Liberalism: Death by a thousand taxes

California’s fiscal deck of cards has been destined for collapse for a long time now. No amount of fiscal trickery, glue sticks or tape can stop it. Sadly, the individual cards are the cities and counties, and they’re beginning to fall under a severe financial burden.

Two major cities — Stockton and San Bernardino — have garnered attention in recent weeks because of their fiscal insolvency. The Town of Mammoth Lakes also made the news in as many weeks as the third of four municipalities to seek bankruptcy protection. The City of Vallejo started its bankruptcy process several years ago as it too could not keep up with rising costs.

For several years now California’s golden luster has tarnished as the state’s financial position in the world sunk from what was once the worlds 6^th largest economy to the 9^th or 10^th largest now. This mess has been years in the making. It wasn’t that long ago that California was basking in the glory of a state budget windfall and budget surplus under a governor who was ultimately fired by state voters in a recall election that elevated a “B” movie actor to the top state-house position.

Say what you will about Stockton’s mess, which is a shining example of how greedy public unions are, and the false premise that private sector taxpayers will always have the money to pay public employees an opulent wage while employed and lavish salaries to live out their decades-long retirement in blissful luxury. Even San Bernardino’s published problems related to the housing crash and the loss of property tax revenue fails, while egregious in terms of the city’s ability to conservatively manage its revenues, to point a responsible finger at the true culprit of local government woes in California.

The blame rests with Sacramento

For the most part, the problems with shrinking local revenues in California cities and counties is due wholly to Sacramento’s inability to live within its means and the legal ability it has to blackmail cities and counties into picking up the tab for its spending orgies.

While some continue to claim that Proposition 13, passed by voters in the 1970’s to slow property tax rate hikes, forever killed the golden goose, the fact remains that the State of California has developed a fetish for spending money at rates faster than it can be created, earned and taxed. Additionally, California’s fulltime legislature and bureaucratic machine had developed a keen ability to pass the buck, quite literally, down to the cities and counties by forcing local governments to pick up the tab for things that were formerly paid for through state taxes.

In the early 1990’s, California legislators discovered that they could force cities and counties to give up their local sources of revenue under the notion that they ought to pay for the public education from which they more closely benefit. Never mind that the state up until then had always paid for public education through its own tax stream.

Just 10 years earlier California voters were asked to approve a state lottery, from which oodles and gobs of money would be added to public education. As it turned out, that became just another example in a long list of schemes borne in Sacramento to extract money from gullible Californians. Here’s how that scheme worked: As the mandated amount of money from lottery revenues was given to public education, a like amount of money was withheld from public education, to be spent elsewhere. In short, for every dollar the schools got from the lottery, at least a dollar was withheld from traditional general fund expenditures to public education. To California legislators, the lottery simply became a new source of money to be dolled out in any way they saw fit.

Under California’s 1990’s scheme to defraud local governments and voters, local governments would give up their sole source of funding for public safety and services. That started a landslide of local, targeted tax measures aimed at filling local budget deficits by jacking up local property tax and sales tax rates.

The selling point for these tax hikes was simple: do you want police and fire? Then agree to raise your local sales and property tax rates? What were local voters to do?

Shortly after this mess was created by Sacramento politicians, a local county supervisor in one of California’s more sparsely populated counties, announced out of frustration during budget hearings that he might as well resign as more than 95% of that county’s revenue was mandated by state and federal bureaucracies to be spent on specific programs. So much for local control!

Trying to be a responsible and inquisitive newspaper reporter at the time, I asked a county executive officer why cities and counties didn’t merely keep the taxes they collected and use them locally, rather than sending 100% of it to the state, only to get less than that back. His short and politically correct answer was that this is not how it works in California.

It still puzzles me, what with 58 individual counties, hundreds of cities and their thousands of elected representatives, Sacramento’s 120 legislators can’t be bullied into doing the right thing for the millions of people who live in California’s cities and counties and rely upon the services they provide.

While this doesn’t immediately address local cities like Stockton and others, who are drowning in a sea of debt created in large part by selfish public employees unions, the fact remains that had Sacramento not stolen local tax revenues from the cities and counties, then maybe local governments would be in a better position to afford the excessive salaries that only public employees enjoy.

