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To The Undecided Voter
Neal Boortz
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
This is long; very long. Hey, I’m a pretty entertaining writer … so give it a go. If you’re an undecided voter in this presidential election the least you owe your country is to try to base your final choice on some substantive facts. No, I don’t have all the facts here … but I have enough of them to perhaps convince you that voting one particular way on November 4th might not be the most brilliant move you’ve ever made.
This election is my 10th. My 10th presidential election since I became a radio talk show host. My 10th election since I began spending more time than the average American thinking about, researching, reading about and talking about the choices voters faces. Look; I mean no arrogance here. It’s just that the average American doesn’t spend from 15 (then) to 22.5 (now) hours a week over the period of a presidential race talking about the candidates, the issues, the non-issues and the consequences of voter choice.
Never in those ten elections can I remember choices so stark and possible outcomes so perilous. For the record, over those 10 elections I voted for the Republican candidate six times and the Libertarian four. Never have I voted for a Democrat for president. I see no need to vote for a Democrat since I have no plans or desires to become a ward of the government. Somehow I don’t think 2008 is going to be the first time.
I’ve noted that some other “pundits” out there are starting to post, in columns and in their blogs, the reasons they are going to vote the way they are going to vote. I’ll make no attempt here to refute their (oh-so refutable) arguments here. Instead, I’m just going to put my thoughts and reasoning in writing just to cleanse my mind. If you can make some use of them; whether it is for laughter, talking points or intellectual consideration, have at it. Me? I’m just pulling the handle.
The Race Factor
Are many black voters going to vote for Barack Obama primarily because of race? Of course, many will. Surveys and polling have shown that the figure may reach 20%. I think it’s well more than that. Is race a sound reason to cast a vote? Probably not. Is it understandable? Absolutely. I cannot fault a black American for voting for Obama. It may turn out to be a negative vote insofar as their dreams and goals are concerned. It may not work out all that well for their children, especially if they’re ambitions and talented. But I don’t think many of us can absolutely say that we wouldn’t be casting the same vote were we in their shoes.
If you are a white American there is no way in the world you can look at this election through the same eyes as a third or fourth generation black American citizen. Several months ago a caller to my show suggested that Barack Obama’s ascendency in the presidential sweepstakes was Black America’s biggest accomplishment. I disagreed. Though I can’t remember the exact words, I said that, in a general sense, the shining moment for Black America may have been the show of patience and restraint shown by black men when they returned from putting their lives on the line in World War II and in Korea to a country with segregated schools, colored waiting rooms, whites only water fountains, beatings, lynchings, water hoses, police dogs and systematic discrimination pretty much every where they looked. The restraint showed by black Americans during the civil rights struggles of the 50’s and 60’s, though not universal, was something to behold.
Now .. try, though you won’t succeed, to put yourself into the mind of a black American. How can you experience or understand the legacy of segregation, violence and second-class citizenry your ancestors went through and not take pride in a black American on the verge of winning the presidency? How many black American voters do you think are uttering to themselves: “If my grandfather had only lived to see this.” It takes a great deal of maturity and a clear understanding of the possible future consequences for someone to put their racial pride aside and swim against the tide on this one. So, there will be no name-calling, at least not here, for people who cast their vote on the basis of race in this election. As I said, It’s understandable.
And Then There’s the Race Card
This really isn’t really a reason to vote for or against Barack Obama, but you do need to know what the next four years are going to be like with an Obama presidency.
During the campaign there have been some rather amazing charges of racism. Let’s see if we can remember a few:
• Using the word “skinny” to refer to Obama is racist.
• “Community organizer” is a racist term.
• Any reference to a connection between Obama and Franklin Raines, the former head of Fannie Mae is racist … that would be because Raines is black.
• All references to Jeremiah Wright are racist; that being due to Wright being black.
• Referring to Obama as “eloquent” is racist because it infers that other blacks are not eloquent.
• For goodness’ sake, don’t say that Obama is “clean.”
