Charity

I got this from here.

So evidently,once again, people are finding a way to do it on their own, and this really bothers the beauracrats, who evidently see it as creeping up on their turf.
People are hungry and they don't want the government to come in and take care of them? Some people have the audacity to take care of themselves?

I just finished listening to Atlas Shrugged. It was great. If you want to be a true capitalist (insert pig if you want, I won't be offended), then you need to check this book out. It is all about taking care of yourself. It is all taking pride in what you have and/or what you want, but earn it.

This was written largely as an argument against collectivism or communism, i.e. "To each according to their needs; from each according to their abilities." What is scary is that you can see the seeds and in many cases the fruits of collectivism in our own country. The welfare state is one of those fruits. The demonization of big business is another. Robbing from the rich with progressive tax codes to give to the undeserving poor is another.

I am not rich, but it would be nice if someday I worked hard enough to get that way, and it would be even nicer, if I could keep the fruits of my labors.

Those of you with jobs are probably in the midst of a United Way campaign. Now, I am sure that United Way does a lot of great things, but one thing they do is insult me as a potential donor. They ask you to give your "Fair Share" which is the equivelent of one hour's pay per pay check. My fair share?!

As if the government doesn't take enough of a "fair share" that they use to give away to those in "need", but now I have to have a charitable organization making me feel like it is my OBLIGATION to give to them. That is crap. We have come to that. It is my obligation to give what I have earned to those who have not. I am not against charity, but let's be clear here. I will give charity to those I feel are worthy of charity. To the people I see struggling to achieve, not just those are stuck in the morass. You need to be fighting to achieve... always.

The government doles out the money they take from us without a thought in the world except that the people "need" it. How many people on welfare try to get off of it. How many say, I only need this much and that will be enough to get me on my feet. No. More than likely they will say things like, I need it to pay my cable bill. I need it buy booze or cigarettes. Just look at what we saw after Katrina with those gift cards that they were handing out like candy. People were buying $1000 dollar purses and other crap that they needed, and I'm willing to bet these were the same people who were in line for more money two weeks later complaining that they needed help or their babies would starve.

That's my money they are spending. That's your money they are spending (assuming you have a job and pay taxes). Doesn't that piss you off? Don't you feel like an ass? I would love to buy my wife a nice purse like that. I would love to drive a decent car to work, instead of the ten year old piece of crap with 180,000 miles on it. I could if I didn't have to fork it all over to government... so they can hand it out where they feel it is needed. Social Security. Let me opt out now and have that extra 14% (because your employer pays half) of my pay and I will never bother the government for a dime.

But back to charity, since I am rambling. The government has robbed us of more than our money, or time, our labor, they have robbed us of the pride we could take in giving to charity, if we chose to. Of choosing who was worthy of our money, our time, our labor. Does that seem "fair?" They are giving away what we have earned though our work and effort, with out even a "thank you kindly", rather, it is our obligation our work over to another. We should feel blessed to pass over our money to those less fortunate than ourselves. Tell me, would you walk down the street and give 15-20% of your check just anyone?

And why should we feel blessed to hand over the fruits of our labor? Why should they not feel blessed to get it? Why should they not feel the stigma of knowing that they are beholden to the work I have done? Whatever happened to the righteousness of stigma?

You should not be able to feel pride that you are recieving food stamps. You SHOULD feel bad when you pay for food with them in the store, it should make you want to not have to live that way, to want to do something about it, to strive to achieve self-sufficiency, but now they are even taking that away, by handing out cards that look no different than the debit cards that I, who pay for my own food and sometimes with a struggle, do.

Charity SHOULD be an act of selfishness on my part. I SHOULD be able to give away what I have earned with PRIDE to those I feel are worthy of my effort, time and work. That is what money is. It is not something a company gives to you and you are just fortunate to have a job. No. It is symbolic of the work you have done. Symbolic of the value you have traded with that company. Who is the United Way to suggest that I am obliged to give my "Fair Share?" Who is the government to give away the work I have done to someone not of my choosing?

I should be able to take selfish pride in the work that I have done. It is mine, to give away as I see fit. If I give money to you, you should know, that I did it to make myself feel good. Me. The fact that the government not only takes my money, but my pride,is indefensible.

Your NEED does not create in me an obligation.

Atlas Shrugged

So it’s been a while. Oh, well. No sense crying over spilt milk. Let’s go.

I’m listening to a new (to me) book. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. As the description of the book says it is an apologia for capitalism. So far, it is a Great, with a big G, book. The book really talks about the struggle of capitalism with, well let’s face it, idiots. In this case it is doers and risk takers vs. the bureaucrats and do-gooders. This book was written in 1957 and did such a good job of predicting the future that reading it (or listening to it) is like reading the headlines from today.

But I would like to address one portion of the beginning. One of the main characters, who is one of those selfish (sarcasm), successful, big business types is talking to an eminent scientist, whose organization has just put out a false statement about a new product on the market that the business person is using. Follow that?

A while back I wrote something wherein I suggested that voters are stupid (though I should have said ignorant) and should have to take some sort of simple test before they are able to vote. I am not retracting that statement as such, but this book has made me think a little deeper about it.

In the book, when the scientist is confronted with the false statement, he says something to the effect of “most people are dumb and don’t know what is good for them, therefore the people that do know what is good for them need to force them into doing what is right for them.” That is a paraphrase of many paragraphs, but I think it is a pretty honest translation.

