The PJS Platform 2009

18 September 2009

I see these types of things passed around the internet all the time, almost always attributed to someone unlikely to think this way. So, in response to one that was recently passed to me, I’ve decided to modify it to fit my own character.

I have not decided to run as a write-in candidate for the 2012 Presidential elections. However, if you want me to fix this debacle, feel free to write me in anyway.

Here is my platform:

(1) Language - Use of the Phrase PRESS 1 FOR ENGLISH does not offend me. If anyone in the private sector wished to use it, that should be their choice. However, it should not be a part of any government agency. PRESS 1 FOR SPANISH or PRESS 2 FOR FRENCH or PRESS 3 FOR GERMAN are fine with me, as all government phone menus would be in English, which is the official language of the US federal government.

(2) Isolationism - There will be no isolationist attitude in a government run by me. All imports from anywhere in the world will have no import tariff at all. This is called free trade. The only thing that will alter this policy is any country that refuses to extend to us the same courtesy. If they apply an import tariff on American products coming into their country, we will simply not allow their products into the US until they realize the error of their ways.

(3) Illegal Aliens - Anyone caught in this country illegally will be immediately deported. No exceptions. If the deportee has any assets, they will be seized and forfeited to cover the expenses. The security of the southern border of the US will be strictly enforced. No exceptions. The northern border has not been a problem, and will continue to be open to our Canadian friends.

(4) Social Security - Social Security will immediately return to its original state. If you didn't contribute into it, you will get nothing out of it. Neither the President nor any other politician will be able to touch it. In fact, they will now be a part of it, too, eliminating the life-long governmental “golden parachutes” they are currently enjoying.

(5) Welfare – Welfare will be a temporary hand-up, no longer a long-term hand-out. The government cannot afford to support you for years on end. This is your responsibility to yourself and your family. If you cannot or will not do this, you will need to seek assistance from family, friends, or other private sector institutions like churches and charities. It is not the responsibility of the taxpayers who have nothing to do with your situation.

(6) Professional Athletes - Steroids? Banned substances? Who cares. The government has better things to do than hold hearings on people who cheat at sports. Shame on them for cheating, but the government will not step in and do whatever their league officials should be doing.

(7) Crime & Punishment – There will be no more “namby-pamby” approach to crime and punishment. All crimes will have specific punishments. There will be no more plea bargaining, judges discretion, or early release for good behavior. If you commit a crime, you pay the penalty. Period. No one in the US will be exempt from any laws passed by the federal government. No exceptions.

(8) Foreign Aid - All foreign aid using American taxpayer money will immediately cease and the money saved will help to pay off the national debt and, ultimately, lower taxes. When disasters occur around the world, we'll ask the American people if they want to donate to a disaster fund, and each citizen can make the decision as to whether or not it's a worthy cause.

(9) The Pledge of Allegiance – The Pledge of Allegiance will be recited every day in every public school classroom in the US, including colleges and universities that receive public funding. It will also be recited at the opening of every daily session of congress.

(10) The National Anthem – This will be played at the opening of all governmental ceremonies. If private sector events such as sporting events wish to do the same, that is their choice.

(11) Term Limits – All elected positions in the federal government will be limited to two terms in a lifetime, just like the President is now. At the end of those terms, the officials will be thanked for their service to the nation, and sent back home to live under the laws they’ve enacted.

I will not apologize for stepping on anyone’s toes or offending anyone with these ideals. They are my opinions on how things should work. If you don’t agree with them, feel free to continue voting for the status quo.

A War of (twisted) Words

20 July 2009

I’m going to tell you something that you probably already know. The problem isn’t whether or not you already know it, though. The problem is that you have been deliberately misled as to what it actually is. I’m going to magnanimously correct that for you. Prepare yourself; sit down and take a deep breath.

There is no health care crisis in America.

If you are already fuming over this statement, then you are exactly the reason I have written this. Read the words again, and think about what has been said. It doesn’t say what you think it says. More to the point, it doesn’t say what you’ve been deliberately misled into thinking it says. Most of the words in that sentence are pretty straight forward. The problem lies in just three of those words; health care crisis.

The United States of America offers the best health care of any society this planet has ever known. It’s not perfect by any means, but it is still far superior to the care one can get anywhere else...at this or any other time in human existence. We have the best research facilities, the best researchers, the most financing of research, the best manufacturing of equipment and pharmaceuticals, the best distribution systems, the best hospitals and care facilities, the best physicians and nurses, and the widest variety of insurance coverage options. No other country comes close to what we can provide. That’s why everyone comes here when they need serious health care.

