Tag: Tea Party

A Better Reality: Life in ‘The Old Republic’

The very expensive wine was flowing freely at the type of dinner that cost a small group of five over $2500.  It was the type of thing that business professionals and political science majors spend many thousands of dollars in college hoping they’ll achieve some day.  The minds were powerful; the participants were dressed in their latest fashions from Nordstroms, and the topics were at the top of discussion in any level of human endeavor.  It was a power dinner and at 8 PM in the evening my wife sent me a text………..”are you done yet.”  I replied, “not yet, I’m about to wrap it up.  I’ll be home very soon.  Get everything ready.”  The handshakes concluded and all members of the small party left into the parking lot by different trajectories as I headed for my motorcycle parked far away but in clear view of the restaurant.  I do this so my enemies cannot tamper with my transportation while I’m involved in these kinds of activities.  I never sit with my back to a crowd, and I never sit somewhere where I cannot see my transportation at all times.  It is an old trick I learned from friends I who were “hit men” during the 80’s working for a branch of the mob stationed in Chicago responsible for the Chester Road portion of business coming out of Sharonville, Ohio.  Precautions no longer necessary I headed home quickly and within 25 minutes was in front of the same computer station that had been set up 9 months prior for the solitary purpose of playing an online game called The Old Republic.  My wife and I have duel computers built specifically for heavy online gaming, and she was waiting for me with both units powered up and ready to go.  I sat down and we began to play the same video game that we had played almost every day since the previous December when we started our journey into a galaxy far, far away set in a time, a long time ago.

I consider the time my wife and I have spent playing that game together to be far more important than the value of the dinner described, or any other dealing I’ve been involved with at any point in my life.  The reason can be seen in the above video.  In the real world that we all live in there are veils of deceit that permeate everything—even the dinner mentioned.  There is a sense that nothing is as it really is—that everything is dressed up to disguise the ugliness that is left unmentioned.  Our society is at war, but nobody discusses it—the war is not over racism, equal rights, or even political ideology—but over philosophy—even religion.  It is a war over values which nobody discusses.  However, in the Star Wars game my wife and I have spent well over a thousand hours playing together as one of our favorite past times, values are the theme of the entire game, and I relish the environment.

I feel most comfortable on the space ship I have in the game in the middle of space away from the noise of the busy metropolis worlds, or the baron outposts that exist in the outer rim.  The ship is mine, the space is mine, and the control I have of what goes on within it are for me and me alone.  Of all the cool things to do in The Old Republic my favorite are the space missions.  They are not traditional flight simulators, but the graphic combat is absolutely astounding.  I never tire of them.  In that place the perspective of existence is easy to see.  The values of the game make sense to me, and the war between the factions eluded to in the above video are those of our modern age, which go unsaid in the dinner meetings previously described.  In such meetings it is permissible to discuss football team power rankings, baseball playoff scenarios, and the latest in fashion, but not the things that really matter—philosophy.  But in The Old Republic, my wife and I can play side by side on many far flung worlds against players who adhere openly to the opposite philosophy, the fight between statism represented by the Imperial players, and individual freedom represented by players of The Old Republic.  The fight for freedom versus control is out in the open and obvious.  Those attracted to the Imperial faction tend to support statism, while those who support the Republic tend to support individual freedom, and within the confines of that game, it is easier to see the boundaries that exist in the real world—and I relish the honesty.

I have said it on many occasions, I believe Star Wars and their movies, the television shows, the many novels, the comics, and the video games are bringing a philosophy to tomorrow’s world that will have far-reaching consequences deep into the future.  Those consequences are stepped carefully around during dinner meetings as nobody feels comfortable discussing them in public, because most people feel unqualified to express their feelings about philosophy.  But philosophy is the foundation of thought, and without firmness in a manner of belief, people have a tendency to drift in their convictions.  However, in the world of The Old Republic, the characters are not shy about their beliefs, and they are willing to fight to support them—which for my wife and I, is why we’d rather play that game together, than do just about anything else.  Meetings like the one I was engaged in do not impress her.  But beating a terrible villain on a remote world in The Old Republic does.

When I arrived at my game that day my wife had snacks lined up by my keyboard ready for two or three hours of gaming.  Her computer sits right next to mine and our characters link up online so we can travel together in that virtual world the way we would in the real one.  We both love the game for its honesty—and for the commitment to goodness that The Old Republic stands for.  I enjoy fighting for that Republic the way I’d like to fight for the American Republic—if only people in the real world were as honest with their beliefs, as they are within the world of a video game.  Under such conditions, I will choose the honesty of fiction over the falseness of reality.

There is a freedom in the of The Old Republic that does not exist in the real world of current, but it should.  The philosophy of America articulated through The Constitution allows for that freedom, but in practice, it has been surrendered to discussion about sports teams, and redundant trivia—leaving the most important things in life unrepresented.  In The Old Republic I am free to punish evil, and stand for good without the worry and concern of confrontation with statist government.  In the real world there is constant worry about arrests, legal costs, and social castigation for doing the right things—and standing up for what’s right over what’s wrong.  In The Old Republic, such concerns do not exist, which is why my wife and I prefer that environment over all others.  That is the reason even after a long day associating with the kind of people young professionals dream of growing up to correlate with, and dinning in luxury among—my eye was on the clock dreaming of getting home to my wife who awaited me at the spaceport of Corellia.  It is then that we experience freedom, and justice the way the human mind desires—away from the failed philosophies, and political corruption that leads to war, and the suppression of freedom in the real Republic of America.  It is in the fictional world of the computer where real freedom resides, and why video games in general are so popular—and hold so much power over the minds of tomorrow.  I foresee a literal day when the video above comes true as shown, in the world of the living, of the real.  The statists are out to destroy those who cherish freedom, and the fight has not yet manifested beyond unspoken words over wine glasses and sports trivia.  But it’s coming……….trust me.  For now, the only world that matters is the one in The Old Republic—where honesty is clearer through the lost art of philosophy accompanied by the sights, sounds, and action from a computer generated world that is freer providing relief from the real world we are all chained to.

My wife and I have never really returned from our vacation that started so many months ago during the cold December months of late 2012.  I have cut back my personal meetings and interactions to a bare minimum in favor of this fictional world because the vacation has been that good, so good that not even the indulgencies of opulence conducted under luxurious and socially acceptable conditions hold a candle to tasting freedom within the purely imagination driven world of The Old Republic.

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE.  CLICK HERE!  

The Mind of Lakota School Levy Supporters: Hidden meanings from behind enemy lines by the Lorax

It is now at a point that I cannot read all my email, let alone respond to all of them.  But I have a group of people who when I see their name in the header, I make a point to at least read what they send me.  Of these people is a group that sends me rumors, facts, and happenings behind the enemy lines at the Lakota school district.  I learn all kinds of things from these “double agents” who show their Lakota employers politeness and cooperation to their faces, but are willing to cut out their heart through actions driven by pent-up frustration.  One such email came to me from within the For Lakota campaign as the participants were promoting their pro levy zombie tactics to one another through a Facebook campaign.

I put a small caption of these Facebook diatribes upon these pages below for analysis, because it offers a fascinating glimpse into the thoughts and actions of the typical levy supporter.  Most of the normal people who vote against school levies don’t get a chance to interact with these levy supporters because what they say disgusts us.  But in the context of their social imposition, it is relevant to understand their mindset.  With that in mind, read the exchange below with caution.  The shallow perspective may be extremely insulting, yet it is the kind of dialogue that is going on within the confines of the typical levy supporter openly broadcast on their Facebook accounts.