Related articles

• Another California Bankruptcy, Away From the Coast – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
• As San Bernardino declares bankruptcy, experts debate whether it’s another fluke, or another domino (mercurynews.com)
• More city bankruptcies on California horizon? – MarketWatch (marketwatch.com)
• Dan Walters: California just as insolvent as bankrupt cities (sacbee.com)
• Stockton, California, Files for Bankruptcy Protection – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
• As San Bernardino declares bankruptcy, experts debate whether it’s another fluke, or another domino (mercurynews.com)

It’s no big deal: Even the communists are complaining

Little did Jimmy Carter know then, but just a few months later he would no longer be known as America's worst President ever. Image via Wikipedia

Repeat after me: It’s no big deal!

The world’s single-most important currency — the one the world trades in by default — continues to be devalued as the owner of that currency, the United States, has for the first time in history lost its sterling credit rating. And now the communist Chinese are complaining, and rightfully so: their return on investment is failing.

But hey, it’s no big deal!

The fact that the stock market fell 699 points last week, the largest weekly drop since the market lost more than 800 points in the first week of October 2008, can simply be chocked up to a bunch of nervous investors who will likely continue this knee-jerk reaction on Monday.

But it’s no big deal!

Why is October 2008 and the 15.24% drop in the US stock market that month an important benchmark?

Could it be that in the weeks leading up to the presidential election in November, 2008, when it became painfully clear that Barack the Magic Negro was poised to become the next President of the United States, financial markets were already starting to worry about what someone with such a distaste for America could do as its leader? After all, we already knew that the media weren’t going to do their job and actually try to discover what this blank-slate of a human being was all about, even though the smattering of comments we had from him over the previous years caused those of us willing to do our own research to increase our intake of antacids. Veteran newscasters Charlie Rose and Tom Brokaw had already suggested that they weren’t willing to look into Obama’s record, even after admitting on television that they knew nothing of the man-child who rose to rock star status simply on the color of his skin and the crease in his pants.

Knee Jerk Reaction?

Knee-jerk #1: At the beginning of October 2008 the US stock market closed at 10,831. On the 6^th it closed at 9,955 and by Nov. 20^th was down to 7,552. It would finally bottom out in March of the following year at 6,626. How could all this be George W. Bush’s fault when everyone admits that markets are based on predictions of the future more than they are on current events.

And now, three years later we’re still in an economic depression; unemployment is even worse and all Barack the Magic Negro can do is continue to blame Bush and beg for an increase in the limit to the national credit card. In fact, he’s rung up so much debt that it’s now being reported that America’s borrowing has now matched its GDP.

It’s No Big Deal!

That’s the only logical impression sane Americans are left to assume of their government and their willing accomplices in the media after reading stories like this. How else can you explain the last three years? How else do you explain the fact that in all of what’s happened since it became apparent that Obama would win election that the media have utterly failed at connecting the dots between the economic abyss we’re in and Barack Hussein Obama?

While Obama has managed to amass more debt in three years than all the presidents combined going back to George Washington, America’s political leaders continue to argue like third graders in a game of kick ball where the rules are being made up on the fly.

Meanwhile, as Obama’s wife spends billions of taxpayer dollars globe trotting for another pair of shoes or a bad dress, real Americans are still out of work and are suffering through a malaise that makes Jimmy Carter’s term as America’s worst president — until now — pale in comparison.

But it’s no big deal.

A Bright Spot on the Horizon?

On a side note, there’s actually some good news out of California, where liberal social and fiscal policies have had a decades-long jump start on President Obama and his Marxist policies.

California’s exodus of taxpayers has now extended to illegal immigrants. That’s right, as the state’s unemployment continues in double-digit territory, illegal immigrants from south of the border are going… wait for it… Home to jobs and home to an unemployment rate that is less than 5%. According to another story in the Sacramento Bee this flight includes California’s next (legal) generation, probably the last people a state that actually seeks recovery would want. Then again nobody ever accused California leaders of sanity or common sense.

Not everyone is likely going to jump for joy over this news, though California Gov. Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown could technically claim that his policies, coupled with those of President Obama, are directly responsible for a considerable reduction in illegal immigration to the Tarnished State.

