Tag: education funding

Creators and Feeders: The blueprint to save America is at your local book store

To those that want to know the answers to everything they are right in front of you. Literature, even though considered a harbor for the liberal arts degree, thus creating just another damn hippie to cast their unproductive concepts of love and peace in a world that is quite the opposite, literature is about truth ultimately. It is in the interpretation of that truth that everything gets distorted.

This is what happened in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which I’ve proclaimed openly, is my favorite book. Zarathustra came down out of the mountains to help “mankind” understand that they can become “better” than just human beings. That’s where the Ubermensch idea comes from translated loosely into English as “the overman.” I learned about Nietzsche reading a lot of Joseph Campbell and was drawn to Nietzsche’s anti-institutional ideas in quotes that littered the massive body of work known as The Masks of God, which is a four volume set that Campbell spent many years writing based on the course he taught at Sara Lawrence College. One thing that Campbell was doing in his comparative mythology work was breaking down the differences between collective societies, such as you find in the east, and individual oriented societies that you find in the Occident, otherwise the west.

Where the west fails, and I’m thinking of Europe in this case is when they attempt to copy the east with their own culture. Somewhere in that attempt progressivism was created, and has been and will always be a disease to the creative power of the individual which propels all society.

There is a reason that you don’t find development in Africa except what the American or European mind brought to it. There is a reason that China spent many years as a stagnate country. They had periods of renaissance, one such period during our European dark ages was quite explosive, but fizzled out only to be reawakened once England handed Hong Kong back to the Chinese in 1999 which they then decided to adopt their culture around which has helped create the renaissance they are currently experiencing. But ultimately collectivism, especially progressivism, is an idea killer that hinders society in terrible ways for the trade-off of social security.

Two bodies of literature jump out at me exhibiting these collectivism warnings. One is A Brave New World, the other is Atlas Shrugged.

I wrote my own book, The Symposium of Justice in 2004, many years before I eventually read Atlas Shrugged myself. I was surprised that Ayn Rand had created similar characters and themes as I did, and she did it over 50 years ago. It might have something to do with the fact that we both studied Nietzsche at some length. I’m thinking particularly of the diner scene, which seemed awfully close to something I did without knowledge of Ayn’s work. The reason? Because truth is truth. There aren’t these degrees of negotiation along some political lines where there are extreme right-winged views or extreme left-winged views and somehow in government these views must be compromised into some stew of thought representing everyone as best as possible. People who seek the truth and find it, come to similar conclusions that cannot be escaped.

Because of my kids, I get to meet a lot of young people, and I must say they are a very disappointing group, bent and distorted around years of progressive thought. I blame progressivism for their foolish behavior, the desire to get “trashed” as they put it, where their right of passage to adulthood is the ability to drink and lose consciousness. That is a pathetic goal. These young people are a soft species robbed of honor because they have been taught to be entirely too sensitive for their own good, indecisive, insecure, raised in broken homes where step parents are a major factor, the whole situation is a mess, and progressive thought is to blame. The most recent catastrophe cast upon the fragile psyche of today’s youth is a thing called Facebook Depression. Listen to Doc Thompson of 700 WLW talk about this mysterious new progressive illness here.

One young boy that my youngest daughter knows lost his job for sleeping and playing on Facebook during his work hours. The kid is a video game wiz so I know there is intelligence there. But he can’t handle basics of reality. For him, it is acceptable to fall off the horse and let the horse keep on running down the path leaving him behind. I feel sorry for the kid because his fundamental belief system will prevent him from seeing the truth of the reasons he continues to fail. You could sit the kid down and scream at him and it would be no different from yelling at a dog that wants to please you, but can only wag its tail or drop its ears, completely unable to understand what you’re trying to tell it.

This kid is just a product of progressivism. I don’t blame him as much as I feel pity, much like I feel pity of an insect that falls into a swimming pool and struggles to free itself, hoping a kind hand lifts it from the water before it drowns. There are millions upon millions of these kids functioning in the world today, most of them completely lost by adults that are just as lost. This is the result of progressivism. Progressives seek a level of fairness that is not earned, but is perceived as a right, which it’s not.

The world is built by people who produce. It is very simple. There is no room for interpretation or negotiation on that simple fact. There are those who create. Then there are those that feed off that creation. The trouble always occurs when those that feed off creation take too much, or stand in the way of that creation. And the problem with modern society is that we don’t create enough, and those that do create keep it to themselves so they can avoid the problems with progressive thought.

Ayn Rand’s book has been out there for everyone to read for a great number of years. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel here. When a congressman or senator says to the Speaker of the House, “you need to abandon the tea party,” they just don’t get it. They are as foolish as the young person I told you about that think something is going to fall out of the sky and somehow fix his life if only he drinks one more drink, or goes to school and gets a degree for a job that doesn’t exist. It is only by getting down in the mud and fighting, and creating a new job that anything happens. The tea party knows what Ayn Rand knew 50 years ago, that progressive thought will kill your country.

She wrote Atlas Shrugged at a time that socialism hadn’t failed yet. In fact, there was a real threat that the Soviet Union might overtake the United States and its capitalist ways. When Ronald Reagan took the gloves off for a bit in the 80’s, we saw how rapidly capitalism could work, and how quickly socialism failed. Reagan’s strategy worked and proved Ayn Rand correct. Now, in hind-sight we have the benefit to go back to her work and admire how she arrived at truthful conclusions that are truly American in their context. The critics talk about the 80’s as a selfish age, which ironically is explored in great detail in Atlas Shrugged from all angles. Selfish or terms like it are cast from those in the progressive camp, from their distorted perspective corrupted by a sense of entitled fairness which does not exist anywhere in the universe because the laws of physics prohibit such a preposterous notion.

One element in that book that haunts me is the discovery of a new type of engine built by a genius that turns his back on the world in a way because he knows that the world as it is designed through progressive thought will reject new ideas because all new ideas threaten the security of people. This engine runs off strictly static electricity. It would never need fuel, oil or any other element. It would run along the same premise that lightning is generated in the atmosphere. The sickening thing about that bit of science fiction is that it is rooted in fact.

I’ve told you on these pages about regenerative medicine. I’ve told you about the Skycar. There are many, many inventions sitting on the shelf right now, that are being held back from society for all the reasons that progressivism fails, and that failure is outlined beautifully in the book Atlas Shrugged.

If you haven’t read it and you want to know the truth of what is going on in the world. If you want to understand why the welfare system fails, why government regulation is bad, and how the feeders in life, called “the looters” in the book are destructive read that book. Forget the mindless politicians. They are looters, every one of them. We must have some level of government in this country, but we don’t need it to be nearly as large as it is now.

It is true that there will be suffering. Those that are feeders off society will have a difficult time adapting, but this process must happen. It is not a matter of right or left. It is literally right or wrong.

Nature does not lie. The reason progressives believe that the earth is so vulnerable is because at their true nature, their mentality, they believe that they can change the world. They can engineer thought. They can engineer control of the whole world. But with nature, it is survival of the fittest. Progressives seek to change that. The reason, well not everyone can be the fittest, so in the pursuit of fairness the strong are attacked, and the strong are what everyone feeds off of. If you bring down the strong, there is nothing for anybody to feed off of. And government, especially a large, progressive government that is extremely expensive is that there are too many people feeding off the strong and society will crumble.

The key is that if you want to be a feeder, or a “looter,” then find yourself a creator that is a fair-minded person that appreciates your labor, because through competition, the creator in order to get a competitive edge over other creators will adapt to necessity, just as a stream will always run downhill and find the path of least resistance. If you want the benefit of that flow, put yourself in that path of least resistance and you’ll always be employed and of a benefit to a creator. And if you are a creator, create. Don’t attempt to be a feeder if you are a creator. You will only frustrate the hell out of yourself.

