Category Archives: Liberals

I’m About To Give You All My Money, Give Me Some R-E-S-P-E-C-T

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Government_spending2What does government do?  What CAN government do?

In a nutshell, the only thing government can do is spend our money.  Period.  That’s all, folks.

Our governments – city, county, state, federal – pass bills that spend our money.  Whatever they do, it involves spending our money.  If they are doing more, that means they are spending more money.  The more they do, the more they spend.  If we criticize them for not doing enough, that means we think they are not spending enough of our money.

Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Greenie Meanie Weenie, it doesn’t matter.  The only reason any politician exists is to spend our money.

The longer a politician is in office, the more money he/she has spent.  In fact, those elected officials who rise to the top of the food chain find themselves in position to spend even more money than everybody else. They get re-elected by promising to spend more of our money.  Two of the most powerful people in Congress are the heads of the Appropriations Committees.  In the Senate, that would be Thad Cochran (R-MS) – whose last election is legendary in the annals of dirty and criminal political maneuvers.  In the House, it would be Hal Rogers (R-KY), known as the “Prince of Pork”.

Thinking Americans have come to realize that more government, bigger government, more spending has not solved our problems as a nation.  Big government has only funneled money from some of us to others of us, but has not improved the standard of living for all of us.  Those with government connections continue to thrive while the middle class has all but disappeared and the growing underclass has become hopelessly dependent on government programs.

It took a few hundred years, but today’s politicians have figured it out – election and re-election can be easily won by buying votes with somebody else’s money.

If this sounds cynical, I’m sorry.  Tell me where I’m wrong.

But there is good news.  We can get out of this mess, and it’s an easy fix.  All we have to do is ask every candidate for public office one simple question:  Will you reduce the size and cost of government?

If the answer is yes, give that person money and vote for him or her.  If the answer is no, run like hell.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

I’m about to give you all of my money
And all I’m askin’ is for a little respect
When I come home.
Hey, hey, hey!

Respect – Otis Redding

 

You thought I was giving you a song by ARETHA didn’t ya!  Otis Redding wrote and recorded Respect in 1965.  Aretha Franklin covered it two years later, and it became a classic – one of the rare instances where the cover beats the original.  I do this song every weekend with my family band Caution! Blind Driver, and our audiences are always surprised when I sing it instead of our female vocalist, my daughter Jenny.  Here is a video of Otis singing this R&B standard on Dec. 9, 1967.  Sadly, he was killed the next day in a plane crash.

Big Brother Takes Aim At Salaries

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Big_brother_is_watching_youThe message addressed to “friend” in my inbox from Barack Obama paints a grim picture of life for a large class of working Americans:

“When a working parent needs to put in more than 40 hours a week, that time can be measured in family dinners, tee-ball games, and ballet recitals missed — and too often, that worker isn’t even being paid fairly for the extra work.”

Obama lays the blame for this alleged worker abuse at the feet of business owners.  “Right now,” he continues, “there are employers skirting even basic overtime laws, adding “manager” to somebody’s job title solely to avoid paying workers what they’ve earned. Those workers are being cheated today, and this new step fixes that.  The rule I’ve proposed will expand overtime eligibility to nearly five million workers. It’s one of the fastest ways we can help expand opportunity for all Americans.”

The Obama administration, invigorated by a string of recent policy victories that expand federal authority over personal and business interests, now seeks greater control of private employee compensation rates and methods.   The Dept. of Labor has proposed revisions to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) that would further restrict employers from exempting some employees from overtime rules.  Under current FLSA regulations, an employee is exempt from the 40-hour overtime rule if he or she earns over $23,660 per year and performs certain “white-collar duties”.

Last week President Obama wrote an op-ed in the Huffington Post, taking several victory laps to celebrate the baffling Supreme Court decisions on gay marriage and Obamacare, the passage of new trade agreement authority, and “America’s steady progress” under his guidance.  And he proposed that the income threshold for exempt employees should be doubled to $50,400.  If unchallenged, the revision would take place in September.

This move is consistent with the administration’s ongoing battle against free-market principles.  While the President focuses on “fairness”, his policies totally disregard the timeless and proven practices that made American commerce and our standard of living the envy of the world:  innovation and progress through competition, operational freedom, and the right to earn and keep profit and property.

