The “Egregious” behavior of a West Chester Trustee: Editing history to keep the public trust

It didn’t take a little bird to land on my window this time to inform me that there is something amiss in our community, again involving the West Chester Trustees. It appears a disrespectful indiscretion is deliberately being conducted regarding the transparency of the Trustee meetings as President Cathy Stoker after the August 28th 2012 meeting showed her intentions to append in the public record comments made during the June 26th, and July 10th meetings.

The controversy is over the construction of a crosswalk on Eagleridge road in Beckett Ridge to accommodate Trustee Lee Wong’s neighbor. The $5,000 project was initiated without a vote well before the trustees met to discuss the matter. The scenario is one that is typical in many small governments; where favors are given to those who are in the “know” and friends of people in high places receive the benefits. In this case Cathy Stoker and Lee Wong were caught colluding behind the scenes to make a simple crosswalk legally happen by building a consensus through the public meeting putting Trustee George Lang on the spot to approve the crosswalk before he had full knowledge of what was happening. It’s an old consensus building trick that disguises the intention, is legally worthy but is ethically challenged to say the least. Once Lang realized the depth of the maneuver, he put up a defense, but it was to no avail. Cathy and Lee are able to collude with each other since they are such like-minded progressive thinking politicians, and can out-vote Lang, which happens often. To review this case and watch the videos that is causing so much trouble, CLICK HERE.

Having disagreements are part of politics, and hashing out the truth through conflict can be very healthy. And part of learning that truth comes from the transparency of the public documents generated by the Fiscal Officer Bruce Jones who attends these trustee meetings so that the people of West Chester can reflect on what transpired in their community government. However, because of all the attention that the crosswalk issue had generated it appears that Trustee President Stoker has become concerned that some of her statements needed to be appended, which is a gross violation of public transparency. At the conclusion of the August 28th meeting Cathy instructed the Judi Boyko to work with Tim Jester and WCTV to append the June 26th Trustee meeting minutes responding to so-called erroneous statements made by Fiscal Officer Bruce Jones about the process surrounding the crosswalk incident.

The content of the “erroneous” statements are fairly minor and reflect disagreements with the politicians at play. They are of such a nature that Bruce Jones said to Cathy Stoker, “Furthermore at no time at the meeting o May 22 did you Cathy comment to the effect that you were out there watching traffic on Eagleridge. It’s not in the records.” Cathy’s response in the appended meeting notes were that she did indeed comment during that meeting to the effect she had watched traffic; as Mr. Jones himself admitted in his email to Mrs. Stoker on July 13 wherein he stated, “originally did not recall your comment about sitting in our car observing traffic at the intersection…I again reviewed the videotape and at the 43:15 minutes into the 5/22 video you made that comment.” The comments are those kinds of disagreements, all of which can be seen at the previous article I wrote on this matter.

The trouble is when a trustee like Cathy has a clear vote always in their favor with Lee Wong and a government employee who makes $140k per year like Judi Boyko to eat out of the hand of whoever sits in the presidents chair at a trustee meeting, seeks to append bickering records from public view because they know that people may catch the manipulation that is going on and start adding two and two together, deep trouble is not far behind. Clearly, the intentions of Cathy Stoker and Lee Wong from the previous article were to use public money to build a crosswalk in Beckett Ridge where Wong’s wife is a member of the homeowners association and there appears to be some bragging that has went on about how Lee being a trustee in West Chester could get a crosswalk put in for his friends and neighbors. The issue is not the merit of the $5,000 crosswalk which may or may not be needed; it’s the process that put it in play to begin with. Lee Wong, Cathy Stoker and Judi Boyko already had the whole project in motion before the May 22nd meeting was put to a vote, and that’s not how things work. Then when Cathy got caught in the manipulative scheme, she sought to manipulate the public records to cover her tracks, which is why she instructed Judi to work with Jester and WCTV to “append” the trustee notes.

When politicians get caught doing these kinds of things, it does make me very angry. When I had similar problems with the Lakota School System, after three votes by the community to reject a tax increase, the school system instead of forcing a 5% reduction in salaries and benefits among their unionized work force to balance their budget instead raised sports fees, cut busing, electives, and sought to undercut the work I was doing behind the scenes with No Lakota Levy to help pay the sports fees for children who most needed it. Their response to me was to stand outside Kroger by Lakota East and smear my name and the good work I was trying to do, which led to a very public spat that Cathy Stoker felt she was mandated to speak on. In The Cincinnati Enquirer Cathy Stoker said about me, “the language used by Mr. Hoffman is not only egregiously offensive, but reflects badly on the No Lakota group that Mr. Hoffman supports.” Clearly, Stoker is the kind of politician that seeks to hide her actions behind appended notes and polite backstabbing. I prefer to fight out in the parking lot and when these manipulative types find themselves painted into a corner, the try to sanitize history, and when someone gets angry about it, they call them “egregiously offensive.” What they really want is “shut up and take it!”

What is “egregiously offensive” to me are trustees who appear to be keepers of the public’s trust, as Cathy illustrated herself at my expense in The Cincinnati Enquirer telling me that I should hold my temper when I see the nasty political games that I’ve witnessed, only to allow the people who run the show like her to “append” documents, twist the facts, and attempt to cover up scandalous behavior with public consensus before everything hits the fan. These types of people hate transparency, they love it when nobody watches what they are doing, because it’s all too easy to cut deals and use public tax dollars like a child uses Lego building blocks to construct anything their imaginations can conger up. Nobody really cares about the procedures, the safe keeping of the public treasury because when they run out of money they just look for a tax increase or a new tax all together. It’s the looters life for those kinds of politicians.

For me, it’s not the comments between politicians resulting in the discussions from the various trustee meetings that are the problems. I expect conflict in a trustee meeting. I expect George Lang and Cathy Stoker to fight it out. I expect Lee Wong to call George Lang a rich suppressor who lives in big mansion while he lives in the lowly neighborhood of Beckett Ridge. (Yes, Lee actually said something to that effect) I expect those public representatives to have disagreements. To me, it is perfectly fine for Bruce Jones to call Cathy a liar, and to force Stoker to defend herself. That’s politics. It helps put the truth on the table. What I don’t like is a person who seeks to eliminate the opposition so that there is nobody to call them on their manipulative tendencies and collude with others for the benefit of the few. And manipulating public notes or altering them with chaos to cover tracks is disingenuous to the keeping of public records. It defeats the purpose.

To me calling people publicly who will do anything for money a “prostitute” as I’ve done on more than one occasion is far less “egregious” than telling a township employee to meet with the people at WCTV so that the record can be altered to cover up the betrayal of public trust. Yet that is how Cathy managed to get a crosswalk built for her friend Lee Wong without a proper vote or discussion beforehand. She conducted her meeting in an underhanded way to leave openings later for editorial manipulation in the chess game of politics. If she got caught, she’d say she really meant this, or really meant that, and if she got caught flat-footed, then she’d just have the records altered to reflect her version of reality. Yes, that is far more egregious than calling people a bad name, or even disagreeing with their politics. The open manipulations of the public trust, including the media who turn a blind eye toward these occurrences are all just a little guilty of “egregious” behavior that is in direct violation of the public trust. And those violations are never more evident than in a trustee president who wishes to append public comments, because if she weren’t trying to cover something up, she wouldn’t care to begin with.

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Click Here to see what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

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

‘Tail of the Dragon’ is Released: The written word is superior to politics 100% of the time

After months of discussing it finally my new novel Tail of the Dragon is being released. My publisher is using Baker and Taylor to distribute the book so it will be available everywhere as they are one of the largest book distributors there is. American Book put a nice review and sales link at the article below as well:

http://www.americanbookpublishingblog.com/importance-of-the-quality-of-your-book-endorsements

Clicking on the picture to the right will take those who want to get Tail of the Dragon for themselves to Publisher’s Direct which my publisher directly supplies. But Tail of the Dragon will be up on Amazon and all the major carriers as well, so the book should be easy to find without trouble. My friend Matt Clark up at WAAM, Ann Arbor did an interview with me talking about the book’s release. When it comes to Tail of the Dragon, Matt has had me on his radio program many times. He has been to my new book what 700 WLW used to be over the Lakota Levy that I was fighting locally in Cincinnati until the blow back from a “blackballing” attempt by the teacher’s union working with their media contacts caused a monumental rift in the Cincinnati market that reminded me of the fallout from the Eastwood speech during Mitt Romney’s nomination. Matt talks to me about all that in the video below:

There is always the assumption that politics is an option that everyone considers a cherished social accreditation. When the radical unions who have their fingers in everything realized that I was not going away over the public school funding debate they had to do something to attempt regain control. In an indirect way their hands are clean, it’s their fingers that are dirty. It is the lobby of organized labor that is often the real villain as the employees of the system march to the parameters of thinking established by union labor. They set the rules of all political engagement.

I have been working on Tail of the Dragon for a few years and before that book I wrote a novel called The Symposium of Justice. I’ve worked on screenplays, been to film festivals with various projects, and been a professional bullwhip instructor for stunt coordinators in film and from my perspective the issues of local politics, or even national politics, are very minor compared to an actual achievement as an author. I knew what I was doing when I let the Enquirer come to my home and photograph me using bullwhips to articulate why Lakota needed to balance their budget. I knew what the radical elements within the public education industry would say as they jumped all over my love of traditional values since many of them are progressive and I told the reporter as much during the interview. It was those pictures taken over two years ago that resurfaced during the “blackballing” article done by the Enquirer discussed in Matt’s radio interview above. For an example, and review click the link below:

http://stateimpact.npr.org/ohio/2012/03/15/anti-tax-pro-scholarship-group-leader-calls-out-crazy-pta-moms/

“Blackballing” is where the media or a political entity cuts you out of having access to them. It’s a kind of castigation for not following the proper rules of engagement. During all the levy fights of the last couple of years I have been able to speed dial various reporters in print, radio, and television to get my stories out about why the Lakota school system is wrong for wanting to increase taxes, countering anything that the pro levy factions might bring up. I am not the first to do this. I knew before getting involved that others who have come before me have been used by the media to generate stories until the comfort level of everyone involved got too testy, then the media collectively pulls the plug, “blackballing” whomever the controversial figure may be.

