Being Proud of American Exceptionalism: Understanding what a “neocon” is and isn’t

After the interview I did with Matt Clark featuring the life of Walt Disney and more specifically, American Exceptionalism there was of course some upset listeners, as there always is. Listen to that broadcast by CLICKING HERE. The term “American Excepitonalism” 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 a quality of life that is unmatched anywhere. Americans on the world stage have been told by virtually every government that as one of the youngest countries they need to respect their elders and yield to the social philosophies of older cultures and disregard their own. This kind of mentality inspired Barack Obama upon his presidential election to go on his famous bowing around the world tour apologizing to the countries of Europe and elsewhere for American arrogance that had been displayed over the last couple of centuries. Americans were told by progressive activists that The United States was not a good country and that we should all be paralyzed by guilt for the slavery that caused the Civil War, and that somehow all the good things in America were to be erased due to civil rights violations.

Well, the types of people who utter such nonsense are the enemies of America. They forget that America willingly freed its slaves, which the King of England had started in the colonies, and under the American Constitution, slavery was abolished—a move that happened nowhere else in the world. To this very day there is still slavery in Africa, all through the Middle-East and spanning along the northern shores of the Indian Ocean. Women’s rights in the same region are equally appalling. Only in America were such rights granted to women without destroying the economy. Capitalism gave men, women, and children options that exist no place else anywhere in the world and freedom for all races, shapes and sizes of people more equally than any other country—so what is there to apologize for?

Americans have been taught by their government that The United States gained everything it achieved by consuming too many resources, and stepping on the rights of others across the world. Such claims are equivalent to jealous classmates who swear that America cheated because they cannot fathom how it accomplished such wonderful attributes competitively. It is in those types of people who find the term “American Exceptionalism” an offensive term, and it was those who were angry at Matt and me for even discussing it on his radio show. After the broadcast there was a comment from a guy named Ben Cowan who said:

(American Exceptionalism) “a neocon made up term. American experience is the real name, the founders were never arrogant or braggadocios about this country.”

–Ben Cowan

Matt’s response to Ben I thought was very kind, and as a radio personality he gets those types of comments all the time—and his answers are usually very diplomatic. However, in this case I’d like to answer Ben in my own way as the terms he used in his comment deserve scrutiny. A Neocon by definition is a conservative who supposedly disliked the social freedom of the 1960s. A neoconservative equals someone who became conservative as a reaction to the social freedom of the 1960s and 1970s. The term braggadocios are considered empty boasting and swaggering self-aggrandizement. Since I fully support the term “American Exceptionalism” then this means that by Ben’s comment that I am a neocon that is practicing braggadocios—and that I shouldn’t do so because the Founding Fathers didn’t perform the behavior. But Ben is wrong and here’s why. The Founding Fathers at the start of the American Experiment of 1776 did not boast because their philosophical theories were unproven at the time. However, in 2013 the aspects of their philosophy that worked can be seen in the many attributes described at the beginning of this article. The benefits to capitalism and the American Experience produced a unique type of person that had only been contemplated by philosopher fantasies prior to The Declaration of Independence. Unlike 1773 to 1782 there is now a history to show how such a small country was able to have such a major impact on the world without having kings or queens to take the credit for such productive output. Life in virtually every facet is better in America because of the philosophy of personal independence that is much larger than the “American Experience.” The type of person that is produced under such a system of government is what is meant by “American Exceptionalism.” The example that Matt and I discussed was Walt Disney, a man who could have only been produced under the American style of government focused on self-reliance, creative enterprise, and a focus on the greater good by impacting the individual at the level of their imagination. The proof of American Exceptionalism is in the track record of success by individuals in America directly compared to individuals in other countries, such as China, India, Spain, Russia or anywhere else. No country has produced individuals like Walt Disney so Uncle Walt is an example of American Exceptionalism, the same kind of exceptionalism that invented airplanes, electricity, and the telephone. The same county that walked on the moon and set the standard for space flight, is the same country where even the poor are comparatively wealthy when compared to the villages of Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. That is something to be proud of which must be termed American Excpetionalism.

When those who find such terms inconvenient or even uncomfortably true based on their personal philosophies, try to refute such truthful statements as to point out American Exceptionalism they must use an anti-concept to attempt to remove such definitions so that there is no standard to measure against the failures of other belief systems. This is what Ben Cowen did when he attempted to put Matt and me on the defensive with name calling such as neocon and braggadocios. The automatic reaction might be to say, “No we’re not,” then spend the rest of the conversation attempting to prove that we are not neocons or braggadocios. While it’s true that I find the social freedoms of the 1960s and 1970s despicable it is not enough to call my thoughts those of a neocon which somehow refers my beliefs into the realm of radicalism. In the interview with Matt, we had spent one hour talking about Walt Disney and our love of a period well before the 1960s that we relish. That period would be called “classic American” not a neocon. The radicalism is only in reference to the severe psychological differences that are the result of the destructive period referenced during the Hippie Era. People who use the neocon term are those who fear losing the social gains made during the 1960s which violate the type of classic America I honor. The only radicalism present is the accepted period of the 1960s version of America as opposed to the 1920s when Presidents like Calvin Coolidge were burning the midnight oil doing America’s business and Walt Disney was trying to get his company off the ground.

As for being a braggadocios, I say why not? When an NFL player scores a touchdown, they celebrate, when a basketball player hits a deep three pointer, or slam dunks over an opposing player, they celebrate. When a NASCAR driver wins a race they do burn outs in the middle of the track to celebrate their victory. So why would Americans not brag about the cultural aspects of their society that they know are superior, such as the aviation industry, the computer industry, and the entertainment culture. Look how many literary works are produced in The United States compared to other countries. No other country comes close to The United States in thinking production and that is something to celebrate. Of those thinkers nobody took the business of thought to the level of Walt Disney who is an example of American Exceptionalism. It is OK to pump our fists in the air as Americans and be proud of what we are. It is disgraceful to apologize for being too good and American has been. Its time to stop that, the Founding Fathers didn’t brag about their good fortune at the time because they weren’t sure the experiment would work. But now we do know and its time to stop pandering to the type of people represented by Ben Cowan. They are free to think what they want, but not free to dictate our actions with name calling. It’s time to call them names, like apologists, wimps, detriments to the human race and a number of other things I can think of right off-hand that are not fit to write down. But it’s not acceptable to just take what the hippies, the progressive loons; the America haters declare is the new line in the sand of social value. That line has been drawn way too far to the left and its about time to move it radically back to where it should have been all along, in an era represented best by the finest example of American Exceptionalism that is universally known to the entire world – Walt Disney. For anyone who wishes to argue against American Exceptionalism point to an example anywhere in the world of a similar personality born under the flag of socialism, communism, or any form of statism. I am confident that there isn’t one, and nobody reading this will succeed in providing a single example and that is ultimately what people like Ben Cowan are angry at. Calling us neocons, which coming from them is like being awarded a badge of honor, declares that they hate our social position, painting on my face a smile from ear to ear. Ben………..I am braggadocios about this country. So you better get used to it.

Rich Hoffman

Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE. CLICK HERE!

“Duty”: A statist concept detrimental to America

Eric Holder said some things about the Zimmerman acquittal the other day that bothered me deeply. It wasn’t his obvious activism as head of the Justice Department under President Obama, or the obvious lies, deceit, and manipulation that has occurred under his control. Rather, it was his reasoning against Florida’s Stand Your Ground law where he reflected Obama’s belief that people have a “duty” to retreat from a conflict when conflict occurs. This implies of course that public safety is more important than individual lives. Holder referenced that the laws of The United States routinely reflect that citizens have a “duty” to always look for a way out of a conflict before engaging in self-defense. For instance, a story I have told before, CLICK HERE FOR REVIEW, where the police came to the office complex where my wife was working as a receptionist at the time and asked her to cheat on me because she was such an attractive young lady meant that I had no right to engage those cops on any grounds of honor because all they had really done was utter some verbal communication. They didn’t place any hands upon her, or force her into a car. If they did, then I would still not be allowed to pull a gun on the police and defend our life together because they represented the state as representatives of the law, and they may not be using guns to apply the force. The state’s position is that there is more honor in sacrifice, even if that means losing a wife, or the sexual molestation of her, than in the honor of defending our marriage and her matrimonial sanctity. The burden of the law fell on me, the citizen because of some ridiculous ideal of “duty” to some cause that is greater than my individual interests, or my relationships that might only be valuable to me. My thoughts about this matter are essentially what my novel Tail of the Dragon is all about. CLICK HERE TO REVIEW.