So...where’s the crisis?

There isn’t one. How could there possibly be?

What has happened is a deliberate twisting and misuse of words. There are some people in our society who believe that they can twist words and misuse them in order to achieve their goals. They believe this because they have done so successfully in the past. I offer as evidence the twisted and distorted meaning of the phrase “assault weapon.” This was so well executed that an entire society believed that any firearm that had a menacing physical appearance was one, regardless of the fact that we already had laws that specifically defined that term. People who have an aversion to the rights given us in the Second Amendment of the US Constitution successfully convinced the general population that these guns needed to be banned. I’ll not get into the “sporting purpose” argument here, as that is not my point. My point is that an “assault weapon” is distinctly defined as a selective-fire weapon, which can fire in either semi-automatic or fully-automatic modes. Those types of weapons have been tightly regulated since the 1920s. Some people, though, decided to re-invent that phrase and assign it to semi-automatic only rifles in an effort to demonize them in the public eye. It worked. Who could possibly need one of those, right?

The same thing is occurring with this health care crisis argument. There is no crisis because anyone who needs health care can walk into a hospital anywhere in the United States and get it. If health care is not available, or is only available on a limited basis, THAT is a potential crisis. That is not what we face, though. The same kind of people who misled the public about guns – and many other issues as well – are now attempting to misled us about health care.

The real issue is health care coverage. There are indeed people in this country who, for a variety of reasons, do not have health care insurance. This does not occur because it is unavailable to them. It occurs because it is not being bought. Health care insurance is available to anyone who wishes to purchase it, in the same manner that homeowners or renters insurance is available to those who wish to purchase it. If someone does not have it, it is because they have chosen not to buy it.

If you have a job that does not offer this coverage as a benefit, you can simply buy it yourself. Yes, it is rather expensive. Anyone who has ever had to buy it on their own or pay through a COBRA plan knows this. This is the point where you weigh the option of paying the premiums for the coverage, or risking the incredibly expensive bills associated with a catastrophic illness or accident.

If you cannot afford this, then you still have several options available to you: you can get a better-paying job which will allow you to purchase the necessary policy, you can get a job that offers insurance as a benefit (which you will still likely have to pay a small part of the premium), or you can just do without insurance and hope nothing grave happens to you and your loved ones.

I certainly don’t want to solicit any whining about not being able to get better jobs, blah, blah, blah. I am a college dropout long-haired rock musician in my forties. If I can find a job with benefits, anyone can.

Why, then, do you suppose that there are people so bent on imposing some new draconian government-run health care system on us, and why must they mislead us in the process? The answer seems pretty obvious. If they told us their true intentions, we would never agree to it. This is not about doctor visits for everyone every time they sneeze, or the elderly having to choose between food and medication, or skyrocketing medical bills, or anything that has to do with health care. It’s all about power and control. These people want to control every aspect of our lives. If they are perceived as taking care of everyone from the cradle to the grave, they insure their continued support and re-elections, thus retaining their coveted political power.

There’s a problem with this doctrine, though, and it is one word: Freedom. Under this proposed system, you will lose your freedom to choose your doctor (government will do that for you), the freedom to live your life as you choose (because it will be a financial burden on the system if you engage in something they deem unhealthy), and, eventually, virtually any other freedom you can imagine. With the government controlling every aspect of your life, the word freedom will become a quaint entry in the dictionaries.

This always reminds me of my favorite Benjamin Franklin quote: “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”

This doesn’t even begin to address how a government that is three trillion dollars in debt can possible pay for this.

Is this what you really want, America?

I don’t. Unfortunately, until I take over and squash all the ridiculous little ideas like this one, we have to deal with the powers that be. The best way to do that is to call and write to your elected officials...your two US Senators, your US Representative, and the President. Voice your disapproval of this plan. If they ignore your opinion and choose not to represent you, remember that when you next walk into a voting booth.

The Slippery Slope, Pt. 1

17 February 2009
Today will go down as one of the most disturbing days of my life. Not so much on a personal level; that part was pretty much normal. What disturbed me the most about today was the signing of the $787 Billion “Stimulus” Bill into law by President Barack Obama. The disturbing part comes when one knows what has just happened. We, as a nation, have taken the first giant step away from our 200+ year history as a democratic republic, and hurled ourselves squarely towards socialism. And, we did it on purpose.

