A Little Bit of Everything

Politics

Let’s get the heavy stuff out of the way first.

President Obama with Bob & Jani Bergdahl

Very recently the United States negotiated the release of a captured US Soldier, Bowe Bergdahl, the only American POW in Afghanistan. Not all the information is yet available, so it’s not really a good idea to jump to any conclusions about this entire episode, but I feel compelled to at least share my reaction.

Bergdahl was a captive of the Taliban, though reports exist that he originally deserted his post and at one time sought to renounce his US citizenship. The latter is his right, I suppose, should he so desire. The former, however, is a very bad thing. Especially considering that several other soldiers lost their lives searching for Bergdahl. It’s all very tragic.

So the opportunity arose for a deal to free Bowe Bergdahl. A total of five inmates from the Guantanamo Bay facility were traded to the Taliban for Bergdahl’s freedom. Bergdahl’s father, Bob, and mother, Jani, were invited to a Rose Garden press conference. The elder Bergdahl, reports state, began studying radical Islamic philosophy in an effort to understand his son’s captors. He refused to shave or trim his beard in the years after Bowe’s capture. He is reported to have become more liberal in his politics, especially campaigning against the use of drones and the continued operation of Guantanamo Bay. Bob Bergdahl’s recent tweets include “Democracy is a cult in the West” and “I am still working to free all Guantanamo prisoners. God will repay for the death of every Afghan child, ameen!” (this last tweet was deleted).

Once President Obama introduced the Bergdahls, Bob Bergdahl (a native Idahoan) stepped up to the microphone and claimed that he was having a difficult time speaking English. The next words out of his mouth were “bism allah alrahman alraheem.” As far as I can work out, from what little research I can find through the magical power of Google, this phrase is recited at the beginning of each chapter of the Quran (except the ninth chapter) and is often translated as “in the name of god, the most gracious, the most merciful.”

Some talking heads are saying this amounts to an Islamic claim on the White House. I wouldn’t go that far at all, as it seems a bit over-reactive. That said, it doesn’t really sit right with me. Call it a gut instinct if you want to… Imagine the general reaction if an Iranian prisoner was released and the parents of that prisoner went before the Iranian Parliament and saying “We thank God the Father and His son Jesus Christ…” or if they said “Praise be to God, Shalom and Amen.” The reaction would likely be far different.

Again, I’m just sharing my initial reaction. I would really like to think the best of my fellow man, but the last few years have somewhat soured me on the ideal.

Senate Democrats and that Pesky Bill of Rights

Over forty Senate Democrats have joined forces in announcing a plan to craft an amendment that would limit the amount of money any single person, institution, or corporation can give to a political campaign. The problem is the language they are using is so broadly defined that it could eventually topple the First Amendment itself. The proposal is so vague that it could allow the federal government to actually ban all campaign spending period.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) spoke out in favor of this proposal, saying that this is an opportunity for both sides to “work together to change the system, to get this shady money out of our democracy and restore the basic principles of one American, on vote.” That’s all well and good, until one remembers that we are not, nor have we ever been, a “democracy.” For a long time, the word “democracy” was frowned upon, because then it was seen for what it really is: mob rule. A true democracy, if you’ll pardon the cliché, is two wolves and a sheep deciding what’s for dinner.

In true Harry Reid fashion, the Nevada Democrat pointed the finger of blame at the Koch Brothers. 

Personally, I’m taking this one with a grain of salt, as Reid also listed the Koch Brothers as a primary cause of climate change. I rarely agree with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), but he summed it up well in saying that Reid’s attack on the Koch Brothers was a diversion away from how truly awful this proposal is.

The wording of the proposal is deliberately vague, as all things political are in this day and age. The proposal would allow the federal government and the state governments to set limits on how much any one person or group could spend on a campaign. The press would not be restricted in any way by this bill. Of course, the press is largely liberal in their political leanings. It brings to question just who would qualify for exemption as a member of the press.

This proposal would give the government (read: federal) the power to tell an individual just how much they could spend on an issue they support. Now, I’m all for limiting campaign spending, as I hate the idea of a person spending millions of dollars for a job that will only pay them a few hundred thousand. But I don’t want the government telling me what I can and cannot spend. To me, that’s like telling someone they can support any issue they want, but they can only talk about it for five minutes. Once those five minutes are up, they can only support it at the ballot box. No more talking.

Chuck Schumer tells us how Thomas
Jefferson wrote the Bill of Rights.

