# ^ Jan 1, 16 12:48:40
FrumCA
Lou Holtz Nails It !!
The Democrats are right, there are two Americas. The America that works and the America that doesnt. The America that contributes and the America that doesnt. Its not the haves and the have nots, its the dos and the donts. Some people do their duty as Americans, obey the law, support themselves, contribute to society and others dont. Thats the divide in America .
Its not about income inequality, its about civic irresponsibility, Alright, let's talk about civic responsibility. How about Apple? More cash on hand than God, earned by Chinese slave labor! Is that civic responsibility--in either China or America? Those jobs could be in America, supporting American civilization, couldn't they? Would that be civic responsibility? Apple ain't the only one, as everyone knows!
Its about a political party that preaches hatred, greed and victimization in order to win elective office. I assume you're being honest and referring to the Republican for the first two. Clearly enough, you are. Now, victimization; you refer, of course, to black citizens. Those citizens we imported for their slavery, treated worse that we treated horses or mules, fed them barely enough to say alive and work, and destroyed their religion and their families--much of this in the past. In the recent past, with cooperation of local government, realtors, and businessmen and bankers, 'we' made it just about impossible for them to move to better neighborhood and better schools; it's called 'redlining,' and until recently it was standard stuff. Still goes on informally, but clearly illegal now. I agree--THAT'S victimization, and the Democrats try to alleviate it while the Republicans laugh and scoff! Some civic responsibility!
Its about a political party that loves power more than it loves its country. And who to you claim That to be? How about a legislative body who has abandoned legislating? How about a legislative body that refuses to approve needed judges on the bench, or National Security workers we desperately need, to deprive a President they don't approve of any semblance of success? That party? How's Their civic responsibility?
Thats not invective, thats truth, and its about time someone said it. But, my friend, you say only Part of it, and saying part of it, the self-serving part of it, is dishonest stuff indeed! Where is Your civic responsibility?
The politics of envy was on proud display a couple weeks ago when President Obama pledged the rest of his term to fighting income inequality. He noted that some people make more than other people, that some people have higher incomes than others, and he says thats not just. That is the rationale of thievery. No my friend, it is not. It is the rationale of someone who knows what happened in France immediately before the French Revolution. We had tax rates and controls on Wall Street that produced stability enough for sustained economic growth, that enabled us to win two World Wars, and become the envy of the world, One party destroyed all this, and you see what we have now. We have it Your Way.
The other guy has it, you want it, Obama will take it for you. Vote Democrat. That is the philosophy that produced Detroit. No, the philosophy that destroyed Detroit and much of the rest of the nation is the philosophy that unleashed Wall Street and freed Bankers of fiscal responsibility, that built such a lust for cash that labor is moved to slave labor again--this time in China and similar places,for vast profits and criminal tax rates.
It is the electoral philosophy that is destroying America. It conceals a fundamental deviation from American values and common sense because it ends up not benefiting the people who support it, but a betrayal. I agree with you 100%! Selling out the legislature for the lobbyist's dollars, fostering legislative irresponsibility--dare I say corruption?--and living on campaign contributions. We have a legislature who comes to Washington poor, and retires rich, for doing nothing. That's the electoral philosophy that is destroying America, and it's still growing!
The Democrats have not empowered their followers, they have enslaved them in a culture of dependence and entitlement, of victim-hood and anger instead of ability and hope. The presidents premise that you reduce income inequality by debasing the successfulseeks to deny the successful the consequences of their choices and spare the unsuccessful the consequences of their choices. Because, by and large, income variations in society are a result of different choices leading to different consequences. My friend, you're naive, and for the moment I will assume it's an honest condition. How do you cure victim-hood and anger in an eight-dollar-an-hour economy? Just last week a Wall Street money man spent $300,000 at a strip club--In One Week! Do you have a plan that would allow a black kid in the inner city to do the same? It's a different world, and not one you live in. When a businessman can make a million dollars a week--and that happens!--for moving his company to external slave labor, what is left for the American worker, black or white? Platitudes don't do it; money counts, and this money walks.