• This just in from The Kansas City Star: Calling Obama a “socialist” is also racist because “socialist” is just another code word for black.
And so it goes. We’ve also had several pundits, columnists and opinion-makers flat-out state that if you are white and you don’t vote for Barack Obama it can only be because he’s black. There is simply no other legitimate reason to deny this wonderful man your vote. Vote for McCain, you’re a racist. Simple as that.
Now let’s consider the next four years under President Obama. He is certainly going to introduce ideas and pursue policies that are pure poison to many Americans; especially achievement-oriented self-sufficient citizens. Whenever anyone dares to utter a word in opposition to any Obama position or initiative you can be sure that there is going to be someone waiting close by to start screaming “racist!” By the end of Obama’s first year in the White House virtually every white American will have been called a racist for one reason or another. So, what else is new?
The Republicans
One thing for sure … the Republicans deserve exactly what is happening to them in this election. It’s just too bad the rest of the country has to suffer the lion’s share of the punishment the Republicans so richly deserve. In 1994 the voters were fed up with Clinton and the Republicans swept to control of both houses of congress, largely on the strength of Newt’s Contract with America. Do you remember some of the promises? One that sticks in my mind is their promise to dismantle the Department of Education. Republicans – in 1994 – recognized that the quality of American education had been going steadily downhill since this government behemoth was formed. Well, that was then … this is now. The size of the Education Department, as well as the cost, has doubled. Republicans did this, not Democrats.
As a matter of fact, it’s not just the Department of Education; it’s our entire federal government. Spending has doubled. Size has doubled. All under the Republican watch inside the beltway. Pork barrel spending is completely out of control, and Republicans are behind the wheel. Education and pork spending aside, we have the Medicare prescription benefit, McCain-Feingold, Sarbanes-Oxley, a tepid response to Kelo vs. New London … all elements of a well-deserved Republican drubbing. The problem here is that the cure, that being Barack Obama, might well be much worse of than the disease.
The Republicans don’t deserve power in Washington just as you don’t deserve a boil in the center of your forehead. There are worse things, however. Complete Democrat control or, in the case of your forehead, a nice big melanoma. Pretty much the same things, actually.
It’s not that the Republicans did everything wrong. They got the tax cut thing right, and they responded correctly, for the most part, to the radical Islamic attack on our country. They just did so much wrong at the same time. They got drunk with power, and the hangover affects all of us.
Obama’s Friends
By “Obama’s Friends” we mean the likes of Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko and other assorted miscreants. I could spend a lot of time here detailing the crimes of Obama’s friends --- and make no mistake, they were his friends. At this point I don’t think that any votes are going to be changed one way or another by detailing the corruption of Rezko, the America-hating of Wright or the unrepentant terrorism of Ayers. Suffice it to say that Obama was close to all of these people … and these were associations born of mutual interests and philosophies. If you think that it is fair to judge the character of a person by observing the people they surround themselves with, then the judgment of Barack Obama would be a harsh one.
Obama’s varied storylines regarding his relationship with Ayers have, to say the least, been interesting. The list is incomplete, but thus far we have:
• He was just a guy who lived in my neighborhood.
• I was only eight years old when he was throwing bombs.
• I didn’t know about his history when we started working together
• I thought he had been rehabilitated.
Yeah … I guess it’s OK if you form a close relationship with a bomb-throwing terrorist, as long as he threw the bombs when you were a kid. Works for me. Work for you? In a similar vein, It must be your pastor rails against America, as long as you aren’t in church on those particular days. Or maybe we should say as long as nobody remembers actually seeing you in church on those days.
One interesting point: If Barack Obama was applying for a security clearance as a government employee, these associations would disqualify him. We are, my friends, about to have a president who doesn’t qualify for a security clearance. Pretty pathetic. If Barack Obama becomes president, he would not even qualify to be his own bodyguard.