Think about it, with illegal aliens fleeing California who’s going to vote for the Democrats who caused California’s problems in the first place? Those are Democrat voters leaving California for jobs in a foreign country. Even so, if California’s woes are ever going to be corrected it’s going to take decades to tear down the wall that the Democrats built to keep in the bad fiscal and social policies and any semblance of fiscal and social sanity out.

I wonder what Mexico would do if we started flooding their sovereign border and protested in Mexico City for high-paying union jobs, free health care, drivers licenses so we can vote and free housing?

Related articles

• Surprise! Communist Party USA Officially Endorses Barack Obama (peregrine5700.wordpress.com)

Graft, extortion and the political way

President Barack Obama, flanked by Paul Volcker and Jeffrey Immelt. Image via Wikipedia

To say that America is on an unsustainable fiscal path is to overstate the obvious.

If the writers at The Big Picture blog are right, then America’s fiscal house will soon collapse as the percentage of income for the federal treasury coming from corporations has shrunk precipitously from 1955 to 2010, while the burden carried by individuals has increased greatly.

According to statistics, in 2010 81.5 percent of federal revenues came from individual income, up from 58 percent in 1955. During the same period, corporate taxes as a percentage of federal income fell from 27.3 percent to 8.9 percent. If true, then the Democrats are right: America’s corporations are paying less and less of a percentage of their income in taxes.

Given that fewer and fewer Americans are employed today because of the economic policies of the Obama regime, the amount of income to the federal treasury is also in sharp decline. Combine this with the fact that nearly half of all individual taxpayers in America paid no federal taxes on their income last year and it’s painfully obvious that America cannot sustain this sort of tax policy where a very small percentage of individual taxpayers are left to carry most of the weight while corporate cronyism runs rampant.

The Sunlight Foundation reported that while GE avoided paying any corporate income tax in the United States last year on $5.1 billion in U.S. income ($14.2 billion globally), Goldman Sachs paid $14 million in taxes last year, according to The Big Picture blog. Even more disgusting was the fact reported that GE actually received a tax refund from the federal government to the tune of $3.2 billion. Those are better-than-Vegas odds if you ask me!

How GE managed to become the president’s favorite pet is beyond me, but the fact that GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt moonlights in the Obama regime hasn’t been lost on everyday America. So where are the Senate hearings? Meanwhile, Immelt is out lecturing American businesses, telling them to just hire more people, as if his Nike ad — “Just Do It” — approach will help small business pay the bills.

I’m out talking about this company seven days a week, 24 hours a day, with nothing to hide. We’re a 130 year old company that has a great record of high quality leadership, and a culture of integrity — Jeffrey R. Immelt, chairman and CEO of General Electric

Does that “culture of integrity” include stiffing the federal government of billions of dollars in tax revenues while America suffers through an economic depression?

On the other side of the tax coin, Senate testimony by oil company CEO’s indicated that they paid millions of dollars in taxes on their profits; meanwhile, if Obama had his way, those executives would likewise be in the unemployment line, only without their 99-week lifeline pittance that millions of unemployed Americans have been on since this problem started back in 2008 when it became painfully clear that the Senator who only had the guts to vote “present” would soon become president.

The simple answer to all of this can be seen in the amount of protection money corporations pay each year for lobbyists to grease the palms of politicians. I’ve seen it in the agriculture industry where agricultural organizations pay large sums of money to politicians they claim to oppose because, as was stated in one meeting I attended, to not donate to their political reelection campaigns would be even more disastrous than parting with the money. By any other definition that is extortion.

While it may technically be legal for corporations to lobby themselves into the position of receiving a $3.2 billion tax refund on $5.1 billion in profits it’s certainly wrong. While politicians line their pockets thru tax policy or other nefarious means, America gets stiffed.

All this certainly makes a strong case for a flat tax, something that former presidential candidate Steve Forbes argued for years ago during his unsuccessful bid for President.

Consider the amount of bloated and expensive bureaucracy that could be eliminated overnight by burning the tax code and putting in place a one-page document that spells out the percentage of income from all wage earners and corporations that would go to the federal government under the caveat that there would no longer be deductions, loopholes or other such incentives. You could eliminate the IRS and thousand of tax lawyers on the public dole in one fell swoop! Suffice to say that if everyone with an income in America paid a fixed percentage (for argument’s sake, let’s say 10%) of it towards the federal government, regardless of income, again with no deductions or credits, several things would most definitely occur:

• The entire tax system would instantly be fair
• The effective tax rate to individuals paying federal taxes would go down
• More people would be employed because corporations would have more money with which to invest and employ more people
• The federal government would have more than enough money to use

The later point was proven in spades when President Ronald Reagan lowered the top marginal tax rate from 78 percent to 28 percent. The federal government saw more revenue generated from that one single act than any other act of Congress in the history of the United States.

