A Peek Inside the IRS and Other Tax Stuff

The Four Protocols:

1. Find where they [the taxpayers] are.
2. Track what they do.
3. Learn what they have.
4. Execute what they fear.

The three Cs in ‘collection’:

• Cause- What did the TP [taxpayer] do—or not do—to fall behind or not file?
• Cure- What can the TP do—or not do—to bring the taxpayer back into compliance?
• Compliance- Is the TP current? If it’s a business, are the owners current? Is every entity they have an interest in current? Check everything, across the board.

Nine simple rules for not getting yourself killed [by a TP]:

1. Treat all taxpayers fairly and courteous.
2. Do not personalize collection efforts.
3. Listen carefully.
4. Do not threaten, scold, or patronize.
5. Recognize your own attitudes and eliminate those that are counterproductive.
6. Treat taxpayers as you would want to be treated.
7. Know where the exits are.
8. Avoid getting trapped.
9. Use force only sufficient to disengage.

Source: Confessions of a Tax Collector. One Man’s Tour of Duty Inside the IRS (2004) by Richard Yancey.

Taxpayer Bill of Rights:

1. The Right to Be Informed.
2. The Right to Quality Service.
3. The Right to Pay No More than the Correct Amount of Tax.
4. The Right to Challenge the IRS’s Position and Be Heard.
5. The Right to Appeal an IRS Decision in an Independent Forum
6. The Right to Finality.
7. The Right to Privacy.
8. The Right to Confidentiality.
9. The Right to Retain Representation.
10. The Right to a Fair and Just Tax System.

No taxation without respiration. –  Senator George Allen

Consider this, for starters. Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, which has defined the character of the nation, is all of 268 words. The Declaration of Independence runs about 1,300 words. The Constitution, which has served us for more than two centuries, comes to some 5,000 words. The Holy Bible has 773,000 words. The federal income tax code and all of its attendant rules and regulations: 9 million words and rising.  -- Steve Forbes

Taxation with representation ain't so hot either. - Gerald Barzan

Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery. – Calvin Coolidge

The people suffer from famine because of the multitude of taxes consumed by their superiors. It is through this that they suffer famine. - Lao-Tzu

Capital punishment is when Washington comes up with a new tax. - Van Panopoulos

Here’s a summary of the history of the tax rate:

• 1862-1863: The start of the national income tax. Two tier system. Upper tax rate 5%.
• 1864-1866: Three tier system. Upper tax rate 10%.  Tax rate still not too bad.
• 1867-1869: One tier system. Upper tax rate 5%. By one tier I mean if the income is over a certain amount the taxpayer pays a certain rate. Otherwise the taxpayer pays nothing.  Even better yet.
• 1870-1872: One tier system. Upper tax rate 2.5%. Nice.
• 1873-1893, 1895-1912. No national income tax. This is called the good old days. How did America ever survive? You mean the world for the average American didn’t stop?
• 1894: One tier system. Upper tax rate: 2%.
• 1913-1915: Seven tier system! Upper tax rate: 7%.
• 1916: 14 tier system!! WTF? Upper tax rate: 15%.
• 1917: 21 tier system!!! Upper tax rate: 67%!
• 1918-1921: 56 tier system!!!!  Upper tax rates: 77% and73%

I would go on but you get the idea. The tier system went somewhat down then in 1932 it went to 55. The highest tax rate overall was 94% in 1944. It wasn’t until 1987 the tier system went back to a smaller five tier system with the upper tax rate at 38.5%. The next year the the tax code was a two tier system with upper tax rate set at 28%. The two tier system only lasted until 1991. The upper tax rate went up too. Everyone paid the same rates regardless of marriage status until 1949 where single and head of household paid the same rates as married filing separately. Married filling jointly incomes was split to compare against the brackets. In 1971, every marriage status had different brackets.

It’s interesting to note that througout America’s tax code history there never has been one single flat rate for everyone regardless of income. Probably because if everyone pays the same rate it would be harder for Washington to raise the rate too high otherwise the poor would feel the effect.

I believe the reason the progressive tax system got created is because the progressives believed the more you earn, the more you should be taxed. In other words, they think they were following a law of economics that says “if a seller thinks a buyer has a lot of money to spend then he will raise the price of his product or service.” This is an actual economic law. The problem is when you apply this law to taxing someone they don’t have a choice. They have to pay the tax rate. Or got to jail. Unlike the free-market system where the buyer can choose to pay the price or go on to another seller. But the progs don’t care. They think the rich has an endless supply of money or they hoard all the money.

Glenn Beck series “History of Taxation”:

• Taxes Part I: How Income Tax Began
• Taxes Part II: What Is a ‘Fair’ Income Tax Rate?
• Taxes Part III: The Reagan Years
• Taxes Part IV: The 2016 Candidates

A Tax on Income Attacks Life Itself

9 Charts You Need to See for Tax Day

Some news:

Daily Signal.com (Mar. 18): H&R block Wants to Make It Harder for You to File Taxes. Can you say chrony capitalist?

Five Indispensible Principles of Market Freedom

FEE.org article by Jeffrey Tucker:

Some people like to distinguish between capitalism and crony capitalism. For example, many American retailers these days are hoping for an increase in tariffs and import quotas in a way that will protect their products against foreign competition. That is, they want to use government power to guarantee their profits. It seems to me that this is better described as pure cronyism. Leave the capitalism part out of it.

If a term elucidates an idea with accuracy, great. If it causes confusion, change it. Language is constantly evolving. No particular arrangement of letters embeds an immutable meaning. And what is at stake in this debate about market freedom (or capitalism or laissez faire or the free market) is of profound importance. 

It’s the substance, not the words, we should care about.

Here are five core elements to this idea of market freedom, or whatever you want to call it. It is my short summary of the classical liberal vision of the free society and its functioning, which isn’t just about economics, but the whole of life itself. Call it capitalism if you want to.

I. Volition. Markets are about human choice at every level of society. These choices extend to every sector and every individual. You can choose your work. No one can force you into labor. At the same time, you can’t impose yourself on any employer. No one can force you to buy anything, but neither can you force someone to sell to you. Choice means agreement between all those parties to the exchange.

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II. Ownership. In a world of infinite abundance, there would be no need for ownership. But as long as we live in the material world, there will be potential conflicts over scarce resources. These conflicts can be resolved through fighting over things or through the recognition of property rights. If we prefer peace over war, volition over violence, productivity over poverty, all scarce resources -- without exception -- need private owners.

……………………………….

III. Cooperation. Volition and ownership grant the right to anyone to live in a state of pure autarky. On the other hand, that won’t get you very far. You will be poor, and your life will be short. People need people to obtain a better life. We trade to our mutual betterment. We cooperate in work. We develop every form of association with each other: commercial, familial, fraternal, and religious. The lives of all of us are improved by our capacity to cooperate in some form with other people.

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IV. Learning. No one is born into this world knowing much of anything. We learn from our parents and teachers, but more importantly, we learn from the infinite bits of information that come to us every instant of the day all throughout our lives. We observe success and failure in others, and we are free to accept or reject these lessons as we see fit. In a free society, we are free to emulate others, accumulate and apply wisdom, read and absorb ideas, and extract information from any source to adapt for our own uses.

…………………………………

V. Competition. When people think of capitalism, competition is perhaps the first idea that comes to mind. But the idea is widely misunderstood. It doesn’t mean that there must be several suppliers of every good or service, or that there must be a certain number of producers of anything. It means only that there should be no legal (coercive) limits on the ways in which we are permitted to serve each other. And there really are infinite ways in which this can take place.  [read more]

Good article. One principle could be added: Ethics. A business shouldn’t lie about its product or service or even lie about its competitors product or service. It’s all about reputation. If a business loses that, it loses everything especially its customers. It shouldn’t also bribe government to gain an advantage over its competitors especially small business competitors that don’t have the resources to bribe the ruling class. This crony capitalism is what gives capitalism a bad name.

