I'd like to respond to a letter that appeared in the October 31st edition of UTW, written by Matthew Ryan, which borrows heavily on a critique by Gore Vidal of Ayn Rand to bolster his accusation Rand was an "immoral lunatic". Mr. Ryan launches a guilt-by-association critique of politician Paul D. Ryan, with whom Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" has obviously resonated, and wonders why - since Paul Ryan is a Catholic - he isn't motivated primarily by Jesus.
There are numerous problems with this argument, starting with Gore Vidal. Vidal was an avowed atheist who saw people who leaned on religion as "weak" because they feared death. He especially detested Roman Catholics. The sexually ambidextrous Mr. Vidal - who drifted in and out of trysts with numerous men and women in his life - is a strange source to quote when passing judgment on someone else's morality.
It's also an odd and incongruent argument for a liberal to assert - in this day and age - that a conservative should be "motivated by Jesus Christ", i.e., I thought the liberal party line was politicians were supposed to divorce religion from their decision making. Besides, in the case of Rand and Vidal religion doesn't figure into it much anyway; they were both atheists, although Rand obviously scored no points with Vidal because of this commonality.
To be sure, Ayn Rand was an "odd little woman", but one blessed with an enormous intellect. Writing off "Atlas Shrugged" as an exultation of greed and self-interest is facile. Moreover, there is nothing inherently immoral about pursuing what is in one's own self-interest. If it were we could safely say about 99.9 percent of us are immoral.
Rand held in high esteem the virtues of morality and integrity. "Atlas Shrugged" is an illustration of how moral men who follow the law and - even if motivated solely by self-interest - build the engines of society that move it in a positive direction. Because they are the thinkers, the innovators, the inventors, the creators of technology who even though they might build great personal wealth, also create wealth for others and benefit society as a whole. How is this "lunacy" or "immorality"? You only see it as such if you've been swayed by redistribution theology and have come to believe capitalism itself is an evil and getting rich is, in and of itself, a sin.
Therefore the premise of Mr. Ryan's argument - that politician Paul Ryan has been heavily influenced by the writings of an immoral lunatic - doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
This column is a nice example of why Rall is a cartoonist and not a political analyst. Unless he thinks up-to-the-minute analysis means writing columns two months in advance of publication, he should know Romney has already released his tax records (why is it with Democrats, requiring them to release private information not required by law is a "witch hunt", whereas with Republicans it's "mandatory"?)
Romney correctly read the political landscape, and it's generally seen as a boost to his candidacy to pick Ryan as his veep. This is the age of the Tea Party, the powerful grassroots organization that evolved basically out of frustration with RINOs who got elected then kept drifting leftward. The "centrist" thing might be time-honored, but it's not going to work anymore (remember John McCain?). If Romney loses, it's not going to be because of Paul D. Ryan.
Ryan was chosen primarily because of his analytical skills pertaining to budgets. He has already put forth a solid plan to address the problem of the deficit long-term. That stands in sharp contrast to an administration that thinks the best solution to running out of money is to just print up more and a Democrat-controlled Senate that refuses to even pass a budget. Romney/Ryan know the gravity of the fiscal debt bomb that's about to explode. If it does it's not just granny who'll be headed over the cliff. It will be her kids and their kids (and all of us) along with her.
Romney/Ryan would like to defuse the debt bomb. That necessarily involves things along the lines of cuts and consolidations. Unfortunately, for those whose sustenance comes primarily from government, that's a tough sell.
So it might well be that the Romney/Ryan ticket loses the election. That would not be a surprise to me. If it does, though, the reason won't be because they're inept, bumbling politicians that can't inspire their base. It will be because too many clueless voters want to think the federal goody trough doesn't have a bottom.
In addition to Hamliton's usual twaddle about corporate welfare and the need to fund what he considers "essential state services", he manages to say something completely contradictory.
At one point he states, " ..preposterous is the assertion that tax cuts will stimulate even more economic activity. Voodoo economics lives!"
OK. Maybe I'll rat-hole the extra money. Of course I could just sink it in my small retirement fund too. But that would be selfish and wouldn't stimulate the economy either. The fact with most people is that we are hard-wired to spend money. The more you make, the more you will spend (I'm sure you have seen this principle at work in your own life). And if you spend more you stimulate the economy. Therefore his assertion this does not work is much in doubt.
The kicker is a few paragraphs later, when he says, " ..they [states] can maintain their spending on the salary of workers, who then go out and spend their paychecks on the local economy".
Let me get this straight. A tax cut that allows me to keep more of my money, i.e., in effect giving me a larger paycheck to spend does not stimulate the economy. However, the state "spending on the salary of workers" (we can only assume he means public sector employees since those are the only kind that get a paycheck from the state) will stimulate the economy. Because those workers go out and spend their paychecks. What? Their money works differently than mine?
Makes no sense. No surprise though, since most of what Hamilton writes seldom does.
Governor Mary Fallin was completely correct in blasting the federal government for its refusal to provide disaster relief following the recent wildfires. The governor is also within her right to refuse strings-attached distributions from the same source. Also, I'd like a line-item accounting for the federal money spent in Oklahoma. Oklahomans (and Oklahoma corporations) paid $24.4 billion in federal taxes last year. I wonder what percentage of the $37+ billion Oklahoma received went for the most sorely needed upgrades: Roads? Bridges? Prisons? Education?
You know what I expect from government? (hint: it ain't money). I expect incompetence. The IRS sent me a bill for $3,500 a couple months ago, supposedly because I took a cash distribution from an investment. Except I didn't. All I did was roll it over from one fund to another. I sent them the documentation (at my considerable time and expense). They sent me a revised statement. They said they now owe me $72. The statement came with a form for me to fill out and a return envelope. No check. (Yes, shocking).
Last year the Department of The Census failed to mail me a census form. I went online and requested one on my own initiative. Mailed it to them, again at my own expense. A month later they sent - you guessed it - a census taker to my house. Is our government not breath-taking in its efficiency?
Here's my point: sheer volume of intake in terms of dollars and cents is irrelevant. What really matters is how efficiently the money is spent. You'd think we'd be astounded at the improvements all around, given that much moola flowed in. Tell me, what big differences have you noticed?
