The Fox News documentary special The Great Food Stamp Binge, hosted by Bret Baier was so good that I am going to include the complete text of their blog posting concerning that wonderful episode within the contents of this document. If you missed it, fret not. I have it below which can be seen in its entirety with six parts. I suggest you watch it and share it with as many people as you can. Everyone in America needs to see this documentary. It is a work which explores the treacherous extent of the welfare state in our current economy. There was a catch phrase during the documentary when Bret Baier stated, “when does the safety net become a hammock,” which I thought was particularly good because the information as provided was extraordinary and deeply revealing. It paints a picture that points to an astonishing danger that is going to hit every American in the wake of the Obama presidency that will be very painful to overcome. The welfare state and attack of the FDA with all other government agencies that are openly advocating more dependents upon the parental hand of statism are hard at work to remove from American culture the notion of independence leaving in the wake a society of moochers and disconnected serfs. Watch, learn and share the following:
Once upon a time this was called food stamps, but the modern world is all about branding and image, not accuracy or substance. Thus, a snappy new name was needed.
All this change is a direct result of the Obama administration’s surreptitious undermining of the law in the Stimulus Act in 2009 and the disingenuous gutting of President Clinton’s overwhelmingly successful Welfare Reform law. This was achieved by administrative fiat in 2010.
As I watched the rough cut with Fox Editor-at-Large Peter Boyer, I found myself at a loss for words.
I don’t know whether I was more saddened, or angered by the interview John Roberts did with an apparently healthy “surfer” who happily lives a life of leisure in Southern California subsidized by the taxpayer.
It was simply mindboggling to listen to this grown man explain the logic he uses to justify taking food aid — and thus free food — rather than working and paying for it himself.
This great government giveaway is being undertaken and I can’t help but believe those that truly need help are still going hungry.
As we continued to watch I began to see what was behind the SNAP program. It is about changing the mentality of the nation, of Americans.
Take this example, from “The Great Food Stamp Binge,” of what is nothing short of social engineering or reeducation. In North Carolina social workers actually got an award for breaking down the “Mountain Pride” that makes some from that state reluctant or unwilling to take handouts. They actively fought the tradition of tightening your belt and taking care of yourself when times get tough.
There is much more in this excellent program — it is a thought provoking, well told story and I urge you to watch it.
Certainly, there are many in this country, who need the help. The idea that Americans go to bed hungry or get sick due to malnutrition is one that should appall any morally sound man or woman. And that is what makes the SNAP initiative utterly foul.
After watching I realized why I was angered by those who take, but don’t need, and frustrated for those who are given, but don’t want. This great giveaway is being undertaken and I can’t help but believe that those that truly need help are still going hungry. Millions of tax dollars are going to people who aren’t our neediest, it is a disgrace.
Many of you have probably heard the Chinese proverb, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” The SNAP program is one big fish giveaway that leaves people reliant rather than reliable. The government is on a mission to sign people up – one in seven in this country already receive food stamps — and the taxpayer is footing the bill for, what I believe, is a tragically misguided plan.
The lawsuit against Apple by the Department of Justice is an astonishing maneuver made by an organization that is under criminal investigation itself. Yet even with all the scandals that it is currently being scrutinized for such as cover-ups, criminal deceit, and murder, the Department of Justice is engaged in an outright attack against the Apple Company for an e-book price-fixing anti-trust busting lawsuit. For a review on my thoughts about anti-trust cases created under the Sherman Act, please refer to the following link, where I break down the history and hypocrisy of these government cases revealing what is really behind them.
The federal government operates currently the largest monopoly on the face of the earth with their vast support of price-fixing through government labor unions. For examples of price-fixing that is much more destructive than anything Apple has done look no further than the local teacher at your government school, look at your friendly neighborhood IRS agent, or any bureaucrat working for the federal government in virtually any direct capacity. The government is not qualified to pass judgment against Apple for price-fixing. But in this case, as in most anti-trust cases, the intention is not to find justice for the “public” but to shake down the prosecuted for money through bribes, court settlements, or campaign donations to political parties. If the roots of this case were traced back to a cause, one of those three issues was the motivation. Because Apple did not grease the wheels of government “properly” they are now being prosecuted. It is that simple. For proof examine the statements below as reported by CNET regarding this anti-trust case, and read carefully the words used by Justice Department attorney Lawrence Buterman.
Apple shouldn’t “be rewarded” with the same sanctions as the e-book publishers that settled with the U.S. government, the Department of Justice argued ahead of a court hearing Friday. “Apple has been found to have orchestrated and facilitated a…price-fixing conspiracy — amongst these very publisher defendants,” Justice Department attorney Lawrence Buterman wrote in a letter dated Thursday but made available for viewing Friday. “Apple should not be rewarded with the same terms received by those that chose to settle to avoid the risks of litigation.”
The Justice Department last week issued its proposals for ways “to halt Apple’s anticompetitive conduct, restore lost competition, and prevent a recurrence of the illegal activities.” The three big pieces of that proposal were that Apple would end its existing agreements with the five major publishers, let other e-book publishers’ link to their own bookstores in iOS apps, and staff an antitrust monitor to evaluate its business for five years. Apple fired back last week, calling the government’s proposals vague, overreaching, unwarranted, and even “draconian.”
In a filing Wednesday, the five major book publishers weighed in, arguing that one of those stipulations — ending the existing agreements — would completely eliminate a pricing model that’s become the industry standard. The publishers also said it would break agreements the Justice Department made with each of them when they settled.
Hachette, HarperCollins, Holtzbrinck (also known as Macmillan), Penguin, and Simon & Schuster filed an opposition to last week’s proposed remedies against Apple by the Justice Department, arguing that the plan would “effectively eliminate the use of the agency model” for e-book distribution for the next five years.
“…Under the guise of punishing Apple, they effectively punish the Settling Defendants by prohibiting agreements with Apple using an agency model,” the publishers wrote, adding that the move “directly conflicts” with the settlements the publishers reached with the Justice Department before the Apple case went to trial.
“Despite achieving their stated goal of returning price competition, Plaintiffs now seek to improperly impose additional, unwarranted restrictions on the Settling Defendants, thereby depriving each publisher of the benefit of its bargain with Plaintiffs,” it goes on to say.
The “agency” model is where publishers set e-book prices to retailers, while retailers get a commission. That’s as opposed to the “wholesale” model, where publishers set the list price and the retailers can sell it at whatever price they want. (Read CNET’s in-depth explainer here.)