The Conservatism of Lord Acton

Lord Acton’s ideas fits pretty well with Russell Kirk’s principles of conservatism:

• Liberty becomes a question of morals more than of politics. [Principle 1]
• Inequality: the Basis of society. We combined and put things in common to protect the weak against the strong. [Principle 2]
• By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes is his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion. [Principle 3]
• Property, not conscience, is the basis of liberty. For the defence of conscience need not arise. Property is always exposed to interference. It is the constant object of policy. [Principle 4]
• Federalism is the best curb on democracy. [It] assigns limited powers to the central government. Thereby all power is limited. It excludes absolute power of the majority. [Principle 5]
• Universal History is ... not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul. [Principle 6]
• Progress, the religion of those who have none. [Principle 10]

Sources: Lord Acton Quote Archive and Notable quotations.

The Essence of Conservatism

What follows is what American conversative philosopher Russell Kirk thought through his studies was the essence of conservatism:

1. Men and nations are governed by moral laws; and those laws have their origin in a wisdom that is more than human--in divine justice.
2. Power is full of danger; therefore the good state is one in which power is checked and balanced, restricted by sound constitutions and customs.
3. Men and women are not perfectible, conservatives know; and neither are political institutions.
4. Variety and diversity are the characteristics of a high civilization.
5. Property and freedom are inseparably connected; economic leveling is not economic progress.
6. Modern society urgently needs true community: and true community is a world away from collectivism.
7. Justice means that every man and every woman have the right to what is their own--to the things best suited to their own nature, to the rewards of their ability and integrity, to their property and their personality.
8. The past is a great storehouse of wisdom;
9. In the affairs of nations, the American conservative feels that his country ought to set an example to the world, but ought not to try to remake the world in its image.
10. Change and reform, conservatives are convinced, are not identical: moral and political innovation can be destructive as well as beneficial;

[read more]

I grouped these principles based on similarity. Principles 1 through 3 are what you could call moral/religious/traditional principles. Principles 4 through 7 are principles that most libertarians would agree on. They might agree on principle three but not know why (for the reason see below).

Principle three is connected to principle two and the reason for principle one. Since mankind is not perfect (dare I say fallen from grace?) mankind can be corrupted. And a imperfect person in power without morals (principle one) is dangerous. There are no restrictions on his/her behavior. As Lord Acton* once said “power corrupts.” There was a study (2012) published  in the Journal of Applied Psychology that linked a persons sense of “moral identity” to his/her ethical behavior. The higher a person’s sense of moral identity the more ethical a person would be. It doesn’t have to be moral imperfection that principle three is talking about. There is also mental imperfection. Such as prejudices, biases, memory errors, false memory syndrome, etc. Just pick up a psychological textbook to see how the mind is imperfect.

Principle four is just about individual differences. When people are the same you have boring uniformity—no complexity in civilization. But when people are their noblest natures—motivated, knowledgable, curious, creative, passionate, free—then you have the highest civilization. Also, with individual differences comes different perspectives, different opinions, and different ideas. That’s how knowledge grows. Nobody (not even gov’ts) knows everything. Brian Arthur, Steven N. Durlauf, and David A. Lane describe seven features (like dispersed interaction, no global controller, and ongoing adaptation) of complex systems that deserve greater attention in economics (and possible in other social systems).  Principle seven and principle four are linked together because without justice you don’t have a high civilization.

Principle eight is about learning from elders and ancestors past mistakes and even their successes. That way you don’t learn them anew. The tried and true so to speak.

Change can be bad because of principle three. Also, change can be bad because people don’t foresee what economists call “externalities.” Externalities, or stage two thinking, are events that happen later on in time when a change is made unknown to the changer usually the ruling class. On this principle, it is best to follow the loving resistance fighter principles: “be at least, suspicious of the idea of progress, and who do not confuse information with understanding” and “admire technological ingenuity but do not think it represents the highest possible form of human achievement.” Quiet a few of the other resistance fighter principles are conservative principles.

Reagan conservative believes in most if not all of these principles. For example, Reagan believed in the Founders wisdom and vision (principle 8). In his book, America the Strong: Conservative Ideas to Spark the Next Generation (2015), William J. Bennett defined a conservative as FLINT (Free enterprise, Limited government, Individual liberty, National defense, and Traditional values). These are basically the same principles above. Free enterprise is basically the 5th principle.

The Founders basically followed the above principles.

For example here is John Adams who Russell Kirk calls a conservative in Adams own words:

• We have no government armed in power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.
• The dignity and stability of government in all its branches, the morals of the people, and every blessing of society depend so much upon an upright and skillful administration of justice, that the judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative and executive, and independent upon both, that so it may be a check upon both, and both should be checks upon that. [Principle 2]
• Mankind pay no Attention to Reason— They are led blindfold by Names, and Signs. [Principle 3]
• [A]ll are subject by nature to equal laws of morality, and in society have a right to equal laws for their government, yet no two men are perfectly equal in person, property, understanding, activity, and virtue, or ever can be made so by any power less than that which created them . . . [Principle 4]
• Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist. [This is obviously principle 5]
• To be good, and to do good, is all we have to do. [Principle 6]
• We hold that each man is the best judge of his own interest. [Principle 7]
• Without wishing to damp the ardor of curiosity or influence the freedom of inquiry, I will hazard a prediction that, after the most industrious and impartial researchers, the longest liver of you all will find no principles, institutions or systems of education more fit in general to be transmitted to your posterity than those you have received from your ancestors. [Principle 8]

Then there is Thomas Jefferson:

• God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure if we have removed their only firm basis: a conviction inthe minds of men that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my countrywhen I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever. [Principle 1]
• The concentrating [of powers] in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government. It will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one. [Principle 2]
• Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves. [Principle 3]
• The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property and in their management. [Principle 5]
• Who then can so softly bind up the wound of another as he who has felt the same wound himself.  [Principle 6]
• A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement. [Principle 7]
• History by apprising [citizens] of the past will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views. [Principle 8]

Here is what George Washington said:

• Of all the dispositions and habits which least to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indespensible supports. It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible. [Principle 1]
• Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action. [Principle 2]
• We must take human nature as we find it, perfection falls not to the share of mortals. [Principle 3]
• The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whetherAmericans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; [Principle 5]
• Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distresses of every one, and let your hand give in proportion to your purse; remembering always the estimation of the widow's mite, but, that it is not every one who asketh that deserveth charity; all, however, are worthy of the inquiry, or the deserving may suffer. [Principle 6]
• At this auspicious period, the United States came into existence as a Nation; and if their Citizens should not be completely free and happy, the fault will be entirely their own. [Principle 7]
• Personal library of George Washington. [Principle 8]
• Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind! [Principle 9]

And finally inventor and scientist Benjamin Franklin:

• The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth:'that God governs in the affairs of men.' And if a sparrow cannot fall tothe ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?
• In reality there is perhaps no one of our natural Passions so hard to subdue as Pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will now and then peek out and show itself. [Principle 3]
• All the property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: [Principle 5]
• Franklin brought together a group of 30 men in 1736 to form the Union Fire Company to prevent massive fires in Philadelphia. [Principle 6]
• ... as all history informs us, there has been in every State & Kingdom a constant kind of warfare between the governing & governed:… [Principle 8]
• [I]t is a common ... as all history informs us, there has been in every State & Kingdom a constant kind of warfare between the governing & governed observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own. [Principle 9]

This is just a sampling of the Founding Fathers. If I would have done all the Founding Fathers even the one who signed the Declaration that would be a book itself.