The false promise of more pay for the same or less work might appeal to the short-sighted.  But history proves that those who wish to achieve and succeed don’t want government-proscribed limits on their ability to earn.  Measuring a key employee’s worth by hours of attendance only – disregarding talent, knowledge, creativity and other qualities –  is shallow, if not condescending.     Raising the exemption threshold will undoubtedly push wages downward and restrict upward mobility for entry-level employees.  It is disingenuous to suggest that such a move will put more money in any employee’s wallet.  Employers, mostly small businesses, will not be able to absorb the estimated $9.5 billion annual cost without defensive strategies.

To win and keep customers, businesses must be competitive.  Those who provide the best products and value for their customers, and make an acceptable profit, are the winners.   These companies know that they can’t execute a winning strategy without top-quality employees, and they aggressively compete for the best.  If they fail to acquire and retain quality employees, they will rapidly drop out of the market.  Just as employers compete for the best employees, workers compete for jobs from the best employers.  It is a self-correcting system.

The traditional American business model is a win-win-win.   Well-run companies enjoy growing market share.  Their customers get the products and services they want at the best prices.  And their employees are fairly compensated and fulfilled.  Any attempt by government to mess up that formula is at best naive, and at worst manipulative pandering.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

Hey big brother, I know you’re out there somewhere
If we don’t get our thing together, big brother will be watching us
He ain’t gonna get me, are you gonna let him get you?
He’ll never get me, he’ll never get me, no!

Hey Big Brother – Rare Earth

 

Check out this AWESOME video of a great and somewhat forgotten 70s jam band – RARE EARTH – in concert before a humungous crowd at Ontario Motor Speedway in 1974.

Federal Employees – Here’s How to Get More Paid Vacation Time, Free!

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vacationA message for Federal Government Employees:

Are you stressed out from all of those meetings and conferences in fancy hotels?  Is that 30-hour work week wearing you out? Five weeks of vacation couldn’t possibly be enough.  Couldn’t you use a little extra time off from that exhausting desk job?

How would you like an extra two weeks of paid vacation, free?  No tricks, no gimmicks, no downside!  No kidding!  Up to 14 days of extra paid vacation time!

It’s easy.  All you have to do is screw up!

That’s right, section 5 of the civil service code says that if you screw up, your boss can’t fire you.  In fact he or she can’t even recommend any kind of disciplinary action.  Your “punishment”, if any, will be determined by some middle-management guys in your agency who don’t have any skin in the game.  These “deciding authorities” have no interest in whether you follow the rules, break the law, embarrass your department, or threaten national security.  No skin off their noses, right?  They just need to be sure that their boss has plenty of CYA sauce, and that they don’t gum up the works.

If they give you any punishment at all, it will be paid leave.  Sorry, usually that is limited to 14 days, because if they assess more free vacation time than that, the “Merit Systems Protection Board” has to get involved, and it could complicate things for the boss. But don’t worry, really there is no risk.  Nobody EVER gets fired from the federal government in the Obama era.

Here’s how it works.  Let’s say you are on assignment for the DEA in Columbia, and you need a little extra time off (with pay) for a spring break getaway.  All you have to do is go hang out at the local brothel and have some fun with the working girls.  Really! Don’t worry, your sex party is paid for by the drug cartel (you know, those guys you have been pretending to bust for shipping container loads of cocaine to the fine citizens of Philadelphia and Detroit).  So go and enjoy your time off.  Your boss doesn’t mind.

The taxpayers don’t mind either.  Heck, they have been giving out paid leave for all kinds of federal employees who have learned that screwing up is the best way to get some extra paid vacation time.  According to the Washington Post, tens of thousands of federal employees are home on paid leave right now as part of their “disciplinary action” for screwing up.  Over a recent three year period the tab to the taxpayers was $775 million in salaries alone, not to mention the cost of replacing these bad boys and girls while they were on their extra paid vacations.

The taxpayers even pay government employees at retirement time for sick pay that they didn’t use because they didn’t get sick. What’s another couple of weeks of vacation for you?  No big deal.

So if you want a couple of weeks of extra vacation, take my advice:  do something terrible!

