American Exceptionalism

I wanted to put some thoughts down on this, since it has begun at least locally to become a major thrust of conversation… Has America lost its Exceptionalism?

Be wary,  that is a very general question, and the wisest answer so far to date, has been Rick Jensen’s:  “Which definition of American Exceptionalism are we going to use?”

“If you define American Exceptionalism as Marilyn B. Young does i.e.: Liberals whose beliefs changed toward an exceptionalism that calls for imposing democracy worldwide, then, yes, the theory is likely. If the definition is Jay Lovestone’s (as in Lovestone v Stalin), then most people would likely agree with American Exceptionalism as our natural resources, strength, and capitalism prevents communism from being overwhelmingly popular. If you choose de Tocqueville’s original definition, then to deny American Exceptionalism is to deny the historical facts of a largely Puritanical population taking advantage of their opportunities to engage in commerce, worship as they choose, and live in a country whose government functions as a representation of the people, not of the ruling, royal class.”

So all “Exceptionalism” arguments are circular, because we are comparing bananas with apples and oranges, to see they all are better than watermelons… (they aren’t; watermelons rule; btw)

But,… what if we made up a new definition, one in which America was defined as being its people’s right to self determination?…. Simply put, it steals from our Declaration of Independence and states along Jeffersonian lines, that people have the right to go in the direction in which they want.

If that becomes one’s definition, then not only is our nation non-exceptional, but it is working hard to become as unexceptional as possible.

At the crux of this change, is the probably this facet:  Those rights and values that used to be held up as true for people, have now been usurped by big business, or multi-national corporations…

One could take it one step further, that at one time America was exceptional… With a wide open frontier growing faster than regulating authorities could keep up, best practices could evolve and become powerful, before the squelching counter-force of the status quo could take its effect….

In real life, we are facing the return of the status quo, as being defined as ruled by an elite, in all that has changed over the last 14 years.  I would mark the tipping point (based on my viewing stand) as tipping in 2007… Other’s may use different markers and put their finger before or afterwards, but the playing field has seriously changed based on Conservative principles which originally emerged out of the 1994 Gingrich neo-Conservative movement… Some of the changes occurred through their emphasis on lack of regulation, some through their pro-financial legislation, and some through their Conservative Court decisions…

But all have been enacted to embrace restraints and control over democracy, by those landed class having tremendous amounts of money at their disposal.  Ironically, for them to have the freedoms expressed in the Declaration of Independence, they must suppress yours….

What we are looking at transpiring over just the past few years, is a return to a ruling class, just like in Ireland, where the subjects have no rights at all, and if any amenities are to be given, it is only to keep them alive to keep the profiteering economic engines continuing to spit out money for its owners…

A topic recently discussed here was Wal*mart and speculation that some corporate pressure would now be upcoming to re-invest a bit more of America’s resources back into food stamps because one of its landed-gentry (the Waltons) was now foundering.. in other words, it is deemed to be good landed-gentry policy to put the boot into ones people, but only as far until one feels the effect applied to oneself, and then and only then, does the pressure get let off.

Under old American thinking, that never could have happened.  The majority would revolt through elections and the landed gentry would be forced to pull the idea off the table until another opportunity.

In arguments of this structure and magnitude the future use of adjectives such as “good” and “bad” to describe the two sides, is misleading.  For in any type of disagreement, one always sees oneself as representing the good they wish to represent, and the other with opposing belief, sees them as evil…

Therefore a more thorough distinction must be used.  Rich and poor is too general and too relative.  The most accurate definition I can think of how to delineate the two opposing parties, is that one employed by the Wall Street activists of the 1% versus the 99%…  That is such a convenient piece of language.   Realistically, of course the area between 90-99% would be full of people who had some fingers in some pies on both sides… And quite probably a more accurate delineation would be to draw the line at the 15% mark, at which a very clear line evolves between being either self-sufficient, or a supplicant…  But, for reference primarily due to its common use, it just makes sense to continue using the 1%–99% divide.  That polarization helps illuminate the major discrepancies and make arguing points for each side, .. much easier.  .

What we have seen since the century mark passed us with no Y2K disaster….. is the 1% making giant inroads into our government, our communications, our economy, and our employment….

Money can do that.

If one is wealthy, one can a) hire people to craft legislation,  b) pander it through Congress and state legislatures surreptitiously attached to campaign contributions, and c) hire scholars to invent and trumpet the advantages of each of those bills.   This creates a one-sided argument against which no one is immune… Those too poor to pay cash, those too poor to take off work, those too tied down to drive down to Washington or one’s state capital, have their side eclipsed.  The legislator could be one of the most benign to the principles of the Constitution, but if he is lied to and provided glowing accounts of how his vote will resonate glowingly among all voters, without a contrarian opinion, he is doing whatever they say.