I knew from my friend Arnie Engle over in Fairfield who has been harassed every way a man can be harassed because of his opposition to school levies, and my friend Jennifer Miller, the former school board member in Mason who was harassed to no end because of her desire to do a “good job,” and my good friend former Lakota School Board member Sandy Tugral who was ran out-of-town labeled a “kook” by organized labor that if I put myself out there that the same types of people would come after me. The people mentioned suffered various degrees of vandalism to their private property, especially Arnie. They have been publicly ridiculed. And they have all been “blackballed” by the media once the media was done with them. I knew that if I put myself out on a limb in a local levy fight I would become a major political target.

So I gave my Enquirer article dressed in my cowboy hat and my bullwhip to let the people who would come after me later know that they would do so at their own peril. Most people assume that a career in politics is in the back of the mind of any activist. Nobody considers that a person might actually only be concerned with doing the right thing, so to their minds, appearing on the front page of The Cincinnati Enquirer announcing my resistance to a local tax issue dressed over-the-top was political suicide. Nobody considered that my intent was to take my measure beyond the touch of traditional politics, because I knew it was only a matter of time before the “blackballing” attempt would be made in my direction—since that is the only way that public education can maintain their tax payer scam.

Here is a link to that Enquirer article mentioned above, when things were still on good terms:

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20100922/NEWS0102/9230322/Man-wants-to-whip-proposed-Lakota-levy

Blackballing is how the school controls the media in the first place. The Enquirer was given a choice after No Lakota Levy started Yes to Lakota Kids helping needy children pay their sports fees, if they did not fall in line with the union controlled politics of public education, they would be “blackballed” by the school, in this case, Lakota. That is why the media is so quick to come after people who align themselves against the established political order. The media will use people to help create a series of good stories, just like a person might eat a nice meal not to be full, but simply for the taste. But in the end, the media will shit them out without regard once they are done with them, and I knew eventually that day would come.

The fault that I noticed all my friends mentioned above had fallen victim to in their various political fights is that they tried to do it through the established order of politics, where all the union controls are already implemented. They tried to become school board members, or run for some kind of office so they could get on the inside and attempt to create change from within, which of course doesn’t work. I decided not to try that, because my primary focus is that of an author, and because I have no intention of ever being elected into public office. I have no fear of doing, or saying anything that might cause me trouble down the road, so traditional politics was worthless to me. As an author I can operate without the fear of being “blackballed,” because the written word cuts through the immediacy of politics.

That is the advantage when you write novels, and run around the country with bullwhips and live a life that is superior to anything that politics can offer, is that you are free of their reach. So when the organized labor apologists attempted to “blackball” me I was already prepared. Their frustrations were already evident since they could not threaten physical violence on me. Who in their right mind was going to attack a bullwhip expert who could make mince-meat of them quickly in a personal conflict? So they attacked my media contacts.

What they didn’t know was that my media contacts were not limited to only Cincinnati, since my field of endeavor is literature, controversy is actually good marketing and works to my advantage. So the more “blackballing” they attempted to inflict on me, the better it has been on my literary endeavors. The “blackballing” would only work if I wanted to run for some type of public office, and cared what people thought about me in being “electable.” But my business is not in such popularity contests. My job is to tell stories and give insight from “the front of the train,” not adhere to the politics in the back. CLICK HERE FOR A REVIEW ON THIS METAPHOR. Literature trumps politics, which is why politicians eat out of the hand of Hollywood actors. Just ask the Republican Party about Clint Eastwood. Clint knows that he has more value to American society than some manager who wants to run for office and is a prisoner to all the silly political rules that the media has established to keep their stories within their editors 500 word limits, and their 3 minute TV story blocks. Books, movies, music and other art is where more detail is explored and entertainment gains more value beyond the politician. So the mistake of those who took on the union controlled school systems protected by a media afraid of being “blackballed” is that they played the games of politics instead of the rules of literature. And when I did that Enquirer article two years ago starting everything that followed, I never intended to beat them with politics, but with the written word.

None of that matters now. I’ll still of course be involved in issues that affect my local community, because it’s my responsibility. But I am not a prisoner to their political rules of engagement, my new book Tail of the Dragon as we discussed it on WAAM, in Ann Arbor, Michigan and many media outlets to come are what I do for a living. It is the result of a lot of hard work and that hard work is beyond the reach of silly politics and the media “blackballing” that goes on to keep everyone in their respective social categories. In my case the goal of a novelist is not to be “liked” but to be “respected.” And to gain respect, you have to say what you mean and not speak the “double-talk” of politics. And sometimes that means calling a group of levy apologists “latté sipping prostitutes with asses the size of car tires” because it’s the truth as a novelist sees it, and not some comb-over politician who simply wants a desk with a nameplate and the respect of a community for a tax payer funded job title.

It’s harder to write a novel, get it through a publisher, an editor, and a public relations staff than to fight a silly school levy that labor unions, media reporters, and thousands of insecure parents feast off of. So it pleases me greatly to announce that my new book Tail of the Dragon is now available to the public at the links provided, and that as a body of work is beyond the reach of the media “blackballing” that goes on, or the political controls of the small-minded name-plate gods. It’s a work onto itself that is far superior to any act of politics and is why I put my efforts there, beyond the reach of the “blackballers” in the back of the train.

The reason I mentioned all the above upon the release of my novel is because I’m not the kind of writer who articulates from a mountaintop on just pure speculation. I write from experience. In this case at the same time that The Enquirer was photographing me with my whips in my back yard I wrote the below article about my book Tail of the Dragon, August 23rd 2010. Much of what I experienced above over the last 2 years found their way into the plot of that action packed book. So dear reader, when you experience the corruption and betrayal of the novel’s characters as seen through the eyes of Rick and Renee Stevens, you can rest assured that there is more truth in the story than pure fantasy. And you can also rest assured that I was writing the plot for the novel that has been my real life all along paragraph by paragraph, and there was a method to the madness from the very beginning.

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/08/23/my-new-book-the-tail-of-the-dragon/

The sum of all these new experiences will find their way into my next book called The Trial of Fletcher Finnegan. (CLICK FOR A PREVIEW) But until then, I hope you will buy, and enjoy the book–tell your friends about it and help make it a success. Because I put a lot of myself into the writing of these stories and I construct my future plots based on real events with the knowledge that the written word has the power to move mountains, and alter lives–while exposing the ugly aspects of our daily existence. Tail of the Dragon does that and more, and I sincerely hope you enjoy the wild ride that starts by clicking on the picture below.

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Click Here to see what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

Visit the NEW Tail of the Dragon WEBSITE! CLICK HERE and help spread the word! TELL SEVEN PEOPLE TO TELL SEVEN PEOPLE!

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

Clint Eastwood at the RNC: Explaining what the ’empty chair’ meant

I waited a couple of days to calm down before stating my opinion of the Eastwood speech at the RNC Convention just prior to Mitt Romney being officially nominated as the Republican nomminee for President of the United States. The panicked Romney aide behind the stage at the Convention who said cringing as the speech time on stage exceeded the 5 minute mark and was way off-key from the typical stuffy Republican stage setup, “You don’t edit Clint Eastwood” was absolutely correct. You don’t “edit” Clint Eastwood. Eastwood is one of the most recognizable names in the world not because he sat quietly while others told him what to do, but because he has often embarked on wild chances and taken great risk upon himself and others in the building of his international persona. He has an elevated level of understanding of what audiences want to see, and his speech certainly reflected it. His knowledge of what an audience wants to see far exceeds the knowledge of the typical 30 to 40-year-old PR specialists handling Romney’s campaign, and they are not qualified to “edit” Clint Eastwood.

I knew what to expect when Clint Eastwood took the stage because I have watched the film icon give hundreds of interviews over the years, and most of them are just like that. Eastwood does not like to use notes, Teleprompters, or come across with flattened authenticity. To understand what Eastwood thinks deep down inside all anyone has to do is watch some of his most personal films, like White Hunter Black Heart, and Bronco Billy. Nothing Eastwood said on stage just minutes before the heavily scripted acceptance speech of Mitt Romney came as a surprise to me.

I was impressed to learn that Mitt Romney personally invited Eastwood to speak. It shows that Romney as a manager can identify talent thinking outside the box and will likely surround himself with good people like Paul Ryan when he gets the presidential job. But Romney was not giving Eastwood any kind of break in letting him speak. Unlike the speeches by Paul Ryan, Scott Walker, Marc Rubio and many others that were carefully scripted, Eastwood was not, and the Romney people wouldn’t dare ask the legendary actor to do such a silly thing. Romney like all politicians sought from Eastwood credibility, and to show that prestigious members of the Hollywood community supported Republicans, and that not all Hollywood was in the corner of Barack Obama. That message was so important to Romney that he had Eastwood give the last independent speech before his own introduction, and he got what he wanted in Clint Eastwood. To me, that shows great vision and instinct even if the Romney handlers were dumbstruck by the performance.

I was however baffled by the criticism, many saying that Eastwood looked like a stumbling fool on stage, a senile old man. Eastwood’s hair was a wreck, his manner seemed unorganized, and he was crude and insulting. But the biggest criticism of all is that he sucked all the air out of the room and had people talking about his speech the next day instead of Romney. Well, news flash, I could have told the Romney people exactly what Eastwood was going to do. I was so unsurprised by his speech that my wife and I hardly noticed it because in the Hoffman house, Clint Eastwood is the closest thing to a religious icon anyone will find. Over my dresser are two pictures of Clint Eastwood carefully framed and I look at them every day. My DVD collection has every single Clint Eastwood movie ever made, and they have been watched, and watched, and watched again. I even have the T.G. Sheppard album that features a duet with Clint Eastwood called “MAKE MY DAY.” For many years my family has ushered in each New Year by watching all 5 Dirty Harry films on New Year’s Eve and New Years Day. No football games, no parties, just Clint Eastwood movies with him playing Dirty Harry. Every young person in my family who has had to drive around in a car with me has had to listen to me playing that song while we drive. I simply love the man. I admire his grit and ability to age well every bit as much as the toughness he exhibited in his youthful movies that made him an international star. Eastwood has not been afraid to piss off people before, people he had admired greatly, specifically John Wayne when that cowboy icon was up in arms over Eastwood’s film direction, and acting in the movie High Plains Drifter, which Wayne felt was an insult to the American Cowboy image he helped to craft. Eastwood’s portrayal in that film as a “hell hound” returning from the dead to punish an entire town for the betrayal of their sheriff crossed many established lines of thinking in the early 1970’s. It is so refreshing to see that the 82-year-old Clint Eastwood is still not afraid to take a chance to make his point and is much smarter than the people around him. Even after a lifetime well lived, Clint Eastwood is still authentic to his own personal beliefs and cannot be swept up in the tide of politics. Eastwood showed up as a favor to the Romney Campaign and at no point did he get wrapped up in the glitter. To Eastwood, he knows just him being there helps Romney. But Romney does not help Clint. The sacrifice was purely on Eastwood’s end.

