Suggesting How to Conduct a "Patriot" Economy

This has been a long time coming, but now it's locked in.  America now has a federal government that not only siphons wealth from the private sector to redistribute to its supporters, it also undermines the ways in which one can obtain and keep wealth.  Friends of the government get special favors and waivers.  Those without connections face the onerous regime of regulation designed to drive them out of business.

The Republican Party tried.  Much as those on the right want to moan that it doesn't represent "We the People," the reality is that "We the People" failed the GOP.  We did not go into neighborhoods where we might be unwelcome.  We did not make the case for our ideals outside of our comfort zones.  We did not take chances.  Campaigns rely on we the people to help them.  We did not do it. We failed.  

But it does not have to end there.

In the 1760s, American patriots found some success in economic pressure.  By finding ways to cut down reliance on the open market, Americans convinced London based trading firms with powerful connections to advocate for them.  Yes, they only wanted their business back.  But for a while it worked.

Resistance brought results.  How can American patriots do the same today?

In general, we can cut back on transactions that produce tax revenues.  That puts pressure on business while reducing the amount of our wealth that goes toward supporting a system built to suck resources from us.

Here are some ways to do this.

First, develop skills, produce goods, or do work that can be exchanged for cash or barter between friends. 

Gardening can serve this purpose admirably.  If a few people are determined to do this for the long haul, they can agree than person A will grow beans, person B grows corn, and so forth.  One can freeze the corn, can beans, make cucumbers into pickles, etc.  Then each person can use the product as a medium of exchange with the other, or pay cash.

Pay people in cash under the table for as many simple services as possible.  Find the people in town willing to do work on your car, odd work on your house or property that you can't do.  Engage them, figure a fair price, and pay under the table.  

Teachers can really benefit from these ideas.  It would be very easy to reach out to home schooling families, establish a price for services, and teach in a person's living room for cash.

Instead of eating out at a restaurant, exchange nights with friends where you go over and eat what they cook.  That is more fun, saves money, and you still get to socialize.

Hunters are in good shape because they can pay in meat.

Farmers can set up their own networks and exchanges of buying and selling to customers, at least in part.

Some transactions may look like this.  A person agrees to pay for a haircut with garden produce or a few pounds of deer meat.  Everyone gets what they want except the government.

Second, look at yard sales for purchases.  You can get decent furniture, almost new electronics, and any number of things more cheaply paying in cash.  And there is really no effective way to tax yard sales.  

Frankly, by cutting out the taxed and regulated market and bringing a true free market back into existence, buyers and sellers of goods and services both stand to gain in the long run.  

This works on a couple of levels.  If enough people do it, it could force a reconsideration of the direction that we are going, which is full tilt toward Eastern Europe.  In fact, this is exactly how people in Communist countries learned to survive beyond the meager resources allowed by their governments.

Individually, however, a person can gain satisfaction from the fact that he or she can accumulate untaxed value while contributing as little as possible to the Leviathan that has been set up.

This is what individuals do when they come to the realization that the government takes too many resources from the people without being accountable.  They conclude that the government has no moral right to their taxes.  Despite this being poorly written and thought out, it is a blueprint by which patriots can opt out while remaining within the law.

Much like our late colonial forefathers.

Communist Leader Adorns Obama Whitehouse Christmas Tree

Welcome to the other side of the Looking Glass

I have read several articles in recent days that make be feel as I have stepped through the looking glass to the other side. The side where right and wrong are mixed up. One article talks about how the Empire State Building with be bathed in Red and Yellow light to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the founding of the Communist Government in China. Another talks about a Communist Chinese flag flying ceremony at the White House. Why would, let alone should, the most successful capitalist nation in the world celebrate the oppressive regime that killed an estimated 50 million of its own people under Mao? The obvious answer is we shouldn't.

We should be embracing those that fight for freedom. On the 60th Anniversary of the founding of the Communist Government in China I will be saying a prayer for this fellow. He is a true Chinese hero, no a world hero.

I refuse to celebrate anything but freedom. This Communist Government that we are about to celebrate in Washington and New York is the same government that attacked US Troops during the Korean War, a war that has never officially ended. This same government supplied the Viet Cong that killed US troops in Vietnam. This same Communist Government in 2001 captured a US Navy aircrew after a Chinese fighter jet harassing a P-3 Orion in international waters collided with our plane forcing it to make an emergency landing. The Communist Chinese Government has been caught spying on the US. They block attempts to stop nations like Iran from getting nuclear weapons.

