SOCIALISM MADE SIMPLE

Often what is happening in the world can seem complex and overwhelming. When politicians throw words around like capitalism and socialism, we often aren't sure what to make of it. I would like to assist you in understanding these complex concepts with a few simple, straightforward examples.

SOCIALISM: an economic system based on state ownership of capital. Meaning, the Government owns the means of production. You can't buy, sell, make, or do most anything, without approval. In many ways, it is what is going on now, just degrees of freedom.

CAPITALISM: an economic and social system in which individuals can maximize profits because they own the means of production. Wow, gee, imagine that. You mean there is such a thing as an economic system where the individual actually has the freedom to choose and create their own destiny? Yes, that is the essence of capitalism, freedom.

Now here are a few simple examples to help you fully comprehend these complex concepts.

EXAMPLE #1:
BAR STOOL ECONOMICS

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. 'Since you are all such good customers, he said, I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20. Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from each persons share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each and up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay!

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. 'I only got a dollar out of the $20, 'declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, 'but he got $10!' 'Yeah, that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man. 'I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!' 'That's true!!' shouted the seventh man. 'Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!'

'Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison. 'We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!'

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

EXAMPLE #2: Redistribution of Wealth

Today on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a sign that read "Vote Obama, I need the money". I laughed. Once in the restaurant my server had on a "Obama 08" Button, again I laughed as he had given away his political preference -- just imagine the coincidence. When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need--I pointed out the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight. I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I've decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was very grateful.At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient deserved money more. I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.

Example #3: Joe Biden is Interviewed by local Orlando Newscaster:







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MOST UNDER-REPRESENTED GROUP OF ALL

When it comes to under-representation, likely the most ignored segment of our society are those living in the rural areas of our great nation. Who are the rural folks? The Daily Yonder, a rural advocacy group, is my favorite source of news and information when contemplating rural issues. I've thought long and hard about small-town life and rural America this election season. There was a time when I turned my back on my small-town roots, happy to be rid of what I once saw as silly and ignorant "one-horse" town. Ironically, it wasn't until I moved to Chicago (the 3rd largest city in the US) that I finally realized how lucky I had been. Particularly one day when I had to physically fight off a mugger attempting to rob a friend of mine (but that's another story). Years later, I returned to Florida and after bringing my son into the world, I looked for a small town to raise him (and later my second son as well). I was recently back in my small town of Bonifay, Florida where I grew up for the annual "Championship Rodeo" which is always just an excuse to go back home, see my parents, brother and his family, and take my kids to play with their cousins. There is a sense of safety and belonging in Bonifay. There is great comfort having skills that none of my city-dwelling friends have. Like knowing I can fish, hunt, farm, and make a living off the land if I ever had to. I think that is why I often can take swings in the market or "economic" disaster in stride because I know I could survive and feed my family without a Government handout (or even without a Government) no matter what may happen. When back for the rodeo, we always watch the parade (which is held on Friday and Saturday afternoon). We sit out on the front lawn of my grandparents home (which is still in the family) and wait for the fire engines to start up which typically are what begins the parade. You see every business, church, civic group, and school represented in floats that go by, all of them homemade and hilarious to see. For me, small towns represent true hope, family, goodness, virtue, truth and honesty, integrity, and a straight forward sense of knowing who you are. It always makes me smile when city-dwelling politicians try to either pander to the small-town vote (thinking all those from small towns are simple minded imbeciles) or being critical of traditions they cannot understand (spiritual values, Gun-ownership, or hunting rights) and disparaging them by labeling small town people as "bitter." It makes me really smile to know that if society collapses, the economy goes to nothing, and the cities are burning from rioting, Bonifay and thousands of small towns like it, will continue because of the very traditions, values, and people that make them great now.

In celebration of small towns everywhere, here are my two favorite songs about small towns, enjoy!



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SOCIALISM: SO?

So many socialist influences, and so little caring. The 1980s were not so long ago, much less the 60s and 50s. Yet, so few of the ideas that came from the so-called Conservative Revolution remain. Why? It is important to know what socialism truly is. If you choose to vote into office those that promote socialist ideas, then do yourself a favor and research the basic ideas of socialism.