 

*He also said this about the Left: “A liberal is only a bundle of prejudices until he has mastered, has understood, experienced the philosophy of Conservatism.”

10 Things Communist Countries Totally Do Better Than Capitalist Countries

A commentary from Mary Ramirez on The Blaze.com:

Communism gets a tough rap. Stalin, Mao, Castro—not exactly on history’s nice list. But what if history’s got it wrong?

After all, it’s an impressive list of accomplishments:

1. They know how to get really creative with food. Nina Karpenko and her fellow Ukrainians enjoyed such delicacies [cornmeal, wheat chaff, dried nettle leaves, weeds, and mixed with water and a little salt] while learning valuable lessons from their leaders in the communist Soviet Union; lessons like, “it’s probably not a good idea to resist Joseph Stalin’s polite request that everyone move into a collective farming model, or he’ll have to correct your ways with a forced famine or ‘Holodomor.’”
2. The population never gets out of control. [Communism] and its responsibility for nearly 100 million deaths worldwide certainly seems to do the trick.
3. Everyone’s educated. …if you hold out and attend another “kind” of school, they’ll make sure you quickly see the error of your ways.
4. There’s a place to live for everyone. Nothing says uniformity like city block after city block of the same kind of building with the same paper thin walls, unreliable heat and less than 55 square feet of living space per person.
5. There’s always something entertaining to watch/look at/listen to. And especially when you don’t have to deal with scads of unnecessary search results that the Chinese government happily filters out for you, you can surf the internet far more easily.
6. They’ve got criminal justice down to a well-oiled machine. From 300 unruly Cuban protestors getting in the way of an American president’s visit, to pro-democracy agitators in China—you can be sure this public nuisance is handily whisked away.
7. Religion’s so complicated—they make it simple. Still, there are plenty of people who still cling to the archaic trappings of “god.” Not to worry; communism has generally been able to handle it quite well. From intimidation to arrests; from torture to extermination—there’s always a way to deal with the holdouts.
8. They’ve done tons for the environment. …what other system could so wonderfully deal with the waste issues in East Germany, where “42 percent of moving water and 24 percent of still waters were so polluted [at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall] that they could not be used to process drinking water”?
9. Their people are so selfless. The beauty of communism is that it totally rids a person of the need to strive towards unachievable greatness.
10. They’ve failed more than capitalist countries ever POSSIBLY could.

Satire aside, the reality is that this is serious stuff—especially as growing numbers of Americans look favorably on all kinds of collectivism. So let me be very clear:

Communism has never worked.

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And socialism? Just communism’s less violent, slightly more palatable cousin.

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So by all means, Mr. President, let’s do choose what works.

I believe it’s pronounced “ca-pit-al-ism.”  [read more]

Good article by Miss Ramirez. She could have added a 11th thing: Everyone has a job. According to the 1977 Soviet Constitution Chapter 7 Article 40 which says:  

Citizens of the USSR have the right to work (that is, to guaranteed employment and pay in accordance with the quantity and quality of their work, and not below the state-established minimum), including the right to choose their trade or profession, type of job and work in accordance with their inclinations, abilities, training and education, with due account of the needs of society.

Sounds great? Right? Think again. The State tells you where to work and what your job is going to be. Probably what your hours are. Definitely what your wages are. The article says you have the right to choose your profession but then it adds a caveat—“with due account of the needs of society.” That’s what Karl Marx meant by “from each according to his ability to each according to his needs.” Your passions, wants and happiness is not important. Just your abilities. If you don’t like or hate your job, too bad. You can’t quit unless you get permission from the State. All the Soviet Union cared about and other communist countries care about is full employment. Period. It makes them look good. But cheer up. The Soviet Union had a mininum wage and you had a right to rest and leisure. Oh, wait. The leisure time was determined by the collective farms.

“Democratic Socialism” Is a Contradiction in Terms

Written by Sandy Ikeda on FEE.org:

Why are so many young Americans suddenly calling themselves democratic socialists? I think many of them simply want to distinguish themselves from socialists who might have supported dictatorial regimes such as the former USSR and Maoist China, or who today might support North Korea. They want to signal that for them, political liberty is just as important as, say, economic justice.

But are the concepts of democracy and socialism even compatible?

No. While socialism’s goals may be lofty, its means are inherently at odds with democracy. In the end, “democratic socialism” makes no more sense than “voluntary slavery.”

Democracy

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But I think most of us can agree that the ordinary meaning of democracy is at least tied to the concepts of political self-determination and freedom of expression. In this way, people tend to think of democracy as a shield against others more powerful than themselves.

Socialism

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Or, you can think of socialism as a form of collectivism that uses a particular set of means — political control over the means of labor, capital, and land — to implement a large-scale economic plan that directs people to do things they might not have chosen. In its use of collectivist means, this kind of socialism has much in common with fascism, even if the two differ strongly in the ends they seek to achieve.

Democratic Socialism

What happens when you try to combine democracy with socialism?

Let’s say a socialist government has to choose between only two ends: greater income equality or greater racial justice. Even in this simple, two-alternative case, it has to define clearly what equality and justice mean in terms that everyone can agree on. What counts as income? What constitutes racial justice? What constitutes more equal income or justice? At what point has equality been achieved or justice served: perfect equality or perfect justice? If less than perfection, how much less?

………………………………………………..

How much individual self-expression, how much self-determination can a central authority tolerate, democratic or not, when it seeks to impose an overarching economic plan? Planning on this scale requires the suppression of the petty plans and personal aspirations of mere individuals, and the submission of personal values to those of the collective.

Tocqueville said it well:

Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.

The system may grind along this way for a while, but the temptation to abandon true democracy — by transferring decision-making authority to smaller groups of experts in each field, for example — becomes harder and harder to resist. In such circumstances, making swift, effective decisions becomes more desirable and less possible. The lofty goals of theoretical socialism — the international brotherhood of workers and global economic justice — tend to be swept aside by local concerns of hunger and security, opening the door to (nonproletarian) dictatorship. [read more]

Tocqueville has it exactly right. What eventually happens is that democratic socialism becomes just socialism just like national socialism became just socialism. Actually, Nazism had a lot in common with Communism. Remember Hitler broke off the pack with the Soviet Union—not the other way around.  Everyone should read this article especially the Bernie Sanders groupies because they are the ones who don’t understand what socialism is.

Defeating Fundamentalistic Islam

From The Blaze.com (Mar. 23):

If the United States and its allies want to defeat radical Islamic terror and stop its growing threat worldwide, one former Islamic extremist says the way to accomplish that is by challenging extremists both ideologically and militarily.

Speaking on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” Wednesday morning, Maajid Nawaz — who lived with world-renowned Islamists and jihadis in Egypt from 2002-2006 — reminded the show’s hosts that Tuesday’s attack in Brussels was actually the eighth attack by radical Islamic terrorists in March.

“What we’re witnessing, actually on a global level, is something unprecedented. I call it the ‘global jihadist insurgency,’” Nawaz said. “And it’s, in fact, an ideological struggle as well as a military struggle.”

…………….

When asked what the solution to the problem of radical Islamic terror is, Nawaz explained that first the problem must be identified then it needs to be challenged both ideologically and then militarily. However, according to Nawaz, President Barack Obama’s policy against radical Islamic terrorist groups isn’t correctly addressing the problem.  [read more]

Make sense to me. Wikapedia entry for him says “As a solution, Nawaz suggests building of global youth-led democratic movements that are above politics, and that build demand for democracy at the civilisational level.” He also says in that same article that the ideas, narratives, symbols and leaders of the Jihad movement need to be substituted with better ones. (Actually, the same argument can be applied to the Leftist movement too. But I digress.)