I realized that I had advocated something similar, though for me it is more of a matter that the founding fathers had some things right, for instance that only property owners should have the right to vote. Since that changed, the size of our government has steadily grown… out of control, to the point where even the conservatives continue to grow government, albeit, not as quickly. Property owners were seen as originally having a vested stake in where the country was going as a whole and were therefore seen as being best able to make decisions concerning it. We can see the trouble changing that has created as more and more people fall under the growing population of people who do not pay taxes, but have an equal say in how those who do pay the bills have to pay them. Notice therefore that more and more money is just given away to those who don’t have it but “deserve” it, and more and more politics have become a race to see who can buy the votes of the poor with this entitlement or that. Ridiculous and quickly spelling the bankruptcy of our country.

Onward though.

The scientist’s philosophy led me to see the real issue though: a serious dishonesty of many of those who consider themselves best able to make the decisions. I, who consider myself fairly well informed on many issues, often see what I consider to be the stupidity of the public on many important issues, for instance global warming and stem cell research.

The environmentalists want to clean up the environment (even that is unlikely, but for the sake of argument, let’s say it is true.) so they come up with big scary “global warming” to scare the people in to enacting many regulations to clean up the earth (but magically are often more effective in redistributing wealth). No matter that most of the “evidence” is incomplete anecdote, bald face lies and junk science. Now, even people who don’t believe it, such as our President, are now out citing the preponderance of evidence (read the growing number of voters who believe the junk science and lies) giving global warming and the further claims of junk science additional credibility.

How can I blame the ignorant masses, when their very ignorance is directly caused by the inadequate and inaccurate information that they are given by the people we are supposed to trust because of their “neutrality,” namely the main stream media and our university scientists. If they are willing to lie in order to achieve their philosophical and idealistic ends and direct public policy through popularity and polls rather than honest discussion and discourse, how can I blame the ignorant masses? I can only speak honestly in my little forum and hope that I have some small effect.

I guess that is enough for now. I was also going to discuss the issue of stem cell research and the growing lies and hysterics surrounding it, but perhaps my SISTER would be inclined to share some opinion on that matter.

Now We Know Why We Are Over-Taxed

Ok. So I know I complain a lot about how much money I feel our government wastes, but I have another example of ridiculous government spending. Perhaps Sami has noticed this one being in the radio industry. I have heard on multiple channels several times a day a commercial telling truck drivers to buckle up with the message at the end “paid for by the Wisconsin DOT.” C’mon. You’ve got to be kidding me. First, even if you can argue that the government should be advertising at all, which I don’t think they should be except in very important instances, there is still the fact that this is a targeted ad directed to a small portion of drivers, which you could probably still argue is OK, if you really tried. But can we at least agree, that if buckling up is good for truck drivers, that it is probably good for everyone, and targeted advertising in this case is a STUPID WASTE!

I get a little worked up about these things. A couple years ago the government was paying for commercials advertising the food stamp program. So they were paying money to tell people that they were giving money away. I thought I was going to have a coronary.

Lost

Who watched Lost last night on Charter (crappy) digital cable?

At first I thought that they were trying to make a statement regarding US immigration policy, but really they were just playing the show in Spanish. Fortunately, after bitching loudly, I went and checked the bedroom TV, which is not on a digital box. It was in English, so evidently it was something strange on the digital side. And again I have to say "CHARTER SUCKS!" But they really have no reason to improve their service, since I can't give my business to Time Warner in my monopolistic city, and I just haven't been sold enough to pull the trigger on satellite TV.

By the way, holy crap! Just when you think Lost was getting lax. I won't spoil it if you haven't seen it, but damn.

Ouch!

Holy goly gee wiz!

I just passed a kidney stone last night, and to say that it hurt was an understatement. One plus however was my first run-in with Morphine. That sure took the pain away in a hurry. Yowza!

All's well that comes out well though. Today I gave birth to a 2mm stone. I'm so proud.

Hillary Was Just Ahead of Her Time

It looks like Hillary wanted to be an olympian. But I think that they just didn't have the events at that time that she would have been able to excel at, but I got a feeling the Chinese still owe the Clintons a little "gold", and so, being able to select an event as the host nation, they have decided to go with "100M Dash Hip Deep in Shit."

TAX DAY

It's the best time of the year. That time of year when I can joyfully and officially turn over my hard earned money over to the government, who will then turn it over to all those at the trough vying for my dollars. Sarcasm... you gotta love it.

It is particularly sweet in the great tax hellhole of Wisconsin, where not only do we have the federal burden bear but also the ridiculously high state burden to bear as well. We have a high state income tax... we have extremely high property taxes... we have one of the highest gas taxes... we have a middle of the road sales tax 5% then tack on what the county gets 0.1%. That doesn't include how many of the communities are finding ways to eliminate services that were traditionally covered under property taxes, now they are fees, like garbage collection, snow removal, street lights and my own community recently tried to institute a road use fee to cover the cost of road construction in the city. Hhmmm... what do our property taxes actually cover? The ambulance? No... you get charged for that now... Police? As long as it's not a false alarm, for which they may charge you. Schools? Oh yeah, schools. They go towards those. You get used to the large sucking drain sound that is our money going towards the school system. 85% of our schools budgets go towards salaries and lavish benefits and pensions. 85%

So you don't think things are out of control. What percent of your income do you think overall is fair to pay for what you get in services from the state? How about the federal government? I am actually really interested in what people think is fair. Let me know. In Wisconsin, the average is now 12.1%. See the "Twelve Percent" notes for April 11, 2006 if the article has changed.

Here is another interesting related article from last fall.