I grew up wearing primarily military clothing that routinely was unkempt on purpose. My army pants had large holes in the knees from all the crawling around that I did—and still do. My shirts were always un-tucked and I have worn a cowboy hat with that attire since I was in the fifth grade. My reason was that I planned to rebel against the government if they ever drafted me into the military and I wanted to be always in a state of readiness in case I was forced into combat by a statist government. The military was always known for their rigidity with military uniform, and my position was to get used to the uniform without the formality. It was my way of thumbing my nose at statist philosophy. When I was a kid, the drafting of citizens was still on everyone’s mind from the Vietnam era where the government decided that individual citizens could be compelled into service to their country for something politicians called “duty,” and I never planned to participate in that activity. I had many uncles, cousins, and other family members who swore to me that if I were drafted into the army that my rigid independent streak would be broken by the drill sergeants. By the stories they told, there was no choice. You either did what they told you, or you were thrown into the brig for insolence. I had no problem with the danger, with shooting at other people, or having them shoot at me. I found that part very exciting. But I was never going to allow myself to get on a bus, get my head shaved, and have a drill sergeant yell at me for six weeks until I surrendered my individuality to the cause of collective salvation calling it “duty to my country.”

Statist use more frequently now than ever this term “duty” when talking about the military. This is why it has become custom to tell military veterans “thank you for your sacrifice and service” when speaking to them. I do not do that. I have known a lot of people who went into the military, mostly because they couldn’t figure out what they wanted to do with their life, or they wanted money for college. They decided to surrender their individuality in trade for security. In high school a Marine recruiter was heavy after me knowing some of the dangerous escapades that I had been involved in, and the court cases that I had attended. He told me that I would self-destruct in a few years with my attitude and that the Marines would bring discipline to my life that I needed. Of course I didn’t buy into the scam, but some of my friends did, and they were never the same after four years in the military. They came out of the military nice little foot soldiers who followed orders without question as they had learned to participate in life with a sense of duty, instead of thought and the statists of government wanted the world to thank them for it so more people would follow in their wake, without having to impose a government mandated draft.

My idea of military life was the flight group, The Flying Tigers during the early days of World War II. If that was what the military was offering I would have signed up in less than a second just so I could fly planes and participate in danger. CLICK HERE FOR REVIEW. But the whole “yes sir, no sir” thing was not for me and I don’t respect those who give up their individuality to surrender thought to any group behavior—including the military. When I attend events where I see formations, salutes, and blind recital of chants I feel sorry for the participants. Yet I have witnessed that the usual emotion from my peers is envy. They envy the sense of purpose that serving in a group the “duty” defined by a statist government provides them. The government might say that soldiers in Afghanistan have a duty to defend American interests, or that soldiers have a duty to defend the world against failed political policies in the Middle East. That duty means a sacrifice of life, limb, or at a minimum–time from their life based on the definitions of statist politicians. The reasons are never considered, only the act.

The idea of a draft in America during the Vietnam era broke the conscious of many Americans. Many men learned as 18-year-olds that the government can do as it pleases with the individual lives of their citizens, and this mentality carried over to the statist policies which came out of the sixties, the counter-revolutionary movement, the rise of labor union influence, collective bargaining legislation, and many other aspects of idiocy that were sold as a social “duty.” The idea of duty had been driven into these men who were broken from the idealistic kids of the Howdy Doody Show growing up in the 50’s by their drill sergeants without a choice available but from their government to say that their life was owned by the federal government, and that the government was more important than their lives. This has affected this entire generation for the rest of their lives and the children they spawned. Eric Holder and Barack Obama know this and invoke the subconscious memory of America’s sense of “duty” when they speak.

When these draftees came out of the military they were told that it was their “duty” to help the poor. They were told that it was their “duty” to help the middle-class. They were told that it was their “duty” to send their children to public school. They were told that it was their “duty” to vote for Medicaid and to sustain Social Security. They were told that it was their “duty” to raise children who would serve their country with sacrifice and that honor was in paying the ultimate price—death.

Today the word “duty” is thrown around by statists of all ranks. People like Eric Holder use the word “duty” which has been ingrained in most of the population through one of two methods, from a drill sergeant, or a college professor to justify a statist policy against self-defense even if sometimes the best defense is a good offense. By invoking the idea of “duty” Holder attempts to overcome the Bill of Rights of The Constitution which are centered on individuality and slides under the door of the American mind an ideal of collective salvation that is artificially created by statists for statist principles. By creating a social concept of thanking service men not with the money they were paid but with the honor of sacrifice, statists like Obama and Holder who stand opposed to traditional American concepts rooted in pure capitalism can advance their philosophy of collectivism by touching the psychological paralysis that is built into most Americans by the statist system of sacrifice in the name of “duty.”

It is clear to me these discrepancies because I have rejected such a sense of “duty” my entire life, including my childhood. But it is not so clear to people who have had to negotiate in their minds the ideal of a military draft which took away their individual rights for the good of the “state” without question. These same people find themselves unable to understand why they feel disarmed when Eric Holder invokes the concept of “duty” in relation to Florida’s Stand Your Ground law so to build up public consensus against the measure. Resonating in their minds are the drill sergeants from their early years who stripped away all their thoughts, all their childhood memories with six hard weeks of basic training so that the mind of the soldiers thought not as individual Americans, but as cogs in a military machine that did not think, but simply followed orders. When Eric Holder states that it is an American citizen’s “duty” to follow the orders of the state, this is what he means, and why such statements are the roots of tyranny established to advance the causes of the left through carefully selected phrases planted in American minds through statist philosophy.

Rich Hoffman

“Justice Comes with the Crack of a Whip!”

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

Labor Unions Caused Detroit Bankruptcy: Michael Moore’s lost sense of purpose

I spoke about this a bit the other day, but now that the dust has settled more details are necessary in regard to the Detroit bankruptcy. Darryl Parks during his Saturday program on 700 WLW did a wonderful couple of segments about the Detroit situation which deserves to be highlighted, and can be heard below. Darryl as he usually does comes to these types of topics armed with many facts and in this case many I did not know about the Motor City. I have family who lived in Michigan and worked in the auto industries who were big union supporters. Every year my family visited them at least once, so I learned a lot about Michigan during these childhood adventures, especially during the 70s and 80s when I was growing up. I watched firsthand the decline that Darryl Parks articulated during his program. I watched Detroit go from the richest city in the United States in 1965 to currently the poorest. I knew that Detroit was at one time a source of entertainment as The Lone Ranger radio program was launched from Detroit and the city still owns the rights to the Howdy Doody puppet. Detroit at one point in its very recent history was a center for art, entertainment, and manufacturing—which drove the entire economy. But what destroyed Detroit is a reoccurring theme everywhere in modern America, the notion of collectivism framed within the labor union movement which is failing on a massive scale. Click Darryl’s broadcast below to begin to understand how many labor unions are listed as creditors in the Detroit bankruptcy and it will quickly become clear how destructive unions have been on the American economy, the role they’ve played in wage inflation, and the way they’ve prevented the proper management of Detroit’s resources.

When Michael Moore made his first big film Roger and Me, I enjoyed it as I shared with Moore a love of the Midwest. His film was about the decline of the auto industry in Flint, Michigan and the loss of entire neighborhoods becoming a gigantic ghost town. But Moore lost me all those years ago in 1989 when he assumed that General Motors CEO Roger Smith had a duty to the people of Flint to give back to the community his large wages so that fewer jobs would be lost. Moore’s position in the film was typical of most union households in Central and Lower Michigan from the 70’s to the 90’s that was raised on soft communism disguised as American patriotism. Moore’s beliefs were harder than socialism, and shy of Russian, or Chinese communism but were certainly anti-capitalism in their nature. Moore failed to understand that it was capitalism that brought jobs to his town of Flint which is just north of Detroit. It was communism that had infiltrated the labor unions and made Moore believe that Roger Smith owed Flint, Michigan anything.

The film launched Moore into the national spotlight as a left leaning media was hungry to team up with someone who could capture their instructed beliefs into a film format. But the parasitic nature of the type of contracts the unions negotiated for themselves continued. Jobs left the Detroit area for destinations that were not friendly to labor unions, like China, and Mexico, countries already utilizing a social philosophy of socialism and communism. I liked my family members, but found myself in contention with the adults who had cars in the driveway with bumper stickers stating, “Buy American” which was a typical union slogan at the time even though the Japanese were making better cars cheaper. Their assertion was the same as Michael Moore’s, and that was people had an obligation to buy an American car built with union labor because of some misguided patriotic duty. All those elements never added up to my mind, even at the ages of 8 through 15 when my years in Lower Michigan were most active. No matter how much the adults from that side of the family yelled their philosophy never made sense to me.

When I was 18 years old I worked in a metal stamping plant while I was majoring in economics in college. The economic professors didn’t seem to understand the real world of manufacturing the way I did because I worked in a real metal stamping plant known as the meat grinder at the time. I saw many very serious injuries and I learned quickly that the parts we made at this facility required salesmen to sell them to a distributer somewhere in the world and that purchasing had to find the metal coils somewhere so we’d have materials enough to manufacture the goods. I worked with some tough, rough neck people and fights on the shop floor were common. When I first started at this place a man older than me by about 10 years picked a fight in the break room. I launched a full can of Coke at his head and luckily missed his forehead by only a few inches. The can exploded against the wall and after the man saw how serious I was about winning the fight decided to befriend me, and we remained friends for all the years I worked there. There were many other fights that involved serious cuts, broken bones, knocked out teeth and eyeballs that were actually removed from their sockets. The foremen would look the other way, especially in my case because I without question out produced everyone in the building. My manufacturing rates were very high. I didn’t work so hard because of fear for my job, or to earn praise from the foremen, but because I enjoyed it. I liked working fast—I enjoyed pushing myself with sweat pouring off my body. The fights came from the workers who were trying to unionize this facility and wanted to bring me in line with everyone else.