Andrea Sack Sandy

September 19

Please take the time to vote!!! We can all make this happen!!! Our children deserve the best so let’s make sure that Lakota is able to give it to them….Register, Show Up and Vote YES for Issue 7-Lakota School Levy!!!!! Thanks Laura Macdonald Kennedy for the great Lorax quote!!!! — feelinghopeful with Jeanne Brauns and 84 others.1234036_10201580914752206_1149262620_n

  • Andrea Sack Sandy If you are “on the fence” just Vote Yes, do it for “that one teacher” whose extra time with your child, kind words or endearing smile changed your son or daughters life. Be responsible for the well-being of our children and our community. Do the Right Thing!!!! Vote Yes!!!!!

Leslie Reese Anzalone Love this Andrea!!

Yesterday at 7:32am via mobile · Like

So let’s study what is meant by the phrase, “Our children deserve the best so let’s make sure that Lakota is able to give it to them,” since this appears to be a common belief among the levy supporters.   What is the determining qualification for why “their” children deserve the best?  Why do they deserve the best, because they are the children of these particular women?  What makes these mothers so special?  Are these children royalty for some future kingdom—what makes them so prone to entitlement?  And why does Lakota have to give them this attribute.  Lakota in the context provided is all tax payers in the Lakota district.  These mothers are supporting the open looting of financial assets from every tax payer to fulfill the Barbi dream house mentality that their children are automatically deserving of some special treatment just for being born.

The word “let’s” implies collective action, as though through thuggish democracy the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.  The levy advocate above states clearly that even if voters are on the fence, they should just vote Yes for some greater purpose—defined by the levy supporter. They are encouraging thoughtless compliance to the mob rule of group assimilation.  The purpose of this Facebook communication is not to address a single fact as to why taxes need to be increased at Lakota, but simply to advance the emotion of the argument with thoughtless compliance.

Always at the center of these rally cries are the “needs of the children” which are exploited, as if kids will be destroyed if such a tax increase is not passed.  Yet the responsibility for raising children falls squarely on the shoulders of the parents.  Most of these staunch advocates of tax increases come from voters who are deeply insecure about their parenting skills, and would rather pass that responsibility off onto a paid teacher who is professionally trained.  This equates to the same mentality of the person who sends their car to the dealer to change their oil or replace the brakes.  Since they lack the skills to make the repairs to their vehicles on their own, they would rather pay large fees to have someone else perform the task for them.  The same trend translates over into their family lives; they would rather pay a specialist to do their parenting for them, because they lack the skills of parenting needed to raise children.  They seek to cover up this deep insecurity with rally cries supporting teachers who they fully expect to do their parenting jobs for them while they run around like busy bodies gossiping about everyone who intersects their life, eating too much, shopping too much and are continually busy so they can always have an excuse for avoiding the scary task of parenting.  The escapades of their life are a travesty of errors brought about by their need to avoid the insecurities of parenting.  So they want Lakota teachers to do their job for them, and expect the “community” to pay for their children to be fixed, just like a mechanic fixes their cars.  The notion is as stupid as those same tax advocates asking the community to pay for their oil change, when the rest of us tend to do it ourselves.

Most voters in the Lakota district already raised their kids, and they did it on their own.  They didn’t leave the task of raising children to professional teachers.  In previous generations, when education quality seemed to be higher, and still cost a lot less than it does today, teachers were only a part of the lives of children, they weren’t expected to actually be the parents the way modern levy supporters do.  The guilt that many parents feel over their lack of skill in communicating with their children is covered up with their radical support of tax increases.  In a warped way, the levy advocates believe that they can sin every day of the week, but on Sunday, they can say a prayer and get into heaven.  In the case of their children’s educations, they believe they can be gossiping, materialistic, social menaces and all the sins of their lives will be erased if they campaign for higher taxes at their children’s school.  They convince themselves and anyone who will listen that everything they do is “for the children” but it’s really for them—to cover the sins of their chosen lifestyle and the guilt they feel over it.

I know most these levy supporters will read this at some point in time over the next couple of months and I challenge any of them to dispute my claims in the comments below.  I know what is in their hearts and I invite them to dispute it with me.  But they can’t because what I have said here is true—it is the backbone of their neurosis—they seek redemption for the sins of their crumbling lives off the backs of their children and they hope that nobody notices.  But anybody with any level of intelligences sees the situation clearly.  Only the like-minded levy supporter is blind to the messages of mental depletion that is written upon their foreheads with invisible ink, yet the messages are there for those with special lighting who can see it plain as day.  My special lighting comes from experience, and in dealing with these types of people for thirty years now.  I have met and dealt with every personality type that gets involved with these school levy things, and I know how they think.  The tax increase is not for their children, but to get them off the hook for being terrible parents either by choice, or by personal insecurities.  The cry for better schools is the subtle demand that someone besides them raise their children for them.  The crime is that those types of parents believe falsely that their children can be maintained like their cars—dropped off at the dealer to have their oil changed and brakes fixed—then returned to them all ready to run for a few thousand more miles.  But kids don’t work like that—and no amount of tax money thrown into the black hole of public education can change that fact.  Kids need love, and they need parents who are role models.  And that can’t be purchased at a school, or supplied through tax increases.

As for the Lorax , he’s a greenie weenie tree hugging anti-capitalist and it is appropriate that the pro levy Lakota campaign would seek him as a symbol of justification for their public education expansion.  Watch the video above and see how anti-business the Lorax is—just like the pro levy supporters at Lakota.  

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE.  CLICK HERE!  

The Bee Hive of Lakota Schools: Parasites, Thugs and Communists

A wonderful example of the labor union hypocrisy penetration of public education came to me through an email message from a guy who communicates with me regularly arguments contrary to mine. As it is well-known by now, I report virtually every bit of news that comes out of my school district of Lakota with the intention to combat the constant tax requests imposed by that education institution upon my community.  I write at least one article every day, sometimes two or three. When Lakota is light on news, I cover other topics discussing schools all across the country, and sometimes just to take a break I talk about other kinds of things all together.  However, the primary focus of my blog is the evils of public education particularly centered on my home district.

Of course there are people who take great offense to what I write, because they profit off the education business in some way or another as it currently is.  And those people look constantly for some way to undermine my arguments.  That is the spirit of the letter listed below where the commenter sent me three pictures of nice, pleasant women who teach at Cherokee Elementary as an attempt to invalidate my claims that teachers are typically, parasites upon civilization, thugs as their radicalism brings harm to the communities that employ them, and are serving an occupation that is designed around the philosophy of communism.  I list the letter below without the pictures of the teachers to protect them from unneeded scrutiny.

Rich,

 

I am a little tired of seeing images of teachers from other cities in your blog.  So I give you images of three teachers from Cherokee Elementary.  The titles above them have been given to them for no apparent reason other than they are teachers in Lakota, just as you have labeled virtually every teacher in Lakota as being parasitic, a communist, and a thug.  Why don’t you start with these three teachers in your effort to call out the bad guys instead of beating around the bush with the out-of-towners you like to put in your blog.

 

Parasite

 (picture omitted)

Thug

  (picture omitted)

Communist

 (picture omitted)

 

 

William Schmidt

 

 

What I love about that letter is it shows the weakness of the labor argument.  The primary driver of high taxes imposed upon communities by their school districts is the collective bargaining agreements that were typically reached through the threat of labor strikes by the same teachers that were mentioned above.  It is through collectivism that the budgets of Lakota were wrecked—as all boats in the teacher labor pool rise together regardless of skill level and personal behavior.  Typically, through collectivism, the bad teachers such as the parade of teachers who have been busted recently at Lakota for sexual misconduct hide their evil actions behind the smiling faces of the nice teachers exhibited from Cherokee Elementary.  Through collectivism the bad, unskilled, and corrupt disguise their failures behind the good deeds of the few.