When I give public speeches and other presentations I do not use notes because I learned it from watching the many lectures of Joseph Campbell, and interviews with Clint Eastwood. The reason is that carefully prepared speeches come out sounding fake. It is much better to speak from the heart. Now on the downside, a public speaker without notes sometimes rolls through sentences while stringing together thoughts. People expecting Eastwood to give a polished performance like his younger speakers at the Convention have simply become used to the well oiled machine that has become the political norm. When Clint Eastwood went on stage, I know he was thinking he had to hit all the marks the Romney people told him to hit, but he was going to do his own thing as he usually does. Knowing Clint Eastwood, he went up on stage with a metaphorical idea he came up with while listening to the other speeches of the evening, and he wanted to use the “empty chair” to convey how we all feel about President Obama and politics in general. Most of the directors at the RNC failed to grasp the metaphor, and that is their problem. Eastwood figured that it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, so what the hell. Everyone in the room wanted somebody to take a shot at President Obama that was stylish and worked on any levels, and Eastwood had the guts to do it.

When people say “if I were to die tomorrow” they mean they would do things differently if they knew they did not have to live with the consequences which implies that they would be willing to live with little lies in their lives if they know they have to wake up tomorrow and face the music. In Eastwood’s case, he has lived his life this way for a long time, and now that he’s 82, he could die tomorrow. He could die at anytime, and he knows it, and is comfortable with that knowledge, but he’s not about to leave this earth being a stooge for a political looter, who simply wanted to use Eastwood’s image to prop up his own credibility.

Clint Eastwood detests–especially in politics–over grooming, too much make-up, and cardboard cutout people. Oddly enough, some of the appeal of Paul Ryan is that he represents an Eastwood style of politician, no-nonsense, fit, smart, and practical. When he first took the VP position his own hair and clothing was a bit sloppy, and that is appealing because it shows that Ryan cared more about his work than his appearance. But in two weeks once the Romney handlers began to “manage him—Ryan received a nice $300 haircut and is getting a taste of the “looters life” and it is obvious that he’s starting to like it. You can see it by the way he scowled at Eastwood’s speech looking at his watch in quit protest. I would offer to Ryan not to forget who he is, and to not get too wrapped up in images. When Eastwood, one of the greatest film directors of all time went on stage with his hair a mess—without a single speech note—without a care about his future and how the Romney people might scowl at what he said—he did every bit of it on purpose. Clint Eastwood had a very good idea that what he was about to say would be analyzed heavily, criticized, and belittled. He knew that the finger-pointing politicians would run for cover and attempt to distance themselves from him within seconds. Eastwood’s intention in his speech was for one last time in his life on a big stage to show everyone viewing just what is wrong in politics, and why people have lost faith in the two-party system. Everything he did was on purpose to be analyzed, and talked about for years.

Eastwood’s goal on stage that night at the RNC was not to be liked. He was already liked. Mitt Romney simply wanted to show the world that movie stars like him too. That was the entire purpose of bringing Clint Eastwood to the RNC convention. Nobody gives a damn about the crap a politician says. And it should come as no surprise that a movie actor could show up and take all the attention from the other looters in the room. And nobody gives a rat’s ass about what the media thinks, because those are the same idiots who “made” Obama. It’s the heart and soul of America that Clint Eastwood was speaking to and that is why the people who enjoyed his speech did, and the people all caught up in the wrong aspects of politics called it “strange,” and like “an episode of Twin Peaks.” Even Glenn Beck belittled the Eastwood speech, which really lowered Beck’s grade in my book. I was planning to go see Beck when he comes to Cincinnati in a few weeks, but based on his comments over the Eastwood speech, I don’t think I will value what he says. I might listen to him every now and then on the radio, but I won’t go out of my way to see him in public like I did when he came to Wilmington. Beck like Ryan, Anne Romney and Scott Walker based on their comments and behavior over Eastwood is looking too closely at the established order of things, and it is that order that people are sick of. Beck has done a good job asking for courage among politicians, and out of all people, he should understand what Eastwood was trying to do. But even he is too wrapped up in the “established” thinking to see what’s really going on, and that is disappointing. Like Ryan, Beck is becoming too big, and his concern over his own legacy is starting to overtake his reasonable assessment. Politics should not be so well rehearsed, it should not be so scripted, and it should not be praised as royalty. When Eastwood took the stage he did so as a rebel who didn’t comb his hair, and was going to speak from the heart. That should be honored.

The drifting from sentence to sentence that Eastwood was doing, especially after the 5 minute mark was because the red light was flashing, telling him to wrap up his speech. When I speak in public, I get told often to wrap it up, because if people let me, I will talk all day. But in Eastwood’s case, he knew that the directors of the RNC event were not happy with what he was doing, and that what he was saying was going to hurt. But he had to do it anyway, and he controlled his emotions very well, picking carefully which thing to say next so that it was right at the edge of acceptance, without crossing the line. It was not that Eastwood was a senile fool on stage, but a man walking a tightrope, and he was in no hurry to fall. He took one step after another to deliver one of the most scathing rebukes of a sitting president ever delivered on such a large public stage, and he did it with all the bravado that made him one of the biggest movie stars in the world. Mitt Romney got what he wanted whether he was consciously aware of what he was asking for or not. As I said before, Romney is showing a good instinct for hiring the right kind of people for the job, and bringing Eastwood to the convention was a brilliant idea. But I would caution those same Republicans not to distance themselves from what Eastwood did and said. Clint Eastwood did the Republican Party a tremendous favor at his own personal risk. The politicians involved should accept it at its value, which is great, and not distance themselves from him. To do so is to betray what they proclaim they are fighting for.

The American public is sick and tired of contrived, plastic, politics. They want to hear things told from the heart, and they like to see the soul of the person speaking. Glenn Beck is a great public speaker, and even he writes down notes in outline form so he can deliver punctual presentations to the public and not bounce around when he gets stuck in front of 60,000 people like Eastwood was doing. But notes are still a crutch, and it takes great courage to stand in front of so many people with only your intellect as your alley, which is why Eastwood does not speak with notes. It’s also why he’s 82 years old and still able to speak with such authority as he did at the RNC convention. His wits were clearly about him, as he delivered a speech that worked on many levels, not just a superficial, visual one.

If I was disenfranchised with politics before the Eastwood speech, I am certainly more so now, based on the political response to it. The Republicans are the good guys in my book and even the good guys are deeply tainted. I can see where the next line of battles will occur in the years following the buffoon Obama, and it will not be with the professional politicians in the room at the RNC convention or their handlers. I stand with Clint Eastwood completely over anyone else from the RNC event. It’s not that the man can do no wrong in my eyes. I can think of a few times he has let me down, as in making the film Tightrope, and a few others, but I trust that Eastwood makes every attempt to be honest with himself, and his intellect has benefited from his honesty. So when he says something, I trust what it is. I may not agree with it all the time, but I know there was a thought process that delivered the thought, and it didn’t come from some snot-nosed speech writer fresh out of college who doesn’t have a lick of experience in real life. I don’t want to hear Romney deliver a carefully controlled and well-orchestrated speech given to him by a hundred such handlers. I want to hear the authenticity of what a man is, not what kind of image he can conger up for himself. It is a sad state when it is an actor who is the most real person in a room, and at the RNC convention, Clint Eastwood was the most honest. Anne Romney should still be grateful that a person like Eastwood is supporting her husband and not make sly comments about how there should have been more contrived video of her family instead of the Eastwood speech. Nobody gives a shit lady. Don’t even think about turning into another Washington princess before the seat from the previous fat ass duchess has left it.

It should say everything to everyone watching the Eastwood convention speech that an “empty chair” was the most interesting thing that happened at the RNC convention. The empty chair worked on many levels of psychology. It obviously represented President Obama who has spent his entire presidency running for re-election, and not doing the job he was elected to do. But it also represented the emptiness present in politics. I would not put it passed Eastwood that the idea came not while on the plane from California, but while the Romney people where giving him their talking points to incorporate into his speech. The idea for the chair was meant as a warning not just to Obama, but to the Republican Party to not just become more empty minds in empty seats holding public office. It was a warning not to be afraid to shake it up a little, and be unpredictable, because that’s how you get the media eating out of your hand instead of the other way around—and that is a lesson that the Republican Party hasn’t been able to achieve since Ronald Reagan was president, who like Eastwood knew all the tricks of the trade because they are actors who have mastered public image. The Eastwood speech was not a debacle, it was a brilliant metaphor intended for minds too dim to see it. But the resonance of Eastwood, in what felt like one last public performance was a potent one that sadly shows how bad our political system really is. It revealed that even people I thought “got it” still don’t and I won’t bend over backwards ever again to listen to what they have to say, because the mind behind the thought is still in its infancy.

Yesterday Romney came to Cincinnati. I was invited, but I did not go, mainly because of the ill feelings I have after listening to the controlled finger-pointing after the Eastwood speech. In a couple of weeks, Glenn Beck is coming to town and I was planning to attend, but won’t be now. I’ll still support both people, and in Beck’s case I enjoy 80% of his work most of the time. But to jump on the Eastwood bashing bandwagon tells me a lot about these people. When it comes to picking and choosing, I’ll stick with the “Man with No Name” over the “Name” of a politician or political commentator. Because there is far more value in the man who arrives at 82 years of age and has not been seduced by the glittery lights of politics over the men who are enamored by it and became that way in a much shorter span of their lifetimes. I will not go out of my way to see those first people speak in person. But if Eastwood announced that he was coming to Cincinnati tomorrow to eat a hamburger but would not be giving any public statements I would drop what I was doing and attend, because there is more manliness in the authenticity of sticking to a set of beliefs than the person who follows the trends of belief. The world is so full of the later, and is in desperate need of the former. The value of a wordless bite into a hamburger by Clint Eastwood holds more merit than a whole string of convention speeches by polished politicians and their puppet handlers of orthodox opinion. The aide was right, “you don’t edit Clint Eastwood.” His brand is proven, and if you ask him to speak, you take what you get. In the case of politics, a movie actor is much more important than a roomful of politicians, and that sad fact is a reality that cannot be covered up with fancy lights and balloons, but is exposed by the presence of a simple–empty–chair.