Obama’s Tax Policies
You may consider this to be horribly old fashioned, but I operate on the principle that governments have the power to tax so that governments can collect the money needed to pursue and pay for the legitimate functions of that government. By “legitimate functions” I’m referring to law enforcement, national defense, a system of courts to adjudicate interstate disputes, national infrastructure and the costs associated with running the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government, for instance.
Now we can get into quite an argument over what constitutes a “legitimate” function of government, but let’s save it for later. Suffice it to say that Barack Obama has a much different picture of our government’s taxing authority than many of us do.
Before we go on, let me remind you of a point that I first heard made by former Libertarian presidential candidate Harry Browne. Government has one unique power that you don’t have, and neither do I. This is a power that is denied all private businesses and individuals in this country. That power .. the power unique to government .. is the power to use deadly force to accomplish its goals. If you have a business; a restaurant, for instance; you have to convince people to come to your establishment for a meal. You can advertise for customers, but they make the decision whether or not to give your restaurant a try. When the customers do come in it is up to you to deliver to them a superior product with exemplary service. This is how you get them to come back. Not through force, but through value and service.
Not so the government. You have no choice as to whether you are going to be a customer of government or not. Your patronage is compelled and your payments are extracted at the point of a gun. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall said that “the power to tax is the power to destroy.” The power to tax in the wrong hands can certainly bring destruction to our economy an even to our country. I submit to you that the power to tax in the hands of Barack Obama is dangerous: Dangerous to you personally, and dangerous to the very fabric of our Republic.
Just take a look at some of the rhetoric Barack Obama uses when he talks of his plans to increase taxes on the evil, hated rich. In a television interview with (I think) Charles Gibson, Obama was asked if he understood that tax increases have often resulted in decreases in government revenue. Obama responded that he was aware of this fact. He was then asked why, then, would he be so eager to raise taxes? Obama responded that, to him, tax increases were simply a matter of “fairness.” In other words, Obama didn’t wish to use the police power of the state to collect taxes necessary for the legitimate functions of government; he wanted to use his taxing power to promote some vaporous “fairness” in our economy. After all, as Obama put it, the people he wants to tax have more money than they actually need and he wants to give that money to people who actually need it.
Now I ask you, does any of that sound vaguely familiar? Hmmmmm, let’s see. I know I’ve heard something like that somewhere before. Wait! I think I have it. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” Some character named Marx made slogan quite popular around 1975 in a writing called “Critique of the Gotha Program.” This phrase is one of the most well-known principals of communism. You can yell, scream, spin around on your eyebrows and spit wooden nickels all you want, but what Barack Obama is pushing here, at least insofar as his tax policies are concerned, is communism. This shouldn’t come as a surprise considering Obama’s self-professed affinity for communist student groups and communist professors during his undergraduate years. Oh, you didn’t read that? Maybe that’s because you read his second book, not the first one. But what the heck. He’s eloquent, isn’t he? And he has a good narrative.
As I’ve indicated, I’ve been doing talk radio for 39 years now. I was on the air when we were fighting communism in Southeast Asia. I was flapping my jaws when Soviet leaders seriously entertained dreams of world communism. Throughout all of those years I was never one to scream “communism” every time someone came up with an oddball idea on governance, and I never once found a communist under my bed. But now, at least when you consider tax policy, we have a candidate for president who seems very comfortable with some basic communist principals. Too comfortable. But none of this should really bother you … right? A little communism or socialism never really hurt anyone that you can remember. Besides, Europe is telling us that they’ll like us again if we vote for Obama. That pretty much overrules everything, doesn’t it?
Does this reflect your philosophy?
Come on! Put the celebrity worship aside for a moment. Put skin color aside. Just think about Obama and his “spread the wealth around” tax policy.