The college professors had no advice for my young mind as they leaned toward labor’s position in the matter when I asked about it. Their arguments I know now were Keynesian in their nature and rooted in European socialism, but at the time, I assumed they knew what they were talking about. Because of the economic professor at the college I was attending I tried to understand the union mentality so I listened to the advocates instead of fighting them. This led them to ask me to present a list of union demands to the company president. Even though everyone in the company was much older than I was, they wanted an 18-year-old kid to approach management and negotiate on their behalf. So I did.

I sat across from the President and gave him the grievances from the workers but as I sat there I saw the man who ran the company with his hands that were too smooth from lack of work, a belly that was too fat from eating in too many nice restaurants and was having an affair with his secretary who was half his age. But I also saw a guy who was taking all the risks in the company. If sales were down, it was his fault. If supply could not be meant, it was his fault. If he didn’t grease enough wheels at OSHA politically, then it was his fault. In essence I felt the grievances from the workers were stupid, short-sighted and childish. At the end of the day the “workers” were able to go home and forget about the work they did while the president was always tuned in to what was happening, even when he was on the golf course—because he was the risk taker. For the employees to declare that their labor was worth the same as those who took the risks it was preposterous.

I gave the demands back to the union organizers and told them I would not represent them. They attempted to reorganize without my help and fell flat on their face. Whenever they tried to cut back on their labor hours to force reductions in manufacturing rates the foreman would give me extra overtime to cover their slack. When they tried to paint me as a “scab,” we went out in the parking lot and solved the problem, and a lot of people got hurt. But I never yielded my beliefs on the matter and everyone ended up shaking hands in the end, even over broken bones and busted lips. It was these types of people who made America a manufacturing powerhouse—but only as individuals. The collectivism of labor unions destroyed this trait, which makes America less competitive globally, which is why the labor movement was introduced to America by European insurgents wanting to level the playing field for all economically. And this is what happened in Detroit. The unions got what they wanted and nobody fought them on it. When the companies gave a little, the unions asked for more. The companies became frustrated and just packed up and voted with their feet and behind them all the competent workers left to follow the jobs and Detroit went from being the wealthiest city in America to the poorest in just a few decades of bad policy and bad social philosophy.

To this very day I despise labor unions because they fight against individual responsibility and merit. They are simply gangs of thugs who attempt to extort away from the companies they work for values they have not earned. Collective bargaining is the absolute dumbest idea in economic theory. All people are not of equal value, some workers are faster, stronger, smarter, more efficient, more technically savvy—and they are not all deserving of equal pay. To force companies or governments to pay wages on collective bargaining takes away the incentive of the very good to perform well, because slugs, malcontents, and the ungifted receive the same wages for doing much, much less. This is what killed manufacturing in Southern Michigan and more specifically destroyed Detroit.

The disease of economics that destroyed Detroit is the same idiocy that is at work in our public schools, the IRS scandal, and virtually every branch of government as it is only in the public sector that unions have managed to survive as they have embedded themselves on financial supply that cannot pack up and move out of the country to flee the parasites of economics. This put the burden on tax payers to cover the labor costs and in Detroit’s case, smart people moved leaving behind a city of dependents that did not pay taxes. In just the last five years Detroit went from having a balanced budget to being billions of dollars in the hole—because they do not have a tax base to support their unionized legacy costs. They ran tax payers out-of-town with tax rates that were too high and attempting to sell the concept with “shared sacrifice” which is to say, “wealth redistribution” stolen from the earned and given to the unearned.

Detroit is the first major city in modern America to see such an impact of their mismanagement, but many cities are short in toe. Michael Moore in his film Roger and Me stumbled around revealing his utterly failed philosophy about the way life works as his arguments are only based on observations and not the cause. Further, Matt Damon’s new film Elysium set in the year 2154, where the very wealthy live on a man-made space station while the rest of the population resides on a ruined earth, never really covers what ruined earth. Damon like Moore has been given the progressive task to communicate the union message to mainstream America which continually falls short on logical thinkers who know better. In Damon’s film he takes on a mission that could bring equality to the two polarized worlds. The nature of the story might as well be the same as Detroit versus the suburbs where smart people of value flee the type of people who make themselves social parasites and consume much more than they contribute productively. Progressives somehow think the math will just work out in the end, but it never does. Even as a child I saw what was happening to Detroit and I wanted no part of it in my life—and I have lived by those terms. But not everyone is as combative as I am on issues they believe in, and most will think what I do, but they will not fight. They will simply pack up and move to someplace else that offers less imposition on their lifestyles, which is the root cause for why Detroit has failed as a city. Detroit imposed themselves on the productive, forcing them out-of-town leaving behind only the destitute like Michael Moore to look about their neighborhoods and wonder what happened. The only word their failed philosophies have for the tragedy is “greed” but it is much more complicated than that. The real villain is “financial incentive” and in the case of Detroit, the lack thereof.

Rich Hoffman

“Justice Comes with the Crack of a Whip!”

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

Another Lakota Scandal: George C. Merk and the Levy Zombies Strike Again

There is a lot that is very wrong about the recent revelation that Lakota West High School math teacher George C. Merk paid $66,173 by the tax payers was placed on a 45 day license suspension beginning over the summer months. The teacher admitted to inappropriate communication with students of a sexual nature which was revealed during a conference with district staff Jan. 11, 2012, concluding with a consent agreement dated June 26, 2013. That is a long-span of time to resolve one human resources issue. Merk’s five-year teaching license was suspended from June 12 through July 26 but he is clear for 2013-14 school year. This case does not surprise me as I have verbal confirmation of many such stories, and usually the press does not investigate them. However, in this case, Michael Clark broke the story in the Cincinnati Enquirer which did surprised me as it required a public records request to get to the facts. As the story broke, both the Enquirer and the Journal had well-written stories which explained the facts in great detail by Hannah Poturalski and Michael Clark that was a great service to the community, and can be seen in their entirety below for the convenience of the curious investigator complete with original links to the stories as they appeared in online form.

Michael D. Clark reports: in The Cincinnati Enquirer

A Lakota West High School math teacher’s license has been suspended for “inappropriate” communications with students, including exchanging recollections of sexual experiences and orientation.

But the teacher, George C. Merk, will return to the classroom at the start of the school year next month.

Merk, 41, was previously suspended without pay in March 2012 for 10 days for what Lakota Schools Superintendent Karen Mantia described as “unacceptable, insubordinate, deceitful and unprofessional” behavior.

According to a Feb. 15, 2012, reprimand issued by Lakota officials, Merk “admitted” to communicating with students via text messages, and other means, of disallowed subjects, including:

“(Students’) sexual orientation and their sexual experiences.”

“Your sexual orientation and your first sexual experience.”

“You denied receiving a picture of a condom box through text message from a student.”

Mantia wrote: “This behavior is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”

A report on Merk’s behavior and suspension was then submitted to the Ohio Department of Education’s Office of Professional Conduct for further investigation. That investigation ended last month under a consent agreement between Merk and the ODE.

The agreement, obtained by The Enquirer through a public records request, revealed that Merk agreed to have his teaching license suspended during the summer break for 45 days, ending July 26. Moreover, he has to complete 24 hours of training “on appropriate teacher-student boundaries” by Sept. 1 and he will no longer “communicate with current students using social media or by other electronic communications.”

Merk’s actions were not considered criminal and did not initiate an investigation by West Chester Township Police, police said.

Merk, who previously taught at Wilmington Schools, declined to comment.

His attorney, Julie Ford of Dayton, said, “(Merk) signed the consent agreement not because he believes he was guilty of any wrongdoing but to put this matter behind him and avoid any delays in the renewals of his current teaching licenses.”

“Both the Lakota school district and Ohio Department of Education are satisfied with this resolution, and Mr. Merk looks forward to resuming his teaching work in the fall,” Ford said.

Diane Brunsman, Lakota’s executive director for human resources, said “the findings of the Ohio Department of Education investigation are not grounds for termination.”

Both Brunsman and Mantia declined to comment further.

Merk was hired by Lakota in 2002 and his current salary is $66,173.

A review of Merk’s personnel file since 2002 showed no indications of previous transgressions and overall he has received high performance reviews by Lakota officials.

Under the state agreement, Lakota is also required to submit “detailed reports” every three months for the next two years to the ODE on Merk’s conduct.

http://westchesterbuzz.com/2013/07/17/teachers-license-suspended-for-sexual-texts/

By Hannah Poturalski

Staff Writer–The Journal

LIBERTY TWP. —

A Lakota West High School teacher whose teaching license was suspended for actions with students described as insubordinate and deceitful by the district will be returning to the classroom this August.