First, America has to define the problem as being Islamic. You don’t see Buddhists or Hindus blowing up people. Then you deal with challenging the extremism. Glenn Beck thinks we shouldn’t call these thugs belonging to “radical Islam” but to “traditional Islam.” He says Martin Luther in his day was called a radical Christian. True. Then there is Jesus. The Pharisees probably classified Jesus as a radical.  I remember watching the Lincoln movie in 2012 where the Democrats in the U.S. senate called the Republicans “radicals” because the Republicans were against slavery. Funny how things change. Beck has a point though. But instead of calling the Islamists “tradionalists” call them “fundamentalists.” That’s a more accurate term to use. In my readings of Islam I learned that traditional Islam is basically Sufism- a more mystical kind of Islam. The fundamentalists don’t care much for these Muslims either.

I suppose you could try to convert a muslim to a Christian by saying if the Quran is true, then Islam is false (I don’t know if this is what Nawaz meant by “challenging”) because the Quran says to trust the Gospels, but the four Gospels contradict the Quran.* The problem with this idea is that it is provocative and might get you killed especially if the Muslim you are talking to is a fundamentalist. Maybe a better idea is to talk a Muslim into being a traditionalist or a modern or Western muslim than a fundamentalist. At least he won’t be blowing himself up. That ideological shift would be easier than converting him to a Christian. Although, he or she would be more peaceful if he was a Christian I would think.

 

*Or you could tell the Muslim that Jesus received his instructions directly from God. Muhammed only through an archangel who was supposedly Gabriel. Who knows where the angel was actually from. Muhammed assumed it was Gabriel.

Lessons Learned in Science

1. Choose an objective apparently ahead of its time.
2. Work on problems only when you feel tangible success may come in several years.
3. Never be the brightest person in a room. Nothing can replace the company of others who have the background to catch errors in your reasoning or provide facts that may either prove or disprove your argument of the moment. And the sharper those around you, the sharper you will become.
4. Stay in close contact with your intellectual competition. The presence of worthy competitors is an assurance that the prize ahead is worth winning. The smaller the field, the better you can size it up, and the better the chance you will run an intelligent race.
5. Work with a teammate who is your intellectual equal. Two scientists acting together usually accomplish more than two loners each going their own way. The best scientific pairings are marriages of convenience in that they bring together the complementary talents of those involved.
6. Always have someone to save you. In trying to be ahead of your time, you are bound to annoy some people inclined to see you as too big for your britches. So it always pays to know someone of consequence—other than your parents—who is on your side.

Source: Avoid Boring People.

Lessons Learned as an Undergraduate

These lessons are from James D. Watson:

1. College is for learning how to think.
2. Knowing “why” (an idea) is more important than learning “what” (a fact).
3. New ideas usually need new facts.
4. Think like your teachers.
5. Pursue courses where you get top grades. After you’ve satisfied requirements, choose courses that naturally interest you, not ones someone else thinks you should care about. Then give these courses your all.
6. Seek out bright as opposed to popular friends.
7. Have teachers who like you intellectually.
8. Narrow down your intellectual (career) objectives while still in college.

Source: Avoid Boring People (Lessons from a Life in Science) (2007) by James D. Watson.

Great advice especially #1 and #2. It seems in todays universities campus life is more about propaganda and shutting down “questionable” speech that might offend students than about critical thinking skills and listening to opposing view points. If you can’t listen to another viewpoint you never will learn. Yes, the truth can shock and sometimes turn your world around but eventually you will be okay. The key here is how to think and not what to think. I am not talking about facts—that’s okay. What I am talking about here is the professors opinions, biases and prejudices. Professors are authority figures. Even role models. They are responsible for what they teach their students. So, if professors are teaching students their biases and prejudices—that’s the very definition of brain washing.  Students are not learning what they need to learn. 

The “why” in lesson two reminds of learning how to document programming code in college. The instructor said when you document a subroutine you put why you wrote it instead of what it does. The code itself takes care of the what. Maybe that’s what congress should do when it makes a law—explain why they wrote the law. Then again that might too much of their time and they don’t consider that important.

Thoughts of Marx, Lenin and Hillary Clinton

First the thoughts of Karl Marx:

• There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, etc., that are common to all states of society. But Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience.
• The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property.
• From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.
• The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother's care, shall be in state institutions at state expense.
• The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to Socialism.¹
• Machines were, it may be said, the weapon employed by the capitalists to quell the revolt of specialized labor.
• Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.

Now the thoughts of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin:

• We do not have time to play at “oppositions” at “conferences.” We will keep our political opponents... whether open or disguised as “nonparty,” in prison.
• No amount of political freedom will satisfy the hungry masses.
• The aim of socialism is not only to abolish the present division of mankind into small states and all-national isolation, not only to bring the nations closer to each other, but also to merge them.¹
• The surest way to destroy a nation is to debauch its currency.²
• Destroy the family, you destroy the country.
• A system of licensing and registration is the perfect device to deny gun ownership to the bourgeoisie.
• Only an armed people can be the real bulwark of popular liberty.³
• The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.²
• Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.
• The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.
• We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn toward those who disagree with us.
• While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State.
• All our lives we fought against exalting the individual, against the elevation of the single person, and long ago we were over and done with the business of a hero, and here it comes up again: the glorification of one personality. This is not good at all.
• One of the basic conditions for the victory of socialism is the arming of the workers (Communist) and the disarming of the bourgeoisie (the middle class).

How many of you Leftists believe this crap? Please raise your hands. Wow, that’s quite a few people. Okay, Hillary and Obama you don’t need to jump and down with excitement. I get it. You are Marxists. And now Hillary Clinton wants to say something:

• Many of you are well enough off that ... the tax cuts may have helped you. We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.
• We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society.
• I'm undaunted in my quest to amuse myself by constantly changing my hair.⁴
• The American people are tired of liars and people who pretend to be something they're not.⁵
• Marriage has got historic, religious and moral content that goes back to the beginning of time, and I think a marriage is as a marriage always has been, between a man and a woman. ⁶
• I think we sort of have lost track of the fact this is a government that has to be accountable to the people of our country. ⁷
• Where's the goddamn f***ing flag? I want the goddamn f***ing flag up every f***ing morning at f***ing sunrise.

¹ I wonder if Bernie Sanders believes this.

² Congress is already doing this.

³ I believe the Founders would have agreed with this. “To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.”  - George Mason.

⁴ Do you amuse yourself by changing your pants suits?

⁵ Does this include Bubba and yourself? Or does that fall into “at this point what difference does it make?”

⁶ Unless I am running for president.

⁷ Unless I am destroying classified emails.

Can a Christian Be a Communist?

This excerpt is from Martin Luther King in September 30, 1962:

Now, let us begin by answering the question which our sermon topic raises: Can a Christian be a communist? I answer that question with an emphatic “no.” These two philosophies are diametrically opposed. The basic philosophy of Christianity is unalterably opposed to the basic philosophy of communism, and all of the dialectics of the logician cannot make them lie down together. They are contrary philosophies.

How, then, is communism irreconcilable with Christianity? In the first place, it leaves out God and Jesus Christ. Communism is avowedly secularistic and materialist. The great philosopher of communism, Karl Marx, based his total philosophy on what he called dialectical materialism. There was a philosopher by the name of Hegel who had used what he called the dialectical system to analyze concepts, and Karl Marx was willing to take Hegel’s dialectic. And then he studied another man by the name of Feuerbach, a German philosopher. This man was a materialist. And so he took the materialism of this man and added it to the dialectic that he got from Hegel, and this is why his system is called dialectic materialism.