When a bee hive is identified as a threat to a small child out of fear that the youngster might swat at it and stir up the hive of bees into stinging in retaliation, it is the fear of the collective bees that is the threat.  But when individual bees are seen landing from flower to flower harmlessly doing their business, they might be considered a thing of beauty.  Typically when I see a bee land in my swimming pool, I will scoop it out hoping to save it, so that it can live life one more day.  But if a bee hive were near a spot where a child I cared about played, I would incinerate the hive killing thousands of bees in the process to protect the child.

The collective bargaining agreements reached by the teachers unions are a bee hive in our communities.  It protects the bad by using the good as props to show value for the collective whole, which is what the letter writer above was attempting to do—sensing that public sentiment is very much against their public education arguments.  He is attempting to play on my sentiments, which are universally human, to fish out a struggling bee out of a pool to save it from drowning, when I am arguing the incineration of the entire hive.  The hope is that by pulling the focus away from the collectivism that caused the trouble of creating school levies and focusing on the individual lives of a few teachers the bad behavior of the of the collective whole will be forgotten.   They are attempting a trick from the past which created the entire problem.

Collectivists in education want the power of group force behind them to advance their position, but when they get into trouble they seek individual recognition.  When a teacher has sex with a student it is just one or two bad apples that have went bad, but when they want more money, they collectively stop work and hold children hostage from their educations to force wage increases.  I show routinely that these problems are nationwide and exist in every school where labor unions control the political structure.  This leaves the only strategic maneuver by them to loot off the good merits of a few teachers to justify the cost of the entire bee hive.  The teachers mentioned above I have no doubt are nice people taken individually.  They are someone’s mother, someone’s daughter, someone’s special someone, and are not the epitome of evil.  Yet, they allow their good names to be tarnished in association with the group hive of their labor union where statist advocates use the good deeds of a few to justify the evils of the many with looted value.  This makes them every bit the menace as the child molester because the pervert is allowed to hide behind such good teachers through the collective bargaining process.  This makes the entirety of the teaching profession in public school an evil entity which should be defunded at the very least, and eradicated politically before it further destroys the next generation the way it has the previous three.

The attempt to use three mild-mannered teachers from Cherokee Elementary as a way to run cover for a profession that advocates open communism, and radical Democratic political policy on the backs of children is sheer evil.  Evil is not always in the biggest, scariest foe, but sometimes is most dangerous when the single bee stuck in the swimming pool appears harmless enough, but is simply a trap for the entire hive.  Public education is on a declining trend and its advocates are seeking the good name of the very few to loot their collective value for their perpetual salvation.  However, eventually just like money, good deeds do run out and once the good stop offering themselves up as sacrificial victims to the merits of collectivism, the communists, the thugs, and the social parasites will have nowhere left to turn as they are then exposed for lack of anything to hide themselves behind.  This is the nature, and frustration of the note sent to me from an education advocate who can’t fathom such a realization.  But even if the skill is not present to see the facts, the facts exist and will not go away just because pro education supporters wish them to.  Once the masks of goodness are stripped away from individual analysis, what becomes quickly evident is that the teaching profession is filled from the top to the bottom with parasites, thugs, and communists.  This leaves the next statement which should then be obvious to all—what will society do to protect themselves from this diabolical menace that unleashes upon all society an invisible attack designed to conquer the minds of children before anybody ever realizes it?  The first step is to not approve tax increases, and from there let the system collapse on itself.  The way to destroy the bee hive is not to become filled with compassion for one single bee, but to see the threat as a whole.  In this case, every public school in America is a bee hive filled with busy bees functioning as a collective unit for the manufacture of honey.  But in these schools the honey is not the kind consumed as food, but is taxes for the solitary consumption of the federal government and their statist policies of doom concocted with tyranny in mind sold to the public through promises of comfort…………and goodness.

 

Notice how all those lip dub videos were published around the same time as Lakota did their video.  Lakota wasn’t doing anything new.  They were just copying off everyone else like all collective organisms do, and that is what they are teaching children.

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE.  CLICK HERE!  

The “For Lakota” Cult: Levy supporters, voodoo priests, and South Pacific cannibals

For LakotaLike a voodoo priestess sprinkling blood from the cut off head of a chicken upon a sidewalk making shapes in tribute to the shadow gods, the Zombies of Lakota have come up with a new slogan for their 2013 tax increase campaign, “For Lakota.”  The zombies of that cult ridden school district in Southern Ohio would have voters believe that a sacrifice of higher taxes would be to the benefit of the community when in fact it is only “For Lakota.”  The zombies would have all believe that their campaign is for the kids of the school, but in reality it is only “For Lakota.”  The concept of sacrifice to the mysticism of superstition is the cornerstone of the levy zombie argument as logic is the victim of their offering.  The tax increases the Levy Zombies propose in the upcoming election are sacrifices by the community “For Lakota,” for teacher contracts, for political union control, for price-fixing, and for the pervert teachers who prey on the children who innocently attend the school.

As the yard signs in favor of tax increases pop up like zits on the face of an unfortunate teenager, the message of “For Lakota” has many meanings.  But the primary one is sacrifice.  Sacrifice to the gods of academia and their teacher’s union.  It is they who drive up the cost of education and require the sacrifice of the community to sustain their blood thirsty cult of thoughtless zombies.  It is “For Lakota” that the wealth of the community residing around the Lakota school district is tossed hoping through superstition that children will miraculously become smarter, more independent, and functional adults when the grim reality is that they are bred to be thoughtless hominids half dead to the world around them.

When signs displaying “For Lakota” pop up in a neighborhoods across Liberty Township and West Chester beware, a Lakota Levy Zombie resides there and will attempt to toss everything they can of value into the pit of fire the way South Pacific cannibal tribes tossed their virgin daughters to the fire gods residing in the lava pits of a volcano.  Among all these primates, the voodoo priest, the volcano cannibals, and the Lakota levy zombie, they all declare the need for sacrifice to satisfy their appetites for destruction.  In the case of Lakota it is the loss of fiscal value that they seek, not just the blood of a living being.  One type of parasite seeks the life energy of the human being; the other seeks the lifeblood of an economy.  But they both thrive off social sacrifice for the greater good—their good. No Lakota Levy When the signs stating “For Lakota” are seen remember that the displayer believes in this brand of sacrifice, and that their intellects are no different from the slack-jawed cannibal which haunts the remote islands of the South Pacific.  Only these sacrificial parasitic zombies of Lakota are worse because they look and smell like normal people, but they are far from it.  The best way to recognize their treachery is to look for yards where “For Lakota” is displayed.  Upon such places the Zombies of Lakota reside.

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE.  CLICK HERE!  

The Wonderful HWK-290: Working with the Millennium Falcon to dominate X-Wing Minatures

For me the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars is a symbol of freedom.  It was the pirate vessel of the smuggler Han Solo and became the premier deterrent against tyranny in the plight against the evil Empire.    I love the ship in the fictional context for which it is presented.  When I ride the Star Tours Ride at the Disney Parks I always hope for the beginning shown below, where the Falcon is sitting in a hanger surrounded by Imperial troops before suddenly leaping off the deck to launch itself into a firefight in space before escaping.  There is no presidential address in human history which moves me more than seeing the Falcon sitting there at the opening of the Star Tours ride.  The video below does not capture the mood completely, only in reference.  On the actual ride, it is quite spectacular because visually it is captivating, but metaphorically, it is multi-dimensional—and important.  There is no level of sign stimuli more appealing, no sporting event more dramatic, and no political event more powerful to me than watching the Millennium Falcon in flight.