George C. Merk, 41, of Loveland, was placed on a 10-day unpaid suspension in March 2012 following an internal investigation by school officials. He has since been approved for teaching math in the 2013-14 school year at a salary of $66,173.

During a conference with district staff on Jan. 11, 2012, Merk reportedly admitted to:

having text message communication with students regarding sexual orientation, first sexual experiences and other personal issues

failing to report a student was bullied

providing a student with his cell phone number through a Facebook message

posting Facebook statuses about students’ academic levels and disparaging Lakota West High School administration

receiving a text message from a student offering to buy him an iPad

denying having received a picture of a condom box in a text message from a student.

“This behavior is unacceptable and will not be tolerated by Lakota Local School District employees,” wrote Superintendent Karen Mantia in a formal reprimand from Feb. 15, 2012. “Mr. Merk, your actions described above were insubordinate, deceitful, unacceptable and unprofessional.”

The district then submitted a report to the Ohio Department of Education’s Office of Professional Conduct. As part of the investigation, Merk entered into a consent agreement — dated June 26, 2013 — with ODE that outlines several stipulations.

The terms of the agreement include:

Merk’s five-year teaching license being suspended for 45 days, from June 12 through July 26

detailed reports on Merk’s conduct will be submitted to ODE every three months for two years

completing 24 hours of training on appropriate teacher-student boundaries

not communicating with current students using Facebook, text messages and other electronic means.

Merk’s attorney, Julie C. Ford, of the Dayton firm Doll, Jansen, Ford & Rakay, said her client fully cooperated with the investigation by ODE.

“Mr. Merk was not accused of having a sexual or otherwise inappropriate relationship with any students; at most, the school district concluded he had discussed topics that might have been considered inappropriate,” Ford said.

The investigation ended last December, but a proposed penalty wasn’t reached until the end of the 2012-13 academic year, she said.

Ford said her client didn’t attempt to negotiate a lesser penalty or go through a full hearing process before his current teaching and principal’s licenses were to expire at the end of June.

“He therefore signed the consent agreement not because he was guilty of any wrongdoing but only to put this matter behind him and to avoid any delays in the renewals of his licenses,” Ford said. “Mr. Merk continues to be a model teacher and employee at Lakota. Mr. Merk looks forward to resuming his teaching work in the fall.”

Merk joined the Lakota teaching staff in 2002, after six years teaching at Wilmington City Schools. Merk’s personnel file at Lakota doesn’t include any other disciplinary or performance issues.

“Mr. Merk is an outstanding teacher who takes great pride in his profession,” reads an evaluation dated May 16, 2013. “He goes above and beyond the district’s expectations, and his students are successful as the result of his efforts in the classroom.”

http://www.journal-news.com/news/news/lakota-teacher-suspended-for-inappropriate-communi/nYs6q/

Now that this story is out, I will have a lot more to say about it in subsequent articles. But the gist of the situation is this– George C. Merk is not worth $66,173 as a public employee and I resent having to pay such people so much money with my taxes. People like him are low quality personalities who are instructing kids to be low-quality adults. The very nature of Merk even desiring to inquire about the sexual nature of his students as a 41-year-old man is disgusting. In a sexual context people are often attracted to others who share their intellectual values even though much is focused on physical attributes. Merk’s tendency to desire juicy gossip about the sexual nature of his students indicate that Merk intellectually is equal to his students, which disqualifies him as any kind of intellectual leader by my measure and he should be terminated from the Lakota school district. Teachers should not have access to students outside of a classroom whether it is Facebook, Twitter, or any other social network tool, because as instructors, teachers should be operating at a superior intellectual position.

However, as critical as I often am of the Lakota school board, and Superintendent Mantia, they have no real control over any disciplinary action against Merk because the Lakota math teacher is protected by his labor union—which is why his punishment was just silly words issued by Mantia and his suspension was carried out when the school was already shut down for the summer. The teachers and their labor union run the asylum where the Zombies of Lakota know that bad behavior cannot be punished, yet the tax payers are “forced” to support such behavior through force with their property values just because the school exists near their homes.

The punishment to Merk for his disgraceful actions is essentially nothing but a little embarrassment. He has still been paid a salary that is 20 to 30% more than the average Lakota resident for a job that is only active for 7.5 to 9 hour per day, five days a week, nine months out of the year. Merk does not appreciate his job otherwise he would not have engaged in the behavior outlined above displaying a low intellectual understanding of sexual context that is closer to high school kids with thriving pituitary glands not yet acclimated to adult life. George Merk, and people like him should not be in a class room because they lack the intellectual high ground with their students, and have lost their ability to teach. A teacher is not an equal to the student; they should be the type of people students aspire to become. When a teacher demonstrates that they are no better than the rest of the puberty bound young people, then moral authority is lost, and instruction is nearly impossible. Worse than that, the people of Lakota should not be forced to pay for such employees with tax increases and social extortion.

Of course I will have more to say on this issue, but for now just the contents of Merk’s actions should be considered with the punishment he received—which is to say virtually nothing. When Merk’s attorney Julie C. Ford stated that “He (Merk) signed the consent agreement not because he was guilty of any wrongdoing but only to put this matter behind him and to avoid any delays in the renewals of his licenses, she was saying that Mr. Merk did not recognize that he did anything wrong. When Ford said Merk was not accused of having a sexual or otherwise inappropriate relationship with any students; at most, the school district concluded he had discussed topics that might have been considered inappropriate.” Merk and his attorney Ford in this case do not consider having text message communication with students regarding sexual orientation, sexual experiences and other personal issues to be inappropriate between a student and a teacher. Further, failing to report a student was bullied is not negligent behavior as indicated by Merk–or providing a student with his cell phone number through a Facebook message. Posting Facebook statuses about students’ academic levels and disparaging Lakota West High School administration is apparently acceptable behavior with these professionals based on their statements. It is also OK to receive a text messages from students offering to buy Merk an iPad which should be considered an obvious bribe. Those are the kinds of actions that Ford stated Merk might have performed inappropriately leaving the door open for anti-concept interpretation declaring innocence at the same time.

These are the types of employees that tax payers are told are invaluable to Lakota’s community. When the Levy Zombies take to the streets in the fall of 2013 for the November tax increase they are fighting for teachers like George C. Merk to continue the kind of behavior that occurred under the classroom tutelage of a Lakota West math teacher who will return to the classroom for the 2013/2014 school year. Teachers like Merk are more interested in being “cool” to their students instead of actually teaching them anything, as the boundaries between teacher and student have been intentionally blurred by a failed education system that produces teachers who would rather be 15-year-old kids than 41-year-old adults making $66,173 a year. The teacher is paid to be better than the children, so that students will try. The teacher is not paid to be one of the “cool guys” in an ocean of subservient children who would rather manipulate their way to a good grade instead of actually working for it. It is that second example that Merk is so guilty and the reason he should not be employed as a teacher in any public school anywhere.

Oh, and the title to this article was Levy Zombies Strike Again. CLICK HERE to read about the first time.

Rich Hoffman

“Justice Comes with the Crack of a Whip!”

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

How to Stop Racism: Who cares what Eric Holder says?

Who cares what Eric Holder said about the George Zimmerman acquittal or Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law? Isn’t Holder a criminal? Isn’t he guilty of deaths from his own actions, and destruction of individual rights performed on a mass scale? If Holder were not the top cop of the United States Government wouldn’t he find himself in jail for the same types of crimes he accuses others of? Of course a criminal is going to wish that “Stand Your Ground” laws were obsolete, so that their crimes can be committed against others more easily. So his comments have no merit as he should be the one on trial, not George Zimmerman, who already had his day in court. But Holder’s foolish comments were not the most ridiculous comments that came forth in the wake of the Zimmerman murder trial in Sanford, Florida. The dumbest comments of all came from those crying for an end to racism in America upon the Zimmerman acquittal. Out of all the news outlets and commentators who make millions upon millions of dollars giving statements and providing opinions no one has delivered a way to rid America of racism when the accusations have been so extreme once Zimmerman was found not guilty. So I will provide the answer where others have failed.

The way to end racism is to stop using skin color as a weapon to advance collective causes and level the playing field for all individuals by allowing merit to determine all benefits in society. When any collective group demands “equality” they are asking for thuggish democracy to take away resources from someone and give to another so that all can have equal value. This allows people of low value to make themselves appear to have a higher value by lowering the value of others through legalized theft (income redistribution). People of low value may have such a status because they made bad decision in life—such as drinking too much, smoking marijuana so that they cannot hold good paying jobs that require drug tests, or having children where there is not a responsible male in a household to help provide family structure. People who do dumb things in their lives often seek the protection of social collectivism to hide their crimes and the only way vacant personalities can find value where they have squandered it away is to take it away from someone else.