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

 

Vacation, all I ever wanted
Vacation, had to get away!

Vacation – the Go Go’s

 

Gay Wedding Cakes – What Difference Does It Make?

Posted on by Standard 1
gayweddingcake

photo courtesy of The Blaze

I hate to admit it, but just this once I agree with Hillary Clinton when she says, “What difference does it make?”

I’m not talking about Benghazi, I hope she goes to jail for that one.  But most of the hoo-hah in the press is about stuff that is totally inconsequential.  What difference does it make?

Once again, the news media has sacrificed a week of our waking, thinking lives on stuff that has absolutely no significance to the vast majority of Americans.  The big item this week:  Indiana’s “religious freedom law”.  What a nothing-burger.

Indiana’s law just says if you own a business, and you are sued for discrimination by a customer for refusing to participate in what you consider to be a sacreligious act, you may use your religious commitment and beliefs as a defense.  Doesn’t mean you will win.

Ann Coulter said in her brilliantly sarcastic column, “Evidently, the sole function of the media these days is to subject the public to a steady stream of manufactured events . . .  [such as claiming] a law protecting religious freedom will lead to separate water fountains for gays in Indiana.”

Manufactured is right, and anyone with a modest sense of proportion can see that the stuff they are manufacturing doesn’t amount to a rat’s derriere.  Do the math.  How many people are gay?  Maybe 3%?  How many of them get married?  Maybe 5%?  How many of them are likely to run into a bakery that will turn down a $200 profit by refusing to bake their wedding cake?  Maybe 1%?  I’m not a statistician,  but according to my non-Common-Core math I think we are talking about .0015% of the adult American population.  All this fuss over maybe a hundred people?  And that’s a stretch.

With all the publicity you would think there is NOTHING IN THE WORLD more important than wedding cakes for a couple of cranky gay couples.  Starving kids in Guatemala?  Doesn’t matter.  Radiation in Japan?  Yesterday’s news.  Violent civil unrest in Myanmar?  Forget it, Rachel Maddow doesn’t know Myanmar from a Mars Bar.

We are being played for idiots.  You and me.  The media / liberal Democrats (same thing) are so condescending to us, the American people, that they think they can convince the masses that we all are losing sleep over the ten or twenty gay people who go out of their way to cause problems for a few families trying to earn a living and live by their religious principles.  And they think this chicanery can swing elections.  God help us if they are right.

I’m not worried about the working families.  They will be fine if we all just let them do their thing.  The couple of gay activists making trouble?  Not even a mosquito on an elephant’s ass.

Can we talk about something important now?

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

Doesn’t matter what the pain we go through
Doesn’t matter if the money’s gone too
Just as long as I’m with you
Nobody but you, baby, baby

Doesn’t Matter – Janet Jackson

 

It’s the OTHER Jackson, and she’s hot.  Check it out.

Liberals, Please Don’t Ruin Sports For Our Kids

Posted on by Standard 2

Conrads first baseball game 7My grandson just turned five, and that entitles me to coach his little league baseball team.  It’s Grandpa Heaven.  Our first game was last Saturday.

At this age, the coach pitches to his own players and if they can’t hit it after five good pitches, they hit from a tee.  My grandson smashed my first pitch into deep center field, but I digress . . .

I didn’t expect a baseball game for five-year-olds to have a political slant.  But it sure did.

Our team took the field first, and the other team sent up their first batter.  He hit a grounder to our first baseman, who stepped on the bag for the first out.  But instead of returning to the dugout, the batter stood on first base, held there by his coach.  My other coaches and I looked at each other, confused.  Our players looked at us wondering what was going on.  We told the opposing coach, “Hey!  That kid is out!”  (There are no umpires for T-ball.)

“No, we are going to let all the kids run the bases,” he said.  “Nobody goes out.”

The second batter hit a grounder to our pitcher, who tossed the ball to first base.  Out number two.  But no, the coach left both runners on the bases.  We didn’t put up a fight at the time, because it was our first year coaching in this league, and the other team’s coaches seemed to be veterans with authority.  “This is the way we play in this league,” they barked.  We had been given the leagues “rules” before the season started, stating, “There will be a maximum of 5 runs or 3 outs per inning, whichever comes first,” and “An out is an out.  Player must leave the field of play.”  Apparently rules mean as much to these dads as the Constitution does to President Obama.

