Odds and Ends

Occasionally, my mind just sort of wanders. Sometimes, wandering isn't such a good thing!

Politics is on the agenda, of course. Its hard to tell what Obama is going to do and what he's not going to do, but the Democrat majority in Congress has already set its sights on a few things that have been out of reach until the most recent election, such as the "Fairness Doctrine," federal law that would supercede concealed carry laws in the states, tax increases, and nationalized health care, just to name a few.

For years, talk radio, which is primarily conservative, has been a giant burr in the Democrats saddle. Talkers like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and others, have given voice to the so-called silent majority and allowed them to bolster their opinions, few or none of which are available on the so-called "major" television networks. Since conservatives control the one outlet that the Democrats didn't want, they don't want the conservatives to have that voice, either! Look at the constant outrage over "fair and balanced" reporting on Fox, the network that now leads all others just because it leans conservative and mirrors the opinions shared by most Americans. In any case, Democrats are going to attempt, via the so-called "fairness doctrine," to silence talk radio!

Good luck with that, Democrats!

There is a reason those programs are so successful; people LISTEN to those shows and CALL those shows! Not only do they call and listen, they call and listen in record numbers! When Congress gets a load of the uproar that their attempted attack will generate, I have a feeling they'll decide to let that sleeping dog alone.

Then again, Democrats aren't too bright when it comes to this sort of thing, so they probably won't, much to their own detriment!

States passed concealed-carry laws as a hindrance to gun violence perpetrated by criminals, using the idea that law enforcement personnel cannot be everywhere and the possibility that there COULD be someone at the scene of a crime who's carrying a firearm other than the criminals may very well serve to give pause to those considering such crimes. I've not seen statistics to suggest that violent crime has been reduced in those states, but I haven't heard anything about gangs of gun-toting vigilantes taking the law into their own hands or violence randomly perpetrated by legally-carrying individuals, either. I know that liberals think that guns are responsible for death in this country, but those are the same people who'd like to deny that KNIFE violence in the UK is at epidemic proportions. Of course, carrying a gun in the UK is against the law, so, following the logic forwarded by the Dems, wouldn't it stand to reason that violent crime there would be practically nil? I hate to parrot worn sayings, but its not guns who kill people; its people who kill people and, quite frankly, someone who's bent on killing someone else will do so whether it be with a gun, a candlestick, a knife, a rope, or almost any other lethal object they can carry.

If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will carry guns!

Well, I've got bad news, Barack! I've got a constitutional right to own and BEAR a firearm. The only business in America that's really doing very well at all right now is the retail gun trade and YOU created that boom with your rhetoric, pandering to the left-wing of your party and their insatiable appetite for a communist state in America! Gun owners, and potential gun owners have RUN to gun stores to buy their weapons before you try to outlaw their sale!

Oh, and, by the way, (before a bunch of revisionists start trying to tell me that the 2nd Amendment only applies to the National Guard), I know that the first clause of the 2nd Amendment says "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state..."

Uhhhh....in the days when this country was founded (when the Constitution was written!) armed citizens WERE the militia! Therefore, in the context within which it was written, a militia WAS an armed citizenry!!! So I don't want to hear that the 2nd Amendment wasn't talking about an armed citizenry; that's EXACTLY what it was talking about!

Tax increases are coming, you may as well get used to it. I know Obama promised that taxes are only going up for people who make $250,000 or more, but, let's be serious. How many people MAKE that much money versus how much are all of his gigantic spending programs going to cost?

That's what I thought; it doesn't add up!

It doesn't really matter what Obama promised anyway! The Democrat-controlled Congress is going to forward their agenda and the far from mandate-earning Obama is going to go along to get along! He'll get his tax increases because his hero, Bill Clinton, got similar increases and managed to ride the good policy of his predecessors into prosperity. I really don't believe that America is ready for an all-out takeover of the health care system, though.

If he wanted to help health care along, he'd abolish Medicare and Medicaid and get the government out of the equation altogether so that the free market can operate on a level playing field again, but I know that'll never happen just like I know that if the government takes over the way he wants it to, Pandora will never get the lid back on THAT box again, either!

Think about the things that are screwed up right now and in nearly every case, government invention is the reason it's screwed up in the first place! Health care is messed up because the government sets pricing structure for a large percentage of the market, forcing health care providers to seek their profits from those of us who are NOT on Medicare or Medicaid. If they'd just get out altogether, providers would have to compete for business once again and that competition would lower the prices for everyone!

Supply and demand, baby! Supply and demand!

Banking is screwed up in part because of all the "fairness in lending" regulations imposed by the government! If banks could simply loan money to people who have the ability to pay them back, there probably wouldn't BE a banking crisis right now! But we live in a world today where the government is the jackboot that every citizen fears! If an accident happens at work, you have to worry about OSHA showing up and fining you! If you accidentally underpay your taxes, you can bet your last nickel that Uncle Sam will charge you more in penalties and interest than the original amount of the tax by the time you're finished! I could go on and on, but most everyone knows how screwed up the government is and most of us feel powerless to do anything about it other than electing a continual stream of clones to go to Washington telling us they'll do one thing when they go and then watching them get swallowed up by the tide of corruption and bad policy that Washington has become! I'm ready for a change all right, but more big government isn't the change I'm looking for, Barack!

Here's what I'd like to see; government run like a business! If someone isn't doing their job, fire them! If someone's job becomes antiquated, retrain them to do another one or lay them off if they can't be retrained! That's what happens every day in the real world! Why doesn't it apply to a government position? When revenues are down, companies pare back expenses, they don't increase their spending by a thousand times! Every agency in government needs to account for every nickel of tax money they get! If they're not spending it on a Congressionally authorized expenditure, it needs to be eliminated! I'm convinced that I'm paying plenty of taxes already. I'm convinced that most Americans are paying plenty of taxes already! I'm also convinced that the government is fat, and lazy, and spends WAY too much money and that it could and should get by on a lot less!

There; I'm done ranting! I hope Obama does effect change and I pray that it looks more like what I described and much MUCH less like what I think its going to look like!