Not to absolve their blame, but it is just as if you, saw me every day and said “how are things going” and I said “not so good”, you’d feel concerned and want to help.  But on the other hand if you stood in a checkout line with a mom and two kids using WIC paper to get necessary nutrients, and asked… ” how are things going”,… their negative answer would roll off your back… Not because you are callous; but because you don’t know them.   Excessive wealth has insulated our Congress, in fact, I would go out on a limb and say it has insulated the entire DC belt-way.  They just don’t know what average America goes through anymore.

When your most pressing problem is that you were invited to two important functions and have to figure out which one to snub and turn down, your prowess of representing your constituents is in question…. You have effectively been insulated from your constituent’s priorities…  As long as big money is allowed to be involved, it will happen to all we send there.

Against this, one would think that our communications industry would be implored to exploit for its own power, the divide between the ruling high gentry and the peasants supporting them.  Truth was, it WAS that way post-WWII. Perhaps their healthily dislike of the government came from seeing up close and personal it’s inefficiencies during the fog of WWII, but clear evaluations did take place inside our major media over the McCarthy Hearings, Civil Rights, the Vietnam War, and Welfare and Poverty. People always got a perspective different from the official government’s opinions.  And newspapers were far more partisan way back then, on both sides.

But big money bought them all. Big money owns them all.  Instead of competition, we have homogenization. with nothing ever wrong being pinned on big money…. We have arguments of why taxes need cut;  no one ever sees arguments of why they should be raised even though the paper receives 9 to 1 letters in favor of raising taxes… Our media no longer represents American thought;  it represents corporate mouthpieces, as was recently evidenced by NBC cutting away from the collapse of the USA to gargle over a troubled Justin Bieber in its networks competition over Neilsen ratings and getting the most “Likes” on Facebook..

When the reality of events shows Big Money in its correct light, the media does everything to discount it.  Whereas the media was once considered a courageous fourth element of government, it is now the house slave, whose whole survival depends upon the whim of his master… When one questions the slave if his master is a nice man, one can certainly pre-guess the only response one will get….

So when a wealthy power grab bill comes up in Congress, every media outlet sugar coats it.  UMMM Sugar Rush!!!! There is some good, there is no bad.  The top wealth has quenched all argument.  Of course the arguments burn inside of us.  Our frustrations grow.  For we see the reality.  But as in Eastern Germany, we tend to keep it too ourselves, since we must assume we are the only ones, and thinking such is dangerous…..

Besides government and communications, big wealth has taken over our economy.  When we sell low, they bought. They own everything.  When one owns everything, what is best for one, is not best for all others.  Hence, bundling securities in 2006-2007 which meant bundling very bad loans and selling them as very safe investments to all the world’s governments, was partaken without anyone having the right to answer, … “um did you say those were … “bad loans?”  

The how to “how this happened”, was that the very wealthy thorough their influence in Congress and through squelching all dissent in the media, were able to remove previous laws that required that risk to be disclosed.  There is a valid reason why such a deep crash never occurred in the interim between itself and the Great Depression.  It was illegal to do so.  But once pursuing those policies known to lead up to a great crash became unregulated and therefore legal,  guess what?  We got exactly the same result as when we tried it the last time….the 1920’s.

Other economic factors are its result of Big Wealth’s interference. Big wealth is the reason our college debt is too high.  Big wealth is the reason no new manufacturing investment is now taking place. Big wealth is the reason our government is cutting jobs instead of growing them.  Big Wealth is why your take home pay has gotten smaller, and now buys much less… Big Wealth is why Unions are less effective, being mostly illegal unless they apply by the tight rules Big Wealth has set for them…

But mostly all three of these came about by your fear of losing your job.  Big Wealth is your boss.  He may be your bosses’ bosses’ boss but Big Wealth controls you in your job.  Don’t believe me?  Just perform this test… Stand up in your next meeting and publicly say… “Occupied Wall Street was right about everything and dead on….”

i’m not going to dare you to do so, because I already know the answer.  You can’t say that, unless you don’t care whether you work there or not.   “Freedom is just another word… for nothing left to loose”…  If you have nothing to lose, only then are you free to speak your mind.  If you stand to lose your job for doing so, face it, you are silent for that reason…  If you are afraid to speak your mind, then essentually all your freedom is gone.  Stripped away. It may exist on paper, but your freedom today is not guaranteed in any way.

Sad thing… is that it used to be.  In my lifetime, one could keep one’s job and be a communist…  whatever…. Son, as long as you doing your work?  Then that’s ok.

But today one can never say that at one’s employment: “I agree with Occupy Wall Street”.  , for it is full of spies.One cannot even rant it on Facebook even jokingly, without being kicked out of ones job.  Our nation has lost its way.  Everything is controlled by the 1%.”

Now I’m sure some people will take issue with this, and do their best to weave it into whatever they want to weave it into.. That’s fine.  That is what the 1% is paying them to do and I am relatively confident that those people will stick out like sore thumbs for being the toadies they are: supplicants to the teats of excessive wealth.

