Tag: education

Who are the Three Percent: Being a shepherd and the sheep

Somebody reminded me recently of a little factoid that I already knew, but hadn’t thought about in a while. Before there was ever a Tea Party in America there was an organization called the Three Percent, which was a reference to the amount of people who fought and won the American Revolution against England. The term is important as it indicates a truth to the winds of change that is pertinent to our times. In the modern media driven culture hell-bent on socialism and various aspects of democracy where majority rules, the Tea Party is viewed as irrelevant because it does not represent the masses of our society. Yet history proves time and time again that history is not shaped by the masses, but by the leaders who are often in the extreme minority. In this case pertaining to the Revolution and the modern Constitutional movement the term Three Percent is relevant. Here is how the actual group, the Three Percent describe themselves on a 2009 website—followed by the link to their material.

The Three Percent in 1775.

During the American Revolution, the active forces in the field against the King’s tyranny never amounted to more than 3% of the colonists. They were in turn actively supported by perhaps 10% of the population. In addition to these revolutionaries were perhaps another 20% who favored their cause but did little or nothing to support it. Another one-third of the population sided with the King (by the end of the war there were actually more Americans fighting FOR the King than there were in the field against him) and the final third took no side, blew with the wind and took what came. Three Percenters today do not claim that we represent 3% of the American people, although we might. That theory has not yet been tested. We DO claim that we represent at least 3% of American gun owners, which is still a healthy number somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 million people. History, for good or ill, is made by determined minorities. We are one such minority. So too are the current enemies of the Founders’ Republic. What remains, then, is the test of will and skill to determine who shall shape the future of our nation. The Three Percent today are gun owners who will not disarm, will not compromise and will no longer back up at the passage of the next gun control act. Three Percenters say quite explicitly that we will not obey any further circumscription of our traditional liberties and will defend ourselves if attacked. We intend to maintain our God-given natural rights to liberty and property, and that means most especially the right to keep and bear arms. Thus, we are committed to the restoration of the Founders’ Republic, and are willing to fight, die and, if forced by any would-be oppressor, to kill in the defense of ourselves and the Constitution that we all took an oath to uphold against enemies foreign and domestic. We are the people who the collectivists who now control the government should leave alone if they wish to continue unfettered oxygen consumption. We are the Three Percent. Attempt to further oppress us at your peril. To put it bluntly, leave us the hell alone.

http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2009/02/what-is-three-percenter.html

I have for many, many years considered myself in an even more elite class going well beyond the Three Percenter types. In my family the push has always been to be a 1% percenter, not in measure by fiscal buying power, but by intellectual aptitude. I have absolutely no desire to be in step with the rest of society—but rather several decades ahead of the current democratic driven trends. So it’s not hard for me to feel an affinity for those who consider themselves in the Three Percent.

The philosophic stance between of the Three Percent and the modern Tea Party led by people like Glenn Beck and Matt Kibbe is where I’m at. I don’t feel a need to proclaim violent action against an out of control government because I think any of them can be easily beaten with intelligence. Conversely, Glenn Beck is a bit too evangelical for me—a bit too soft-spoken. I understand why he’s the way he is, but he’s too soft for my sentiments. But I’m with him on most things, and I admire the vigor of the Three Percent. If things get out of control, I would be ahead of the Three Percenters in resistance. However, I have little faith in the competency of government to even organize such a thing—so I don’t entertain much in the way of options in that direction.

The point of the matter is that minorities are what shape the future. It currently is a small minority of radical leftists who are shaping the modern world of politics starting with George Soros and trickling down of money to puppet politicians like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. They are in the minority, yet they behave as though they have always been in the majority—democratically speaking. They have committed a ruse—but they are vulnerable to the same tactics—which is what they have been seeing over the last decade. Even with all the George Soros money spent advocating on behalf of socialist/progressive policies—the gains they have made have been limited and the pendulum has swung toward groups like the Three Percenters and the Tea Party to show guidance away from the left-leaning minority domination of the national message.

One of the most frequent criticisms that I see leveled at my work is that it only has an appeal to the minority—in most cases one percenter types who are even more vigilant than the three percenters, or the more general and soft minded Tea Party types. An angry leftist will write me with proclamations that the masses are not behind my view points and suggest that I should abandon them in favor of a more popular view. I have a long history of this type of resistance and my hatred of public education can be traced back to my firm belief in going against the grain of popularity. For instance, when I was a kid it was very unpopular to like the popular Star Wars films in school. Showing an open love of those movies were guarantees at social castigation—even though privately most people enjoyed the films. I took great joy at stepping on the school bus with my Han Solo shirt on and feeling the parade of insults cast at me to make me want to change my behavior. The more the other kids threw insults at me, the more deeply into my convictions I planted myself. When verbal insults didn’t work, kids would resort to physical violence, which did not work with me—at all. I had some rather memorable fights in school which taught kids that they were best off to leave me alone. Meanwhile, I wore my Han Solo shirts well into my high school years and never stopped moving into adulthood.

Thirty years later, which seems like a long time, but it was only a few election cycles—Star Wars is openly enjoyed by just about everyone. Nobody looks sideways at me when I wear my Han Solo shirt out somewhere with my grandson. People actually respond favorably to it. The new movie, Episode 7 The Force Awakens is projected by the Hollywood Reporter to hit over $2 billion in global revenue during its upcoming Christmas run. I personally think the number will be higher, but it’s a start. It’s not that people all of a sudden started liking Star Wars—it’s just become suddenly fashionable to publicly say so as the years have traveled toward us. I knew when I was a kid that Star Wars was something special and I was certainly well within the 1% percentile who publicly stated it—proudly. It was quite a shock when I had a chance to date a girl in the 8th grade who was the most attractive girl in the school—and I gave up on that date to play Star Wars with a bunch of geeky kids who were younger than me. A lot of people thought something was wrong with me. Society in general didn’t understand. But I did, and that’s all that mattered. So I told the girl no and instead spent that Friday night in the basement of my parents house with four other kids playing Star Wars all night—and it was a lot better than a date with a pretty girl. Believe me. Pretty girls mostly come with rules aligned toward social values current to the day. They expect their boyfriends to get along and like the ordainment of their peers. Those are rules I was never willing to deal with. Star Wars was much better, and it still is. Trust me kids, after tens of thousands of sexual experiences—Star Wars is more rewarding.

Since those days I have felt the same pressure for a hundred million different issues, but I generally handled them all the same. I do what I know to be right in spite of what “society” thinks is correct. If the issue is controversial, so be it. Some of the worst and most violent fights I’ve had were when my wife and I were the only two people in a Mason neighborhood who were against the teenage drug dealing that was going on in front of our house. The issue got so out of control that the mayor of Mason had to get involved as the entire police department had turned against us—because they didn’t want to deal with the issue. Talk about pressure. We had the same kind of social rebuttal when we home schooled our children for a time. That was hard as everyone turned against us socially. It was harder than wearing a Han Solo shirt onto a hostile school bus full of rough neck kids from the Gregory Creek trailer park. If you wore a KISS shirt you were cool and didn’t get picked on. If you wore a Star Wars shirt, you got picked on bad. Put your kids in public school, and sign them up for every sports program available and you will be the star of your neighborhood. Home school your kids and you will be ridiculed. Publicly endorse all the modern big government entitlements and the news outlets will paste your face on every station. Stand against them, and you will be seen as a scourge on progress. But as we know, Star Wars is now popular—by virtually everyone, and the liberty movement has now migrated beyond the typically three percent of the population. It takes a leader to see these events way ahead of the masses—it is for the masses to follow the leader. There isn’t a cell in my body that desires to be a follower—to be a mere lamb in the flock herded by a wise and knowing shepherd. I only want to be a shepherd and typically only around three percent of an entire population feels the same way.

