I met Ms. Hattie Ruth Pompey as part of a work assignment. As a communications consultant for the School District of Palm Beach County in 2001-2002, I was charged with getting her  late husband’s manuscript, “More Rivers to Cross,” properly published and distributed into school libraries.

She would only talk with me in person, and I had to go to her home. It was like sitting with my grandmother; only in real life, I wasn’t that close to either of my actual grandmothers. So I treated her as I would have treated a “fill-in” grandma, whom I actually knew and adored.

She welcomed in a relative stranger with only a recommendation that I was worth the job. It was a hefty tome Mr. Spencer Pompey had left behind, full of his work and memories bringing this county’s race relations into the modern age. Ms. Pompey was relieved that a real person had been assigned to usher his work into permanency, and I felt honored for the task.

“More River to Cross” took my meeting with Ms. Pompey several times, making trips between her home, the School District’s offices, and the publisher in Lake Worth, relaying her wishes, keeping her abreast of progress and setbacks. I didn’t write anything or edit a word. I just made sure the book was done.

And from that was born a friendship that resulted in me being scolded every time I saw her afterward. “When are you going to bring your boys to come meet me?” She asked me without fail or hesitation. I would make my promises, hug her, take in her graceful beauty (she was very pretty), and wait until the next time…

There will be no more next times for me and Ms. Pompey, a founding member of Expanding & Preserving Our Cultural Heritage (EPOCH), Inc., the organization that made the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum possible.

I’m blessed to have known her, sat in her kitchen and managed a project so dear to her heart.  It was my privilege and honor.

Ms. Hattie Ruth Pompey

]]> http://rlavigne42.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/2009-12-08-the-rlavigne42-tweet-round-up/ Tue, 08 Dec 2009 03:53:49 +0000 rlavigne42 http://rlavigne42.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/2009-12-08-the-rlavigne42-tweet-round-up/

47 Enclosed Tweets, covering:

• #opendata, #gov20, crowdsourcing, google, boxee, LaLa, Apple, Thunderbird, Mozilla, LinkedIn, Innovation, facebook, twitter, Social Pollination, Social Media, GenY, eBay, Craigslist, Enterprise 2.0, #E20, googlewave, gmail, Digg, Pirate Bay
• Click “Read the rest of this entry” below to view the complete @RLavigne42 Tweet Round-Up entry.

@RLavigne42 Tweetpicks

• #twitter Boxee unveils Web TV Box and revamped software in bid to take over the living room http://bit.ly/4z5zD3 (via @JTeeter1)
  21:50 PM Dec 7^th
• Mozilla’s Thunderbird 3 To Take Flight With Faster Search, Tabbed Email And More http://bit.ly/8wbKew (via @CtrlFollow)
  21:50 PM Dec 7^th
• “Google – from friend to foe?” ( http://bit.ly/6vNBjW ) (via @mrinaldesai)
  21:52 PM Dec 7^th
• The 4 quadrants of innovation http://om.ly/cqdn (via @GuyKawasaki)
  22:35 PM Dec 7^th
• Top 10 Failures of 2009 http://bit.ly/8veeHC (via @rww)
  22:40 PM Dec 7^th
• RT @TrendTracker: 28 Gen Y [born 77 -94] Studies of 2009 http://bit.ly/4zdWMq RT @carol_phillips // #genyTO (via @clickryan)
  23:37 PM Dec 7^th
• Between Facebook and Murdoch, content hosts are starting to take away some of Google’s power http://bit.ly/6XsusV (via @gregboutin)
  23:40 PM Dec 7^th
• RT @webtechman @franky_redant @ipuenktchen: “Enterprise 2.0 explained in 10 principles – http://bit.ly/7H3llz ” #e20 (via @JohnReaves)
  23:47 PM Dec 7^th
• Social Media & Tribalization of Business http://bit.ly/4vrC1P #socialmedia #sCRM #PR #CRM #innovation #leadership #e20 (via @hkotadia)
  23:49 PM Dec 7^th
• Summary of some of the main principles underlying the Enterprise 2.0 movement: http://bit.ly/6zfZJX. #SMandHR #e20 @amcafee (via @SMinHR)
  23:50 PM Dec 7^th
• A brief history of social network enterprise collaboration tools | VentureBeat http://ff.im/-cySxS (via @bmagierski) (via @dhinchcliffe)
  23:51 PM Dec 7^th
• Official Google Blog: Relevance meets the real-time web http://bit.ly/8FokgE (via @katharnavas)
  23:52 PM Dec 7^th
• The Most Dugg Digg Submissions of the Decade http://bit.ly/7WnmYU (via @CtrlFollow)
  23:52 PM Dec 7^th
• Please Comment (or Sidewiki) to Nominate your Tweetpicks

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My Thoughts Enclosed…Rb

or: I’ll trade you civil liberties circa 1980, for the right to beat your wife circa 1920

or: If Glenn Beck were a decade, which one would he be?