Every single politician in existence is a feeder. They are almost completely worthless. Yet they believe that they have some kind of dominion over everything that is created. And that is what needs to change. This is a belief given to us from Europe, which is a corrupt notion. It hasn’t worked for them, and it won’t work for us.

If you want to know how to do that, understand what needs to be done or how to fix what’s wrong with America and you want the truth go to your local book store and read Atlas Shrugged. The movie will be out soon also. But if you really want to soak up something that won’t lie to you, go get that book! Today! Then watch the news armed with the truth and see what you think about comments over the federal budget and what we can cut or should cut.

The cost if you don’t take a step to understand the truth, as a taxpayer, is that we will find ourselves in the situation that London found itself over the weekend, which is ridiculous and pathetic, headed up by people like the kid I described above, someone who thinks they are entitled to a good life and everything will magically fall in their lap without them doing anything to create that reality. Because they believe the great lie of progressive thought, which is an audacious naïveté of human influence seeking to alter the behavior of nature itself.

Literature, especially literature that has stood the test of time, will cast light where the darkness of progressivism resides like termites deep in the foundations of our existence. Figure out who you are and be it. That’s the first step because we’re not all equal in the world of Mother Nature and never will be.

If there is a book that can give America a blueprint on how to rebuild the country, it’s Atlas Shrugged. Read it word for word and understand it sentence by sentence.

Rich Hoffman

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

Looters of Lebanon: Mark North and the School Board Rob the Taxpayer!

CAUTION! THE VIDEO YOU SEE BELOW WILL MAKE YOU FURIOUS.

A great crime has been committed on the people of Lebanon, Ohio one that was defined by one of my favorite philosophers as “looters.” The term looters is aimed at those in government positions that seem to believe that their sole function of existence is to take from those that have, and give to those that haven’t. They are the reason government is thought to be corrupt at every level. They are the reason that congress cannot agree on the proper level of budget cuts which will most likely shut down the government on April 8th. Government in almost every category is in my mind simply looters that steal from us all in the form of taxes and mindlessly spend that money on programs that only make our nation worse and less competitive. Looters are the proper term for these types.

It is difficult to see the behavior clearly at a national or even a state level because the media does a good job of cleaning up the way information is presented. However, recently at a Lebanon School Board meeting Mark North, superintendent of the Lebanon School System and the entire School Board performed in front of the community the very kind of “looter” trick that has all but destroyed our nation, and they did it right out in open.
See it for yourself.

What happened here was the School Board during their public meeting called for a measure to go into an executive session, which was unprecedented, since this was a public meeting. Executive session means all parties involved go behind closed doors to discuss issues in secret. The reason was to approve their union contracts before the Ohio House of Representatives passes the new S.B.5 Bill and Governor Kasich signs it into law. As you can see the crowd wasn’t sure what to think of this move and this prompted Robert Waters to rise and question the board, which he had a right to do since the executive session was going to be done out of the public eye and was an extreme surprise to the audience.

When Mr. Waters asked the question, “How long will the board be in executive session,” it is the Superintendent Mr. North that says, “Sit and wait.” Then goes on to tell the board that Mr. Waters is not a member of the board and to sit down, as if Mr. Waters is simply a child in the school system.

The reason Mr. Waters needed to question the board in this way is that the Lebanon School Board under the guidance of Mark North made a deal with the education union prior this meeting to pass the contract so the terms would be grandfathered in prior to the S.B.5 passage. This was extremely irresponsible, because if the board and Mr. North had been truly representing the community of Lebanon, they would have attempted to hold off the passage of the contracts until after S.B.5 was passed so they would then have leverage to control their costs. But what they did is now guarantee that the step increases will occur which is driving the need for the levy attempt.

They openly stole money from Lebanon right in front of everyone’s faces when they didn’t need to. That is called looting, and if the people of Lebanon allow that kind of behavior to go on when it is so very obvious then our nation as a whole is doomed. You cannot expect the nation to operate right if you can’t solve problems like this in your own community.

I spent much of Saturday with the people fighting the Lebanon Levy. I was impressed with their organizational skills, and they appear poised to be able to raise the money needed to fight this levy. There are donors that are afraid of retaliation from the school system that are on the fence, but that’s normal. Courage will find them because the group I met was very good. There are several people in this group and they have many diverse skills and are very passionate about defending the taxpayers of Lebanon and truly keeping education aimed at children. I was surprised to learn that Mark North had classified these good people as “a bunch of angry parents.” It was upon hearing that comment that I decided to spend the day with them, because after seeing the video of the executive session I felt the Lebanon School Board was committing a crime against Ohio, not just the people in their district, and this is a fight that needed attention. Here’s their website.
http://www.lebanonschoolfacts.com/

I didn’t want to rush to judgment, I asked a man who knows Mark North, “what kind of man is he, is he a man of integrity, because what I’m hearing is that he’s not?”

The response I got was a tight-lipped one where the words were carefully selected. “Mark is a man who will do anything for the school system.”

I nodded knowingly. What that means is that Mark North sees his role as a protector of the school system, which means the unions that occupy it. Those unions are what drive up their labor costs, and it is those step increases that are making this levy in May needed, which they just passed in executive session when they didn’t have to. North like most government types is a looter looking to pad the pockets of those he’s directly responsible for at the expense of the people who pay him. In this case he’ll disguise the looting by telling the taxpayers that Lebanon was rated in the top 9.98% in achievement performance at the lowest costs per pupil. What he doesn’t say is that he could have avoided the upcoming levy by not cutting a deal with the unions, showing where his true loyalties are.

Looters only care about the taxpayer when it comes time to ask for money. They are the greediest of the greedy and are the epitome of what’s wrong with our country. I’ve seen a lot of bad conduct by public officials, but this incident is one of the worst, simply because it was done in the open with absolutely no respect for the community. They truly expected nobody to stand up and question their motives. Lucky for Lebanon, one guy did.

Anyone who votes for a levy increase in Lebanon is contributing to a crime and endorsing the behavior of looters like Mr. North. As long as those methods work, they will always disrespect you, and the bet is that the taxpayers of Lebanon will turn the other way and allow the looters to get away with a crime committed in front of everyone to see.

Rich Hoffman

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

All Health Care is a Scam: The Future Requires Courage and Offers Adventure

I can’t help but think of Atlas Shrugged, the great Ayn Rand novel, when I think of health care issues. Listen to Doc Thompson talk to Bob Hackett on 700 WLW about prescription drug addiction, Medicare fraud and various health care related topics.

In Atlas Shrugged Hank Rearden invents a new metal called Rearden Metal which is stronger, lighter and can be produced in larger quantities much cheaper than traditional steel. It’s so good that the government offers to buy him out to prevent the metal from hitting the market. Their reason is that the metal is too good, and will cost many steel workers their jobs because those companies producing traditional steel will not be able to compete. Sounds like farm subsidies to me, and countless other debacles the government has stuck its nose in to prevent pure completion which embraces technological advancement. Ayn Rand’s book is fiction but written over 50 years ago, it is all coming true almost exactly as she warned us. Case in point, look what the government did with General Motors.

Speaking of a car company like GM, a similar story could be told about Preston Tucker who invented the Tucker Car in the late 40’s. The government sent Senator Ferguson of Michigan, representing the big car companies of Detroit to go after Tucker with legalities, all of which were explored in Ayn’s book, but this wasn’t any fiction. Tucker nearly found himself in jail, and he lost his car company because his car was “too good.” The big three couldn’t keep up with Preston. So the government cut the knees out from under the innovator to protect the status quo. The result of this intervention was predicted by Ayn Rand and can be seen clearly now. The Motor City’s engine is dying. Detroit’s population shrank by more than 25% in the last decade, according to Census statistics reported in the New York Times. The city’s population fell to 713,777 in 2010, a drop of almost 240,000 residents. That’s 100,000 more than Katrina-ravaged New Orleans lost.