While many from the masses bulk at the topics on this site, I am certain that within twenty to thirty years—just like Star Wars—these topics will be popular among the masses. They hide their feelings now—those masses, but deep down inside they support them—they just don’t feel confident to proclaim those feelings in public. Three percent of the population understands that, and they are typically ahead of the masses. So there is no reason to bend the will of the leaders to the masses of any society. Because eventually, the masses will catch up to the leaders—and everyone can’t be a leader. Only the rare few—and it is among them that the world hinges. There is no other way—the only difference is in knowing what type of person you are. Sheep need to be herded—and they like it. Shepherds do not—and among those shepherds are the Three Percent.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Black-clad Lakota Teachers Against Merit: A system only designed by Lucifer himself

 

It would be a comedy if it wasn’t reality, but sadly it is. The Lakota teacher union is at it again—thinking incorrectly that everyone in opposition to their radical community expectations have gone back to sleep. Foolishly they exposed their true agenda with the same old tired tactics that belong in a lampoon film. They are a satire of themselves. At a recent school board meeting they protested the school board over the issue of merit pay, which I immensely support. The mere mention of merit pay gives me hope that the Lakota school board may actually do something correctly in relation to management of their employees. Merit pay means that good employees get paid better than bad ones—it’s pretty much that simple. For example, a teacher my kids had at Lakota East, Mr. Duff I would have considered an exceptionally great teacher. I wouldn’t care if the school paid him $200,000 per year, because he was worth it. However, the many teachers from Lakota reported by this site that were caught in various scandals and poor choice behavior recently clearly aren’t worth so much money. They may have value in some education capacity, but certainly are not equal to Mr. Duff. The Lakota teachers are a progressive organization under their LEA union leadership and they believe in strict collective bargaining or nothing—meaning all boats rise to the top regardless of the quality of their employees. Because of their insistence on this collectivize bargaining/no merit pay formula the budget tax payers are forced to fund is outrageously high. Lakota like every organization should be functioning under the 10-80-10 rule, which generally cites that roughly 10% of a work force are exceptionally good—like Mr. Duff and should be compensated accordingly. 80% are average and should make wages in accordance with their meagerness. Then the bottom 10% are the child molesters, the sexting addicts, and general bottom feeders who should be on the chopping block of termination upon their first mistake. The union helps those bottom feeders while penalizing the top by minimizing their worth as equal to the lowest 10%. Here is how my old buddy Michael Clark reported the issue in the Cincinnati Enquirer. The complete article is at the end of the segment. Read it while you can—because the Enquirer starving for revenue takes these articles down not long after they are published. Typically articles like this one are forgotten in a few weeks, and during the next levy attempt, we’ll want to remember it.

LIBERTY TWP. – In the middle of key Lakota Schools’ contract talks, dozens of teachers made a symbolic but silent appearance Monday night in the union’s first public demonstration since negotiations began.

About four dozen teachers – many of them clad in black – joined a full audience at Lakota’s school board meeting as labor talks continue this week for Southwest Ohio’s second largest school system.

Some of the teachers say they are concerned about the possibility of merit pay being contractually installed for the first time in Lakota’s 59-year history.

“I’d like to see more positive changes for teachers here in the future, but I don’t think merit pay is the way to go,” said Brandon Bright, a science teacher at Lakota East High School.

Sharon Mays, president of the 923-member Lakota Education Association (LEA), declined to comment about union members’ appearance at the board meeting or on the status of the contract talks, which began last month.

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2015/04/13/talks-continue-lakota-teachers-demonstrate/25743561/

I read the comments at that link from some of the teachers and they were even funnier than those idiots standing outside of the administration building dressed in black for emphasis fighting merit pay. They have an opinion of themselves that is much higher than their real value. They are spoiled brat public employees who work, think, and have expectations on par with the most grotesquely out-of-touch IRS employee. They have no sense of service, but somehow believe that the community works for them instead of the other way around. No wonder so many children raised in public education environments over the last two or three decades enter life feeling entitled to everything—because they learned the behavior from these idiots!

Public teachers like those at Lakota own the problems of our modern age–the sex driven antics of youth, the low morality, the poor ethics, and the terrible work habits. Union employed teachers have successfully offered free baby sitting to lazy self-absorbed parents making the public school the primary driver of youthful upbringing and it has been a disaster. Public schools do not get a free pass when everything goes wrong—they don’t get to point at the parents and call them names to justify the poor home lives of children. The public schools offered themselves as a substitute and they failed—at best.

But why did they fail–the public schools like Lakota? Well it’s because the teachers have collective bargaining agreements and step increase schedules that give them money no matter how good of a teacher they are. So bad teachers are kept around and considered equal to the top ten percent, and the really good have no incentive to continue being great, because they get paid the same as the slugs working next to them. The public school system is the epitome of Karl Marx communism. It’s just not called that by name, but the assumption that all employees are equal is taken straight out of the text of The Communist Manefestro. Public education is a joke. Exceptional employees are looted of their value in favor of the weakest and most demonstrative. Values in such a system are re-distributed to those without it, just like wealth in the community which funds the whole mess. The public education system might as well have been designed by Lucifer.

Lakota to their credit as an administrative measure have thankfully listened to the complaints over the years—and are considering merit pay—which would go a long way to solving a great many of the problems at that district. But it’s a drop in the bucket and the unions instantly jumped all over the issue with protest. All they really managed to do was to show just how grossly out-of-touch they really are by protesting in this day and age—after all that’s happened at Lakota—in such a dramatic fashion. Really? They know I’m not going to let it die and will bring it up from now until infinity—yet they did it anyway.

I suppose they figure they have the votes for a new levy, and they think nobody reads Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom just because they don’t and don’t hear me on WLW radio any more. But they’d be wrong. The stat numbers on my site for the topic of politics is quite high, and daily provides information to those not quite up to date on things. Most people miss Enquirer articles like the one above the first time around and only care during elections. Since the Enquirer charges for their information people turn to sites like this one. Because of Overmanwarror’s Wisdom, during the next election when people Google “Lakota teacher salary” or “Lakota election” articles like this one will come up. Then they may know about the Enquirer article, they’ll have access to the quote I provided, but they’ll click on the link and discover that the link no longer works. So they’ll read my site instead of the Enquirer and form their opinion based on the data given.

It used to be that teachers union scum bags and merit pay protestors only had to bend the ear of reporters like Michael Clark from the Enquirer or the Pulse. But media has changed over the last five years. If it’s not on Twitter, nobody will see it. People don’t read traditional news any more, and they care even less about some story about black clad Lakota teachers written by a reporter eating out of the hand of Sharon Mays. But come election time, they’ll find me, and will ignore the flowery newspaper articles that always come out prior to an election—just so that papers can sell advertising back to the school through direct and indirect sales. When they do read this article in the upcoming years voters will remember what a bunch of idiots the Lakota teachers were over merit pay. Once they do, they’ll become an informed voter and will cast their ballots as such.

Meanwhile, the Lakota teachers participating in that protest are satirical limericks of personal destruction—they are caricatures of sanity pasted against the theater of time apparently solely for our amusement. Because no truly sane person would argue against merit, unless they are a thief wanting to steal while nobody is looking. But guess what? Everyone is looking—and they are wide awake.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Vote No on the Midpointe Library System: Philosophy and the changing way of expanding knowledge

I am against the MidPointe Library System in Butler County, Ohio for all the same reasons I am against school levies. Even though I tend to love people who strive for knowledge and desire to feed minds with information, the quality of those efforts can cast people adrift all of their lives ruining them, and a library in many subtle ways contribute to that personal destruction. Before detailing why and how, here is the case that the MidPointe Library System makes for itself looking for more money from voters during the upcoming May 5th 2015 election.   Essentially to make a long story short, they make the same arguments that public schools make, helping the children, offerings to the community, and all that kind of nonsense.