If America is destined to go the way of all other past nations, then let it only speak in one voice and become a mouthpiece for its landed gentry, I can do nothing to stop it.  All I can do is point out, that today, the America we have at our disposal, is no different than that of ancient empires, than that of Roman control,  than that of medieval warlords, then that of imperialistic Europe, then that of Hirohito, than that of Soviet Russia, or even that of our own Guilded Age whose excesses led to the creation of the New Deal….

In fact,  I would go so far to stretch out on a limb that the current public perception of America’s Exceptionalism, was founded  upon the structures first put in place by the New Deal… I know that opens a theory up to a whole battery of counter-arguments, and most of them I have used myself to test out this hypothesis.  But after all the dust has settled, I have still to admit (and you probably will too), that with historical analysis outweighing whatever theoretical arguments get dashed against it,  the New Deal worked for 70 years until we started taking it apart…

With it gone, we are not exceptional anymore. We are just the same as everyone else.  A 1% ruling over the 99% peasant class beneath them…. The same as King George’s Great Britain. The same as Robespierre’s France. The same as Caesar.  The same as Babylon’s king… The same as the ancient Pharaoh….

None whose empires are still around today.  None today hold onto their power they once possessed.  With our expansionist opportunities now dimming, with the advent of a disturbingly stupid but powerful upper class, with our allowing them to usurp our edifices of democracy and force them to rule in their favor, not ours, America is now at a crossroads.  We can either choose to become comfortable slaves, grateful for the shelter, food, and Super-Bowls thrown for our benefit, … or we can choose to become the masters of our own destiny, and accept whatever that may befall.   The latter option worked best in our past. The later option was the Golden time of American Exceptionalism from which we have now removed ourselves…..

Should we go back?  Or accept the incremental slavery slowly wrapping its tentacles around us?

If my words ring hollow, then our time has already passed.  If you feel the same, then time is short.  It must change 2014, and in 2016 must make it even more clear…  After all, 2012 was writing on the wall…  America is only exceptional because its people are exceptional.  Its everyday simple people who wake up every morning and go to bed every night. That theme rolls through all the definitions of Exceptionalism listed above at this article’s very beginning. But when those people no longer own their nation, our fate will be sealed… and it won’t be pleasant….

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Delaware Day and Pearl Harbor Day

Why is Delaware Day no big deal?   Because it celebrates a bunch of colonials sitting in the Golden Fleece in Dover,  having a brief discussion, then voting for ratification, then hurrying home….   The timing of their decision would eventually lead 216 years later to Delaware having the first quarter minted in its honor…  That was about it…

So why is Pearl Harbor a big deal?  We got beat… Hey lets go down to the bar and celebrate that time Biff beat us up real bad as kids… 

No, we celebrate Pearl Harbor Day because on that day, Republicans everywhere (except for the DuPont family) stopped being Republicans.  The entire nation became Democrats, solidly behind FDR, committed to their government for its fulfilling of one task no matter what the cost…. 

Great things were accomplished because of Pearl Harbor…  That is why we celebrate it… It proved the Republican philosophy that we should leave the world alone and just support our billionaires, to be wrong, and it stayed wrong for the next 53 years later…  That time frame turned out to be America’s greatest, ever, btw…   So it is worth that we celebrate Pearl Harbor Day….  It caused the disappearance of the Republican Party…. 

Fingers crossed that perhaps we will celebrate November 4, 2014 the same way?…..  for the same thing?  For getting rid of all influence by the Republican Party?…. 

(Note, to reader:  I started this post in jest, but now it is scaring me exactly how closely similar the Republican Party was leading up to Pearl Harbor, as it is today..)  

It’s Us Taxpayers Who Pay The Price Of No Limits On Guns

80 percent of the cost of treating victims of gun violence in 2010 was borne in part by taxpayers, according to an analysis of hospital and insurance data.

Hospitals in the U.S. spent $630 million in 2010 treating the victims of gun violence, two dollars for every man woman and child in America. The Medicaid costs of gun violence alone that year amounted to approximately $327 million. Private insurers, and hospitals eating the cost of the uninsured, made up the remaining $403 million.

The average cost of a hospital visit for a gun violence victim is $14,000 more than that of the average hospital stay.

But is the hospital cost the only cost to society? It appears no. Gun violence cost the US $174 billion in 2010. The societal cost per firearm assault injury (includes workloss, medical/mental health care, emergency transportation, police/criminal justice activities, insurance claims processing, employer costs and decreased quality of life) … was $5.1 million for each fatality and $433,000 for each hospital-admitted patient. You as a consumer pay this cost in everything you buy; it is added in. Put in perspective that amounts to $522 dollars for every single man, every single woman, and every single child in America.