See the rest of the Detroit article here:

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/increbile-shrinking-city-detroit-becoming-ghost-town-20110323-095202-383.html

The government should have left Tucker alone and forced the car manufactures of Detroit to compete. But government did what it always does, it corrupted innovation and growth with an attempt to control the manufacturing process. And 60 years later, look at Detroit. But the jobs the senator and his friends were protecting lasted so those people could retire and go fishing for a couple of years, and that’s all that mattered to those people during that time. They didn’t care what would happen to Detroit a half a century later. They only thought of themselves.

Well, the same thing goes on in every industry, most notably the health care industry.

Health care now has its own version of Rearden Metal. It’s called regenerative tissue construction, and DNA engineering. See my article with videos about regenerative medicine here: Well worth your time in investigation.

We have arrived at a time and place where the human being can change what getting older means. We don’t have to take pharmaceutical medicine any longer, or at least we shouldn’t have to. Science has arrived to make such things seem barbaric. Growing new body parts and fixing all illnesses, genetic defects, and even cancer rests within genetic engineering, and will very, very soon be as common to our language as television is now, compared to a person that remembers life without television. The human body can repair itself. It built itself within a mother’s womb and can always regenerate all tissue at any time. Those secrets have begun to be unlocked.

Hospitals except for emergency surgery such as gun shots, car crashes and other traumas will become unnecessary. Doctor visits less needed. And prescription drugs including the thousands of drug stores all over the country are going to become useless.

There won’t be a need for health care such as what we have today. I sat in a recent meeting with my health care provider where they explained that the costs had gone up again this year. I wondered how long any of the people working in that industry think this can continue. The health care industry is where education and other public sector positions are at; at the maximum amount that society can or should be willing to pay for their services. The people working in these fields are in for a shock if they are not prepared to adapt to the changes.

Medicare is a corrupt system that costs all of us a treacherous amount of money.

This kind of thing has to stop. Obama Care will only exacerbate this kind of behavior. We need a lot less of this fraud and abuse, not more. And regenerative science will give us the option. It will allow us to extend the retirement age to perhaps 100 to 150 years old. It will solve our Social Security problems, and it will eliminate much of the expensive abuses that go on in the medical industry. But it will require human beings to think differently. And humans aren’t good at that. Look at these idiots in London today, just because the government wants to cut its costs, which is the responsible thing to do. People like this are parasites to innovation and are incredibly short-sighted and define why I can’t stand unions.

The great moral question of tomorrow will be a religious one, how long should we live? Do we have a right to manipulate the aging process? The answer is that of course we do, because we already do with prescription drugs, that we’ve all come to accept it as a reality. The next natural step in that scientific advancement is regenerative medicine. We have to look at it as the only moral solution to our current funding dilemma and it is the most humane way to deal with handicaps and debilitating illnesses.

Government already knows this, but they will not act on it until the money runs out. They will attempt to not become unpopular with voters working in the medical industry, nurses, doctors, insurance companies, health care providers, pharmacists, drug manufactures, etc. There is so much money generated in health care that government will cling to an old archaic system just to preserve jobs.

The medical industry as we know it will change. New jobs will be created, but they will be different roles, and there will be a lot of resistance to those changes. Drug manufactures will spend billions of dollars to prevent people from trusting new forms of medicine, just as steel lobbyists in Atlas Shrugged tried to keep a new metal from hitting the market. They don’t want the cost of competition. They, just like those in the education profession, cling to the old way of doing things, because their pensions and job security are tied to it.

I’ve changed professions 5 times in my adult life, because I’ve always adapted to change. I have never fallen in love with any position I’ve held, but always viewed them as a way to supply income to my family. I have never thought of retiring with a pension from a job. I will work as long as I feel like doing something for income. I have no intention to wither away into a gradual degradation of my body and spend the rest of my day’s fishing. In fact, I think any human being that views their life as an hourglass is a fool that sets unneeded psychological limits upon themselves. We live in an exciting age that should embrace the entrepreneurial spirit of free enterprise, the way America did leading up to the Civil War, and ironically the introduction of Marxism from Europe around the middle of the 19th century. Government needs to get out of the way of the safety business, the regulation business, the job creation business, in fact, it needs to get out of the way completely. Let everything that will fail, fail, and let innovation solve our problems.

I know what it’s like to lose a job. I’ve had periods of wealth, and periods of complete collapses. I can remember vividly days where I rode my bicycle to work 12 miles each way all year-long to save money on gas. And I’ve worked every job and odd job one can dream up from sales to janitorial work and everything in between. I’ve been on the bottom and have been on top. I know what I’m asking when I tell people to be bold, not to worry, and not to cling too tightly to the job you currently hold, because to do so prevents innovation which is necessary to the growth of our nation, and ultimately beneficial to our everyday lives. What is the point of arguing about retirement and pensions if such things aren’t needed in a future where life expectancy will double or triple within the next two decades? And to those of you reading this that think what I’m saying is science fiction, check it out for yourself. There is only one reason for us to continue dying at age 65 to 85, and that is to protect the jobs of those in the health care industry. That’s the only reason, because science is bringing us new options that many people would forgo in favor of security. Think what an absurd notion it is to consider that someone would trade a life of limitless adventure and unknown excitement for one that is certain to end about 10 years after retirement. Yet those in government that seek to suppress these new scientific discoveries will do just that, because they are short-sighted puppets to lobbies sent by pharmaceutical companies to stifle the creativity of our nation, and are themselves cancers to our inventive spirit.

I see those pharmaceutical lobbyists as corrosive and foolish as the typical labor union, which also cleaves like idiots to the mundane existence of life between the break bells and an eye toward retirement where they can finally live their own life, just as it is ending.

The question is do you have what it takes to say yes to life? Because in saying yes, you say you have the courage to reinvent yourself as many times as needed to always look with an eye toward the rising sun and leave the false security to those seeking sunsets.

And in saying yes, the world may crumble, but it will be rebuilt with something much better and stronger than would have otherwise been possible.

Rich Hoffman

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

Understanding Multiculturalism: The Good Guys are the Bad Guys, and the Bad Guys are the Good Guys.

Multiculturalism is not a bad thing; in fact it is quite healthy and has most been successful in the United States. There is nowhere on Earth that groups as divers as the Amish and the most gang inspired African-American’s can co-exist in relative harmony.

America is proof that multiculturalism can work in the world as mankind moves toward an identity more akin to Earthlings as opposed to the national identities and religions known today.

With that statement, I may sound like I’m endorsing something like what George Soros stands behind, an “open society.” Absolutely not! I am all for a one world order if that one world resembles the success of the United States as opposed to the communist leanings that much of the world openly embraces. And with that said, I do not support American imperialism either. I have no wish to impose American will on other countries. I would prefer to take the high ground and lead by example and let the success of the United States inspire the world to be a freer and fair place. It is America that is the only opportunity for such a concept in the world, without exception. So if you truly want to see rights for women, equality of races, or freedom of religion, then you will support American philosophy with open arms.

But………..there are enemies that speak of American Imperialism and the evil United States as if America is the worst invention ever to befall mankind. And shamefully, this does not come from just outside our country, but from within it with almost equal force. Our universities and aspects of public education have been open freeways of hypocritical anti-American sentiment that we’ve funded generously with public funds, as though we wish to fund our own destruction.