Then again it’s already been shown by the Heritage Foundation that Washington DC does not suffer due to a lack of money; America’s financial woes are a direct result of over-spending and spending on things we just do not want or need.

Of course we’ll never see such a simple plan under the current political regime here in America because the tax code, for all its thousands of pages and weight, is not a means by which government extracts money from the private sector to run the system, but is rather a means of control over “we the people.”

Until we wrest control away from the government and gain the power back that the phrase “we the people” truly connotes, then we will forever be serfs in a fiefdom made up of rich politicians who’s only role in life is to gain more power.

Related articles

• The Social Economic Collapse of Amerka (whitelocust.wordpress.com)
• The president’s jobs czar is doing a heck of a job — for China (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Obama Butt-Buddy Jeffrey Immelt Moves GE Healthcare Division’s X-Ray Unit Headquarters To China (thedaleygator.wordpress.com)
• Obama Gives G.E. A Green-light In Paying No Taxes For The $5.1 Billion In Profits: Worst Bailout In U.S. History, G.E. Received $182.5 Billion In Obama Buddy Bailout. (politicalvelcraft.org)
• Immelt Won’t Call On Corporations To Be Part Of ‘Shared Sacrifice’ In Deficit Deal (huffingtonpost.com)
• Time to pay up (firedoglake.com)

Obama to help fathers? How… like he helped the economy?

Since President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 into law America has lost 1.9 million jobs, according to government statistics.

My first response was a bit skeptical; then it was a bit more positive, but not to worry: I got over that.

It seems that President Obama used his Saturday radio address to weigh in on fatherhood. One might call that appropriate since Mr. Obama is the father of two young girls.

After reading an ABC News blog, what made me think the most — knowing what we now know about Obama’s politics — can be found in the following paragraph:

He said many fathers don’t have the time or resources to be as good as fathers as they would like to be, in part because of the state of the economy, and touted his administration’s efforts to offer “men who want to be good fathers a little extra support.”

Where do we find the time or resources, Mr. President? As for time, that’s not a problem for millions of Americans; many of us have lots of that since we’re not working. Our problem isn’t time, but money. We’re not allowed to print money to pay our bills, so how do we pay those bills?

It’s no secret that the American economy sucks. Fathers all across America are worried about a whole host of economic issues that they can’t change and see no hope for ever getting better. For some of us our worries are only compounded by the little things in life such as divorce, relocation, child support, employment opportunities… the list goes on.

My question for Mr. Obama is this:

Dear Mr. President: you say that your administration has made an effort to offer “men who want to be good fathers a little extra support.” Those are your words, sir. Please tell me specifically what these efforts are and how I apply.

No sir, I’m not in line for some of your “stash money” to build me a new kitchen or buy me a fancy new ride, though I drove a nice new Ford F150 the other day… but I digress. I just want to know what you can do to maybe open some doors for me to get a good job in the state where my daughter lives with her mom (my ex-wife). You see sir, my daughter is just a little older than Sasha and younger than Malia. I just want to watch my little girl grow up and be there for her. Speaking man to man, you can understand, can’t you Mr. President?

Then again maybe I should ask Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper to elaborate since he was the one who apparently interviewed the President and wrote the blog post for ABC News. Why didn’t Mr. Tapper elaborate in his blog on just what it is that the Obama administration is doing to make life a little easier for us fathers? As a reporter I certainly would have asked that question, especially if it was my job and personal goal to make President Obama look good in the media.

Help me again, Mr. Tapper: just how has President Obama helped me and the millions of fathers across America? Weren’t we promised better economic times than the 5% unemployment under George W. Bush? Instead, Obama has presided over the loss of nearly 2 million American jobs in his first two years of office. That’s certainly not the kind of hope and change we were all expecting.

Democrats, the media and their terrorist agenda

America has an avowed policy against negotiating with terrorists, particularly when those terrorists are holding hostages. Or at least that’s what we’re told.