Racism has given such collective groups the illusion of value. By seeking equality they really mean “wealth redistribution.” This is why such groups who advocate racial inequality always fail to identify the value of human beings as a criterion for equality. Rather the true meaning of equality is to allow all races, all sexes, all shapes, sizes, and backgrounds of all people to have equal access to success. Racial groups wish to stack the odds of success in their favor with democratic force through collectivism rather than individual merit. This is why racism advocates for more power and so-called “equality” do not support political candidates like Herman Cain, or Dr. Ben Carson. In the racism debate men who have achieved success based on individual merit no matter what their skin color are always overlooked, because the goal of the equal rights movement is not equal access to success, as men like Carson and Cain represent, but in the ability to level the economic playing field of society by cutting down the high spots and filling the low spots with displaced value.

To end racism tomorrow, all society would need to do would be to recognize the value of merit. Those who work to achieve good merit in their lives would all have equal access to value, while those who chose not to work in such a way would find themselves lacking. If the entire world functioned from a desire to be good ethically, morally, socially—good in every respect of the word, there would be no racism because there would be no advantage of one gang of thugs over another. No group would have dominance over any other, as they would all be irrelevant. After all, isn’t it the desire of the black groups to take power from the perceived, “white man” or the “white supremacists” to take power from the “one world order” or the women from the men, or the men from the women, or the children from their parents, or the public sector worker from the private—all the mentioned are aspects of society that are lacking individual merit and seek their value in the safety of collectivism. That is where the trouble begins and ends. The way to end racism is to judge others on individual merit, not by any group affiliation. When the incentive to gang rule is removed, the issue of racism will be put to rest.

In the wake of the Zimmerman verdict, gangs took to the streets at all political levels to exploit the tragic death for their own social positions, using democratic imposition to force rules on society that is ultimately designed to rob value from once social sector to provide another what it’s missing. The behavior is as stupid as a village of hunters and gathers fighting over the watering hole of an animal both are hunting, or a bunch of foolish Europeans fighting over one version of religion over another. Collective groups are the source of the trouble because they seek to hide individual merit behind their social blanket allowing poor behavior and decisions to be supplemented by the value of others in their group. In every case, such as the would-be criminal Eric Holder, or the members of the Black Panthers, or any of the radical demonstrators who took to the streets to vandalize property like a bunch of malcontents when Zimmerman was found not guilty—the demand is not for justice of a slain kid, the demand is for an improvement in social status without the work of actually earning it. Behind the actions of the hoards who are declaring “equality” are drug addicts, womanizers, jobless buffoons, welfare recipients, child molesters, victims of the molested, and a whole host of characters who are lacking personal value for one reason or the other and find it is much easier to steal value from others to fill themselves than actually doing the work of being good people of good merit. That is what racism is all about, and why it will never go away so long as groups of any kind are given sway over other groups in a perpetual battle for value that is unearned.

Rich Hoffman

“Justice Comes with the Crack of a Whip!”

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

The Wonderful ‘T-Rex Cafe’: Refusing to honor “Mother Earth” with one more mass extinction

I enjoy fine dining and have rather high expectations in regard to food. In my home town of West Chester when I want a nice dining experience, my wife and I go to Jags. For power dinners it is the Montgomery Inn Boat House downtown along the river that most suits my taste. So with those qualifiers I must report that I had one of the finest dinners I can ever recall at the T-Rex Café in Orlando, Florida. This was unexpected as I thought the restaurant featuring animatronic dinosaurs that howl at you while eating would be just another gimmicky eatery that would fall short of anticipated hope. My family was with me at Downtown Disney recently so I had the opportunity to treat them to a nice dinner in a unique place, so we headed to the T-Rex Café which is only one of two in the entire country. The other establishment is located in Kansas City. As expected the interior of the restaurant was fabulous looking resembling more a dynamic museum than a place to eat. The hostess seated us in a corner table next to the fire pit cooking area directly underneath a pterodactyl dinosaur and flaming licks that emerged from a volcano. Our large booth was situated inside a geode that looked out into the dining room as a meteor shower flew by violently overhead. Across the room was the ice cave complete with fossils embedded in the walls. Everywhere around the large dining room which held over 600 people were spectacles of science and ancient biological history. But better than that, the food was as good as the environment. The appetizers were seasoned wonderfully, the service was top-notch, and the feature plates were excellently prepared, and delivered. For the climax of the dinner we had a Chocolate Extinction which was delivered as a flame spewing volcano that was absolutely fabulous.

As I ate my dinner and spoke with my family I had a persistent thought–the restaurant was just another miracle of capitalism. Only capitalism could produce such a place, and even though the cost of the meal was certainly on the high side, it was well worth the price as the environment cost an enormous sum to maintain daily. Only an economic system of capitalism could hope to produce the resources to make such a place possible. Yet in our current time, capitalism’s greatest predator is socialism, and the current incantation of political socialism is the “green movement” that attempts to take mankind back to the roots of earth worship and primitive rituals in an effort to preserve the world for eternity.

As I looked around the room at the T-Rex Café I thought of a conversation I had with one of my nephews the day before—a small argument that we had in a swimming pool over the merits of personal Thorium reactors for sustainable, cheap power at each home in the world. His position was one of concern for the radioactive waste generated by nuclear fission taught to him by the six digit debt he incurred in college that had steered his thinking. I tried to sympathize with his view-point as he spent a lot of money on his education and wanted to believe that the things he learned were valid. But in the scheme of things he was taught by left-leaning college professors the mystical trend of primitive sacrifice to the goddess Earth and were wrong. The entire environmental movement is built on mysticism and a primitive need to sacrifice to the gods that are now representative in New Age doctrine as a love for the great Goddess Earth. The mentality is the same as the Mayans sacrificing human beings to Kukulkan, or a bunch of Native Americans (displaced Chinese people) doing a rain dance to bring water to their crops. The idea of sacrifice to a deity is a primitive concept that is rooted in ignorance which is wonderfully portrayed in one of my favorite books, The Golden Bough by James Frazer. Human beings have evolved for the most part beyond that ridiculous mentality rooted in ignorance with the advances found in the philosophy of capitalism. The T-Rex Café was a direct product of capitalism and was a celebration of life forms on earth that had become extinct for natural reasons. Because of capitalism, children can share with their parents a celebration of a world long gone so that hopefully they can all learn something from the process while enjoying the roots of our own evolution.

Yet there are thousands of young people like my nephew who have been taught that preserving the earth is more important than the products of the human mind which is in essence a dedication to the primitive nature of human beings before the invention of capitalism. Those human beings who hate capitalism tend to support socialist tendencies either directly or indirectly and it is they who have perpetuated the myths about global warming, and the sacrifice of human advancement to the benefit of the earth—which is just ridiculous.

As I watched the meteor showers strike each other across the ceiling of the T-Rex Café restaurant I thought of the future of the earth as we know it now. Part of the ongoing supercontinent cycle, plate tectonics will probably result in a supercontinent in 250–350 million years. Some time in the next 1.5–4.5 billion years, the axial tilt of the Earth may begin to undergo chaotic variations, with changes in the axial tilt of up to 90°.

During the next four billion years, the luminosity of the Sun will steadily increase, resulting in a rise in the solar radiation reaching the Earth. This will cause a higher rate of weathering of silicate minerals, which will cause a decrease in the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In about 600 million years, the level of CO
2 will fall below the level needed to sustain C₃ carbon fixation photosynthesis used by trees. Some plants use the C₄ carbon fixation method, allowing them to persist at CO
2 concentrations as low as 10 parts per million. However, the long-term trend is for plant life to die off altogether. The die off of plants will be the demise of almost all animal life, since plants are the base of the food chain on Earth.

In about 1.1 billion years, the solar luminosity will be 10% higher than at present. This will cause the atmosphere to become a “moist greenhouse”, resulting in a runaway evaporation of the oceans. As a likely consequence, plate tectonics will come to an end.^[11] Following this event, the planet’s magnetic dynamo may come to an end, causing the magnetosphere to decay and leading to an accelerated loss of volatiles from the outer atmosphere. Four billion years from now, the increase in the Earth’s surface temperature will cause a runaway greenhouse effect. By that point, most if not all the life on the surface will be extinct.^[12][13] The most probable fate of the planet is absorption by the Sun in about 7.5 billion years, after the star has entered the red giant phase and expanded to cross the planet’s current orbit

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

And at any time during this cycle of destruction, a meteor, an alien race, or even the collision of the Milky Way galaxy with another galaxy may occur destroying not just the earth, but all the millions of planets in the galaxy. The idea of not installing a Thorium reactor on every home, every car, and every need for power that the human race desires seems insanely stupid when it is realized that the sacrifice of technical achievement to short-sighted preservation of the earth is currently occurring. Humans would be wise to blast the radioactive waste of such nuclear fission into space to dump among the stars, but such things are of secondary concern to the efforts that are produced by the human mind. Whether the earth ends in 100 years or in 7.5 billion years, the earth will end, and the human race will need to evolve into a type 3 civilization by that time, or it will go out like a light in the universe that has been turned off by its own short-sightedness. When the earth ends, human beings need to be elsewhere.