I have argued for years with the mindless type that just wants to take the blue pill and eat at fast food restaurants. They don’t want to be encumbered with thoughts of deep scrutiny, and it is a crime in itself, because America has enemies that wish to destroy it, so that certain cultures can reign without opposition in an infantile quest to conquer the world. The radical Muslim culture is one of those groups, which have such a terrestrial understanding of spirituality which they seek to impose on others, that they have made themselves dangerous to others. And they have captured popular opinion in such a way to make society paralyzed to criticism. In America we have freedom of religion, because what someone does to have an understanding with their God is their business. But not something that is to be used to manipulate society. The same people who complain about our nation’s courthouses displaying the Ten Commandments are those that are preaching that radical Islamic rule is beneficial to mankind. The same people who advocate the rights of women in the United States are the same that will support the treatment of women in a way that would be considered inhuman for a dog in the Muslim culture.

None of that is our business in America, only that we find the limits of their spiritual understanding to be naïve and foolish compared to our own experience, even though we’ve been too kind to speak such things out of fear of hurting their feelings. God forbid we do something so devastating to the radicals throughout the world as to judge them on their merits.

The other issue that has paralyzed us all is this guilt over slavery. America ended slavery. England brought it to the colonies and America ended it. That’s all anybody needs to know. There is still slavery in much of the world including in Africa. Sex slavery is a MAJOR problem in the world still, and who is speaking out for those poor kids and women kidnapped and used like useless rags destroying their lives before they even get started. Where is Jessie Jackson on that matter? Or Louis Farrakhan?

The answer is that the civil rights movement is a power grab. Americans have always been good people that loved freedom and is a place where religious tolerance and slavery could actually be discussed. We had our Salam Witch trials which we’ve as a culture rejected. As an American culture we’ve rejected slavery. America did those things on their own, nobody else. So the time to feel guilty about it is over.

The time to allow small minds to continue to ruin American culture is over.

I’ve always worn a cowboy hat, even when I was a kid. And of course that got me a lot of grief from progressive minded people that thought cowboy hats were out of fashion. The cowboy is a symbol of what America used to be, not what it was going to be, so I heard plenty of giggles and Lone Ranger jokes.

I’ve heard comments about my hat from a group of kids not too far away that thought I couldn’t hear, and I noticed that all the males of that group nearly had their pants around their knees, as they were trying to emulate the “rap” culture given to them from MTV. So they accept that their pants can be worn so far down that they have to hold their pants with their free hand to keep them from falling off. Yet a cowboy hat is something to belittle. That’s the progressive work that is firmly in place and has been for a number of years, and it’s misinformed. We can argue forever that there is a collective mind behind this progressive movement that is intent on the destruction of American value and the advancement of Islamic fundamentalism, African-American heritage, and pro-socialist agenda’s originating from Europe, and is a malicious attack on our country without guns, and is intentional. But that has been the result, intentional or not. The Black Panther voter intimidation case that the DOJ ignored is a perfect example of this. Recently Chick-fil-A came under attack by gay marriage groups, and we continue to hear absurd defense of the radical Muslim faith. There are too many wrongs being committed that are off limits by radicals that are ready to call people names for doing what is right. These people are no different than the spoiled child that has parents that pander to their every whim. No group in America or the world should be able to scream and cry and get an audience of any weight, yet we foolishly listen to these children to our own peril and allow ourselves to be paralyzed with guilt.

I feel no such guilt. I see that the intent behind these attempts are to destroy what has been built of the greatest nation on earth. And the reason is that the competition to catch up to that nation is just too steep for these lazy radicals that know their ideas cannot match that of American freedom. They also know that there are many that share their laziness so there is always an army of screaming, child-like minds ready to protest, because complaining is easier than action. Rioting is easier than building, so there is no shortage of those squeaking wheels desiring grease.

It is time to stop putting oil on those wheels and proclaiming them broken, beyond repair. We must not bend the greatness of our nation to these mindless radicals. It is the great responsibility of our age and it must be met with more than thought.

The world is counting on us to do so. The hope for the African village being tyrannized by tribes of terrorists seizing food supplies to be sold on the black market sent by America to that village is not in the UN. It is in American culture that spills over our boarder to those unfortunate places as inspiration. Or the 9 year old boy in the Philippians stolen while fishing for food and sold into the sex trade of some wealthy businessman seeking only some decadent act to satisfy his darkest fantasies. America is the only place on earth capable of doing anything about such terrible acts. They are the only place that will even discuss it! Pick a spot on the map and name your evil. The only defender on the planet capable of even addressing it is America, or the idea of America. And the enemies of America know it. That is why they attempt to paralyze America with self-conscious fear. And that must stop before it’s too late.

America may not be perfect, and it may take several decades to work out all the details of multicultural evolution, but no country has made as much ground as the United States have in the history of the world. The ones that point out those small imperfections are the same that wish to use imperfection for their own climb to power so that they can illusion their minds with authority.

While this battle takes place, I will continue to wear my cowboy hats proudly so the right kind of people know where I stand in the confusing lines of multicultural association.

Rich Hoffman

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

The Presidential Fool: The Office of Barack Obama

One thing regarding authority is that most of the time the people who end up in positions of authority are addicted to the power that comes from it and become corrupt in some way or another. There are people who are good at authority, and leadership, and there are people who are inclined to follow. So it is difficult to distinguish between competencies at a leadership level when most of the focus of authority is to obtain it. The specific skills of managing authority often become lost in analyses.

This is the problem with police officers. Many of the people drawn to the profession possess a deep down hunger for authority. Larger social goals are used as the mask for their agenda, but the face behind the mask is one yearning for authority. Since human beings are a group of people who are comfortable being compliant to the laws they create for themselves, police officers regardless of their qualifications are looked upon with respect because they are symbols of authority. But this is a defective strategy of figuring out who in our society is actually capable of handling the kind of authority that police officers have access to, because there are corrupt measures that enter into the equation. Some of those measures and examples of the problem with blind acceptance of authority can be heard in this report from Doc Thompson on 700 WLW.

With all that in mind I thought about what President Obama said about Gaddafi over the weekend by saying that “Gaddafi needs to step down. He has lost the confidence of his people who means he should turn over power.” Well, Obama has lost the confidence of his people, at least a majority of them. Doesn’t that mean he should step down too?

 

 

The question doesn’t get out because as American’s we accept blind authority. President Obama is considered American royalty so people aren’t comfortable breaking down the performance of a president too deeply, so the analysis either gets explored by radicals that distort the information, or it doesn’t get considered at all. I don’t have such a problem. So I’ll ask the question. Obama is a socialist even if he doesn’t call it that and America is supposed to be a capitalist nation. He is openly working with union leaders that want to overthrow the capitalist nature of America. That’s the first problem. The second is that he worked with congress to pass Obama Care with no regard for the Constitution he is sworn to protect. He and his staff figured they’d circumvent the system using the famous “commerce clause,” and “supremacy clause” which is just manipulation of the legal intent hoping that nobody with half a mind challenges them in court. Their intention was to get enough people addicted to Obama Care, as what has happened with Social Security that public opinion would affect the eventual Supreme Court ruling that will be coming in the years to come. Obama has openly worked with other subversive groups, such as the Net Neutrality issue, and the Department of Justice has become a complete joke under the Presidents administration. That’s just in two years.