And yes, I believe this would become a strictly federal power. The Constitution has this wonderful clause in it, called the Supremacy Clause, which allows federal law to outrank state law. I can see this topic being brought up on the grounds of the Supremacy Clause and the federal government being able to overrule a state mandate.

New York Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer weighed in, saying “I think if Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Bill of Rights, were looking down on what's being proposed here, he'd agree with it. He would agree that the First Amendment cannot be absolute.” Nice one, Chuck. Oh, one other thing…Jefferson didn’t write the Bill of Rights. James Madison did.

Formula 1 in Canada

Okay, so the heavy lifting is over. Let’s talk about something fun… This weekend Formula 1 rolls into Montreal for the Grand Prix of Canada at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. This in one of my absolute favorite tracks.

This is pretty much how the Canadian Grand Prix should end...

The Mercedes AMG Petronas factory team is simply dominant this year. No one can touch them. But Canada has a tendency to level the playing field. It’s one of the tightest circuits on the calendar, with little run-off area, meaning little room for error.

Red Bull Renault is in an interesting spot at this point in the season. Daniel Ricciardo, theoretically Driver #2 for the outfit, is basically out-performing his much more successful teammate, Sebastian Vettel, at every turn. But Red Bull is so far behind Mercedes that the RBR team is actually talking about billing Renault for damages. The 1.6-Liter turbocharged V6 engine that Renault manufactures for Red Bull has given the outfit problems, and because they are lagging so in their title defense, it could lead to “lost revenue.”

Anyway, here’s how I think Montreal plays out, in the form of a podium prediction:

First: Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes AMG Petronas
Second: Nico Rosberg – Mercedes AMG Petronas
Third: Daniel Ricciardo – Red Bull Renault

Senna: Revisited

**Author's Note: This week marks the 20th Anniversary of the death of Ayrton Senna at the San Marino Grand Prix. Given the importance of this event in the history of Formula 1, I felt it appropriate to revisit this blog post from 2012. I am linking to some videos of the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix race weekend. Please note that these videos are actual footage from the race and qualifying. They do portray the fatal impacts of two racing drivers.**

Recently, I went on Netflix and watched Senna, a film documenting the life and career, and ultimately, the death of, Three-Time World Driver's Champion Ayrton Senna. Before I go further, let me say that I've only watched Formula One since July of 2008. I've only known three different World Champions in my time. Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button, and Sebastian Vettel are the only drivers to win the title since then.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Ayrton Senna could be described as the standard bearer of racing drivers. He and Frenchman Alain Prost, the Professor, dueled each other from start to finish. It began in 1984, when Senna piloted a lesser-quality Toleman car through the ranks at rain-drenched Monaco, only to see Prost beg for the race to be stopped...and race directors under Jean-Marie Balestre agree.

Later in his career, Senna and Prost would team up, although their professional animosity would not subside. Over the course of his career, Senna would drive for Toleman-Hart, Lotus-Renault, McLaren-Honda, and finally Williams-Renault. He would win 41 races, place on 80 podiums, gain 65 pole positions, and earn the World Driver's Championship three times. To me, the highlight of his career might just be the 1991 Brazilian Grand Prix.

In March of 1991, the Brazilian Grand Prix was the second race of the season. Senna had already won the first race of the season, but Brazil saw his car turn against him. The gearbox began to fail, gear by gear, until, with only 10 laps to go, Senna was wrestling a car stuck in sixth gear. He won, but afterwards had to be bodily lifted from the car. He asked reporters and crew members alike not to touch him, as he was in such pain that it was unbearable to even be touched. That action, to me, showed me all I needed to know about Ayrton Senna.

Inevitably, though, the movie reached the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. As it did, I felt a lump harden in my stomach. I knew what happened at Imola that year. It was, undoubtedly, the darkest weekend in the storied history of Formula 1.

Rubens Barrichello would crash hard on Friday, ending his weekend. He was feeling good about his car, so he tried a particularly tricky section of track at a much higher rate of speed than his previous laps. The car ran up on the steep kerbing and took flight, slamming hard into the tyre barrier and very nearly ending not only his race weekend, but his life as well. Barrichello would go on to recover and raced in Formula 1 for nearly 20 more years. (Video Here)

On Saturday, Austrian driver Roland Ratzenberger was killed in the final round of qualifying. Ratzenberger was the definition of a rookie, with only a single grand prix start to his name prior to Imola. Ratzenberger's Simtek car hit the inside wall very hard. The injuries sustained by Ratzenberger eventually led to him being pronounced dead at the hospital. Ayrton Senna, watching the live feed from his pit box, was visibly shaken. (video Here)