The following was posted at American Thinker by Paul Kengor of Grove City College, who wrote GOD AND RONALD REAGAN, one of my favorites.

Capitalism is based on private ownership; communism on public ownership. Capitalism thrives on small government and taxes; communism on large government and taxes, typically progressive income-tax rates and estate taxes -- both advocated explicitly by Marx -- and much more.

This stuff isn't rocket science. It is easy to teach, if the professor desires. The problem is that it isn't being taught. Consequently, Americans today do not know why communism is such a devastating ideology, at both the level of plain economic theory and in actual historical practice. It is a remarkably hateful system, based on literal hatred and targeted annihilation of entire classes and groups of people. (Nazism sought genocide based on ethnicity; communism sought genocide based on class.)

Most Americans generally know that the USSR was a bad place and that it was good that the Berlin Wall fell; they lived through that. But they know little beyond that, especially young Americans in college today, born around the time the wall fell -- Obama's biggest supporters. Nowhere in America is Barack Obama worshipped as he is on college campuses, by students and professors alike.

What does it all mean for November 2008? It means that millions of modern Americans, when they hear that Barack Obama has deep roots with communist radicals like Bill Ayers and Frank Marshall Davis, don't care; they don't get it. Moreover, the leftist establishment -- from academia to media to Hollywood -- will not help them get it. To the contrary, the left responds to these accusations by not only downplaying or dismissing them but by ridiculing or even vilifying them, given the left's reflexive anti-anti-communism. The left will create bad guys out of the anti-communists who are legitimately blowing the whistle on the real bad guys.

When the leftists of the ‘60s took over higher education and the media, they really knew what they were doing. This was brilliant, masterful, a tactical slam-dunk, a tremendous coup for them and their worldview, with ripple effects we can scarcely imagine.

Does this mean that the McCain camp, talk radio and conservatives generally shouldn't bother exposing these things? Not at all. The truth is the truth, and needs to be told. Moderates especially need to be informed that Barack Obama is not your typical liberal: he is the most hard-left Democrat that his party has ever nominated for the presidency. It is absolutely not a coincidence that the man with these far-left associations just so happens to be ranked -- quantifiably, objectively, by non-partisan, respected sources like National Journal -- the most far-left member of the U.S. Senate, which is no small thing given the leftward drift of the modern Democratic Party. In other words, Obama's extremist associations matter; they are fully revealing, illustrative of the political-ideological realities that the pro-Obama media will not expose. His voting record bears this out.

That said, I warn my fellow conservatives: Be prepared to be really, really frustrated when few people seem to care.

It is a sad day when we must live in the shadow of oppression instead of the sweet sunshine of Liberty. As for me? I had rather scratch out a living in the soil of my ancestral homeland, living day to day in poverty and yet be free, than have an oppressive world government micromanage my life, deny my family even the most basic of freedoms, but still have my IPOD. How about you?

Another way to look at Bill Ayers and those radical 60's terrorists is to ask, "How would the media treat McCain if it were to come to light that he had started his presidential campaign in the living room of Timothy McVeigh (the Oklahoma city bomber)? Or David Duke (who never actually bombed anyone but simply said things people didn't like)? Sphere: Related Content

BAILOUT IS DEFEATED BY FREE MARKET CONSERVATIVES

In September 1999, the New York times printed an interesting article. The beginning is quoted here:

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

This is an excellent article for understanding the source of the current Housing and Economic crisis. It is a prime example of how Government interference in the Free Market never works, always destabilizes, and creates a dependant class (and with this current bailout the dependants are wealthy Millionaires!). When well meaning diversity ideas wrongly applied become public policy, then we create a terrible system that winds up actually seriously hurting (via lost jobs, less credit available, etc.) the very people that the government was supposed to help to begin with. Here is the link:

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending

For an alternative to the current Welfare for Millionaires Bailout plan go to:
Newt Gingrich.org

At that link, you can also download the FULL TEXT of the Bailout Bill and read it for yourself. I did read it and it's a mess. Thankfully, the House Republicans along with over 90 Democrats helped to defeat it. This is a great reminder to the arrogant Senate that the founding fathers created TWO chambers of congress for this very reason.