I became hooked on the new Star Wars game called X-Wing Miniatures because of the fantastic model they had made of the Millennium Falcon.  There has never been another more meticulous model of such a thing ever produced to my knowledge for the simple task of playing a game.  But that game has deep combinations of options that are much more dynamic and interesting than any game of chess known to intellectual circles.  The 3’X3’ game surface of a typical X-Wing game holds seemingly infinite strategies to use against an opponent which is refreshingly wonderful for strategy prone war gamers—such as myself.   It has been many years since I have loved something so much as I love Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures.

I look for reasons to play with the Millennium Falcon at every opportunity, but because it is such a powerful ship I have found that I can’t use it the way I want as I have been teaching players new to the game to play using simpler rules instead of my Falcon build which involves many complex options. I have been looking for a great support ship for my Falcon that points-out right at 65 points.  I shudder to consider spending so much on one ship in the game, but if my reason to play the game is to play the Millennium Falcon, then I owe it to the game to find a way to justify the experience.  Most 100 point games in X-Wing come out to three ships, sometimes four or five.  So tying up 65 points on my Falcon build is a steep price indeed.  That means the Falcon will be continuously outnumbered and will have to take a lot of abuse to survive—which is ironically the actual role it had in the Star Wars mythology.  Winning is not guaranteed under such conditions, but it’s the way I like to play the game.  It requires excellent piloting instead of attacking opponents with mass, which is usually the best strategy for everything.

The ship I found to support my Falcon is the HWK-290, which just came out on Wave 3 from Fantasy Flight Games.  Manufactured by the Corellian Engineering Corporation in the decades preceding the Battle of Naboo, the HWK-290 was a concentrated effort by talented shipwrights at breaking into a new market. Focusing on making the new design appeal to the wealthy of high society, the HWK-290 was an attempt at capturing business outside of its normal audiences.

Major marketing research was conducted on the demographic segment CEC sought to capitalize upon. As such, they designed the ship to appeal to entrepreneurs and wealthy merchants. One concern of the individuals questioned during the research phase was that the current designs of the time were often delayed at checkpoints and customs stations because they were armed; it was thought that the time it took goods to be delivered could possibly be reduced by removing the armaments of the ships. Additionally the majority of those interviewed said that the ideal ship would not only be fast but aesthetically pleasing as well, unlike most freighters, which are bulky in appearance.

The research provoked a design totally independent of the iconic YT-series freighters, which tended to be associated with the less savoury elements of society. The HWK-290 prototype had the appearance of a large bird of prey and when displayed at trade shows and conventions brought about many questions as to the availability of the ship. Designers also listened to initial feedback regarding the ship and made minor modifications to the interior until it was determined that the right balance of aesthetics and functionality were achieved. At that point, production began in earnest.

When the HWK-290 rolled off the production line, it was an unarmed, extremely fast, agile ship that could outmaneuver and outrun most fighters and had largest weight capacity for carrying cargo of any freighter up to 30 meters long. It also contained an impressive state of the art sensor array for a ship of its size and class, the purpose of which was to detect trouble before falling victim to it. Additionally, it was a lot more luxurious inside than normal freighters, boasting large passenger and sleeping areas, entertainment consoles and a cockpit that was designed with the comfort of the pilot and co-pilot in mind.

While only seeing relatively moderate success in contrast to that of the YT series, production of the HWK-290 was discontinued during the Clone Wars in favor of military production. Despite no longer being manufactured, the HWK-290 has found popularity in the inventories of smugglers and pirate groups, a far cry from the original clientele for whom it was initially designed.

http://www.swcombine.com/rules/?Light_Freighters&ID=158

I ordered the HWK-290 well in advance of its release date, and it shipped to me from American Hobby Supply in a box coming from Fantasy Flight Games.  As I was helping my daughters get set up for their big party over the weekend, knowing that at least one of my nephews from out-of-town was coming, I was hoping my HWK-290 would arrive in time for the party so I could fly it while teaching him about the game.  Sure enough the tracking information showed that my HWK-290 was coming and it arrived right on time on my front porch.    Receiving that package was one of the most thrilling things I have put my hands on in years.  That statement is not in reference to a lack of options in my life—quite contrary.  But in my life mythology is extremely important, and the X-Wing game is a perfect symbiotic relationship of hobby model building and strategy mixed with deep metaphorical mythology.  In that context the HWK-290 is the perfect complement to my Millennium Falcon and it was exciting to put my hands on it after thinking about it so much.

The reason I love that ship so much even though it is comparatively slow as opposed to the A-Wings and Tie Fighters is that both my Falcon and HWK-290 feature a 360 degree shooting radius.  The strategy I plan to use with these two ships is not for everyone as the key to winning with them will be in maneuvering strategy.  When the package arrived the day was a picture perfect sunny day in Southern Ohio, the sky was cloudless and the temperature was in the lower 70s.  It was a weekend day with little pressure other than the upcoming party at my kid’s house for my first grandson.  Opening the package from Fantasy Flight Games with the HWK-290 so carefully packaged within the box revealed the climax of such sentiments.  At that moment it was a perfect day in every respect.

Of course I played with it that night as I showed my nephew how the game worked.  It was challenging to fly, but I got used to it quickly and can see how it will play out in many future strategies to my liking.  But seeing the HWK-290 parked next to my Millennium Falcon brings back to my mind that wonderful opening on the Star Tours Ride at Hollywood Studios, where the Falcon begins in captivity, frees itself, nearly collides with a cruiser in space during an intense battle only to escape in a nick of time into the safety of hyperspace.    The HWK-290 and the Millennium Falcon go together well and I am excited for the many wonderful adventures that await those two during epic battles yet to be fought.

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE.  CLICK HERE!  

The Communist Teachings At Lakota: Superintendent Mantia Protects Teacher Wages

The scouting report at Lakota regarding all things campaign related is that I am a narcissist that thrives in the spotlight and the way to win this next election is to diffuse me without engagement—so not to play into my strengths.  Lakota as a progressive institution find it appalling that any individual would see themselves as “bigger “than their socially centered school.  On the other hand, my scouting report on Lakota is that they are the narcissists as a collective organization who believes they are the center of the community, and that they are acting on behalf of what’s good.  The reality is that they are a cancerous leech that uses children to drive unionized government workers into inflated wages and have tied themselves over time to real estate values as a back-up to their child extortion racket.  As a progressive organization they were set up years ago to fulfill the communist infiltration of America after McCarthy overplayed his hand—and the insurgents were emboldened by the public support of their cause which followed.  Communism sought to infiltrate the public school system through the teacher unions and advance progressive goals, and there was never a finer example of this trait than the article by Superintendent Mantia in this week’s Today’s Pulse.

To know how ridiculously misleading and parasitic the Lakota school system intends to make itself upon the community which is its host it is important to read the quarter page public awareness column that the community newspaper gives to Lakota’s Superintendent each week.  This latest week, as much as their campaign strategy has been designed to diffuse my “narcissism” Mantia acknowledges that she is reading here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom frequently, because she addressed several of my recent points made upon these pages.  Her topic this week was a proposal to reduce fees in extracurricular activities so to increase student participation.  But first she felt she needed to set the record straight on the value of teachers who volunteer their time—“for a small fee of course”—to provide students with extracurricular activities.  She said, “Many, though not all of our extra-curriculars are guided by our teachers.  They earn a small amount of extra money for doing it, but the vast majority put in far more hours than they’re required to, because they love what they’re doing and know how much it means to kids.  Per-hour our coaches and advisors could make far more money working at any fast food restaurant.”  The most dangerous part of that statement is that Mantia is a quarter million dollar member of Lakota’s management team and they are preparing to engage the labor union in 2014 contract negotiations.  Mantia clearly is on the side of the teachers and the union based on just the statement she provided above—so anyone hoping that Lakota will put up a good fight against the union can wake up.  Mantia is a former teacher, and she is on the business side of teachers.  The management at Lakota is bought and paid for by the labor union and they are just “narcissistic” enough to believe that the residents of Lakota are stupid enough to supplement their scam with higher taxes.