For almost a year now, and even further back possibly, I have been fascinated with politics and punditry. I have become a self-proclaimed politico and I follow politics and media pretty closely, as closely as my tenuous hold on sanity will allow. In following politics my liberal mind has always been perplexed by the conservative party line of ‘returning to traditional American values’ and trying to recapture the ‘lost spirit of what it is to be an American’. In recent months it as been the loud ram’s horn call of Glenn Beck, and his ever growing audacity matched only by his ever growing audience, that has caused me to pontificate further on this subject. For the past few weeks this idea of lost values and traditional American fundamentals has led me to research where we might have gone wrong. Is there a specific time and place, a particular era that the GOP and other right-leaning hard-liners would want us to return to? If I can put my finger on the ethos that these guiding principles existed in, can we get back there? I delve in to this quagmire of American history to try and find “Glenn’s America”, so that he and others can stop preaching in general broad strokes and say, “we need to get back to what we believed in 19XX (or 18XX as it may be).”

When examining the general party ideas of what I understand to be the GOP’s fundamental idealogical structure I take my understanding from some 25 years on this planet, though you can’t count the first 16. I think that until you turn 17 and start trying to find yourself and begin to shape your views and identity in preparation for voting and contributing to society you are more of a blank slate in terms of personal free thought; up until this point you do not question a source but only try to fit in to the general parameters of ‘normal’ life as to not rock the boat and interfere with the indoctrination that American public schools instill in our youth. My true views have been shaped in my most recent years and as such I have adopted a view of the world quite different from my parents’, a direct result of informing myself for the first time in my life. In my home growing up as a small boy liberal leaders and democratic ideals warranted venom and crass, lewd criticism. The views I set forth will be of my own creation, independent of those I was raised on, either despite or in spite of them, I cannot tell. A crazy person isn’t crazy if he knows he’s crazy. Indeed.

The GOP seems to feel that gays should not marry, and are sinful. This makes no sense to me as sinful is a religious idea, not a political one; though it seems one position is quite often the result of the other. Gun rights should be protected at all costs to personal safety and public responsibility. Abortion is a no-no, ‘nuff said. They want smaller government, tax cuts, reform to let states decide things, though not gay marriage rights or any of the other items I just mentioned. They are for fiscal responsibility. GOP feels that a free market should regulate itself, again smaller government. They claim to fight for the middle class but public programs and universal anything is bad, that’s more government. They hate the environment as far as I can tell. Campaign finance reform (yeah right), education in America (no child left behind has gone so well after all). Prayer in school is ok, capital punishment and the death penalty are pretty much thumbs up, and the Ten Commandments should be at the steps of a courthouse flying the confederate flag. I am pretty close on this, right? So, basically it is a small government that has an abridged copy of the constitution, a cliff’s notes of the Bill of Rights, and a bible as it’s guiding principles. Hmmm, ok.

So, in American history, where can we find this utopia we strive for every day? This shangri-la we lost so long ago would obviously be the one saving grace for this country of godless sodomites. If we could only return to this point in time then everything would be fine. As far as I can tell it is the GOP that can save us if you believe the rhetoric. The liberals and the liberal media have scattered us across the nation and we are divided along partisan lines and are all doomed unless we jump on the Republican band wagon like some lifeboat after the Titanic sank. This is what self proclaimed “libertarian” Glenn Beck would like you to believe. I will give him credit for criticizing the government as a whole, even in the Bush days, though not in such inflammatory terms, but in reality he is like a Liber-publican. So, let’s take a step, Glenn, in to the way back machine and start a search for the time in American history you would like us to return to, as well as all of the Republican nay-sayers.

I want to start by saying that I am skipping the nineties completely being that he wasn’t happy with Clinton either, and it is far too close to the 21st century and the liberal progress this country has made; there is no way anyone wants to get back to how we were in the nineties, not even me and I loved my teen years in the nineties. And I am going to come back to the eighties later, they were too soon as well, but I will look at them briefly. We are sending our way back machine to a time when I think this country went bat-shit crazy and we were in maybe the most turmoil as a nation than anyone today can recall. I want to start out in the era that good old Glenn was born in, and that many of our current figure heads today, that make our decisions, can remember very ‘fondly’…the sixties.