This morning I wrote a note to the coach of our opposing team next week, asking him to agree that “an out is an out” in our upcoming game.  I explained that the kids were confused because rules weren’t enforced, and many of them were getting really bored because every play had the same outcome.  I copied my email to the league’s director.

That started a flurry of emails.  Turns out the league director is a knuckle-headed liberal who thinks that it is more “fun” for the kids to never fail than it is for them to actually succeed.  I pointed out that kids, especially at that age, need order and structure. They want to know what they are supposed to do.  What’s the point of throwing the ball to first base if the runner is always safe? And why bother to run hard to beat the throw if you will be safe anyway?  The “putout” is fundamental to baseball.  There is no game without it.  And besides, what is more fun than getting a legitimate base hit, or a putout?

The director, of course, launched into the predictable liberal tirade about the evils of competition.  “Besides, kids at this age never put anybody out anyway,” he claimed.  That got my daughter (assistant coach) into the fray.  “Our team made five putouts in the first inning, three in the second, and two in the third!” she countered.  She was a very competitive athlete in younger years, and was obviously keeping score, mentally.  “The other team got several putouts too.  So did the teams that played after us.”   She, too, pointed out that the players were getting bored because every play had the same outcome.

The director said he would think about it.  But I’m not optimistic that the integrity of our T-ball league will be saved from a liberal fate.

Why do liberals think they have the only correct understanding of fairness?  How fair is it when you put a kid out at first base and he gets to stay there anyway? A “game”, by definition, is a competition with a winner and a loser. Results. Consequences. Reality.  No consequences, no game.

Imagine the NCAA championship game coming up in a couple of weeks.  Every player gets to take the same number of shots.  Every shot is good for two points, whether it goes in the basket or not.  But nobody keeps score anyway, because it might make somebody feel bad. Do you think anybody would pay to watch?  Or want to play?  Even a five-year-old knows that’s just plain stupid.

** UPDATE 3/28/15 – our little “protest” worked – with support from other parents and coaches, we got the league director to enforce the rule.  Starting today, in our little kids baseball league, “an out is an out.”  Victory!

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right SideJust to hit the ball, and touch ’em all
A moment in the sun
It’s a-gone and you can tell that one good-bye!

Center Field – John Fogerty

 

 

check out Fogerty’s “baseball bat” guitar!

A Pat On the Butt for the Democrats

Posted on by Standard 2
Jayhawk Perry Ellis dunks

photo by Rich Sugg – Kansas City Star

Point guard Frank Mason of the Kansas Jayhawks took the outlet pass and pounded the ball down the left sideline on the fast break.  Out of the corner of his eye he saw teammate Perry Ellis racing for the basket behind the TCU defender.  Mason lobbed a perfect pass over the rim to Ellis and BOOM!  With one hand Perry caught the ball and hammered it down through the rim, even while being fouled.  “That’s gonna be on Sports Center,” chuckled the TV announcer.  Wide-eyed fans howled as the cameras panned their faux-shock-and-awe faces.

One of the TCU players passed behind Perry at the free throw line and gave him a pat on the butt.  Even though they are mortal enemies, a great play like that has to be recognized.

This morning I have to give the Obama administration a little pat on the butt.

Don’t get me wrong, we are mortal enemies too.  I am furious and frightened by almost everything this administration does.  But I have to admire how well they execute their game plan.  Nothing is left to chance.  No player on the administration’s team makes a free-style move.  Every statement is carefully coordinated.  They all get the memo, and they all follow the script.

Following Obama’s claims last week that poverty is the root of terrorism, the administration sent out State Department’s Marie Harf to explain why young men become terrorists, behead Christians, and burn victims alive in cages.  Harf said, “We need the media to go after the root causes that lead people to join these groups, whether it’s a lack of opportunity for jobs … ”  And this: “They are using social media to get converts to their cause and to spread their hatred all over the world.”

Today Jeh Johnson, director of Homeland Security, was the administration’s point guard, running the offense from the same playbook.  He, too, blamed social media – repeatedly – for ISIS’s organizational success, along with poverty and joblessness.  And he threw in, for good measure, the need for Congress to fully fund Homeland Security while disregarding the president’s executive amnesty edicts.