How can we save ourselves this money? How can we stop the majority of gun violence? Very simple. Register every gun to an single owner so if a gun is used to kill, someone gets held responsible. Very simple. Registering hurts no one; your car, your house, even your vaccinations are registered for example.

Isn’t it horrible we are having a big battle over something as tiny as registering a fire arm which over a decade has cost every man, woman, and child $5,220 dollars? Over “registering?” We’ve lost our senses.

Americans are paying dearly for the “privilege” to keep a gun that is non-traceable. By registering all firearms and thereby being able to keep guns out of those who would use them in criminal actions, great savings can be saved for all the millions of the American people.

We did, we almost won this with the first wave of the attack; we did far better than we expected; we suffered no causalities. Time to launch again for 2014. The truth, and money, both lie flatly on the side of registering all firearms…

Goal should be: if you are not an upstanding citizen? No Gun. Period.

NRA Gets Its Wish: Guns In Schools

Although it was not as they envisioned.  The gun was brought inside a backpack of a middle school aged child.  Relax, no one died.  He was a good kid and never had any intention of using it.   Just thought it was super cool and wanted to show it off  along with the ammo to his friends… (He didn’t even know it was a real gun.)

The 13 year old as of Friday was being held in the New Castle County Juvenile Detention Center on $39,000 secured bail. And the courts will determine the severity of his penalty.

Of course parents are concerned.  In typical parental fashion they said…. “we need metal detectors at every school.  .

So, let us work through that premise.   Start with how can that be done?   Electronic metal detectors are expensive, and we have a lot of schools.   Currently the Department of Educations website is listing 213 schools... Now for economic reasons, we would at first need only one security site or pass-through site per building, through which everyone enters, and everyone leaves… Once the initial investment is paid for, then incremental units at other entrances and exits can be later added.

So the number is 213 security machines… Here at  Detectronix we have an assortment of walk through metal detectors.  Since most of our state’s students are familiar with jails from visiting family members, perhaps the one that is most secure for our schools would the same brand use for jails, sensitive enough to detect a loaded revolve inserted up the anus or vagina.  That costs  $4199.  However, recognizing a future need after the December 14th Newtown shootings, Detectronix has made a commitment to mass produce a cheaper version which will pick up a hand gun and pinpoint it to a general area of the body.  That reduced rate is $2499.  This cheaper version is more than adequate to isolate incoming weapons, in all but the most sophisticated ploys.   Considering the savings, it is the one I would recommend, the  Detectronix 6-Zone Walk Through Metal Detector  …

Total state cost for walk-through metal detectors? Pretty cheap, just a half a million or exactly $532,500… ($894387 would be the more expensive choice)  This does not include the fee charged for the entity that places the phone call, at 10% that would be another $53,250 dollars….

A electroinic security system needs to be manned to be effective. Otherwise it could beep on every student passing through with no accountability.  One must assume the station should be manned all day.  Even though nothing much happens at any schools entrance after the opening bell, still, if one were intent on bringing a gun to school for say, the purpose of revenge. he would obviously time his arrival at some point after he knew the metal detector was shut down.  So personnel must be stationed until close.

The average school day is 7 hours…  Multiplied by 5 days per week and it is a thirty five hour job,  add half an hour  every day to set up and tear down, and it becomes a full time position.  At salary it averages $39,000 per year. Add the FICA and supplementary benefits costs, the total package runs to: $40,677 per school….  If contracted out to a guard service, the average rate if including fees and contract costs, averages close to $50 per hour used. The contracts per year would range around $78,000 per school… but at the benefit that all liability falls upon the service and not the educational department of the state of Delaware.

So for manning these position, Delaware has two options, government versus private, and as it always works out in everything in life,  government is the cheaper.  $8,664,201  versus $16,614,000

So for a minimum of $8,664,201 a year in personnel costs plus the $532,500 in buying and installing the metal detectors, the first year estimate for that should be close to $9.200,000 dollars with $8,664,201 being spent every year thereafter.

If this is levied to property owners, the average property owner will be charged, of course assuming that Senior Citizens don’t get out of the fee for policies they support,  the fee is $0.0001 per square foot or one/hundredith of a penny per square foot. {$8,664,201/(2490 X 27,878,400)}  If one exempts state land, or makes other exemptions, that cost will rise per private property owner as is to be expected. …

Or if one wishes to allocate that cost per resident, then the assessment rounds up to {$8,664,201 / 917,000} = $9.44 per inhabitant.   That is the price of security. A family of 4 should be willing to ante up $37.79 dollars for keeping children safe…

But, the argument gets quickly raised, as it does with money, … shouldn’t those responsible for creating the problem be the ones to pay for its solution?  Those would be owner of guns. We can’t publish the amounts for confidentiality reasons.  But the gross sales of Miller’s Gunshop alone as reported this quarter  to the Delaware Dept of Revenue, argues that a fair assessment on all gun and ammunition sales at at sales tax rate of 10% would be more than adequate to cover implementing the security of all of Delaware’s schools.