Now, what is materialism? It says in substance that the whole of reality can be explained in terms of matter in motion. In other words, it says that the basic stuff of reality is the material stuff. Materialism says, in substance, that idealism is wrong when it talks about the ultimate reality of mind and spirit and all of that. Karl Marx was a materialist, and he believed that the whole of human history moved on, driven by economic forces. This was his idea. There was no place in that system for God, and so from that moment on, communism became an atheistic system. And to this very day it is atheistic. It denies the existence of God. And if one goes to Russia, even today, he will find many of the churches fill on Sunday morning, but we know that in spite of that, the Russian government has had a campaign against religion, and against God and belief in God, ever since the revolution in 1917.  [read more]

Interesting essay. He got it exactly right. Communism cannot coexist with Christianity (or for that matter any religion) because Communism is a religion itself.  That’s why Christianity isn’t allowed in China or N. Korea today. It wants to remake man in its own image.

Here is what Karl Marx said about religion in general: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people". He also said: “My object in life is to dethrone God and destroy capitalism.” Get the point?

I wonder what his thoughts are on socialism. Because I don’t think you can be socialist either and be a Christian. Socialism according to Marxism is the economic system right before Communism. The stages go like this: Feudalism –> Capitalism –> Socialism –> Communism.

Soros Fund Management Donates Money to John Kasich

Leftist billonaire George Soros gives $202,700 to John Kasich’s presidential campaign. Why? To try to create a contested convention. It’s what George Soros does to borrow from a commercial. Soros creates chaos and trouble with his money by funding radical groups like  Black Lives Matter among others. Soros is just implenting the top-down, bottom-up, inside-out strategy that Van Jones talked about. Kaisch’s just a pawn. Soros doesn’t care about his campaign. Kaisch should do the right thing for the country and drop out of the race. He doesn’t have a chance to win.

To be fair, Soros gave $7,037,800 to the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. Which is to be expected. Notice monetary difference between the two donations. Soros gave a lot more money to Hillary than Kaisch which proves my point he doesn’t really care about Kasich. Then again maybe that doesn’t matter to Kaisch. Money is money.

Soros did not give money to Trump or Sanders. It’s interesting to note that a quite a few of tech companies (Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Facebook) gave money to Sanders. The amounts were only only in the 10 to 40 thousand range though. What’s really surprising is that US Navy, US Air Force, and even the US Postal Service gave money to Sanders. The arm forces and the post office shouldn’t be given money to any candidate. They are public entities. The US Army did not give money to any candidate by the way.

H/T: Glenn Beck.com.

Bush Didn’t Lie About WMDs

A Town Hall.com article by John Hawkins (Feb. 21):

Throughout the Bush years, liberals repeated “Bush lied, people died” like a mantra. That slander wasn’t true then and it’s not anymore true now that it has resurfaced. There are many legitimate criticisms of the way the Bush Administration conducted the war in Iraq and even more of the way Obama threw away all the blood and treasure we spent there for the sake of politics, but you have to be malicious or just an imbecile at this point to accuse Bush of lying about WMDs.

To begin with, numerous foreign intelligence agencies also believed that Saddam Hussein had an active WMD program. The "intelligence agencies of Germany, Israel, Russia, Britain, China and France" all believed Saddam had WMDs. CIA Director George Tenet also rather famously said that it was a “slam dunk” that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Incidentally, it’s hard to fault the CIA for their conclusions when even, “In private conversations that were intercepted by U.S. intelligence, Iraqi officials spoke as if Saddam continued to possess WMD. Even Iraqi generals believed he did. In the fall of 2002, the Iraqi military conducted exercises in chemical protective gear – but not because they thought the U.S.-led coalition was going to use chemical weapons.”

Additionally, many prominent Democrats who had access to the same intelligence that George Bush did came to the same conclusion and said so publicly. If George W. Bush lied, then by default you have to also believe that Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, John Edwards, Robert Byrd, Tom Daschle, Nancy Pelosi and Bernie Sanders also lied. Some of them, like Hillary Clinton, even alleged that Saddam was working on nuclear weapons. [read more]

I know this is past history but there are still nuts who think Bush lied about WMDs. Well, even Bernie Sanders believed Hussein had WMDs. So, what happened to the WMDs? God and Hussein only knows. One theory (I think it is credible) is that Hussein moved them to Syria before the war. 

A Sign of Socialism

Source: Glenn Beck.com.

Sums socialism up pretty well.

Cycling Pathways to Occupy Mars

From Buzz Aldrin.com:

Like during the 1960s for the Apollo Program, an inspiring and an audacious goal—a Unified Space Vision is needed for space exploration to establish a permanent human presence on Mars. The proposed architecture establishes pathways of progressive missions to cis-lunar space, asteroids, Phobos, and eventually to the surface of Mars.

Missions begin 2018 launching 1st generation inflatable exploration modules (XM1), Bigelow BA330s, which are flown to Low-Earth Orbit, and to cis-lunar space (L1, L2). Orion’s crew including several scientists supported by BA330 reaches an asteroid in 2026 simultaneously with a low thrust exploratory robot for 60 days; Earth return totals one year. Flights then test rigid XM2 exploration modules at manned lunar stations, remotely assembling and connecting the international lunar bases, and initiate tele-robotics for in-situ resources, asteroid exploration and sample extraction. Once lunar far-side and nearside bases have been assembled and vital experience gained, beginning in 2028 (before first humans to Mars) and by 2034–nine unoccupied 3rd generation exploration modules (XM3) would be launched to Mars and two habs to Phobos.

One unique innovation of the mission architecture is to use “cycler” spacecraft that would travel between Earth and Mars perpetually, every two synodic periods in S1L1 cycler orbits. The two cyclers, outbound and inbound separated by synodic periods are identical and at a first outbound Earth encounter, three landers intercept the cycler via hyperbolic rendezvous, carrying two crew members each. The outbound cycler carries three landers with six crew members total. [read more]

Interesting. Would be cool if America could go. I first heard about this when he talked about it during his CPAC speech. I didn’t go to the conference but watched the video among others on YouTube.com. He didn’t get a very big applause during the speech because not very many people understood what he was saying.

Justice Dept. Has ‘Discussed’ Civil Legal Action Against Climate Change Deniers

From The Blaze.com (March 9):

Attorney General Loretta Lynch testified Wednesday that the Justice Department has “discussed” taking civil legal action against the fossil fuel industry for “denying” the “threat of carbon emissions” when it comes to climate change.

During Lynch’s testimony at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said that he believes there are similarities between the tobacco industry denying scientific studies showing the dangers of using tobacco and companies within the fossil fuel industry denying studies allegedly showing the threat of carbon emissions.

He went on to point out that under President Bill Clinton, the Justice Department brought and won a civil case against the tobacco industry, while the Obama administration has “done nothing” so far with regard to the fossil fuel industry.  [read more]

This is what facists gov’ts do. I don’t care if what the private companies says is wrong or not this is a violation of the first admendment. This is pure and simple a bullying tactic. Shut up anyone who doesn’t get in line. Papa gov’t knows best—at least that’s what the Left thinks. Science facts change all the time. That’s the nature of science. It doesn’t matter if its biology or meteorology. Especially with meteorology where the weather is a complex phenomena. So, Big Gov cannot know everything about weather at a particulular time.

Here’s a question: Should a gov’t official be sued if what a private citizen believes he/she says is wrong? Good luck with that one.