The MidPointe Library System will have a renewal levy on the ballot on Tuesday, May 5.  Please find information regarding this levy, as well as why the Library is asking for continued community support below:

Something for Everyone in the Community

With current funding levels, the MidPointe Library System is able to provide many resources, materials, services, and programming to the residents of eastern Butler County. 

MidPointe offers a collection of over a half million items, and partnership in the SearchOhio lending consortium gives patrons access to over 16 million items from across the state. In 2014 over 2 million items were checked out. Additionally, MidPointe provides internet access and public computers to assist people in finding jobs, accessing data and doing school work.

In 2014, MidPointe offered over 2000 programs.  These are as diverse as yoga class and technology instruction for adults, to storytime and early literacy book clubs for children.  The Library’s Summer Reading Program, which promotes literacy for all ages, reached record involvement last year, with nearly 10,000 patrons participating. 

MidPointe’s influence expands well beyond the buildings. Librarians visit schools and community centers to engage young people in the joy of reading. Educators are able to stock their classrooms with books as a result of MidPointe’s “Teacher Collections.” The MidPointe Outreach Services Department delivers materials to over 200 patrons who are unable to physically visit the Library.

Library Budgeting

For the past two decades, Libraries in the state of Ohio have faced reduced funding.  In 2008, the most drastic of these cuts occurred and as a result, the Library had to dramatically reduce hours, services and staffing.   For the first time, the Library approached the public with the possibility of a .75 mill levy to supplement operations.  The voters of our Library district passed the levy, which represents almost 40% of the MidPointe budget. Overdue fines and fees only represent 3.25% of the Library’s overall budget.

The overwhelming majority of the Library’s expenses are devoted to collection development and public service and programs. Administrative costs represent only 12.5% of overall expenses and the MidPointe Library System has continually been recognized as one of the most cost-effective in the state. 

Levy Details

  • The levy on the May 5 ballot is a renewal. This is not a new tax.
  • Levy funds make up 40% of MidPointe’s budget.
  • Levy Millage:  .75 mill
  • Length of Levy:  5 years
  • Cost: The cost of this levy to the owner of a $100,000 home is approximately $22.97 a year(less than the cost of one hardback book).

Levy funds will:

  • Maintain services and materials at all MidPointe locations.
  • Continue to provide current technological resources to the public.
  • Allow for sensible expansion in our growing community.
  • Sustain programs for children, teens and adults.

 

 

http://www.midpointelibrary.org/news/renewal-levy-information/

Essentially they simply want more money to continue a practice that is rooted in socialism. I have never liked libraries because I have never liked sharing my books. I like buying them, and owning them—collecting them like treasures to be guarded by me as part of a life’s journey. It has always seemed wrong to “borrow” a library book from the library where they maintain “collective” ownership. The concept of a shared resource is disgusting. Library books are routinely abused because nobody owns them and are reflective of the type of society that is not centered on personal responsibility and individual ownership.image

I have not been to a library for years. In my community within my little network of a neighborhood I have one of the best libraries in the entire country, the West Chester Library, yet I never, ever use it. I would not borrow a book or movie from them, because I don’t want to use someone else’s stuff. However, I go to one of two Barnes and Nobles book stores about two times a week. The children sections in both of those book stores are tremendous services to children and show how much better private investment is in constructing the mind of young people. The book store in Newport, Kentucky is just fabulous and is still one of my favorites anywhere—which is pictured within this article. It is a temple of knowledge and I love it—yet it is struggling to stay afloat in the changing climate of online offerings. Unlike the MidPointe Library System, Barnes and Noble cannot ask for a tax increase to stay afloat in a changing economy. So they have to adapt—where libraries are doing the same things they always have—and they lose a lot of money because of it. They are essentially money pits and their offerings to the community are not beneficial as they pretend.

The job of teaching children to read falls on the parents or less directly, the extended family members of a child—aunts, uncles, grandparents and so on. Not a socialist librarian or volunteer who has a subtle agenda of encouraging sharing as opposed to ownership. The world of a capitalist society like the United States is rooted in ownership—not sharing. When something of value maintains its worth because someone owned it and cared for it, it is then valuable to someone who might want to purchase it for their own. Libraries encourage sharing and while that might sound good on the surface—the mentality created from this exchange of ideas often leads to various acceptances of degrees of socialism—like public education, public housing, public assistance and so on.image

From the book shelves at Barnes and Noble in Newport, Kentucky in my favorite section—the philosophy section—the two primary competing ideas regarding philosophy are on full display—because that is what people are buying. Amazon.com can provide obscure books within a few days and at a great price. Barnes and Noble put on their shelves titles that sell. All the other sections in the book store, politics, fiction, and cooking, current events—etc, all stem from the philosophy section. People think the way they do and are attracted to some things rather than other things based on their personal philosophy, so I see it as the most important section. In the various schools of thought in Western philosophy everything is basically built off two individuals, Plato and Aristotle. In the east it is Confucius, which leans toward Western Platonic thought. What that translates to through a long line of philosophic thought is essentially Karl Marx and Ayn Rand. imageI certainly lean toward Ayn Rand—yet I think her Objectivism is limited to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and that there will be new schools of thought stemming from her Objectivism that will have to encapsulate the bizarre behavior of quantum mechanics now being discovered. But Karl Marx has been a failure and is a dying philosophy that will either be extinct within the next two hundred years, or it will destroy our civilization. I have no use for Karl Marx in any fashion. Libraries are part of a Karl Marx mentality.image

I love libraries for their historical significance—especially the library in Alexandria. At the time the cost of printing books was prohibitive and everyone couldn’t own a book. So the borrowing of books at a library was the best way to achieve an exchange of knowledge. But that time has passed. Now there are so many books printed that the market is saturated with knowledge. It is easier, and more efficient for people to upload books onto their devices, or just buy them at Amazon.com. Stores like Barnes and Nobel fill the traditional role of a library being a center of learning—especially for kids. But as for motivation into intellectual endeavors, libraries are not a substitute for a good parent or mentor. The reason I don’t go to the West Chester library is because it feels like a socialist utopia to me. But Barnes and Nobel feels like the intellectual center of a capitalist country and I could essentially move into every one of them and be very happy. It is for that reason that I will vote no for the MidPointe levy on May 5th. I feel sorry for them, but they are a dying enterprise that will evaporate under the changing times—and it would be better for them to see that happen now than prolonging the agony. Community isn’t very valuable unless the members of that community believe in an Aristotelian logic as opposed to a Platonic sentiment. A community of socialists is a destructive force, and that will be the unintended consequence of a continuation of the library system in America. It is time for a replacement and it begins with a withdrawal of funds from the black hole of tax increases for which libraries currently represent.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

The Art of Playing: Celebrating life and happiness

imageIt was my 47th birthday today and I spent it in an unusual fashion compared to some, but quite the standard within my family. During it I was reminded of a conversation I had recently with some pretty important and powerful people about the nature of living and how I manage to do so many things at several layers of severity and risk,  but still manage to lay my head down on my pillow each night for sleep without wanting to jump off a roof. It’s a secret that I feel compelled to teach the world, just so that I might remove just a bit of their suffering and change the direction of their life’s focus. It’s a method that everyone would benefit from if they embraced it more and would drop the broken stereotypes of the past—because they don’t work. As a brief intro to the concept please understand that my wife could have given me just about anything for my birthday—a new Apple Watch, an expensive vacation, a dinner at Cincinnati’s exclusive restaurants, even a new car—but what she did give me was infinitely more interesting and fun. She gave me a Zoomer Dinosaur. She has been watching my grandson and he knew what she had bought me, and at just over 2 years old, he couldn’t wait to tell me. So he guided me to where she was hiding it and we opened it up. She didn’t care because he was so excited to see it move. After opening it, we put the little dinosaur on the ground and began playing with it—which set the tone for the entire birthday celebration.