It certainly makes sense politically and militarily. If your enemy knows that all he needs to do is take something of value that you possess, then wait until you give in to his demands, the enemy has won without firing a shot; He owns you.

Why then do the Republicans continue to “reach across the aisle” and negotiate with Democrats while the American public is being held hostage to high unemployment, high gas prices and high taxes? What is it about the mainstream media that makes the Republicans like Charlie Brown agreeing to let Lucy hold the football?

For the last several days Rush Limbaugh has been talking about how the GOP gave into the Democrats on a new continuing resolution, rather than live up to their promise to the American voters to cut $100 billion from the federal budget and further control government spending. Limbaugh, however, has been arguing that the mess America is in hasn’t happened overnight and won’t be cured by a single victory by the Republicans.

Whatever! That’s not the point.

The point, and I’ve been waiting for Rush to articulate this, is that the American taxpayer is being held hostage by Democrats, the media and their shared policies. These terrorists learned back in 1995 that their most successful weapon isn’t one that blows things up or tears flesh, but a boogeyman called “government shutdown.” You could hear it in House Speaker John Boehner’s voice when he promised that he would not shut down the government because the GOP and Democrats could not agree on a new continuing resolution to fund the government for another week or so.

Never mind the fact that when the Democrats controlled all three branches of the government that they never put forth an annual budget for the country; never mind the fact that Americans in large numbers told the Democrats last November to pound sand, never mind the fact that Obama promised to halve the national deficit within his first term, but has instead increased it more in two years than the total deficit amassed in the previous 200-plus years of American history!

This government shutdown boogeyman really has two faces. The other face is the one the GOP wants to believe will smile favorably upon them if they just say the right things. It’s sort of like Charlie Brown agreeing for the umpteenth time to let Lucy hold the football while he tries to kick it. Lucy will never let Charlie Brown kick the football and the media will never truthfully report that Democrat policies are the very reason why America’s actually unemployment is well over 10% and that Obama’s policies are why gasoline prices have surpassed $4 and are likely on their way to $6 by the end of the year.

Like the foreign terrorists who hold American citizens hostage, the media and the Democrats hold the American taxpayer hostage via our elected representatives, who we believed when they said prior to the November 2010 election would seriously cut federal government spending and the overall size of government. When the GOP leadership agreed the other day to avoid a government shutdown by cutting a paltry $38 billion from government spending, some of which had already been agreed to in previous negotiations, it was sort of like the American family deciding that while their expenses are way out of line with their income and the credit cards are all maxed out, to skip Starbucks once a week when the real solution to their overspending will require much more drastic cuts and a serious attitude adjustment.

 

International fears of America’s demise

Image via Wikipedia

For more than two centuries the United States has been a beacon of hope to the rest of the world, providing a place to come and make a better living for one self, helping some seek solace and security from rogue regimes.

Over this period of time we’ve liberated nations from the iron fist of despotism, stopped a holocaust, provided food, medical support and other aid to nations suffering from famine and natural disasters, and today continue to help sovereign nations by providing cash and military protection.

It would appear that our ability to provide this sort of humanitarian aid will run out, not because we don’t want to anymore, but because we can’t. The money is running out.

Current fiscal policies in America, including the forthcoming program called Quantitative Easing Two (QE1 already failed) are devaluing the US Dollar to the point that other nations are seriously concerned that our financial mess here will affect the rest of the world in ways we can’t even imagine.

Where will these nations turn when their next natural disaster happens and the United States doesn’t have the money or the ability to even feed its own people? We’re not that far from discovering the answer to this question folks. Current policies to simply print more money in order to pay down our debt has nations like Germany and China — China currently owns much of our debt — seriously concerned, and rightfully so.

America has always prided itself on being able to feed itself and much of the world with our agricultural output. Furthermore, our industrial might has not only helped fuel our economy, but has provided the ability for our military to fight world wars and liberate entire continents from tyranny.

Experts say the rise in commodity prices, such as in gold and oil, are such that the economy can’t sustain it. We’re more than halfway back to oil prices at such where gasoline will once-again be over $4 a gallon — the apparent tipping point that we discovered last year has the ability to completely shut down the US economy.