Basically what all that means is that the Department of Justice wants to shake down Apple because they did not settle out-of-court as the five major publishers did so to avoid a damaging public court case. The DOJ is using this excuse to inject its authority into the company for five years to monitor Apple business practices. The DOJ also intends to use this case “to halt Apple’s anticompetitive conduct, restore lost competition, and prevent a recurrence of the illegal activities.” Those are amazing statements by a government entity that is itself a functioning monopoly excessively guilty of anti-trust violations of their own. They are even more amazing statements considering all the other criminal investigations that the DOJ is currently under itself, but cannot be prosecuted for because there is no higher law enforcement authority than the Department of Justice—who works directly for the President of the United States. (This is why it’s important what kind of president Americans elect).
There is only one motivation by the Department of Justice in this. They do not care about the pricing of e-books on the open market. They only care about entrenching themselves into the publishing business any way they can so that content can be “influenced” in subtle ways. The message to the five major publishers couldn’t be clearer. They took the settlement like most companies would, to take the path of least resistance. It didn’t mean they were guilty, just that they took the option with the least immediate cost to them. The real crime is that the Department of Justice injected itself into the capitalist marketplace with socialist standards of regulation that do not belong in America. If not for Apple and those five major publishers, there wouldn’t be an e-book market. The DOJ is functioning from a socialist economic model whereas the publishers and Apple are operating from capitalism. Apple is not guilty of anything but operating as a capitalist enterprise. The DOJ is operating as a socialist enterprise. The difference between the two is one of philosophy, not function. The Department of Justice view of itself might be more appropriate in China, or in Europe where socialism and communism are practiced much to the restriction of ideas and financial enterprise, but they have no place in America and never had since the concoction of the Sherman Act so many years ago. The anti-trust busting that has been so publicly advocated by the government is simply the actions of a gang of thugs who want to shake down the profit makers of a capitalist economy under the guise of “equality.”
Every American should be outraged by the attack of the Department of Justice against the Apple Company. If it can happen to Apple, it can happen to everyone. Microsoft as a company never recovered after their anti-trust case in the 1990s. And now Apple, without the leadership of Steve Jobs to pull them back out of the mud after this incident with the DOJ will find themselves overly, and needlessly cautious toward anti-trust accusations that will directly hinder their marketing strategies, and innovation for many years to come. The cost of this lawsuit against Apple by the DOJ will resonate for the next century in America not in lost competition, but in lost innovation by a company that is among the best that America currently has to offer. The government, as usual, is standing in the way of prosperity, hindering capitalism, and openly seeking to undercut technological growth through a thuggish strategy of short-sighted shakedowns against a good company to appease a blind and stupid mob who democratically elected criminals, scumbags, and despots to enforce laws that they make up as they go to serve only themselves and an ever-expanding government.
To state that Lakota, like most government schools these days, is operating as a deceptive enterprise built upon open manipulation of the taxpaying public and are dangerously malicious is not inaccurate. Lakota has said recently that without levy approval in the fall of 2013, the distinct “will” decline. Those are words from an Enquirer article featuring statements by Lakota Superintendent Karen Mantia who told the school board, “We have balanced our budget but now we’re at a baseline and that is not a good place to be.” This prompted school board president Joan Powell to declare, “We are in danger of becoming a second-class district.” Lakota and its administrators are pushing a 5.5 mill levy for the upcoming November 2013 ballot which will raise the taxes per $100,000 in evaluation by $192 based on the premise that they have cut, and cut, and cut till they can’t cut any more, and if they cut any more, every citizen in the district will suffer. Well, the Lakota members of the administration who have said these things are guilty of deception, manipulation, and malicious action, because there is a very important factor that they did not reveal to the public in these levy talks which they did discuss in the same newspapers at the start of the 2013 year. However the issue is a bit complex prompting me to explain the situation with one of my bullwhip economic videos. Check it out. I explain to Lakota what they should already know themselves. I use a bullwhip to cut a soda can in half as a proper metaphor to what is in Lakota’s employment future.
The cost of the levy for the average property owner is quite excessive. The figures I used in the above video were off the top of my head, which I refined further below. Most homes in the Liberty Township/West Chester area are well over $200,000 each. The tax increases on homes per year at $200,000 with voter approval of a new Lakota levy will be $384 per year. At $300,000 a year, which is not at all uncommon, the taxes will be $576 more per year. And at $400,000 which is quite the standard in Wetherington, Beckett Ridge, and Four Bridges, the tax increase per year will be $768 per year. But that’s not all. Commercial property is taxed at the same rate as residential property. Buildings that are valued at $5 million will go up on that one building $10,000.00 in additional taxes. Buildings valued in this range are typically small strip malls housing several small stores and that cost will be passed down to the 5-7 tenants, who are all small business owners. Their costs per year will increase about $2,000.00 each, and that’s tough on people with small margins and continuing rising costs in other areas. In many cases, a tax increase like what Lakota is proposing could shut the doors on many small businesses operating at minimum margins.
The assumption by the government school of Lakota who does not have to do anything performance wise to obtain their profit margins except beg for tax increases, is that if residents can afford a home that is $300,000 to $400,000 in value then they can afford to pay a little more for a tax increase to “help the community’s children.” They also believe that a property owner with a strip mall or restaurant that is $1 to $5 million in value will happily absorb an extra $10,000 in yearly taxes because they are already “rich.” What’s a few thousand dollars to a “rich” person? As ridiculous as that sounds, it is precisely how the administrators of Lakota think, and those who jump on the bandwagon to support the levy. This is why I call them Lakota Levy Zombies, because they mindlessly pursue tax increases without considering what the impact of that increase will have on the people who pay it.
But worse than anything is the carefully concealed study performed by the McKibben Demographics group who co-conducted an enrollment study for Lakota late in 2012 at a cost of $20,000. The results of that study indicate that by the 2022-23 school year Lakota will have lost 2,300 students due to declining enrollment trends. What this means in terms of jobs at Lakota is that the staff will have to be cut by at least 85.1 teachers who would normally teach 27 children per class. By 2022 Lakota will have to reduce their work force to meet those new enrollment needs. Over the next 10 years Lakota will save $5.1 million in just teacher salary at an average wage of $60K per year. That does not consider all the six figure administrators that Lakota will not need to manage those 85.1 teachers. Lakota will have to close down school buildings and consolidate resources that could easily save between $10 million and $15 million dollars without cutting a single program to the community just because the enrollment numbers will be less. The projection numbers at Lakota were over 18,000 students during the 2010 school year but will decline to 14,950 by the year 2022.
