Why I have Given Up The Fight

“Forty-nine percent of young respondents gave a favorable rating to socialism, and while only 24 percent of whites viewed socialism favorably, 55 percent of blacks did and 44 percent of Hispanics did.”  Pew Poll 

Socialism.  

In America.  

Who would have ever thought it possible? 

The only thing that can save us now is severe economic pain.

 

Give Obama everything he wants, and do it as soon as possible, so everyone who voted for him can see what his policies bring.

 

Massive debt, massive unemployment, social strife, hunger, severe inflation, extremely high interest rates, the collapse of the dollar, stock market crash and, finally, economic collapse.

 

Let the games begin!

 

We'll come in after the crash, when we finally have everyone's attention, and clean up the mess by applying the very principles that made us the greatest country in human history.

When Work is Punished

Submitted by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
11/27/2012

Exactly two years ago, some of the more politically biased progressive media outlets (who are quite adept at creating and taking down their own strawmen arguments, if not quite as adept at using an abacus, let alone a calculator) took offense at our article "In Entitlement America, The Head Of A Household Of Four Making Minimum Wage Has More Disposable Income Than A Family Making $60,000 A Year." In it we merely explained what has become the painful reality in America: for increasingly more it is now more lucrative - in the form of actual disposable income - to sit, do nothing, and collect various welfare entitlements, than to work. This is graphically, and very painfully confirmed, in the below chart from Gary Alexander, Secretary of Public Welfare, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (a state best known for its broke capital Harrisburg). As quantitied, and explained by Alexander, "the single mom is better off earnings gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income & benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income and benefits of $57,045."



We realize that this is a painful topic in a country in which the issue of welfare benefits, and cutting (or not) the spending side of the fiscal cliff, have become the two most sensitive social topics. Alas, none of that changes the matrix of incentives for most Americans who find themselves in a comparable situation: either being on the left side of minimum US wage, and relying on benefits, or move to the right side at far greater personal investment of work, and energy, and... have the same disposable income at the end of the day.

Naturally, the topic of wealth redistribution is paramount one now that America is entering the terminal phase of its out of control spending, and whose response to hike taxes in a globalized, easily fungible world, will merely force more of the uber-wealthy to find offshore tax jurisdictions, avoid US taxation altogether, and thus result to even lower budget revenues for the US. It explains why the cluelessly incompetent but supposedly impartial Congressional Budget Office just released a key paper titled "Share of Returns Filed by Low- and Moderate-Income Workers, by Marginal Tax Rate, Under 2012 Law" which carries a chart of disposable income by net income comparable to the one above.



But perhaps the scariest chart in the entire presentation is the following summarizing the unsustainable welfare burden on current taxpayers:

• For every 1.65 employed persons in the private sector, 1 person receives welfare assistance
• For every 1.25 employed persons in the private sector, 1 person receives welfare assistance or works for the government.

The punchline: 110 million privately employed workers; 88 million welfare recipients and government workers and rising rapidly.

And since nothing has changed in the past two years, and in fact the situation has gotten progressively (pardon the pun) worse, here is our conclusion on this topic from two years ago:

We have been writing for over a year, how the very top of America's social order steals from the middle class each and every day. Now we finally know that the very bottom of the entitlement food chain also makes out like a bandit compared to that idiot American who actually works and pays their taxes. One can only also hope that in addition to seeing their disposable income be eaten away by a kleptocratic entitlement state, that the disappearing middle class is also selling off its weaponry. Because if it isn't, and if it finally decides it has had enough, the outcome will not be surprising at all: it will be the same old that has occurred in virtually every revolution in the history of the world to date.

But for now, just stick head in sand, and pretend all is good. Self-deception is now the only thing left for the entire insolvent entitlement-addicted world.

* * *

Friendly Advice

Here's some friendly advice I received from a friend after the Nov 6th election when I asked him what we grassroots Conservatives did wrong...

You didn't go wrong, but perhaps there is a very important place that you didn't go.

Real life, a great deal of which is implemented via economic means, isn't just politics.