The $8 million a year should not out of a child’s education.  It should come from those those actions are the direct creation of the problem in the first place.

So lets securitize our schools, and make the NRA and all gun owners pay for it… Fair is simply fair.  If we had a registry of all weapons in this country, we wouldn’t be having this problem.  As history will one day determine, the fault lies with no one but the NRA that this common sense legislation was never implemented ….. 

At What Price, Loyality?

This is going to my hard core Republican friends. Why are you still supporting Romney?

1) You know he is not going to win.
2) You know as the election heats up, his Bain Capital experience will make Republicans untouchable for decades.
3) You can’t pin down where Romney stands on anything.
4) He tied his dog to a car.
5) He stands with black people and says “Who let the dogs out, woof, woof.”

Most of you are telling me, “I certainly can’t vote for Obama. I guess I’m not voting for President this time.”

Let’s say, just for argument sakes there was a presidential candidate out there who says to have good government you need: …………………

1. Become reality driven. Don’t kid yourself or others.
Find out what’s what and base your decisions and actions
on that.

2. Always be honest and tell the truth. It’s extremely
difficult to do any damage to anybody when you are
willing to tell the truth–regardless of the
consequences.

3. Always do what’s right and fair. Remember, the more
you actually accomplish, the louder your critics become.
You’ve got to learn to ignore your critics. You’ve got to
continue to do what you think is right. You’ve got to
maintain your integrity.

4. Determine your goal, develop a plan to reach that
goal, and then act. Don’t procrastinate.

5. Make sure everybody who ought to know what you’re
doing knows what you’re doing. Communicate.

6. Don’t hesitate to deliver bad news. There is always
time to salvage things. There is always time to fix
things. Henry Kissinger said that anything that can be
revealed eventually should be revealed immediately.

7. Last, be willing to do whatever it takes to get your
job done. If you’ve got a job that you don’t love enough
to do what it takes to get your job done, then quit and
get one that you do love, and then make a difference.

Honesty. Integrity. Principal.

Sounds good so far. Let us say just for argument, he had chief executive experience. Let us say just or argument that he once ran a state, one of the fifty in this union. Let us say while governor, this is what he did…..

During his tenure, New Mexico experienced the longest period without a tax-increase in the state’s entire history.

1) He cut the rate of government growth in half,

2) Left the New Mexico state government with a budget surplus and 1000 fewer employees (without firing anyone),

3) Privatized half of the prisons in the state,

4) Brought a state-wide school voucher system to New Mexico.

5) Vetoed 750 bills (more than all the vetoes of the other 49 Governors in the country at that time, combined) with only 2 overrides, earning him the nickname Gary “Veto” Johnson.

6) In 1999, Johnson became the highest-ranking elected official in the United States to advocate the legalization of drugs.

7) Shifted Medicaid to managed care.

ISN’T THAT WHAT YOU WANT? ISN’T THAT WHAT WE NEED?

Can you not think of a better way to show your lack of enthusiasm over a wealthy capitalist buying his way to the top of your ticket, by voting for someone who has character, who does what you’ve always wanted, a doer, not a talker?

And to think…. you were simply just going to throw your vote away.

His name is Gary Johnson. He is the new party’s candidate for President.

Remember Republicans. It is your values that are important. If your party has given up and moved on from your values, don’t think you have to be loyal to the word…. “Republican”… What you have to be loyal too, is yourself. Always. Never lie to yourself.

You don’t need to waste your vote on Romney. You probably need to find more about this guy, Gary Johnson, and then throw your support behind him.

Don’t worry it is not one of the two parties on whose ticket he is running. Remember, at one point in time, the Republican Party was a once a third party too. One that went mainstream because of its core values, its principles resonated with everyday American People.

Spelling It Out Clearly

There are two choices before us:

One, we tax the top 1% and live the quality of life we deserve…..

Two, we continue the tax cuts, allowing the top 1% to not pay their fair share in taxes, and continue the quality of life we’ve suffered since 2001..

Simple microcosmic view: find a pothole in today’s state road system… You can’t, it’s covered up with stimulus funded new pavement… Nice, crisp, sharply painted blacktop, as far as the eye can see….

Compare that to the Bush Era… Potholes galore and getting them fixed was like pulling teeth…

Now pull back and look at your entire lifestyle with all it’s moving parts…. first see one where everything outside your control is operating smoothly like clockwork ( a Visa commercial comes to mind), and the other where it is all cacophonous and catastrophic…..

So, in which type of lifestyle do you prefer to live?

Decide and vote.