In addition to those numbers Lakota’s treasurer Jenni Logan stated that Lakota has lost 672 students to other public, community, or private schools, which is a trend that is likely to continue. Lakota has over the last couple of years taken away busing because their tax increases did not pass. They have also cut electives for students, and they have raised sports fees. Parents have reacted by voting with their feet and simply leaving. Meanwhile Lakota administrators continue to brag about the “tens of millions” of dollars they have cut out of their operating budget attempting to sell those cuts as a “sacrifice” to the quality of their education service, but in all reality, the cuts have been on par with the reduction in enrollment. In just the last couple of years from 2010 to 2012 Lakota has seen a drop of around 1000 students. By 2015 the enrollment numbers will be around 15,913 and continuing down from there. If Lakota continues to complain, and sell themselves as ineffective, more people will vote with their feet and simply leave the community taking their children with them, exacerbating those numbers further. If that happens Lakota could see a yearly enrollment of 10,000 by the year 2020.
The cause of the decline in enrollment according to Mckibben is that the population in the Lakota district has aged. Over the next 10 years most homes will be those of empty nesters as the current average age of the Lakota resident is 40.7. McKibbean explained this trend to the Lakota school board at a January 28 2013 meeting by saying, “You have a very high graduation rate and very high post-secondary participation rate. Your kids graduate, go off to college and don’t come back.” However, McKibbean declined to finish that statement. He didn’t want to insult the people who paid $20K for his study after all. The reason kids don’t come back to the Lakota district after they graduate college is simple, they can’t afford to. A twenty something with an average college debt between 50K and 100K cannot afford to purchase a home in the affluent Lakota community where average homes range between $200K to $300K. I know this first-hand because I have children in this age group, and they have moved back to Lakota to buy a nice home of their own in that price range and they looked all over the Cincinnati area for the best opportunity. They are unusually successful as a professional couple. They were able to buy a home in the Lakota district. They are unlikely to use the Lakota school system to teach their children, however they are tax payers in the community. But most young people their age are so saddled with debt; they can never hope to make enough money to purchase a home in that price range. This means families with children who might want to use the Lakota school system will not be able to afford to move into the community because property values are so high. Only successful adults with grown children will be able to continue living in the Lakota district. That is what is driving the Lakota enrollment decline.
Yet, even knowing this information, Lakota’s administration is ignoring it choosing instead to pick and choose their facts. They want to give their teachers who average in salary over $63K per year a raise when the collective bargaining agreement with the union is up in 2014. They are not planning for any reductions in force, or even working their salary structure to meet the community budget established through the election process. Instead, they are relying on fear tactics to win over voters which is dishonest, and negligent. Fear tactics like saying “Excellent with Distinction” (at Lakota) is in jeopardy without new tax money. We are in danger of becoming a second-class district.”
Without context the situation is complicated at Lakota, which is why I explained it with a bullwhip economics video. Most people take these professional government workers at their word which is a mistake. People are too busy in their lives to compare the notes of what was said in the media by Lakota eight months ago and what they say now after they examine Lakota’s need for more tax money not due to economic conditions of the Lakota community, but the administration’s own desire to cave under the union demands for a collective bargaining agreement in 2014. To say anything other than the truth is misleading and after all that we’ve been through at Lakota the administrators still think the taxpaying residents are too stupid to see through their sham. The facts of the matter is not that Lakota needs a tax increase, but rather they need a major employee reduction of nearly 100 teachers and administrators over the next 10 years. They should be able to achieve such a reduction with tax decreases over the next decade instead of the other way around, but they will never utter such a truth—because that’s not what they are about. As government workers they want to do one thing, and one thing only, to grow jobs through government off the backs of tax payers never putting their eyes upon reality in a hope that the formula will never collapse on itself. But the formula is in serious jeopardy, not just at Lakota, but every school district in the country that is filled with an aging population that isn’t having as many children as they once did, and the children they do have aren’t making enough money to support the tax demands of the growing government. The recipe for disaster is upon us, and is just now beginning to be seen in the embattled land of Lakota, in Liberty Township/West Chester, Ohio.
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Recently I stated that I was in open rebellion against the “establishment” and felt that a real definition was required so that the objective can be known. We need to know what the establishment is exactly? When the “establishment” is identified as a villain what is it that we are considering? Who brings it forth, and why? Where does the semblance of impoverished drabness which always follows the establishment come from–the tired routines, the stagnant monotony of the so-called “cultured activities” from the movie screen, to literature, to the allegedly intellectual publications? Anyone is still free to say, write and publish anything that they please in America, yet men and women keep silent as their culture perishes around them from an entrenched, epidemic of institutionalized mediocrity. Why? That is what we need to understand before we can rebel against anything. I encourage you dear reader highly to watch every one of these videos. If you love yourself you’ll do it. If you love your children, YOU’LL DO IT!
In 1971 the National Institute of Mental Health granted Dr. B.F Skinner $283,000 to write a book called Beyond Freedom and Dignity. The book argues that entrenched belief in free will and the moral autonomy of the individual (which Skinner referred to as “dignity”) hinders the prospect of using scientific methods to modify behavior for the purpose of building a happier and better-organized society.
Beyond Freedom and Dignity may be summarized as an attempt to promote Skinner’s philosophy of science, the technology of human behavior. His conception of determinism, and what Skinner calls ‘cultural engineering’.
Skinner invented the operant conditioning chamber, also known as the Skinner Box.[7] He was a firm believer of the idea that human free will was actually an illusion and any human action was the result of the consequences of that same action. If the consequences were bad, there was a high chance that the action would not be repeated; however if the consequences were good, the actions that lead to it would be reinforced.[8] He called this the principle of reinforcement.[9]
He innovated his own philosophy of science called radical behaviorism,[10] and founded his own school of experimental research psychology—the experimental analysis of behavior. His analysis of human behavior culminated in his work Verbal Behavior, as well as his philosophical manifesto Walden Two, both of which have recently seen enormous increases in interest experimentally and in applied settings.[11] Contemporary academia considers Skinner a pioneer of modern behaviorism along with John B. Watson and Ivan Pavlov.