Thoughts on Democrat Caucuses

This explanation is directly from the Kansas Dems.org website:

Eligible caucus goers divide to form Presidential preference groups. If a preference group does not have enough people to be considered “viable”, 15% of total caucus goers, eligible attendees will have an opportunity to join another preference group or acquire people into their group to become viable. Delegates are then awarded to the preference groups based on their size. 

I believe this is how most if not all democrat caucuses run. The Left is so group obsessed they have to put the voters in groups like sheep. The republican causes don’t do it this way. You just mark on a ballet who you want to vote for and then put it in a ballot box. That’s all. I should know cause I did vote on Saturday for Ted Cruz.

To be fair, according to how stuff works.com this way of causing was started in 1796 and is more complex than what that small explanation says.

Glenn Beck’s Dream Team

From Glenn Beck.com (March 3):

Everyone wins: Cruz is president. Rubio, vice president. Mike Lee as our Supreme Court justice. Rand Paul as Treasury Secretary. And Ben Carson as the new Florida senator. Everyone wins. And we’ll stomp in November. [read more]

I like it. This is what I was kind of thinking. Three small changes though. Instead of Ben Carson as Florida senator have him as the Surgeon General. If I remember correctly this was mentioned on the radio but I did not see it on the transcript. The other change or addition to the dream team is John Bolton as Secretary of State. And the third addition is possibly Chris Christie as US Attorney General.

Questions Nobody Has Asked

A column by John P. Warren on Town Hall.com (Feb. 21):

Watching CNN’s debates and town halls makes me think of questions I’d like to ask. You, too, I’m sure. Here are a few no one seems to be asking.

About Clinton: Despite her Nevada win, it is becoming harder and harder for people to believe she and her husband went through all the trouble and expense to keep their emails on a personal server for the sake of convenience. While the inquiry thus far has focused solely on those classified emails, the better question is what was it the Clintons did NOT want to have on government servers, so easily accessible to law enforcement? Is it possible they did not want email exchanges concerning Clinton Global Initiative conflicts or foreign party payoffs to appear there?

Let’s hope the FBI and State are asking that question. Next, if Nixon’s 18 minutes of missing tape warranted a special prosecutor, wouldn’t Mrs. Clinton’s deceit about her emails—obstructing justice?—and reckless misuse of classified information warrant a special prosecutor?

About Trump: He’s won South Carolina, and that’s impressive. The most important insight is that evangelicals aren’t interested in a “Christian-in-Chief,” but someone who will fight for them. A few valid questions remain, however.

Is his campaign truly a freebie? When Nelson Rockefeller ran for president, the media bellowed he was attempting to buy the office. Quietly, the media reported that old Joe Kennedy did the same for his son. Now, when Mr. Trump repeatedly reminds us that he is self-funded, isn’t he buying the office?

People who love freebies—and who doesn’t?—often do not ask the next question. If Mr. Trump succeeds in gaining the office without anyone’s financial support—from the waitresses, schoolteachers, and garage mechanics—will he owe the voters anything?

[read more]

Good questions. Mr. Warren asks questions about Sanders too but since he probably won’t get the Dem nomination I am not really interested in those questions. Although Sanders did get Oklahoma to vote for him over Hillary. Interesting. I have questions about Hillary and Trump too:

For Hillary Clinton, your slogan is “Fighting for Us.” Did that include the Americans who were killed in Libya? And why isn’t your motto “Fighting for America?” Who is the “us”  you are mentioning? You say on your website that you want to “Never allowing Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.” Did you tell Obama this before he made that stupid agreement with Iran?

For Donald Trump, your slogan is “Make America Great Again!” What in your opinion makes America great? Is it The Constitution? The Declaration of Independence? Liberty? The citizens? Free-market system? I guess I am asking do you believe in American Exceptualism? All you mention on your website that deals with the Constitution is the Right to Bear Arms. That’s good but I like to hear more about what you think makes America great. Since so far you are self-funded and continue to be self-funded does that mean if you become president that you are accountable to no-one? You talk about winning all the time. Does that mean winning at all costs? Or does good sportsmanship figure into winning? Because you called Ted Cruz a liar. Or is personal attacks okay?

Bill of No Rights

"We, the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid any more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure the blessings of debt-free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great-grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt-ridden, deluded, and other liberal bed-wetters. We hold these truths to be self-evident: that a whole lot of people are confused by the Bill of Rights and are so dim that they require a Bill of No Rights."

ARTICLE I:
You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but no one is guaranteeing anything.

ARTICLE II:
You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone — not just you! You may leave the room, change the channel, or express a different opinion, but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.

ARTICLE III:
You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful, do not expect the tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.

ARTICLE IV:
You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes.

ARTICLE V:
You do not have the right to free health care That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we're just not interested in public health care.

ARTICLE VI:
You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone, don't be surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric chair.

ARTICLE VII:
You do not have the right to the possessions of others. If you rob, cheat or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don't be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you still won't have the right to a big screen color TV or a life of leisure.

ARTICLE VIII:
You don't have the right to demand that our children risk their lives in foreign wars to soothe your aching conscience. We hate oppressive governments and won't lift a finger to stop you from going to fight if you'd like. However, we do not enjoy parenting the entire world and do not want to spend so much of our time battling each and every little tyrant with a military uniform and a funny hat.

ARTICLE IX:
You don't have the right to a job. Sure, all of us want all of you to have one, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful.

ARTICLE X:
You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means that you have the right to pursue happiness — which, by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an overabundance of idiotic laws created by those of you who were confused by the Bill of Rights.

If you agree, we strongly urge you to forward this to as many people as you can. No, you don't have to, and nothing tragic will befall you should you not forward it. We just think it is about time common sense is allowed to flourish — call it the age of reason revisited.

Source: Snopes.com.

The Bernie Sanders groupies should read this and commit it to memory. These articles were first circulated in 2000. According to Snopes.com these were written by Lewis Napper, a self-described amateur philosopher from Mississippi who ran for a U.S. Senate seat in 2000 as a Libertarian.

Dems in Senate passed a resolution in 1960 against election year Supreme Court appointments

From Gov Track.us:

This vote approved a nonbinding resolution proposed by the Democrats to pressure President Eisenhower to not use the recess appointment power to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court. The full title of the resolution was Expressing the Sense of the Senate That The President Should Not Make Recess Appointments to the Supreme Court, Except to Prevent or End a Breakdown in the Administration of the Court's Business.

Although the vote occurred in an election year, there is no indication that this vote was about election year appointments specifically. Eisenhower had used the special recess appointment power to make previous appointments to the Supreme Court, and Democrats objected to further use of the recess appointment power. No President has used the recess appointment power to appoint a justice of the Supreme Court since then. [read more]

Then you have Joe Biden when he was Senator saying President George H. W. Bush shouldn’t name a supreme court nominee until after the election.

If the Republicans don’t bring up this resolution the Dems sure won’t. They’ll just pretend it never happened. Or they say it was a different time then.

H/T: American Thinker.com.

Black Patriots in the American Revolution

In celebration of Black History Month I would like to give some examples of black patriots in the American Revolutionary war:

Crispus Attucks (1723-1770)

Crispus Attucks, the first martyr of the Boston Massacre in 1770, was probably born near Framingham, Massachusetts, a Christianized and multitribal town of Indians, whites, and blacks, in 1723.  Unusually tall for the era at six feet, two inches, Attucks was of mixed ancestry, the son of an African American man and an American Indian woman.  It is believed that he was the slave of William Brown since he was reported in the Boston Gazette on October 2, 1750 as having escaped from Brown; Attucks was listed as age 27 at the time. By the time of the Massacre he was 47 and working as a sailor in Boston and around the Atlantic Basin.