My mother taught her kids how to play, even late in life. Growing up we played a lot and had very diverse interests. My grandmother also played at life a lot and made growing up very fun. Every trip to the grocery store was fun because they made it that way, and as a result I carry that into my own life-even in tragic situations. I try to have fun every day of my life—no matter what is going on. That is a pattern started in my childhood by my mom. My brother and sister have a similar love of playing and as a result as grown adults, they don’t have any mental problems or issues with social interaction. They are not drug abusers of even a slight nature and have no real insecurities of any mention. Now with kids of their own, they are bringing that element of play to their own offspring with very positive results. But out of all the members of my family, I learned to play more than the others and I am more obvious in my dedication to it.

One of my best memories as a kid was when I had to go to soccer practice one evening when I really didn’t want to. I always loved sports, but only the games themselves. I didn’t like all the team work crap—ever, or the social infusion with the community. When my team would win the parents were always excited for some mysterious reason and used the word “we” a lot. Yet they never did anything to help win the game except yell like a bunch of idiots on the sideline. It never made sense to me, and as the years moved on, I stepped away from sports because of the heavy emphasis on team building and derision on individual achievement. If I had different teachers and social influences as a young kid I might have moved into professional sports of my choosing, but because the wrong influences were around me focused on the wrong things, I abandon sports at my first opportunity—as a freshman in high school. But of that wonderful memory, I was at soccer practice, miserable because honestly I had a huge set-up in the basement of my home dedicated to Star Wars and I wanted to be there playing with all my toys rather than running around at soccer practice. It was spring time, my dad was out-of-town on business, and I was hoping to be home so I could have some play time before bed. It was the middle of the week and I had school the next day, so my time to play at the things was short. My mom picked me up from practice and we headed home. Only this was different, my brother and sister were in the car dressed like we were going somewhere, and there was the smell of popcorn from the trunk. I didn’t think much about it until we took a different route home and ended up on roads I wasn’t familiar with. Those roads eventually took us to a drive-in theater in Hamilton that was playing the very first Star Wars movie as a re-release. My mom took us all to see it for what I think was the 7th time at that point. It was wonderful and I cherished deeply every frame of film. During the scene where Han Solo and Luke were rescuing the princess, which is the high point of the film for me, I was sitting in a lawn chair with my soccer cloths still on listening to the echo of all the portable speakers around the drive-in playing the sound of the movie with a slight delay during that specific scene—the clouds were high in the sky and slightly blotting out a big bright moon on a spring night—and I thought about how wonderful life was. It really didn’t get any better than that.

But every day I try to make the day better than that day at the drive-in, and most days I come close. I am always looking for a way to have fun with a situation, and most of the time I do. I avoid people who don’t know how to have fun. If they are depressed people trapped in emotions constructed around neurosis, I usually paint them out of my life for my own preservation. If they can’t keep up, I leave them behind without looking back. I like to have fun, I love to play, and I hate people who don’t know how. I’m happy to teach “happiness” to them, but if they don’t show much of an effort, I drop them quickly. I understand and sympathize that they didn’t have a mom like mine who showed them how to play, even as adults, so I take the time to teach them. But I won’t sacrifice myself to their misery. If they want to be miserable, I leave them to it. I might write an article like this to help show them the way, but I won’t take their burden on myself if they wish to be stubborn about it.

I have known many adults who give Rolexes to their spouses and new cars for birthdays—but most of the time those gifts are laced with a desire for social approval more than developing happiness in the recipient. Behind such gifts is the desire to brag to someone else about the value of the gift, and thus, the amount of social pull that person has in the world of mixed economies. So it means quite a lot that my wife out of all the things she could have given me picked the cute little dinosaur which I think is quite a leap in scientific development. The little sensors in it for a kids play toy are very advanced, and the gyroscope system which balances it on two wheels is quite extraordinary. I could play with it all day and night if left to my own devices. It is intriguing, and intellectually stimulating. I love it!

imageBut of course there was a gathering with my family like we usually do later in the day during my birthday. This year we went to Dave and Busters so that we could……………play…………….as a family. Specifically there is a new video game called Star Wars Battle Pod which is a kind of flight simulator for Star Wars. It is the newest, and greatest of what technology has to offer, complete with a breeze simulator to replicate actual environmental conditions. It has a wrap around screen that totally engulfs your vision allowing you to invest your intellect into the experience without distraction. The food was great, as it usually is at Dave and Busters, but playing Battle Pod was for me the best thing I’ve done for a birthday in years. In my family, most of us are intense Star Wars fans so we loved taking time to play it together. It was a stunning game to play, and fly. I had to reflect back to that drive-in surprise where my mom played like she was just picking me up from soccer practice on a school night, but instead took us all to see Star Wars one more time on a big screen, before it was gone forever—or so we thought at the time. Now, because of Battle Pod, people can play in the Star Wars universe in a way that was only a remote fantasy for someone like me years ago.

At Hollywood Studios my favorite restaurant is the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater. It tries to simulate the drive-in movie experience I had in my youth, with my best memory being that Star Wars outing. There are still drive-ins, but they don’t carry the same impact as they did when I was a kid. Now they are viewed as a cheap alternative to the cinema experience as opposed to a first-rate experience. But when I go to Hollywood Studios, I have to stop by the Dine-In Theater and have a hamburger. It reminds me of that Star Wars presentation after the soccer game, and reminds me of the importance of playing at life instead of taking things too serious.

In reference to the important people I was talking about the best of us realize hopefully before they arrive at 60 years of age that career climbing and ass-kissing doesn’t get anybody anywhere. People are most effective and ultimately better when they retrain, or relearn the art of playing—as they did when they were kids. Typically, I don’t get along very well with people in my own age group, because most of them suffer from socially created illnesses. The people I most get along with are kids and old people because generally they aren’t worried about the ridiculous social rules which construct our network of associations. They would do far better for themselves to spend their time playing with other members of their families than in chasing the tail of someone higher in the peaking order hoping to schmooze their way to the top instead of letting their actions speak for themselves. One of the people I was talking to is a guy I enjoy quite a lot. He has a PHD in an advanced field of endeavor, but has not lost his love of playing. He’s is the grandpa of some lucky grandkids and the father to some fortunate children. Yet he solves problems like they don’t even exist, the kind of problems that might hang up regular people in the related field of endeavor. The difference is that this smart guy never forgot how to play at life, and therefore solves problems the way a child does, with resiliency and creativity. We teach our children to stop doing these things, and that is our first mistake. Instead, we should be teaching them to develop it further and to do so through their infantile 20s and 30s. But until everyone else gets on that page and recognizes that this is the way to conduct their lives—with playing at life for their entire lives—then I will continue to recharge myself the way I have. And for that, the little dinosaur my wife gave me along with Star Wars at Dave and Busters was a wonderful experience that gives me more than anything money can buy–a chance to play.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Duke Wins NCAA Championship: College athletes rising to greatness in spite of institutional failure

United States Senator Claire McCaskill, of Missouri, illustrated without really thinking too much about it a great crisis for many when she tweeted after the 2015 NCAA Championship between Duke and Wisconsin:

“Congrats to Duke, but I was rooting for team who had stars that are actually going to college & not just doing semester tryout for NBA.”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/ncaabk/missouri-sen-claire-mccaskill-takes-shot-at-duke-after-title-win/ar-AAawu1y?ocid=LENDHP

Saturday Night Live just prior to the big game made similar jokes in the same spirit, assuming that college athletes had an unspoken duty to their institutional education as opposed to the financial opportunity of leaving college after one or two years to join the NBA as young millionaires. These points of view are lost to ideology rooted in a hatred for capitalism where the old-fashioned belief was that citizens were supposed to learn a vocation which served society and that was the purpose of the college experience. Instead the perception and accusation is that student athletes were selfishly serving the all mighty dollar and colleges were letting them do it for the big money generated by the popular basketball tournament. The common villain in the whole exchange was money.