The Communist oppose every freedom we believe in. The world has been turned upside down when the free peoples of the world celebrate those that choose to enslave their own people. Welcome to the other side of the Looking Glass.

Not Hard to See Why Kids Don't Know History

Last week I spent eight hours a day in Louisville, Kentucky grading Advanced Placement exams. Even when you count the fact that the test takers are no longer mostly a hand picked elite, the results are stunningly bad. I am pretty sure that I am bound by some confidentiality arrangement to not discuss specific numbers, but many, many times, the people at my table saw essays where students believed American blacks were still enslaved at the time of World War II. That was only one example. Another repeated mistake was confusing the Vietnam War and World War II's Pacific Theatre. All too many, I would say I saw almost a hundred myself, believed that FDR interned the Japanese because they were Communists.

No, the teachers are not teaching it this way. The kids are tuning out. And in some cases you cannot blame them.

Another overriding issue was the self-hatred that came out of too many essays. Not individually, but hatred of their country, hatred of Caucasians, belittlement of national leaders such as Franklin Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson. On a question about Japanese internments during World War II, FDR is portrayed by some students as equal to Hitler in brutality. Jefferson is described as having raped his female slaves in another (even his worst detractors and rumor mongers say his one affair was consensual, if it even happened at all which David McCullough among others finds very debatable.) Why would students want to learn history if all they hear is how horrible their ancestors and national heroes were? Even if the teachers do not present it this way, the textbooks do. Meanwhile they showed little understanding of the fundamentals of the American ideal except in cases where it was violated.

I will say this, one of the questions that we did not grade did invite the students to say positive things about the early formation of the Republican Party. I glanced at some of those and of course saw mass confusion. The Republican Party was formed in the 1850s, some of them said, to fight slavery at home and Communism abroad.

Newt Gingrich last week at a GOP fundraiser issued a call to reemphasize American History. I would go farther and say we must get back to teaching American values from the start. If nothing else replace one grade of elementary school with Schoolhouse Rock videos. As you have seen on here each Monday, kids could learn more about history, capitalism, and other necessary things from these well-produced videos than they can from almost any other source. Seriously though, we must return to old style history. Put Washington and Lincoln's portraits back on the wall. I mean prints, not some goofy cartoon looking thing. Teach about our heroes, including the people who led, the people who fought, the people who innovated, and the people who risked. We must teach that Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt, J. P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and others were not these horrible oppressors but men who did the best they could with the material God gave them. Without the legacy of Morgan, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and others we do not defeat fascism in World War II, simple as that.

I agree with Newt Gingrich's call to restore American History. But we cannot let the left wing masochists control it.

CNN and the Left

Former CNN reporter, Mauricio Funes, was just elected President of El Salvador. Now many main stream news outlets are leaving out the fact that Funes was a former CNN reporter. The Washington Post reported, "Mauricio Funes, a former TV newsman who was recruited to run for president," and Reuters "Funes -- a former TV journalist and candidate of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front," both mention that he was a TV news journalist, but they fail to mention the the CNN element. Why?

CNN has been accused of left wing bias it their reporting over the years, a fact that they deny. The reality is most of the main stream press has been accused of left leaning bias, so leaving out the fact that Mauricio Funes was CNN Reporter might be done on purpose. The political party, Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMNL) which was named for Farabundo Marti the founder of El Salvadors Communist Party. El Salvadors Communist led years of civil war leading to allegations of war crimes.

The facts are a former CNN reporter is a communsit and not just any communist, but now the leader of El Salvador. Why was this fact left out or glossed over in reporting? It is the reporters job to report the facts and not leave anything out. More media bias?

The Greatest Nation In History

Presidents come and go. Economic prosperity rises and fades. Our nation fights and wins wars. And it remains.

How many of you right now understand that you live in the greatest nation in the history of mankind? There is more opportunity for more people here and now than ever before, anywhere. All you have to do is . . . work.

Being a Judeo-Christian nation, we should understand that. We are spiritually descended from the Israelites, the name of whose country meant "struggle with God." Each human being must struggle with something because it is the essence of existence. Good living means facing and overcoming struggles. Only through overcoming adversity can people really achieve happiness and confidence.

The Founding Fathers understood this as well. We have the right to pursue property, as George Mason explained. We do not have the right to a share, as Vladimir Lenin taught. Only through learning the values of hard work has this nation succeeded.