But worse of all, in my view, was his “vacation” to Brazil during a time of crises. Anybody with half a management mind knows that leadership sometimes means changing your plans. I’ve done it when bad things happen where I work; I changed my plans to show leadership and support for the people who work for me. But Obama doesn’t have ANY management experience, not even of a video store, and it’s clear he doesn’t understand these basics. Instead he goes to socialist leaning countries and coddles with their leaders then declares war while on the road in a tent saying that the “World Community” supports it. He’s clearly a President that is over his head. He is slow to make decisions because he waits for someone to tell him what to think. He is a nightmare of leadership and because of our respect for authority, we’re stuck with him. If he had went to congress and said, let’s get rid of Gaddafi and save those rebels that are being brutally killed, most of congress would have signed up. It’s not decisive action that’s the problem here. It’s the hesitation for weeks, then the sudden boldness while on foreign soil that’s the problem. He behaves like a king and America does not want a European king. And for me, I want very little identification with Europe at all.

Obama should step down out of office and admit that he’s not “the guy.” It’s time for us all to admit that we hurriedly elected him because of his skin color so we could prove to the world that we were not a racist country, which we’re not. We have the most diversity of ANYONE in the world. Nobody even comes close to our cultural diversity in a nation, so criticism is not permitted. It was in our lack of confidence in ourselves that we put an inept president into office that is simply a puppet to socialist interests. There is no question to that now. Anyone that argues it doesn’t know anything about history or definitions.

I used to be ashamed of Bill Clinton and couldn’t imagine a worse president, but at least he had been a governor and knew some basic management skills.

I’m not crazy about either of the Bush’s. I think they wanted to be president for too many of the wrong reasons. The first clue that you have a bad president is that if a man gets a surge of power just by sitting in a chair, he’s the wrong guy. A president should not be enamored by power of any kind. In fact, the office of the president should be a step down to what they’ve accomplished in their private lives. The popular myth is that it’s the most powerful position in the world, but it’s really not. Ronald Reagan breezed through his presidency just on his ability to act and a single-minded ability to believe he was right and on the side of God. There are many, many, many more people in our nation more qualified for the presidency than Reagan was, but he could speak well. So he goes down in history as one of the greatest presidents in American history. His greatest gift was that he didn’t listen to everyone around him.  He knew what he wanted to do and he did it, which makes him distinctly American.  American’s are not naturally collaborative.  I know that might bust the bubble of many that think very highly of Ronald Reagan, but those are the facts.

My favorite president in recent history is Calvin Collage. That’s my idea of a manager president. Everyone else has fallen short, and that covers the entire span of the 20th century. Teddy Roosevelt was my next pick for a great president, but he became too much of a monarch lover by the end of his presidency and had the fatal flaw of craving power. He could not turn away from the power, so much so that he became a progressive in order to run against his friend President Taft. Many of the presidents have done their share of good things, but not enough. Not what we should expect out of an American president.

But Obama, he’s an absolute joke. He does not represent me as an American. I mean look at his website. What are we supposed to be “fired up” about? What change? And what are we organizing? He’s the president. His message is one for children in school and people without wit to know better.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/ofasplashflag/

If he believes Gaddafi should step down in Libya because he’s lost the confidence of the majority of the people, which I agree with him on that point, then Obama should step down voluntarily and admit that the job of the presidency is too big for him. Maybe he could try again in a few years after he works as a manager of a McDonalds and gets some experience under his belt. Because he is an absolute embarrassment that makes me look at the decadent days of Bill Clinton with yearning. The only reason he wouldn’t do it is because he’s in love with his authority, no different from the cop that flunks his test and doesn’t belong on the force because he’s not smart enough to be a cop. This President isn’t qualified to be a president. And the people of America respect authority too much to admit it to themselves.

Rich Hoffman

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

Kevin Bright Leaves Mason Schools as LT. Gov. Mary Taylor Speaks to Thousands About School Choice

Mason’s superintendent Kevin Bright made the announcement this morning that he was resigning from the Mason School System to take a lesser job in another district. For those of you who don’t know, Kevin is one of the highest paid superintendents in Ohio and is an instructor at the OSBA conference in Columbus at Levy University which teaches school systems how to pass levies. This ironically occurred at the same time that Sharon Poe, who ran the anti-Mason Levy campaign was on 700 WLW talking about all the good reasons for School Choice with Doc Thompson.

It reminded me of when I was on WLW with Scott Sloan many months ago talking about teacher wages on the air which many people weren’t aware of how much teachers were making. In fact Kevin’s name came up as one of the examples of extremely high paid administrators and that the levies were a giant scam only used to increase wage rates for school system officials. That interview caused so much trouble in the Lakota School System that the radio station was threatened by pro levy forces and they flooded everyone involved with nasty emails. One week later Mike Taylor resigned effective in January 2011.

Does this make WLW bad or evil, or me, or Sharon bad or evil? Well, it does if you’re one of the people who openly lie and manipulate the public in order to secure tax dollars. Superintendents are breed and bought to get school levies passed. That is their soul purpose, which is wrong. They are supposed to run the district like a business. Not just continue to lobby for more money. I know that a trustee for West Chester gave the employee search firm looking for a new superintendent for Lakota my number. This search firm was asking the trustee what they were looking for in a superintendent, and the reply was someone that can run the district like a business. The next question was, well what sort of person is that? And the trustee gave the firm my phone number.

“Call Hoffman, he’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

Of course the call to my phone was never made. Because they weren’t interested in the kind of person I’d hire. They are looking for another suck-ass manipulator that will get a levy passed in a very reform minded Southern Ohio market. Notice they still haven’t found one. Because those people aren’t out there, and nobody like Kevin Bright, which is what the firm is looking for, wants to come here. Those types of people are leaving, not coming.

One of the problems here is that we’ve all allowed education to be tied to our property values. Real estate agents spend a lot of their time accommodating families looking for a good school district for their children, so home sales have been connected to school districts. And then school districts complain about the growth of the district in order to ask for more money. At Lakota during the last levy, it was reported that the growth of thousands of students had been placed into the system which was beyond their control, and their financial forecasts had to account for that type of continued growth. The reality however is that Lakota did post numbers of 400 to 600 new students a year until the housing bubble burst. The reality is that only 98 new students enrolled after 2009. It was the sharpest drop in the 18,500 student district since 1991, and this all occurred before a school levy ever failed in 2010. The numbers were deliberately inflated to manipulate the poor tax payer into voting for a tax increase that would even further hurt the housing market with unattractive tax rates.

See, these superintendents know they are scamming us. They’re not bad people, as I’ve pointed out in my article, The Old Hollow Tree. They are just doing what they are told to do, what they were trained to do in compliance with the OSBA.

And today at Columbus there is a large rally supporting School Choice, which is the most innovative program to hit education in this century. But the threat is that it creates competition and no longer will real estate values be able to be associated with the kind of manipulation that school districts attempt to hide behind.

By the way, look at all the people at this rally.


The superintendents are leaving the sinking ships because their true motives are revealed. They’ve always been about the money. They say it’s about the kids, but their actions speak otherwise. In Kevin Bright’s situation he still has the Stacy Schuler case that is coming his way and will be extremely embarrassing and he knows that once S.B.5 passes, the school board will be forced to make real cuts to the district, not cosmetic ones. There won’t be anymore levy increases, so he’s leaving to friendlier districts. What he doesn’t understand is that this movement that is occurring in Southern Ohio is growing north. He can hide from it, but he won’t escape.

In Lebanon they are doing some great work. I am very happy with the tenacity of my buddy Cyd, and Rich McPherson. They are calling it the way it is and going after the superintended of Lebanon, Mark North who went into executive session last week in a deal made with the unions to get their contracts passed before S.B.5 became law. And the Lebanon people were there to call him out on it. Check out their fantastic website here.

http://lebanonschoolfacts.com/

It would be wise for these school officials to come clean now, and stop hiding behind children, and real estate values and reveal their true intentions before things become even more embarrassing. And for those teachers and administrators that are gaming the system thinking of leaving these districts for some friendly place like Kevin Bright is doing, good luck, because soon we’ll be there too. Enjoy it while you can.