Religion Grows In Sussex County; It’s Just Not the Religion Our Backwood’s Preachers Envisioned

The story goes that Warren Buffet, rather worried about his investments early 2008, wanted to talk to God… God told him to use his phone and he’d send him the bill… He got and paid the $333 million dollar charge. His investments flourished, too… That would be the end of the story, except he was down in Sussex County recently, following up first hand on a corporate case being processed out of Georgetown… once again, he asked God for the right to call, and agreed to accept the charges… When he got his bill, he was fuming… He was only charged 25 cents… “God”, he said, “you ripped me off on that first call, big time!”… God said, “Warren, don’t you get it? In Sussex County, that’s a local call…”

Local call or not, Sussex County is weighing in on whether to say a prayer before County meetings or to not… Here are a few takes on that policy: one, two, three, four……

As someone who grew up where prayers were always said before football games and county meetings, it isn’t a big deal…… That is, as long as everyone agrees it isn’t a big deal. You don’t see prayers before meetings conducted in New York.

Not because New Yorkers are heathens, but because in New York, you have a multiplicity of religions, so praying a prayer from one of them, is a slap in the face for all others…

Why it’s even an issue in Sussex County is because the Positive Growth Alliance, has been building condo’s like ants, and lots of people who did not grow up in Sussex County, now live there. Many have different ideas of religion than those who’ve always been there all their lives…

If everyone believe in the same version of God as does David Anderson, then of course, duh, why are we even arguing about it… Of course we’re going to pray to God to guide us through this meeting.. That’s what He’s for!

Suddenly, thanks to Rich Collins and the Positive Growth Alliance, we have tons of people who do object to having David Anderson’s version of God, one who dislikes Homosexuals, and one who casts pox on Democrats, one who believes married people should have sex only when they have children, one who believes sex between animals is immoral, one who believes taxes are caused by the devil, one who believes that nature was made to bulldoze and pave with a combination of petroleum and gravel. … one who believes that oil companies have the divine right to pollute oceans, one who believes that animals were made for us to kill. … one who believes a national religious holiday should fall on the first day of deer season.. one who believes pick up trucks and baseball caps are proof that homosexuality is a sin,… on who believes killing someone with a gun is not a sin, but taking that gun away for the safety of others is…

(yes, I’m having fun and talking tongue in cheek)…

The point I’m making is that Sussex County is changing; and it is changing mostly thanks to Rich Collins and the Positive Growth Alliance.

Can you make new citizens join the current religion? If so, then by all means, just like the days of old, they will see no qualms in having a tiny prayer before the meeting.

But if they don’t want to join that religion, then, to force one group of religious people to impose their prayers on others, is not American…In fact, it’s kinda creepy…

If in an effort to show fairness, the Sussex County decided they would do prayers from all religions in alphabetical order, when they came to “B” and hit Buddahism, giving an Buddahist prayer before the session, most of those in the audience would be saying WTF! This is our nation, why do we have to listen to such crap…

Which is… exactly what those Buddahists think, who have opened a business in Millsboro, and have come before the county to ask for a variance on something or other that is in their antiqued code….

So… If it is unnatural for a Baptist to suffer a Buddahist prayer, it is equally unnatural for a Buddahist to sit through a Baptist prayer…

It’s not about one religion being right and the other wrong. It’s about who the citizens are that make up Sussex County. If you want to blame anyone over this controversy, the blame solely lies with those who built up Sussex County and brought in all these new people to begin with… Now that they are here, we have to make Sussex County as fair to them as New York, is fair to us, when we take our business up there……

Positive Growth, huh? Depends on your version of positive I guess………….

Again, Why Tax Cuts Hurt America

I’ve always been in favor of tax cuts… Probably anyone who’s seen the Carter years up close, and felt relief when the Californian took over, knows what I mean… Filling out tax forms used to be insane. The IRS reimbursing mileage costs up to 38 cents per mile when gas was under a dollar a gallon… People were buying houses for tax shelters, opening businesses to squash the amount of profit on their books, lavish meals and entertainment costs were allowed for the “cost of doing business..” All you had to do was save all your receipts for a year and even though you were slated to pay taxes out the gazoo, the allowances and deductions let you slide with hardly a paper cut of financial pain. And stories circulated that giant, multinational corporations like Dupont, got away with paying NO TAX on the millions they were making….

Those times were good… On the average middle class wage, a person could pay a car off in 3 years, pay off his house in 20, and have enough money to spend on living, without having to borrow a penny…..

To do that today, with expenses as high as they are, my calculations show the average wage would need to be around $85,000 a year… Of course a lot of families do that now… but with two people working….

So, how do we get corporate America, who by now is used to pinching out $45,000 a year, to suddenly pay ones true worth, $85,000 a year? Simple. We do it by doing just what we did before…. when that was the norm…

Let’s assume my name is Charlie Copeland. I own a print shop that prints things… I have five assistants, randomly named Donviti, Jason, Pandora, Cassandra, and Nancy. (Just came up on a random generator; no inference to reality is intended)

I the great and honorable Charlie Copeland pay each of them, (since I’m fair) $50,000 a year…. They do great work, and I respond with kindness. That wage is currently the average wage of Dover which is in the middle of the state, so therefore it is representative of wages from top to bottom…

That makes my payroll $250,000 a year….. Of course I pay a cut of Social Security and Medicare… amounting to an additional $3100 and $720 per each employee, so combined, my total payroll will be: $269,100…….