Yes, politics can have a horribly destructive effect on real life and the productive economic activities that make it possible.

Your actions, no matter how wise and vigorous, will have a very limited effect on politics.

That is also true in regards to the economy in general but not true with respect to your particular and personal economic activities.

Analyze the economic and social consequences of the Keynesian and collectivistic idiocies in Washington and in the State capital nearer you, and spend at least as much critical thought and effort as you spent on politics trying to figure out how you can be more safe and productive over the coming years as more and more sh*t inevitably hits the fan.

What happens to someone else doesn't necessarily have to happen to you.

Some places will be safer and more free than others.

Some places will offer better economic opportunities than others.

Some types of productive work will fare better than others.

Spend at least as much time and effort thinking about how you personally fit into the economy and society (especially local society). Where do you want to be five, ten, twenty years from now, and what do you want to be doing?

Your choices, decisions, and actions will have a far greater effect on you and your family than they will on national politics. Allocate your thinking and efforts accordingly. When the OPM (Other Peoples' Money) runs low, where do you want to be and what do you want to be doing to earn your living? May you have the wisdom to understand what you can change and what you can't.

I Was Wrong

The following anonymous lament pretty much says it all...

Well, it's official; I don't know anything.

I thought for sure that given such a clear choice, Americans would vote for love of country over revenge.

I was wrong.

I thought, that just as every presidential election in my lifetime, the bad economy would be hung around the incumbent's neck, sinking him.

I was wrong.

I thought that even those few Americans who were fortunate enough to still be fully employed (not counting those leeching off the public system) would be cognizant of how much pain their neighbors were in and elect someone who would at least try to make improvements.

I was wrong.

I thought that now that FINALLY some of the disturbing truths about our first black president had come to light, voters would reject a man so dangerously at odds with the American experience.

I was wrong.

I thought the 2010 elections and the Tea Party meant something.

I thought the enthusiasm on display at Romney/Ryan events, contrasted with the lack of same at Obama/Biden events meant something.

I thought Americans would never sell their liberty for the sake of trinkets like cell phones or even big shiny lies like 'free health care'.

I was wrong.

Never in a million years would I have supposed that America would support a president who left his (our) people to die at the hands of our enemies overseas without lifting a hand to help, then lie about what he watched in real time for over two weeks, then lie about the lie for another month.

I was wrong.

I thought Americans could tell a hawk from a handsaw.

I was wrong.

We were offered the clearest choice we've has since 1980, where we had malaise and a misery index on one hand and a shining city on a hill on the other. Back then, we chose the city on the hill. This time the choice was between a man who says 7.9% unemployment and $4.00 gas is the new normal and a guy whose entire career has been about fixing broken entities.

We chose to stay broken. And Broke.

Maybe I'm wrong about the ramifications of this choice. Maybe windmills will actually turn out to be a viable energy source. Maybe America diminished will be loved overseas. Maybe a nuclear Iran won't be a threat. Maybe Israel is over reacting. Maybe western civilization was always over rated. Maybe life under sharia is fun. Maybe when the rest of the world realizes that we have no intention of ever paying back that $16,000,000,000,000.00 (and counting) that we've borrowed from them, they won't devalue the dollar, causing hyper inflation here at home. Maybe China will just keep on giving us money and not demand our hearts, souls, national monuments and marriageable daughters as payment.

I've watched my candidate lose elections before but I've never felt the way I did when this one was called for Obama.

It wasn't bitterness or sadness or even disappointment. It took me a while to figure out what it was. Then it hit me; it was horror.

Pure, unadulterated horror.

Not because of Obama, but because of what it says about us, the American people, that we chose this.

It shouldn't have even been close. Faced with the choice between taking charge of our destiny and tackling our financial problems, we opted to get high and have sex. We re elected a guy who doesn't understand that a growing economy that creates more tax payers will bring in more revenue than higher taxes. A Commander in Chief who doesn't know our military still uses bayonets. A man who wants to control the economy without even knowing the difference between bankruptcy and liquidation. It was one thing to elect an unknown quantity, buying his line of 'Hope and Change'. It's something else to deliberately choose his failed policies over someone who has actually achieved success in life. I never dreamed America would do that.