On Sunday, the grand prix began under a somber note. JJ Lehto, himself just returning from injury, found himself in a car that would not move at the start. Pedro Lamy was unable to avoid him and speared hard into Lehto's Benetton. Debris exploded into the air, with some of it clearing the catch-fences and injuring several fans. The race ran under a Safety Car for a short time, but finally returned to green, only to see Senna's Williams spear off course at the Tamburello Corner. It was immediately evident that something was wrong. Once Senna's car came to rest, he moved his head only a little bit, and then went still. (Video Here)

As fire marshalls and then health officials came to his aid, the race was red flagged. A radio communication erroneously sent to Erik Comas's Larrousse car saw the driver leave the pits. He later admitted that the sight at Tamburello was one of the most disturbing things he'd ever seen.

Prof. Sid Watkins performed an emergency tracheotomy at the scene, but later said that, once Senna had been extricated from the car and placed on the ground, he sighed once. According to Watkins, who claims not to be religious, it was the moment his spirit departed.

Here in the United States, NASCAR was in full swing at the time of the San Marino Grand Prix. While the oval racers were at the largest track on the NASCAR calendar, Talladega, news broke of Senna's tragic death. Dale Earnhardt would win the race, and during his post race interview, he would make further mention of Senna, even though the vast majority of NASCAR fans have no interest in Formula 1. (Video Here)

There was some controversy after the grand prix. Williams would eventually face several legal charges, including manslaughter. Due to the statute of limitations under Italian law expiring, the accused at Williams faced no legal repercussions.

Senna was honored with a state funeral attended by much of the Formula One community, and even Alain Prost was a pall bearer and eventually became a board member at the Instituto Ayrton Senna, a charity Senna developed for Brazilian children. FIA President Max Moseley would forego Ayrton Senna's funeral and instead attend the funeral of Roland Ratzenberger, claiming that the eyes of the world would be on Senna's funeral, and that he did not want Ratzenberger forgotten.

But the movie...the movie sticks with you. For days, it sticks with you. And I didn't experience the events in real time. The analog in my life is the death of Dale Earnhardt.

In 2001, the NASCAR season kicked off with the Daytona 500. On the final lap, Earnhardt was running third and defending the rest of the pack to allow teammate Michael Waltrip to win the race. As they entered turn four, Earnhardt tangled with Sterling Marlin and went nose-first into the wall. A few hours after the race, NASCAR announced that Earnhardt had died as a result of the accident.

As a 19-year-old racing fan, it was a shock. I was no fan of Earnhardt. In fact, I couldn't stand him. But you still don't want anyone to get hurt, much less killed. I sat there on the edge of my bed that night, trying to figure out what NASCAR would be like without the "Intimidator." He was a 7-time NASCAR champion. He gained the "Intimidator" nickname because that's what he was...Intimidating.

After Senna's death, Formula One changed. There was initial overreaction, but it smoothed out to the point that there was still exciting racing. And better yet, Formula One has suffered no driver fatalities since. An impressive run of 20 years now. NASCAR, similarly, has not suffered a driver fatality at its highest levels since Earnhardt's accident.

Both series made massive safety changes to the cars. NASCAR took steps to make its tracks safer, installing SAFER barriers and requiring drivers to use Head-and-Neck Support (HANS) devices. Formula One increased driver safety in the cars and re-profiled several high speed corners to rein in the speed and power of the cars. The circuit at Imola was basically redesigned. While safety was the main reason, the track lost a lot of its personality in the redesign.

All of this changed racing forever. But Senna, the movie if not the man, has stuck with me. Senna was a devout believer in God. His religion came to gnaw at other drivers. Alain Prost basically accused Senna of thinking he was invincible just because he believed in God. Senna admitted that he wasn't invincible. In the movie, Senna's sister claimed that the morning of the San Marino Grand Prix, less than 24 hours after the death of Roland Ratzenberger, Ayrton awoke and took his Bible, and read a passage that he would "receive the greatest gift of all, which was God himself."

Prof. Sid Watkins tried to get Ayrton to quit after the Ratzenberger accident by saying "You know, Ayrton, you've been three-times World Champion, you're the fastest man in the world." and "Why don't you quit? And I'll quit. And we'll just go fishing." Senna responded "Sid, I can't quit."

On Ayrton Senna's tombstone is the quote "Nada pode me separar do amor de Deus."

Nothing can separate me from the Love of God.

The movie sticks with you. The man will stick with you even more.