Skinner discovered and advanced the rate of response as a dependent variable in psychological research. He invented the cumulative recorder to measure rate of responding as part of his highly influential work on schedules of reinforcement.[12][13] In a June 2002 survey, Skinner was listed as the most influential psychologist of the 20th century.[14] He was a prolific author who published 21 books and 180 articles.[15][16]
The direct result of Skinner’s work was that it began to be accepted in public schools the tendency of some students to be “hyper active” in relation to other students and that this behavior should be identified and turned down so that the collective whole could function better as an institution. Skinner of course justifies this by his term ‘cultural engineering.’ Not many people read Skinner’s book at first except the “academic elite” who would then postulate politicians at charity events, fund-raisers, and other social occasions on the merit of the esteemed Harvard professor and his studies into social behavior, and how they could then be corrected in young people starting in public schools.
Eventually after a decade or two of such postulating the criteria for ADHD began to take root in public consciousness as “established practice.” After all the studies came out of Harvard! Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD, similar to hyperkinetic disorder in the ICD) is a psychiatric disorder[1] or neurobehavioral disorder[2] characterized by significant problems either of inattention and/or hyperactivity and impulsiveness. These symptoms must emerge before twelve years of age for a diagnosis to be made.[3] There are three subtypes of the disorder: predominantly inattentive (ADHD-PI or ADHD-I), predominantly hyperactive-impulsive (ADHD-HI or ADHD-H), or the two combined (ADHD-C), which shows all three difficulties. Often people refer to ADHD-PI as “attention deficit disorder” (ADD), however, the latter has not been officially accepted since the 1994 revision of the DSM. ADHD affects school-aged children and results in restlessness, acting impulsively, and a lack of focus that may impair school performance.
Inattention, hyperactivity (restlessness in adults), disruptive behavior, and impulsivity are common in ADHD.[19][20] Academic and social skills difficulties are also frequent.[19] The symptoms can be difficult to define because it is hard to draw a line at where normal levels of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity end and clinically significant levels requiring intervention begin.[10]:p.26 To be diagnosed as ADHD, symptoms must be observed in two different settings for six months or more and to a degree that is greater than other children of the same age.[21]
The symptom categories yield three potential classifications of ADHD—predominantly inattentive type, predominantly hyperactive-impulsive type, or combined type if criteria for both subtypes are met:[10]:p.4
An individual with predominantly inattentive-type may have symptoms including:[22]
Be easily distracted, miss details, forget things, and frequently switch from one activity to another
Have difficulty maintaining focus on one task
Become bored with a task after only a few minutes, unless doing something enjoyable
Have difficulty focusing attention on organizing and completing a task or learning something new
Have trouble completing or turning in homework assignments, often losing things (e.g., pencils, toys, assignments) needed to complete tasks or activities
Not seem to listen when spoken to
Daydream, become easily confused, and move slowly
Have difficulty processing information as quickly and accurately as others
Struggle to follow instructions.
An individual with predominantly hyperactive-impulsive type may have symptoms including:[22]
Fidget and squirm in their seats
Talk nonstop
Dash around, touching or playing with anything and everything in sight
Have trouble sitting still during dinner, school, and story time
Be constantly in motion
Have difficulty doing quiet tasks or activities
An individual with predominantly impulsivity type may have symptoms including:[22]
Be very impatient
Blurt out inappropriate comments, show their emotions without restraint, and act without regard for consequences
Blurts out comments better left unsaid (not always innapropriate)
Have difficulty waiting for things they want or waiting their turns in games
Often interrupt conversations or others’ activities.
According to the “establishment” some children, adolescents, and adults with ADHD have an increased risk of experiencing difficulties with social skills, such as social interaction and forming and maintaining friendships due to impairments in processing verbal and nonverbal language. About half of children and adolescents with ADHD experience rejection by their peers compared to 10–15 percent of non-ADHD children and adolescents. Training in social skills, behavioral modification and medication may have some limited beneficial effects. The most important factor in reducing emergence of later psychopathology, such as major depression, criminality, school failure, and substance use disorders is formation of friendships with people who are not involved in delinquent activities.[23] At least, according to the “establishment.”
In other words the threats to the established order that the government paid “B. F.” Skinner to write about in his book Beyond Freedom and Dignity is children who have “compliance” issues as listed above in the diagnosis for ADHD. Psychiatric professors with grants of their own using Skinner’s work as their foundation proceeded to frame their work to fit their grant criteria, which was to nudge their testing results into the direction of Skinner’s work, which is proven to have the ability to obtain federal grants for their intuitions of learning.
Very indirectly, the statist federal government has shaped and created “established” thought about the roles that government schools should have in superseding parental authority into making children into subservient within the schools of which the education institutions have a monopoly. In just a few short decades using the grant system and federal funds to gain power over local authority, the federal government has shaped the thoughts and minds of an entire American population into believing that their hyperactive, imaginative child fidgeting in their chair day-dreaming too much is actually sick, and needs to have their minds turned off so that the entire school can function better under rules of statism established by college professors eating out of the palm of the federal government with $283,000 checks to write books for the academic class to slowly, surely, become the new generational authority from which everything else will follow. This is the process that creates “the establishment.”
That is what I mean by rebellion and what the target is. It’s not people, political parties, or even buildings in Washington. It’s the philosophy that supports them all with beliefs that are detrimental to the cause of liberty and desire for every living life to function from free will.
It is impossible to have any kind of republic which is the governing principle of The United States if the people who make up that republic are not intellectually engaged. There is no way to elect representatives to the republic if such disinterested manner is placed on elections. The fault of this social awareness of course falls on the education system which has failed to ignite in the minds of the youth any interest in such things, even though a passive interest in the affairs of the American Republic is more important than learning mathematics, English, or even general history. Instead, schools have allowed their teacher unions to lobby law makers into watering down the education curriculums into radicalism against American tradition to fulfill progressive strategies—the same kind of strategies that have destroyed Detroit in the present day. The public education system chose radicalism focused on social issues over republic representation of quality as a teaching method. The result is a society of lost minds who do not know what to do with the facts of our day. A vast majority of the American public is disconnected—and happy to proclaim it, because their public school institutions have taught them that such a social position was good.
I remember what it was like in public school and I hated every moment of it. In my entire 13 years of attending I can’t remember a single day that I enjoyed. At an early age I had the deep suspicion that the teachers wanted nothing to do with any truth. They were intent to reshape minds into a direction guided by some invisible hand that went by the name of “legislators.” The reason I didn’t enjoy school was because I liked my mind, and didn’t want it shaped by anybody but me. I remember feeling this way even in kindergarten. Naturally teachers didn’t know what to do with me because I wasn’t following the “formula.” So I was in trouble all the time and being much more stubborn than they were, I held out like an inmate in a prison for 13 years always looking for that graduation day where I’d be free of them once and for all.