This was a soft year.. My sales were only $1,764,000… (despite my awards!) … My percentage outlayed to payroll is thereby $269,100 divided by $1,764,000 or close to…. 15%… … pretty darn good… 🙂

My other costs were roughly $540,000 allowing me to clear before taxes, $809,000….. And that’s because I do a good job. Most other printers are behind the curve of technology, and have a lot higher costs, associated with lower sales…

Now.. Taxes…

On a profit of $809,000 by the books, as a personal owner (not a corporation), I “should” pay the amount...$260,464….. in Federal Taxes and $55,000 in state of Delaware taxes… and since I’m located in Wilmington I also pay the 1.5% City Wage Tax of … $10,112….

My taxes before deductions would therefore come to a total of $325,576… if you extend this to what I made, … it comes out to $809,000 minus my taxes of $325,576…. and poof: I’m walking with $483,424 … Sheesh… That’s all? How’s a guy supposed to make a living?… So you see, it really pisses me off when Tom Sharpe hires a flunky at $120,000 to do nothing important except use up some of my money, which I’m otherwise gladly willing to pay, if it is going to something decent and important…

And you want to WHAT? RAISE MY TAXES?

Yes, Sir! We want to RAISE YOUR TAXES…..

And so my taxes get raised…. but you allow me to write off physical capital costs associated with expansion, if they justifiably create new jobs… If I expand my business, I can write off the costs of building…

The new tax rates are 40% for Federal, 7.5%for state, and Wilmington stays the same ate 1.5%… My Federal taxes become..$281,956 state taxes $59,118.and the city wage tax of $10,112…giving me a burden of….. $ 351,186 and leaving me with an after-tax amount prior to deductions of….$ 457.814…. I lost $25,610 to tax increases… Woe is me…

So in preparation for next year I pull out my calculator and start figuring…
What happens if I hire one more person? or maybe two? I won’t bore you with the details but if I did hire someone at $50,000…. with my income being depleted by their salary and payroll taxes, my income used for the tax tables would now be $755,180 for one employee, and .$701,380 for a 2nd additional employee of the two who I will name Al Mascitti and Rick Jensen, again names just randomly generated…

$755,180 minus the Fed’s $252,986, the state’s $55,082, and Wilmington’s $11,327, …..I pay $319,395 and walk with. .$435,785.

$702,380 minus the Fed’s $239,308, the state’s $51,112, and Wilmington’s $10,535…. I pay $300,955 and walk with..$401,425….

$457814, $435785, $401425…. That is the breakdown of how much each employee actually costs me when the Fed tax rate jumps 5%, the state tax rate climbs 0.55%, and the Wilmington tax is flat… As you can see, hiring one employee after diffusing through the complicated procedure, will only cost $22,029, and hiring an additional employee, costs me $34,360…. yet those two employees will each receive a salary of $50,000 as well as my paying the payroll taxes of $3820-…..

But it is still a loss… Boo, hoo, hoo, I’m calling Boehner and McDonnell… Before the tax cuts expired I was walking with $483,424… Now, thanks to Democrats and that astutely clever kavips guy bursting the Republican bubble, I’m walking with only $401, 425… a loss of $82,000…

But wait a minute… I just hired two people…. And I know that if person number one takes on a certain project, I could land a contract for $900,000 and that with person number 2, I could persuade one of Delaware’s largest business to hire me for another $900,000 contract… Of course I would get roughly 50% of that increase because of the taxes, but it is still much more than I would have made if taxes hadn’t been raised…

I hired because it was better to keep that money in my business, instead of giving it out to the Fed, the state, and Mayor Baker’s kingdom…

What was I going to do with that additional income before the tax cuts kicked in and threatened to take it away? Probably I would have Invested it in colored pieces of paper called stocks, where it would do not one bit of good to anyone but my broker…..

So you see, raising taxes will bring jobs… It will make the wealthier even wealthier… How do I know? Because that’s what the nineties were all about…. ..

Raising taxes makes good economic sense.

Quick Solution to Debt Ceiling Crises

Today the White House issued this Executive Order.

“Should the debt ceiling not be lifted in time by May 16, in order to prevent the Treasury from running out of funds, I am hereby using the emergency powers given to the Chief Executive by the Constitution, to temporarily suspend the Bush Tax Cuts until: 1) either we can legally borrow the funds to continue paying on our commitments, or 2) we bring our debt down to the 2008 level by having much more tax revenue pour in.

This is in effect, immediately, and I have instructed the IRS to recalculate all 2010 tax forms over the level of $2 million dollars, and asses those individuals and companies, for the differences.