This is where the old progressives have failed to understand where they are, and what young people are supposed to learn in college. The NCAA Tournament is all about production, sixty-eight college teams fighting it out for the number one spot. The heroes get drafted into the NBA, thousands of sports bars cash in on a spike in business—beer is sold, chicken wings etc. Advertisers get exposure for their products and schools get an increase in their profile with national exposure—meaning likely increased enrollment in their colleges which then pay the salaries of their staff. There is very little wrong with the NCAA basketball tournament known as March Madness. I’m not even a big basketball fan, yet I find myself enchanted by the festivities every spring.

College as it was conceived is a failure. The thought of shaping young minds into soft-minded government employees is currently failing. Going to college is not the path to a vibrant economy. Fresh, unimpeded ideas are. Too much government restricts the economy so the college experiment failed right out of the gate. Instead of giving their children a better life than they had, lifestyles regressed just two generations after the implementation of a global acceptance of widespread college education. Kids today have been spoiled rotten by parents guilty over their own life decisions and those students are entering the workforce with house payments thrown at colleges’ indebting them for their entire working years. They are arriving at jobs that pay half of what they expected and not having expendable income to help float the economy leaving epic stagnation. Since most of what the colleges taught was progressive values, nobody learned how to do anything but show social sensitivity, because nobody knows anything anymore about anything. That is the fault of modern colleges instituting misplaced values.

One of the only things kids can look forward to is that their college sports team might do well and give them some sense of pride in their alma mater—for all the money they’ve spent on their educations. Lucky kids can use their college years to get a job interview, but it doesn’t do much to prepare those former students for the marketplace of ideas. College was sold as a way to buy success for children—but all it really bought were kids flat lined economically and socially neurotic. They have been molded into dismal human beings.

That is the system that Senator Claire McCaskill and Saturday Night Live defended through their various parodies. It reminded me of my fourth grade teacher who took my class on a field trip to the Cincinnati Music Hall to listen to the symphony play a concert dedicated to Star Wars which had just come out and was grotesquely popular. During the concert slides from the movie were shown on a big screen and kids cheered with the display of their favorite characters. It was a very energetic and positive experience—until we arrived back to our class. Our fourth grade teacher who was just shy of 30 years old at the time chastised our entire class for enjoying the concert. I sat there completely dumbfounded as her reaction was completely opposite to what I was feeling. I had a great time, and so did the rest of my class. I didn’t understand. My teacher went on to say that cheering for the characters on the slides would hurt the feelings of the members in the symphony and that Star Wars was all about making money and success—so it should be shoved aside in favor of “high art.” The same arguments are constantly thrown at the Disney Company, and even Nickelodeon for exploiting children for the all mighty dollar, as if making money was somehow evil. Yet if not for Star Wars would any of those kids have sat through a musical concert featuring a symphony? No.

Colleges would be more successful in capitalist America if they stopped copy-catting off the socialist Europeans and started teaching kids that making money is the most important thing they could learn from college. And under that criteria what is wrong with a freshman basketball player from Duke University leaving school for the NBA the very next year because they are so good that team owners want to make 20-year-old kids millionaires? Even better, college sports often highlight minority children…….there is nothing wrong with the situation. Notice how none of the sports bars around America had angry white men protesting black basketball players covered in tattoos. Nobody cared, everyone picked a team and rooted for somebody giving kids the opportunity to be a star no matter what their background or appearance—and receiving a chance to make more money before they are thirty than the lifetime incomes of everyone watching the games in a BW3s. Colleges, as institutions and the products coming from them have missed the point of the NCAA Tournament completely because they refuse to acknowledge the real truth of what the offering of higher education was supposed to be. People want upward mobility—not just a chance to receive a government check and a pension after age 55, but real, substantive wealth—the kind of wealth that could purchase their own island in the Caribbean.   Until colleges face that music, they will continue to lose in the marketplace of ideas, and will struggle to keep their public image as high as it currently is. If not for college sports, how many Americans would still support college as an option? That is an answer that United States Senator Claire McCaskill doesn’t want to know.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Ayn Rand and Social Security: Confiscated money that is owed eventually

As far as Ayn Rand and her modern footprint into politics and philosophy many on the left have attempted to discredit her based on the notion that she drew from Social Security late in her life. As a small government advocate deeply suspicious of America’s steps toward socialism—which she had fled from, and lost her family to, many progressives have identified her as a danger to their Kant driven philosophy doing whatever they could to discredit her writings using the Social Security issue to lead the charge against the logic she presented. Recently my friend Mark Etterling ran across just such a person on his email musings with the far left and radical nut cases hoping to shut off the world to wisdom, so to disguise their treacherous attempts against righteousness—specifically a strong economy driven by capitalism. Mark presented a strong case in favor of Ayn Rand which I thought was effective enough to repeat below. Many assume that Social Security is a government entitlement when in fact as Mark presents; it’s supposed to be an investment. The distinction is important as Etterling explains in greater detail:

From: Mark Etterling Date: April 5, 2015 at 1:31:22 PM EDT Subject: Moron, expose theyself Reply-To: Mark Etterling

 

Recently I read a Facebook post from a liberal that was meant to be a “gotcha” moment against conservatives and in this case the now deceased author Ayn Rand in particular. Upon reading the post I actually found myself laughing out loud. Not only was this a hilariously bad attempt at painting the right as hypocrites, but was so moronic that the poster had no idea who he was actually insulting.

The post was a story about how the vaunted die-hard capitalist Ayn Rand had actually dared to collect on Social Security in her old age in defiance of her own writings demonizing big government. This is the same tired assault that liberals have tried for years by claiming conservatives are hypocrites for railing against intrusive government up until such time as it’s their own turn to stand in line for some government goodies.

So for the umpteenth time allow me to explain what the half-wits on left just simply can’t seem to grasp. SOCIAL SECURITY ISN’T A GOVERNMENT HANDOUT! Let me put this in simple terms. If you loan someone $100 today and then later return to collect on your loan that doesn’t make you greedy, a thief, a handout recipient, a hypocrite, or any other such non-sense. It simply means that you are collecting a return of what was rightfully yours all along. The fact that the government forcibly confiscates that money from you (and the matching funds from your employer) throughout your working life on the promise of returning it to you later (if you’re fortunate enough to live that long) doesn’t constitute even the remotest concept to anyone above the IQ of a horsefly that it somehow magically becomes a handout.

To prove my point all you need to do is look at your pay stub. You have separate line item deductions for Social Security and Medicare because those moneys are SUPPOSED to be placed in a separate government trust fund so that people won’t foolishly waste all their money before they reach retirement age. The reason I capitalized the word supposedly above is because under this scenario the ugly truth is that it’s been the government all along who has foolishly wasted your money instead as they have basically borrowed and spent against all that money until the actual trust fund is pretty much an empty vault of IOU’s. Personally, as an intelligent adult I would have preferred it if big brother government would have simply butted out of my life so that I could have invested that total of 15% annual matching funds on my own instead of through a glorified government sanctioned Ponzi scheme. However, now that they have it, you can bet your @ss I want it back!

It blows my mind every time I hear some idiot from the left proclaiming that the elderly are better off because of Social Security. In saying that they are not only stating by proxy that all Americans are too stupid to be trusted with something like their own retirement (same thing for healthcare), but completely forget that had the government not interfered the money that was confiscated would have been the people’s money all along (plus interest) anyway. It’s like a thief robbing you and then expecting a big old “thank you” for returning the things they should have never stolen at government gun point in the first place. Here’s another way to think of it for when they ignorantly try to insult conservatives for trying to collect what is rightfully theirs. Is it right that someone should be forced to pay for a meal in advance and then demonized simply because they would now like a chance to eat it before it’s all gone? Honestly, I wish I could think of a stronger word than “moron” in situations like this.