Absurd.  Blaming social media for the ISIS atrocities is like blaming Hitler’s World War II barbarity on the telephone.  And, as George Will pointed out, singling out poverty as the cause of terrorism is “an insult to poor and jobless people all over the world who don’t strap bombs onto their women and children and send them into shopping centers to kill innocent strangers.”  Not to mention, most ISIS terrorists are far from destitute, according to CNN’s national security analyst Peter Bergen.

But here’s why I have to give the “pat on the butt”.

This week Congress will have a hearing and likely a vote on whether to turn control of the Internet over to the FCC by classifying it as a public utility.  The “Net Neutrality” issue has been misrepresented, misreported, and remains totally misunderstood by most Americans, and unfortunately by most of our legislators, who swallow the warm, fuzzy claims that we poor citizens must be protected from the money-hungry huge corporations who want to deny us fair access to the internet.  Government good!  Competitive free internet bad!  In reality, it is yet another federal power-grab that would result in poorer internet access and performance, loss of privacy to government snooping, and huge profits for a select few crony corporations at taxpayer expense.  (Is it any wonder Time Warner / ComCast is a huge supporter of net neutrality?)

Concurrently, the Obama administration is pushing for a new blowout budget with higher spending on social programs, and they want Congress to release its hold on funding Homeland Security and allow Obama’s executive amnesty edicts to continue unfettered.

The administration is using the “ISIS Crisis” to drive home their real domestic agenda:  Pass Net Neutrality and give the government control of the web.  Pass the budget and give the government more taxpayer money for the ‘poor and jobless’ (mainly more government jobs).  Fund HHS without restrictions so we can open the borders and give full rights and benefits to illegal immigrants.

More government control.  More dependence on big government.  More Democrat voters.

I hate it.   I hope to hell enough thoughtful people see through it.   But Democrats, I have to give you a patt on the butt for executing a great play.

Tom Balek, Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right SideFrom Piston Pete to Doctor J,
Michael Jordan’s fadeaway,
Hip hop is the way I live
And basketball’s the game I play

March Madness is around the corner, and then the NBA playoffs!
Here is the very indiscreet, racist, misogynistic, nasty, politically incorrect and mostly funny original by Cheech and Chong – watch at your own risk, you will be offended, and I am not responsible for content!   1975 was a very different time!

 

K-12 Spending: more, More, MORE!

Posted on by Standard 1

Education spending.  More is better, right?

For years we have heard reports that teachers are forced to buy paper and supplies out of their own pockets, that some teachers qualify for food stamps, and that there have been “draconian cuts” to K-12 education budgets for decades.  Stories of the heartless underfunding of education are delivered with emotion and indignation, but seldom with statistical validation.

As student scores, college readiness and employability of graduates continue to decline across the U.S., the mantra of educators and progressives increases in volume and pitch.  “More money.  Just give us more money.  All we need is MORE MONEY!”

Seattle Times Headline Ed Spending

At a recent conference on school choice presented by the Franklin Center, Dr. Ben Scafidi shredded many of the myths about American taxpayers short-shrifting students.

Scafidi, director of the Economics of Education Policy Center at Georgia College and State University, said spending per student continues to increase sharply, studies prove that student achievement does not rise as a result of more spending, and there is no evidence that students are any harder to teach than they ever were due to non-school influences.

The most compelling finding of Scafidi’s 2012 study titled “The School Staffing Surge – Decades of Employment Growth in America’s Public Schools is this:

From 1950 to 2009 the number of students increased by 98%.  The number of teachers in public schools increased by 252%.  Meanwhile the number of administrators and other school staff increased by 702%.

Scafidi said, “If from 1992 to 2012 our public schools had increased non-teacher staff at the same rate that it increased teaching staff, it would have freed up $26.5 billion per year in education funds.  That could translate to an $8500 raise for every teacher, or a huge reduction in taxes, or scholarships that would allow many students to attend the schools of their choice.”

Opponents of school choice contend that students who remain in traditional public schools are harmed when budget dollars follow students to private or charter schools.  But Scafidi points out that charter and private schools operate so much more efficiently than the traditional public schools that fixed costs for the existing schools (about 36%) can still be covered by available funds and the remaining students in those schools benefit by the reduced variable costs.