"I can't quit." - Ayrton Senna

A Modest Proposal: Q&A Session

Basics of Guaranteed Basic Income

BD:         You say a single mother raising one child would receive $49200 annually. Seeing as the child is incapable of earning money in a market-based system ( as child labors laws have been rightfully enacted and most children lack the necessary skills to perform job-related tasks), then relating the money to the child is merely a means of twisting the monetary breakdown. The simple fact is the mother would essentially be receiving an effective salary of $23.65/hour. To call this a “Basic Income” is a tad misleading. I’ve been in the technical writing field for roughly ten years and I don’t even make that much. Even then, I was able to buy a house, buy a car, I keep my house stocked with food, I have luxuries like cable, internet, NetFlix, a computer, a video game system, and more, and I still have some left over. And that’s with 10 years experience in the field.

RG:         This is a straw man argument.  "A child is incapable of earning money" is not a completely true statement.  A 15-year-old can get a job and work and earn some amount of income and is still considered a "child".  Additionally, this amount of money is based on an inflationary model being applied to research that was conducted in 1969 and is being used as a baseline example.  The "real" amount would need to be calculated.  And yes, while this amount of money would allow you, a single male living in the northeast GA suburbs outside of the metro area, to live pretty comfortably, someone living inside the city or in another area of the country may not live as comfortably.

BD:         True, and it brings up the discussion about when is a child no longer a child. In some cases  15-to-18-yr-olds are tried as adults in violent crimes. In some insurance situations, people as old as their early-20s can be counted as children for the sake of parental insurance. Based off my reading of your article, I was assuming a child to be under the age of 12 or 13, as it was written that the single mother was “raising” one child. We could probably discuss/debate at what point the “raising” of a child actually stops, but pretty much every region/culture/society will have differing opinions on that. The next issue would be “living comfortably.” As I said, the cost of living is so different region to region that determining a level of comfortable living becomes difficult. Also, I can guarantee you that one of the conservative/libertarian arguments to this plan would question why it is the role of government to provide a comfortable living for anyone? (Just saying).

RG:         It shouldn't be viewed as the government is providing a comfortable living to anyone, because that is not really what is happening. What the government is providing is a basic level of economic freedom and mobility. Providing just enough to meet the most basic of human needs grants every citizen, rich or poor, the freedom to pursue their dreams/goals without having to really worry about where the next meal is coming from.  It also, for the poor who are currently on welfare, frees the poor to make their own decisions regarding how they spend their money.  This is also why I require a basic personal finance course, so that everyone is exposed to the concept of personal finance management. If everyone is receiving ~$1200 every 2 weeks from the government, they are able to provide their basic necessities and maybe have a little extra (some will have more, some less depending on where they live, but again, people now how the freedom to move from higher cost of living areas to lower cost of living if they want, even if jobs aren't immediately available.).  Again, this entire system is 100% about returning power to the worker and the citizen, and wresting it from the corporations and politicians.  When people have a level of basic economic freedom, they are not able to be controlled so easily. Businesses with poor working conditions, poor pay, etc will see their workers up and leave in search of better opportunities because those workers are no longer slaves to the low wages because they feel they have no real alternative.

BD:         While I like the idea of requiring a personal finance course, I wonder how effective it would actually be. The basics of economic responsibility are taught throughout school if one is so inclined to learn them. A focused course would provide greater clarity. But certain people are already apprehensive about greater individual responsibility. Some people, no matter how many “life lessons” they experience, simply refuse to learn. I used to work with a guy whose wages were being garnished by the state, and he was married with two kids, yet he still found money to buy cigarettes, beer, and lottery tickets. Like I said, some people just refuse to acknowledge the need for personal responsibility.

NATIONAL GBI

BD:         Establishing a national GBI is difficult, because the basic cost of living in North Georgia is different from the cost of living in metro Boston is different from the cost of living in Billings, Montana. There would still be a necessarily high level of governmental oversight to maintain the requisite distinctions among the regions to properly fund and pay out such a system.

RG:         Yes and no.  It would require some up front research in order to determine the average costs of living in various parts of the country, but, in the end, every person would receive the exact same amount of GBI. That amount would be a national average cost of living. So, no matter where you live, you get the same GBI as everyone else.  This accomplishes a few things: First, it cuts down on complexity and the necessity of extensive oversight. It also grants every citizen some amount of basic financial freedom and mobility. If a person is not happy with the cost of living in a state or area, they have the freedom to pick up and move somewhere else. If someone is not happy with the policies that are being implemented in their state or area, they can move and not have to worry about immediately needing a job.  This should result in politicians and businesses needing to change their practices in order to attract citizens/workers to their towns and businesses.