Those who choose wisely and responsibly have a far greater likelihood of success, while those who choose foolishly and irresponsibly have a far greater likelihood of failure. Naive again, my friend. Unless you invent the computer or an electric car, profit usually comes from Pentagon cost over-runs--Billions!--Government money (remember the private contractor army in Iraq created by a billion dollar overnight contract, and who's most notable event was shooting Iraqi citizens as the contractors drove down the streets?) special breaks and tax rates paid for and voted by congress. Do you remember Big Coal who got rich killing miners in his mine, leaving those who survived with black lung disease? What would you advise the surviving miners to do? Reality is complex, not given to simplicities like football plays and manly aphorisms. If you don't have a million dollars, or a way to get a million dollars, life is tough, and increasingly with less hope.
Success and failure usually manifest themselves in personal and family income. You choose to drop out of high school or to skip college and you are apt to have a different outcome than someone who gets a diploma and pushes on with purposeful education.
You have your children out of wedlock and life is apt to take one course; you have them within a marriage and life is apt to take another course. Most often in life our destination is determined by the course we take. Absolutely agree. What have you done to communicate this to those who need it? Ever met any of them personally? A successful and revered football coach could inspire many. Use Jimmy Carter for a model. That ex-President manages to inspire multitudes with his sweat and compassion, and saves his preaching for the Sunday School where he teaches. You could do as much, maybe more. THAT would be a civic responsibility.
My doctor, for example, makes far more than I do. There is significant income inequality between us. Our lives have had an inequality of outcome, but, our lives also have had an in equality of effort. While my doctor went to college and then devoted his young adulthood to medical school and residency, I got a job in a restaurant. He made a choice, I made a choice, and our choices led us to different outcomes. His outcome pays a lot better than mine. Does that mean he cheated and Barack Obama needs to take away his wealth? No, it means we are both free men in a free society where free choices lead to different outcomes. If you claim this to be true, you need better negotiating skills. We learned what college coaches--successful college coaches--earn from recent sex scandals in Pennsylvania, and I seriously doubt the average MD makes a sum anywhere near it. However...when your name was still prominent, you could have done immense good in inner-city high schools, preaching this message. You coulda been a Jimmy Carter. What good you could have done instead of selling cars and writing for right-wing rags. Maybe you did. I'd like to think so.
It is not inequality Barack Obama intends to take away, it is freedom. The freedom to succeed, and the freedom to fail. There is no true option for success if there is no true option for failure. The pursuit of happiness means a whole lot less when you face the punitive hand of government if your pursuit brings you more happiness than the other guy. Even if the other guy sat on his arse and did nothing. Even if the other guy made a lifetimes worth of asinine and short sighted decisions. This is a truly silly statement. Life is not following blindly some cliche. Obama is not taking anyone's Liberty. The people we are talking about have had all the freedom to fail they want, and they will get more. Your panacea is hopeless, at least at this time and in this country. You know very little of it. What could you tell an inner-city black student, or a West Virginia coal miner? One born in the middle of a West Virginia coal field, digging in the same hole his daddy died in, and his grand daddy? He can't feed his grandkids, can't breathe, and has had all the freedom to fail he wants. Do conservative platitudes help this man?
Barack Obama and the Democrats preach equality of outcome as a right, while completely ignoring inequality of effort.
The simple Law of the Harvest as ye sow, so shall ye reap is sometimes applied as, The harder you work, the more you get. This is just wrong. You're either an incompetent observer or dishonest. Democrats hope for an honest starting line, not equality of outcome. Ever heard of 'afluenza'? Rich men get rich by being born to rich fathers. The average inheritance of the top 1% of families is 2.7 Million dollars. Inheritance is the secret of great wealth, that is inheritance sweetened by low tax rates that increase the national debt. The top 10% of the wealthiest families have 1000% more wealth than the middle class, and the top 1% of the wealthiest families have 1000% more wealth than the top ten percent.
The secret to wealth is to be born rich, then multiply that through Anything BUT hard work
Review, if you will where George Bush got wealthy--got his own money: selling a baseball team after the county spent public tax dollars to buy the team a stadium, and the team ended up owning the stadium. That's how you get rich.