Clearly there is no direct equivalency between dollars spent per student and results.  Test scores, graduation rates, and college matriculation at the private and charter schools I visited in Washington, DC were nothing short of miraculous compared to those of the traditional DC public schools, despite spending less than half the amount per student.

In previous posts I have reported school budgets in rural Montana schools of $22,000 per student per year.  While many of these students are getting a great education, by no means are they twice as smart as their city-school peers.  The cost is merely a function of declining numbers of students versus increasing costs, largely spending required by federal and state regulations and not the local school board.

I have personally seen many aggregious examples of non-academic school spending.  One Montana school district with 350 high school students keeps a stable of five cruiser buses, most equipped with personal video players, for their athletic and extracurricular teams.  Schools so small they can only play six-man football travel 350 miles to games.  My local school district in South Carolina just spent $6 million on artificial turf.  That’s got to affect the cost per student, without really improving student outcomes, wouldn’t you say?

Voters and taxpayers: next time you hear educators and progressives hollering for “more, more, more money!” you might ask how the extra dollars will be spent and how will students benefit.  Better yet, demand that the dollars coming from your hard earned pay can go with each student to the school of his or her choice.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

And when you ask ’em, “How much should we give?”
Ooh, they only answer “More! More! More!”, y’all
It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no millionaire’s son
It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no fortunate one!

Who’s Naughty? Who’s Nice?

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santa_naughty_or_niceNAUGHTY:

NICE:

  • The principled and honest conservative Congressmen and Senators: Many of our elected officials are actually doing what they promised their constituents they would do – they are working hard to stop the liberal onslaught against our economy and values.
  • Our men and women serving in the military: They put up with ridiculous rules of engagement, social engineering, politicized leadership, unjust pay and benefits, and utter disrespect and scorn from our administration and many of our legislators.  Our soldiers’ Christmas stockings should be STUFFED.
  • The American Taxpayers:  while our federal government forces them to fork over their earnings, and confiscates their property at will, the taxpayers work harder, take care of their families and employees, and find a little extra to give to those who truly need their help.

Rockin' On the Right Side

He’s making a list, checking it twice
Gonna find out who’s naughty and nice
Santa Claus is coming to town!

Santa Claus Is Coming to Town (trad.) – Pentatonix

Best Santa Claus rendition EVER!

 

 

 

A Conservative Thankful for . . . Government Employees?

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Thankful TurkeyYes, I am a conservative, and on this Thanksgiving holiday I’m thankful for government employees.

Now, before you choke on your turkey giblet stuffing – let me explain.  There are many things that government does extremely well.  When I turn the tap at my sink, I get clean, safe water every time.  And the cost of it is pretty darned reasonable.  My garbage gets picked up right on time.  The stop lights work, our streets and highways are pretty good, and if there is an emergency the fire, police and EMS/rescue guys are top notch.

I generally don’t worry about our country being pushed around by other nations because our military is still the biggest, baddest dawg in the junkyard.

We need good government employees and the services they provide that we just can’t do as individuals.  I believe for the most part our local and state governments do what is expected of them and at a cost we can manage.   I just wish the same were true of the federal government.

It’s not that the federal government doesn’t do enough for us.  Quite the contrary, it does way the hell too much.

Most Americans don’t understand that our Constitution limits the authority of the federal government to a fairly short list of “enumerated powers“.   The first item in the list says:

The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States

The remaining items on the list mostly refer to national defense, currency, and post offices.  And anything not specifically on that list, according to the Tenth Amendment,  is strictly off-limits to the feds.

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

There is nothing in the enumerated powers that allows the federal government to redistribute income or to compensate anyone for financial loss or misfortune.  You won’t find any reference to endangered species, or global warming.  Nothing there about foreign aid.  No mention of education.  The feds aren’t authorized to provide bailouts of private companies, banks, or mortgage-holders.  They aren’t supposed to be buying up private land and property.

In fact, most of what our federal government does is not authorized by the Constitution.  Maybe that’s why our current administration — cheered on by the media, academia, and a good portion of our nation’s under-educated and disengaged citizens — doesn’t feel it should be restricted by Constitutional law.