In November of 2008, we as a nation chose to elect a new President who was well known as a socialist. How could we have expected anything other than what has begun as of today? He promised us socialism, and today he delivered. Congratulations, America. I hope you’re proud of him, because I’m not.

What exactly did he give us that is so “stimulating” anyway? Has anyone actually read this bill? Does anyone know what’s really in it? As it happens, the folks at National Review Online read it, and wrote about it two weeks ago. Did you hear about it? Probably not. You could go looking for the article. It’s not difficult to find. I’ll summarize some of the more atrocious parts of it here, if nothing else just to prove the point.

-$50 Million for the National Endowment for the Arts – all of those displays of someone’s urine in a jar with a crucifix will surely spur the employment of millions
-$15 Billion for boosting Pell Grant scholarships – because everyone knows how much money college kids have to pump into the economy
-$4.2 billion for “neighborhood stabilization activities” – which is so obviously payback to the ACORN people, I don’t know why they didn’t just call it that
-$650 million for digital-TV coupons; $90 million of which is to educate “vulnerable populations” – can someone please tell me what in hell a “vulnerable population” is, and why their continued viewing of television is so important to the economy
-$4.264 Billion for government agencies, including $1 Billion for the US Census Bureau – funding government activities is now considered an emergency stimulus for the economy, which will create exactly zero jobs
-$175 Billion for Medicaid, COBRA, unemployment insurance, and food stamps – all of which are transfers of wealth from the productive to the unproductive, and creates exactly zero jobs...in fact, it urinates all over any incentive to work in the same manner that the NEA urinates on good taste
-$850 Million for Amtrak – let’s face it, if Amtrak needs that kind of money to continue functioning, then it deserves to fail
-$87 Million for a polar icebreaking ship – what kind of ship could possibly cost $87 Million? And why would we want to break the polar ice anyway...aren’t we always told by the hysterical among us that this is a bad thing?
-$150 Million for “producers of livestock, honeybees, and farm-raised fish” – yummy...who’s bringing the beer
-$2.4 Billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects – “Carbon capture”...I couldn’t make that up if I wanted to. Try putting that as your occupation on next years taxes
-$79 Billion for State Fiscal Stabilization Fund – nothing like trying to reward fiscally irresponsible State governments. I say “trying” because $79 Billion won’t even fix Kalleeforneeah’s problems, let alone the other 49 states. And since when is putting money in a fund stimulating for the economy?

This is just a small sample of the incredible waste of money in this package. Has anyone stopped to wonder from whence will all of this money come? It will come from you and me, the American people. Our government will take it from the people who make it and give it to the people they decide need it more than you. The only thing that that is going to stimulate is government control of more and more of the private sector. That, my friends, is socialism, which has never succeeded anywhere it has been tried.

There is a reason that the United States has long been the leader of the free world. It has nothing to do with how much we think we’re getting from our government, or how much we allow government to run our lives for us. It has everything to do with the spirit of freedom and independence, and the belief in American Exceptionalism. Have we lost the spirit that made this country so great?

I certainly hope not, but I’m beginning to have my doubts. This slippery slope is not easily reversed. Are we up for it?

Introduction

I started to do this several years ago, but simply didn’t have the time to adequately pursue it. It was to be my online soapbox. Like most people, I have long held certain beliefs that I do not see reflected in my elected officials, be they local, state, or federal. Very often, it has nothing to do with politicians at all, but rather the John and Jane Q. Public around me.

I see and hear what passes for news stories these days and it drives me nuts. How can these people do the things they do and still profess to represent the people of the United States of America? How can the people of this country continue to elect these idiots? How can the media be so one-sided and biased in their reporting? How can people in general do some of the things they do?

These things we see are the flaws inherent in the system of a democratic republic such as we have. How can they be overcome? I think I have a simple and effective answer: me. Don’t get me wrong; I have absolutely no intention of actually “taking over.” I happen to admire the US Constitution. It is one of the most magnificent documents ever written. I just wish our government felt the same way. If I were in charge, though, things would most assuredly be different.

Sometimes it seems like I am one of the few right-thinking individuals left on this planet. This Blog will be a record of my solutions to some of the more ridiculous problems that we face in this modern life of 2009 and beyond. With some of them you might agree, with others possibly not. Either way, they will surely make you think. In the end, I couldn’t possibly hope for more than that.