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Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
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“Shoot Extreme” in West Chester Part 2: Tactical Targeting for Civilians

This posting assumes that my previous article about the new indoor target range Shoot Extreme has been read. Click here for review. Shoot Extreme is the tactical indoor target shooting range located in West Chester, Ohio. It is the first of its kind anywhere in the United States, where real guns can be used in the fashion that has become popular with paintballing. While paintball can simulate combat, the weapons are unique to paintball. The huge advantage that Shoot Extreme has over everyone else in the simulated combat training business is that their guns are real, so it allows the shooter to become very familiar with a specific weapon.

In my trip to Shoot Extreme the genius of the concept was quickly evident. Ownership of Shoot Extreme revealed to me that in its current state, he is at phase one of a multi-phase plan. Currently there are two lanes (mazes) of interactive targets that a shooter must engage within 3 seconds while in the course. The two lanes are of two different difficulties, lane one, easy to intermediate, the second is the advanced lane. The interactive targets in this case happen to be zombies, to simulate human style targets and they are cleverly positioned throughout the simulated interior of a building dressed up like a haunted house. The lighting is challenging because it’s dim to dark in most places which accurately simulates most situations of nighttime home intrusion scenarios. The zombie theme is wonderful because it makes it fun and much less serious since replication of human targets crosses the line for many people.

For even experienced shooters I highly recommend lane one first because I have to admit, my first couple of shots in the course were loaded with mild anxiety at the thought of shooting at a human like target, its one thing to think about shooting at a live target, it’s quite another to actually do it. In lane one it takes 19 shots to get through to the end. It takes a “double tap” to kill the final two bosses which appear nearly simultaneously. Additional ammunition is available for $10. The cost of admission gets you 20 shots and is currently $20 dollars to get two clips of ten shots, a gun rental of your choice, a tactical holster and a run through one of the target courses. Basically the cost of shooting is a dollar a shot, and most of the guns available are traditional 9mm and .45 simi auto pistols. Shoot Extreme provides the best training possible with a full staff available and their gun rental department is vast as they maintain many commonly used service weapons, including Glock, Beretta, Sig Sauer, Smith & Wesson, and other arms.

When I went through lane one I picked the Beretta 92F since it is such a reliable weapon and seemed like the one that would be most useful in a zombie apocalypse. It’s a 9mm and holds plenty of ammunition. But with a ten round clip, a reload in the middle of the course would be needed. And this is what makes Shoot Extreme such a treasure for target shooters. The zombie apocalypse target shoot forces shooters to keep track of their ammunition under duress, just as it would be required in an actual combat situation, which is probably the single most important tactical teaching tool that this course provides. The second benefit is that it gets a shooter used to shooting at a target that simulates a menace.

Typically under normal target shooting there is very little urgency to perform, and react to the target. The shooter is in complete control, however, in an emergency, control is in the command of the aggressor. So normal target shooting does not properly train the mind to deal with situations of aggression. In a real hostile situation, if an intruder entered a home and a shooter was commissioned to defend their home with their own Beretta 92F they would have to overcome their anxiety to pull the trigger on a hostile, and they would have to get used to keeping track of their ammunition in low light conditions under duress, and possess the ability to determine a friend from foe while geared up and ready to fire at the first moving target they see.

To date, only Shoot Extreme in West Chester gives civilians the opportunity to exercise these types of skills. When a visitor enters the double doors to the Shoot Extreme building located at the intersection of Tylersville Road, and Cincinnati-Dayton Rd, a state of the art, technologically equipped lobby is there to greet. After a release form is filled out, shooters stroll into a room where they are checked by a metal detector to ensure they don’t bring live guns into the facility, so everything is tightly controlled. From there, a shooter steps up to a counter and selects their holster, and a technician will present dozens of potential firearms converted to fire Simunition, which functions the same as regular ammunition, but fires a plastic round that could easily strike the bare skin of a human being and not penetrate. It will sting a bit, but will not cause any harm. In fact advanced shooters at Shoot Extreme are organizing four on four matches where they shoot at each other in special competitions. So there is no danger of death, but this is certainly a step up from paintball. A BIG step up! Once a shooter has their guns and holster, a guide takes shooters through one by one. The guide hangs back while the shooter engages the targets and does not get involved unless they need to. For instance, while I was going though, my Beretta jammed up, which is part of the shooting experience. In a real situation, a shooter would have to solve this problem while still in danger. My guide was able to step in and pause the action while we cleared the gun. He was able to restore my ammunition level to compensate me for the lost rounds so I didn’t have an unpleasant experience. The guides are also there to help in case a shooter finds themselves in a panic situation passing out due to the anxiety.

I moved through my course rather fast and my guide stayed well behind me not interfering. I had a lot of technical questions which he was able to answer as I thought of them, but at no time did he encourage me to slow down, or speed up. He just hovered back there in case something went wrong, which for me was only mischambered ammunition after a series of rapid fire targets.

The environment is decorated just like a haunted house but the thinking is opposite from that experience. When a monster jumps out, the typical reaction in a haunted house is to jump away from the action. In this scenario as the walls are smeared with blood, and other chaotic markings overwhelm the senses, the zombies make a bellow noise and growl at you and the must be engaged with aggression. You have to determine where they are and kill them within the 3 second limit. If you don’t strike them with a clean hit, within that time, they flash red to let you know you failed to engage that target. Toward the end of the course are two bosses that require “double-tapping” to bring them down. They require four shots between the two in about 3.5 seconds. One is at close range and the other is in the distance and even if you know what to expect, would be a challenging shot.

If shooters would like to get used to the idea of firing guns at interactive targets, Shoot Extreme features a traditional range that can be viewed from the lobby, and is filled with torso targets that are very similar to the zombies in the course. I did not shoot on this course before I went through the zombie maze, and I did lose a couple of shots because I went for head shots, and head shots don’t always register completely, since the hit sensor is in the torso. So a torso shot is the most effective way to bring down a zombie, and that can be practiced in the traditional target range for similar pricing, about a dollar a shot along with the gun rental—so it’s very affordable, and a cheap way to shoot, a really good bargain for such a non traditional target range. I did shoot on the traditional range after my zombie hunt, because I didn’t want the experience to be over, so I was able to see how the zombies worked in lane one by studying how the targets behaved without all the zombie dressing that makes them look like monsters in a haunted house.

Shoot Extreme is a happening place, and a palace of tactical shooting. It is a great benefit to the community of West Chester and the surrounding areas as it gives civilians a chance to do what only military personnel has had access to in the past. I will emphasize that every gun owner and Second Amendment supporter I know should make a regular visit to this fantastic target range. This particular venue enhances experiences like that enjoyed at Target World. It is not direct competition, but is an added enjoyment, and skill set that is designed to take the personal firearm skills of a shooter and elevate them in ways that can only be experienced in such tactical scenarios. But the competition level is never intended to be intimidating. There are not in-your-face scores to rub in the face of shooters who don’t do well. The experience is intended to be personal, and to be done again and again until the skills are mastered, so novice shooters don’t have to be concerned about not stacking up against those who have a lot more experience.

The time spent at the Shoot Extreme facility can be over within 15 minutes, or shooters can hang around for hours immersing themselves in the environment. For me, it will make a wonderful business lunch visit from time to time. There’s no better way to talk business than over lunch with guns present, so I would think once word gets out among the business community, that many such lunches will become commonplace. Right outside of the Shoot Extreme facility is a wonderful little Chinese restaurant as well as other options that could easily be enjoyed during a lunch hour from work.

Obviously I can only gush over Shoot Extreme. It’s the result of a dream from an owner who represents the best in what America has to offer. He’s an entrepreneur who was able to take his real life service experiences in tactical training and bring it to everyday people, and that is a real gift to our society, especially those who are looking for new ways to enjoy, and protect the Second Amendment. Shoot Extreme gives shooters a chance to get over their fear of firearms that has been drilled into our society from gun grabbing politicians, and teaches how to properly use a gun in the type of scenarios that it will most likely be used under target acquisition and threat assessment. Because of Shoot Extreme, our society is well on its way to becoming just a bit more safe, and ultimately free.

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Click Here to see what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

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Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
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“Shoot Extreme” : The fine dining of target shooting in all of America

One of the true delights in life is to have a gun in your hand. Guns are the great equalizers that are among the greatest human inventions, because due to guns, tyranny has a hard time digging its claws into the individual lives of citizens. This has paved the way for a productive society not afraid to invent and to look down their nose at the political class with comfortable disdain. Because of the gun, the political class in America cannot believe that they are superior in any way to the average person. Because of the gun, freedom exists. Because of the gun, diversity of business can thrive in abundance. And because of the gun one of the most interesting businesses I have yet come across has started in West Chester, Ohio, the unusual concept called Shoot Extreme.

As I prepared to enter the Shoot Extreme facility at the corner of Tylersville and Cincinnati-Dayton Road I noticed that The Cone ice cream store was almost right across the street and I felt pride to live in a community that could sell ice cream in a unique specialized shop less than 200 yards from a shooting range that is indoor and set up to practice tactical target shooting with real guns. The concept of Shoot Extreme is a great one–move through a haunted house like maze with live ammunition and shoot at zombies that jump out at you from every direction. It’s a unique way to practice strategic skill, blow off some steam, and target shoot under pressure.

Shooting at fixed targets is one thing, and Target World in Sharonville is a wonderful venue for that. But shooting under pressure, where the shooter only has three seconds in a low light environment to identify a “friend or foe” target is a wonderful benefit to the civilian community of West Chester. It’s a wonderful option to live in a community that allows a person to get a fine steak diner at Jags, then to cap off the evening with a run through the tactical course at Shoot Extreme and take out the frustrations of the day by blasting the hordes of zombies set up throughout the maze. After the shooting is done, all the shooter has to do is turn the guns back in at the counter and Shoot Extreme takes care of cleaning and maintenance. The shooter can then have desert over at The Cone without further worry.