I could tell many stories about my public school days, but the short of it was that I was always in trouble, my parents were constantly called with attempts to shove me in some direction which I continuously resisted. I was constantly grounded as a student at home because of my rebelliousness at school making the experience a miserable one for my young mind. And all along, I had a very keen understanding of what I was resisting. I was resisting the tendency to be a social buffoon. As I moved into high school the pressure escalated and I pushed back even harder and a lot of people were hurt. Once I was able to drive and have a job of my own, the groundings at home, the constant peer pressure at school to be a mind numb debacle for the human race began to subside a bit because that long desired goal of being free of the public school system was near. To let “them” know they had not beaten my mind into submission I routinely wore a sport coat to school with a tie to let the statist know that they had failed utterly in their breaking of me—and I relished the audacity. The constant detentions, the threats, the many, many trips to the principal’s office, the calls to my parents, the attempt to pit other kids in the school against me had all failed spectacularly and I enjoyed seeing the looks of disappointment on their faces.
Back then I had a USA Today newspaper delivered to my first period class which I carried around with me and read throughout the day. The newspaper was a window to the outside world. It was like a light through the window of a prison cell that was way too small for me, and I enjoyed reading about disruptions in the Middle East while the students around me were passing around love notes to each other declaring how drunk they wanted to get at the next Friday night football game. I had a few friends, and they thought like me for the most part—people brought together by common values. In some cases those friends were intellectually smarter than the rest of the administrative staff with genius level intellects, and in some ways other friends were physically superior to even the best athletes, and were heavily recruited to play sports for the school which were declined out of sheer rebelliousness. At the Friday night football games my friends and I would sell those same stupid kids cases of beer out of a car trunk saving them the disgrace of trying to buy beer from a convenient store only to be turned away by a clerk who carded them. I enjoyed this because it allowed me to punch back at society from two fronts, I was thumbing my nose at the laws politicians made for underage drinking, and I was violating the stupid policy of letting the school believe football games were anything but an excuse for the kids to get drunk. This would go on right in front of the school administration and the police both of whom had no idea what to do about the practice. I had learned at an early age the hypocrisy of statism and knew that there was nothing they could do to me. They had already punished me in every way possible for over a decade, and as a young high school kid I was making as much money as most of the kid’s parents between all my jobs. Earning money was my freedom from the statism of public education, and the first minute I could do it, I did. I mowed lawns, worked as a bus boy at an upscale restaurant for tips, and started dating girls who were in their mid-twenties when I was 15 and 16 who would then buy the beer I could sell to the high school kids. Around the time I was doing all this the Tom Cruise film Risky Business came out and when I went to see it, I realized that I was living that life, except more violently.
My motives were to use capitalism to escape statism, and as a kid who grew up in the 80s under President Ronald Reagan, that was at least possible. As I look around at kids today, having raised two of my own and meeting many of their friends, I don’t think they even have those same opportunities. Instead of reading a USA Today, kids at least have the internet on their phones to escape from the statist environment, but instead of reading about current events, they keep their minds on entertainment related topics. For me I was able to beat my captors by being smarter than they were. And when that didn’t work, I was more willing to resort to physical confrontation than they were. It was no secret then and it’s no secret now. I still live by those same rules—because they work. As I look at the public education system now, I am sure there are kids trapped there like I was, but even lack a president to admire. Most of them have been put on Retalin or some other drug to numb their active minds, as public schools have found that the way to beat students like me was to get them on mind numbing drugs so early that nobody knows what kind of genius they could become. They call this these days ADHD. I openly campaigned for Ronald Reagan in the 7th grade when the other students were busy contemplating which bands were good over others, but since him, there hasn’t been a president that young people could even get excited about.
For me the fight against statism has always been present. I fought it then as a captor stuck within the system. Upon my graduation traveling back from UD arena in Dayton I passed the future superintendent of Lakota schools on I-75 south, a man who tried to pin me down with every trick known to the book of school administrators. I slowed down to match his speed and look him in the face. My friend sitting in the passenger’s seat toasted him with a beer. Between him and me we were living the movie version of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. The future superintendent had tried to catch me time and time again for doing something wrong and often I would do things just to prove to him that I couldn’t be caught. On that day now that I was free of them, I slowed my car down behind his speed and dropped back about 200 yards. Then I gunned the engine to my Pontiac Firebird and flew past him on the highway at 110 MPH. I drove by him so closely that my passenger’s side mirror almost hit the mirror on his car. I maneuvered so closely to him because I wanted the air from my car to rattle his at that high-speed. Many reading this will wonder why I was so aggressive about this maneuver, and those that came before, and many that came after. Because I hated him, I hated the school, I hated the administrators, and I hated the system they all represented. For many, hate is a strong word, but for me, hate is the correct term. I hated him, and I wanted him to know it.
I hated that system then and I hate it now because it produces the kind of people who can watch a city like Detroit die of progressive philosophy without feeling an urge to defend the city from the parasites. There is no fire in the minds of the people Matt called on the air, because that fire was put out by their public schools, and that is why I hate them. I like to see fire behind the eyes of human beings. I like to see energy, passion, and imagination, and too often those elements are destroyed in children before they get out of their first year of kindergarten. Some manage to retain some of those traits and not be destroyed completely, but virtually all lose massive amounts of their future potential in those first two years of public school. I didn’t know in the early days why I fought, but just knew that I should. I am proud now that I have a grandchild to say that I have never yielded to statism, and I never will. But it always makes me sad to see so many lights out in the minds of mankind. And Detroit, as Matt proved, is bankrupt and morally lost not just because they ran out of other people’s money to give away, but because the light is out in the minds of the residents—a light that was put out during their years in public education.
This is where the fun begins. Justin after his testimony went on the air with another friend of mine Matt Clark of WAAM Ann Arbor, Michigan to speak about the treacherous actions of the IRS and the results of the hearing. There is a level of anxiety among some in this modern rebellion who fear that the IRS scandal will be swept under the rug with the large brooms of the establishment. But Justin understands that these things take time as he and Matt discussed the nature of the IRS investigation and the pursuit of justice on WAAM radio.