If you doubt for a second that there are people, like these superintendents that aren’t aware what they are doing to communities or don’t have a social agenda listen to this tape of a former SEIU official discuss how they think. These union trained officials apply these tactics on everything from education to finance and combine their thinking wherever they can. That’s why Mark North made a deal with the unions to pass their contract before S.B.5 was passed.

This behavior is not something the tax payer should be paying for. And when they get caught, they resign and move someplace else hoping people forget. The sad thing is some people do forget, or at least they used to. Listen to the Bull Dog blow his top over the amount of apathy citizens have toward their government.

Can you argue with him?

Rich Hoffman

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

Justice Department Goes Black and White: Dumping the Red White and Blue, a move toward socialism?

I received this information which I consider alarming, check it out for yourself!

 

U.S. Department of Justice W E B S I T E C H A N G E – I M P O R T A N T!

___________________________________________________________-

Little by little the subtle changes come until one day we will wake up and be the United Socialist States of America. 2012 is just around the corner so get and stay engaged as if our nation depended on it because it does!!!!!

U.S. Department of Justice ditches red, white, and blue stars and stripes.

Well, how interesting! It seems the U.S. Department of Justice has changed its website.
Gone are the colorful red, white, and blue U.S. Flag decorations on the page,

Replaced by stark black and white.

And at the top of the page, is a rather interesting quote:
“The common law is the will of mankind, issuing from the life of the people.”

Catchy, huh? Just one tiny little (too small to be relevant obviously) point –the quote is from C. Wilfred Jenks, who in the 1930’s was a leading proponent of the “international law” movement, which had as its goal to impose a global common law and which backed ‘global workers’ rights.’

Call it Marxism, call it Progressivism, call it Socialism — under any of those names, it definitely makes the DOJ look corrupt in their new website with Marxist accessories to match.

See for yourself: http://www.justice.gov/

 

How very interesting that ‘they’ couldn’t find a nice quote from one of our Founders. People, we have lost our Republic. This is an example of the slow, methodical misuse of power our current government is doing as they lead us to socialism, and destroying our republic as we have known it.



Rich Hoffman

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

Sex Trade in Rio: The World and Motivations behind Eyes Wide Shut

Barrack Obama’s disappearance to South American in a time of extreme crises looks suspiciously contemptuous. His relationship with “big labor” and even the George Soro types in the world that are intent on remaking the world is deeply troubling to the minds of many Americans that are committed to honesty and fundamental American values.

I recently wrote an article criticizing the president on his trip listing all the troubles that are currently on the table and one of them was the NFL lockout. Well, of course this got a reaction, because how is the NFL lockout as important as the tsunami in Japan? Well, it’s not. But in the secret recesses of the human mind, it is. The NFL is the game of the American Economy. The “men of the mind” buy boxes and move and shake the world from those seats on Sunday afternoons while gladiators batter each other on the field of play yard by yard. Taking that game out of the public consciousness will have an impact on our national consciousness in a negative way.

Thinking of sports, each year there are stories of athletes that attempt a competitive edge by use of steroids, or some other method. Well, in business, the same holds true, or in any other endeavor.

A few years ago I wrote a book called The Symposium of Justice that explored through the eyes of a modern Zorro type character the sinister exploits of a secret world that attempts to gain such competitive advantage over others by appeasing “the gods” or “demons” or whatever you want to call them. These rituals, which I can testify to, have their sources in ancient sacrifices where humans were killed to appease those gods. Well, to the American, Christian mind, such things are preposterous and archaic ways of thinking. But those societies that participated in such brutality such as those in central America 1000 AD to 1500 AD particularly, Native American cultures, Mesopotamia, and head hunting cultures of New Guinea all had rituals to appease the hidden elements that exist all around us in a hope that such aid would help grow better crops, or bring water to the community.

I know a few people who are practicing shaman, one that lives in St. Louis and she invited my wife and me to a spiritual gathering recently. Below is a video from her friend Chief Golden Light/Eagle who comes often to Serpent Mound, Ohio for yearly ceremonies to explain some of the mysteries between human beings and the world around us. Now to the untrained ear stuck in the world of the here and now, some of this will sound strange. Remember, just because you don’t understand, does not mean these things don’t exist.

Similar powers are explored often in the culture of voodoo, which you can find easily in the south. In fact, it’s not difficult to find a practicing voodoo priest if you go Hilton Head Island or Savannah Georgia. Many are working as dish washers in the back rooms of restaurants and they live in small trailers or even tents just outside of town, but they can certainly conger up a voodoo doll or reach into the spirit realm for you for a small fee, and bring bad luck on an enemy, or even cause an enemy to get seriously sick.

This is why I find the film Eyes Wide Shut particularly fascinating. Stanley Kubrick, creator of 2001 A Space Odyssey and The Shining jumped into the world of the rich and powerful that attempt to use sex drugs and violence to curry favor with the spirit world. Now, Kubrick was no kook. He was a serious and very talented filmmaker and he spent many, many hours researching the shocking video you will see below. He actually did what the character Tom Cruise did in the film; he snuck into these secret societies and studied what was going on and why. He depicted this action in his film, and he did not live to see it delivered to theaters. Tom Cruise violently protected the final cut of the film with his reputation, which he paid for. The film was delivered to the public as Kubrick intended, but the professional lives of Tom Cruise and Nichole Kidman were forever tarnished by the film, proving how deep the influence goes into even the very rich and powerful. In fact, Cruise and Kidman’s marriage didn’t last. They divorced shortly after the film was released. Cruise buried himself into scientology shortly thereafter and lost credibility with the public at large.

Here is an edited clip from the films ritual scene.

You can see the whole ritual scene at this link which I’ll avoid on this page because it contains graphic nudity. Now when you watch this remember that the women brought into this ceremony are common prostitutes bought though the sex trade industry and drugged with aphrodisiacs so they’d be prepared for the mass orgy.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/yt-PdxpJKqExwE/ritual_eyes_wide_shut_complete/

Steve Spielberg even came in for the DVD release and helped maintain the integrity of the film, which appears to have cost him his career as well. Spielberg is only a fraction of what he used to be as a creative talent.

So what’s in the chant? You’d think by watching that clip that it is a demonic chant, but it’s not. Here’s the translation.
Source: Leoslyrics.com
Romanian Chant (In the movie, it is played backwards. Here are the normal version, backwards version and translation)

Normal Version

Zisa Domnului catre ucenicii sai…Porunca noua dau voua…Domnului sa ne rugam pentru mila, viata, pacea, sanatatea, mantuirea, cercetarea, lasarea si iertarea pacatelor robilor lui Dumnezeu. Inchinatori, miluitori si binefacatori ai sfantului lacasului acestuia.

Backwards Version

Auov uad auon acnurop ias iicinecu ertac iulunmod asiz… Aiutseca iulusacal iulutnafs ia irotacafenib is irotiulim irotanihcni.
Uezenmud iul rolibor roletacap aeratrei is aerasal aeratecrec aeriutnam aetatanas aecap ataiv alim urtnep magur en as iulunmod. Auov uad auon acnurop ias iicinecu ertac iulunmod asiz…

Pray from India

Parithranaya Saadhunam Vinashaya cha dushkrithaam Dharmasamsthabanarth aya Sambhavami yuge yuge

Translation

And God told to his apprentices…I gave you a command…to pray to the Lord for the mercy, life, peace, health, salvation, the search, the leave and the forgiveness of the sins of God’s children. The ones that pray, they have mercy and they take good care of this holy place.