To avoid extinction, human beings not only must develop an ability to move from one galaxy to another, but from one universe to another, because the universe is not exactly stable. Mankind through capitalism has the ability to solve these problems but the trend of the current environmentalist is a dedication to the failures of mankind’s past, the sacrifice of humans to the gods of speculation—to the mystic desire to shun personal responsibility for ones own life to a deity of convenience and hide their lack of courage behind group behavior.

The T-Rex Café is an excellent example of capitalism at its absolute best. The food is great, the environment, the service, the location was absolutely spectacular. But more importantly were the thoughts that the place was able to invoke in the imagination. Dining with my family at a big comfortable table with good food to ease the tensions of the day allowed for the possibility of thoughts that were stimulated by the dynamic environment. For me, the conversation I had with my nephew at the pool came rushing to my mind as the meteor shower overhead violently erupted. Everything on earth was created from violence and force. Every mountain is the result of earth’s crust violently being shoved upward. Every river is the result of massive rain fall. Every drop of ocean water is the result of crashed comets millions of years ago. The dinosaurs of which the T-Rex Café was dedicated to had lived and died over a much longer span of time than human beings have even been a thought on earth, and in all that time no dinosaur ever invented a way to draw energy from a Thorium reactor, yet the audaciousness of the modern-day environmentally conscious religious zealot is to assume that the earth will always stay just as it is now in the year 2013 and never become hotter or colder, or violently upset by a planetary collision of any kind. They assume that humans are equal in value to all other life forms on the planet, and that’s not true—only humans have developed complicated thoughts that enable them to leave earth, extend their own life spans, and create their own future. For the greenie weenie environmentalist the small mindedness of their short-life spans is unfathomably foolish and insecure. They hope to revert mankind back to a cave man building fires and barking at a bolt of lightning streaking across the sky as some mystery delivered from the gods, instead of understanding the science of static electricity and using that power to carry them off earth for good, to destinations not yet discovered.

A good meal not only fills the belly, but the mind, and I left the T-Rex Café full in both regards. It was worth the money of a 5 star restaurant because the combination of food and environment was so extremely magnificent. I won’t soon forget the place because long after the food was enjoyed the experience continued to give me fresh ideas that are invaluable to proper perspective. It was clearly one of my favorite dining experiences to date anywhere in the world, in part because of the restaurant itself, but mostly in the recreation of a time long-lost to history that was recreated as an honor, and a warning to mankind’s own doomed fate if it fails to embrace the proper philosophy of reaching for the stars instead of the jealous confines of mother earth and her selfish desire to doom all humans to the same fate she will surely suffer.

Rich Hoffman

“Justice Comes with the Crack of a Whip’!”

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

Home Invasion Shooting In Ontario, California: The hypocrisy of police in a statist society

The hypocrisy by police in regard to personal property defense is often astonishingly audacious. Such an example has been percolating in my mind for a few weeks now in regard to the Ontario, California man who shot a drunk intruder who broke into his home and threatened his son as they were sleeping. If the police had been involved in a similar incident the intruder would have been shot and killed with or without a gun. Just the mere threat of danger would allow a police officer to shoot and kill a suspect, and the police union would circle the wagons around the shooter to protect him from legal harm. But the property owner and father of a threatened son is being investigated for homicide by the police because the father can’t prove that he was afraid for his life with sufficient evidence. Here is the story as it appeared at The Blaze.

Police are investigating a potential homicide in Ontario, Calif., after a resident shot and killed a drunk intruder who broke into his apartment and attacked his sleeping son.

In California, citizens have a right to protect themselves and their families, however, there are stipulations in the state.

“The homeowner, the citizen, has to be able to articulate or apply the appropriate amount of force that was done against them,” Ontario Police Sgt. David McBride told NBC Los Angeles, later adding that Manzano was unarmed at the time of the shooting.

Thomas Gilbert Manzano, 24, forced his way into the California residence at around 3 a.m. on Monday, according to police. Manzano had been drinking alcohol for several hours with a friend when they decided to break into an apartment they thought was vacant. They had reportedly been squatting in one of the apartments but got confused as to its location.

Manzano was first turned away from the apartment, but he allegedly threatened the resident and forced his way into the home through a bedroom window and then went after the resident’s adult son. Police say the suspect threatened the son and a physical altercation ensued.

Responding to the commotion coming from his son’s room, the father retrieved his firearm and rushed to protect his son. He then shot several rounds at the suspect.

Manzano was transported to a local hospital with serious injuries. He was later pronounced dead.

The case is now being investigated as a homicide and the district attorney will determined whether the shooting was justified, according to officials.

The resident and his son were cooperating with police.

Manzano’s uncle, “Alfonso,” told NBC Los Angeles that the shooting was not justified.

“Just because you have a gun and its registered, doesn’t give you the right to kill somebody,” he said.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/06/24/man-shoots-kills-drunk-intruder-who-broke-into-his-home-and-attacked-his-son-so-why-are-police-investigating-case-as-a-homicide/

There are so many things wrong with that story, first the rights of the property owner are obviously not respected by law enforcement, as they see it as their job to do any and all killing that might need to be done. The decision for use of force is measured differently by them than a homeowner by society, which is wrong. Second, the rights of the intruder are superseding the rights of the sleeping son. This is a left over mentality from statist collectivism which believes that each according to their need is the pillar of modern society. If he drunk fool who broke into a home needed a place to rest his head for the night, then the property owner has an obligation to provide it, or to call the police and wait for 15 minutes while they arrive—superseding the authority of the father over his son, and over his property, surrendering protection to statist authorities. Then of course are the comments of the drunken victim’s uncle who declared that just because the homeowner had a gun, it doesn’t give him the right to use it.

On that last statement, where was the uncle in instructing his nephew that breaking into homes was not a good idea? What about harassing a homeowner while they sleep? What about living their life irresponsibly and imposing their mistakes on innocent people? I would argue that the responsibility for the drunken intruder’s behavior is partly the fault of the uncle, yet he purposely shifted the blame for the death on the homeowner who has been nothing but abused in this story, by the police, the drunken intruder, and now social progressive parasitic behavior patterns. There is no responsibility taken by any of the bad characters in this case, only on the homeowner. The unsaid mandate by the statist authorities is that homeownership is not of value, and that citizens surrender their rights to personal defense in light of the greater needs of drunks, punks, and scallywags.

We live in a society that does not put value judgments on those who perform bad behavior, only on those who attempt to do good. This is a direct result of a parasitic progressive philosophy that has been built upon the neurosis of Immanuel Kant’s 1781 Critique of Pure Reason – which is everything but reasonable. The thinking derived from the anti-concepts introduced by the philosopher Kant is what makes this ridiculous shooting in California such an appalling case.

The facts of American culture dictate that property ownership is the highest form of value in society. The home owning father has a right to protect that value from an intruder. The necessity to prove threat assessment is not the homeowner’s responsibility; it is on the drunken intruder. He made decisions to impair his thinking, to impose himself on home ownership, and threaten the son of the homeowner, which is another form of ownership, the relationship of a father and a son. If the son is killed, then the intruder takes everything the father worked for his entire life to put into the son – so the father has a right to protect that investment. In my mind, the son also has a right to defend himself with a firearm just for being awaken from a dream in his own bed. The dream is his. The bed is his. The confines of his room are his. He does not deserve, or need some idiot to stumble into his bedroom in the middle of the night yelling and screaming because the drunk wants a place to crash and work the alcohol out of his system.

Instead, using the philosophy of Kant’s brand of Transcendental Idealism that attempts to combine rationalism and empiricism in a nutty effort to merge the world of the seen and witnessed with the world of the unseen and inexperienced has created a society of law that seeks to punish value the only place that value exists, on the homeowner. The drunken thug has no value to be redeemed. The uncle has no value to be redeemed as he contributed to the behavior of his nephew. The sleeping son is still building value up in his life so that leaves only the father/homeowner who sought to protect his value to take value from in order to redeem the sins of all involved.

I recently spoke to our local sheriff and heard what he had to say when asked what one should do if a homeowner shot and killed a home intruder. His response angered me greatly. He replied that nobody should do that, and that there would be a lot of trouble if it happened. “But if it did, make sure to report that you feared for your life.” As he said these things I watched him walk around with a .38 snub nose packed in a holster on his hip, knowing he has the authority to shoot it. If he were to walk out in the parking lot and someone even made the shape of a gun and pointed it at him, he could gun that target down without any such trouble as the California homeowner experienced. He wouldn’t have to make any kind of passive cry for relief by declaring that he “feared for his life” like some trivial beta-man lobbying for same-sex marriage. He would simply be able to gun down the threat to his life and protect the value of it because he’s a police officer, and in a statist society, they have more value than a homeowner.