I have seen in my own experience this at work. I had parents who started in the housing projects of Charleston and ended up executives. They worked hard, made sound decisions, and sacrificed to get to where they are. It was a little over a decade ago when my family all had to sleep in the same room because the old house we rented had no insulation and only one heated area. Others have risen as well. Look at Henry Louis Gates who started off life poor in Piedmont and is now one of the most prestigious scholars in his field. None of these people have had to fear that the fruits of their sacrifices, hard work, and risk will ever be stolen from them by a government more interested in sharing wealth than protecting property.

That is America at work. Each person, no matter where they start, can pursue their opportunities and dreams. And hard work combined with sound decisions pays off.

Rome could not offer that. Neither could Communist Russia. Only in America. And we can always be proud of that!

Lenin, Stalin, Casey?

Last week the word was out. The State Democratic Party, in their perpetual function as "ruling party" of West Virginia, blasted Clark Barnes, Craig Blair, Kelli Sobonya, and other GOP legislators. The horrible crime committed? Not being team players. The goal? To use every device necessary to get voters to expel them from the Legislature.

In the 1920s Vladimir Lenin imposed upon a session of the USSR's Communist Party Congress a no faction rule. Not content with operating a secret police that stole property while torturing and massacring many, Lenin hated disagreement within his own party. The rule was that once agreement was made, no more opposition could exist.

This same attitude pervades the "not a team player" approach taken by West Virginia Democrats. Maybe they are surprised that Republicans and their voters have a different idea of how to run this state. Then they have the gall to disagree with the Ruling Party! Of course the Democrats, assuming the people are always in their corner, call upon the voters to get rid of what little opposition they have to their schemes.

This smacks of arrogance. In most states each party must respect the other because at some point the outs will be in and vice versa. West Virginia Democrats cannot even imagine a day when their grip on power will be reduced, much less rejected, by the voters. Gains will come this year and more hereafter. Voters must make all state politicians more accountable by showing that Democrats can lose.

Shotgun Career Choice

Tenth graders in a local high school were shocked recently when a guidance counselor walked into their classroom and announced that the State of West Virginia determined that they must have a clear idea of who they wanted to marry by their date of graduation.

Okay, this did not really happen, but it is not far from the truth. The counselor stated that the State of West Virginia expected each student to have a career choice by graduation from high school.

Say what? I did not know what I wanted to do until I was almost done with college. Some people do not find their calling until much later in life. How can tenth graders, many of whom experience trouble picking out their socks in the morning, understand what they will want to do when they are thirty, forty, or fifty?

What ever happened to the school encouraging children to use their youth to try out different choices? What ever happened to teachers telling their students that they could do anything they wanted? Sure not everyone can be a brain surgeon, but let the intrepid find out on their own whether it is for them or not.

One student called it "Communist" while some parents advised their children to not inform the counselor even if they did have one in mind. After all at the end of the day, it is not really their business. It actually does encourage a more socialist view of schools manufacturing children like tractors and playing a heavy role in "helping" students make choices that in all honesty they do not need to make at this time.

It is not even desirable for students to be pressured into such choices so early. Most people change almost completely between high school and their mid twenties. You gain perspective on life, your experiences change your dreams. The kid who wants to be an NBA superstar at age 15 figures out he wants to be a dentist by 22 because his life experience helped him to choose all on his own. But who has the right to take away this kid's dream before life has convinced him to give it up (unless he really is that good!) Hard work and determination sometimes turns impossible dreams into wonderful realities unless someone along the way crushes the dream by encouraging the kid to be "more realistic." If Owen Schmitt were realistic when he was 20, we'd never have heard from him and he'd certainly never be in a Seattle Seahawks uniform. We'd also have many fewer doctors, researchers, writers, and poets from the ghettos and hollows who were told "you'll never make it out, don't even try."

Again, like any blog entry I write about the school system, the blame rarely lies with principals, teachers, or counselors. It lies with those at the top who make decisions that sound wonderful on paper and make them look good politically, but actually disrupt the learning process and undermine respect for the entire system.

We need to encourage kids to dream big, to dream about all the possibilities, and to make choices in their own good time, not on the regimented schedule of Uncle Joe and the State of West Virginia.

The New Yellow Peril? Probably not.