Well I start here, in this decade of utter unrest by trying to illustrate that this can’t possibly be the America Glenn wants back. This cannot be the period in American history we want to recapture. This was a time that the late Strom Thurman must have hated with more zeal than any other period in history. It is hard to decide where to start. The sixties started out innocent enough, Kennedy beat Nixon and became the President, what followed was the Bay of Pigs incident, rumors about Marilyn, the meager beginning of Vietnam, the cuban missile crisis, then the man is assassinated. Further Vietnam BS, Malcolm X is killed, the Compton Cafeteria Riots in San Fran, then Nixon and all his Vietnam BS and his ‘secret plan to end the war’, the massive inflation crisis, MLK Jr. is killed, Bobby Kennedy is killed, the Stonewall riots of ’69, oh and a little thing who was named Manson did some killing. Great decade.

The sixties were a time of massive riots in the black and gay communities. Civil rights on all fronts tore the fabric of this country apart from women liberation, blacks, gays, even the Chicano revolution in this country. Outside of that was the acid wave of the sixties, a complete change in television, film, art, and especially music. The counterculture as it came to be known galvanized this country after the death of JFK, I think. The nice, homely manners of the 50’s were gone in a big way and now came very free thinkers, revolutionaries, protests exploded, demonstrations, inflation choked the middle class as they tried to compete with the changes in the landscape. The sixties were an ugly, hate-filled time, the emerging civil rights movement after the death of JFK was really the catalyst for it all. There is no way we want to return to the sixties as a country. America was in a violent turmoil and unsure of it’s identity and where the road we were on was going to lead us and people were strung out or scared for their lives, or both. I don’t think Glenn wants that back, so let’s move on.

How about we take a step forward and find Glenn in the seventies as a small boy, maybe these are the innocent and moral times he wants back…but I doubt it. Well in the seventies music really got good including the first ‘rap’ song, movies got weird, TV got lewd, and the country just got fucked up worse. This country started watching shows like All In The Family and the Brady bunch, dealing with some of the issues of the day. Vietnam choked the first few years while a little thing called Watergate slipped by the news press during Nixon’s re-election campaign and then killed him by ’74. It was the most embarrassing and shocking scandal in American political history, which in my opinion was the death of politics. I think that Nixon and his escalation of the doomed Vietnam war and his scandal killed the American political system. Outside of the US revolution was abundant across the world. Woodstock was a shining beacon of what drugs and music and mud can do for young people, a complete change from how we started the decade on the campus of Kent State where the National Guard gunned down peaceful protestors of the war on a college campus; unthinkable today, one would hope. The draft was the height of outrage, an unbelievable moment when Ali fought the draft and Elvis went in. Protest and anti-war sentiment was as widespread in this country as pant legs were flared. The Cold War ramped up a bit and this country got really scared, really fast. Our involvement in a few revolutions and military coupes as well as an assassination or two was a continuation of poor foreign affairs decisions. The middle east started down the road to where we are today with Israel, Egypt, Syria, the Soviet Union, and Afghanistan, all starting to kick each others asses.

The seventies brought women’s rights to the forefront as the sixties had civil rights for minorities eclipsing women’s rights to some extent. Vietnam ended finally, well our involvement, leaving the North to just wait for us to leave and drop Saigon to it’s knees and claim the country unified again. A sad end to a war we should have not been in and an end that was mostly our fault. Oh and lest I forget the massive recession we were in mixed with oil crises a couple of times resulting in rationing and further middle class stresses that included a very high unemployment rate. Then of course there was Jonestown, about 900 dead there. Idi Amin started his tyrannical, violent rule of Uganda as well. Is this the era we should return to? Hatred, war, violence, and tragedy pock marked this era. The seventies hold within their years scandal, racism, and fear-mongering, of the most epic scale one can imagine. There is no way we want to return to the moral or political views of this era. The seventies were the time for change for sure, but it came at great expense on the heels of a decade of radical change and upheaval. The 70’s continued the massive crime rate spikes that the sixties brought and the country still sat on the edge of it’s seat every day as nothing seemed to get better. Surely we don’t want the seventies back.

Ok, the eighties might be better, the days of Reagan and Bush, this might be the most likely time we want to return to. The eighties would be the most formidable years of Beck’s life; the decade of excess. The eighties brought the yuppie, and with it, all the coke, parties, and BMW’s we could handle. We saw great multinational growth and wall street was glamorous, they were kings then, still total scum, but they had better PR people then. Of course Reagan declared a War on Drugs, the Cold War raged to a massive scale. Sure, communism fell apart as did the Berlin Wall, but we saw the further mishandling of the middle east that is the source of our problems and involvement there today, can’t argue with that. Reagan put a major black eye on his presidency with the discovery of the Iran-Contra debacle that Oliver North was the mastermind behind. This country saw massive economic growth against the backdrop of very complicated and protracted battles all over the world including Asia, the middle east, central and south america, and ever Ireland with ‘the troubles’ brewing. (Only badass Irish would call a modern, religious civil war ‘the troubles’, an understatement to say the least)