Morons are morons and nothing will ever change that. However, in posting what he posted this particular moron doesn’t even realize that who he has basically insulted isn’t just conservatives, but every American who has worked all their life and is now old enough that they are simply trying to retrieve what was rightfully theirs all along. The checks they are now receiving aren’t government handouts. They’re long overdue reimbursements. Personally, I hope he reposts his article over and over. In doing so he’ll be accomplishing far more to expose his own true self-insulting ignorance than any rebuttal I could ever hope to write.

P.S. As a side note please remember that it was DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Shultz who recently proposed the idiotic idea of having the government confiscate everyone’s IRA’s and 401K’s and using that money to shore up the missing funds from Social Security. As you can see, these people aren’t just simple morons. They’re morons that are hell-bent on ruining all our lives.

Social Security was a stupid idea, and it never should have been enacted. It is an insult to stick the government in between Americans and their so-called retirements. I resent every deduction taken from my paycheck as a theft stolen from me, because the government will never be in a position to pay me back all the money I have “invested” under coercion. I have personal friends who hate Social Security so badly they have essentially given up their citizenship over the issue. One of those friends had began plotting his deferral from the Social Security system in the 5th grade—no kidding. He was a very smart kid and while the other kids were talking about the rock band KISS and the new show on television called The Dukes of Hazzard, he was planning on how to legally refuse his obligations toward Social Security. As an adult, he gave up his citizenship after years of legal entanglement—but—he doesn’t pay into the system, because as he was always right, Social Security is stolen money not granted by an infant when they are issued a card after being registered by their parents. His argument was that his parents didn’t have a right to commit him to a life obligation into such a contract with the government.

The rest of the world isn’t willing to take such extremes, so we just pay into it knowing that its wrong—because we don’t want the hassle of fighting the government—and they know that. My friend had a lifelong crusade against Social Security which continues to this very day—but I have always found it easier to just outwork the money grabbing hands of the government. I have infinite energy which they don’t posses. With me it’s a delicate balance; government knows they need me to be productive to pay their salaries, so they generally leave me alone. But, I have to accept that they will steal a portion of my money every week because they made laws enabling them to do so. I have the same deal with insects in my house. I know they are there in the cracks, but if they come out in the open, they are disposed of. I don’t want to see them even though they are likely hidden in every crevice available. The government takes my money before I even get to see it each week. They get first dibs on my earnings—which is why more Americans aren’t angered by the stolen money because they figure they never had it in the first place. But when it comes time to get that money back—everyone expects it—just like we expect tax returns at the end of each year for the overpayments interest free we make to the government through the same withdrawal system. The idiots who came before us who voted in favor of this kind of thing made a major mistake, and it should be rectified. But until then, like Mark Etterling said in his article—I want my money back at the first opportunity I can get it. And I won’t apologize for wanting it either. It was stolen from me without my permission, and I want every dime back before it’s all said and done. When Ayn Rand needed the money she put into the system, I don’t fault her for getting it. She paid into it, so she deserved to get it back. But, she would have been the first to argue, if the government had stayed out of the exchange in the first place that same money may have made her rich, instead of needing Social Security in the first place. She was more qualified to handle her own money than the government was, and that is the tragedy we all face—at some point in time.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Doc Thompson and Skip LeCombe: The Henry Reardens of talk radio

Doc Thompson and Skip LeCombe on their Morning Blaze radio show have been doing daily wrap-ups for the topics they covered during their 6 AM to 9 AM time slot on a video summary. Below is a sample of their show from April 1st 2015 which I picked because at the end Doc shows off his Rearden Steel t-shirt. The two of them have done a great job keeping a lively and informative broadcast that has become for me essential to beginning my day. Breakfast just wouldn’t be breakfast without Doc and Skip on The Blaze Radio Network.

One of the best parts of the Morning Blaze Show is the police blotters that come on at around ten minutes to 7 AM. Doc reads various news stories featuring police arrests in an old-fashioned style that is laced with rhyming comedy. It takes some work everyday, but they put their time in and do it right leaving me openly laughing during the segment much of the time. The segment encapsulates to what extent Doc and Skip do just a little bit extra above everyone else in talk radio to give their audience something fresh.

Most radio hosts show up on the radio and talk for 1 to 3 hours—take a few calls and essentially read the news to listeners, which for me is a valuable service. But Doc and Skip go just a bit further every day consciously mixing comedy with some rather pointed commentary on contemporary events. They know their subjects and relish in breaking down some of the most complicated topics of the news cycle.

In a lot of ways the Doc and Skip Show on the Morning Blaze reminds me of something that would come out of Atlantis in the book Atlas Shrugged. I know Doc enjoys that book—I wasn’t sure how much over the years he had retained his enjoyment, but obviously he enjoys it enough to wear a shirt featuring it. Ayn Rand for many conservatives is tricky stuff, mainly because she was an atheist, and I know that Doc is a Christian. In my own life, I wouldn’t call myself a Christian, and I wouldn’t say I’m a libertarian—I’m certainly not a social liberal. I’m not loosy goosy on topics of conduct. There is a lot I like about Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism just as I like a lot about the Christian faith as a religion, but neither tenant of thought goes far enough for me. The problem with Christianity is that I love the values, but I hate the notion of surrendering life to a deity in a spirit of sacrifice. Ayn Rand is really one of the only writers to emerge to capture the spirit of productivity and to embrace capitalism as a moral premise. But the religions of the world—Christianity included—are at odds with it. Rand dared to ask why sacrifice was necessary for a productive society, as capitalism is the mode of the creative. If people are creative and make things from their minds, why is sacrifice needed in a culture at all? That is the greatest moral dilemma of our age and humanity is facing it for the first time.

Over the years I have become less religious not leaning toward atheism in any fashion, but in developing a thought process that has the values of Christianity, but the empowerment of Objectivism. Current religions don’t go far enough in my opinion to solve the riddles of our age—and instead stay too far anchored into the past. I want to see more responsibility out of individuals instead of just pointing to the heavens and declaring that God wills something to be done in my life, so thus it shall be done—good or bad. That doesn’t work for me and never has.

Henry Rearden from Atlas Shrugged, the head of the company on Doc’s shirt—was a very self-empowered person, and there is a serious lesson to be learned from that book which should be expanded and promoted in a much greater fashion.   Of those in modern media, there aren’t many like Doc who has not run away from an association with Ayn Rand’s philosophy. He may not agree with everything about Rand’s Objectivism—but he understands the message of personal responsibility that pours from it in defining why some people do things that are really important in life, and why some just become parasitic entities for their entire existence. Without that very important distinction, there would be no proper identification in our art to properly explain why capitalism is important to societies.

Much of what Doc does on his show is paint the world from a vantage point as though he were broadcasting from a real life Atlantis featured in Atlas Shrugged. Viewed through the prism of a person who has read and understood the Ayn Rand classic, the news on the Morning Blaze is unquestionably in that spirit—which is why it has become a must in the morning for me. As the world crashes down around us, there are pockets of sanity popping up around the country that are migrating to The Blaze to live our lives independent of the wrecked economies of socialism, including the embrace of American culture of more European style collectivism.

In my own life I feel like every character who was a protagonist in Atlas Shrugged wrapped up into one person—and I’m living that life currently. I have a little Ragnar, a lot of Rearden, but even minor characters like Richard Halley I understand all too well. In my own work I am seeking to step beyond Rand’s musings, which is now over 50 years old and explore topics spawning off her initial concepts. I am less interested in pleasing the masses of society, and have instead come to broadcast them to a much smaller audience in a metaphorical Atlantis for the same reasons that Halley did in Atlas Shrugged. My Curse of Fort Seven Mile is one of those projects that I know going into it that will not be accepted in New York literature circles, and I don’t care. I write those stories for people like Doc Thompson—not for the pop culture icons of progressive definitions of coolness. Since I read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead I have wanted more to the story, but there just isn’t many writers out there who can write that kind of material with the authority and definition that Ayn Rand did. First of all they lack the experience, but mostly they lack the personal conviction and couldn’t write such a thing in their wildest fantasies. Just as there are a lot of talk radio hosts, there really aren’t any like Doc Thompson who puts forth just a bit more effort shown proportionally throughout his endeavors, like his police blotters.