Let’s talk heartbeats. Sounds weird, but I’m going somewhere here. A bit of Internet research led me to the fact that the average number of heartbeats in a life time for a human being is about one billion. To make this more understandable, the average human heart beats around 70 times a minute. In one eight-hour work day your heart beats around 33,600 times. This is your heart beating .. every beat subtracted from the one billion .. every beat a part of your life gone, never to be recovered. If you are a moderately successful human being Barack Obama is going to take about 13,000 (39%) of those heartbeats away from you every working day. Put your finger on your wrist and feel your pulse. Feel every heartbeat. Just count up to 100. How much of your life went by as you counted? You can’t get those beats back. They’re gone, for good. Remember, you only have a finite number of those beats of your heart left … and Obama wants 13,000 of them every working day of your life. Those heartbeats – your life – being expended creating wealth. Your heartbeats, your wealth. Obama wants them. You don’t need them. Someone else does. The police power of the state.
Taxes are a nasty little reality of life. Nobody wants anarchy. Government is a necessity. Government, though, is not supposed to create winners and losers. Government is not, as Obama intends, to be used as an instrument of plunder. Almost all Americans are perfectly willing to surrender an appropriate percentage of their earned wealth to fund the legitimate functions of government. I, for one, don’t want to see my wealth confiscated because some bureaucrat has determined I don’t “need” it, and then have to watch as that wealth is used to buy votes from someone who is simply too lazy to generate the wealth they need by themselves … or, as Obama puts it, “spread around.”
What is Obama going to do? How does he determine “need?” What data does he use to determine “fairness?” Maybe he’ll set up some bureaucracy staffed with like-minded leftists who will use data collected in the last census and from those pesky American Community Surveys to establish a basic “need” level for people living in different areas. Once it is determined how much of a person’s wealth they really don’t “need,” it will be a simple matter of confiscation and redistribution to those who do need it. After all, that would be “fair,” wouldn’t it? Come on, it’s not exactly like you worked for that money.
Listen to the rhetoric of the left. Those who are in need are called “the less fortunate.” This means that their status as needy was due to nothing but bad luck. It stands to reason, then, that those with more than they need were just lucky. The fortunate and the less fortunate. The lucky and the not so lucky. And here comes Barack Obama riding over the rainbow on his Unicorn to set everything right and make it all fair. Isn’t that the world you want to live in?
Neal Boortz
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
This is long; very long. Hey, I’m a pretty entertaining writer … so give it a go. If you’re an undecided voter in this presidential election the least you owe your country is to try to base your final choice on some substantive facts. No, I don’t have all the facts here … but I have enough of them to perhaps convince you that voting one particular way on November 4th might not be the most brilliant move you’ve ever made.
This election is my 10th. My 10th presidential election since I became a radio talk show host. My 10th election since I began spending more time than the average American thinking about, researching, reading about and talking about the choices voters faces. Look; I mean no arrogance here. It’s just that the average American doesn’t spend from 15 (then) to 22.5 (now) hours a week over the period of a presidential race talking about the candidates, the issues, the non-issues and the consequences of voter choice.
Never in those ten elections can I remember choices so stark and possible outcomes so perilous. For the record, over those 10 elections I voted for the Republican candidate six times and the Libertarian four. Never have I voted for a Democrat for president. I see no need to vote for a Democrat since I have no plans or desires to become a ward of the government. Somehow I don’t think 2008 is going to be the first time.
I’ve noted that some other “pundits” out there are starting to post, in columns and in their blogs, the reasons they are going to vote the way they are going to vote. I’ll make no attempt here to refute their (oh-so refutable) arguments here. Instead, I’m just going to put my thoughts and reasoning in writing just to cleanse my mind. If you can make some use of them; whether it is for laughter, talking points or intellectual consideration, have at it. Me? I’m just pulling the handle.
The Race Factor
Are many black voters going to vote for Barack Obama primarily because of race? Of course, many will. Surveys and polling have shown that the figure may reach 20%. I think it’s well more than that. Is race a sound reason to cast a vote? Probably not. Is it understandable? Absolutely. I cannot fault a black American for voting for Obama. It may turn out to be a negative vote insofar as their dreams and goals are concerned. It may not work out all that well for their children, especially if they’re ambitions and talented. But I don’t think many of us can absolutely say that we wouldn’t be casting the same vote were we in their shoes.