The eighties, I think were a time of thinking that we could not be beaten, being the short attention span of Americans forgetting the seventies. We were coked out of our minds, living beyond our means, and we were kicking Commie ass. But the eighties, world wide, were complicated, painful growth, some democratic, but on the whole we saw massive famine and destruction abroad as the industrialized countries were making head way. The middle class of nations was being evaporated as the gap between rich and poor nations grew drastically. Domestic issues were tough though, as it seemed we were trying to use our power for good as a people with things like LiveAid and becoming more aware of issues in Africa and other countries, the eighties saw the rise of the religious right. They really got fired up on the gay issue and the discovery of AIDS, ‘the gay plague’. This country grew in many way, a decent decade I guess, I don’t really remember much of it but it seemed like a lot of people were having a lot of fun, safer fun.

Glenn probably liked the eighties, he used to be a liberal and an alcoholic, he draws a fine parallel between the two in a Katie Couric interview you should look up on YouTube, and this might have been his favorite time. Old enough to enjoy and understand it, he probably had a great time. Conservatives in power, strides made internationally, excess and money everywhere. The eighties were a wild party time, a decade that seemed to be a release of the past twenty years of hard work, growing pains, and controversial conflict. The 60’s and 70’s were going to lead inevitably to a time when we finally just cut loose and took a deep breath after so much bloodshed, upheaval, and serious talk. It was the decade we all remembered fondly on VH1. Music was weird, movies were great, TV was filled with classics we all watched, and standup comedians were making it big; the country was having a good laugh, a bump, and some beer. Not too bad.

I discount the nineties entirely so let’s jump back to a more general era I don’t think we can reasonably go back to, the 50’s to the 30’s. This was another era of massive wars, depression, civil rights injustice, bigotry, no women’s liberation, industrialization, organized crime, et al. These were times when blacks were openly hung from gallows, women were expected to be barefoot and pregnant in front of the stove, except when they were making tanks for the troops overseas for next to nothing wages. A time where minorities were rightfully scared at night of police or white boys out for a joyride. The prohibition, crime in the streets, Bonnie and Clyde, the Tommy gun, the B.A.R., saloons, speakeasy’s, and rampant bank robberies and crooked cops on the beat. This was a different time for this country and I don’t think we can agree with many of the ideals that were held to in this time and apply it today, the role of women alone is too much inequality to bare, let alone the rest.

OK, let’s take a big jump to my favorite era, the old west. You know the times, I’m talking post manifest destiny, pre-FBI. A time of no gun laws, showdowns in the streets, legal prostitutes, and riding in to town on a horse. Tombstone, San Francisco, Indian and cowboys. A time where gold was rushing and crazy white drunks ran amok and contracted TB and polio. Yes, when there were still a few Indians around, you had ranchers with thousands of acres, cattle drives, train robberies, and the men of storied legend lived and died by Winchester, Colt, and Smith&Wesson. I like to think I lived in the times with a town sheriff, shitty beer, floozies, and general martial law over most of the country. A time where you could shoot a man in the street in broad daylight in front of 50 people, and they might actually clap and then go about their day. The good times.

I think this might not be far enough back though. When I hear Glenn speak, he talks about the founding father’s principles. The true foundation of the country as he sees it with the men who earned America through blood, sweat, and tears. Jefferson’s America. OK, well let’s first examine the fact that we are talking late 1700’s and early 1800’s. These are pre-electric, pre-phone times. We are talking Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere, plantations, etc. If this is the time Glenn thinks we need to get back to I want to highlight a couple of things. First off, slavery was alive and well…need I say more? Secondly, this country treated women like shit, there were no civil rights, and it was unindustrialized. This country was populated and run by rich, white land owners, and then there was everybody else. I don’t want anyone to romanticize this era. This country was created, founded, and declared on the bodies of millions of natives and the death and suffering of minority races of people removed from their homes and treated worse than dogs in the time period.

America has never been truly righteous. We revolted for selfish reasons, nothing simpler than that. We turned against the imperialism of the Queen and her rule and declared our independence; the worst “dear John” letter ever. Up to that point we had slaughtered, tricked, infected, raped, and pillaged our way to the Mississippi and thought very highly of white skin and could kill a black man for any reason at any time, or sell them, whatever struck our fancy. What I am about to say is going to piss off the right, but if I could meet George Washington I think I would take the opportunity to shake his hand and then slap the wooden teeth out of his head. These were racist white bigots with an knack for the written word and hard on for ‘freedom’ by their definition as it applied to them as an emerging nation of first class citizens at the top of the shit pile. All due respect, but their ideas and principles were fundamentally offensive and their beliefs of equality were for themselves and those they agreed with. How many minorities or women were running around enjoying their freedom of speech or right to bare arms…or even read? I rest my case.