While there are some who bemoan the fact that the United States was once a mighty super power — including our own President — the fact remains that the United States is solely responsible for, and to be credited with, expanding the world economy through the export of all sorts of goods and services (not to mention help develop the ability to efficiently transport these goods and services), and with rescuing nations from the military might of dictators and despots.

While major industrial nations around the globe are beginning to seriously worry that America’s decline will lead to their own demise, it’s disappointing to say the least that many of our elected leaders don’t see what folks like the Germans and Chinese see, and once we fail, it won’t simply be those two nations left holding the bag.

Turning Wall Street into a ghost town

President Obama is doing everything he can to kill the American economy and turn Wall Street into a ghost town.

His latest decision to appoint Wall Street critic and Harvard law school professor Elizabeth Warren to a newly-created government post that will cost the US taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars just to form the new agency, then billions more to keep it up and running, is evidence that he hates the American capitalistic system and wants to destroy it.

On the surface, his claims of consumer protection sound good; heck, he sounded good at times when he was first running for president, but in the end we’re all going to continue taking it in the shorts as Obama strangles the private sector and kills any chance for an economic recovery here in America.

While not in the ABC News online story about Warren, the broadcast version carried a quick note about the cost of the agency and the number of government jobs it will need. This is not the kind of job creation we’re looking for Mr. Obama. Government jobs do not help the economy, they stifle it as the need for additional funds to create this monstrosity must be stolen from the private sector.

California can’t succeed by forcing jobs to leave

My once-in-a-blue-moon excursion into watching the local news was comical and typically disappointing at the same time. I gave up watching television shortly after the government forced TV stations to go digital and the entire conversion process of buying a converter and a new antenna turned out to be a colossal waste of money.

The local news this evening had several stories of service-based businesses moving into the Central Valley of California. Television cameras dutifully filmed thousands of people standing in line for a couple hundred jobs that will likely pay a few cents above minimum wage and offer no benefits.

A couple restaurants and a clothing store chain promise to set up shop in several Central Valley communities, including Fresno, Hanford and Porterville. A separate story in the local newspaper reports that a fast food chain is planning to buy an historic old restaurant in Visalia, but that outfit hasn’t been named publicly.

Meanwhile, the ink still isn’t dry on several stories I’ve come across online that reports a mass exodus of well paying, full time manufacturing jobs that likely included decent benefit packages. One such story in The Americano highlights a who’s who list of well known business names that have fled California for a better business climate elsewhere. Included in that list of companies that have moved some or all of their operations out of California are Apple Computer, Nissan North America, Northrup Grumman, Facebook, StarKist, Hewlett Packard, Apria Health Care, and even the Automobile Club of Southern California; all have either pulled up stakes permanently or opted for expansions elsewhere in the United States because they can no longer afford to do business in California.

California can’t continue to operate this way. Elected officials voting themselves six-figure salaries while roughly one-fifth of California is out of work as manufacturing jobs continue to flee the state is too much for the rest of us to bear. Meanwhile, the open-door policy at our international border continues to allow people in who are willing to work in a clandestine economy for minimum wage or less. Those illegal immigrants who don’t work somehow manage to become automatically qualified for social services while those of us who have worked but can’t find a job are continually turned down for unemployment benefits.

In some sectors of the economy, salaries have barely risen in over 10 years while the cost of living has gone up several hundred percent in the state. For example, my first job as a newspaper reporter in 1990 paid $250 per week before taxes. That was fine because my rent was $250 a month and food and gasoline were relatively cheap. Today many of those same newspapers might pay $100 to $200 a week more while gasoline has tripled and housing costs have risen similarly in the same period of time.

If government wants to truly stimulate the economy, rather than borrowing and printing money, why not just reduce and/or eliminate a whole bunch of taxes and do what the rest of us have had to do now for a couple years by tightening our financial belts. It’s maddening to see government continue to spend wildly while private citizens have to continually cut and go without during this economic depression.

Richard Dreyfuss: Rebuilding America will take focus on civics education

There is an undeniable connection between the political battles of the 21st Century and the move away from teaching civics at all levels in the public education system during the later part of the 20th Century. The benefits of reinstituting a solid curriculum of civics into our school system, and ultimately our way of life, will be monumental.

We need to look no farther than our television set to find the cause and effect such a slide away from teaching civics has had on America, and in a larger sense, the global society.