Western alarmists have made a cottage industry for over a century in warning Americans and Europeans of "the Yellow Peril." In most variations, some Asian country uses underhanded dealings to gain an advantage over the West. Soon the world will be dominated by China/Japan/India, etc.

Twenty years ago we feared Japan. Japanese work ethic and aggressive investments were going to take over the world and make the US a second rate power. Paul Kennedy in 1988 ended his well received Decline and Fall of the Great Powers with this prediction. Guess what? It never happened. The Japanese overextended themselves, suffered the debilitating effects of a real estate bubble the size of Mount Everest, and have not really seen tremendous economic expansion since the early 1990s. Japan's closed economic system prevented them from growing past a certain point because it prevented truly fair trade. Plus, US industry got its act together and competed more strongly than Japan expected.

Now the new "peril" lies in China. It has over one billion souls, boundless resources, and a will to regain a position of respect not held by them since the 1700s. We risk being fooled again by their tremendous growth numbers and predictions by some experts. Chinese growth does occur at 10% compared to 3% in good years for the US. However in simple numbers, our 3% growth is 3% of a very massive GDP. China's GDP is nothing near ours, so their 10% is actually quite puny. The main problem for China lies in its corrupt and worn out brand of Communism. Like Poland in the 1970s, everyone knows Communism is finished as a system. No one believes in it anymore. However the social betterment promised by Communism has been the historical justification for secret police establishments, torture, and lack of freedom.

The good news is that China has nurtured a growing middle class. Historically, middle classes seek material gains and political freedoms. Chinese middle class members have seen material gains, but political freedom has not occurred yet. Additionally economic opportunities are not fairly open to all. Much of this is reminiscent of France in 1788.

That leads us to the bad news. The rickety and corrupt China that currently confronts us is stable and seeks little more than a chance to expand its economy and be a leader in East Asia. A revolution on one hand would be good because it would free the people. Hopefully it would not lead to a redux of France in the 1790s, a bloodthirsty revisionist state that confronted the entire world violently. China has a historical hatred of Japan and seeks territory from Russia and India. Revolutionaries could potentially seize on these nationalist issues. Luckily it also has little history of seeking to expand beyond its current frontiers. However we must not forget that they have nuclear missiles.

A revolution would be appropriate given Chinese political philosophy. Their mandate of heaven, loosely like our Declaration of Independence, claims that divine Providence will help the people sweep away a government when it is no longer beneficial. Our government must be in a position to anticipate these kinds of events when they occur and channel them in positive directions.

China has a lot of developing and growing pains to experience before they become a true world leader. Structural problems in their economy and social system will prevent them in their current incarnation from becoming a more powerful nation than the United States. The biggest threat they pose comes not from what they are now, but what they could become.

Karl Marx and the Second Grader

At the Hilltop School in Seattle, Washington teachers Ann Pelo and Kendra Joaquin are teaching second graders that Communism is a fair and just system. Apparently, the kids built a town out of Lego blocks. The kids began to lay claim to the buildings they assembled. One kid refused to allow another kid to land his Lego plane at his airport.

The teachers response was to take away the Lego blocks. Then the teachers taught the kids “social and political understandings of ownership and economic equity from a perspective of social justice.” They were taught that personal ownership, property rights and Capitalism is bad. Whoa! These are second graders! After three months of Marxist indoctrination the Legos were returned to the kids with new Soviet style rules of property ownership.

Second graders should be taught sharing is a good thing, but trying to teach them complex socio-economic theories is another. Ann Pelo and Kendra Joaquin are clueless on the subject of Capitalism and Communism. They should be kept away from kids of all ages (including college).

Our nation was built on Capitalism, and it gives everyone an equal starting point. If you work hard you will be rewarded. Bill Gates started in a garage. John D. Rockefeller failed several times before finding success. Capitalism doesn't guarantee success, but it gives you an opportunity. What you do with that opportunity depends on you. You have heard the saying that rich get richer, that is true, but the poor get richer at a much faster rate than the rich in this county.

We live in the most successful nation in the world, and Capitalism is our system. If you want to know if our system is the best give it the "Gate Test." Chuck Kinder of the WV State Auditors Office gave a speech I had the opportunity to attend. In it he stated, "If you want to see how successful your country is give it the Gate Test. Open the gates and see which people go." The communist countries of eastern Europe built walls to keep there people from leaving during the cold war. We are building walls on the Mexican border to keep people out.

Gate Test: Capitalism passes with flying colors.