So maybe Glenn does have a time in mind. Maybe he wants the scandalous, violent 70’s, or the civil unrest and inequality of the 60’s. The old west certainly had smaller/non-existent national government, and the 40’s sure were good times to be a gangster, Nixon would have done well, that’s for sure. The eighties surely had the best coke, and some unprecedented growth, outside of post-industrialized America (without all of these pesky labor laws we got). Maybe he wants the great depression era, maybe to live amongst the greatest generation, or rub elbows with white men who raped their slaves on their plantation as a matter of principle and patriotism. The history of America is short, embarrassing, and seemingly without a lesson learned throughout. Glenn, I dare you and your constituents to point out that shining beacon in American history that is so much better than now, ‘cause I must have missed it. All those moments have led up to now, and I’ll be damned if where we are isn’t a hell of a lot better than where we were; you can pry this progress from my cold dead hands, pal.

Whatever happened to the ideal that this nation once held, expressed in the words of John F. Kennedy? Which words you ask?

“Ask not what your country can do for you ask what you can do for your country.” 

The idea of serving one’s country, somewhere in recent history, has become antithetical to the psyche of most of today’s American politicians.  Politicians are supposed to represent us, the people.  You may be asking yourself, how are politicians relevant to the conversation with regards to service to country?

Well, politicians should have service to country as their number one priority. The problem is that most politicians believe that the “country” is the federal government; actually the country, the nation, is the people. We the people are what make this the United States of America.  Unfortunately, all too often what we hear about our senators and representatives is what they do for their district or their state and nothing about what they do for their country, for our country.  There are literally hundreds of examples where those in Congress put their district/state above country; these examples are called earmarks. Earmarks, whatever you want to argue, do not benefit the United States as a whole.  They may benefit certain people in certain geographical areas, maybe. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, through the earmarks process, has essentially built his own personal airport to make it convenient for him to fly back and forth to Washington D.C.  Aside from the less than 50 people who work to keep the airport open, the airport benefits no one.

Congressmen and Senators have forgotten their raise d’être.  Our representatives act more like agents on behalf of the federal government rather than agents of the people who elected them.   My view is that the original purpose of our representatives was to hold the line against the federal government taking and/or infringing on the rights of the individual based on state or region.  The congress was supposed to represent states rights against the power of the federal government.  Congressional representatives from each state were supposed to stand up to the federal government and ensure that their constituency would not be disadvantaged among the states with respect to the passage of any law.  And, that any laws that they passed had been vetted by all representatives of all the states to ensure that the benefit of those laws was for all the states, and for the nation as a whole.  Congressmen and Senators have morphed into a group of elitists who, in cooperation of the federal government, pass legislation which has steadily worn away at the rights of individual citizens.   Politicians have forgotten that their purpose is not to facilitate federal policy but to protect the people from it. 

And it is not just the politicians who are at fault.  We, the American people are also responsible.  People need to understand that even though their congressman gets 15-20 million dollars for some project in their district, they still must pay the 10-20 billion dollar price tag for all the other projects in the legislation passed.  The bottom line is that it is not a very good investment.

The problem is this: Most people justify this spending with kindergarten logic.  “Everybody else is getting something, why not us.”  So constituencies may actually encourage their representatives to request earmarks and thereby waste more of our collective money. 

This is also true for subsidies, of all kinds.  People want the government to stop spending money, except when it comes to the money that benefits them.  The government subsidizes wheat farmers, sugar farmers, Amtrak, energy companies, tech companies, etc. In an article in 2006 the Cato Institute had the number of Federal Subsidy Programs at 1696.

The American electorate is starting to educate itself.  But beyond education we as a nation must start to wean ourselves from the federal teat of subsidies and earmarks.  Communities must express their disdain for earmarks and subsidies both inside and outside their congressional district.  And hold their representative accountable for driving the nation further into debt.  This may affect the community in the short term, but in the long term it is very good for the country, for the USA.

The bottom line is that WE, all Americans, must stand up and tell our representatives that what we want is not more from the federal government, but less.  That what we want is the government to get out of the way of ideas and innovation; not create more obstacles and red tape.  That we know better what our communities need than the federal government; that any subsidy to any organization, group, region, or state, is money that is taken from us, collectively.  We don’t need handouts to succeed; we can do it ourselves, through hard work, sweat and effort.  It is through individual effort and achievement that all of us can serve our country.  Let’s stop asking our government to do for us what we should be doing ourselves and for our nation; once we are free of the addiction to government largess we can begin to use our talents and energies to serve our country.

Representatives in Congress beware.  It is no longer good enough for you to bring home the bacon.  You had better figure out how to cut the fat.  The electorate has awoken and will now hold you accountable for dragging the nation further into the open pit of debt created by this Congress, and the ones before it.  If you, as representatives, want to serve your country then do it by protecting your constituency from taxes, excessive regulation and an ever intrusive government and creating an environment conducive to small businesses, entrepreneurs and working people. 