For those who want the Cliff Notes version: Here is a Video News Report:



Think about it! We all live in this country and it's our money they (the Congress) are spending. Thankfully today, we've seen democracy in action. Now, I'm going to sharpen up my Hunting, Fishing, and Farming skills and get ready for the coming economic depression. Sphere: Related Content

IDENTITY POLITICS CONTINUES TO BACKFIRE

Shepherd Smith on FOX News reported (as did the Blog POLITICO) today:

South Carolina Democratic chairwoman Carol Fowler sharply attacked Sarah Palin today, saying John McCain had chosen a running mate " whose primary qualification seems to be that she hasn’t had an abortion.” Palin is an opponent of abortion rights and gave birth to her fifth child, Trig, earlier this year after finding out during her pregnancy that the baby had Down syndrome.

Fowler told my colleague Alex Burns in an interview that the selection of an opponent of abortion rights would not boost McCain among many women. “Among Democratic women and even among independent women, I don’t think it helped him,” she said.

Told of McCain's boost in the new ABC/Washington Post among white women following the Palin pick, Fowler said: "Just anecdotally, I believe that those white women are Republican women anyway."

When the Democrat Convention began there was a hint of justice that hasn’t been much discussed even by political pundits. The Clintons rode into Washington almost 16 years ago. It doesn’t seem like a longtime ago, but it is the equivalent to when Barry Goldwater lost and Ronald Reagan won.

Further, favorite Political Pundit, Thomas D. Stamper reports:

It wasn’t enough for the Clintons to occupy the White House. They also needed to occupy the moral high ground. These children of the 1960s were going to right the wrongs of their parents and grandparents except when they were useful as some sort of prop so that Clinton could refer to himself as a child of WWII or the Depression or whatever real challenge his parents generation lived through, he skipped the hard road. His cabinet would look like America, meaning that he would scrape three deep to get a female Attorney General, going all the way to a Miami prosecutor. If you were a minority and a female, the staff of Clinton would refer to you as a "twofer." Jocelyn Elders was the most famous of the twofers according to Clinton insiders at the time. Realistically, it was Clinton’s right as President (according to the US Constitution) to pick who he wanted and let Congress decide if they were qualified, but it did no honor to those chosen to say they were considered for their looks. Isn’t that just what Gloria Steinem didn’t want?

The Clintons brought a lot of baggage into 2008. They probably didn’t think that their “looks like America” stance would be anything but a positive. After all, they were here to let you nominate the first female president. But what happened? Hilary has always been a smart political ideologue and she saw it as her strength. And she decided to run a campaign based on experience and the issues, two things decidedly not superficial. But along comes Barack Obama, a Charismatic, intelligent, and politically savvy candidate who just looks like he should be President according to the Clinton's own standard, which has become the standard of the political left. He’s warm and she’s cold. He’s new and she’d old. But even more important, he comes from a demographic background more victimized than hers, a background less represented in society.

How many times do you think during the debates that Hilary wanted to blurt out that Democrats were choosing symbols over substance? Yeah, and who taught them that? And when would Democrats ever get another chance after all these years of having the radical left spoiling things?

Hilary had her opportunity it 2004 and she skipped it hoping for a wide open race in 2008. She did everything right, even sending her operatives down to Iowa to get the dour Kerry nominated. You could make a case that Hilary’s pragmatic approach to the war could have beat Bush in 2004. She would have easily won the nomination in that crowd, but she ducked it.

The Clintons brought identity politics into the mainstream and finally poetic justice makes them a victim of it.

Now in the most ironic twist of all, the victim centered politics of the left is being used against them by the McCain campaign. Poor Barack Obama cannot even get a word in edge wise since Gov. Sarah Palin was nominated without charges of sexism. It is a shame. The American people would be better served if we would live up to our own ideals during campaigns and judge our potential future leaders not by the color of their skin (or their Gender) but by the content of their character.

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THE "OLD" SOUTH MORE PROGRESSIVE AND CHARMING THAN STEREOTYPE

According to a recent article by AP writer, Jay Reeves a Jewish Community, Group dangles $50K for Jews who move to Ala. town

Larry Blumberg is looking for a few good Jews to move to his corner of the Bible Belt. Blumberg is chairman of an organization offering Jewish families as much as $50,000 to relocate to Dothan, an overwhelmingly Christian town of 58,000 that calls itself the Peanut Capital of the World. Get involved at Temple Emanu-El and stay at least five years, the group's leaders say, and the money doesn't have to be repaid...