By 1770, the colonists of Boston had been harassed by the British soldiers known as the “Redcoats.” Tired of the harassment, on March 5, 1770, Crispus Attucks and his compatriots marched up to the King Streets Custom House with banners calling for independence from England. They allegedly threatened the British guards with clubs, chunks of ice, and rocks. What actually happened in the confrontation between the colonists and the British soldiers is debatable. What is known is that “[a] group of citizens, apparently led by a tall robust man with a dark face appeared on the scene” and confronted the eight British soldiers. The soldiers fired and Attucks and three other men, Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick, and James Caldwell, were killed.  On November 27, 1770, the soldiers were tried in a Boston court for murder.  During the trial it was reported that Attucks fell first with one bullet lodged in his right chest. He was shot by the British soldier William Warren.

Agrippa Hull

Agrippa Hull was one of the most remarkable and unnoticed African Americans of the revolutionary era.  He served for six years and two months in Washington’s Continental Army, which earned him a badge of honor for this extended service. But Hull’s influence on shaping the abolitionist thought of Tadeuz Kosciuszko, the Polish military engineer for whom he served as an orderly for the last 50 months of the war, is the hidden importance of the young black patriot.  

Said to be the son of an African prince, Agrippa Hull was born free in Northampton, Massachusetts on March 7, 1759.  Little is known of his father, who died when Hull was an infant; but his parents were members of the Congregational Church where Jonathan Edwards occupied the pulpit.  When economic stress overcame Bathsheba Hull, Agrippa’s mother, she sent the boy to Stockbridge in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts, to live with a free black farming family.  It was here that Agrippa grew up in the mission town largely composed of Stockbridge Indians.

Shortly after his eighteenth birthday, Agrippa enlisted in the Continental Army, where he was assigned as an orderly to General John Paterson of the Massachusetts Line, At Paterson’s side, Hull witnessed the surrender of British General John Burgoyne at Saratoga, New York, endured the winter of 1777-78 at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania and was part of the battle at Monmouth Courthouse, New Jersey in June 1778. In May 1779, Hull was reassigned to Kosciuszko, who had come in 1776 to offer his services as a military engineer to the Continental Congress and was designing the fortifications at West Point.  This launched a long comradeship. In a day without Christmas leaves and periodic furloughs, Hull was at Kosciuszko’s side for 50 months, serving as attendant and messenger. After Kosciuszko was sent south to serve as the chief military engineer of Washington’s Continental Army, Hull was thrust into the bloodiest and most intense phase of the war. Reaching North Carolina in October 1780, Kosciuszko and Hull confronted the pitiful condition of Washington’s army. General Nathanael Greene, the southern commander, peppered General Washington with pleas to clothe and boot his small army: “The miserable situation of the troops for want of clothing,” wrote Greene on one occasion, “has rendered the march the most painful imaginable, several hundreds of the soldiers tracking the ground with their bloody feet.”

James Armistead Lafayette (1760-1832)

James Armistead [Lafayette] was an African American spy during the American Revolution. Born in Virginia as a slave to William Armistead in 1760, he volunteered to join the Army in 1781. After gaining the consent of his owner, Armistead was stationed to serve under the Marquis de Lafayette, the commander of French forces allied with the American Continental Army.  Lafayette employed Armistead as a spy.  While working for Lafayette he successfully infiltrated British General Charles Cornwallis's headquarters posing as a runaway slave hired by the British to spy on the Americans.

While pretending to be a British spy, Armistead gained the confidence of General Benedict Arnold and General Cornwallis. Arnold was so convinced of Armistead's pose as a runaway slave that he used him to guide British troops through local roads. Armistead often traveled between camps, spying on British officers, who spoke openly about their strategies in front of him. Armistead documented this information in written reports, delivered them to other American spies, and then return to General Cornwallis's camp.

In the summer of 1781, General George Washington sent a message to General Lafayette, instructing him to keep his forces strong and to inform him of Cornwallis's equipment, military personnel, and future strategies.  Lafayette sent several spies to infiltrate Cornwallis's camp, yet none proved able to produce valuable information for him until he received Armistead's reports dated July 31, 1781. The information in these reports helped Lafayette trap the British at Hampton. Later that summer Armistead's reports helped the Americans win the battle at Yorktown, prompting the British to surrender.

Source: American Revolution page from Black Past.org.

There is a lot more black patriots who were in the Revolutionary War on that page.

What is Supervillian Island?

I was watching a What on Earth? episode when the show started talking about an “island” that just appeared out of nowhere. That’s the island in the picture in the upper left. The right screenshot is where the mysterious island is located taken from the show. If you go to Whats My GPS.com and type in 9.5506111 for the latitude and 112.89277777777778 for the longitude you can see the island for yourself. Or just click on the “picture” hyperlink. Be sure you are in “Satellite” mode though and you will have to enlarge the view until you see it. The actual coordinates in DMS is 9 degrees, 33’, 2.2” North and 112 degrees, 53’, 34” East.

So, what is the island? It’s definately not natural like from a volcano eruption. If you look at the screenshot below:

You can see roads, buildings and even airports. If you zoom in the view from Whats My GPS website you can even see ships or what appears to be ships.

Next question is who owns the island? No one will claim it. The major suspect is China. They would have the manpower and money to do it. Probably for military purposes. The show said that Obama did ask the Chinese leader if that island was own by them but China said it didn’t. I am not sure if I believe that. One way to find out is to send a US naval ship or even a drone to the island and see if any of the surrounding countries intercepts the ship or drone. If no country does then walk around the island to see if there is any clues who owns it. Just a thought.

The TV show says no-one claims it. But I watched a video on an news article on CNN.com about China deploying missles on a south sea island called Woody Island. On the video the newsman said Phillipians owns the island but China is refuting the claim and taking them to court.

One last note. I was able to convert the DMS to decimal degrees by going to a GPS coordinates converter website.

The Growing Threat of ISIS Unleashing a Weapon of Mass Destruction

From Daily Signal.com (Feb. 19):

The apocalyptic ideology that propels the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) is by now well known. Much less widely known are the use of chemical weapons by ISIS in Iraq and Syria and the disappearance of radioactive materials in Iraq that could be used in a “dirty bomb,” a radiological weapon of mass destruction (WMD).

Reuters reported the disappearance of 10 grams of a “highly dangerous” radioactive isotope used to test oil and gas pipelines in southern Iraq, which Iraqi authorities fear may have fallen into the hands of ISIS. The Iridium-192 material, classified as a Category 2 radioactive source, could permanently injure people exposed to it for only a few hours, or kill people exposed to it longer.

The radioactive isotope was stolen in November from a storage facility in the southern city of al-Zubair, which is more than 300 miles away from ISIS-controlled territory. But ISIS has launched attacks nearby.

Ten grams of radioactive material is not very much. But it could be added to other materials previously seized by the terrorist group. ISIS already had enough radioactive materials to arm a dirty bomb, according to Australian intelligence reports last June. [read more]

Scary. That’s why containment won’t work. America will eventually will have to send in troops. Probably with some special forces like the army rangers. Nothing against the navy SEALS but they seem to get all the press. The rangers could have taken out Bin Laden too. I digress. NATO and some of the surrounding countries around Iraq, like Saudi Arabia, Isreal, Egypt, Turkey, etc. could help out too. It’s in their interest too to defeat ISIS.

My fear is if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency ISIS or even Iran might do a massive attack on America. Why? Because radical Muslims don’t respect women especially women in positions of power. They are second class citizens. If a woman becomes the president the radicals will see America as weak and vulnerable. Benazir Bhutto the once presidence of Pakistan was probably assassinated by al-Qaeda for this reason among others.

I am not against a woman president. I think Carly Fiorina would have been a good president. Just not now. Not when there is crazy radical Muslims who want to do harm to America. Not so much ISIS (although they are dangerous too) but Iran is real concern. 