Mantia goes on to say, “The two qualities we see young people develop so often in extra-curricular activities are leadership and teamwork.  They also learn the value of sacrifice and hard work, and often, other life lessons.  They may have to accept that they may not always be the star.  Sometimes they will have other roles to fill.”  She goes on for several more paragraphs with the same kind of progressive drivel for the next quarter page in the newspaper in that same fashion neglecting to report that the causes for the high fees imposed upon students and their families in the first place are due to her mismanagement.  She chose to raise sports fees to punish parents for voting down Lakota’s previous three levies, and not ask the teachers and other Lakota employees to take a 5% pay cut which was proposed by No Lakota Levy after the levy defeats.  Instead she advised the rest of Lakota’s management to raise sports fees to protect the teachers who work under her from unnecessary public scrutiny over their average salaries of 63K per year.  She chose protecting the highly paid public employees over the community health then, and now to appear as though she were doing the community a favor ahead of the fourth levy attempt, she is floating the idea of being “compassionate” so that she can earn votes for a levy allowing her to throw that money gained straight at her upcoming union contract—which she already blew the negotiations by revealing her pro-teacher position—which for those who know her was a foregone conclusion.  CLICK HERE TO SEE THE FINANCIAL FACTS ABOUT THE UPCOMING LEVY.

Mantia had the audacity to state that her teachers would make more money working at a fast food restaurant then they would be paid to stick around a few extra hours a day to teach kids during extra-curricular activities.  For those who aren’t so good at math, with an average salary of 63K per year, the teachers average approximately $30 dollars an hour, so teachers can make a lot of extra cash off their “extra-curricular sacrifices.”   But what’s worse in Mantia’s comments are the things she values from these experiences which come straight out of the progressive playbook, sacrifice, team-work and other “shared values.”

The statements about communist penetration of our public schools have been underway for many years, so long that it is doubtful that Mantia has the intellectual history to grapple with the issues.  She and her teachers are paid well to not pay attention to the “big picture” only to teach it.  She was raised into the system and knows of nothing else.  The attack against America was subtle, and occurred before her time.   She believes she is sticking up for her employees with her comments and support of another tax increase against the community.  But she is the one who’s narcissistic, and wrong.  My father-in-law was visiting over the weekend and told me the story of how on Friday he was called into a school district where he lives in Kentucky as a substitute—a very affluent district that is the home of many thoroughbred owners.  The demographics there are very similar to Lakota.  He was called in to teach as he has been a teacher for public schools for several decades, and now in his later years does it only as a substitute.  He holds several degrees, one of them a Master’s in geology.  He reported his anger to me upon seeing two of the topics given by an advanced English teacher to their class written on the chalk board, one on the merits of Marxism, the other on the merits of feminism.  Students had to pick one of those two topics to write about.  It wasn’t hidden with subtle dialogue the way that Lakota hides their progressive educations, because there isn’t a narcissistic Rich Hoffman in my father-in-law’s school district to call them out, so they recklessly placed their agenda up on the chalk board for all to see.  He was aghast at what his very affluent public school was teaching children and his obvious question—why wasn’t there a third topic about capitalism to choose from?  The answer was that public schools are not about American traditional values, they are about collapsing economies and advancing fairness for all—at the expense of productivity.  They are about higher taxes through schools as a way to redistribute income from one sector of the economy to another and they advance their agenda recklessly through the narcissism of the parents who support a large centralized institution that is simply a parasite upon the community.  Those parents believe that in exchange for their support of people like Superintendent Mantia, and the 63K per year teachers at Lakota, that their child will escape a life of mediocrity and become successful adults.  But what those parents discover too late is that the taxes raised are intended to be spent on teaching their children the merits of sacrifice—of sharing their wealth for the benefit of others.  What their children are learning, which was confirmed in the comments of Superintendent Mantia in the Sunday, September 15, 2013 edition of Today’s Pulse of Butler County, is that kids are learning to work hard for the sacrifice of others so that collective society can advance fulfilling the aims of communists many years ago.  These school officials will mislead, manipulate, and stoop to any low to advance the progressive platform.

The fight of our day is not in Syria, Russia, or even the Middle East, it is in our public schools where saboteurs are using our money stolen from property taxes to convert our children into socialists through an advanced communist plot hatched before Superintendent Mantia was even born.  She is paid to advance that plot and look not too closely at their intentions—which is driven by government for the service of government with the ultimate example of narcissism provided anywhere.  And it is our task to put an end to their scheme.  There is no hiding it now; they are out in the open with their intentions.   All that is required now is to admit that such sinister plots are at play and they intend to feed off the innocent minds of our children for a social goal that is not in their best interest.  As Mantia said in her article, sometimes kids need to “learn the value of sacrifice and hard work, and often, other life lessons.  They may have to accept that they may not always be the star.  Sometimes they will have other roles to fill.”  Those roles under communism are to work hard for the benefit of the greater good, a greater good that is determined by mother government for the benefit of itself and the employees who make it grow.

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE.  CLICK HERE!  

The Overworked Lakota Teacher: New levy talking points from the regime of public union monopolies

If it was ever wondered what the cost of public education monopolies are, read the following comment from an apparent Lakota teacher who came unglued the other day on the Channel 9 website for a story they did about the upcoming levy attempt.  CLICK HERE TO REVIEW.  The teacher’s comments are shown below.  Before I dismantle this teacher’s claims to pain and suffering, read it for yourself.  The short of the issue is that this teacher can make the claims of hardship because they are working for a monopoly—they have no competition to judge against.  So they can claim any little thing as an unwarranted pain, because the unionized workforce of the teaching profession backed by the federal government is operating as an anti-trust.  Their demands, and pay rates are dictated by price-fixing, and their expectations are ridiculously high because of it.   Now read what a teacher from Lakota thinks is a hard day as they answer to a commenter named “Joe Jobs.”