If you are a white American there is no way in the world you can look at this election through the same eyes as a third or fourth generation black American citizen. Several months ago a caller to my show suggested that Barack Obama’s ascendency in the presidential sweepstakes was Black America’s biggest accomplishment. I disagreed. Though I can’t remember the exact words, I said that, in a general sense, the shining moment for Black America may have been the show of patience and restraint shown by black men when they returned from putting their lives on the line in World War II and in Korea to a country with segregated schools, colored waiting rooms, whites only water fountains, beatings, lynchings, water hoses, police dogs and systematic discrimination pretty much every where they looked. The restraint showed by black Americans during the civil rights struggles of the 50’s and 60’s, though not universal, was something to behold.
Now .. try, though you won’t succeed, to put yourself into the mind of a black American. How can you experience or understand the legacy of segregation, violence and second-class citizenry your ancestors went through and not take pride in a black American on the verge of winning the presidency? How many black American voters do you think are uttering to themselves: “If my grandfather had only lived to see this.” It takes a great deal of maturity and a clear understanding of the possible future consequences for someone to put their racial pride aside and swim against the tide on this one. So, there will be no name-calling, at least not here, for people who cast their vote on the basis of race in this election. As I said, It’s understandable.
And Then There’s the Race Card
This really isn’t really a reason to vote for or against Barack Obama, but you do need to know what the next four years are going to be like with an Obama presidency.
During the campaign there have been some rather amazing charges of racism. Let’s see if we can remember a few:
• Using the word “skinny” to refer to Obama is racist.
• “Community organizer” is a racist term.
• Any reference to a connection between Obama and Franklin Raines, the former head of Fannie Mae is racist … that would be because Raines is black.
• All references to Jeremiah Wright are racist; that being due to Wright being black.
• Referring to Obama as “eloquent” is racist because it infers that other blacks are not eloquent.
• For goodness’ sake, don’t say that Obama is “clean.”
• This just in from The Kansas City Star: Calling Obama a “socialist” is also racist because “socialist” is just another code word for black.
And so it goes. We’ve also had several pundits, columnists and opinion-makers flat-out state that if you are white and you don’t vote for Barack Obama it can only be because he’s black. There is simply no other legitimate reason to deny this wonderful man your vote. Vote for McCain, you’re a racist. Simple as that.
Now let’s consider the next four years under President Obama. He is certainly going to introduce ideas and pursue policies that are pure poison to many Americans; especially achievement-oriented self-sufficient citizens. Whenever anyone dares to utter a word in opposition to any Obama position or initiative you can be sure that there is going to be someone waiting close by to start screaming “racist!” By the end of Obama’s first year in the White House virtually every white American will have been called a racist for one reason or another. So, what else is new?
The Republicans
One thing for sure … the Republicans deserve exactly what is happening to them in this election. It’s just too bad the rest of the country has to suffer the lion’s share of the punishment the Republicans so richly deserve. In 1994 the voters were fed up with Clinton and the Republicans swept to control of both houses of congress, largely on the strength of Newt’s Contract with America. Do you remember some of the promises? One that sticks in my mind is their promise to dismantle the Department of Education. Republicans – in 1994 – recognized that the quality of American education had been going steadily downhill since this government behemoth was formed. Well, that was then … this is now. The size of the Education Department, as well as the cost, has doubled. Republicans did this, not Democrats.
As a matter of fact, it’s not just the Department of Education; it’s our entire federal government. Spending has doubled. Size has doubled. All under the Republican watch inside the beltway. Pork barrel spending is completely out of control, and Republicans are behind the wheel. Education and pork spending aside, we have the Medicare prescription benefit, McCain-Feingold, Sarbanes-Oxley, a tepid response to Kelo vs. New London … all elements of a well-deserved Republican drubbing. The problem here is that the cure, that being Barack Obama, might well be much worse of than the disease.