It would appear, much like in the Old Testament of the Bible that many who wish to social climb still believe that the spirit world will appease their earthly wishes if those that have command of the earth will make ritual sacrifices in the name of God’s children. Now those sacrifices aren’t necessarily to Yahweh but to what the Bible might refer to as“false gods.”
Whatever you believe, it is clear that there are many, who do believe such things, and they attempt to monopolize not just our physical laws in our state houses, and federal government, but they do play this game of spirit world appeasement. Whether or not it actually works is up to debate. But for such a long human tradition to endure for so long, results are believed to be promising, even among our current elite, which Kubrick studied in great detail.

My point in bringing this up is that it is obvious that there is more to the story of what is behind the obvious neglect by our elected officials to follow the laws of the Constitution. There are some, although in the minority, that are corrupt and evil to the absolute core of their being, and do believe that they will personally prosper by bringing decadence to the world. And that if anything is to be fixed, it will not be enough to fix only our understanding of the law as established in the Constitution, but we will have to have a spiritual awaking as well, one that does not subscribe to warped religious practices and a hunger for things done in secret in an attempt to get a spiritual advantage.

It is not farfetched to consider such things. Daily, millions of people read their horoscopes, which is a gateway acceptance to this type of ritualistic indulgence.

Case in point, the violence on the border of the United States and Mexico is clearly a situation that should provoke war. But instead we see appeasement so that drugs can continue to flow freely. We see the sex trade industry thriving out in the open even though consciously we all agree that it’s morally wrong.

Not only are drugs encouraged to continue to pour into our country to feed the weak among our fellow Americans with more mind numbing devices but the sex slavery is also endorsed.

The sex trade industry is an epic travesty upon the face of the world and progressives are naive to think of world peace when the hearts of man are corrupt with such black thoughts.

Yet this is how it’s sold to the public. Remember where the UN meets.

To make real and permanent repairs to the human condition, and the laws we live under, it is important to make the distinction into what it is we are actually trying to achieve. We can say with certainty that we want the nation restored, but there are those in the world that are first sexually promiscuous and crave power to have access to sexual deviancy, and those that believe that organizing sex practices are appealing to “the gods” and those gods will give them power and dominion over others.

So in our quests these accounts must be considered for what they’re worth, and if justice is sought, it must be sought for all, sex slaves and child trafficking included.

Consider just in the United States the porn industry generates billions and billions of dollars every year, 97 billion worldwide and that’s the money that is traceable that file SEC statements. That’s more money than Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Netflix, Apple, combined. Just in the United States porn makes more money than Major League Baseball, the NHL and the NFL combined with revenues of NBC, CBS, and ABC.

The question you have to ask is………………………….why?

Now I know why President Obama is going to Rio. He’s going to save all the children from sex tourism that is so rampant there.

Oh……..sorry to get your hopes up. Everyone knows this is going on, just like the people in the room in Eyes Wide Shut, (hence the title) Obama won’t even bring it up because his bosses would chastise him for it. And we all know what happens to people who try to expose this terrible industry rooted in corrupt human sacrifice. Ask Stanley Kubrick, and Tom Cruise, when the name Cruise used to mean something, and Kubrick was still alive.

Rich Hoffman

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

Hurry! Get Your Contracts in Before S.B.5. Becomes Law!: The reason we can’t trust elected officials.

There is disturbing news coming out of Lebanon, Ohio that arrived to my ears late Thursday as I was trying to enjoy the first pleasant day of spring-like weather in 2011. The information isn’t surprising as I had been thinking along these lines all week. An aspect to that thinking is in leadership which Doc Thompson discusses in this broadcast.

I’ve mentioned in many words on these pages why some leaders are better than others, and exactly what makes a leader, “good.” For a clear definition of what makes something of quality, and why some people are “better” than others I refer your inquisitive mind to the great book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. That book is one of the best, most thorough works of philosophy on quality and leadership done since the pre-Greek age. The capacity to be, “the best” is within all of us. But certain traits certainly jump out as contributory factors.

What brings all this up is the need for leadership in school systems, and the apparent lack thereof. The current system seems to be a nightmare scenario from an Ayn Rand novel and I say that without exaggeration.

I wondered how school boards were going to react to S.B.5 once it’s signed into law. After all, they are now empowered to negotiate on behalf of the community. I thought of the Lakota Levy when I’d go to school board meetings and see our elected officials all wearing Yes Lakota pins and actively promoting the passage of a school levy. Taken at face value, this seemed acceptable to me. But now, on the eve of a real management measure like S.B.5 that will give these school boards real teeth, I wondered if it was appropriate for school board members, who are elected by the community, to openly promote school levies.

That’s when the information arrived to me from an employee within the Lebanon School System that Mark North had been meeting with the union at Lebanon and informed them to have their contracts turned in by the conclusion of business March 17, to  avoid S.B.5 ramifications. The reason is that S.B.5 will honor all existing contracts, so any deals made prior to law will be recognized. Lebanon is planning to make the announcement to the press that the union has agreed to a “pay freeze” but the step increases will be held in place and kept under the radar.

This is disturbing news to me, and it’s not unique to Mr. North from the Lebanon School Board. No school board member should ever be on such cozy terms with any member of a union. They are a member of management and that requires them to be distant and impartial. If school boards were truly management on behalf of the tax payers that elected them they would not pass along information to unions informing them to get their contracts turned in before the passage of a new law. The school board should be looking to avoid a tax levy by using S.B.5 to bring their costs down. Such revelations are an enormous contributor to the current funding problems that all these school districts have.

School board members attempt to start off representing the community, however immediately in November they are sent to the OSBA Conference in Columbus. They do this once a year and the goal is to bring school board members in cohesion with the aims of the education unions that are really in control within the state. At these conferences the new board members “bond” with other board members and learn the ropes. Immediately school board members are eating out of the hand of the union. School board members that question this process are labeled “radical” and pushed out of the “group” mentality.

Now, before anyone says that I don’t know what I’m talking I know quite a few school board members all over the state, and this is how I learned about this story. It’s not a secret. Such ceremonies are no different from the “hazing” rituals in college fraternities. The intent is to unify everyone into a “collective team.”

That whole process needs to stop. School boards are elected by the public and need to represent the public. S.B.5 puts school boards in management control, the way people always thought they were, but the reality is like what has been reported on the activity of Mark North of Lebanon. They will never publicly admit that they are more loyal to unions than the public that elected them, but their actions prove otherwise.

At a minimum, no school board member elected by the public should ever wear a pin or carry a sign lobbying the community for increases in taxes. Because in doing so they are publicly admitting that they do not have management control over the school system and are not able to do the job.

S.B.5 will change the rules and the weak managers in the system, (and there will be many) will have to be removed and strong managers put in their place that will not go to the OSBA Conference in Columbus every November, but will truly represent the people who elected them.

And a warning to Mr. North and all those like him. Be careful what you say to people. The difference now is that when a whistleblower says something to the paper, and it falls on deaf ears, there are now groups like this one and others that are emerging, that will carry the story. So hiding behavior under a rock or behind closed doors will no longer be a valid way to hide improprieties to the taxpayer. And there are plenty of leaks. Believe me.

Now, for further evidence that it’s not only schools that are in a rush to ratify their contracts before S.B.5 becomes law here is the news for the Butler County FOP contract that’s been bouncing around since February 2010 . And to get an idea how much these guys make see my article, Oh, What Big Teeth You Have. What this article means is that they knew just as Lebanon knew, to take what they could get before the governor signs the new bill. It’s not a coincidence that this contract mysteriously was agreed upon yesterday.

It’s always about money.

Butler County commission signs off on FOP contract
Butler County Sheriff’s Office deputies have new agreement.
By Michael D. Pitman, Staff Writer March 18, 2011

HAMILTON — Butler County Sheriff’s deputies and supervisors will get a raise, but they’ll have to wait until next year.
The Butler County Commission agreed Thursday to ratify the collective bargaining agreements for members of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 101.