Sometimes we conservatives are mischaracterized as “anti-government” zealots.  Contrary to liberal claims, we don’t want our children to drink dirty water, our disabled to die in poverty on the streets, or our grandmas to be pushed over a cliff when they pass the age of usefulness.

Just the same, we aren’t pleased when our federal government takes our hard-earned money – our property – by force and gives it to another person, company, or nation for motives we don’t support, and purposes that are not constitutional.  And we wonder how awesome life in America would be if our federal government was the lean, mean machine the framers of our Constitution intended – protecting the borders, providing national defense, and doing only what it is supposed to – without the incredible waste of resources and failed social experimentation that holds us back.

It’s true we are abused by a growing number of (mostly federal) unaccountable bureaucrats who never answer the phone.  But most of our government employees are just out there doing the honorable work of the People, and they deserve a thank-you.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

You didn’t have to love me like you did
But you did, but you did – and I thank you
You didn’t have to hold me like you did
But you did, but you did – and I thank you

Conservative Immigrants – Don’t Turn Around!

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Turn-Around-Sign-300x196I’m trying to get a better understanding of the immigration reform and amnesty issues, and while traveling recently I have had some enlightening conversations with immigrants.

Rafael is from the Dominican Republic.  He has been working in New York City as a driver for about ten years, and is saving money to rejoin his wife and daughter back in Santo Domingo permanently.  Meanwhile, he watches for airfare bargains and makes several brief trips home each year.  Rafael believes in the “American Dream” – anyone who is willing to work hard can succeed here.  But he is skeptical of the US government.  He bought some land in the Dominican Republic and plans to build a house on it.  “Nobody can take your land away from you there,” he said.  “Once you pay for your land, it’s yours forever.  Here in the US, if you don’t pay your taxes, or if the government wants your land for some reason, they can just take it away from you.”  Hard work, personal responsibility, and property rights – Rafael is a conservative immigrant.

Jonathan immigrated to New York City from Hong Kong with his parents ten years ago.  He started a couple of small businesses in Chinatown, but both failed.  Undaunted, he is still bullish on the US economy and while working a couple of service jobs he is an ardent investor in stocks.  I asked him about the dicey situation in Hong Kong, where the communist Chinese government is now stripping away many of the freedoms citizens enjoyed when it was a British protectorate and then a quasi-independent state.  “The government has become so corrupt,” Jonathan lamented.  “You can’t do anything without having to pay off somebody in the government.”  I suggested that our government has become corrupt, too.  “But there’s a difference,” he said.  “In China, everybody knows about the corruption and just deals with it.  Here, it’s supposed to be a secret.”  Opportunity, free markets, and freedom from big, corrupt, oppressive government – Jonathan is a conservative immigrant.

Javier is from Puerto Rico.  “I’m a US citizen,” he boasts.  Still, as a Hispanic he is considered a minority and somewhat outside the mainstream.   He works long hours, and loves it.  The more he works, the more he earns.  And he has no patience for those who expect to be cared for without working, whether they are traditional American citizens or immigrants.  “They make me sick, these guys who do nothing all day.  Why should I pay taxes for them to be lazy?” he rails.  Hard work and the desire to keep what he earns.  Yes, Javier is a conservative immigrant, too.

I did not ask these gentlemen whether or how they vote.  The Democrats believe all minorities are their chattel property.  And because Democrats have so vilified Republicans and conservatives in the mainstream media, minorities do pretty much vote in lock-step for liberals.

Why?  Every immigrant I talk to is a conservative.  It is conservative values that drives most immigrants to our shores.

Donna, a native of Guyana of Chinese descent, is a conservative activist.  She told me the compelling story about her path to America.  “I was in Guyana, minding my own business.  I turned around, and suddenly I was surrounded by socialists.  So I moved to Venezuela.  I was minding my own business, and when I turned around, again there were the socialists.  So then I came to the United States.”

“The moral of the story,” she says, “is don’t turn around!”

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

Don’t turn around, uh-oh
Der Kommissar’s in town, uh-oh!
You’re in his eye and you’ll know why
The more you live, the faster you will die

Der Kommisar – After the Fire