Hubble Telescope Captures Photo of Supermassive Black Hole 21 Billion Times the Size of the Sun

From The Blaze.com (Feb. 18):

A new photo of galaxy NGC 4889 reveals the biggest black hole that astronomers have ever discovered. The famous Hubble Space Telescope helped scientists capture photos of the galaxy that sits nearly 300 million lightyears away in the Coma Cluster. The photo of the supermassive black hole appears placid and ethereal at first glance, and even though the black hole is dormant, it’s broken all types of records, according to the Hubble website.

Astronomers have estimated the mass of the hole to be 21 billion times the mass of the sun, and its event horizon (a surface so dense that even light can’t escape its gravitational grip) has a diameter of approximately 130 billion kilometers, or about 15 times the diameter of Neptune’s orbit around the sun. [read more]

Wow, that’s pretty big. I didn’t show the photo because there was really nothing to see. Scientists don’t really know how supermassive black holes get created.

The Twelve Trusts

To resurrect a new chivalry in modern times (more specifically, in our personal lives), it would be helpful to have some sort of template or code to guide us, and as a reminder of what chivalry is all about.
      The following is such a template. We [The International Fellowship of Chivalry-Now (IFCN)] call it the 12 Trusts.

Upon my honor,

1. I will develop my life for the greater good.
2. I will place character above riches, and concern for others above personal wealth.
3. I will never boast, but cherish humility instead.
4. I will speak the truth at all times, and forever keep my word.
5. I will defend those who cannot defend themselves.
6. I will honor and respect women, and refute sexism in all its guises.
7. I will uphold justice by being fair to all.
8. I will be faithful in love and loyal in friendship.
9. I will abhor scandals and gossip-neither partake nor delight in them.
10. I will be generous to the poor and to those who need help.
11. I will forgive when asked, that my own mistakes will be forgiven.
12. I will live my life with courtesy and honor from this day forward.

By adhering to these 12 Trusts, I swear to partake in the living Quest in everything I do.

Source: 12 Trusts.

A pretty good list of trusts. It’s honorable that there is a fellowship like this. Who says chivalry is dead. I found this website when I was researching humility in the previous blog entry. I have two objections or qualms though about the fellowship. One is they fellowship believes in global warming. Not sure how that fits in with chivarly. Man-made global warming is a hoax. Next, they don’t understand ISIS or radical Islamic groups like them. For one thing, #6 they do not do. Women are inferior to them.

Their political manifesto is helpful. It’s not a Left or Right manifesto like the Communist manifesto but a set of commen sense guidelines. A nice attempt altogether at chivarly for IFCN.

Milton Friedman’s Epic Breakdown of Socialism vs. Capitalism

Milton Friedman and Phil Donahue On Socialism v. Capitalism 1979

Donahue just got schooled! Milton Friedman is correct. Greed is not just a capitalistic problem, it’s not just a socialistic problem—it’s a human problem. It’s affects not just corporations but unions and gov’ts alike. Gov’t can’t make people virtuous—they have to do that themselves. Talking about virtue and gov’ts, political philosopher Montesquieu thought that democratic republics rely on the principle of virtue. Montesquieu’s idea of virtue is “it is a love of the republic.” He goes on:

A love of the republic in a democracy is a love of the democracy; as the latter is that of equality.

A love of the democracy is likewise that of frugality. Since every individual ought here to enjoy the same happiness and the same advantages, they should consequently taste the same pleasures and form the same hopes, which cannot be expected but from a general frugality.

Sort of sounds like he is talking about patriotism. As for the frugal part I wish America was frugal again especially the lawmakers. But I digress.

Like it says in Timothy 6:10:

For the love of [my emphasis] money is a root of all evils, by means of which some having lusted after it were seduced from the faith, and they themselves pierced through by many pains.

I emphasized “love” because some people leave out the “the love of” part. Money is neither good nor bad. Just as power is neither good nor bad. But the love of power is bad. Which is actually worse in my opinion. But some powers-that-be in the past and present think nothing of wanting more power. Like they are entitled to it. 

Then there is Jesus saying about a rich man entering heaven in Matthew 19:24:

And again I say to you, It is easier for a heavy rope to pass through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

Some say this means that the rich never get to heaven. No! This is an incorrect interpretation. Jesus is saying you can’t buy your way into heaven. God doesn’t care what you own but who you are. The powerful may never get to heaven either.

H/T: Glenn Beck.com.

Mass Shooters Prefer Gun-Free Zones

From The Daily Signal.com (Feb. 10):

An analysis of mass shootings in the United States since the year 2002 shows that gun-wielding mass killers are more likely to strike where the Second Amendment right to bear arms has been supplanted by “gun-free zone” ordinances, be they federal, local, or specified by the owner of the property.

The Stanford University Libraries’ dataset of mass shootings (“Stanford Mass Shootings in America, courtesy of the Stanford Geospatial Center and Stanford Libraries”) was analyzed for mass shootings over the past 14 years.

The definition of a mass shooting for the Stanford database is three or more shooting victims injured or killed, not including the shooter. Shootings that are gang- or drug-related are not included.

The dataset includes 153 incidents going back to the beginning of 2002.

[read more]

According to the Heritage Foundation research since 2002 there have been 54 mass shootings. 17 of the shootings, citizens were allowed to be armed. That’s quite a difference. Then again mass shooters can read. If they see a “no guns allowed” sign then the victims are basically sitting ducks. Otherwise the victims become surviviors and shoot back if they have a gun.  That in of itself will wake up a mass shooter out of his fantasy of being in a video game. Also, out of that 17 shootings, five were able to slow or stop the shooter. Only two was able to stop or slow the shooter in the gun free zone. Maybe instead of a “no guns allowed” sign there should be a “guns are welcome” sign. Just a thought.

Sen. Ben Sasse Defines Conservatism

Wow! Did the senator just channel President Reagan? Sounds like it to me. What he said is the essence of conservatism. Which is the way to make America great again.

Sen. Sasse is sure brave to go on pMSNBC.

H/T: Daily Signal.com.

Obama’s New Oil Tax Plan Will Hike Gas and Heating Prices

From The Blaze.com (Feb. 5):

President Barack Obama will propose a $10 per barrel tax on oil in the last annual budget he submits to Congress.

Obama reportedly hopes the tax will reduce carbon emissions and plans to use the revenue for spending on public transportation.

If such a proposal passed, then oil companies would likely pass the cost of the new tax on to consumers, meaning gas prices would increase, Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst for GasBuddy.com, told USA Today.

“Something like this would trickle down and be a $10 per barrel tax on motorists,” DeHaan said. “This is not something oil companies are going to absorb.”

Economist Donald Marron of the Urban Institute believes the tax hike would more than the double the federal gas tax. The 18.4 cents per gallon federal gas tax is figured into the price at the pump; Marron estimates that the proposed oil tax would increase the price of a gallon of gas by 22 cents. [read more]

So, the American people have to be sacraficed to the global warming gods again. Just great. So, much about caring for the poor and middle class.  What else is knew. It’s like a reflex—I must raise taxes.

What isn’t said in the article is this stupid plan will also lead to higher prices for any business that uses trucks to deliver their goods—like food. They are going to pass on the expense too. The president like most Leftists are stupid about economics. Then again maybe they just don’t care.

Hopefully no Republican will vote for this proposal. The Dems if they know what’s good for them shouldn’t either. They just have to supress their instinct which is hard.

As for the public transportation part of the plan that should be left up to cities and town gov’s to subsize. Then again you have the private sector like Uber that’s gradually replacing public transportation (which really makes the Left nervous).