Today we probably need to modify what JFK said. Ask not what your country should do for you; ask what your country is doing for you that you should do yourself.  Because it is only through action of a free people that liberty is able to flourish, grow and expand.

It’s raining dollars!  What would Frederic Bastiat have to say about this if he could speak to us from 1848?

As government regulations grow slowly, we become used to the harness – Judge Robert Bork

Frederic Bastiat

We interrupt our regular programming.  The President has just banned windows in order to benefit candle makers; candle production, he says, will stimulate the economy as long as candles aren’t melted by sunlight.  The administration also announces it will nationalize candle manufacturing, allow greedy wax suppliers only 10% of the money they are owed by the candle makers, plus grant a 30% share of Acme Candles, Inc.  to the UCMDWU (United Candle Mold Delivery Workers’ Union).   New York Times White House correspondent asks Press Secretary Robert Gibbs what most enchanted the President before he was blessed with this economic epiphany.

OK, I’ve got the facetiousness out of my system.  I wish I could take credit for this prescient concept.  I’ll admit to only my personal sarcasm in tying the philosophy of that remarkably witty proponent of freedom and liberty: Frederic Bastiat, (see link to Wikipedia entries from the pictures on the sidebar) to our current state of affairs.  Frederic Bastiat was a member of what was known as the French Liberal School in the 1840s (liberal as in the classical/original free market definition), warning of the folly of government intervention in the marketplace.  His parable of a fictitious petition by candle makers to the French government to eliminate windows in order to prevent candles from melting – thereby increasing economic prosperity by insuring the success of the candle industry (at the expense of the window industry…oops) – is a hilarious anecdote.  It also unfortunately illustrates the genesis of the president’s belief system.

Obviously above, I make reference to the bailout of GM, the perversion of the rule of law in throwing Chrysler bond holders to the wolves, and the artificial propping up of the UAW rather than normal bankruptcy pecking order.  Bastiat’s fable of altruistic but ultimately damaging marketplace intervention, is echoed consistently by the current administration’s adherence to this paradigm of unlimited spending by fiat justified by its immediate/short term effects on various and sundry interest groups.  In fact, Friedrich Hayek (see my previous two posts) said in a review of Bastiat that, according to 1930s economist John Maynard Keynes, the assumption of a multiplier effect (simply meaning a belief that the government can stimulate the economy by spending, producing a return greater than the cost of the stimulus; thereby increasing employment) on general economic prosperity would precisely mimic the argument of the candle makers!

Cash for clunkers (and maybe the upcoming Stimulus II cash for “cluckers” chicken farm bailout?) would most certainly fit neatly into these fallacies: money will do more good in the hands of the government, and it is the duty of government  to see that all get what they “deserve”.

Lastly, Frederic Bastiat’s landmark book: The Law has remarkable parallels to the economically damaging entitlement philosophies of the current congressional majority.  For example Bastiat says in the section The Results of Legal Plunder, “No society can exist unless the laws are respectable to a certain degree.  The safest ways to make laws respected is to make them respectable.”  This quote illustrates the current congress’s path towards a society in which greater than 50% of workers pay no taxes, and receive payments in the form of the Earned Income Tax Credit.  Therefore, this non-tax paying majority – the receivers of public services and governmental largess – are able to award themselves through the ballot ever increasing free goods and services from the minority: the tax payers/suppliers of public services and governmental largess.  I see no end to this increase in receivers, to include the resulting unconstructive inertia towards manufactured dependence.

So to bring my polemic to a close, I quote Bastiat one more time: “Legal plunder is identified as “… the law takes from some persons [what] belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong…The person who profits from this law… will claim that the state is obligated to protect and encourage his particular industry…”

— Or nationality, ethnicity, income demographic, religion, color, blue collar, white collar, government employee, Woodstock museum, first time home buyer, union member, sexual preference, illegal immigrant, home in foreclosure, Wall St., Main St., small business, large business, self esteem damaging tatoo removers (I didn’t make this one up: see   http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/63697.html), “green” energy producer, municipality, farmer, auto parts supplier, environmentalist, “too big to fail” bank and insurance companies, student, teacher, cop, mechanic, ethanol producer, the bicycle spoke hooker-uppers’ guild, donut shop owners’ amalgamated, and last but not least……….Acme Candles, Inc.

Comments on the blog con or pro most welcome.

I own six hundred of you but I am good.

Here.  See.  I have allowed the building of these huts for you to live in.  Scavenge my land if you want.  Get some firewood.  Maybe squirrels.  Take water from my stream.  If you are young and ripe sneak yourself into the big house and share my dark. Sneak out with the light.