Below is the rest of that interview as Matt went straight into the MSNBC clip referenced. Jay Carney hoped that he was in friendly territory on the progressive network, but even there the hosts can see through the treachery of the IRS scandal for what it is, and things didn’t turn out well for the White House spokesman. It is a shame that only a few people in the country watch MSNBC and missed this important broadcast. Luckily Matt Clark is always watching as a fevering instrument of festering rebellion, he uses his vast media and technical knowledge to save the Republic one broadcast at a time. Few remember that during George Washington’s handling of America’s first rebellion from the time of his major victory in crossing the Delaware to the magnificent victory at Yorktown four years of hard war transpired. There were many heartaches during that revolution such as the winter at Valley Forge and betrayals most epically displayed by Benedict Arnold–victory did not come easily. Guys like Matt Clark and Justin Binik-Thomas understand how long it takes, and they diligently chip away day by day.
Meanwhile Justin continued on with his media parade informing all what had transpired at the hearings. Below he appeared on Fox News with Greta Van-Susteren where he has become a frequent guest. On these broadcasts Justin wisely kept his tongue reserved yet gently blew on the winds of liberty with a keen understanding of what he’s doing and how long it takes for rebellion to take hold. The aim of this rebellion is not armed conflict of course, but is strictly in the pursuit of justice which has been deeply suppressed by the modern progressive establishment.
But after the cameras were turned off and radio broadcasts ended, Justin took a moment to vacation in the heart of capitalism in America where the blood of rebellion pores most keenly, Gatlinburg, Tennessee and once there he visited another friend of mine, Ron Johnston. Justin was an early reviewer of my novel Tail of the Dragon which was written by me with the intention of modernizing Thomas Pain’s efforts who wrote pamphlets during the first revolution. Ron is the guy who ignited my imagination to write the novel. I’ll make no bones about it, I not only intended to blow on the flames of liberty to help them spread–I wrote Tail of the Dragon to throw gasoline upon that fire. After reading the book Justin had this to say:
Rich – Your book is exceptional. The race/chase scene had me on the edge of my seat.“Tail of the Dragon” is a dynamic action-packed thriller seamlessly integrating love for America, homage to our history, and true liberty. We ‘live’ it first hand through a NASCAResque race through the hills of Tennessee and North Carolina – a trip that captures the hearts of the citizens and even the President of the United States
– Justin Binik-Thomas, Owner, Conservative Media Group
What all these people have in common besides a love of liberty is their love of Tail of the Dragon. Ron Johnston loved the book and upon reading it instantly gave me rights to use the name he created for the title to my novel. Matt Clark as a modern-day youthful media wiz references the book often during his radio broadcasts as he has read it many times enjoying it more each time as the complicated themes come together more thoroughly each time. And Justin after all that he had been through, who is also a lover of Tail of the Dragon, sought refreshment in the land that I described in the novel from the battles with the progressive establishment. After reading the book he wanted to visit the actual place with his family, and it appears to have done everything he had hoped.
It gives me great pleasure to know that the “establishment” does not like my book which is fitting because I don’t like them. As the author of Tail of the Dragon I did not hide my feelings about the “establishment,” nor my love of rebellion. But people like Justin, Matt, and Ron do love my book and there are more and more every week that are discovering that rebel rousing work for themselves for the first time, and like Justin, they seek to make a pilgrimage to the actual spot to see what all the fuss is about. Once they get there they discover that the Tail of the Dragon where Ron Johnston has his store is the heart and soul of the liberty movement and it is there that the pulse of American independence can be seen most clearly in a land far removed from politics where the residents are not afraid to show their disdain for intrusive government and nanny state politics.
It brings my mind great comfort to know that the story of Tail of the Dragon is touching so many with profound impact. It was never my intention to have a traditional novel that dominated popular culture on the New York Times charts for a few weeks then faded off into obscurity not long after. Rather, I always hoped to touch the minds of youth with the story of Rick Stevens and provoke there a desire to join in rebellion against establishment politics and the stagnation that lives in those fecal waters. Witnessing Justin’s one week journey from a mutual friend in an Ann Arbor, Michigan radio show to the sharp mountains on the North Carolina/Tennessee border the common thread for all involved was a love of Tail of the Dragon the novel, and the spirit of rebellion that is its central message. A rebellion that is not only justified, but mandated as the necessary means to bring joy to the human race globally as this second revolution is not just about a few colonies in a New World, but the entire earth. It is time to stop allowing philosophies that don’t work to harm innocent people with tyranny and social compliance that is detrimental to their very souls. It is time to behold a philosophy of freedom that will finally bring the world peace and prosperity—but it will not be easy. Those who want to maintain the current establishment wish to continue this suffering because they profit from it. It is against those people who this new rebellion is directed, and the means to the end are outlined in my novel Tail of the Dragon, that is slowly building up a nation of freedom fighters to their Yorktown moment. And I love it!
Boorman was not new to the Tail of the Dragon area. When he was 8 years old he spent some time just to the south when his father was filming Deliverance on the Chattooga River. The plot of that famous adventure film was three Atlanta businessmen were intent on seeing the fictional Cahulawassee River before it was turned into one huge lake. Outdoor fanatic Lewis Medlock takes his friends on a river-rafting trip they’ll never forget into the dangerous American back-country. The Chattooga River (also spelled Chatooga, Chatuga, and Chautaga, variant name Guinekelokee River) is the main tributary of the Tugaloo River. Its headwaters are located southwest of Cashiers, North Carolina, and it stretches 57 miles (92 km)[1] to where it has its confluence with the Tallulah River within Lake Tugalo, held back by the Tugalo Dam. The Chattooga and the Tallulah combine to make the Tugaloo River starting at the outlet of Lake Tugalo. The Chattooga begins in southern Jackson County, North Carolina, then flows southwestward between northwestern Oconee County, South Carolina, and eastern Rabun County, Georgia. Charley’s father directed the film with brutal honesty and a sense of adventure that has never been duplicated and is a film classic. But Deliverance isn’t the only film shot in the area. Hollywood is well acquainted with the Tail of the Dragon.
To those coming from the North Carolina side, the Dragon begins at Fugitive Bridge with a view of the Cheoah Dam where Harrison Ford jumped in the movie The Fugitive. It ends 14 miles across the mountain at the Tabcat Creek Bridge in Tennessee. From Fugitive Dam US129 climbs through The Slide, a steep series of “S” curves where one would not want to meet one of the tractor-trailers that comes this way at times. The road then levels and straightens until a series of curves approaching the Crossroads of Time, one of the main hangouts for visitors. Next is Deals Gap and the Tennessee State Line. For the next eleven miles most people just remember curve after curve after curve and the run of their lives.