The California case of the home intruder being shot and killed by a property owner is one of the paramount issues of our time. It is in essence the battle between not just life and death, but ownership and value, against no value from collective resources. It comes down to a failed philosophical adoption that no lawyer in the country is equipped to handle. Because of that, the father is being needlessly prosecuted and ruthlessly drug through a court system that will cost him a personal fortune, when in fact he should have been able to shoot the threat, throw the body out on the front lawn and call the cops to pick up the body. Then after all the blood was cleaned up, and everyone settled down, the father could have taken his son to get an ice cream to repair the intrusion on his sleep and put the ordeal behind them within a couple of hours. That would be a philosophy of justice which is not present in this case, and has been eradicated in order to preserve the infantile statism which was born from Immanuel Kant.

To learn more about justice, and the hypocrisy of police versus the individual read my novels Tail of the Dragon, and The Symposium of Justice. Both books are being offered by Amazon.com for $34.06 as a discounted package. CLICK HERE.

And if you are not aware of how serious this situation is, then watch all the videos above completely. It won’t take long to realize.

Rich Hoffman

“Justice Comes with the Crack of a Whip!”

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

A New Living Legend: Thoughts from a 2013 Fourth of July

1016670_668640526482811_1812631301_n
The cute picture of the little boy shown is of my grandson. That photo means more to me than just a sentimental moment of time captured by a gifted photographer at 9 months of age. Within that picture there were many contributors to the photograph, my daughter of course made the little boy with her husband, my wife made the white blanket by hand, and my other daughter took the picture in the back yard of the home that she owns with her husband. Virtually everyone in my immediate family played a part in that photograph. My imprint of course is that I put the gift of adventure in all those individuals, which is represented by the stack of books off to the side. That is what families are supposed to do and be for each other as the benefactors are little children like my grandson dressed in his little hat awaiting the tools of cognition to be put before his mind so that he too can live a life of adventure, discovering for himself all the potentialities that come from breathing air, and living life.

As another 4^th of July came and went, I thought about my little grandson. When people wonder why I do some of the things I do, the first answer is because I want to. I enjoy fighting; debating, and philosophizing—pretty much in that order. But there is always a sub-plot in the back of my mind which drives me with purpose. When I was raising my children, it was fighting to make sure they tasted enough freedom and independent thought that they could grow up and live good lives. I have been successful in that. Now, it is the generation that comes after which I focus upon.

I have been an inspiration to many young people for many, many years. I still associate with many of those grown adults who looked as children toward someone to teach them how to be good people, how to face their fears, and live righteously. I have always offered myself in that role, even when I too was younger than they were. But there comes a benefit in living, surviving, and arriving at a time when not only you think you know more than everybody else, but you are sure of it. You know it because the reality around you has proven it time and time again. You don’t realize it because the intention is to be haughty, arrogant, or considered a God among men, but you just are because nobody else is trying.

When I look at my grandson in that picture there is hope written all over his face. He is the sum of many people who love him deeply. As he gets older those character traits will grow more pronounced. His mind will hunger for knowledge and he is lucky that there will be a lot of people to help fill it. In particular, I have been already working with him in regard to bullwhip practice. My daughters captured some of that action in the same photo session, where my grandson was playing around with the custom-made whips that were constructed just for him by my whip making friend David Crain. I have been letting him watch the whip roll out so he can study the movement and memorize it for later, when he too learns to use them the way I do.

Every child is born with the opportunity to become anything. Even children who are not genetically gifted or otherwise healthy have more potential in their minds than most living adults. For them their stories are not yet written and it makes me sad to see so many young children who don’t have adults to pour thoughts into their minds, to give them the ability to think on their own as young adults, and finally as grown adults. Most children the age of my grandson are doomed to a life of failure not because they lack any ability, but because they lack people in their lives that can help them develop into fully realized human beings.

My grandson will not have to worry about that. He has so many people in his life with very interesting traits of their own, that he has no choice but to pick up on those unique attributes while he forms his own character which is already evident. Looking at him it reminds me of what the 4^th of July is all about. It’s why we fight to keep our country free so that little boys like my grandson can have the right to think and develop freely on their own, to bring their own unique gifts to the world. Someday, my grandson might decide that the bullwhip is not for him, but he will make that choice on his own, after he has had exposure to it and filled his mind with the value it brings to him through practice, and a bond with me, his grandmother, his aunt and uncle, and his mom and dad.

The fight for freedom is more than just a token message created by the Tea Party movement to hijack elected offices and become tomorrow’s tyrants through the desk of a bureaucrat. For me it is sincere, I believe in the things I say here with every cell in my body and beat of my heart. I believe in it for myself, and the joy it brings me in seeing the lights of freedom igniting in another human being, like the innocent eyes of my grandson, as it was captured so eloquently in the photograph my daughter took. I will teach his young mind in a way that was only available to my own daughters, but with the self-assuredness of having experience, to be a legend among mankind. When most people say they want their children and grandchildren to grow up to be lawyers, doctors, or God forbid—politicians, I frown at all those types of jobs. All of them are less than what I want for my grandson. I want for him to be a living legend, a character of such charisma, determination, and moral aptitude that there has never been another like him. Such a goal is a lofty one, but it’s what I will contribute to his mind with all our future time together. I can see the sparkle in his eye already, and soon, he will begin to take the form of a character unlike the world has ever seen.

And it will come from individuals like my daughter—his mother and her vast creativity, his aunt—my other daughter and her photographic genius and forward thinking vision, my two son-in-laws, one a former MMA fighter, the other a bullwhip champion in his own right, and my wife who reads hundreds of books a year, makes blankets for every member of our extended family, and is willing to spend countless hours on the floor playing with children. Then of course there are my contributions–in a few years I’ll have him jumping through walls of fire, cracking whips faster than lightning, crawling through caves that a snake couldn’t fit through and facing life with a fearlessness that every young man dreams of. Ladies and gentlemen viewing that picture—you are seeing a future legend that will know an unlimited life free of any shackles created by deficient human minds.

As I watched the fireworks on the 4^th of July in 2013, that is what I thought of. And I will venture to make it so.

Rich Hoffman

“Justice Comes With The Crack of a Whip’!”

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

Doc Thompson Rips the IRS: NTEU labor union gives employees $70 million in bonuses

If you want to hear some absolutely hilarious radio commentary, listen to the clip below, it is well worth your time. Doc Thompson and Skip LeCombe during their usual Blaze Radio Network show from 6 AM to 9 AM broadcast all over the world twice a day blasted the IRS for the recent issuing of over $70 million dollars in bonuses to their unionized employees. Many people do not realize that the IRS is unionized work force under the National Treasury Employees Union otherwise known as the (NTEU). So even though there is government furloughs and closed tours through the White House due to financial constraints, the IRS regardless of performance by its employees through their ridiculous collective bargaining agreements are receiving bonuses of an extraordinarily high amount. Doc breaks down the math in the broadcast below, about 5 minutes into the segment. But first Doc and Skip bring news of a terrorist summer camp that is quite serious, but is delivered with the usual Doc Thompson ability to make even the most sinister concepts more digestible with his rambunctious sense of humor. For long time readers here who remember Doc Thompson when he was on 700 WLW, he was functioning under severe handcuffs. Now that he is with The Blaze and reporting to Glenn Beck at Mercury Entertainment, he has freedom that any radio personality would love to have, which is to the benefit of listeners everywhere. The Blaze is available 24 hours a day through streaming audio, and is an experiment from Glenn Beck which broadcasts like any other radio station with news at the top and bottom of every hour. So enjoy this small sample from Doc’s recent show about the IRS bonuses that will make you laugh, but at the same time make you extremely angry.

Doc and Skip were one of the first news outlets to break the IRS bonuses story, but Forbes had a wonderful article about it written by Kelly Phillips Erb which can be seen in its entirety at the link below:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2013/06/20/defying-directive-irs-set-to-pay-out-70-million-in-employee-bonuses/

I included this link not just because the article was good, but the comments at the end were fantastic. One comment summed up the situation at the IRS remarkably well, even though I don’t agree with the writer at all—the comment reminded me of the same types of diatribes that were uttered when we begin to analyze collective bargaining agreements among public school teachers as being the cause of continuous tax increase requests. The comment from Peter Reilly shown below made the argument that the IRS needs incentives like great bonuses and pensions to attract “top talent.” This brings up a whole list of problems. But before getting into them, have a look at what he said:

Peter J Reilly, Contributor 1 day ago

For its top people the IRS has to compete in a labor market that pays much better than the IRS. There was recently published list of the top 1,000 paid federal employees. Number 1000 made just over $200,000 per year. Nobody on the list worked for the IRS.

In a regional accounting firm I know of there was a term for partners who made around $200,000 – the bottom quartile. The top quartile probably made about what the lowest paid partners in national firms make. And this is mere CPAs, never mind tax attorneys.

I think very few people go into tax work of any sort based on the sort of inner call that might lead someone to be a physician, a priest or a soldier. It’s clean work with no heavy lifting that pays pretty well. You’ve got to do something to feed your family.

Part of the tax profession is an arms race between people gaming the system and people trying to keep the gaming with reasonable bounds. Both sides require the same knowledge base, education and some common skill sets. In a free democratic society the top gamers will always make more money than the other side.