Let me be succinct in case you can only hold one or two thoughts in your head at any one time. First, those “unions” are made up of teachers; teachers who spend their every day in the classroom with their students and then do the grueling “union” job after hours in many cases. Teachers choose their profession because they are dedicated to helping children be successful people and citizens of their communities. See, it benefits us all when our children succeed in life. Joe, take a “sick day” this week and visit any Lakota school. Sign in and tell the secretary you want to volunteer in a classroom for the day. Don’t forget to pack a small lunch; you won’t be going out and you won’t have much time to eat that lunch anyway. Better be sure to go to the bathroom before the students arrive, because once they do, your only “break” of the day will be after the students go home. Please dive right in; help that teacher manage classes filled with students who arrive with a myriad of abilities and challenges. Some don’t speak English yet. Others are living through family wars, losses of parents or jobs, some are latchkey and arrive at school before the sun is up and most people are not even dressed for work. Be sure you help the students understand how to edit their writing to make it clear. Then help the students understand the challenging new math curriculum that the state and the new “common core” dictates they must understand and succeed with. You’ll have to write for the student whose muscular disease no longer allows her to hold a pencil. You’ll need to always be aware of the time so that students get to the nurse for their insulin checks and their medications. The counselor will need to see some who desperately need his/her help. Several in your class will need to leave at their appointed time to go to the resource room where they’ll continue to work with their specialist who tailors their work to meet the individual needs of each of those students who struggle. Don’t forget to challenge those kids who fly through their work and crave more! Follow the students as they travel their day to each of their classes without their favorite subjects: art, music, and PE. They’ll get a lunch and small recess; you won’t. During your half hour lunch, I hope you can eat with one hand while you answer parent emails with the other, tutor that child that comes in needing help with their math facts, and of course, you’ll have a meeting 4 out of 5 days. When everyone is exhausted, and you finally send your students home, get your butt outside because you have carpool duty. See, Lakota lost most of their busing, so you’ll stand outside every afternoon while hundreds of cars line up to retrieve their children. Pay attention; make sure the right kid gets into their car quickly. The kids will be too busy talking with their friends to be paying attention, so you’ll have to. Finally, at 4:30, go to the bathroom, finally, and drag your butt into your car. Did you remember all those papers that must be assessed before the kids arrive tomorrow? Take them home. Forget watching TV or going out for a run or walk, you have work to do. This is your 60+ hour a week job, that you love, by the way, for 40+ weeks of the year. With an advanced degree and 20 years of experience, what is your salary? Seriously? Think again, JoeJobs. Support our children and their education. Teachers have been doing just that every day.less

I see no problem with arriving at work at 7:30 in the morning and not taking a break until 5 PM.  The teacher however does get a bit of a breather between class periods all through the day, so no matter how grueling this teacher attempts to portray their day; it is an obvious neurotic exaggeration.  A ten-hour work day is a piece of cake, and I have offered Lakota schools to take this teacher’s challenge and teach not just one of their classes, but four of them at the same time.  I made such a challenge to Lakota East’s Spark Magazine where Dean Hume is the head of that endeavor.  Of course they didn’t take me up on the offer, and our relationship is so deteriorated now that it is off the table.  But the gist is they know at Lakota that their claims of hardship are overblown in a big way, and their collective bargaining agreement expecting over $60K a year on average is too high.  Way too high—by about 10K per year.

Much of what the teacher complained about is driven by failures in progressive education, where teachers have attempted to take the place of traditional parents, infusing themselves to the lives of all children in intrusive ways.  They have desired to push traditional parents out-of-the-way and raise children into a statist education making students always dependent on others.  This has made the teacher’s job harder as parents have yielded to this intrusion seeking a taxpayer-funded babysitter while they build their careers for their own pursuits.  The teacher at Lakota made themselves advocates of a progressive education, and they are dealing with the results of a classroom full of dependents.  The failure is in the style of education.  If the teacher’s job is harder, it is because the progressive education children are receiving has made it so.  The task of putting a band-aid on the failure by throwing money at education through permanent tax increases is a stupid idea.

If there were competitive options, that teacher would be happy to have the problems they are complaining about now.  The only reason they feel obliged to complain in this case is because there is no competition to their profession other than a few remote private schools, or the occasional home-schooled family.  Therefore, the severity of the workday expressed by this teacher is measured against the unrealistic expectations of employment created by a government monopoly at Lakota.  Only in such monopolies could employees behave as badly as some of those teachers at Lakota who have been involved in sex scandals, and gotten away with the crime, and still make the claims of hardship similar to what was made in the above statements.  The reason is that they are anti-trust employees justifying their impositions on the communities that employ them with parades of complaints that are driven by their own incompetency.

For further proof of this mentality, here is a letter to me from a pro tax supporter I received just the other day.

Rich,

I disagree with your goal of $45K average salaries for teachers.  But the public will ultimately decide that.  If that goal is reached, it will be up to the teachers to work at a $45K pace and not the pace they are currently working..  Your comment that “teachers at Lakota are making too much money for doing too little” is the point of the levy results.  Why would anyone devote so much time toward a job which the community deems as being not worth it?  Why isn’t 8 hours of hard work each day enough time toward their jobs?

Mr. George says that the public wants to work with the teachers, but the union won’t let them.  Who does he think the union is?  It is that 2nd grade teacher that comes in to school 3 weeks early to set up her classroom and prepare for the year.  The union is the 5th grade teacher who postpones her bathroom break so her students are under constant supervision..  The union is the AP teacher who teachers college level material using a high school schedule with high school materials and support.  When parents go to open house and conferences, that is when they should voice their displeasure with the union because that is who they are directly talking to.

Once again I call on the labor force of the schools to determine the next round of cuts if the levy fails and those cuts should be in the time devoted to the job at hand.  Make gone the 50-60 hours work weeks.  The public, by voting no, is saying they can’t afford to type of service.

William Schmidt

Isn’t it amazing how similar those comments are to each other?  It is the new union talking points for the elections of 2013.

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE.  CLICK HERE!  

Why Some Republicans and Democrats Want War in Syria: Protecting the United Nations with American money

Many pundits and social commentators seem baffled as to why some Republicans share with Democrats a desire for war in Syria while others share in common a desire to stay out of such an action.  It is mysterious to them that a supposed anti-war, pro peace politician like Barack Obama would support a war effort of any kind, while political “extremists” such as Sarah Palin does not.  The reason is not because one political party represents elephants while the other represents donkeys, but because they are both social progressives as the others are not, or are trying to distance themselves from such political parasites.

Progressives believe in global unity, and individual sacrifice for the greater good as defined by them.  They wish to think of the world as a giant global village and they are the chieftains.  If some terrible thing happens in Syria, then it is the job of the “international community” to do something about it once the United Nations is made aware of an evil.  In the case of Syria the crimes against the Syrian people has been known for a long time, but it was only once the United Nations inspectors supposedly saw footage, and were granted into the country to inspect conditions for themselves that progressive politicians decided that the time for action was now, rather than at any other point in time, past or future.

Progressives are not attempting to do justice to the poor people killed under a tyrannical regime.  They are simply attempting to preserve the authority of The United Nations as a world police force.  The war drums in Syria by otherwise antiwar politicians are the obvious result of these progressive types. If it was ever wondered what politicians are progressive and which actually hold the type of beliefs established under their respective political parties it has never been more obvious, or hypocritical as to whom are progressives than those who support the Syrian War.

Progressives are vile, despicable people who are destructive intellectual collectivists.  What they are fighting for is not justice in Syria for the benefit of free people.   They simply fight to preserve the reputation of the United Nations.  In the context of the global community, it is the United States that is known as the official police force in that global community—and other countries who have elected to stay out of Syrian engagement wish to see the police do their job on behalf of the United Nations, while maintaining their own disengagement from conflict due simply to the financial cost.

It is not such a mystery once this basic fact is known, who is what and why they believe the things they do.  Progressives want war because it further advances their desire for global rule under a gigantic social village where the values of The United States are erased so that the values of lower quality countries can be elevated.  Eventually all progressives hope the values of all people will be equal under the leadership of the village chieftains, the progressives. Under those terms, things are not so mysterious.  Progressives are not for American preservation, they are about advancement of United Nations influence, and the war in Syria allowing them to achieve two of their goals, to destroy the reputation of America as an independent sovereign nation, and strengthen the influence of The United Nations as a global police force.  But the war is not about preserving American independence, or fighting for freedom across the world.  That is the distinct and sorrowful difference.  The supporters of the Syrian War are united in their goal of progressive politics and that makes them dangerous to every American who supports the Constitution of The United States of America.  Progressives desire to use the resources of America to destroy it while moving all the countries of the world toward a global village ruled by a Constitution not yet written, by a society of people the progressives hope to mold from their own cloth.  It is not the Founding Fathers of America that these people hope to emulate.  They hope to become their own type of “Founding Father” in a society not yet known built on political views of the dangerous progressive, and their wholesale desire to destroy individuality at all cost.