Now, do not anger me.  Of course, I am slow to anger but it happens.  Careful.  I might sell

the mother to that farmer in Georgia.  You don’t want that.  He has no patience with any beast he owns.  And, he has whips.  Sell the daughter to the toothless

tobacco chewer in Kentucky.  He likes them young.  He’s got money.  All legal, of course.

Six hundred of you.  All mine.  As you will discover in my will.  No one is freed.  But here, have a potato.  An onion.

Now I am going to clear my throat, take a sip of water, and will speak about the rights of man.

The nobility of man.  The majesty of man.  Listen

Closely to me.  Why not?  You have for the last two centuries.

On the increasing irrelevancy of Tom Jefferon.  Soon to be unquotable.  After that,

Unmentionable.

Had his day, no?

Source: http://promoteacceptance.samhsa.gov/campaigns/Program_Details.aspx?ID=32

Silver Ribbon Coalition
Simi Valley, California USA

Start Date
1993

Brief Description
The Silver Ribbon Coalition was originally founded in 1993 as the Silver Ribbon Campaign for the Brain by Jean Liechty after she had a family experience with schizophrenia. In 2004, the Silver Ribbon Campaign for the Brain was renamed in order to incorporate and represent the combined interests of all individuals who have a brain disorder or disability, including those individuals with mental illnesses. The coalition emphasizes that increasing public awareness will result in improved treatments, eventual cures, and decreased stigma for those with brain disorders and disabilities.

Situation
After experiencing the stigma that exists towards individuals with mental illnesses, Jean Liechty recognized that many individuals with brain disorders and their families do not receive the public support that serious non-brain-related physical disorders receive. She recognized that symbolic campaigns for other stigmatized diseases such as HIV and AIDS had been successful in promoting public support and funding for research. She realized that the creation of an awareness symbol for brain disorders and disabilities could likely have a similar result; therefore, she created the silver ribbon.

Solution
Initially, silver ribbons were made of silver wrapping ribbon. By 1997, metallic pins in the shape of a silver ribbon were created and distributed. By 1999, a Web site for the campaign was launched and a trademark for the silver ribbon symbol was issued. Since then according to Liechty, the silver ribbon has become the official symbol for Promoting Public Awareness of the Need for Support of People With Brain Disorders and Disabilities.

Results
Since its development in 1993, the Silver Ribbon Coalition has grown to include other promotional products in addition to the silver pin, including jewelry, apparel, and stickers. Since 2000, more than 200,000 Silver Ribbon pins have been distributed and the Silver Ribbon movement expanded into Japan, Mexico, and Singapore. Silver Ribbon pins and products are unofficially distributed in countries around the globe.

A drive in support of a Silver Ribbon first-class postage stamp was launched in 1999. More than 100,000 letters of support have been sent thus far to the United States Postal Service, including one in August 2006 from former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn.

Since the launch of a newly redesigned Web site in September 2006, sales of Silver Ribbon products have increased. Active Minds and National Alliance for Mental Illness members have organized campaigns to publicize and distribute Silver Ribbon products and market the Web site.

Contact
Additional information about the Silver Ribbon Coalition can be obtained via the Coalition Web site at www.silverribbon.org

The founding of this nation was not with the goal of being one nation amongst nations.

The founding of his nation was intended to be a nation unique from all other nations.  The idea of a nation founded on a principle of individual rights unassailable by the government was then and is now a unique and purely American Principle.

It is now evident that this ideal has been slowly eroded over time and is now on a slippery slope that may lead to the total dismantling of the US Constitution as it was originally conceived.  We, as a nation, are at a crossroads in history.  We can either allow our freedoms as individuals to be taken away through legislation that has and will continue to progressively intrude on our rights, or we can hold the line and endeavor to reverse the damage done to our country, culture, and society.

How can we accomplish this?  We must contemplate our past, as well as our future. We must educate ourselves about America and what our founding fathers envisioned for their nation…our nation.  We must relearn and appreciate that we are Americans.  And Americans are a free people, Americans are good, Americans are brave, Americans are kind, Americans are just, and Americans are exceptional.  This is the greatest country on the planet! Bar none!  Americans should be proud of that.

Over the last two centuries no country has been more consistent in its fight for good over evil, liberty over tyranny and justice over brutality.  Our children should be taught about our history, about the ideals and the truly revolutionary concepts that were codified in the Constitution.  The idea that every individual has “unalienable rights” and conversely that the government has limitation on its authority over the people.

-         The idea that speech cannot be suppressed and is not something that the government allows or forbids; Americans believe or should believe that it is, literally, a God-given right.

-         The idea that you can bear arms to protect yourself and your family from both criminality and from a tyrannical government is a God-given right.