Obama would turn that upside down. Those who achieve are to be punished as enemies of society and those who fail are to be rewarded as wards of society. Entitlement will replace effort as the key to upward mobility in American society if Barack Obama gets his way. He seeks a lowest common denominator society in which the government besieges the successful and productive to foster equality through mediocrity. He and his party speak of two Americas, and their grip on power is based on using the votes of one to sap the productivity of the other. America is not divided by the differences in our outcomes, it is divided by the differences in our efforts. What sickness! How are those who achieve being punished? Really, how? Review, if you will, the statistics on wealth in this country--immense wealth tended with low taxes. The Republican tax cuts have transformed this country from a Democracy to a Plutarchy, that is Government by a small minority of the wealthy. And, tell me how 'entitlement' will become upward mobility. Whatever punishment involved is the .001% punishing the lower population!
We already understand the lowest common denominator; we live it. You do too! And if you think the richest are the most productive, you have no idea of reality. Entitlement will never become wealth, much as you think so. But the wealthiest are not necessarily productive: they invest, they receive. They simply own everything, and lower taxes help them own even more.
It is a false philosophy to say one mans success comes about unavoidably as the result of another mans victimization.
What Obama offered was not a solution, but a separatism. He fomented division and strife, pitted one set of Americans against another for his own political benefit. Thats what socialists offer. Marxist class warfare wrapped up with a bow. Two Americas, coming closer each day to proving the truth to Lincolns maxim that a house divided against itself cannot stand. Marxism, in theory, leads to dissolution of class; you have it wrong. Capitalism is class warfare wrapped up with a bow. Admit it. Socialism has nothing to do with this debate, since the government does not own the means of production, and nobody suggests that it should.
Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it. Let me close with a few selected paragraphs from today's Washington Post telling you how today's working class is killing itself with alcohol and drugs--legal and illegal--precisely because, for those people, no amount of work will improve their lot in life. Read it and learn.
Lou Holtz
Leo Lou Holtz (born January 6, 1937) is a retired American football coach, and active sportscaster, author, and motivational speaker.
America's Self-destructive Whites.
The Washington Post
By Fareed Zakaria Opinion writer December 31, 2015
Why is Middle America killing itself? The fact itself is probably the most important social science finding in years. It is already reshaping American politics. The Posts Jeff Guo notes that the people who make up this cohort are largely responsible for Donald Trumps lead in the race for the Republican nomination for president. The key question is why, and exploring it provides answers that suggest that the rage dominating U.S. politics will only get worse.
For decades, people in rich countries have lived longer. But in a well-known paper, economists Angus Deaton and Anne Case found that over the past 15 years, one group middle-age whites in the United States constitutes an alarming trend. They are dying in increasing numbers. And things look much worse for those with just a high school diploma or less. There are concerns about the calculations, but even a leading critic of the paper has acknowledged that, however measured, the change compared to other countries and groups is huge.
The main causes of death are as striking as the fact itself: suicide, alcoholism, and overdoses of prescription and illegal drugs. People seem to be killing themselves, slowly or quickly, Deaton told me. These circumstances are usually caused by stress, depression and despair. The only comparable spike in deaths in an industrialized country took place among Russian males after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when rates of alcoholism skyrocketed.
(Snip)
But why dont we see the trend among other American ethnic groups? While mortality rates for middle-age whites have stayed flat or risen, the rates for Hispanics and blacks have continued to decline significantly. These groups live in the same country and face greater economic pressures than whites. Why are they not in similar despair?
The answer might lie in expectations. Princeton anthropologist Carolyn Rouse suggested, in an email exchange, that other groups might not expect that their income, standard of living and social status are destined to steadily improve. They dont have the same confidence that if they work hard, they will surely get ahead. In fact, Rouse said that after hundreds of years of slavery, segregation and racism, blacks have developed ways to cope with disappointment and the unfairness of life: through family, art, protest speech and, above all, religion.
(Snip)
The United States is going through a great power shift. Working-class whites dont think of themselves as an elite group. But, in a sense, they have been, certainly compared with blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and most immigrants. They were central to Americas economy, its society, indeed its very identity. They are not anymore. Donald Trump has promised that he will change this and make them win again. But he cant. No one can. And deep down, they know it.