Needless to say, I am deeply impressed with the staff and concept at Shoot Extreme. For a gun loving community like West Chester, Mason and Liberty Twp, I would expect a place like this wonderful shooting range to be packed all the time. It is highly recommended that reservations are made online ahead of time to reserve a spot, and to fill out the release form on the website www.shootextreme.com before arrival because it speeds up the process of getting guns and ammunition just a bit quicker, because that is the goal of shooting at Shoot Extreme, to shoot zombies and to sharpen your senses.

This is a wonderful idea since some of the most popular videos games currently on the market are Undead 4, and Call of Duty. Shoot Extreme allows average people without access to military training and hardware to get a taste of tactical training in real life, beyond a video game environment where the smell of gunpowder and the urgency of the moment are elements of additional danger. For the cost of a night at the movies, a shooter can run the gauntlet of zombies and increase their combat skill level combining entertainment and practicality into a wonderful symphony.

More timid spectators might wonder why such things are important—why people would desire to shoot guns, let alone to do it in such a fantasy environment. The answer is because guns are cool, and are an important part of American culture. For those who don’t like guns, I would suggest that they do not understand what being an American is. Guns are the foundation of freedom, and it is healthy to become competent with them. I would say that shooting guns is as important as eating ice cream at The Cone, or buying new cloths at a department store. Shooting guns is the essence of freedom in America and there is simply no better way to celebrate it than with a trip to Shoot Extreme.

If you want fine dining, in West Chester, Mitchells Fish Market or Jags are the places to go. If you want to shop, then Voice of America shopping complex is where it’s all at. But if you want the fine dining equivalent of target shooting, then it is Shoot Extreme that becomes a must. This is simply the best indoor shooting experience of its kind anywhere, and it’s found in West Chester, Ohio.

The public perception of guns is that they are somehow a taboo subject, and that they should be feared. The timid types who still believe these ridiculous notions are in for a harsh reality as the new shooting range Shoot Extreme is just the tip of the iceberg for what’s coming. America has a youth that has been brought up on films and video games that heavily involve shooting, and as they come into age, thoughts about guns will loosen up considerably. I foresee a day in the not too distant future where guns will be openly carried by civilians like jewelry is displayed today. They will be just as common, and will not raise alarm when seen. And in the near future gun ranges like Extreme Shooting will be more common than unique as this range in West Chester is now.

The creation of Shoot Extreme is out of a desire for an indoor facility that gives to the public the same type of training only the military had access to before. The fun addition of zombies being the targets instead of actual terrorist insurgents only adds a layer of commercial appeal to a functionally sound tactical course that makes it just more than average entertainment. The desire of the timid to remove guns from society with rules and regulations is to suppress a fundamental American right that is never better present than at Shoot Extreme and the eradication of zombies in a mock apocalypse that can befall anyone with the price of a ticket. And the ticket is well worth it! Part 2 of this posting will go up tomorrow and will dig deeper into the actual merit behind tactical training and the weapons involved at Shoot Extreme. I am very proud to be a card-carrying member!

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Click Here to see what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

Visit the NEW Tail of the Dragon WEBSITE! CLICK HERE and help spread the word! TELL SEVEN PEOPLE TO TELL SEVEN PEOPLE!

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
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www.overmanwarrior.com

Institutional Failure Part 2: The method behind a learned madness

This is part two of an article I wrote two years ago, about the treacherous issue of institutional failure. When I write about the decline of teachers in public education it is not to pick on them, but to place into perspective the nature of their social destruction. (CLICK HERE FOR REVIEW.) In that previous article I discussed the reason why Key West is considered a paradise due to its lack of rules and any resemblance of institutionalism.

When the discussion of merit between individuality and collectivism is considered, its social manifestations illuminate most dominate in our love of institutions. A love of institutions is collectivism, and carries the most blame for much of the world’s troubles. For instance, I was asked the other day how I felt about the up coming season for my favorite football team The Tampa Bay Buccaneers. My response was that I’d have to wait and see, because the coaching staff was new and I didn’t know what to think without them playing a game yet. The assumption was that I would blindly support The Bucs regardless of performance, which I would consider idiotic. I may root for them but I won’t blindly support any collective entity on the bases of an institutional name.

For instance, supporters of The Cincinnati Bengals have through their institutional support of a losing franchise allowed a bad owner to use tax payer money to fund his financial enterprise putting Hamilton County into serious debt funding Paul Brown Stadium for 8 games a year. The Bengals as an organization are doing the same thing that Lakota and Colerain public schools is doing and that is to use a publics loyalty toward sports to sell institutional support for a larger enterprise. When people support an institution just because of loyalty to a name, they allow themselves to become victims of institutional failure. Radicalized public unions in public school can hide their true intentions behind the patriotism of school pride unified behind a sports team. People do pass school levies over such silly presumptions. Just as they passed a stadium tax in the 90’s to keep the Bengals from leaving only to discovery it would bankrupt Hamilton County. Since the problems are too complex to grapple with fans of the Bengals have decided win, lose, or draw, they are going to support their home town NFL Football team no matter what it costs.

To understand the severity of institutional worship all one needs to do is look at the sex cover-up at Penn State involving Jerry Sandusky. To the degree that seemingly sane administrators protected the institution of Penn State Football, members of the media, and many years worth of alumni all chose to ignore the facts in favor of serving the institution as a collective whole.

The obvious confusion comes in mistaking patriotism with worship. There is a difference in honoring the President of the United States with respect and forgiving the crimes committed by a President because his position is one of institutional honor. Collectivists consider it honorable to show devotion even in the face of wrongdoing. The idea of “taking one for the team” is a commonly accepted rationale among collectivist thinking people. Notice the trend proclaiming that there no I in “team” is rooted in this commitment toward collectivism where the individual is secondary to the “the greater good.”

This is a disease in American culture that is not native to our country. America was founded on individuality and this is why no place else on the face of planet earth has societies of difference cultures, different religions, and different financial backgrounds where they mingle in a free society better than in The United States. The disease comes from the trend of collectivists who embrace a global society under the umbrella of collectivist political philosophies, to point out circumstances in American society where collective groups—such as women, gays, racial minorities are suffering an injustice at the hands individuals, or groups with their roots in classic American individuality.

The trouble is that this collectivism is taught in public education, and it is not healthy for building a strong American culture. When it is said that more money should be spent on education, the quality of the education is not being discussed. Do our schools teach young people to be more like John Wayne, or Alan Alda? Are young women learning to be more like Annie Oakley, or one of the Kardasian sisters? Are men learning to be Alpha males ore beta males? Are women learning to be feminazis or submissive sexual partners? CLICK HERE FOR MORE DETAIL. The answer is of course young people are learning in public school to be collectivists in service to institutions. The only individuals who are honored are those who achieve esteem in sports, because sports is used to carry the illusion of goodness by unified sacrifice for the common good. Our society has allowed this to happen without realizing what was going on, because education was termed in the blanket term of being “good” due to money being spent on it, and jobs created to fill positions in the social endeavor. But it has not been considered if what was being taught is in fact good, and by the evidence of our society’s commitment to collectivism, it has obviously been a failure.

Collectivist tendencies are the direct result of our education system. They are to blame for why there is only a two party political system where one side roots for one set of ideas, while the other party roots for other ideas. Both political parties have the idea of what’s good for the party in their hearts over the well being of the individuals in that party. At the RNC Convention in Tampa the scripted delegates were expected to throw their support behind Mitt Romney instead of Ron Paul out of loyalty to their party, not the individuality of the delegates, and this is a fundamental flaw that has it’s tentacles in every aspect of American society, and it is fundamentally wrong.

The source of the failure is public education. It is there that all of society was taught incorrectly the merits of collectivism, which has turned the quality of education into a brainwashing session of future lost adults cheering on their children’s high school football team even if the coach and players of that team find themselves embroiled in a scandal. In public education, when such a scandal breaks, a sacrificial victim is picked and tossed to the public to appease the gods just as the Aztecs cut out the hearts of their victims hoping to bring rain to their villages. Ask Stacy Schuler about such sacrifices at Mason High School, because the scandal she was involved in involved the entire school. Yet only she went to jail for having sex with half the football team. The football players were looked upon as heroes, while she was disgraced and sent to the gallows so to speak, because she was expected to take one for the team, for the benefit of the Mason School System.

It’s bad on all levels, and yet we still continue to teach collectivism as though it was good for the future of our country, and it’s not. All institutions have the tendency toward collectivism, and are therefore vehicles for evil. Institutions are publicly considered honorable, yet deep in most hearts of human society there is an inherit distrust of them, because at a fundamental level it is acknowledged that the individual is being crushed by the evil encroachment of collectivism. There is an unease in group activities that says that what is happening is wrong, and people cope with it by drinking too much at social events. But it is known by all, even though it’s not understood consciously.

The villain of the matter is public education and it plagues almost every American citizen who came from public education. The modern problem is in understanding to what extent society has plummeted under the flag of collectivism in service of institutions. To understand what impact such a mentality has had on a country of individuals damaged by a philosophy that is fundamentally wrong the evidence is easy to see. To measure the impact, all that needs to be done is to see the damage that institutions inflict on society at large, and to admit that service to them is as foolish as worshiping some Mesopotamian god in the city streets of UR. Institutions are hokey concoctions built by collectivists on a half-baked journey to hells of their own making, upon the backs of individuals.

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Click Here to see what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

Visit the NEW Tail of the Dragon WEBSITE! CLICK HERE and help spread the word! TELL SEVEN PEOPLE TO TELL SEVEN PEOPLE!