We must take this action because Republicans want to pay politics with your lives. As Chief Executive, I am responsible to you, not them. I won’t let that happen.

With these tax cuts out of the way, and with our austerity programs already in effect, that windfall of profit the Treasury will receive, will be entirely funneled towards the paying off our debt.

This policy will continue until Republicans can act reasonably and in a productive fashion.

Barack Obama.

Castle Should Run

We were round tabling this discussion when one person said… “What if the US just gave up after Pearl Harbor?”

Valid point.

Now I’m all for people speaking their mind. I’m all for supporting the majority. And like the founding fathers, I have implicit faith in the ability of the people to sort out our problems and separate wheat from the chaff… if not the first time, then definitely over time.

Most ordinary people I know have far more wisdom than any leader I’ve had the privilege to share conversation with. Therefore I believe in the sanctity of the people’s choice. If the people voted him in, he’s there for a reason.

But that’s only if the election was fair. If someone padded the ballot box, or switched vote totals, than obviously this premise wouldn’t apply for the very reason that the choice of the people was not the person who was actually representing them.

Mike was bushwhacked, sort of like the US was at Pearl Harbor or on 09/11…Reading his interview yesterday in the News Journal, one gets a sense that perhaps this was not a fair fight…. By election laws it was, and we all have to accept the primary results. However, if Mike doesn’t run as a write-in, he is putting himself in the same position as if the United States did nothing after Pearl Harbor or 9/11….

And with Mike, it is not about winning, although winning would be nice. It would be about whether good or evil triumphed. Polls say it’s Mike’s race to lose. He actually has enough money to send every voter a personal card telling them exactly how much he’s done for them, how that will soon change for the worse, and explain how to write in his name and send the evil perpetrators back to their cardboard boxes.

If Mike doesn’t do this…. exactly then, what is he saying to future generations of Americans? ? That we should just give up when hit from behind with a baseball bat? That it’s the American way to lay down and bend over? That being a man, is knowing when to run away and hide? That brutality and tastelessness are the new American Way? That perhaps Christine was right? Castle has no man pants on? That the wishes of Delawareans don’t matter; we’ll stop immediately and do what Californians tell us? That how we brush off defeat is a better mark of character, than coming back strong and punishing the evil that befell us?

And sentences keep coming one after another… the list keeps going on…

But if I were in Mike Castles shoes, and if it were me looking over the entire scene before me… I would have no choice but to say I’m in… Oh yes, I would wait till the last minute of September 30th to do so… and I would create a smoke cloud beforehand by pretending to roll over and let bygones be bygones… …. …. and from somewhere out of the fog, then overwhelmingly, I’d strike.

I wouldn’t hold back.. It’d be my last race, it would be the one I pulled all my stops for. Every person I’d ever helped would get a personal appeal from me. Unconditional Surrender would be our rallying cry, just like for the troops of WWII… Our goal would be not just to win, but destroy the O’Tea Party forever.

Ok, Hannity O’Tea Partiers: so you were secretly prepared and yes, you overran Poland, and yes, you then went on to incorporate the Low Countries, Denmark and Norway, and even surprised France pushing their ally Britain into the water… But this time, you went too far.. You’ve taken on the United States. You’ve pissed off someone five times your size. We will Normandize you, Elbetize you, Dresdenize you, give you a Kolnectomy, Rhineantipuovertize you, Remagenisque you, and even liposuctionize your Battle of the Bulge. We will Pattontize you, Bradleydice you, and Marshall you into a corner from where you can’t maneuver.. We will take average civilians and turn them into a fighting force the world has never seen…

We will do so for the honor of America.

What kind of an America? An America where truth wins out, where decency prevails, where honesty and hard work eventually win out over trickery, skulduggery, and political assassination. You wanted to play dirty? We’ll show you how it’s done… In doing so we will show the world that modernism prevails, that decent people still run America. that the “Boehner Bullshit” is just that. It’s time to show the world what we’ve known all along.. That in America, it’s the people who run politics..Not the Politics who run the people…..

I’d tell every Delawarean… Do yourself a favor… Turn off your TV’s.. You got a question? Call me or my staff directly! We’ll talk to you… try talking back to their commercials! Where will that get you?

That stuff they’re airing? That’s not Delaware talking, That’s California money talking… That’s rich bitch snitch drug money being laundried to throw a Senate seat into supporting their snatching up of all your money… You want to keep some of your money? Call me. Call my staff… That’s Delaware talking.

Do you want reason to take on ins’hannity?

Well, it’s on. Support me. You can’t let the devil win… ”

Well anyway, if I were Castle, that’s exactly what I’d do. And I would do it selflessly, not to win, but to give Delawarean another alternative between a Democrat and our equivalent of the brown shirts of the Nazi Party.

Yes, if there is still good left in America, then Castle needs to run.
If the doesn’t, then the America that came back after Pearl Harbor……. is gone.