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE.  CLICK HERE!  

Fast Food Workers Are Not Worth Top Wages: When I eliminated four line positions by myself

A few years ago I had to work a second job because of a tax bill that came in the mail from the IRS.  The reason the IRS is such a terrifying organization is that if you get in the cross-hairs of them it will cost either in defense or compliance.  In my case it was compliance.  I had worked hard the previous year and some of the work wasn’t easily calculated and the IRS disputed that I owed them more.  Defending my amount would have cost more to take to court so I had to pay, and they knew that was my only real option.  So I elected to work a second job to pay my bill rather than rob the money from our family’s normal income.  Every morning at 4 AM I got up and rode a bicycle from Mason to Lebanon to report for work at 5 AM at my primary employer.  At 3 PM I got off that job and rushed up the road to the Kings Island exit to work at a popular fast food establishment there by 4 PM.  My job was to work as the grill cook, and within a few short months I became known as the fastest grill man from Michigan to Florida and my exploits drew the attention of corporate headquarters.  Fast food executives paid personal visits to me to figure out how I was able to work so fast.  I worked every night the dinner rush and left at 8 PM to ride my bicycle home arriving around 9 PM.  Finally after a long hard day I’d go to bed to begin the day again the next morning.  In addition to that schedule I worked at the fast-food restaurant on Saturday nights as well covering the lunch and dinner rush from 10 AM to 7 PM as Kings Island provided a lot of business.

It took me two years to pay off my tax debt in this fashion but I eventually did without it sucking the money from our primary income.  My wife did not work and I did not want her to.  She was homeschooling our children for a bit of time during this period and she needed to be free to care for them.  Even when they did attend Mason public schools, my wife drove them every day so that they wouldn’t have to ride the school bus with all the vile filth that goes on during bus rides.  So my wife working simply wasn’t an option.  During the day she also was a teacher’s assistant in my daughters classrooms until the relationship with the school went south when we would not allow our 4th grade children to attend a sex education class that consisted of teaching them how to put condoms on a fake penis.  We declined and from that point the administrators put an “X” on my wife’s back, so we pulled our children out of the school for their own protection, and proper instruction.  Meanwhile, I rode my bike to my jobs and kept the money coming in.  My exploits during this period of time were described in my novel, The Symposium of Justice.

I was so good as a grill cook that the restaurant management agreed to some of my unusual working mandates.  I did not participate in any customer interaction; I did not take orders from the front register or talk to anybody on the drive thru.  I could make such demands because I was the best at my job that there was.  Nobody came close to my speed.  (REVIEW MY BULLWHIP FAST DRAW).  I personally eliminated four line positions at this restaurant.  Normally there would be a grill worker for the front grill, a grill worker for the drive thru grill, a fry person and a chicken runner for the deep fryer in the back.  The restaurant I worked at was busier than most because of the Kings Island traffic, so corporate was very perplexed as to how I managed to be so quick and efficient all by myself.  I of course saved this restaurant a lot of money in labor hours.

I explained to them that I could read what a person would order by way of food by the look on their faces when they stepped into the dining room.  I had their food already cooking before they stepped up to place their order.  And on the drive thru I would watch the cars pull into the lot headed for the speaker and determine what they were going to order based on the way the driver looked, how many people were in the car, the condition of the car, and various other factors.  By the time the sandwich maker called the order I had the meat prepared and perfectly cooked ready to hit their prep.  The ability was physical of course.  I have always been very fast at everything I do.  But in this case it was more psychological than physical.  This left the corporate executives baffled as to how they could train other stores to have grill cooks who did the same thing.

They offered me a .50 cent raise for my efforts which I gladly accepted bring my total to $7.50 in 1997 money.  It wasn’t much then and it isn’t much now, but it was I thought a fair wage for the work I was doing.  My rule against the customers was that I knew that some government workers came to Kings Island often and I didn’t want to speak to them.  They had put me in the position of having to work a second job and be away from my family, so I didn’t want to be nice to them, or even acknowledge their existence.  I could always tell those types upon site, so I worked it out so that all I’d have to do was prepare the food, I would not have to give the people who put me in that situation the privilege of serving them directly.

I of course became the restaurant psychologist and the young people often confided in me their problems seeking my help, which I gave them.  The managers often had wrecked lives due to all the crazy hours they worked so I helped them too; by solving many of their personal problems.  But my rule about dealing with the customers was firm.  On one such occasion a pretentious Mason school teacher who weighed in at least three hundred pounds came to the front register while the 16-year-old girl manning that station was using the restroom.  The teacher demanded service and I was the closest one to her.  I instructed her to sit tight until someone came to take her order but she ignored me and continued anyway.  Needless to say her order fell on deaf ears.  I continued doing my work ignoring her.  When the girl came back, the Mason teacher was standing their refusing to repeat herself expecting me to tell the girl what the order was, which of course I didn’t provide.  Rather than repeat her order to the cashier the teacher complained about me to corporate headquarters thinking she would get me fired for disrespecting her.  She called from the dining room making a huge fuss in front of the other customers and demanding our own management to remove me from the line.  The lead manager told her that we were in the middle of lunch rush and that they couldn’t afford to remove me from the line.    The teacher proclaimed that nobody was “irreplaceable!”  Corporate took my side on the issue and the frustrated teacher took her business elsewhere.  She was back a week later, but this time didn’t look at me.  She simply placed her order and I had her meat ready for her.  I knew exactly what she was going to order, and it was a lot of food.

With all that said, the recent union attempt to inject themselves into the fast food restaurant business is a vile attempt at communism.  Fast food workers are not worth $15 an hour.  I was the best of my kind, and I wouldn’t have thought of asking such a fee for a job that was worth more to me for its flexibility than the wage I earned.  I enjoyed being able to come in and dominate a position so that I could dictate my terms based purely on performance.  While it’s true I could have made more money quicker if I were willing to “compromise” the fact was that I wasn’t, and fast food gave me the opportunity to work such a job, get the government off my back, while not having to lower myself to people like that 300 pound Mason teacher.  People who knew me then felt sorry for me, because I rode my bicycle to work every day, worked long hard hours, and had to wear a fast food uniform well into adulthood even though I was making good money and showing great talent at my regular job.  My wife and I could have just used the public school like a baby sitting service like everyone else did, she could have worked, we could have had two cars and life could have been easier if we just played along.  But we chose to do only what we had to in order to appease our government obligations.  Making a lot of extra money would have just been consumed in further taxes and was not a smart strategic choice.  Fast food gave me the perfect opportunity to dig out of that tax liability without making it worse, and without lowering myself to making plea deals with the IRS, or using expensive lawyers to just feed the monster even more.  And it also allowed me to take care of the problem so that my wife was always around my little girls, shielding them from the evils of the world that were being placed upon them by a statist government gone mad wanting to teach them to put on a condom in the fourth grade.  Little girls who had both parents working late staying in an empty house from the time they get home from school till their parents arrive between 5 and 6 PM have lots of opportunities to get into trouble with boys in their neighborhoods, but since my wife was always home, my girls didn’t have that problem. They didn’t need to learn how to put on a condom when that was furthest thing on their minds than anything at the time.