In addition to the 1993 The Fugitive, three other movies have been filmed along this road. The first feature film made on US 129 was Thunder Road. This 1958 Robert Mitchum film about backwoods moonshining had scenes at the power line easement at about mile 4.5 on the Dragon map and you can see the old wooden “safety” posts on the corner. A few of the posts still remain.
Part of the 1971 classic movie Two-Lane Blacktop was filmed on the Dragon. There are scenes of the state line sign, some of the curves, the old Esso Gas Station, Crafton’s Motel and Café, along the Little Tennessee River and the original single lane bridge at Tapoco Dam. These scenes are at the end of the movie. Then there was In Dreams (1998) with Annette Bening which was filmed on Moonshiner 28, Tapoco Dam and Calderwood Dam.
Charlie’s love of adventure would become a global endeavor and began with a father who directed one of the greatest adventure films of all time in the mysterious land which became the modern-day Tail of the Dragon that is synonymous with classic Hollywood adventure films. So it was a bit of a book end that he would return to that area after all his globe-trotting escapades to see my friends Ron and Nancy Johnston at their Tail of the Dragon store. In that store Ron has on the wall the story of how Deliverance was filmed in the area prompting Charlie to autograph it for all visitors to see in the future. When I came up with the kind of personality that became Rick Stevens in the novel Tail of the Dragon I thought often of people like Charlie Boorman, but were not as fortunate as Charlie to be born into the entertainment industry where eccentricities can be openly explored. Boorman has had opportunities that many men struggle to gain and he has not squandered them. My character of Rick Stevens is one of those types who has the adventurous soul of a Charlie Boorman without the Hollywood connections to allow him to embark on such grand adventures. Rick Stevens because of his limited options takes the first opportunity that came his way—a political coup between governors in a run for President of The United States. Adventurers always find a way and don’t uses excuses as a crutch.
My son-in-law and I are still planning our trip from Alaska to the bottom tip of South America but if Charlie beats me to it more power to him. I will enjoy his wonderful documentaries on the subject as I have enjoyed all his work. Doing my own share of long distance hard riding, and riding a motorcycle every day even in snow, heavy rain and below freezing temperatures I have a grand appreciation for the work that Charlie and his friend Ewan have done for the sport of marathon motorcycle riding. Charlie Boorman is the kind of man I wish there were many more of, a kind man, a passionate man, but more than anything a man who plays at life-like a kid yet with the intellect of an adult. He is the kind of man who every young child should hope to grow up and become.
For the second time in a month allegations that a Lakota West High School teacher conducted improper contact with a student surfaced. The Enquirer deserves credit for the story as they reviewed the personnel records of Lakota and discovered Robert E. Supinger, a former long-term substitute teacher at the Butler County high school had allegedly kissed a student and took her to meet his parents while he was employed by the Lakota school district.
The important thing to understand about this case is the date of the offense. Lakota did not reveal the details which were happening in parallel to the George Merk case. The impropriety occurred during the 2011/2012 school year and was finally resolved in December of 2012 by the Ohio Department of Education. The Merk offenses occurred during March of 2012 right after the much publicized cuts to the staff in February of 2012 because of the failed levy in 2011.
It appears that the teaching culture at the Lakota school system is one of excessive sexual preoccupation. The amount of sexually related offenses is not a coincidence, but comes from the day-to-day management of their occupational affairs. As Robert E. Supinger was only 25 years old, he was still nearly a decade older than the girl he was parading around to his parents as an employee of the Lakota school system, which shows extremely bad judgment. That begs the question of why Supinger was teaching high school level kids, and who made that decision. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for Supinger to learn the teaching profession as a substitute in the middle schools where the children are much younger? Wouldn’t it make sense to have teachers who are “older” instructing high school aged children?
It can be speculated forever why so many public school teachers seem to be obsessed with sex involving their students. Yet the worst part of this case is that Lakota has had two sexually related scandals which they attempted to conceal, and were only revealed because The Enquirer did some digging to discover the information. It should be clear now why Lakota cut a deal with No Lakota Levy to delay a school levy attempt in 2012. When Channel 19 called me to do a story in June of 2012 I thought the timing was odd and Lakota seemed awfully eager to make such a deal. Now the timing makes more sense. Robert Supinger had just gotten into trouble with inappropriate conduct with one of his students and the district wanted to put time and distance between them and their next levy attempt once the Ohio Department of Education had finished their investigations. Lakota had two sex scandals happen close together and they wanted to suppress the story. If The Enquirer had not dug through the public records, the tax paying public would have no knowledge of these offenses and parents would have absolutely no idea what kinds of employees Lakota was employing. They’d be forced to take the school’s word for it, which is of course is misleading 100% of the time.
Parents assume when they send their children to school that the teachers aren’t going to attempt to engage in sex with the children no matter what the age of the teachers. Teachers are supposed to “teach” not “date” the students. Lakota stated regarding Robert Supinger that they had terminated the employee immediately, yet they didn’t publish the results in the flowery newsletter that the school sends home with the kids advertising the need for more money for those same teachers. When I went to Homearama this year and browsed through the booth that Lakota had set up at the home building show the school did not reveal how their human resources team had taken evasive action to discharge sexual predators from their classrooms in order to protect the children of the “community.” If The Enquirer had not dug through the public records the public wouldn’t have any idea that Robert Supinger had even been disciplined for anything. The case would have been swept under the rug like so many other stories that are related to public education.
The question is obvious—how many teachers at Lakota are engaged in sexual enterprises with the students of their classrooms? And how many such stories are being suppressed by the public relations machine the Lakota administration spends so much tax money on? The answer is becoming known little by little as diligent reporters discover what many disheartened parents have attempted to break open for years, that Lakota may be a good school with an excellent rating, it may have a good football team, and may actually prepare students for a life in college. But that preparation may not be academic. It would appear by the behavior of Lakota schools that their teachers are overly sexual in their focus and intent to prepare students for the next college party, instead of a competitive workplace that expects good conduct and at least the illusion of sexual restraint. Lakota acts as though their management conduct is acceptable and maybe it is for the Zombies of Lakota who vote continuously for school levies to pay for teachers who simply want to seduce tax payer’s children with flights of fantasy in their classrooms. But for me, and many other people who are voting NO on the upcoming fall school levy, these employees are not worth the money. If we wanted this kind of behavior at Lakota we’d simply recruit the teachers from a whore house.