-         The idea that an individual can worship God as he wishes, without fear of repercussion from the government. That religion is a choice of the individual and not the government.

All these ideals were and continue to be revolutionary.  They make America a unique and exceptional place. America is the land of dreams, of unlimited potential realized, of hard work rewarded, and of individual aspirations fulfilled. The land of opportunity, where anyone can achieve anything and the individual is only limited by his own imagination.

That is the “pursuit of happiness.”  The pursuit has made America the most innovative and productive country in the world.  America is a place where an individual has the capacity to endeavor for success as defined by him.

WE, all Americans must get back to basics. Study our history, study our founding documents and realize that our nation is unique by design. Our founding fathers envisioned a nation unique in the world.  A nation where the individual is empowered by God; by virtue of the rights He has bestowed upon all men.  And that the government is, or at least should be, the agent of the people, not the other way around.

いらしゃい! (Irashai in Ro-Maji – It’s Japanese for Welcome!)

If you haven’t guessed already – based on the Title and Tagline of this blog – I’m starting this blog as a way to keep track of what I’m doing and my progress toward become an ESL teacher. I doubt I’ll get any readers, but if I do, I hope I can be somewhat helpful! (I think I will be if you’re in the same boat as me!)

Basically, what I intend to do is make general posts that are helpful for anyone. You know, like information on what to bring, how to get there, what to do in order to go and once you arrive. Yeah, general posts. AND I’ll be posting some personal diary-like entries about how I’m doing in regards to achieving my gowl (which is – as stated above – becoming an ESL. So that means completing my degree in English, learning Japanese, etc.)

Anyway, this is sort of an introductory, commemorative post to begin with so it shouldn’t be very long.

Thanks for reading!

–Ro

The BBC’s Quentin Sommerville in Beijing reviews a star-studded film treatment of the Communist victory over the Nationalists in China’s civil war…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: china area. For a different topic see stopwatch watches. The blog is also related to: china holidays.

Once wishing to have a sewing machine, which was considered a luxury item, now Chinese consumer want to have a car and a house and even these are no longer considered as status symbols… From VOA. Full story

This site may contain information about: china rain. The blog is also related to: nanning china.

As country celebrates realization of significant goals, challenges remain… From VOA. Full story

This site may contain information about: china tibet. For a different topic see wristwatch clock. The blog is also related to: chinas.

With all the talk about the deficit exploding, the health care reform and more stimulus packages, it is easy to see the writing on the wall.  The government is going to raise taxes.  Of course raising taxes will damage the economy, cause unemployment to rise and small businesses to close their doors.  But, the liberals don’t like to think about the true outcome of their proposed actions.

All I can say to this possibility is KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF MY WALLET.  The current government is under the impression that they have the right to take as much of my money as they want.  This is contrary to the original intent of the constitution and our founding fathers.  Now don’t get me wrong.  I am not promoting the idea that we return to the original constitution.  There were definitely some things in the original that needed to be updated or changed.  But I am endorsing the notion that we need to return to the original intent of the founding fathers.  They understood that a federal income tax would give the government too much power over the American people and provide the government with too much influence over our freedoms.  Therefore, when they designed the initial government, there was no personal income tax.  There were tariffs and consumption taxes.  This is what I think we need to return to.  This would dramatically limit the control and influence that the government can have over us.  Right now, I am totally convinced that this would solve all of our economic and financial issues. 

The FAIRTAX proposal that Mike Huckabee talked about during his presidential run is a good consumption based plan.  Although, I do disagree with the notion that it will eliminate the IRS.  I believe that it will not eliminate it but it will drastically change it’s function.  We will still need a government agency to collect the tax money from the businesses.  We will still need auditors to make sure that the government is collecting the revenues that it should be collecting.  It may reduce the size of the organization some, but it will not eliminate it.  What it will do is eliminate the need for the individual to file tax returns and hire tax attorneys or tax accountants.  It will simplify the lives of all individual wage earners.  Therefore, I think this is a worth while plan to pursue.

The current income tax system was implemented to help pay for a war.  At the end of the war it should have been stopped.  Instead, congress got greedy and successfully amended the constitution to allow the federal government to collect a tax on individual wages earned.  This should never have been allowed by the Supreme Court.  It was unconstitutional on the basis of original intent.  The government overstepped its boundaries and should have been stopped.  It wasn’t stopped and now we have a repressive tax system.  Just like the one that Karl Marx said was needed to implement communism.

The FAIRTAX will help reverse the current intrusion by the federal government into our everyday lives.  Let’s contact our representatives and encourage them to co-sponsor the legislation.  Once we successfully implement the FAIRTAX, we can then repeal the amendment that allows the government to charge us an income tax.  This will solve so many current issues.  Including the ones that Obama is going out of his way to create.