The protests from restaurant workers demanding a “living wage” for their work in fast food are not worth more than $7 to $8 dollars an hour, I don’t care who they are.  Fast food work is entry-level work designed to fill the social needs for cheap food on the go.  Nobody should work in fast food as a career choice unless they want to go into management.  There is no such thing as a “living wage.”  But there is such a thing as “value,” and restaurant workers are only worth so much.  The fast food restaurants of America have one obligation, to provide a good quality product cheaply.  If I could have taught corporate headquarters my skills at working a grill, I would have.  Unfortunately for them, I cannot be duplicated, and no machine can do what I could do—not even the perverted imbeciles who work at the NSA and supposedly have supercomputers that cross-reference everything we do in our lives.  They can’t calculate human behavior as well as I can.  Even so, the work I did was not worth more than $8 dollars an hour and I would never have considered asking for more.  I used the job to clear my tax debt and a little bit more, and then saved up money to move out of Mason and back to my childhood home of Liberty Twp.  I stayed on at the fast-food restaurant working to make extra money for some time after so to get out in front of our financial condition.  $8 dollars an hour becomes quite a lot of money when you don’t drive a car and your wife is at home teaching your children.  The household expenses go down rapidly when you are not part of the system.  And a good bit of savings can be generated while working fast food.

A “living wage” as the communist labor unions advocate is attempting to do the same thing they’ve done to the teaching profession and virtually every endeavor that they are a part of.  They set artificially high values for their labor that is built purely on monopoly power.  In fast-food, they know they cannot obtain that monopoly unless they get all the workers in that industry to buy in to their scheme.  Fortunately for America, that plan will fail.  If twenty fast food workers decide to strike from a local McDonald’s, there are always people like me who will step in and take the money that is left in the void, and can do four jobs all by myself.  It would make me happy to do it just to keep prices low on the hamburgers we buy.  There is no shame in it, but only advantage, for what I’m talking about are the benefits of capitalism—a concept that labor unions do not understand, and despise with every cell in their bodies.

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE.  CLICK HERE!  

The Lakota School Wedding Crashers: Levy supporters late to the party and pretentious

I’ve given my two daughters both nice weddings.  One had her wedding at a nice country club setting that was very private.  That was a great experience and has fond memories.  The other was one that took place near downtown Cincinnati in a nice establishment specializing in wedding receptions, and often hosts multiple weddings in the same building.  When my daughter had her wedding at this facility, there were four other weddings going on in the same building and that I didn’t care for.  The place we were holding the wedding was very posh and elegant, but the lack of exclusivity made me perpetually uneasy.  I didn’t like it.

Our wedding reception went on for quite a while and was the last of the multiple weddings to yield to the night.  With that said as the music was thumping and our dance floor was crowded a group of guys from another wedding which had just ended came into our wedding looking for some fun, alcohol, and action.  Well, that was a big mistake, because this is my family, my nieces, and friends of my daughters, not some random pieces of meat for young men to fondle, and I wasn’t going to stand for it.  So I told the boys to get lost, that I wasn’t going to tolerate any wedding crashers.    They insisted that they just wanted to have a good time, and that I should reconsider.  I told them flatly, “NO.”  It was my money, my family, and my decision, end of story.

The boys left with their heads hung with rejection.  They couldn’t help but notice the attractive women in my family and cussed at themselves for the lost opportunities.  However, little did they know or understand that part of the reason there were so many attractive women in my family is because there are men like me who fight to give them some sanctuary to reside within, who keep them from being just cheap pieces of meat for the use of young boys looking for conquest.  Some members of my family thought I was too hard on the boys, and thought the wedding would be a lot more fun if a massive party erupted and I was the “cool” type who allowed wedding crashers to liven things up with their spontaneity.  But I’m not that kind of guy and if I’m spending thousands of dollars on a reception center for my daughter’s wedding, it will be the way she wants it—and wedding crashers didn’t fit the profile.

I spent about the same amount of money on that reception hall as I do in taxes for the Lakota school system each year which is the public school in my area.   Yet just last night embolden by events at the Lakota football games where the school had a booth set up passing out campaign signs for their upcoming levy attempt, several emails and comments came my way from levy addict supporters who were charged up with “school pride” established at the football game.  The message to me was that if I didn’t like the tax increase then I should move out of the community.  Click the link below to see one of those comments and my response.

 https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/lakota-schools-does-not-need-a-school-levy-meet-the-new-carriage-hill-development/#comment-38777

To me, those types of people are like those kids who wanted to crash my daughter’s wedding.  I graduated from Lakota many years ago and have lived in the area most of my life.  When I was a kid I grew up in a house along 747 when it was farmland for as far as the eye could see.  My home was on the kind of land that the Carriage Hill homeowners are paying 150K per plot to own today.  But I lived on such anchorage when very few homes could be seen from my front yard.  Traffic down 747 had the character of a distant country road.  My boyhood home is gone now replaced by a strip mall that one of the guys in my group No Lakota Levy built.  I didn’t always get along with those guys, but we did join together to fight the Lakota schools massive taxation plans for a community we had all been in from the beginning.  I have watched many new homes move into the area who are willing to pay extraordinary amounts of money to have essentially what I had as a kid—and that’s fine.   I understand wanting to have the best for families.

But when snot nosed despots move into the area with about a 5 second investment of their time and resources into my community then tell me I need to move, I think back to the kind of mentality that was exhibited by those wedding crashers at my daughter’s wedding that I had to run off.  These new pretentious homeowners who have moved into the Lakota community and overpaid for their properties due to their own stupidity, and arrogance are wedding crashers in the Lakota community relative to my position.  I am the one who paid for everything with my years of tax revenue contributed, and I helped shape the school into what it is with my participation in it, because I attended there.  So it’s my business if I want to tell the Lakota administration they are full of shit and need to manage their money better.  And if I want to call the levy supporters a bunch of pretentious latté sipping prostitutes with asses the size of car tires, and diamond rings to match—I will do it, and I have a right to do it—because it’s my community and I’ve invested a lot more in it than they have.

The levy supporters think that just because they show up in Lakota and purchase a half million dollar home on a quarter acre plot of land that they have some right to tell people like me to move if I don’t like their intentions to vote for higher taxes.  They are just as stupid and immature as those wedding crashing young men who thought they could come to my daughter’s wedding and play out some fantasy of what they saw in a movie.  In that fantasy they thought I’d sit idly by while they grabbed the asses of the women attending and had a jolly time drinking from the bar while I paid for everything and quietly sat in a corner and acted like the out-of-touch middle-ager they thought I was.    To their mindset I was old, and I had my day in the sun, and I should sacrifice myself to the youth so they could have their fun, and memories which they wanted to make at my expense.  The same mentality is present with the wedding crashers of Lakota.  A bunch of pretentious snobs have moved into the area and think that their little 7 to 8-year-old children should have infinite resources and that the community should spare no expense for their pleasure.  They are of course wrong.

I spend as much money in taxes on Lakota every year as I did on just that dance hall for my daughter’s wedding.  So it should come as no surprise what my response to the wedding crashers of Lakota is.  To me they are mindless zombies who don’t consider what the cost of a tax increase will do to the community, but only indulge in their own short-term desire to fill their bellies, and they have no right to make any demands, let alone move into my community then tell me to move out if I don’t like their decisions.  That is not how the world works.

If that is the levy strategy concocted at the Friday night football games by the pro levy crowd, good luck.  I’m not the only one who feels that way.  To most who live in the Lakota community, they see the levy zombies the same way I do, as wedding crashers.  Those types of people—the wedding crashers do not care for all the events that led up to the wedding, they only want to attend the party once everyone else has done the work.  In Lakota, few have done more work than I have, and few have the concerns of Liberty Twp., in their blood more than I.  So it naturally disgusts me to see pretentious, short-sighted snobs enter the arena of debate with demands for higher taxes to cover a neurosis that resides deep within their psychological imperfections.  I do not tolerate “community crashers,” especially when I’m paying the bill.

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

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