"The biggest thing Dothan has to offer is that it's just a very family-oriented community," said Barnes, who directs a hospital foundation. "Our congregation is very vibrant, and we have a lot of things that we get involved in."

Rabbi Lynne Goldsmith didn't know quite what to expect when she moved to Dothan a year ago to lead the congregation at Temple Emanu-El, which was founded in 1929. She came with her husband, who directs the Jewish community services group.

A Connecticut native, the rabbi halfway expected the Alabama of old with wide-open racism and dirt roads. "The Northeast has a really warped perception of what the South is all about, and I found out it was all wrong," she said. "The South is a wonderful place to be. The people are warm and friendly. There's very little traffic. And best of all, there's no snow."

I grew up in Bonifay, FL about 40 minutes just south of Dothan, AL. For us, Dothan was the "big city." It was the closest place we could drive to see a mall and a movie. What is wonderful about Southern folks is that you'll find them accommodating and very open to new people and individuals. It has been my experience that unlike many left-wing Northerners who will "fight" for whole groups but do very little for a single individual (i.e. homeless) that they see everyday, Southerners will help, and demonstrate compassion through the actions of individual relationships. Just look at the vast migration patterns of recent decades with the North losing population and the South continues to grow. We must be doing something right (no pun intended). Sphere: Related Content

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL, AND NOT ASHAMED OF IT

Peggy Noonan weighs in on the real problem of immigration. Unfortunately she does not offer a solution, and maybe there isn't one.

It's the broad public knowledge, or intuition, in America, that we are not assimilating our immigrants patriotically. And if you don't do that, you'll lose it all. We used to do it. We loved our country with full-throated love, we had no ambivalence. We had pride and appreciation. We were a free country. We communicated our pride and delight in this in a million ways--in our schools, our movies, our popular songs, our newspapers. It was just there, in the air. Immigrants breathed it in. That's how the last great wave of immigrants, the European wave of 1880-1920, was turned into a great wave of Americans. We are not assimilating our immigrants patriotically now. We are assimilating them culturally. Within a generation their children speak Valley Girl on cell phones. "So I'm like 'no," and he's all 'yeah,' and I'm like, 'In your dreams.' " Whether their parents are from Trinidad, Bosnia, Lebanon or Chile, their children, once Americans, know the same music, the same references, watch the same shows. And to a degree and in a way it will hold them together. But not forever and not in a crunch. So far we are assimilating our immigrants economically, too. They come here and work. Good. But we are not communicating love of country. We are not giving them the great legend of our country. We are losing that great legend. What is the legend, the myth? That God made this a special place. That they're joining something special. That the streets are paved with more than gold--they're paved with the greatest thoughts man ever had, the greatest decisions he ever made, about how to live. We have free thought, free speech, freedom of worship. Look at the literature of the Republic: the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist papers. Look at the great rich history, the courage and sacrifice, the house-raisings, the stubbornness. The Puritans, the Indians, the City on a Hill. The genius cluster--Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, Madison, Franklin, all the rest--that came along at the exact same moment to lead us. And then Washington, a great man in the greatest way, not in unearned gifts well used (i.e., a high IQ followed by high attainment) but in character, in moral nature effortfully developed. How did that happen? We fought a war to free slaves. We sent millions of white men to battle and destroyed a portion of our nation to free millions of black men. What kind of nation does this? We went to Europe, fought, died and won, and then taxed ourselves to save our enemies with the Marshall Plan. What kind of nation does this? Soviet communism stalked the world and we were the ones who steeled ourselves and taxed ourselves to stop it. Again: What kind of nation does this?
Only a very great one. Maybe the greatest of all. Do we teach our immigrants that this is what they're joining? That this is the tradition they will now continue, and uphold? Do we, today, act as if this is such a special place? No we don't. American exceptionalism is so yesterday. We don't want to be impolite. We don't want to offend. We don't want to seem narrow. In the age of globalism, honest patriotism seems like a faux pas. And yet what is true of people is probably true of nations: if you don't have a well-grounded respect for yourself, you won't long sustain a well-grounded respect for others.

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