political outlook.[7]As a young man Nguyễn had a problem, he wanted to get the French colonies out of his homeland of Vietnam and he wanted to learn from America by taking on odd jobs so he could perform the task. The French had colonized Vietnam in much the way that England had occupied America so the future communist leader of Vietnam wanted to learn how to remove them using America as his revolutionary model.
At various points between 1913 and 1919, Nguyễn lived in West Ealing, and later in Crouch End, Hornsey. He reportedly worked as either a chef or dish washer [reports vary] at the Drayton Court Hotel in West Ealing.[8] It is claimed that Nguyễn trained as a pastry chef under Auguste Escoffier at the Carlton Hotel in the Haymarket, Westminster, but there is no evidence to support this.[7][9] However, the wall of New Zealand House, home of the New Zealand High Commission, which now stands on the site of the Carlton Hotel, displays a blue plaque, stating that Nguyễn worked there in 1913 as a waiter. Nguyễn was also employed as a pastry boy on the Newhaven-Dieppe ferry route in 1913.[10] He was quite an adventurer stopping at nothing to learn all he could about the West so he could free his country from French occupation.
From 1919–23, while living in France, Nguyễn began to approach the political path, through his friend and Socialist Party of France comrade Marcel Cachin. Nguyễn claimed to have arrived in Paris from London in 1917, but the French police only had documents of his arrival in June 1919.[7] He joined in a group of Vietnamese nationalists in Paris whose leaders were Phan Chu Trinh and Phan Văn Trường, bearing a new name Nguyễn Ái Quốc (“Nguyễn the Patriot”). But before he contacted any of the radical socialists in France he attempted to gain audience with Woodrow Wilson during the Treaty of Versailles seeking help and advice from The United States as they divided up the world forming The League of Nations. Much to Nguyễn’s distress, Wilson wanted nothing to do with meeting anybody from Vietnam or going against the wishes of his French host, so Nguyễn was abandoned and left to seek political advice elsewhere which is how he came into contact with socialists which he had also met in the streets of Harlem in The United States as the progressive era was coming into full swing. Nguyễn naturally must have thought that socialism was the future of America as they spoke so highly of it during his visits, so he pursued that path as a way to free his nation from French occupation. Citing the language and the spirit of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, Nguyễn, had expected U.S. PresidentWoodrow Wilson to help remove the French colonial rule from Vietnam and ensure the formation of a new, nationalist government. The future ruler had no idea that Wilson was trying to undo the Constitution, not preserve it with his own academic overthrow. Since he was unable to obtain consideration at Versailles, the failure further radicalized Nguyễn, making him a symbol of the anti-colonial movement at home in Vietnam.[12] That is the part of the story Obama conveniently left out in his meeting with President of VietnamTrương Tấn Sang.
In 1920, as a representative in the Congress of Tours of Socialist Party of France, Quốc voted for the Third International and became a founding member of the Parti Communiste Français (FCP). Taking a position in the Colonial Committee of PCF, he tried to attract his comrades’ attention towards people in French colonies including Indochina, but his efforts were often unsuccessful. In this period he learned to write journal articles and short stories as well as running his Vietnamese nationalist group. In May 1922, Nguyễn wrote an article for a French magazine criticizing the use of English words by French sportswriters.[13] The article implores Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré to outlaw such Franglais as le manager, le round and le knock-out. While living in Paris, he reportedly had a relationship with a dressmaker named Marie Brière.[13]
The rest is history and within four decades The United State found itself attempting to defend their French ally in a war that was started because the Vietnamese people wanted independence from colonial rule in their country. Nobody had listened to General Claire Chennault after World War II regarding the spread of communism across China so the mismanagement of the American government through many errors had placed themselves in a Catch 22 with Vietnam. If they abandoned the French, they would have had to admit their mistake during the Treaty of Versailles and allowed the spread of communism across the entire Asian continent, funded by the Russians—America’s Cold War enemy. All Ho Chi Minh wanted was to do to the French what America had done to the English in their own revolution. Yet the help and support of freedom wasn’t there—instead, Ho Chi Minh ran into the statist progressive Woodrow Wilson who did not care about the individual rights of the Vietnamese, only the expansion of European dominance, which was the result of the Treaty of Versailles. Wilson had been bitten by the seduction of communism that was flowing through-out the world because of Karl Marx, leaving Ho Chi Minh to seek refuge from with the communists in Europe. Either way, revolutionaries by design only had communism to form their thoughts which was the strategy of communist expansion during the progressive era.
Obama hoped that nobody would know anything about the real story of Ho Chi Minh so that he could deconstruct the resistance to communism most Americans have due to the rhetoric of the Cold War. Nothing politicians do at the level of Obama is an accident, and the meeting with modern Vietnamese leaders highlighting the similarities between communist led Ho Chi Minh and the Founding Fathers is a deliberate attack on the beliefs of most modern Americans who have little knowledge of history, particularly of the Vietnam War. But the story is not that Ho Chi Minh was a communist who learned his behavior from the Founding Fathers, but was a revolutionary who was inspired by America—and even sought our help, but was turned away and miss managed by Woodrow Wilson at a crucial time in world history. Ho Chi Minh was ultimately a creation of Woodrow Wilson and the failure of the progressives—which is not the truth that Obama will tell under any circumstances—even though he knows better. Like most modern politicians with statist tendencies, they will lie and manipulate any fact to achieve their ends, and in the case of Ho Chi Minh, this is exactly what President Obama was trying to do.