It may seem unfair to public schools to measure the behavior of their teachers off so many cases of bad conduct. But they bring the scrutiny on themselves. Every couple of years most public schools constantly ask for tax increases promising that by spending the extra money communities will make themselves stronger by being able to employee better teachers. Then school districts hire public relations staff at tax payer expense to spin the school’s position in favor of maintaining high public approval so that levies can be passed when schools desire the money. So when bad things happen which cannot be controlled by media handlers, the tax payers have a right to know, and to cast their disapproval in the direction of public education. That is what has just happened in the Northwest School District.
A grand jury indicted science teacher 36-year-old Julie Hautzenroeder on two counts of sexual battery. According to court documents, Hautzenroeder engaged in oral sex with one boy and intercourse with another between April 26 and May 15 of 2013. Both teens were students at the school, and one boy was a 10th-grader. Parents who know the teen said the case also involved marijuana smoking, Hautzenroeder was escorted from the school in early May and placed on leave before the end of the school year. She had been employed by Northwest Schools since July 2006.
Sex, or sexual misconduct by teachers at this point is well-known and appears to be normal in public education. Just a few short weeks ago Lakota had a case that finally became known to the public after a year of debate. Lakota West High School math teacher George C. Merk was placed on a 45 day license suspension beginning over the summer months because he had inappropriate sexually related text messages with his students. CLICK HERE FOR REVIEW. It is no surprise that Julie Hautzenroeder desired to use her position of authority to fulfill sexual fantasies with her students using marijuana smoking and various degrees of sex. These teachers know that unless they do something really outrageous and get caught doing it; their teacher’s union will protect them so they don’t worry too much about behaving in a positive fashion. In the case of Merk he was suspended over the summer when teachers were off anyway–so much for punishment. With Hautzenroeder it took a grand jury for the teacher to be removed from the job as she had been on paid leave since the scandal first broke on May 15. It literally takes getting caught red-handed with massive evidence to lose a job as a teacher because the unions are so strong. There is simply no telling how much of this sex is going on as the behavior appears to be rampant—which is why schools require public relations staff to control the scandals from public scrutiny.
But here’s the worst of it. It was only November of 2012 that the same school district Julie worked for was going for a 4.95-mill five year emergency operating levy to generate $7.3 million annually. During the levy campaign the school declared to the community that the tax payers were paying for quality schools that would bring quality to their community—the same nonsense that is uttered in every public school district. But what is never discussed is that a majority of the money raised was going directly to teacher salary. When the levy was passed, the superintended posted the following on their Facebook page celebrating their win at the ballot box.
A note from the NWLSD Superintendent:
We won! Or more accurately, congratulations- you won! This victory was all about our community members taking a stand and saying: We not do want any more cuts. We want to maintain the wide array of outstanding programs that we offer to our students.
We want our students and staff to be able to work together without fearing the loss of programs and jobs. We want our community to be proud of the programs that can offer in our schools.
I am sure that a lot more will said about this levy victory, but for today we only need to do two things. First, we need to thank all the staff, students, parents, community members and businesses who helped pass the levy…… then we need to celebrate- this was a decisive victory for our community, our students and our staff.
Within five months of that election victory Rick Glatfelter had one of his employees bringing students to her home for oral sex, standard sex, and pot smoking. Glatfelter obviously had no control of the school employees off the Colerain property yet the arrangements were made at his school by his employee with students he was responsible for and he obviously has failed to maintain a high standard of conduct that the community he proclaimed to represent can be proud of. Without question the superintendent will declare that he did what he could with Julie Hautzenroeder as the union had his hands tied. As soon as he could he removed her from class, but the damage had already been done. The events leading up to the sex at her house, the in-class flirting, the whispers from the other teachers, the gossip of the other students were not acted upon because the union has management’s hands tied into inaction.
All management at public schools can do is throw more money at teachers like Julie Hautzenroeder and hope that everyone behaves. If somebody gets caught, then public relations specialists can bail out the district as Lakota attempted to do with the Merk case which finally came out a year too late. In all reality nothing will happen to Merk—he’ll be teaching at the start of the 2013/2014 school year in spite of his bad behavior and without question Hautzenroder thought she’d skate along with the same disregard for her job that showed incredible arrogance and disrespect for her employers, the tax payers of Northwest Schools. Her way of thanking the voters for approving the recent school levy was to sleep with their children and get stoned.
With the reckless attitude displayed in public schools by the employees at all levels, it is amazing that they have the audacity to even use such language as “quality,” “community,” and “excellence” when describing the services they offer to the community. Any gutter trash of a human being can do what Julie Hautzenroeder did. But the public schools have no way of removing such parasites off their payroll once they are hired leaving the question to ask, why didn’t Rick Glatfelter say as much during the levy attempt of 2012? Well, the answer is that he was hired for one thing at Northwest Schools, and that was to pass a tax increase, which he did. That was why he was able to sleep well that night of the election. Most superintendents in Ohio are former teachers themselves and they know of many situations like the Julie Hautzenroeder case. Their job is to run cover for the unions to protect their former profession from public scrutiny while finding new ways to wrestle from the community the money needed to pay the outrageous wages demanded by collective bargaining contracts. At the time Julie lost her job she was making right around $50,000 a year only working at the district since 2006. With payroll so high and the union so strong the only management that Glatfelter could perform is to throw more money into the community pot so that the teachers good and bad alike could pillage from it like ravenous wolves upon the taste of blood. Once the money was secured, and the teachers could relax a bit on their public image campaigns during the levy periods, they were back at doing what they enjoyed doing best—surrendering their sexual urges to logic in drug induced indictments against the community that employs them with a secret smile on their faces daring anybody to confront their illicit behavior which is much more known than anybody will dare admit.
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.
One of the most satisfying aspects of my life is in being the facilitator of rebellion. That is what is going on these days; it is a full-blown rebellion against the establishment that has controlled the American people subtly. I don’t like that “establishment,” and along with many others we are forming up against it to rebel. The extent of this modern rebellion became known to me recently when a friend of mine, Justin Binik-Thomas testified in front of the chairman of the House Policy and Legislative Oversight Committee. The hearing was located at the University of Cincinnati College of Education, Criminal Justice and Human Services on July 25th at 1 P.M
In a lot of ways Charley Boorman was the inspiration for my novel Tail of the Dragon. My son-in-law, Paul is from England and made me aware of Boorman’s infamous Long Way Round, and Long Way Down television series featuring mammoth motorcycle rides around the world and across Europe to the tip of South Africa with his acting friend Ewan McGregor. Recently my friend Ron Johnston ran into Charley as he came to the Tail of the Dragon to ride it at night in the rain. 