BD:         So everyone would receive the same GBI? If that’s so, then (to maintain our previous comparison) a person living in north GA would have greater financial freedom than a person living in Boston, if both receive the same amount of GBI. Just something to consider, since issues like this often bring up side-discussions of equality and fairness.

RG:         Exactly, and that's the point. It forces cities, businesses, states, districts, etc. to actually have to compete for people.  If cities want more workers, they will have to enact policies that attract those people, such as lowering the cost of living there, providing better education opportunities, providing better working opportunities, etc.  Now that every adult citizen has some level of basic economic freedom/mobility, they will be able to move to states/cities that take better care of them.  They aren't stuck somewhere because they have no savings and can't earn enough to save in their current job.  Again, this provides freedom to the worker, freedom to the citizen, to really make of themselves what they want, where they want.

BD:         Yeah, but the reason cost of living is higher in Boston than in north GA is simple: environment. It costs more to heat a house for longer periods of time during the year in Boston. Because of the more extreme temperatures of the area, infrastructure upkeep also costs more than north GA. Unfortunately, that’s not something that cities/states can control. Also, anywhere you have more people you will likewise have greater demand for necessities like food. Boston is much more densely populated than north GA, so demand is bound to be higher. Also, a sizeable portion of the population in the Boston area would be unable to grow their own food. That’s not really a problem in north GA. Given that more people are demanding certain products, the prices for those products will undoubtedly rise. Again, not something city/state can control without intruding into the business practices of individual merchants or corporations. Just things to consider.

LIBERALS & WAGES

BD:         Your paragraph about liberal views on the GBI is kind of unsettling. Do liberals really want the wages of high-skilled workers to decline so that the wages of unskilled or semi-skilled workers can rise? That’s not right. The reason high-skill workers have higher wages is because they’ve invested time and effort into honing their skills. Why should an unskilled worker’s wages go up? Doesn’t the fact that they are unskilled mean they shouldn’t be paid the same as a skilled counterpart? If you were to join the satellite communications industry with no prior knowledge, do you really believe you should be paid similarly to me, seeing as I’ve been in the field for over 5 years?

RG:         No, that is not the intent. It's not that liberals want high skill pay to decrease. Liberals want more people to be able to get into these fields. The reason high skill wages are so high is because there is not a saturation of workers to fill those positions.  As people who are stuck in a low skill, low pay job gain the ability to leave that job and pursue higher education, the amount of high skill labor should increase because people are actually able to go to school and get the training they need. With a higher % of the population becoming able to fill these positions, the demand will go down and the average salaries should decrease a little. This is a net positive for society though because our labor force is not keeping up with technology and if we don't do something soon, unemployment rates are going to continue to rise regardless of what ideological policies you put in place simply because technology is going to replace more and more low skill/no skill jobs and those people are not going to have the training to take on higher skill jobs.

BD:         I can see the value in this, but I think it also requires a refocus of our economy. We became a nation of mostly financial services a while back, and we stopped being the productive nation we once were. If we can recover some of that productivity then I believe that will be an asset just as valuable as your stated intent.

GOVERNMENTS & TAXATION

BD:         You state that government involvement is lessened by this plan, yet at the same time your stated means of paying for it require greater government involvement in financial/economic matters. Giving government greater rein on levying taxes opens an ugly door…just like the rhetorical nonsense we saw with the ACA, where we were told it was not a tax, but the Supreme Court ratified it under Congress’s ability to levy and collect taxes. The possibility for corruption in the taxation process is scary. The tax code as a whole requires simplification and streamlining. The Carbon Tax, and similar taxes, give me cause to be wary. There was a fear during the establishment of the ACA that people would be taxed for the groceries they buy, if they did not purchase healthy-enough options. Any kind of taxation that is so closely tied to personal habits is just worrisome to me.

RG:         I don't see this as expanding government.  This would close tax loophole and simplify the tax code so that everyone is paying a flat standard tax on all non-GBI (including job income, capital gains, etc). There are some models of this system that even propose a complete elimination of income tax and instead taxing High Frequency Microtransactions that are conducted by wall street trading bots at a fraction of a penny per transaction. Sure, government can levy other taxes to help fund programs, but that's nothing that they can't do now. The carbon tax was just an example of a way to provide additional funding.