Hamilton should consider moving to New York (or Connecticut, or Massachusetts, or California). They really love their taxes there. Perhaps the reason that h-i-g-h-e-r t-a-x-e-s is DOA in so many other places is because people are getting tired of the concept of paying more and getting less. Or nothing at all, in the case of our recompense for the recent state-wide natural disasters.
Something else to consider: if Oklahoma were a swing state in an election year where the incumbent President needs every single vote - that federal check would have been cut and sent. Without delay.
As is not uncommon with Rall's columns, he never seems quite coherent in making an argument. This one manages to completely contradict itself in the process of going from start to finish. Yes, Rall is pro-gun (really!). Gun control people are foolish, dishonest, and weak. Which is why we should repeal the Second Amendment.
In all its rambling, his column does manage to stumble across the truth occasionally: he acknowledges guns might be necessary to stop the "authoritarian march toward neofascism". Funny, Rall just agreed with those hoary old fossils, the Founding Fathers. They said exactly the same thing.
But that's about all he gets right. The rest of it is cheer-leading for the authoritarian march of the neofascists. Like to hunt? Live out in the country? Too bad! Rall isn't in either group so he's happy to throw us under the bus along with the Second Amendment. There's other niggling crap, like not being able to differentiate between a clip and a magazine and classifying a semi-auto as an assault weapon. If you know better, then you are used to these misnomers and chalk them up to someone who's too misinformed to know the difference and too lazy to find out.
There is a reason why public support of gun bans continues to erode. Gun bans don't work. There is also the sad historical fact that societies which give up the right to bear arms lose their freedom within 40 years.
We haven't "outgrown the right to bear arms", as Rall suggests. We never will. The only thing we can lose over time is the sense to acknowledge the real problem - societal breakdown - and the impetus to do anything about it. We're already well on our way to that. And when the breakdown is complete gun crime will be the least of our worries.
Yes, it's really sad we have such diverse standards and that the states are still allowed so much control over education. Prior to 1980 - which was when the illustrious Jimmy Carter signed the Department of Education into existence - our system of education was in total chaos. No one was learning anything. We were 35 out of 30 of the top nations in educating our young.
Except that everything I just said is utter crap. We began seriously losing ground in the late 50's, after we went into panic mode that the Soviets won the race to space and we started pushing math and science over history and literature. State after state signed on to changes in curriculum that supported this directive. The result was predictable: history and literature courses became moribund afterthoughts; your average modern high school history course is a waste of a teacher's salary and of a student's time.
The fact of the matter is prior to 1959, the American system of education was one of the best in the world. Nowadays, not so much. Does anyone think the solution to that problem is to grant even more control to a useless, national education bureaucracy?
Yet still we hear the cries: "more money, more money! We can fix it with more and more money." It is a waste of time to point out that Utah spends the lowest amount per pupil on education of all the 50 states - yet still ranks somewhere in the middle for student achievement. Conversely - and equally as futile to point out - Washington D.C. spends the most per pupil on education. Yet ranks last .. yes, dead last in student achievement. There is no greater bureaucratic boondoggle than the D.C. public schools. The Washington Post acknowledges this.
You can quite accurately predict "student achievement" based on racial/income demographics. Money doesn't have a damn thing to do with it. Yeah, I know, it's not politically correct to say stuff like that. I just don't give a rip about being politically correct. What I do care about is 2/3 of my property taxes go to pay for the education of children I don't have in the local, substandard public education system. But more money and government involvement will fix everything. Sure it will. Whoooot!
The approach Rall advocates - abolishing private schools and all other forms of free choice forcing everyone into an awful school - would be akin to acknowledging you can't save everyone, so might as well just sink all the lifeboats and let everyone drown.
Come to think of it, that's exactly what a government-engineered solution would look like.
Wow! Rall indicates he actually understands the problem with the economy: no net increase in jobs, falling real wages, and a true number for the unemployed/underemployed that hovers near 25%. Add to that the disconnect of the Presidential administration which thinks the "private sector is doing just fine" and that things would be better if we could just hire more government workers. At least Rall acknowledges things are a mess.
It's his solution I have a problem with. Apparently Rall would advocate for more spendulus. Bring back the WPA. Have government step in and create a fictionalized job market. Wasn't that the goal of the so-called stimulus? And it didn't do any good. As usual with leftists, they assume solutions to problems begin and end with government.
We need a real recovery. That's only going to come with vast decreases in taxes and regulation for the private sector - especially small business - to drive the jobs engine. And even that's not going to happen at any measurable rate until we've repealed the Affordable Care Act, replaced the Congressmen who are bereft of economic literacy, and deposed the dolt living in the Oval Office.
Ah, the poisonous rants of the uber-Left. According to them wars are fought only by profiteers who pull the marionette strings of the military, and by idiots who weren't smart enough to get out of it by finding a draft deferment to hide behind or another country to hide out in.
Feel bad not when soldiers die but when foreign non-combatants die, 99.99% of whom were put in harm's way - often times intentionally so for better press results - by the dictators who imprison them. Wait until the enemy climbs the mountain, crosses the river, jumps the fence, and kicks your door in before getting off your ass to do something about it.
So .. Happy Memorial Day to you too, Ted. Hope you're enjoying the freedom that billions in the world don't have, meaning, the freedom to write your drivel of a column with impunity. If it were up to people like you, America would be part of the Russian (or Chinese) Federation, and what's left of the rest of the world would have burned to ashes long ago.
Good grief, you'd think Hamilton would be dancing in the streets, not calling the past legislative session - which closed without anything being done - an "abject failure".
Consider the Republican-dominated legislature failed to cut taxes on ANYTHING, let alone phase out the state income tax - should be reason for celebration for the tax-loving.
I see Arnold Hamilton is back at it in his typical hard-left fashion, with more name-calling and race-baiting, insinuating Oklahoma voters are a bunch of hick racist theocratic wingnuts. How nauseating.
Not voting for Obama does not mean Oklahomans "aren't ready to endorse a black man for the White House". It's not about race, it's about everything but: party affiliation, platform, qualifications, etc. Obama was rejected by Oklahoma voters on these grounds, not because of race.
Oh, if only J.C. Watts had been persuaded to run. Then you would have seen how quickly Oklahoma voters could vote for a black man for President.
"Wait", you say. "J.C. Watts played football at OU. He could be a green monster with 3-inch fangs that dripped venom, he'd still win in a landslide."
Well, perhaps. But since we've chosen to drag the race issue front and center, let's not gloss it over. However, I contend Watts could win in Oklahoma, not based on Sooner football glory but because of his political accomplishments, both on the Oklahoma Corporation Commission and in Congress as a U.S. Representative from Oklahoma. And by the way, Watts was elected to the Corporation Commission as the first ever black in Oklahoma elected to a state office. His subsequent election (way back in the Jim Crow days of 1994) to the U.S. Congress as a representative from the 4th congressional district was history in the making; Watts was the first black Republican U.S. Representative from south of the Mason-Dixon Line to win office since Reconstruction. Oklahoma's 4th District (90% white at the time) had been represented by Democrats since 1922.
Does Hamilton know this? Sure he does. But this is omitted since these are rather inconvenient facts.
Oklahomans aren't stupid. We know the difference between nags and thoroughbreds. That's why we vote the way we do.
If you have followed the Obama administration’s mandate to health insurers to cover female contraception, you might also have payed attention to the Sandra Fluke/Rush Limbaugh debacle. What does this have to do with “women’s rights” or “reproductive rights”? Not a damn thing. This is about forcing insurers to pay for something entirely optional and – let’s face it – recreational, not medical. The Fluke affair is nothing more than political grandstanding to drum up support for the administration’s preferences.
Sex is optional. And while it may come as a surprise to some, it’s not even medically necessary. Don’t believe me, ask any of the millions of married couples who only manage to get together five or six times a year instead of 365. Fluke’s “testimony” in front of Congress is about forcing insurers to expand their burgeoning list of have-to-pay-fors to include yet another perk.
Insurers will react the way insurers always react when they’re forced to expand coverage. They will simply raise their rates. And the cost of coverage for all of us – including the 90-year-old woman who hasn’t had sex since 1959 - will go up as a result. I’m sure granny will be delighted to hear she’ll be helping to underwrite the sex life of 25-year-old coeds.
Holy crap. "E-books won't survive if their print forbears vanish." People will get tired of the Internet, as it's just a passing fad. Really? Quick! Someone print out the Internet before it's too late.
Rall's solution is .. drum roll please .. government intervention in setting price floors and juggling antitrust laws. This tone deaf approach is so vastly similar to bailouts for auto companies and alternative energy firms that go flop anyway. Who pays for it? Your tax dollars. Maybe bailouts to Barnes and Noble will come with a cool catchphrase - "Books - too big to fail".
If you're a hard-copy enthusiast (like me) and enjoy lining your floor-to-ceiling book shelves with weighty tomes, I might suggest stocking up on them now, maybe buying a subscription to 100 Greatest Books. They charge the crap out of you - $25 per tome plus tax - but all the faux leather sure looks purty.
The future will be more electronic, not less. It's been going in that direction for about, oh, the last 150 years. So don't listen to Rall. Government intervention in the free market in any and all cases only leads to perpetual subsidies of dying industries, wasted tax dollars, and simply prolonging the inevitable.
Hamilton is at least consistent in his disdain for Tea Partiers and Tenthers. States' rights? Bah!
It's evident from the posting on okhouse.gov Terrill has no problem with a state law against talking and texting. He just doesn't want it to be enforced at the national level. Maybe Hamilton is right though. Maybe there's no such thing as overreach.
It's just that I was reading on the Hosanna-Tabor case recently decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, a unanimous hand-slap to the government, prohibiting it from interfering in a church's determination of who will act as its ministers. Sounds kind of overreachy to me .. shh! Nothing to see here. Move along.
I was also musing about Ted Rall's last column. Seems that Ted believes the government is the ultimate arbiter of wealth and happiness, with consummate authority to create jobs, redistribute incomes, pay off mortgages, and give us all a lifetime supply of Chunky Monkey.
A couple of weeks ago Hamilton is shrieking about the possibility of rescinding the state income tax. Not enough money to fund the essential services. State capitol building is a dump. Need money to fix it, etc. What I don't understand, is if we are all a bunch of fat, dumb, lazy, sick people here in Oklahoma (this weeks UTW, page 16), how can we possibly be trusted to decide our own fate? Wouldn't it be better to just let Oklahoma be run from Washington? I would think that Hamilton would get behind abolishing the state income tax. Cut out the middle man, so to speak. No more fat salaries for useless state legislators, no more worrying about the dome at the state capitol building falling in. And surely the feds could fix our crappy roads. Because apparently we can't.
Maybe Uncle Sugah really can solve all our problems. And maybe if not for the obstructionist Republicans President Obama would have shipped our Chunky Monkey orders by now. It's just that the President still has a lot of overreaching to do in his fundamental transformation of America: rebuilding America's worldwide image, cooling the planet down, and making us buy health insurance. And he's still trying to quit smoking.
The basic premise of Rall's argument here is that "governments are supposed to fulfill the basic needs of their citizens". In fact, it's the premise for just about every argument he makes. The fact that this premise is false is the reason none of his arguments make sense.
Governments are supposed to do Constitutional-type things, like provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, etc. Somehow in the modern age that is interpreted by proponents of Super Big Government to mean that government is obligated to provide a cradle-to-grave nanny state. To Rall and those of his ilk, if you download into your underwear the gov is supposed to swoop in and wipe your behind. That assumes - and encourages people to be - lazy, incompetent, petulant screw-ups dependent on someone else to solve their problems for them.
First comes the implication that "our lawmakers can't be trusted to spend the money for its intended purpose", followed by the tacit admission that our legislators "are frighteningly inept at managing taxpayer dollars", followed by ... an admonition essentially, of how we all need to pay our fair share. Golly gee, if that doesn't make you hot to pony up another few thousand a year in taxes, I don't know what will.
How then is the righteous tax collector thwarted? According to Hamilton, by ultra-right-wing media and bible-thumping religiosos pounding the ignorant masses with the false gospel that they already pay enough in taxes, while the greedy rich look on and snicker.
Of course there's another reason why freezing or lowering taxes plays so well. It could be that there are still quite a few people around who have eyes and a brain. They can add up all the federal, state, property tax, and sales tax they pay, and quickly deduce that a) it accounts for as much as 30% of their income, and b) the amount of government "services" they receive are shockingly small in comparison. So the "less tax" argument tends to be an easy sell. You don't necessarily need a Tea Party rally, right-wing newsprint, a religious fanatic, or a talk radio wind-up to convince you of that.
Load up "The Bad Roads of Oklahoma" by Susan Herndon on the MP3 or CD player. I assure you, your toes will tap and you head will bob with empathy as those lyrics spin out. Maintaining roads and bridges are the most basic and essential of all government services, because they affect every single one of us, including our children whom we ferry back and forth on those roads and bridges, bobbing and weaving like an NFL running back trying to miss the dips and potholes. Roads and bridges - first and foremost - should be the first thing the budget takes care of. If Oklahoma government can't properly maintain these structures - and they apparently can't given their chronic, pathetic state - why should anyone be eager to give them more tax dollars to do that, or anything else?
One last thing. Believe it or not, I keep my lawn mowed and hedges pruned and walkways edged, and I don't receive a single penny of government subsidy for that purpose. So if the Legislature doesn't like the dumpy look of their digs, or is afraid the roof might fall in on them, I'd suggest they pass the hat amongst themselves if they want it fixed.
That, or start responsibly and effectively managing the resources they already have.
I noticed the UTW cover a few weeks ago featured a rather angry-looking young woman (GrrrTulsa?). as part of the Occupy Wall Street phenomena UTW reported on. Since Tulsa doesn’t have a Wall Street, I guess that’s how we got to Occupy Tulsa.
It brings back fond memories of my post-college days. I had graduated magna cum laude from a prestigious school. And not only did I not get a single recruiter visit in my field to my college campus, there was no job at all waiting for me upon graduation (this was right after the Penn Square Bank failure and subsequent oil bust of 1982).
Seething with rage, I did what any sane person would do. I beat up businessmen in parking lots. I blew up buildings. I shot people. I took dumps in public water fountains. I didn’t bathe for months. I set up a soapbox on a busy street in downtown Oklahoma City and shouted my tale of woe at the top of my lungs. Finally, one day a wealthy businessman came along, spotted me maiming people and causing property damage, and said, “that boy’s got spunk”. He hired me on the spot. And that’s how I became an evil corporate CEO.
Just kidding. I didn't do any of those things. What really happened was I odd-jobbed around for a few years, eventually went to a trade school, learned a profession, and finally got ramped into the career I wanted. It was hard work. It was stressful. It took years to really get off the ground. It’s just that at no point did I waste energy trying to blame my misfortunes on someone else. Because I understood then at age 22 what a lot of people pushing 50 (Rall) still don't get: life is tough, no one owes you a living. There will be misfortune. You will have obstacles. Overcome them.
We should think long and hard before blowing the “getting a college degree is a ticket to the good life” smoke up young people’s butts. It wasn’t true in my day, and it isn’t true now. Life doesn’t offer guarantees . Maybe if someone had ever bothered to teach them that, newspapers wouldn’t be wasting ink on OccupyWhatever, and the 20-something’s out doing the occupying wouldn’t be wasting their time.
The author is living hand-to-mouth. She's unhappy about it. This is in sharp contrast to the rest of us, who are living hand-to-mouth and enjoying every minute of it.
She doesn't like people who can afford to drive Cadillacs and have time to play golf. Shouldn't they be taxed more?
The rest is a campaign ad for the President. Our President, the Great Redistributionist, has been unfairly portrayed as incompetent and ineffective (apparently it doesn't occur that might actually be true. Every time he speaks, the stock market drops like a rock). He just needs more time! Sounds like a bumbling gambler that thinks doubling down by betting his house will work, after he's already lost all his savings and the family car.
Continuing along the same fault line of economic illiteracy, mentions FDR and the New Deal (it took a FDR and the New Deal to turn the Depression into the Great Depression). Check this out: http://mises.org/daily/3234
Suggestion: We shouldn't be looking for someone to blame for the mess. We should be looking for someone who can fix it.
The party line concerning the individual mandate is indeed that people would otherwise wait to buy insurance until they're sick. The real reason there's no individual mandate with Obamacare is because otherwise no one would buy it.
Companies terminating employee health benefits in lieu of a government plan "hasn't happened" in Massachusetts? According to the Boston Globe, small companies are dumping health plans in droves. Expect that to rate to pick up, especially if we go into another recession.
Check the numbers on Masscare again. Massachusetts Health care has cost Massachusetts an additional $4.2 billion and broadsided small businesses with the increased costs. Insurance premiums have risen 12 percent in the last two years. Yes, more people have coverage, but over time, the costs aren't containable, and the only possible way to sustain it is to keep raising costs on employers and employees, curtailing amount and type of coverage, and eroding the quality of care. And we're going national with this train wreck?
Governments don't create "better functioning markets". They create market dysfunction.
While it is tiring, it's predictable a creep like Rall will play the class warfare card at any opportunity, spitting venom at rich hedge fund managers and jeering at white protestant males. This is a guy a real journalist - Bernard Goldberg - referred to as "a hate-filled jerk." That that is true should be obvious, and speaking of white protestant males, why does Rall hate himself?
Leftists have honed their skills at class warfare. But all the rhetoric is simply a way to clothe the naked desire to keep themselves in power. That is the ultimate goal, not doing what is best for the people. It’s about doing what’s best for the ruling class and doing favors for the people that bankroll them. In other words, the hardcore leftists are no different and certainly no better than the right-wing corporatists they so despise.
Liberals like Rall want to go hug every bum sleeping under a bridge and every "freedom fighter" strapped to a bomb or toting an AK-47. But when you think about it, one of the centerpieces of their rhetoric - the whole “rich get richer, poor get poorer” thing - is almost tautological. If you had $100,000 and invested in a fund that paid a 10% return, in a year you’d have $110,000. If someone with a $1,000,000 invested in the same fund, at the year end he would have $1,100,000. One guy made $10,000, the other guy made $100,000. So one got even more rich than the other, but the “poor” guy did not get poorer, did he?
People who work, save, and invest will always improve their status. My mom was born in poverty in the Depression and educated in a one-room schoolhouse. She started with nothing. All she had was a good high school education and an incredible work ethic. But that was all she needed to go from literally dirt-poor to upper-middle class.
The real reason the poor are getting poorer is because of our deteriorating schools and faltering work ethic. So part of it is systemic, part of it is cultural. We could at least fix the systemic part and make sure every child that wanted a good education got one. But we refuse to do even that.
Do you really think the key to a good education is spending a gazillion dollars per child so they all have tablet computers and a $100,000 touch-screen blackboard in every classroom? The real reason Johnny can’t read is because schools can't teach and Johnny won’t try. So it's somewhat obvious where we are headed: we are creating an enormous class of talentless, uneducated, unmotivated, undisciplined, and self-absorbed parasites dependent on someone else’s dollars to take care of them.
Still lusting for class warfare? Be careful what you wish for because in the end, it is the aforementioned class of people that will overrun cities, loot, burn, and riot when the collapse finally comes. See: Greece 2010, New Orleans 2005.
You read a lot today about same-sex marriage and the fight to legislate its approval via Rule of Law. What I don’t understand, is what does Rule of Law have to do with it anyway? Couples of all stripes, same sex or otherwise, are going to cohabitate regardless of what the law says. Sure, there are laws still on the books that prohibit cohabitation of unmarried couples, but they haven’t been enforced in, oh, about a hundred years, and only spottily so even then. Yet still, the gay marriage proponents - who ordinarily laugh at hoary old Rule of Law - continue to lust after a rubber-stamp approval from it on this particular issue, as if it matters. It doesn’t.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to – as Ron Paul suggests - divorce (chuckle) marriage from state sanction, and leave it solely up to the religious bodies? Those like-minded individuals who seek affirmation for their union could still be sanctioned by the religious institution of their choice, i.e., a church, synagogue, or temple, etc.
It would take the political pathos out of the equation. The only real problem I see is the state is cheated out of its licensing fees. I guess they could make up for it by arbitrarily raising some other fine or fee. They excel at that.
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COMMENTS
Posted by: toddkreigh
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Re: Too Much ControlRyan and Rand?Dear UTW:
There are numerous problems with this argument, starting with Gore Vidal. Vidal was an avowed atheist who saw people who leaned on religion as "weak" because they feared death. He especially detested Roman Catholics. The sexually ambidextrous Mr. Vidal - who drifted in and out of trysts with numerous men and women in his life - is a strange source to quote when passing judgment on someone else's morality.
It's also an odd and incongruent argument for a liberal to assert - in this day and age - that a conservative should be "motivated by Jesus Christ", i.e., I thought the liberal party line was politicians were supposed to divorce religion from their decision making. Besides, in the case of Rand and Vidal religion doesn't figure into it much anyway; they were both atheists, although Rand obviously scored no points with Vidal because of this commonality.
To be sure, Ayn Rand was an "odd little woman", but one blessed with an enormous intellect. Writing off "Atlas Shrugged" as an exultation of greed and self-interest is facile. Moreover, there is nothing inherently immoral about pursuing what is in one's own self-interest. If it were we could safely say about 99.9 percent of us are immoral.
Rand held in high esteem the virtues of morality and integrity. "Atlas Shrugged" is an illustration of how moral men who follow the law and - even if motivated solely by self-interest - build the engines of society that move it in a positive direction. Because they are the thinkers, the innovators, the inventors, the creators of technology who even though they might build great personal wealth, also create wealth for others and benefit society as a whole. How is this "lunacy" or "immorality"? You only see it as such if you've been swayed by redistribution theology and have come to believe capitalism itself is an evil and getting rich is, in and of itself, a sin.
Therefore the premise of Mr. Ryan's argument - that politician Paul Ryan has been heavily influenced by the writings of an immoral lunatic - doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
Re: Finding Privatizer Ryan
Romney correctly read the political landscape, and it's generally seen as a boost to his candidacy to pick Ryan as his veep. This is the age of the Tea Party, the powerful grassroots organization that evolved basically out of frustration with RINOs who got elected then kept drifting leftward. The "centrist" thing might be time-honored, but it's not going to work anymore (remember John McCain?). If Romney loses, it's not going to be because of Paul D. Ryan.
Ryan was chosen primarily because of his analytical skills pertaining to budgets. He has already put forth a solid plan to address the problem of the deficit long-term. That stands in sharp contrast to an administration that thinks the best solution to running out of money is to just print up more and a Democrat-controlled Senate that refuses to even pass a budget. Romney/Ryan know the gravity of the fiscal debt bomb that's about to explode. If it does it's not just granny who'll be headed over the cliff. It will be her kids and their kids (and all of us) along with her.
Romney/Ryan would like to defuse the debt bomb. That necessarily involves things along the lines of cuts and consolidations. Unfortunately, for those whose sustenance comes primarily from government, that's a tough sell.
So it might well be that the Romney/Ryan ticket loses the election. That would not be a surprise to me. If it does, though, the reason won't be because they're inept, bumbling politicians that can't inspire their base. It will be because too many clueless voters want to think the federal goody trough doesn't have a bottom.
Re: Waiting for the Trickle
At one point he states, " ..preposterous is the assertion that tax cuts will stimulate even more economic activity. Voodoo economics lives!"
OK. Maybe I'll rat-hole the extra money. Of course I could just sink it in my small retirement fund too. But that would be selfish and wouldn't stimulate the economy either. The fact with most people is that we are hard-wired to spend money. The more you make, the more you will spend (I'm sure you have seen this principle at work in your own life). And if you spend more you stimulate the economy. Therefore his assertion this does not work is much in doubt.
The kicker is a few paragraphs later, when he says, " ..they [states] can maintain their spending on the salary of workers, who then go out and spend their paychecks on the local economy".
Let me get this straight. A tax cut that allows me to keep more of my money, i.e., in effect giving me a larger paycheck to spend does not stimulate the economy. However, the state "spending on the salary of workers" (we can only assume he means public sector employees since those are the only kind that get a paycheck from the state) will stimulate the economy. Because those workers go out and spend their paychecks. What? Their money works differently than mine?
Makes no sense. No surprise though, since most of what Hamilton writes seldom does.
Re: Not Just Rugged Individualism
You know what I expect from government? (hint: it ain't money). I expect incompetence. The IRS sent me a bill for $3,500 a couple months ago, supposedly because I took a cash distribution from an investment. Except I didn't. All I did was roll it over from one fund to another. I sent them the documentation (at my considerable time and expense). They sent me a revised statement. They said they now owe me $72. The statement came with a form for me to fill out and a return envelope. No check. (Yes, shocking).
Last year the Department of The Census failed to mail me a census form. I went online and requested one on my own initiative. Mailed it to them, again at my own expense. A month later they sent - you guessed it - a census taker to my house. Is our government not breath-taking in its efficiency?
Here's my point: sheer volume of intake in terms of dollars and cents is irrelevant. What really matters is how efficiently the money is spent. You'd think we'd be astounded at the improvements all around, given that much moola flowed in. Tell me, what big differences have you noticed?
Hamilton should consider moving to New York (or Connecticut, or Massachusetts, or California). They really love their taxes there. Perhaps the reason that h-i-g-h-e-r t-a-x-e-s is DOA in so many other places is because people are getting tired of the concept of paying more and getting less. Or nothing at all, in the case of our recompense for the recent state-wide natural disasters.
Something else to consider: if Oklahoma were a swing state in an election year where the incumbent President needs every single vote - that federal check would have been cut and sent. Without delay.
Re: Bringing a Pen to a Gun Fight
In all its rambling, his column does manage to stumble across the truth occasionally: he acknowledges guns might be necessary to stop the "authoritarian march toward neofascism". Funny, Rall just agreed with those hoary old fossils, the Founding Fathers. They said exactly the same thing.
But that's about all he gets right. The rest of it is cheer-leading for the authoritarian march of the neofascists. Like to hunt? Live out in the country? Too bad! Rall isn't in either group so he's happy to throw us under the bus along with the Second Amendment. There's other niggling crap, like not being able to differentiate between a clip and a magazine and classifying a semi-auto as an assault weapon. If you know better, then you are used to these misnomers and chalk them up to someone who's too misinformed to know the difference and too lazy to find out.
There is a reason why public support of gun bans continues to erode. Gun bans don't work. There is also the sad historical fact that societies which give up the right to bear arms lose their freedom within 40 years.
We haven't "outgrown the right to bear arms", as Rall suggests. We never will. The only thing we can lose over time is the sense to acknowledge the real problem - societal breakdown - and the impetus to do anything about it. We're already well on our way to that. And when the breakdown is complete gun crime will be the least of our worries.
Re: Our Politicians Need an Education
Except that everything I just said is utter crap. We began seriously losing ground in the late 50's, after we went into panic mode that the Soviets won the race to space and we started pushing math and science over history and literature. State after state signed on to changes in curriculum that supported this directive. The result was predictable: history and literature courses became moribund afterthoughts; your average modern high school history course is a waste of a teacher's salary and of a student's time.
The fact of the matter is prior to 1959, the American system of education was one of the best in the world. Nowadays, not so much. Does anyone think the solution to that problem is to grant even more control to a useless, national education bureaucracy?
Yet still we hear the cries: "more money, more money! We can fix it with more and more money." It is a waste of time to point out that Utah spends the lowest amount per pupil on education of all the 50 states - yet still ranks somewhere in the middle for student achievement. Conversely - and equally as futile to point out - Washington D.C. spends the most per pupil on education. Yet ranks last .. yes, dead last in student achievement. There is no greater bureaucratic boondoggle than the D.C. public schools. The Washington Post acknowledges this.
You can quite accurately predict "student achievement" based on racial/income demographics. Money doesn't have a damn thing to do with it. Yeah, I know, it's not politically correct to say stuff like that. I just don't give a rip about being politically correct. What I do care about is 2/3 of my property taxes go to pay for the education of children I don't have in the local, substandard public education system. But more money and government involvement will fix everything. Sure it will. Whoooot!
The approach Rall advocates - abolishing private schools and all other forms of free choice forcing everyone into an awful school - would be akin to acknowledging you can't save everyone, so might as well just sink all the lifeboats and let everyone drown.
Come to think of it, that's exactly what a government-engineered solution would look like.
Re: Recovery? What Recovery?
It's his solution I have a problem with. Apparently Rall would advocate for more spendulus. Bring back the WPA. Have government step in and create a fictionalized job market. Wasn't that the goal of the so-called stimulus? And it didn't do any good. As usual with leftists, they assume solutions to problems begin and end with government.
We need a real recovery. That's only going to come with vast decreases in taxes and regulation for the private sector - especially small business - to drive the jobs engine. And even that's not going to happen at any measurable rate until we've repealed the Affordable Care Act, replaced the Congressmen who are bereft of economic literacy, and deposed the dolt living in the Oval Office.
Re: Next Memorial Day, Remember America's Victims Too
Feel bad not when soldiers die but when foreign non-combatants die, 99.99% of whom were put in harm's way - often times intentionally so for better press results - by the dictators who imprison them. Wait until the enemy climbs the mountain, crosses the river, jumps the fence, and kicks your door in before getting off your ass to do something about it.
So .. Happy Memorial Day to you too, Ted. Hope you're enjoying the freedom that billions in the world don't have, meaning, the freedom to write your drivel of a column with impunity. If it were up to people like you, America would be part of the Russian (or Chinese) Federation, and what's left of the rest of the world would have burned to ashes long ago.
Re: Kick the Can
Consider the Republican-dominated legislature failed to cut taxes on ANYTHING, let alone phase out the state income tax - should be reason for celebration for the tax-loving.
Re: Taking Sides
Not voting for Obama does not mean Oklahomans "aren't ready to endorse a black man for the White House". It's not about race, it's about everything but: party affiliation, platform, qualifications, etc. Obama was rejected by Oklahoma voters on these grounds, not because of race.
Oh, if only J.C. Watts had been persuaded to run. Then you would have seen how quickly Oklahoma voters could vote for a black man for President.
"Wait", you say. "J.C. Watts played football at OU. He could be a green monster with 3-inch fangs that dripped venom, he'd still win in a landslide."
Well, perhaps. But since we've chosen to drag the race issue front and center, let's not gloss it over. However, I contend Watts could win in Oklahoma, not based on Sooner football glory but because of his political accomplishments, both on the Oklahoma Corporation Commission and in Congress as a U.S. Representative from Oklahoma. And by the way, Watts was elected to the Corporation Commission as the first ever black in Oklahoma elected to a state office. His subsequent election (way back in the Jim Crow days of 1994) to the U.S. Congress as a representative from the 4th congressional district was history in the making; Watts was the first black Republican U.S. Representative from south of the Mason-Dixon Line to win office since Reconstruction. Oklahoma's 4th District (90% white at the time) had been represented by Democrats since 1922.
Does Hamilton know this? Sure he does. But this is omitted since these are rather inconvenient facts.
Oklahomans aren't stupid. We know the difference between nags and thoroughbreds. That's why we vote the way we do.
Re: Love Letters/Hate Mail
Sex is optional. And while it may come as a surprise to some, it’s not even medically necessary. Don’t believe me, ask any of the millions of married couples who only manage to get together five or six times a year instead of 365. Fluke’s “testimony” in front of Congress is about forcing insurers to expand their burgeoning list of have-to-pay-fors to include yet another perk.
Insurers will react the way insurers always react when they’re forced to expand coverage. They will simply raise their rates. And the cost of coverage for all of us – including the 90-year-old woman who hasn’t had sex since 1959 - will go up as a result. I’m sure granny will be delighted to hear she’ll be helping to underwrite the sex life of 25-year-old coeds.
As for me, I’m not. How about you?
Re: How to Save Books
Rall's solution is .. drum roll please .. government intervention in setting price floors and juggling antitrust laws. This tone deaf approach is so vastly similar to bailouts for auto companies and alternative energy firms that go flop anyway. Who pays for it? Your tax dollars. Maybe bailouts to Barnes and Noble will come with a cool catchphrase - "Books - too big to fail".
If you're a hard-copy enthusiast (like me) and enjoy lining your floor-to-ceiling book shelves with weighty tomes, I might suggest stocking up on them now, maybe buying a subscription to 100 Greatest Books. They charge the crap out of you - $25 per tome plus tax - but all the faux leather sure looks purty.
The future will be more electronic, not less. It's been going in that direction for about, oh, the last 150 years. So don't listen to Rall. Government intervention in the free market in any and all cases only leads to perpetual subsidies of dying industries, wasted tax dollars, and simply prolonging the inevitable.
Re: Smart Is As Smart Does
It's evident from the posting on okhouse.gov Terrill has no problem with a state law against talking and texting. He just doesn't want it to be enforced at the national level. Maybe Hamilton is right though. Maybe there's no such thing as overreach.
It's just that I was reading on the Hosanna-Tabor case recently decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, a unanimous hand-slap to the government, prohibiting it from interfering in a church's determination of who will act as its ministers. Sounds kind of overreachy to me .. shh! Nothing to see here. Move along.
I was also musing about Ted Rall's last column. Seems that Ted believes the government is the ultimate arbiter of wealth and happiness, with consummate authority to create jobs, redistribute incomes, pay off mortgages, and give us all a lifetime supply of Chunky Monkey.
A couple of weeks ago Hamilton is shrieking about the possibility of rescinding the state income tax. Not enough money to fund the essential services. State capitol building is a dump. Need money to fix it, etc. What I don't understand, is if we are all a bunch of fat, dumb, lazy, sick people here in Oklahoma (this weeks UTW, page 16), how can we possibly be trusted to decide our own fate? Wouldn't it be better to just let Oklahoma be run from Washington? I would think that Hamilton would get behind abolishing the state income tax. Cut out the middle man, so to speak. No more fat salaries for useless state legislators, no more worrying about the dome at the state capitol building falling in. And surely the feds could fix our crappy roads. Because apparently we can't.
Maybe Uncle Sugah really can solve all our problems. And maybe if not for the obstructionist Republicans President Obama would have shipped our Chunky Monkey orders by now. It's just that the President still has a lot of overreaching to do in his fundamental transformation of America: rebuilding America's worldwide image, cooling the planet down, and making us buy health insurance. And he's still trying to quit smoking.
Let's be patient. He'll get to it.
Re: Our F-You System of Government
Governments are supposed to do Constitutional-type things, like provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, etc. Somehow in the modern age that is interpreted by proponents of Super Big Government to mean that government is obligated to provide a cradle-to-grave nanny state. To Rall and those of his ilk, if you download into your underwear the gov is supposed to swoop in and wipe your behind. That assumes - and encourages people to be - lazy, incompetent, petulant screw-ups dependent on someone else to solve their problems for them.
Re: Taxes, Assets or Pixie Dust
How then is the righteous tax collector thwarted? According to Hamilton, by ultra-right-wing media and bible-thumping religiosos pounding the ignorant masses with the false gospel that they already pay enough in taxes, while the greedy rich look on and snicker.
Of course there's another reason why freezing or lowering taxes plays so well. It could be that there are still quite a few people around who have eyes and a brain. They can add up all the federal, state, property tax, and sales tax they pay, and quickly deduce that a) it accounts for as much as 30% of their income, and b) the amount of government "services" they receive are shockingly small in comparison. So the "less tax" argument tends to be an easy sell. You don't necessarily need a Tea Party rally, right-wing newsprint, a religious fanatic, or a talk radio wind-up to convince you of that.
Load up "The Bad Roads of Oklahoma" by Susan Herndon on the MP3 or CD player. I assure you, your toes will tap and you head will bob with empathy as those lyrics spin out. Maintaining roads and bridges are the most basic and essential of all government services, because they affect every single one of us, including our children whom we ferry back and forth on those roads and bridges, bobbing and weaving like an NFL running back trying to miss the dips and potholes. Roads and bridges - first and foremost - should be the first thing the budget takes care of. If Oklahoma government can't properly maintain these structures - and they apparently can't given their chronic, pathetic state - why should anyone be eager to give them more tax dollars to do that, or anything else?
One last thing. Believe it or not, I keep my lawn mowed and hedges pruned and walkways edged, and I don't receive a single penny of government subsidy for that purpose. So if the Legislature doesn't like the dumpy look of their digs, or is afraid the roof might fall in on them, I'd suggest they pass the hat amongst themselves if they want it fixed.
That, or start responsibly and effectively managing the resources they already have.
Re: Quit Whining About Student Loans
It brings back fond memories of my post-college days. I had graduated magna cum laude from a prestigious school. And not only did I not get a single recruiter visit in my field to my college campus, there was no job at all waiting for me upon graduation (this was right after the Penn Square Bank failure and subsequent oil bust of 1982).
Seething with rage, I did what any sane person would do. I beat up businessmen in parking lots. I blew up buildings. I shot people. I took dumps in public water fountains. I didn’t bathe for months. I set up a soapbox on a busy street in downtown Oklahoma City and shouted my tale of woe at the top of my lungs. Finally, one day a wealthy businessman came along, spotted me maiming people and causing property damage, and said, “that boy’s got spunk”. He hired me on the spot. And that’s how I became an evil corporate CEO.
Just kidding. I didn't do any of those things. What really happened was I odd-jobbed around for a few years, eventually went to a trade school, learned a profession, and finally got ramped into the career I wanted. It was hard work. It was stressful. It took years to really get off the ground. It’s just that at no point did I waste energy trying to blame my misfortunes on someone else. Because I understood then at age 22 what a lot of people pushing 50 (Rall) still don't get: life is tough, no one owes you a living. There will be misfortune. You will have obstacles. Overcome them.
We should think long and hard before blowing the “getting a college degree is a ticket to the good life” smoke up young people’s butts. It wasn’t true in my day, and it isn’t true now. Life doesn’t offer guarantees . Maybe if someone had ever bothered to teach them that, newspapers wouldn’t be wasting ink on OccupyWhatever, and the 20-something’s out doing the occupying wouldn’t be wasting their time.
Re: Hand-to-Mouth
The author is living hand-to-mouth. She's unhappy about it. This is in sharp contrast to the rest of us, who are living hand-to-mouth and enjoying every minute of it.
She doesn't like people who can afford to drive Cadillacs and have time to play golf. Shouldn't they be taxed more?
The rest is a campaign ad for the President. Our President, the Great Redistributionist, has been unfairly portrayed as incompetent and ineffective (apparently it doesn't occur that might actually be true. Every time he speaks, the stock market drops like a rock). He just needs more time! Sounds like a bumbling gambler that thinks doubling down by betting his house will work, after he's already lost all his savings and the family car.
Continuing along the same fault line of economic illiteracy, mentions FDR and the New Deal (it took a FDR and the New Deal to turn the Depression into the Great Depression). Check this out: http://mises.org/daily/3234
Suggestion: We shouldn't be looking for someone to blame for the mess. We should be looking for someone who can fix it.
Re: Love Letters/Hate Mail
Companies terminating employee health benefits in lieu of a government plan "hasn't happened" in Massachusetts? According to the Boston Globe, small companies are dumping health plans in droves. Expect that to rate to pick up, especially if we go into another recession.
Check the numbers on Masscare again. Massachusetts Health care has cost Massachusetts an additional $4.2 billion and broadsided small businesses with the increased costs. Insurance premiums have risen 12 percent in the last two years. Yes, more people have coverage, but over time, the costs aren't containable, and the only possible way to sustain it is to keep raising costs on employers and employees, curtailing amount and type of coverage, and eroding the quality of care. And we're going national with this train wreck?
Governments don't create "better functioning markets". They create market dysfunction.
Re: American Select
Leftists have honed their skills at class warfare. But all the rhetoric is simply a way to clothe the naked desire to keep themselves in power. That is the ultimate goal, not doing what is best for the people. It’s about doing what’s best for the ruling class and doing favors for the people that bankroll them. In other words, the hardcore leftists are no different and certainly no better than the right-wing corporatists they so despise.
Liberals like Rall want to go hug every bum sleeping under a bridge and every "freedom fighter" strapped to a bomb or toting an AK-47. But when you think about it, one of the centerpieces of their rhetoric - the whole “rich get richer, poor get poorer” thing - is almost tautological. If you had $100,000 and invested in a fund that paid a 10% return, in a year you’d have $110,000. If someone with a $1,000,000 invested in the same fund, at the year end he would have $1,100,000. One guy made $10,000, the other guy made $100,000. So one got even more rich than the other, but the “poor” guy did not get poorer, did he?
People who work, save, and invest will always improve their status. My mom was born in poverty in the Depression and educated in a one-room schoolhouse. She started with nothing. All she had was a good high school education and an incredible work ethic. But that was all she needed to go from literally dirt-poor to upper-middle class.
The real reason the poor are getting poorer is because of our deteriorating schools and faltering work ethic. So part of it is systemic, part of it is cultural. We could at least fix the systemic part and make sure every child that wanted a good education got one. But we refuse to do even that.
Do you really think the key to a good education is spending a gazillion dollars per child so they all have tablet computers and a $100,000 touch-screen blackboard in every classroom? The real reason Johnny can’t read is because schools can't teach and Johnny won’t try. So it's somewhat obvious where we are headed: we are creating an enormous class of talentless, uneducated, unmotivated, undisciplined, and self-absorbed parasites dependent on someone else’s dollars to take care of them.
Still lusting for class warfare? Be careful what you wish for because in the end, it is the aforementioned class of people that will overrun cities, loot, burn, and riot when the collapse finally comes. See: Greece 2010, New Orleans 2005.
Re: Sexual Freedom: the Next Frontier
Wouldn’t it make more sense to – as Ron Paul suggests - divorce (chuckle) marriage from state sanction, and leave it solely up to the religious bodies? Those like-minded individuals who seek affirmation for their union could still be sanctioned by the religious institution of their choice, i.e., a church, synagogue, or temple, etc.
It would take the political pathos out of the equation. The only real problem I see is the state is cheated out of its licensing fees. I guess they could make up for it by arbitrarily raising some other fine or fee. They excel at that.
Bada-bing. Everyone wins.