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, Hello Idiocracy!

Goodbye, recovery.

Goodbye, energy independence.

Goodbye, religious liberty.

Goodbye, liberty and justice for all.

Goodbye, America dream.

It profits a man nothing to lose his soul for the whole world but we threw ours away for cell phones and birth control pills.

In the twentieth century (the American Century), we stepped up to the plate three times and saved the rest of the world from fascism, nazism and communism. We were the cavalry, always riding to the rescue.

Now, we've gotten rid of our horses, spent all our money on windmills, alienated our allies, bowed to our enemies, cut ourselves off from our own natural resources thrown away our children's birthright and spent their inheritance.

And we did it on purpose.

When the wolf is at the door (and he's coming, yelling 'Allahu Akbar') we're going to find out that there is no one out there to come to our rescue.

On the bright side, maybe it'll all turn out great. After all, I don't know anything.

The Moral Imperative: Sandwiches & Wagons

Dinesh DeSouza demolishes the so-called moral superiority of liberalism...

https://www.youtube.com/embed/rEM4NKXK-iA?feature=player_detailpage

We Have Lost

This superb piece was written by an anonymous individual who speaks for all of us who feel betrayed...

The most productive people, the small business owners, the entrepreneurs and the honest wage earners of America are so demoralized right now I am not sure we will recover as a country.  We have lost the most important election of our lifetime and did so after giving our best effort, spent the most money ever and worked the hardest we have ever worked.   

The very people that America needs the most to generate a real recovery now have the least motivation to do so and worse, lack the confidence necessary to even justify the effort.

We opposed a foe that was so obviously incompetent, corrupt and inept in leadership we really expected a landslide victory and a redeeming mandate to return the nation to conservative values. Instead what we got was a harsh slap in the face by an American public telling us it is not like us and it does not any longer believe in what we believe in. As a country we are hopelessly divided by a malignant polarization approaching that similar to the time around the civil war.  
 
Our side will not march in the streets; nevertheless the rebellion, protests and resistance will be just as determined but more subtle.  The American can-do spirit, our optimism, our traditional dependence on our own ingenuity is now mere kindling on the advancing flame of an insidious yet steadily advancing socialism.
Those of us who create real jobs, invest our capital, our fortunes and take the risks to build America, feel betrayed.
   
The fundamentals of honest effort and hard work rendering the rewards associated with capitalism seem now like a cruel joke. We are now a targeted enemy not to be governed but coerced into submission by a lazy, corrupt, vindictive, arrogant government that is out for revenge, redistribution and to add a final insult, one we find too morally bankrupt to lead.  
 
The usual safeguards for a democracy found in a vibrant independent press have lost any semblance of objectivity and instead have joined a side. What used to be principled independent reporters have morphed into dishonest pundits, spewing a disgusting relentless partisan bile that neither informs nor educates. They are shallowly manipulated by the political marketers to the point their words lack meaning. The "fourth branch" of government has become nothing more than an empty cathode ray irradiating a mind-numbed audience like a repetitive Beavus & Butthead rerun.

We have elected a President who not only feels we did not work for what we have but feels we do not deserve it either. Had it gone the other way, Obama supporters would have torched America. Instead they will now legitimately consume it by gnawing at the soft underbelly of what was once her prosperity.   

Our Judeo-Christian culture now having as much meaning as a three-minute YouTube video.  It is, however, as the Bible had forewarned, ours is a world turning over where good is bad, and bad is good.   
                   
God help us all...

-- Anonymous

The Death of Democracy in America

After the election results on Nov 6th, my thoughts turned to Alexis de Tocqueville, who visited America over 200 years ago and wrote the book entitled Democracy in America...

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville

“America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville

Democracy in America, as an idea, died on November 6th, 2012. We are now on the fast track toward tyranny.