Academy Award winning actor Richard Dreyfuss is promoting an initiative to make civics education a vital part of our public education process. According to the Dreyfuss Initiative:

“Research over the past fifty years has demonstrated that the average American has, to say the least, a rather poor understanding of civic knowledge. But, by example, America has made democracy the governance system of choice.

“Democracy, in any incarnation is the only governing system that requires some engagement by the civic body. In one fashion or another, sooner or later, the sovereignty of the people is the difference between democracy and monarchy, theocracy and totalitarianism or any other system that has been devised thus far; so that the people, as sovereign, the responsible party who ultimately makes the decisions, is the irresistible ‘sell’ to the world, that makes Democracy America’s most successful product.

“Democracy argues that people are responsible for and can control their own lives, that they have a role in affecting their future, of improving their present, of achieving participation in the pursuit of their own happiness. The youth of America needs certain skills to become great sovereigns. These skills have been taught, will be taught and must be taught to each generation of Americans, because no gene will ever be found that passes along civic expertise and knowing how to run a republican democracy. It must be taught in realistic terms such as how you explore the substance of an issue, the necessity of debate, the ability to stand against popular opinion or the majority view, and the raising up of the values of dissent and civility. In a nation founded by dissenters, we shoot dissenters on site. Civility is not just manners; it is the oxygen that democracy requires.”

As to the point of civility, one needs to look no farther than many of the opinion-based talk radio shows and television programs that masquerade for the news. No longer do people discuss issues in a give and take manner, using civil rules of debate. Instead, it’s common practice to simply yell over the other person, as if shouting your opinion in angry, ear-tickling sound bytes makes your point of view that much more valid than the other person, who’s also angrily shouting out his or her sound bytes and talking points while the moderator shouts his or her own dissent or approval.

The sound byte is king. Those who teach others how to properly address the media also evidence this by promoting the ability to use two or three words, or maybe a short, simple sentence, to try to get their point across when being interviewed. Woefully lacking in this education of sorts is the idea that our republican form of government was not born by sound bytes, but by volumes of speech and writings that take multiple library shelves and numerous bound editions to chronicle.

Dreyfuss spoke recently to the Commonwealth Club about his initiative. Audio of his speech can be found here. According to Dreyfuss, the benefits of such an initiative, when fully realized, will be equivalent to that of the Marshall Plan during the post-World War II era. According to Dreyfuss, the US-funded effort to rebuilt much of Europe ultimately created economic markets abroad that greatly benefitted the United States by providing the kind of wealth that could afford to buy US goods and services. Another classic example is our annihilation of large parts of Japan during World War II. After the war we helped Japan rebuild and ultimately became an ally and important trading partner.

Under the economy of today, which was borne out of the greed for more political power by the ruling class, the American dream of owning a house and other items is fast disappearing as the ability to generate the wealth necessary to buy such items has been taken from the people by their government; this theft of our ability to generate private wealth has been allowed to take place in large part because Americans are simply ignorant of the kinds of civics lessons that would otherwise illuminate the dangers of such political decisions. It’s entirely plausible that this forced ignorance is a political calculation by the ruling class, bent on creating their own exclusive class where they are the only ones with power and wealth, while subjugating the rest to a class of serfs.

For example, the financial decisions being made today by the Obama Administration are not only in direct conflict with the limited powers afforded government under the US Constitution; those decisions are having a direct impact on the ability of the private sector to thrive and prosper. The fact that many Americans have largely been uninformed of civics for several generations has fostered the kind of ignorance necessary for political despots on both sides of the political aisle to slowly gain more control over our lives and erode our precious liberties and freedoms.

Much of Dreyfuss’s discussion centered on the need to teach children about the true history and founding of America as a means of combating the kind tyranny our American government has successfully enacted over the decades. Moreover, the Dreyfuss Initiative seeks to “create a demand for a more expert learning experience and to give our kids the splendid pleasure of learning what power they have.” Doing so will not only help students develop a lifestyle of learning, but can benefit society by helping them to articulate in their own conscience why people fought against things such as despotism, slavery and racial superiority.

Historical examples

If anything, history is screaming at us right now, yet there’s a whole generation of Americans willingly ready to allow government to shred the US Constitution and cede liberty and freedom for the fallacy that is the kind of safety and security only government can provide.