Working for the IRS might get you a better life work balance and a pension which might make it a better deal at the lower and middle levels, but the Service is at a huge disadvantage in retaining top talent.

For those of us who want a smaller, and more efficient government no matter if the employee is a local school teacher working in public school, or an IRS agent, when the pay and compensation to government work is equal or better than private sector work, then top talent will seek the government job. Reilly’s comment assumes that the IRS needs to have top talent in order to function efficiently. Without question, the NTEU union has made the same argument for its union members that the school teachers, police departments, and other unionized federal workers have made, that the service they provide is important, and that only through collective bargaining does America get the highest quality product.

Well, anybody with a brain knows this kind of thinking is ridiculously foolish, and the fun that Doc Thompson and Skip had in picking the theory to pieces was well justified. The way the system works now is that top talent is seduced to work for government because the pay is so good, and the retirement packages are better than anywhere in the world. That top talent is ruined in the non-competitive government environment where collective bureaucracy rule and individual achievement is frowned upon. Even the best top talent in the world will never make a collective oriented organization function miraculously well when all individuals serve the system of employment rather than the system serving the individuals that make it work. Within a few years of employment, most of the bright-eyed top talent which is employed by the government learns their place in the pecking order, and stop trying to be ambitious, and instead just bide their time, collect their paycheck, and prepare for their retirements, and eventual deaths.

The way things should work is that no federal employee should be unionized. Government also should not pay more than the private sector. Government work offers a security that is not duplicated in private sector work, so the pay should be much lower. Pay should be assessed based on risk level, not statist power. In this way, the private sector should pay a lot more than any government work so that those who wish to make more money will leave government, not join it. If any worker wants to waste their life as a government employee, they should be paid a bare minimum wage in trade for the security of the job. Then and only then will government ever get smaller, and government workers will vote with their minds and not their pocket books. It is the government type employees who vote to keep people like President Obama in power not because they like his socialist policies, but because he is their boss. So long as big government politicians are in office in Washington, job security is ever-present in their positions. And so long as government employees are in a union, they can act as a socialist collective to get bonuses, pay and pensions that they do not deserve. There will always be apologists like the commentator Reilly who believe that the IRS needs top talent to function—to catch those who are “gaming” the system. Well, this isn’t true. Turn the tax collecting system to a flat tax, and simplify the code, and suddenly sophisticated accountants with a broad knowledge of the complicated tax code wouldn’t be needed.

I was at a dinner event recently where a retired FBI agent was attempting to grab the same bottle of wine that I was out of a chilled bucket. I wasn’t in the mood for beer, or any kind of soft drink and the food was too good to just have water with it, so I wanted wine. The agent pointed at the bottle I had in my hand and asked, “Is that Chateau d’Yquem Sauternes? Here let me open it for us.” I looked at the label and tried to identify the label which was written mostly in French and replied, “Here’s your crushed grapes. You tell me.” The old federal worker of course wanted to display to me his knowledge of wine, and inform me of his extensive knowledge of them gained from around the world. All he succeeded in doing was reminding me that he came to such knowledge not by the merit of his work, but by years of kissing ass to work his way up the FBI chain attending little gatherings where expensive wines were tossed into chilled buckets like water bottles in a cooler for a picnic. That mentality does not make the people individually evil, just instruments of collective statism. I felt sorry for that particular FBI agent. His years of work had brought him to a retirement where he knew the names of French wine, but was unable to help a child thread twin string through a kite. He was very happy to joke about his lack of aviation knowledge declaring that such an endeavor required the services of an engineer, not an old FBI agent—then everyone laughed, except for me.

I have seen the same behavior in retired school teachers, retired military personnel, and especially retired bureaucrats. They want to feel that their life has some meaning, especially at the end of it, because their careers offered them nothing of any intellectual substance. They simply showed up at work every day and their labor union did all their fighting for them, so all they had to do was collect their pay, and plan social events with their co-workers using their discretionary income to purchase bottles of wine that other people didn’t have access to–get drunk and reminisce about their wild and crazy days during high school. Those same federal workers plan their vacations each year to Key West where they attend Fantasy Fest living out their most pent-up sexual fantasies. Walk Duval Street every October and interview the topless 50-year-old women, or the pot-bellied IRS cubical worker of 30 years who has traded in their suit for a woman’s dress and wig pretending to be a girl during the famous parade.

Check it out for yourself at the following link. The people who attend that event are upper middle-class types—and those are a creation of government, former FBI agents, school teachers, cops, IRS employees, politicians, adults who spent their entire adult lives adapting to a collective hive who can retire at age 55 and have money to spend because tax payers gave it to them through their labor unions. If I had to bet, I would say the number of people attending Fantasy Fest in Key West were just over 80% government employees.

http://www.fantasyfest.com/

The situation is endemic in all federal agencies, but is especially prevalent at the IRS which should be completely dismantled and replaced with a flat tax. But it won’t because the NTEU union has too much power, including organizing a campaign against the Tea Party from The White House. The next step with these types is to get together over sundown meetings in each other’s back yards and squabble about what bottle of wine to pull from the wine bucket, as such trivia is all that matters to their bureaucratic mindsets after a dozen or more years of employment by the federal government. Just think how many bottles of Chateau d’Yquem Sauternes the IRS workers will be able to purchase with their $70 million dollars in bonuses on top of a salary that is already pushing six figures.

If it’s not evident why the Tea Party wants to reign in the costs of the federal government it is to get control of this kind of statist mentality from employees who should be working for the private sector instead of government. The only beneficiaries to such unionized arrangements is the political machine of Democrats (socialists) who collect the union dues for the re-election of statist candidates, the union workers who get paid a lot of money to do very little, and the wine makers in France who sell most of their stock to retired federal workers because that’s who buys their product. It is in times like these that we should all be thankful that there are people like Doc Thompson on the radio to bring stories about such abuses to light, because without such a radio personality, the abuse would continue on unreported.

Rich Hoffman

“Justice Comes with the Crack of a Whip!”

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

Liberty Township Tea Party Joins in Law Suit Against IRS: Seeking justice from an uncontrolled tyranny

Press Release as sent: Liberty Township Tea Party Joins in Law Suit Against IRS

Today June 25, 2013 the Liberty Township Tea Party official joined a law suit with the ACLJ, American Center for Law and Justice, in seeking action against the IRS.

The ACLJ filed the amended complaint in our lawsuit against the IRS and the government officials involved in the unconstitutional targeting of conservative groups.

Here is a copy of our press release discussing our amended complaint and our now 41 clients involved in the legal challenge: http://aclj.org/free-speech-2/jay-sekulow-aclj-now-represents-41-conservative-groups-in-federal-lawsuit-against-irs

Here is the online link to the redacted version of our amended complaint: http://media.aclj.org/pdf/tea-party-complaint-amended.pdf

“Plaintiffs seek a declaratory judgment that the Defendants unlawfully delayed and obstructed Plaintiffs’ applications for a determination of tax-exempt status by means of conduct that was based on unconstitutional criteria and impermissibly disparate treatment of Plaintiffs in violation of Plaintiffs’ rights under the First and Fifth Amendments to the United States Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act. Defendants unlawfully delayed and thereby effectively denied approval of Plaintiffs’ applications for tax exempt status by means of a comprehensive, pervasive, invidious and organized scheme that purposefully established unnecessary and burdensome inquiries and scrutiny of Plaintiffs’ applications based solely upon Plaintiffs’ political viewpoints (or Defendants’ assumption of Plaintiffs’ viewpoints, based on their organizational names). “

The Liberty Township Tea Party applied for 501c3 status with the IRS in May of 2010. Our Tea Party was modeled after the League of Women Voters with the goal of encouraging the community to educate themselves in the political process. After three years and answering the one hundred seven questions asked of us the application has been neither approved nor rejected. The Liberty Township Tea Party began the process of applying for this application with faith in the government agency to process the application in a timely manner. That faith in the government’s ability has been tested. Our group is premised on the goal of smaller government. The IRS’s inability to make a decision, their intrusive, illegal politically motivated questioning prove to us that our bureaucracies are bloated and our representatives have failed miserably in controlling the agencies they have created. Our right to free speech and free assembly has been a bridged.

Liberty Township web site: libertytownshipteaparty.org

Rich Hoffman

“Justice Comes With The Crack of a Whip’!”

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

	Anonymous on THE SYSTEM WAS NEVER DESIGNED…
	Anonymous on THE SYSTEM WAS NEVER DESIGNED…
	Rich Hoffman on Paradise Lost, Pickle Rick, Jo…
	Anonymous on Paradise Lost, Pickle Rick, Jo…
	Anonymous on Why Christianity Survived as a…
	Anonymous on Christianity as a Weapon of Wa…
	Anonymous on Christianity as a Weapon of Wa…
	Anonymous on Is God an Idiot: I don’t…
	Anonymous on Christianity as a Scaling Move…
	Rich Hoffman on The Jonathan Edwards Study Bib…

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: