The Progressive Manual for the Masses

If message in the above picture is not clear to you then let me spell it  in simple language:

In society there are two types of classes: Cattle and Ranchers. Ranchers are not shown in the picture above.

You are Cattle. Which means you are dumb, instinctive, emotional and have very little control of your life.

The elite Progressives are not Cattle. We are Ranchers. We are smart and have total control of our lives. Ranchers are the politicians, newspaper publishers, TV anchormen, college professors, union leaders and lawyers.

Ranchers have all the rights. Any rights Cattle have are at the whims of the Ranchers. After all you are property.

The fence in the picture is there for your own good. The width of the fence is at our discretion.

Do not worry about any needs you have. We, the Ranchers, will take care of them.

All Cattle are the same. Don’t think you are different.

Here are the rules that Cattle must follow at all times:

1. Always follow the orders of your Rancher without question. If you are confused about any order please let your Rancher know. It is his responsibility to make sure you understand his message or order.
2. Don’t cause trouble. This will make your fellow Cattle upset.
3. You cannot assemble into herds by yourself unless you have permission from a Rancher.
4. Weapons are not allowed. Cattle owning weapons is dangerous to themselves and to Ranchers. Only Ranchers can own weapons.
5. You will always be Cattle. Never think you are a Rancher.
6. Religion is not allowed. This will only confuse you and make you rebellious.
7. The above rules must never be questioned. They are there for your own good. Any rule breaking is punishable.

(This analogy is not meant to be an insult to real Ranchers. I am just trying to make a point.

Of course, the elite Left does not think people are real cattle. The Left just perceive them to be and wish they were cattle. That way people are easily managed or easily controlled.

Interestingly enough, there were schools of thought in psychology that thought people did not have very much free will. One was Freudism and the other was Behavorism. Freudism though people were controlled by instincts. Behaviorism thought people were conditioned by the environment. Basically people were programmed like robots was the prevailing “wisdom” of the day.)

Socialism 101 Part 2

It follows directly from socialism’s fundamental moral and political premise, which is that the individual does not exist as an end in himself, but as a means to the ends of “Society.”

Private slave owners were motivated to treat their slaves with at least the same consideration they gave to their livestock, and to see to it that their overseers acted with the same consideration. But under socialism, the slaves are “public property”—the property of the state. Those who have charge of the slaves, therefore, have no personal economic interest in their lives or well-being. Since they are not owners of the slaves, they will not derive any personal material benefit if the slaves are alive to work in the future, nor suffer any personal material loss if the slaves are not alive to work in the future.

The fact that [an] enterprise is government owned merely means that it is operated without benefit of profit-and-loss incentives and the freedoms of individual initiative and competition. The result is almost always gross inefficiency, high costs, poor service, and low quality of products.

Government ownership does not give the alleged citizen-owner the psychological security that the possession of capital gives to a capitalist. Because, unlike the capitalist, he cannot sell his share in a government enterprise. Nor—except in the most unusual cases—does he receive dividends on his share.

Six Powers of the Secretary of HHS under Obamacare

The following powers of the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) are from the Center for Health Transformation:

1. The Secretary will decide what clinical drugs seniors can access. (Section 3307)
2. The Secretary will instruct physicians and nurses exactly how to give a drug to their patients in long-term care facilities. (Section 3310)
3. The Secretary will determine how dentists and dental hygienists should examine your teeth. (Section 4102)
4. The Secretary can overrule states on what insurance rates can be whether they like it or not. (Section 2101)
5. The Secretary can use comparative effectiveness research to determine access to care for seniors, like they do for patients in the British National Health Service. (Section 3102)
6. The Secretary can set standard hospital charges that hospitals have to follow.

If go the the CHT website they have a chart that lists 1,968 grants and powers of Obamacare. That’s quite a few.

The Republicans should focus on the unconstitutionality of Obamacare. The gov’t does not have the right to force any citizen to buy health insurance. That would be like them forcing a person to buy low-fat ice cream. Force the advocates of Obamacare to defend the position that they can force you to buy health insurance.

I am not saying the other issues of Obamacare are not important. Increasing unemployment and increasing the debt are important. But  Obamacare is against what  America fundamentally stands for---freedom. The Senate should vote up or down on whether the Washington has the right to force citizens to buy insurance.

Climate change study had 'significant error': experts

From news.yahoo.com (Jan. 19):

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A climate change study that projected a 2.4 degree Celsius increase in temperature and massive worldwide food shortages in the next decade was seriously flawed, scientists said Wednesday.

The study was posted on the website of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was written about by numerous international news agencies, including AFP.

But AAAS later retracted the study as experts cited numerous errors in its approach. [read more]

The whole climate change theory is flawed in my opinion.

A scientific advisor to the report said: “We are headed to 2.4, it is just not going to happen in 2020." Try never going to happen period.

Comprehensive List of Tax Hikes in Obamacare

The following list of tax hikes comes from the Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) website:

• Individual Mandate Excise Tax
• Employer Mandate Tax
• Surtax on Investment Income
• Excise Tax on Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans
• Hike in Medicare Payroll Tax
• Medicine Cabinet Tax
• HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike
• Flexible Spending Account Cap – aka “Special Needs Kids Tax”
• Tax on Medical Device Manufacturers
• Raise "Haircut" for Medical Itemized Deduction from 7.5% to 10% of AGI
• Tax on Indoor Tanning Services
• Elimination of tax deduction for employer-provided retirement Rx drug coverage in coordination with Medicare Part D
• Blue Cross/Blue Shield Tax Hike
• Excise Tax on Charitable Hospitals
• Tax on Innovator Drug Companies
• Tax on Health Insurers
• $500,000 Annual Executive Compensation Limit for Health Insurance Executives
• Employer Reporting of Insurance on W-2
• Corporate 1099-MISC Information Reporting
• “Black liquor” tax hike. This is a tax increase on a type of bio-fuel.
• Codification of the “economic substance doctrine”

Wow, that’s a lot of tax increases! As Will Rogers might have said, The Left never met a tax increase they did not like. Man I hope Obamacare gets repealed. You can read more info about the tax increases at the ATR web page.

City puts a stop to homeless outreach

From chron.com (Jan. 13):

Bobby and Amanda Herring spent more than a year providing food to homeless people in downtown Houston every day. They fed them, left behind no trash and doled out warm meals peacefully without a single crime being committed, Bobby Herring said.

That ended two weeks ago when the city shut down their "Feed a Friend" effort for lack of a permit. And city officials say the couple most likely will not be able to obtain one.

Anyone serving food for public consumption, whether for the homeless or for sale, must have a permit, said Kathy Barton, a spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services Department. To get that permit, the food must be prepared in a certified kitchen with a certified food manager.

The regulations are all the more essential in the case of the homeless, Barton said, because "poor people are the most vulnerable to food borne illness and also are the least likely to have access to health care." [read more]

They were shut down because they did not have a “certified” kitchen with a “certified” food manager? I think the the city managers are certified nuts. Then again that’s bureaucracy for you. Just wait, someone will be fined for giving a sandwich to a homeless person. After all the sandwich might not be made in a certified kitchen. Who knows.

The HHS department said they made this regulation to protect the homeless from food poison. I would think not starving to death would be more important to the homeless than getting sick. True, getting sick would be bad, but not as bad as starving to death. Couldn’t HHS just fined the outreach program instead of just shutting them down? Seems kind of harsh.

I wonder if the HHS would shut down homeless shelters if they weren’t “certified.” Probably. They would say the shelters did not keep the homeless warm or cool enough depending on the season. Didn’t have a certified temperature manager.

So, some police officers asked the outreach program to move to a location on city park land. Guess what happened next? If you said they weren’t allowed there either you would be correct.  They didn’t have permits (one from the parks department and one from health department) to move there! Sounds like a badly written comedy skit save for the fact it actually happened.

OPEC ministers say world can handle $100 oil

From MSNBC.com (Dec. 26):

CAIRO — The global economy can withstand an oil price of $100 a barrel, Kuwait's oil minister said on Saturday, as other exporters indicated OPEC may decide against increasing output through 2011 as the market was well supplied.

Arab oil exporters meeting in Cairo this weekend said they saw no need to supply more crude as stocks were high and prices had been inflated temporarily by cold weather in Europe.

Asked by Reuters if the world economy could stand a $100 oil price, Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmad al-Abdullah al-Sabah said: "Yes it can." [read more]

America really needs to start drilling for oil again so we don’t have to rely on OPEC so much. And the POTUS putting a moratorium on off-shore drilling is just plain stupid. It wasn’t an American drilling rig that spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

We can all use sources of energy to be energy independent but oil is the blood of the economy. Almost every product uses it. Corn-based ethanol isn’t the answer either.

Oh, by the way, didn’t America save Kuwait’s butt in the Gulf War? You would think they would give countries that helped them out a break. I guess not.

Retracted autism study an 'elaborate fraud,' British journal finds

From CNN.com (Jan. 6):

A now-retracted British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines was an "elaborate fraud" that has done long-lasting damage to public health, a leading medical publication reported Wednesday.

An investigation published by the British medical journal BMJ concludes the study's author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study -- and that there was "no doubt" Wakefield was responsible.

"It's one thing to have a bad study, a study full of error, and for the authors then to admit that they made errors," Fiona Godlee, BMJ's editor-in-chief, told CNN. "But in this case, we have a very different picture of what seems to be a deliberate attempt to create an impression that there was a link by falsifying the data." [read more]

It’s one thing if scientists make human errors when doing a study, but it’s a completely different matter when they deliberately falsify data. Governmental policies are made from scientific studies. Bad studies lead to bad policies. Politicians and the public who are not an expert in the field of a specific science trust the study. 

Once upon a time science was about finding the truth. Early scientists wanted to know the mind of God when they were searching for the truth. Now it seems sadly that modern scientists are about politics,  money and/or status (read: to get published in a major science journal). Truth is not a priority anymore. I really hope that trend doesn’t continue or science will get a bad reputation and no-one will trust it anymore.

Russia Wants "Impenetrable" Missile Shield by 2020, General Says

From NTI.org (Jan. 6):

Russian General Staff chief Gen. Nikolai Makarov said the nation's armed forces intend by 2020 to field an "impenetrable" missile defense system, the Washington Times reported today (see GSN, Dec. 8, 2010). [read more]

Now isn’t that interesting! Russia did not want America to have a missile shield in central Europe but they want one themselves.

Look I don’t blame any country for protecting themselves. That’s fine. What I do mind is any country telling America we can’t have one.  Then to have our naive leaders believing  that not having any kind of protection will make America and the world safe. That’s not just plain nuts. It’s dangerous too.

Concern over proposed Greek border fence

From CNN.com (Jan. 4):

Athens, Greece (CNN) -- Greece's decision to build a 12-kilometer (7.5-mile) fence along its border with Turkey in a bid to curb illegal immigration has caused mixed reactions, with humanitarian agencies saying the fence could prevent asylum seekers from reaching safety.

Greek Public Order Minister Christos Papoutsis announced the decision, saying "action is necessary" because more than 100,000 people have entered Greece illegally in the past year, and the country "can no longer tolerate such high numbers."

The European Union border control agency Frontex has said that in October 2010, an average of 245 people per day crossed into Greece illegally, mostly from the overland crossing with Turkey in northeastern Greece. That's where the proposed fence is to be built. [read more]

What? Greece doesn’t believe in open borders? Someone alert George Soros. The Communists in Greece are upset about the fence. Well, they are upset because if countries put up fences then that kind of ruins the New World Order plan.

As a side note Turkey’s population is 99% Muslim while Greece’s population is 98% Christian (Greek Orthodox).  If I was a Leftist I would think that Greece had Islamophobia and that’s why they are building the fence.

Then again Greece’s “freedom” ranking is much higher than Turkey’s freedom ranking.  Could that explain the mass migration to Greece? Just a thought.

Socialism 101

The following excerpts comes from the ebook Capitalism: A Treaty on Economics by George Reisman. Keep the excerpts in mind when thinking about Obamacare:

Capitalism has planning—the planning of each and every person who participates in the economic system.

The most fundamental fact about socialism is that government ownership of the means of production constitutes an attempt to make intelligence and initiative in production a monopoly of the state.

Socialism simply prohibits all of the independent planning of millions of free, self-interested individuals that is required to run an economic system in a rational and ordered way.

It follows from the powerlessness of the plain citizens that the government of a socialist country is not and has no reason to be interested in anyone’s values but those of its rulers.

Under socialism, economic development is possible only under the kind of tyranny and mass murder practiced by Stalin.

Now the way socialism is to achieve a price system is by dividing the socialist economy up into separate sections or firms. Each will be assigned a balance at the government’s central bank. The government will set prices for all goods and services. At least on paper, these firms will then buy from and sell to each other; they will also sell to consumers and pay wages. They will pay interest on capital to the government’s central bank and even to other enterprises, and they will record profits and losses.

Self-interest, operating under the freedom of competition, is the driving force of price determination under capitalism. Government control of prices thwarts this driving force.

“Market socialism” wants the socialist government to place capital in the hands of firms and individuals who will have absolutely no incentives of ownership, and then to give them discretion as to its investment. It wants the government to delegate its responsibility for investment to them, by giving them capital and then telling them to go and make believe they are capitalists.

In sum, the essential facts are these. Socialism must commence with an enormous act of theft. Those who seriously want to steal must be prepared to kill those whom they plan to rob. In effect, the Social Democrats are mere con men and pickpockets, who engage in empty talk about pulling the “big job”—socialism— someday, and who flee before the first sign of resistance by their intended victims.

If socialism is not to be achieved by open force, the only other way it can be achieved is behind people’s backs—i.e., by fraud—which is the method of price and wage controls. This was the route chosen by the Nazis.

Since a socialist economic system functions in a state of continuous chaos and chronic crisis, it is very easy for any given official to be singled out and blamed for some disaster caused by socialism’s anarchy of production.

Cops: Man playing real-life 'Frogger' hit by SUV

From Associated Press (Dec. 30, 2010):

CLEMSON, S.C. (AP) — A man has been hospitalized after police in South Carolina say he was hit by an SUV while playing a real-life version of the video game "Frogger."

Authorities said the 23-year-old man was taken to a hospital in Anderson after he was struck at around 9 p.m. Monday.

In the "Frogger" arcade game, players move frogs through traffic on a busy road and through a hazard-filled river. Before he was hit, police say the man had been discussing the game with his friends. [read more]

Well, that’s a smart idea. Not! Excuse me I must have left my brains at home.

A 23-year old discussing a game invented in 1981? The game is older that he is! I remember the game when it came out (yes, I am dating myself). I guess game manufactures are bringing back the classics for the younger generation. Plus you can play Frogger online.

I am glad this idiot err I mean this man is okay—well he is in stable condition anyway. The accident could have been much much worse.

Earth project aims to 'simulate everything'

From BBC.News.uk (Dec. 27, 2010):

An international group of scientists are aiming to create a simulator that can replicate everything happening on Earth - from global weather patterns and the spread of diseases to international financial transactions or congestion on Milton Keynes' roads.

Nicknamed the Living Earth Simulator (LES), the project aims to advance the scientific understanding of what is taking place on the planet, encapsulating the human actions that shape societies and the environmental forces that define the physical world. [read more]

Interesting. But I get nervous when George Soros likes this project. Soros comments:

"The team of scientists that Dr. Helbing has gathered together can, I believe, make a significant contribution to the understanding of the evolution and change in societies as they meet the formidable issues of governance, climate change, sustainable economic balance that we are all faced with in the coming decades."

The UN (or any socialistic leaders) could use this modeling to make economic or political policy. They could justify almost any policy using this project as a defense. Is this LES a precursor to the New World Order?

If this simulator says socialism is a good idea then you know the data going into it is bogus.