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
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A City of Socialists: Why West Chester, Ohio should stay a township

One of the top 100 places to live in the entire United States is West Chester, Ohio. In 2012 it comes in at #97 which is extremely commendable. This is not the first time that West Chester has ranked in the top 100, which takes economic factors, quality of schools, social life, crime rates, and projected demographic forecasts into the equation. The region around West Chester hosts nearly 100,000 people who shop, work and live in the thriving community that is one of the best places on planet earth to reside. The real factors for why West Chester has been so successful is because there are smart people who live in West Chester, it’s very pro gun, so crime is very low, and it is still run by trustees, which is very direct representation by the citizens. West Chester still has a small town feel with big business wealth generation. West Chester as a business community supports very high-tech business, fine dinning, and has within it just about every conceivable chain restaurant known in the country. It is such a diverse community that it can even support one of the most unusual gun targeting ranges in the entire United States in a business that just open called Shoot Extreme. CHECK IT OUT, CLICK HERE.

Among the three trustees in West Chester one is a functioning communist, one is a functioning socialist, and the other is a functioning pure capitalist. The functioning socialist was able to contribute a wonderful library to West Chester with a nice park that was mentioned in the #97 ranking, but little else. Much of the economic development and diversity could be credited with the fact that one of the trustees is a functioning capitalist, which businessmen and women enjoy dealing with. And the functioning communist managed to build a sidewalk, which was quite the scandal. CLICK HERE TO REVIEW. The system is not perfect, and people don’t always know what they are electing when they cast a vote for a trustee, but because the government is small in West Chester, corruption is low, and that is good for the growth and substance of a thriving community. Also in West Chester is an active resistance to higher taxes which are always the temptations of government employees. By fighting to keep taxes low, citizens can afford to buy larger homes and spend more money in the businesses of the area, so low taxes are key to the growth of West Chester.

Like anywhere in the country however the temptation for decline is ever-present, and in West Chester the desire of the “wanna’ be” communist, the “wanna’ be” socialists, the bottomless pit school levy supporters, the endless fire levies, policies levies, and a yearning to loot from every business in the community and the people who work in them contains the same level of addiction as the typical porn advocate. In West Chester, those types of people are the ones who desire to incorporate West Chester into a city from its current state of a township. These are the people who desire centralized planning, chaotic bureaucracy to hide the corruption that pads their pockets with extra income, but more than anything a nameplate on their desk which tells the community that they are important.

The dream of these functioning socialists are to become city council members who control millions of dollars, and ultimately to have their worthless fingers on the value of business owners who are thriving in West Chester currently. These are the types of people who do not have the ability to produce worth on their own, because they are simply barnacles who act as parasites on society by imposing their will on those who actually create jobs, wealth, and the quality index reflected in the top #100 rating. The advocates of West Chester incorporating wear masks of civic duty to disguise their power grab and part of that mask are cleverly disguised arguments that conceal their tendency to loot, suppress, and control thriving industries by advocating four primary motivations to move from a township to a city. They are:

1)      Business’s are not paying their fair share of taxes, (sound familure—Obama comes to mind)

2)      A city would be more efficient, (which is completely false. The opposite is always true.)

3)      Becoming a city will lower residential property taxes. (False because the same advocates of a city are the same idiots who support endless school levies, any tax savings will be gobbled up by the radical unionized labor of West Chester’s largest employer, Lakota Schools. Cincinnati Public Schools and Princeton come to mind, both have outrageous per pupil teaching costs due to their looting school boards aligned with high tax city councils.)

4)      Becoming a city would be more prestigious. (What is more prestigious than being one of the best areas to live in the country? West Chester is already there. Becoming a city would take West Chester into the other direction–Section 8 housing because it makes people feel “worldly and enlightened,” even though it’s just another form of human slavery, larger government enterprises, and more complicated zoning regulations to justify the jobs created by bloated city councils.)

Just like with school levies, the people who typically run for school board and city councils tend to be left leaning political types who fall in love with the prestige a nameplate on their desk gives them. This is because they are not successful people in regular life, and they seek to fill those voids with public service. The smart people, the wealth creators, the right thinking people tend not to run for political office because their time is simply worth too much per hour. To give away 15 to 20 hours a week to community politics is a waste of their time, so it is usually only the fools who run for office, and have no idea how things work in actuality. To expand on the arguments above in favor of incorporation consider these more detailed facts:

1)      According o West Chester’s Zoning Dept, about 35% of land in West Chester is zoned for business. This 35% is about 60% developed. According to the Butler County Auditor, this 35% currently pays 58% of taxes collected compared to 42% for residential (keep in mind that residential comprises about 65% of available land in West Chester).

                                     % of Land             % of Tax Paid              Index

                        Business          35%                             58%                             166%

                        Residential      65%                             42%                             64%

To further exacerbate the problem, according to American Farmland Trust, for every $1.00 a resident pays in taxes, they take out about $1.22 in services; for every $1.00 a business pays in taxes, they take out about $.45 in services.

The incorporation movement wants to punish the group that is carrying the majority of the burden…talk about killing the goose!

2)      Relative to a city being more efficient a township is the most efficient form of government currently allowed by ORC. The Cincinnati Business Courier in 2008 ran a list of the largest tri-state governments. Included in that list were number of employees and total population. According the CBC, West Chester had 1 employee for every 232 people living in the community. How does that compare to all of the cities on the list? See below.

Municipality                Employees/Population

West Chester               1/232

Cincinnati                    1/63

Hamilton                     1/88

Middletown                1/129

Covington                   1/128

Fairfield                      1/153

Mason                         1/156

Norwood                     1/118

Blue Ash                     1/80

Lebanon                      1/148

Newport                      1/115

Oxford                                    1/174

You only have to look in the papers to see what is going on in most cities around West Chester. The financial outlook is bleak. West Chester is very healthy. Our Carryover (retained earnings in the corporate world) has grown from $700,000 five years ago to $13,000,000 today. You would be hard pressed to find a city that is more efficient than a township.

3) Lowering property tax? Don’t believe this for a minute. Government does not give money back. West Chester currently comprises less than 20% of the property tax bill received by its residents. Let’s pretend that by incorporating we can lower our property tax (not likely but let’s pretend). If we can lower West Chester’s portion of your property tax bill by 20%, it would only lower your total bill by less than 4%. How do West Chester property taxes compare withy other cities located close by? In 2008, the effective tax on a $200,000 property in the following communities was:

                        Community                            Tax

                        West Chester                           $3,604

                        Loveland                                 $4,030

                        Middletown                            $3,629

                        Cincinnati                                $3,526

                        Mason                                     $3,453

3)      Being a city is more Prestigious…compared to what? By being a township, without extra money to spend, we are able to stay focused on our core competencies; Public Safety and infrastructure. On March 13, 2008, Moody’s Investor Service raised West Chester’s rating to Aa1 for General Obligation Various Purpose Bonds. This is the highest rating of any community in Ohio! Money Magazine in 2006 Ranked West Chester as the 45^th most desirable community to live in America. They stated that the only thing hurting West Chester was the lack of medical services. With the opening of the state of the art West Chester Medical Center, that problem has been solved.

The proponents of incorporation discuss the fact that people living in West Chester but working in another city currently pay an income tax anyway. If reciprocity is not granted, these citizens will pay a tax to both communities. For example, if you currently live in Wyoming and work in Cincinnati, you pay a 2.1% tax to Cincinnati, and a 2% tax to Wyoming, for a total of 4.1%. Given the state of today’s economy, reciprocity is not a given. The argument in favor of a city tax is no different from a thief claiming the resident’s money as their own by saying the residents are already giving their money to another thief elsewhere.

Proponents of incorporation also say that by becoming a city West Chester will gain more power and control. They are correct! This will transfer power and control from citizens to the government. As a township, West Chester can not raise taxes without a vote of the people. As a city, this can be accomplished with a vote of council and is the real intention. The desire to incorporate West Chester is the desire to loot the public. The only people who would benefit are the socialist leaning politicians who are advocating it. The benefits of incorporation are only masks to the sinister aim of more bureaucracy, higher taxes, and more centralized control over community activity. The aim of that activity is not rooted in capitalism, but socialism. The dream of these goofy left leaning tax advocating losers would be to see businesses like Shoot Extreme end, while more families would gather on the lawn outside of the West Chester Library to listen to the future city council members pander their socialist dreams with more sidewalks and group hug social events. The key is that city council members would decide which businesses succeed or fail implemented through tax regulation and zoning ordinances, as opposed to the determinations of capitalism. This happens to a small degree now as the pub I mentioned here with great reverence just a few months ago went out of business triggered by zoning issues and unfriendly business practices. CLICK TO REVIEW. Becoming a city would create more of that behavior not less.

The essence of such advances toward cityhood are the crux of many spirited debates when communities far into the future wonder where their declines began. They are concocted in the mind of functioning socialists whose only logic skills are managing parks and other utopian public concepts that are non-profit in their orientation. Cities are big, and too complex to manage by a part-time staff of trustees, and are attempts at government expansion by progressive minded individuals. They are a detriment to a thriving economy, and only benefit the political class, as everyone else in such communities find themselves subservient to liberal mysticism. And that is not the direction that a great community like West Chester should be contemplating even remotely. The advocates are simply looters with their eye on a potential prize of $20 million dollars of additional revenue that could be tallied up by the politicians and their love of nameplates. The money is to be spent creating jobs that report to the politicians who stole the money to begin with; so that in their small, futile minds, they can pat themselves on the back and pretend they are job creators just like the rest of the businesses in West Chester who are currently successful whereas the politicians are not.

For the back-story on this issue refer to the below article:

http://westchesterbuzz.com/2011/10/17/should-west-chester-be-a-city/

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Click Here to see what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

Visit the NEW Tail of the Dragon WEBSITE! CLICK HERE and help spread the word! TELL SEVEN PEOPLE TO TELL SEVEN PEOPLE!

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

Sex in ‘Tail of the Dragon’: Solving the problem of impotency

A lot has been said about the massive, destructive car chase in my new novel Tail of the Dragon and how the hero Rick Stevens refuses to yield to any force other than his own impulse to live. But that does not mean that my latest book is strictly for men who like fast cars and violence. No, there’s a more complicated component that brings a texture to the story that is not so subtle, and that is the sex in Tail of the Dragon.

The sex is explicit, and it is necessary because at the heart of the story is a middle-aged couple who have rediscovered their passion for living, and with that passion comes sex, and large audacious amounts of it—just as it does in real life. CLICK HERE FOR MY REVIEW OF THE BOOK ‘FIFTY SHADES OF GREY.’ In the novel Fifty Shades of Grey which is lighting up book sales with enormous sales numbers, it is proof that women want to read books that involve aspects of their sexuality they are either curious about as reflected in their fantasies, or they are wanting to explore aspects of their sexuality in the safe confines of their minds to explore them in reality later. But I would view the kind of sex that is explored in Fifty Shades of Grey to be unhealthy sex, since it is driven by repressed feelings and fears—which are not aspects of the characters in Tail of the Dragon.