Benjamin Franklin said it best when he stated: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety,” hence the need to for a much more thorough and proper civic education in the public school system, and to a greater extent, in society at large.

This dangerous slide towards despotism here in America has been played out throughout the history of the world. While we can look at the regimes of those dictated by the likes of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez and Kim Jong Il as more recent examples of life under dictatorial rule, the more popular historical figures that ruled by fiat include names like Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Joseph Stalin.

Without a careful understanding and respect for civics however, these names might at best be tired political talking points rather than shocking reminders of where we in this nation are heading because many of those who fail to understand have long since become of age to vote in elections here in America. Worse yet, those in the media who are likewise unskilled and ignorant about civics and history have preyed upon gullible voters; those members of the media artfully seek an ear-tickling sound byte as they put together the kind of propaganda that benefits power-hungry politicians.

Racial Divide

The connection between our ignorance of civics and racism is also evident in the incessant bickering and downright offensive language fostered by some of the very same people who claim to be working against it. But if ever there were an articulate defense for conservatism and its colorless boundaries, as opposed to the race bating and pimping that are fostered by the politically liberal it was at the National Press Club on August 4th.

Whatever happened to the utopia that was supposed to be ushered in after the tears dried in the faces of all those black reporters, who on election night 2008, openly cried as it was reported that Barack Hussein Obama had been elected President? You’d think by now that racism in America would be a thing of the past as Obama himself promised a post-racial America absent of the kind of racism that divided this nation for so long. Yet it would seem that the very press that seemed willing to publish racism’s obituary the day Obama was inaugurated is playing up racism in America.

But that doesn’t appear to be the case as we continue to watch and listen to members of the Obama Administration openly espouse racial hatred. We also saw it on Election Day 2008 as racist groups armed with various deadly weapons were caught on camera allowing only black people into polling places. Had white men dressed in white sheets stood with shotguns in front of polling places to allow only whites in to vote, there would have been a righteous call for the National Guard and likely even the FBI to come in and remove them. But because it was armed black men, somehow that was okay.

Why is it that Liberals feel the need to identify and categorize groups of people from one side of their mouths, while out of the other side of their mouths they extol the praises of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when he called for a colorblind society in which all of us were judged by the content of our character rather than the color of our skin?

Eliminating racism in America might be one of those laudable goals that is unachievable, however, it’s doubtful that those who claim to seek it really want it themselves for the very reason that it would strip their power. Race bating and pimping is one of the few power tools that Liberals have in their arsenal and they’re not about to give it up.

Conclusion

Building and promoting a solid civics curriculum may very well be America’s next Marshall Plan. Prior to implementation of the Marshall Plan, however, was the destruction of much of Europe during World War II. In order to develop this plan America is likely going to have to destroy the current ruling class that is artfully subjugating Americans through ignorance and the very technology that has in part helped improve life for many people in America.

Ridding society of the Internet and iPad isn’t the goal; according to Dreyfuss, those who helped build and invent these technologies, however, have a huge stake in helping America succeed and regain its status as a shining example of democracy and limited government rule where people are free to invent, succeed and live their lives in prosperity and relative peace. Doing this will require a concerted effort to educate children and the public at large on civics and the civil rules of debate and discussion.

Sasha and Michelle’s excellent adventure

As America continues through its economic depression Michelle Obama is running around the globe throwing money into the wind like she’s staring in a movie about a spoiled brat who has unfettered access to daddy’s bank account.

Her utter disregard for the suffering of the rest of America while it muddles through an economic depression is offensive as she and her daughter Sasha gallivant around Spain on the taxpayer’s dime. What is the state purpose for her visit to all those posh shops and vacation locations in Spain?

While Gateway Pundit has a current and proposed vacation list of the First Lady and her family for 2010, which includes some very expensive excursions, the New York Daily News is reporting that Michelle’s material girl tour of Spain includes lodging in millionaire hideouts where room rates exceed $2,500 a night. Multiply that by the hundreds of staff and Secret Service agents along for the ride and the money spent on this unnecessary trip is staggering. Meanwhile, millions of Americans are having to juggle which bills to pay and whether it’s more important to buy groceries this week or pay a utility bill because they don’t have enough money to cover both.

What’s even more appalling and offensive is the arrogance by which the Obamas flaunt their ability to spend a seemingly endless amount of money.