The Republicans don’t deserve power in Washington just as you don’t deserve a boil in the center of your forehead. There are worse things, however. Complete Democrat control or, in the case of your forehead, a nice big melanoma. Pretty much the same things, actually.
It’s not that the Republicans did everything wrong. They got the tax cut thing right, and they responded correctly, for the most part, to the radical Islamic attack on our country. They just did so much wrong at the same time. They got drunk with power, and the hangover affects all of us.
Obama’s Friends
By “Obama’s Friends” we mean the likes of Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko and other assorted miscreants. I could spend a lot of time here detailing the crimes of Obama’s friends --- and make no mistake, they were his friends. At this point I don’t think that any votes are going to be changed one way or another by detailing the corruption of Rezko, the America-hating of Wright or the unrepentant terrorism of Ayers. Suffice it to say that Obama was close to all of these people … and these were associations born of mutual interests and philosophies. If you think that it is fair to judge the character of a person by observing the people they surround themselves with, then the judgment of Barack Obama would be a harsh one.
Obama’s varied storylines regarding his relationship with Ayers have, to say the least, been interesting. The list is incomplete, but thus far we have:
• He was just a guy who lived in my neighborhood.
• I was only eight years old when he was throwing bombs.
• I didn’t know about his history when we started working together
• I thought he had been rehabilitated.
Yeah … I guess it’s OK if you form a close relationship with a bomb-throwing terrorist, as long as he threw the bombs when you were a kid. Works for me. Work for you? In a similar vein, It must be your pastor rails against America, as long as you aren’t in church on those particular days. Or maybe we should say as long as nobody remembers actually seeing you in church on those days.
One interesting point: If Barack Obama was applying for a security clearance as a government employee, these associations would disqualify him. We are, my friends, about to have a president who doesn’t qualify for a security clearance. Pretty pathetic. If Barack Obama becomes president, he would not even qualify to be his own bodyguard.
Obama’s Tax Policies
You may consider this to be horribly old fashioned, but I operate on the principle that governments have the power to tax so that governments can collect the money needed to pursue and pay for the legitimate functions of that government. By “legitimate functions” I’m referring to law enforcement, national defense, a system of courts to adjudicate interstate disputes, national infrastructure and the costs associated with running the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government, for instance.
Now we can get into quite an argument over what constitutes a “legitimate” function of government, but let’s save it for later. Suffice it to say that Barack Obama has a much different picture of our government’s taxing authority than many of us do.
Before we go on, let me remind you of a point that I first heard made by former Libertarian presidential candidate Harry Browne. Government has one unique power that you don’t have, and neither do I. This is a power that is denied all private businesses and individuals in this country. That power .. the power unique to government .. is the power to use deadly force to accomplish its goals. If you have a business; a restaurant, for instance; you have to convince people to come to your establishment for a meal. You can advertise for customers, but they make the decision whether or not to give your restaurant a try. When the customers do come in it is up to you to deliver to them a superior product with exemplary service. This is how you get them to come back. Not through force, but through value and service.
Not so the government. You have no choice as to whether you are going to be a customer of government or not. Your patronage is compelled and your payments are extracted at the point of a gun. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall said that “the power to tax is the power to destroy.” The power to tax in the wrong hands can certainly bring destruction to our economy an even to our country. I submit to you that the power to tax in the hands of Barack Obama is dangerous: Dangerous to you personally, and dangerous to the very fabric of our Republic.
Just take a look at some of the rhetoric Barack Obama uses when he talks of his plans to increase taxes on the evil, hated rich. In a television interview with (I think) Charles Gibson, Obama was asked if he understood that tax increases have often resulted in decreases in government revenue. Obama responded that he was aware of this fact. He was then asked why, then, would he be so eager to raise taxes? Obama responded that, to him, tax increases were simply a matter of “fairness.” In other words, Obama didn’t wish to use the police power of the state to collect taxes necessary for the legitimate functions of government; he wanted to use his taxing power to promote some vaporous “fairness” in our economy. After all, as Obama put it, the people he wants to tax have more money than they actually need and he wants to give that money to people who actually need it.