In Tail of the Dragon we have the opposite issue; Rick Stevens and his wife Renee are on a personal journey that does not involve fear, or repression leading them to sexual acts that are quite explicit, particularly the one on the balcony of a Gatlinburg hotel. The sex is purposely audacious and flagrant because those are attributes of Rick Stevens authenticity as a person, which leads to the extreme events of the novel in a non sexual way, just as in real life. If a person is willing to repress their sexual nature, they are also likely to repress their political views, their spiritual convictions, and their yearning for personal independence.

Fifty Shades of Grey has set a new standard for sex in a mainstream novel. As we speak literary agents are dusting off every erotic manuscript anyone has ever sent them because publishers are about to unleash upon the publishing world a slew of erotic fiction designed to ride the coat tails of Fifty Shades of Grey. Before this novel hit the public, publishers frowned down on the heavy use of the “F” word and the very descriptive sex that can go on between characters in a story. Fifty Shades of Grey is in every essence pornography, and it is now sold at Target, and local grocery stores which would have been unfathomable just a few years ago. The sex in Tail of the Dragon is done with much less profanity out of personal taste and editorial direction. My editor at American Book wanted me to clean up the sex which is very descriptive, because that is the standard America Book has. They do not publish erotica, so they expect their authors to find alternatives to such blatant imagery. I suspect that the policy will be reviewed in the wake of Fifty Shades of Grey, since that book was originally published non-traditionally as a print-on-demand title, in other words—self published. Word of mouth carried it over into the mainstream audience where legitimate publishers have picked it up after it became popular.

Sex however is as important to the human condition as drinking water, eating food, or learning to speak. It has as much reverence as conducting political policies. In a novel, such emotions are expected to be dealt with, so when exploring extreme notions, the sex must reflect the journey. In the case of Rick Stevens and his wife Renee the sex is designed to show what a healthy relationship between two longtime mates do with one another. If they have sex occasionally in public, it is not because they are extraverted exhibitionists; it is because when they are together, they have tuned everyone else out, and so the sexual act is a contextual agreement between them of which the rest of the world is excluded. The world may watch like caged animals at a zoo, but the passions for which Rick and Renee partake in are not for the sake of the collective society, but for themselves only.

Renee Stevens is a woman who is constructively submissive to her husband. When Rick wants sex, she gives it to him without question, and without games. In return, Rick does not have impotency problems like many middle-aged men. This leaves Rick and Renee to often have sex several times a day and not just once or twice a week. The point of course is not to show that Rick and Renee Stevens are sex addicts’ hell bent on perverted sexual sign stimuli for the unhealthy act of satisfying inner demons, but a healthy couple in love willing to satisfy the needs of their partners in a mutual fulfillment, the way a marriage should be.

Men and women join together to form families because they want to have sex with each other. At the most fundamental function of the marriage, what sets a couple apart is that they have sex. If sex was not involved, then the couple would merely be friends. It is sex that makes a marriage. When marriage is mentioned, the first thought is sex. Couples unite to have sex and to keep it safe between them in the context of a relationship. So in Tail of the Dragon which is about being authentic to oneself in every way, even when the law attempts to impose the beliefs of politics upon the sanctity of a spiritual union, sex must be robust and an important part of the story without being profane.

The sex in Tail of the Dragon is something I wouldn’t hesitate to tell my grown daughters about for the sake of their own sanity, and I have. My wife and I have traveled all over creation on the back of a motorcycle, and I can report that the sex of Rick and Renee have their roots in reality, because sometimes after a hard day of riding, sweating, and being on the edge of your senses, sex does happen often and anywhere once the shackles of orthodox confinement are outran. And in Tail of the Dragon, the story is all about outrunning orthodox confinement, so the subject is unavoidable.

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Click Here to see what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

Visit the NEW Tail of the Dragon WEBSITE! CLICK HERE and help spread the word! TELL SEVEN PEOPLE TO TELL SEVEN PEOPLE!

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

“When Injustice Becomes Law Resistance Becomes Duty”: Obama’s Next Move

About a year ago at a 9/11 Ceremony I was at that was a pretty big deal, many of the who’s who of West Chester attended along with many military serviceman and veterans, a gnawing feeling overcame me as I saw how many people felt they had to honor each serviceman, firefighter, and cop with praise for their sacrifice to service. Part of me admired the sentiments of thanks, but a part of me knew that many of the servicemen joined up because they didn’t know what to do with their lives, so their sacrifice was actually just a delay. Some that I know would rather take a bullet in combat than make a hard decision about what to do for the rest of their life, so the heroics is relative. But saying such things in public ruins the moment and the patriotism intended at such events. However, I have not been back to an event like that one since, because after President Obama signed the NDAA Act in the New Year of 2012, along with politicians like Rob Portman, and Paul Ryan, I suspect that a day will come where those same people we are saluting will be our dreaded enemies, as they come to kick in our doors because some punk sitting behind a desk commanded them to. I don’t want to get too friendly with them. (Picture to the left of Darth Soros from Maksim)

http://imaksim.com/

Be advised, the video you see below is real. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans it was but a looking-glass into the future, where the slightest catastrophe can dictate cops, firefighters, and military forces kicking in our doors to search for guns or other “unsafe” items deemed unfit by their superiors, today’s pin headed bureaucrat. And I can say that the day a group of 21 year-old-boys dressed in military gear comes to my home to kick in my door in search of anything, there will be big trouble—because to me they are only boys with guns, and I do not blindly honor the system they represent. More and more I am beginning to let myself think this way so it’s not such a shock when President Obama or his successor makes a national emergency into martial law because the economy has collapsed due to overwhelming debt, and United Nations Agenda 21 is to be implemented to bring stability to the world of interconnected economies suspending The United States Constitution. With a national debt of 16 trillion dollars it can happen quickly, and it may very well be the end game of such irresponsible federal spending. Watch carefully, and completely.

I hope truly that those years of martial law attempts are a long way down the pike, but I suspect that the most immediate threat is actually closer in time. There is a real anxiety brewing within the Obama Administration that when Romney wins, which all indicators appear to be a foregone conclusion–the Presidential race is nowhere near as close as the media wishes it to be–that Obama plans to hang on to his seat with emergency powers.

When I first heard this I had my skepticism, until I saw the below article from American Thinker, by Stella Paul. American Thinker has published a bit of my stuff before so I have a pretty good idea what kind of strict guidelines they have for the type of claims that Stella is making in this article. In fact I’ll go as far to say that she would have to have very hard evidence before American Thinker would publish such a serious article about the extreme measures Obama and his team of infiltrators are planning. In the context of the video above, the implications are quite chilling, and should not be taken lightly. These politicians on both sides are power-hungry fools addicted to power, and in Obama’s case, he is a nobody without the presidency, so he will fight hard to keep the job. He’s a puppet for global interests, and without a hand up his caboose making his lips move, the prospect of being an empty toy tossed into the corner most likely terrifies him in a very real way.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/08/will_obama_keep_power_by_any_means_necessary.html

Desperation is what comes to mind from the emails I regularly receive from The White House these days. Obama knows he’s in trouble and the investors who put him in power and wish to keep him in power are worried. Since it is now highly suspected that Obama and his investors wish communism for America, much of the flow of money is going to Romney who also represents the established order of things, but at least he believes in free markets with lower taxes with only the minimum amount of crony capitalism. So for economic reasons, the money is going to Romney, because under Obama, America will see its superpower status disappear with just a few more months of his next administration, let alone a few more years. Not all the people who control the flow of money want to see America ended. That is why Romney is getting the money this time around.

The fear is easy to see in the actual emails like the one below supposedly from Obama himself. Obama knows he is political toast unless something miraculous happens. Obama is such a tragedy that I seriously do have my doubts that he would be able to surrender his power upon an election loss. There is too much at stake for Obama’s kind who wishes to tear down American and remake it with the clay of the United Nations to give up.

Friend —

It’s August 23rd. And 75 days from now, I’ll either be looking at another four years in the White House — or the end of this opportunity.

I know what’s at stake for the parents worrying about health care, the kids who need help to go to college, and the seniors who want a secure retirement.

But we’re getting outspent by wide margins in critical battleground states — and what we do about that today could be the difference between winning and losing on November 6th.

So as we near one of the last fundraising deadlines of this campaign, I’m asking you to pitch in $5 or whatever you can right now:

https://donate.barackobama.com/75-Days

Thanks for all you do,

Barack

The surest sign of fire is when you can see the smoke. But you know you’re in trouble when they tell you the sky is clear in reality. Such is the case when Romney made the birth certificate comment recently which is fair game contextually with all the poking the Obama Campaign has done over Romney’s tax records. Obama’s Campaign is using the Saul Alinskey methods of manipulation to cut down Romney for misleading the public over tax records, while at the same time trying to hide the much more serious issue of Obama’s birth certificate. CLICK HERE FOR A REVIEW. Obama does have problems with his birth certificate. Even after 4 years there are still questions about it largely due to the one The White House produced proving to be a fake. It was Sheriff Joe in Arizona who proved it so, and shortly after the Department of Justice while in hearings for their own scandals in Fast and Furious, are suing Sheriff Joe as a direct threat to keep Joe off the birth certificate issue. Even if Obama has a birth certificate from Hawaii, the question of his claims as senator of being Indonesian comes into play, which would make sense as Obama’s step father, was recalled to the country taking young Obama and his mother with him. Somewhere in all this it looks like even if Obama had American citizenship then he lost it during his youth which is no fault of his. But it would disqualify him as being president, so it’s a really big issue. Yet when it’s brought up even slightly as Romney did, the Obama Administration calls anyone who asks the question the derogatory term, “birther.” The email below I received just a few hours after the first one, attempting to make Romney look like a kook for even cracking a joke about Obama’s birth certificate issues which have followed him for four years, because anyone with a brain can see that there is something wrong.

Rich —

You have got to be kidding me. Yesterday, Mitt Romney said, and I quote:

“No one has ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised.”