Doc Thompson could be a talk show host at the level of Howard Stern if he wanted to be. I remember when he was brought to Cincinnati to take over as the primary man on WLW. But Doc has never really played well with others, not where it had to compromise who he is—even if the opportunity for more money and fame threw themselves at his feet. He has stubbornly been like Henry Rearden from Atlas Shrugged and conducted his radio show his way for his own purposes, and it took someone like Glenn Beck to recognize the benefits and to give him a prime slot on a global network. But even with the reach of The Blaze, the primary audience is an extreme minority—like the members of the fictional Atlantis from Atlas Shrugged. For those people Doc and Skip put on a great daily show. To the rest of the world, they are sadly being left behind. Even though the broadcast is easy and free to them, most of the time they will find themselves the butt of Doc’s jokes, instead of on the side of the typical audience member—and laughing intellectually at the follies of the world.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Rich Hoffman Hosting WAAM Radio: Matt Clark’s Honeymoon and Hillary’s destruction of evidence

The news is fresh; my friend Matt Clark at WAAM in Ann Arbor, Michigan is getting married in June 2015, and has asked me to cover for his show while he’s on his honeymoon. Of course I said yes, because I like the station and what they are doing in a part of the country that is typically a blue state. Matt’s show is a shout in the darkness toward entrenched liberalism with their hand firmly on the light switch. Yet Matt does his show each week even though he doesn’t need to financially, just as I do with my blog. The show is an extension of himself in the perpetual fight for freedom. We always have a good time on Matt’s show, which was obvious from the clip shown below where we discussed Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails.

Several years ago I was offered a similar deal at 700 WLW with Doc Thompson just prior to his own honeymoon, which eventually cost him his job. Not because he asked me to fill in for him, but because the station was preparing behind the scenes to get rid of him. After Doc’s termination I more or less cut my ties to WLW and Clear Channel in Cincinnati including 55 KRC. Some of that led to the controversy the following month—they were as eager to part ways with Doc’s memory as I was of them. The other person I was loyal to at WLW was Darryl Parks, and he was not far behind Doc as far as a termination—the station obviously wanted to go into a different, more moderate direction, which did not fit the scope of my concerns. So I drug my feet with Doc because instinct told me something was wrong. I wasn’t sure what, but it was obvious that something was brewing, so I knew to stay away. I turned out to be more than right—as usual.

I have no such concerns at WAAM and have no problem making a commitment to the station even this far out. It will be fun to fill in for Matt, and I’m sure it will make his honeymoon just a bit sweeter knowing that someone of like mind is taking care of his show while he’s traveling. Like me, Matt does quite well for himself so his radio show is mostly a labor of love for the republic that is America. It means more to him to have the show do what he wants it to do while he embarks on one of life’s great adventures—marriage.

As far as the content of the show we did together about the Hillary emails, his take on it comparing her to The Office was spot on. Obviously she is obstructing justice by destroying evidence and covering up her involvement in the death of people who lost their lives because of her actions—or inaction. Her management of the situation in Benghazi led to the death of people and empowered the terrorists in the region on her watch to grow into the threat it is today. We had some fun with it on talk radio because the only other option is to grow depressed about how far we’ve fallen as a nation where the expectations of people in positions like Secretary of State have become simply a stepping stone to the presidency. The message behind the Hillary emails is that no evidence of incompetence would be allowed to be seen to derail that objective of obtaining the Oval Office. Hillary is the ultimate case of why institutionalism is nearly always a failure when individual responsibility is not nurtured.

Hillary Clinton is such a bad person that she will literally stop at nothing to obtain her personal quest for power and prestige—which is gained from collective enterprise and social acceptance. She’s a disgusting person, and is the reason that people like Matt Clark does a radio show every week. There are bad people in the world, and somebody has to call them out on their treachery and on Matt’s show, it’s a way to do that even if the task might seem like a drop in an ocean of corruption. Calling out the actions of one bad act, or even five during the airtime on WAAM is better than allowing them to go unanswered.

So yes, I’ll enjoy hosting Matt’s show. I’m sure we’ll light some fireworks and fire them off in a way that might be a little different. But I know that Matt wants what I do—and that is to save the Republic one broadcast at a time, one blog post at a time, one speech, or sometimes a whip crack all in the name of justice. The books I write and activities of enterprise I embark on are not necessarily for the immediate gratification of financial security—as I am a productive person, and already have those bases covered. They are for a functioning philosophy for the 22nd century. It will take that long to turn back the wheels of progressivism and get people thinking of a new and better way of maintaining and preserving a free republic with an intellectual aptitude that is required to sustain it for subsequent centuries. America has not yet come to those terms—and neither has mankind for that matter. But it never will so long as people like Hillary hide evidence of their incompetence to fulfill personal ambitions rooted in collectivism. The inept and treacherous find it too easy to hide under the covers of collectivism—which is why they support such things, and are often the loudest voices in favor of progressivism, socialism, and communism.

I will promise one thing, and those who read here every day know full well, I will make it count on the airwaves. It may be for a short time, but I will promise to give people something they haven’t received before—just because that’s my tendency when doing things like this. Otherwise, anybody could fill in for such a spot. Since Matt asked me, I will give him what he’s looking for. And for the listeners of WAAM, they will enjoy it immensely.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Rich Hoffman on Matt Clark’s WAAM Radio Show: Why Ted Cruz is considered a radical

I was on with Matt Clark’s WAAM radio show over the weekend covering the Ted Cruz presidential candidacy when a topic of some importance came up—the reason why he specifically is considered an extreme and dangerous radical. This was a topic I have personal familiarity with as those types of terms have been thrown in my direction as well—so I have a clear understanding of why members of the left, center and even the political right cast those aspersions in the direction of their foes. Matt and I talked a bit about these issues in the following clip.

Speaking from personal experience, and I imagine Ted Cruz went through this in a much grander fashion, I remember when I first started this blog and why. I had come out openly against a new tax increase in my school district and the union thugs instantly targeted me with name calling and searched deep into my closet looking for skeletons they could use against me—to keep my mouth shut. That made me very angry. I have dealt with much worse in regards to evil people before, but it was clear to me why they were doing what they were doing and I had to imagine how many like me were forced into silence with such terror tactics. I was in a unique position, as a bullwhip handler and long time Wild West enthusiast with a martial art background I am uniquely suited to deal with personal threats to my safety and those of my family. I didn’t have to worry about personal violence against me. I am also not a social climber in a community fashion or in a career—so I don’t worry an ounce in what people think of me. But more than anything I have lived a life consistent with my utterances and I have a long history going back to my earliest childhood memories of standing up to bullies, fighting on the side of a well-defined, “good,” and being uniquely bold in my proclamations. At the time just before this blog I considered that I was likely one of the few people in America who didn’t have skeletons in his past that he was ashamed of—there were no stories of whores from wild weekends in Vegas, no drugs from my past, no personalities who would emerge to call me a hypocrite—I have always been what I am, and was always extremely proud of it. I have been consistent in my beliefs from the time of my first memory to the present. The conclusion was that the battle before us was worth fighting and I was qualified, so it was my responsibility to embark on the journey.

This position is important because much of what the political left does to disarm those who threaten them is apply guilt as a tactical move to shake off their opposition. All of their Saul Alinsky tactics center around using guilt as a weapon of perpetuity constantly moving the bar of righteousness further toward their tactical objectives—which have largely been shaped by a Karl Marx philosophy. The way to beat them, and to do so badly, is to force them to fight people who don’t feel guilt and are immune to their tactics and thus force them to answer questions that they can’t—because their entire premise is one built on emotion. If their opponent does not feel guilt and cannot be moved off their position, the left and center political radicals lose a lot of their tactical advantage.