The contract, which expires Feb. 9, 2013, had to go to a conciliator in November for the six items on which the union and administration could not come to terms.

“This is how the process is supposed to work,” said Sheriff Richard K. Jones, an opponent of Ohio Senate Bill 5 that passed the Senate and is in the House for debate. “We couldn’t agree, so we went to arbitration.”

Sgt. Jeff Gebhart, a spokesman for the FOP, could not be reached for comment Thursday.

According to the new contract, union members will get a 2 percent raise next year; $1,000 cash payment in lieu of a uniform allowance; and new top step effective in February 2012 to be set 2 percent higher than the current top step while deleting the lowest step.

The union also wanted similar pay scales for court services deputies and road deputies; the ability for supervisors to bid on positions; and a uniform allowance in 2010. The conciliator did not grant these requests.

“We want our people to have the best they can negotiate for; it’s not a battle,” Maj. Norman Lewis said. “But in these economic times, with the way the budget has been slashed, it’s a process that had to take place.”

Lewis said the collective bargaining process started in February 2010, but the six items of disagreement needed a conciliation hearing.

The contracts with corrections officers, corrections supervisors, clerical and dispatch unions are being finalized and likely will go before the county commissioners in ensuing weeks, he said.

Jones said the collective bargaining process works for the administration and the unions, and has worked well for the 34 years he’s been involved in the negotiations.

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So who is looking out for the taxpayer if all these elected officials are scrambling at the last-minute to get all the money they can before the gates to easy money close with the passage of S.B.5.?

This is proof that the money was flowing like water and nobody cared to turn it off at the facet, and access to that easy money is really what collective bargaining has always been about. It’s easy to spend other people’s money. It’s hard and takes real leadership to have discretion. And what we’re learning is that our political officials are greedy and lack leadership in every way we feared and suspected.

 

Rich Hoffman

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

These People Teach Our Kids: Protestors React to Kasich’s Budget

The protests on Fountain Square the day Governor Kasich released his budget were amazingly short-sighted considering many of the participants were educators. “We need to tax the rich, and save the middle-class,” were the chants. Really? I mean, really???????? These people really believe that there are other options that are less painful than the budget cuts Kasich placed on the table. They really believe that the wage levels are somehow separate from collapsing community budgets.

Much of the debate at the Lakota School Board meeting on Monday March 14th, 2011 centered on the loss of junior high sports. Many angry parents came out to protest the elimination of sports programs. I listen to the arguments and can only scratch my head why this is such a contentious issue. First, how did sports become so embedded in public education to begin with? Second, why would you eliminate programs that parents want when it is evident that the wage levels are directly contributing to the overhead cost  increases? A 30% reduction in the top wages would generate over $20 million and would solve a lot of problems that could be spent on “the kids.” But the teachers and administrators are the same type of people protesting on Fountain Square Monday. They aren’t about to make any sacrifices. They’ll let the kids suffer in a minute  because their priorities are all wrong. They’re not bad people, but their workplace culture is wrong. They only know to increase taxes to deal with the budget deficit caused by the very good compensation they receive from the taxpayer. When I hear these people complaining about concessions they’ve made up to this point, or sacrifices, it is quickly obvious that they don’t have a clue what’s going on in the private sector. And what goes on in the private sector is market driven. It’s not some rich conspiracy against the poor. The public sector is driven by a socialist utopia that is not possible. And that is not an inflammatory statement. It’s completely true!

Few of these public workers understand that Medicaid is almost a third of the state budget and only 4% of the people occupy 70% of the cost. That’s a major problem and one of the largest contributors of the budget deficit Ohio is experiencing. It’s certainly not that the rich aren’t paying enough taxes, or that industry is getting tax breaks. The people who say such things are incredibly selfish and not very wise on world affairs. They only look at their little piece of the world and could care less if everyone else suffer, which is what’s happening in Lakota and every other school district.

I’ve been very vocal about the whole wage issue because I don’t think many of those teachers are worth more than 70K a year. I would never think to pay any teacher that amount of money. The education they obtain for themselves is on their dime, not mine. If the state tells them they must have a Masters Degree to teach, they know that getting into the profession. But with that debate aside, they prove with these foolish protests and lack of understanding of statewide matters that they are not equipped to teach our children anything. I wouldn’t send my kid to a school that teaches such small-minded socialism, and that’s what taxing the rich and giving to the poor is.

The protestors were already prepared to protest Kasich no matter what he said in his budget. He could have said he was giving everyone a thousand dollars in the state of Ohio, and they would have still complained about what an evil guy he is.

I look at the things Kasich wants to do and it all sounds good to me. The protestors clearly just don’t want change because they benefit tremendously by keeping everything broken. They are ultimately a very selfish lot that lack the intellectual capacity to educate anyone in my opinion. To know that there were teachers from Lakota at this rally disgusts me. They represent the community very poorly.

Here is what they are protesting from Kasich’s budget plan.

• More oversight over Medicaid, although spending on the federal program will continue to grow by $1 billion annually. Medicaid comprises 30 percent of Ohio’s $60 billion budget in fiscal year 2013, including all federal matching dollars.

• Better coordination of mental health services.

• To offer the state’s health-care coverage to local governments to save money and ask union workers to pay more toward premiums.

• To sell liquor distribution rights to raise money for job-development programs,

• To honor pay increases contained in the third year of a union contract that ends next February. The extra pay offsets lost personal days and unpaid furloughs by state workers – concessions to balance Gov. Ted Strickland’s last budget.

• To double vouchers for school choice, eliminating a waiting list for parents who want to transfer their children from public to privately operated charter schools.

• Bonuses for teachers – $50 for each student who shows marked improvement.

• A closer look at adding slot machines to Ohio’s horse tracks or legalizing casinos operated by Native American tribes.

• Study the concept of semi-private “charter” universities to give now-public colleges more flexibility. That would eliminate the requirement that they hire multiple prime contractors and pay prevailing wage on construction projects, to keep tuition down. It also caps annual tuition growth at 3.5 percent.

Those are just a few of the highlights. The bottom line is that unions just want to keep everything as it is. They don’t want change because they like the way everything is. But they hardly represent the majority. Only 13.7% of the Ohio population belongs to a union. And it’s those 13.7% that are creating the policies that break the budgets of school districts so that kids in junior high won’t be able to play sports, or ride a bus. In the scheme of things the cost of busing, sports programs, and electives are a small part of the budget, its labor costs that are the enormous factor. And it was excessive labor costs that crippled the auto industry, ran the steel industry out of Pittsburg and seriously hampered innovation in companies that are under union control.

Recently I needed a part from a large manufacturer in Dallas, Texas, and the person on the other end of the phone said they could see the part through the window from where they were sitting. But they couldn’t send it to me. Why? Because the department on the other side of the window was controlled by the union and the guy in charge of moving that part was out on sick leave, and he was the only one able under the contract to move the part. So because of union rules the person I was speaking to could not simply open a door and pick up the part to ship back to me. It cost thousands of dollars in delivery penalties and seriously set back our manufacturing process. I was so mad at that process that I put my fist through my phone in frustration.

The same mentality is at play with these public sector unions. They are out of touch and protecting the serious imposition they have imposed on us all. And they could care less of some kids suffer because of their inflated opinions of themselves.

The proof is in what they say and do. Not in their very controlled bullet points designed to manipulate a busy voting population.

And that is the crime that should have serious penalties. And for those that participated in that rally, if you really care about “the kids” and the community you work in, take a pay cut, and don’t even think about asking those communities for more tax increases.

Rich Hoffman

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