This actually makes me feel sick when I think about it — what it means when the leader of the Republican Party, a presidential candidate, stoops to this level.

The scariest part? His comment was met with cheers. It certainly fired up the extreme “birther” elements of the Republican base.

This has to stop, and it has to stop now. There’s only one way to do that — by making sure President Obama and Democrats across the board win on Election Day.

Donate $3 or more now to give Democrats the resources they need to cut through this crap and do what it takes to win in 73 days:

https://my.democrats.org/Birth-Certificate

Keep fighting,

Jeffrey Lerner

Political Director

Democratic National Committee

The days when economic collapse sends our own troops into our front doors may actually be closer due to President Obama appearing to panic over his slimming chances of being re-elected and the mountains of lies his administration is attempting to shove under the rug—such as Fast and Furious, which is a bigger scandal than Watergate. If Stella Paul from The American Thinker article is even a little bit right, we are in big, big trouble sooner than later. And God forbid that she is right about it all, which the evidence may indicate that she is. If that’s the case, then a peaceful transition of power is simply not possible.

There are a lot of interests who wish to control the flow of business in our Republic. They desire a chaotic democracy which they can then use the divide and conquer strategy of lobby power to control our government with a shadow-like influence. They desire these things out of their own interests, which is to be expected. But they are not allowed to rule with impunity. And they are not allowed to steal our money in the form of taxes only to use what we purchase in the way of military troops, equipment, and other government employees and shackle us under martial law by them. Obama is surely one of their puppets, and I would say a more dangerous one than Romney. But all politicians concern me greatly these days, so much so that I no longer thank service men for their tours of duty, or cops for treading the thin-blue-line. The reality is that soon, the allies that we all are today, will be against each other tomorrow, and when that day comes I don’t want to think about the bright-eyed future of the 21 year-old kid who joined the military to pay for his college, and has been sent to my house to confiscate my property on behalf of some bureaucratic comb-over pot-bellied pig of a politician, protecting the whims of chaos which keeps them in power.

War and violence is in the air and it won’t be in Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, North Korea, or anywhere in Africa. No, it will be in our city streets against our friends and neighbors, and it will come on the winds of tyranny from politicians who have not yet filled their mission parameters, and need more time to use the wrecking ball of their own ignorance to implement the changes designed to profit penthouse kings, and their legions of boot lickers. The Second Amendment is in our Constitution to protect us from those unfortunate power grabs, and because of that knowledge, I no longer make peace with people in uniform. I eye them with suspicion the way a fighter about to enter an arena of death eyes his next opponent with wrapped hands, muscles flexed, and determined eyes ready to strike before being struck the moment the conflict begins.

In this last video, there is a bit of socialism in the arguments presented, but the point is one that can be shared with those of us who know how all the dots connect. And the point is fairly obvious. Crony capitalism is just as wrong as communism, and politics does not exist to protect the business of men from further competition, and to a large extent, that is what has been happening, and Obama certainly represents the visible puppet in this show of power that is corroding all humanity. The debt of 16 trillion dollars that is before us all is an attack on the American way of life, and you bet it is entirely intentional. The end game is coming sooner rather than later.

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Click Here to see what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

Visit the NEW Tail of the Dragon WEBSITE! CLICK HERE and help spread the word! TELL SEVEN PEOPLE TO TELL SEVEN PEOPLE!

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

“Ayn Rand still lives through the work of Rich Hoffman”: Galt/Stephens 2016!

“Wow, I just finished reading ‘Tail of The Dragon’ and I physically feel like I just got off a roller coaster without the benefit of a safety harness.

If you believe that progressive policies pushed by collectivist politicians can rob a vibrant free and independent country of its spirit, how excited you will be to see one man, desperate for freedom – powerful enough and devoid of chains, who refuses to capitulate, take on a government without a soul and bring it to its knees!

The spirit of Ayn Rand is still alive and is being lived and written about by Rich Hoffman…Galt/Stephens 2016!

I was impressed how this skillful author can tell this story that involves sleazy politics without using profanity.

Hoffman got it right.”

–George Lang West Chester Twp Trustee

Out of all the reviews for my new novel Tail of the Dragon, this is one of them that mean the most. When I started writing this novel I had not yet read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, which is certainly the case back in 2004 when I wrote The Symposium of Justice. I have heard similar comparisons with the John Galt character from Atlas Shrugged with my Fletcher Finnegan character in The Symposium as shown in the Galt/Stevens 2016 reference. I read Atlas Shrugged prior to the first movie coming out in spring of 2011 while preparing for a Glendale Tea Party Rally with Doc Thompson. Between Doc and me we put forth a bit of effort on 700 WLW to convince AMC Theaters in Newport to book that film so people could see it, and during the process I felt I should at least read the book of the movie I was advocating.

My draft for Tail of the Dragon had already been turned in to American Publishing and they were considering a contract. I didn’t get the offer for publication from them until the end of May in 2011 so while I was in that in-between zone, I was reading Atlas, and of course found I understood the character of John Galt all too well. Like Ayn Rand I have an idea of what a man ought to be, and my characters reflect that belief. This review given by Lang is not the first time parallels have been drawn between my work and Rand’s that stand out in the mind of my readers.

Most notably in The Symposium of Justice the primary protagonist worked as a grill cook at the restaurant Republics which is a fast foot joint popular in the town of Fort Seven-Mile. In Atlas Shrugged I had a de ja vu moment when Ayn Rand placed Dr. Hugh Akston, who was the college professor of Francisco d’ Anconia, John Galt, and Ragnar Danneskjold, into a similar roll hiding out in the open from the looters of society as a cook at a Colorado diner. The theme in Atlas Shrugged was nearly precisely one that I was trying to capture in The Symposium of Justice and I had found that path by taking the path least trotted upon in the forest where the trees were thickest. These characters found that by working out in the open but in professions that society deemed worthless, they could operate aggressively at reforming the world and the bad guys would not see it, because their minds had become “overly specialized.” In that manner I found that without knowing it, I was very interested in the same types of themes as Ayn Rand and my novels were about those topics.

In Tail of the Dragon even though Rick Stevens is a person who wanted to be a race car driver, he had arrived at a stage in his life relatively socially unmolested, giving him a clear idea of what he wanted from the world, and what was in the way of him getting it. As a man he does not have insecurities about himself, his upbringing, whether or not his wife loves him, whether or not he raised his child correctly, whether or not he could make more money than his neighbors because his focus is on his passion, which I believe should be the focus for all human beings. Rick Stevens is the kind of character who does not believe in yielding to others, he does not believe in compromising himself to politics or social fashion. I had been thinking after I read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead that he was the closest kind of character in literature to emerge since John Galt in 1957 and Howard Roark in 1943 – which is my personal favorite now that I have finally gotten around to reading them. Rick Stevens is certainly cut from the same cloth, but at the time I had no way of knowing. What I did know was I wanted to write about a character as I thought men and women should aspire to be, not what they might otherwise compromise themselves into living in reality. The point of an epic story is not to capture reality as it is, but as it should be so that like a sign post on a desolate highway, the wondering reader might find their way to a life they only suspected was possible.

I know George Lang as my business sometimes bumps into his business, and out of all the politicians that I know personally, he is close to my own age and has seen the very ugly side of politics in a unique way. So I asked him to read an advance copy of Tail of the Dragon and confirm that the vile politics in the book were not so over-the-top that it was unbelievable. In my novel, the story is based on real politics so I wanted to paint the picture with the correct colors, and George had some unique insight to that seedy world and could tell me if I was on the right course.

When George finished the book and sent me the above review, I was a bit taken by it, because over the last year and a half I had become an Ayn Rand fan since she was trying to do in the 1930’s and 1940’s what I am trying to do in the first decade of a new century, and that is elevate the perception of what a man is, define why the world needs them to think this way, and what it takes to get there. The fact that George drew parallels to one of the greatest figures in literary history with Rick Stevens is the ultimate compliment.

Like John Galt and Howard Roark from The Fountainhead, Rick Stevens is an uncompromising man in a world that expects compromises at every turn. Stevens is a man that pays no political system honorable worship. He does not stand in salute to any legal judge. He treats the U.S. President like a bell boy in an expensive hotel—a servant, nothing more or less. Stevens is clearly his own man and the conflict of the story is how he navigates through an intricate story of politics and social engineering while trying to maintain his value system.

I am glad that George Lang noticed what I was trying to do. I am sad that there have not been more attempts in literature from the years of Ayn Rand to the beginning of my novels to explore the same type of characters, because I think the world desires them. The world needs them. I discovered them in my own way through years of trying to make sense of humanity and determine how to fix it. Having the ability to fix problems led me to develop my own modern characters that are examples of man the way they should strive to live. When I fix a car I do not change the tires if I discover it will not start. And in life, we don’t worry about education funding, racism, or illegal immigration when the national debt is about to topple over 16 trillion dollars upon this writing. The problem is something besides all those side issues, and must be dealt with before we tackle the kinds of problems tires may give us. All those other things may be concerns, but they are not the keys to solving the key problems before us. Rick Stevens in Tail of the Dragon like John Galt in Atlas Shrugged was meant to be a mirror that the reader can look into and discover something about themselves so they can utilize their part in fixing big international issues. Those things do not get fixed from the far away land of Washington, or the U.N. of Europe, they are fixed in the daily lives of mankind, and a yearning to be more than what is offered on the precipice of our own destruction.

It means a lot to me to have my name included with Ayn Rand by a reviewer who has been in the political trenches up close and personal. The only sadness I feel is that it took more than 60 years to provide literature with another type of character that can show what a man should be in a world that is much like our own. In Tail of the Dragon, it is a heck of a lot of fun reading about Rick doing what nobody in their socially conditioned minds would dare do–take on the entire legal system with the intention of bringing it down to its very knees—by the simple efforts of refusing compromise and yielding to forces that believe they are greater than the effort of an individual.

Being a trustee of West Chester, Ohio is no small task. Even though I disagree often with much of what the trustees do, George Lang has been instrumental in helping to make West Chester fall in at #97 in America’s top 100 places to live. That is no small feat. In the world of local politics, it is in the quest for the exceptional that helps make rankings like that possible, so his opinion of Tail of the Dragon carries great weight with me.

Thank you,

____________________________________________

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

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