BD:         I’ve long been in favor of eliminating income tax and developing some system of consumption taxation ( basically some form of Fair Tax). The trick to arguments like this, as with a statement I made above, is that both sides of the spectrum have championed key words/phrases/terms, but they’ve wrapped them inside these really nebulous definitions. “Fairness” is one such term, as many talking heads stress a system that is more fair, but they never define what “fair” means. “Tax loopholes” as you said, is another. It forces us to delve into the realm of “which loopholes in particular do we go after.” That’s why I favor a system of complete simplification and streamlining of the tax code.

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

BD:         If we’re really concerned with environmental issues, there are other steps we can take that don’t require government taking even more money from the people. Mandate that every building in a city have a garden of some kind on the roof. This produces oxygen and recycles carbon dioxide. It can also be used to provide food stuffs to various charitable institutions. Mandate that parking lots/decks have solar panels on site. Work harder on limiting deforestation in the name of “progress.” Much of this can be done without greedy politicians reaching into their constituency’s pockets.

RG:         This is not really at all concerned with environmental issues and is in no way a point that I was trying to make in the article. This article is purely on providing a basic level understanding about what a GBI is, how it can be implemented, what benefits it provides, and how it would be paid for. That's it. Nothing more. I guess I shouldn't have mentioned the carbon tax thing at all because it seems to have completely detracted you from the true goal of the paper.

BD:         I wrote this as just an addendum and not really relating to the paper. My fault for not really clarifying that. I meant this more as a general statement on environmental issues, and not as a statement on your article.

How did it come to this?

To set the mood for this entry, please listen to this song while reading:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkT2wW3-1jQ

Now, I look around and wonder how it ever got this bad. I mean, there's thousands upon thousands of gallons of crude oil spilling into the gulf everyday, and the President is off raising money for a senator that will in all likelihood be voted out. He even planned to go back to Chicago instead of figure out, or at least give the appearance of trying to figure out, what to do in light of this crisis.

Then, this arrogant narcissist of a president has the gall to say that he takes full responsibility for the clean up. Sure, after Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal begged for federal permit to dredge up barrier islands to protect the marshes, permit he was denied, now that BP has pushed through the "top kill" method (that may or may not be working), Obama swoops in to claim responsibility. He even plays the sympathy card, saying that his daughter asked him if he had plugged the hole yet. As if Lord Almighty Barack* was going to walk on water to the site of the spill, dive down and plug the hole with his own will.

Nice move, though, Barry. Way to capitalize on the situation.

Meanwhile, the world sits on a razor's edge while Europe screws around economically, threatening to push us all back into the dark ages. I read the other day that one false move in Europe could send the world into an unrecoverable economic spiral. I don't know about you, but I'm sick and tired of having Europe dictate my future.

Heck, I'm sick and tired of out-of-touch politicians in Washington dictating my future. You want to know why so many incumbents are going to lose in November? Because Obama, Reid, and Pelosi has pushed as hard as they can to turn a right-of-center nation into a Euro-socialist paradise where the private sector offers little in terms of compensation and the government hands out everything.

The government has crammed unpopular bill after despised bill down the throats of the American people, and when we rise up and say that we don't like it, they call us seditious. Well guess what, we freakin' elected you. You answer to us, not the other way around. You don't like, well, no one made you run for office in the first place. You can't take the heat, then get out of our kitchen.

The backlash is coming. So go ahead, keep calling the tea partiers a bunch of racists. Keep calling anyone who disagrees with Obama seditious. Deval Patrick, a few days ago, said that the opposition to Obama was borderline seditious. Woody Allen said that Obama should be made dictator so that he can accomplish "more good" faster. Allen also said that he wished the Republicans would just get out of the way and stop trying to hurt (poor, little, sensitive) Barack**. (I added the poor little sensitive line. I'm tired of people telling me that the Republicans are hurting Barack. ***)

By the way, where in the crap was this "sedition" talk for the eight years of ridicule and anger directed at George W. Bush? Oh, I guess it was okay because he wasn't a caring, beneficent, sort-of-a-god like Obama.

Keep trying to pitch socialism to a capitalist nation. I don't condone violent revolt, but the similarities between what the Obama Administration is currently doing, and what the government of King George III in the late 1700s did astounds me.

Keep oppressing the opposition and see what happens.

Don't tread on me.

*I feel better in knowing that the text spelling out Barack's name on my computer here said the name was misspelled. One of the suggestions for the correct spelling: Barabbas.

For those of you not in the know, Barabbas was the prisoner (read: actually guilty) that was pardoned so that Christ could be crucified.

** Heh, there it is again.

***Third time's a charm!