That has largely been my story and the essence behind Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom, the blog I have written for over five years now—every day.   I know from experience that there isn’t a single person on the left, or middle who can match my efforts and I use my ability and position like a sledge-hammer against them day after day gradually pulling the mind of America back to the right—where it has always belonged.

At the start of the above radio show I joked a bit with Matt that I was politically to the right of Ted Cruz—that the new presidential candidate is likely too far to the left for my liking. The joke is that Cruz is clearly one of the most conservative right leaning candidates running for president in 2016. However, in reality, I am likely quite a bit further to the right fiscally and socially than Ted Cruz is—and I don’t consider myself a right-winged extremist by any means. Many on the left have tried to paint people like myself as part of the Nazi wing of fascism—which is simply laughable. Hitler was a socialist—and I am the complete antithesis to people like him. I am probably one of the least fascist people currently on earth. Such a definition doesn’t even meet a unit of measure on my political spectrum because such a position is still way too far to the left for me. I don’t want to control anybody. By default, because I’m a responsible person, I do have a lot of people who look to me for means—but there is never a day where I take joy and contemplate how I might leverage them to my advantage so that I might massage some intellectual desire to rule over others.   So the typical left-winged definition of the extreme right-winger is completely wrong and does not apply to me in any way. And I know that they don’t have an answer for it, which is why there aren’t more comments on my pages—because I can put up millions of words of opinions and thoughts about a great many subjects and they can’t answer to any of them. They can only ignore you and hope you go away.

Ted Cruz likely is a similar personality and he had to make the decision before entering the senate if he wanted to even play this game with the left. He appears to have went through the same process I did and decided that he was a personality that could handle the scrutiny, would not be subject to the bribes and deals from K-Street, and would be poised to stand in the fire like a block of ice and not melt under the heat. The big fear from the left about Cruz, as well as the right, is that they will have a hard time matching up to him. Cruz brings to the field of candidates a difficult match up for which the left does not have—a person who can function without an ounce of guilt and is therefore immune to the Saul Alinsky style attacks.

As an added bonus Ted Cruz was a champion debater at Harvard and may well be one of the most capable minds currently in the world who can go toe to toe with anybody on any rhetorical argument—including the slickest beltway lawyers. Ted Cruz will likely give thousands of interviews over the next two years and will have very few gaffs.  His confidence alone will win voters who either didn’t vote in previous elections or convert those who are on the fence.

In the Matt Clark interview I brought up my experience with the Ross Perot campaign from many years ago—in 1992. I had been deep in that campaign and learned a lot about politics during that time of my life. I was on Fountain Square in downtown Cincinnati passing out literature for Perot when most people came up to me and showed an interest but stated that he didn’t have a chance of getting elected—so why vote for him. The problem was that if everyone who wanted to vote for him actually did, Perot would have been president instead of Bill Clinton and the disasters of the next century would have likely been averted. But people didn’t vote for Perot, and they received eight years of the Clintons, another eight years of the moderate Bush family, then eight years of a socialist oriented Barack Obama—and now an America going over a fiscal cliff as a result. All that damage could have been avoided by voting for Ross Perot who wasn’t even as well positioned as Ted Cruz is now.

Perot was a candidate who likely went through the same process I went through and undoubtedly Cruz underwent as well—which is why it took him so long to announce his candidacy which ultimately hurt him down the stretch. Perot was able to tear up Clinton and Bush in the debates because he was functioning without guilt and that made him very dangerous to the established powers. Cruz is a better candidate than Perot in every capacity—so this should be exciting. What will get accomplished are things that must be addressed. There is no option at this point; America needs a presidential race that battles out the philosophy of good and evil once and for all. And for that fight, Ted Cruz is uniquely poised. It will be an exciting two years for sure to watch the left and political moderates scramble to hold their positions without the weapon of guilt at their disposal. My prediction is that like this blog, they won’t be able to do it—leaving Cruz to always be the last man standing in an argument. That is not a way that the establishment can hold onto power. And they know it—and they are genuinely terrified—as they should be.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

The Obamanation: Just too embarrassing to discuss

I don’t like Obama, I think as a president he’s an idiot, and he’s at best one of the worst things that’s ever happened to America. But today I actually feel sorry for him. It would be terrible to live in his shoes, to have such an intellect that has led to so much destruction—and to be solely responsible for it. What a mess his presidency is—its not even dignified enough to have a closure as Nixon did—with a resignation ahead of impeachment. Obama’s time in the White House is such a miserable failure that it can’t even end with dishonor and an apology. He is so bad that such things wouldn’t even help.

“Was it worth it?”

That’s the first question Fox News host Megan Kelly posed to State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki on Wednesday night, several hours after the U.S. Army announced they were charging Bowe Bergdahl with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. The Obama administration released five Taliban commanders to free the former Army sergeant from captivity last year.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/03/25/megyn-kelly-gets-tough-with-state-dept-spokeswoman-on-bergdahl-swap-was-it-worth-it/

I hate to say it, but I reported on all this in 2014 when Obama brought the Bergdahl family to the Rose Garden for a press conference as if his actions in releasing a very controversial figure would give him a chance to wipe his hand across the ass of the deserter’s mother and allow the father to show the radical roots of their son through his speech. Obama stood by and smiled a knowing smile looking fully supportive of the misunderstood terrorist of the Taliban as Bob Bergdahl spoke Pashto–as if the Bergdahl family represented the future fate of all Americans—soon to buckle under the weight of Stockholm syndrome complete with a Taliban beard and worship of Allah from the White House. Obama had just made plans to release 5 terrorists for a deserter and had the parents of the weak-kneed solider thank the god of the terrorists in front of millions of people. Somehow Obama calculated that his Saul Alinsky tricks would wipe the minds of America so that they wouldn’t see what he was doing.

It took the army most of a year to release their findings but finally they had to agree that Bowe Bergdahl was in fact a deserter and had actually caused the death of American soldiers trying to retrieve him from his defection to the Taliban. There was no way for them to spin the situation in the White House but Jen Psaki tried—but to no avail. What was she thinking even going on the Kelly File to try to spin the story? As I watched I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her—as all her words would go down in history and never be forgotten. Even worse was the thought that Obama himself was watching and hoping for a half court miracle shot by Jen to turn the tide against public opinion. But she only dug the Obamanation deeper into the quandary of failure.

It was ugly. So ugly, I can’t even write any more about it. I’ve said all this before, and as usual, I was more right than I wanted to be. But even as much as I despise Barack Obama as an American president, I don’t hate anybody that much—to watch them make such complete idiots of themselves—the failure of the White House is complete. And they have nobody to blame on earth but themselves—and that is the worst punishment for their crimes imaginable, because it will be stuck to all of them for the rest of their lives. This Bergdahl situation is simply that bad. It is embarrassing, insulting, and deeply revealing all in a single action. And it is a story that will have legs for a long time, and go down in history books for centuries.

Even worse look who is defending people like Bob Bergdahl. Here is a quote from the extremely liberal New Yorker.

“Imagine that you have a child, a wanderer by nature, who gets caught up in a war that has persisted aimlessly for many years; his roaming has festered into a chronic pathology for which there is no known cure. Then imagine that the child, who had hoped to help make a change for the better, becomes so disillusioned that he or she decides that there is no choice but to just walk away into unknown territory. If that were your child, what would you do?”

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/bob-bergdahl-good-father

Clearly, Bob and his wife started the process of imbedding in the young Bowe the type of weakness that made him a deserter. For that family, as bad as the embarrassment is for Obama—it will be worse. What a mess!

These are just embarrassing human beings.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.