Now I ask you, does any of that sound vaguely familiar? Hmmmmm, let’s see. I know I’ve heard something like that somewhere before. Wait! I think I have it. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” Some character named Marx made slogan quite popular around 1975 in a writing called “Critique of the Gotha Program.” This phrase is one of the most well-known principals of communism. You can yell, scream, spin around on your eyebrows and spit wooden nickels all you want, but what Barack Obama is pushing here, at least insofar as his tax policies are concerned, is communism. This shouldn’t come as a surprise considering Obama’s self-professed affinity for communist student groups and communist professors during his undergraduate years. Oh, you didn’t read that? Maybe that’s because you read his second book, not the first one. But what the heck. He’s eloquent, isn’t he? And he has a good narrative.
As I’ve indicated, I’ve been doing talk radio for 39 years now. I was on the air when we were fighting communism in Southeast Asia. I was flapping my jaws when Soviet leaders seriously entertained dreams of world communism. Throughout all of those years I was never one to scream “communism” every time someone came up with an oddball idea on governance, and I never once found a communist under my bed. But now, at least when you consider tax policy, we have a candidate for president who seems very comfortable with some basic communist principals. Too comfortable. But none of this should really bother you … right? A little communism or socialism never really hurt anyone that you can remember. Besides, Europe is telling us that they’ll like us again if we vote for Obama. That pretty much overrules everything, doesn’t it?
Does this reflect your philosophy?
Come on! Put the celebrity worship aside for a moment. Put skin color aside. Just think about Obama and his “spread the wealth around” tax policy.
Let’s talk heartbeats. Sounds weird, but I’m going somewhere here. A bit of Internet research led me to the fact that the average number of heartbeats in a life time for a human being is about one billion. To make this more understandable, the average human heart beats around 70 times a minute. In one eight-hour work day your heart beats around 33,600 times. This is your heart beating .. every beat subtracted from the one billion .. every beat a part of your life gone, never to be recovered. If you are a moderately successful human being Barack Obama is going to take about 13,000 (39%) of those heartbeats away from you every working day. Put your finger on your wrist and feel your pulse. Feel every heartbeat. Just count up to 100. How much of your life went by as you counted? You can’t get those beats back. They’re gone, for good. Remember, you only have a finite number of those beats of your heart left … and Obama wants 13,000 of them every working day of your life. Those heartbeats – your life – being expended creating wealth. Your heartbeats, your wealth. Obama wants them. You don’t need them. Someone else does. The police power of the state.
Taxes are a nasty little reality of life. Nobody wants anarchy. Government is a necessity. Government, though, is not supposed to create winners and losers. Government is not, as Obama intends, to be used as an instrument of plunder. Almost all Americans are perfectly willing to surrender an appropriate percentage of their earned wealth to fund the legitimate functions of government. I, for one, don’t want to see my wealth confiscated because some bureaucrat has determined I don’t “need” it, and then have to watch as that wealth is used to buy votes from someone who is simply too lazy to generate the wealth they need by themselves … or, as Obama puts it, “spread around.”
What is Obama going to do? How does he determine “need?” What data does he use to determine “fairness?” Maybe he’ll set up some bureaucracy staffed with like-minded leftists who will use data collected in the last census and from those pesky American Community Surveys to establish a basic “need” level for people living in different areas. Once it is determined how much of a person’s wealth they really don’t “need,” it will be a simple matter of confiscation and redistribution to those who do need it. After all, that would be “fair,” wouldn’t it? Come on, it’s not exactly like you worked for that money.
Listen to the rhetoric of the left. Those who are in need are called “the less fortunate.” This means that their status as needy was due to nothing but bad luck. It stands to reason, then, that those with more than they need were just lucky. The fortunate and the less fortunate. The lucky and the not so lucky. And here comes Barack Obama riding over the rainbow on his Unicorn to set everything right and make it all fair. Isn’t that the world you want to live in?
