Name:	Shortbus -	Reply
Subject:	Makers & Takers explained
Date:	2/10/2014 1:27:06 PM (updated 2/10/2014 1:30:29 PM)

In early January 2014, Bob Lonsberry, a Rochester talk radio personality on WHAM 1180 AM, said this in response to Obama's "income inequality speech":

Two Americas

The Democrats are right, there are two Americas .
The America that works, and the America that doesn’t.
The America that contributes, and the America that doesn’t.
It’s not the haves and the have nots, it’s the dos and the don’ts.
Some people do their duty as Americans, obey the law, support themselves, contribute to society, and others don’t. That’s the divide in America .
It’s not about income inequality, it’s about civic irresponsibility.
It’s about a political party that preaches hatred, greed and victimization in order to win elective office.
It’s about a political party that loves power more than it loves its country. That’s not invective, that’s truth, and it’s about time someone said it.

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 that’s not just.
That is the rationale of thievery. The other guy has it, you want it, Obama will take it for you. Vote Democrat.
That is the philosophy that produced Detroit . 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.
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 president’s premise – that you reduce income inequality by debasing the successful – seeks to deny the successful the consequences of their choices and spare the unsuccessful the consequences of their choices.
Because, by and large, income variation in society is a result of different choices leading to different consequences. Those who choose wisely and responsibility have a far greater likelihood of success, while those who choose foolishly and irresponsibly have a far greater likelihood of failure. 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.
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 entire 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.
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 lifetime’s worth of asinine and shortsighted decisions.
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." 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. It is a false philosophy to say one man’s success comes about unavoidably as the result of another man’s 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. That’s what socialists offer. Marxist class warfare wrapped up with a bow.
Two Americas , coming closer each day to proving the truth to Lincoln ’s maxim that a house divided against itself cannot stand.

Name:	Lighthouse -	Reply
Subject:	Makers & Takers explained
Date:	2/10/2014 1:49:11 PM

Thanks for posting this.  He said it clear enough that  any one with half a brain should be able to understand.

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	Too much logic and reason
Date:	2/10/2014 2:12:27 PM

In even the recent past this would have resonated with a vast majority of Americans.  Nowdays I am not so sure, especially with the youth vote that seems to have had all ability to think logically and critically removed from their brains by the govt school system and popular culture.  Its not the actual results of these failed policies that matters, its the good intentions.  Anyway, great post and thanks for sharing it.  I have copied it and will share with some young minds filled with mush......thankfully none of my children.

Name:	Shortbus -	Reply
Subject:	Let's fix it.
Date:	2/10/2014 2:28:20 PM

What about these two fixes?

Voting

Only those owning property can vote.  Excellent idiot filter that bypasses sexism and racism.

Taxes, privacy and hassles

Put tarriffs on imported goods.  Eliminate all federal taxes.  Maybe state as well.

More jobs, made in America the new norm, same or better tax revenues, 4th and 5th amendments respected, happy productive people.

Please feel welcome to rip this apart.

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	Let's fix it.
Date:	2/10/2014 4:04:15 PM

I like the first part a lot even if it could never get enacted.  Sadly that genie is already out of the bottle.

On the second suggestion, unfortunately tariffs just end up hurting the consumer with higher prices and workers as other countries retaliate against our products.  There is a reason an apple costs $6 in Japan and I don't think we want to go there.  What we need to do is a better job in transitioning workers out of areas where we don't compete well.  The good news is that there is a tremendous amount of manufacturing being relocated to the U.S. but the bad news is that with automation it doesn't create the number of jobs it did in the past.  One thing I totally agree with is an all out effort to keep manufacturing in the U.S.  Unfortunately with our corporate taxes and regulations being so onerous and so many states that require union membership we are hampered in that effort.  I like your goal, but don't believe tariffs are the right way to go or will accomplish what we both want.

Hopefully not too much ripping and more like a thoughtful reponse with a smattering of opinion.  I usually save the rips for GFY and other left wing nuts. But if you really want me to rip into you it will take a lot more than what you posted.  :-)

Name:	GoneFishin -	Reply
Subject:	Let's fix it.
Date:	2/10/2014 9:59:17 PM

Limit voting right to those who own property coming from Tea Party members. The group which professes to believe in the Constitution. You want to eliminate all the young who graduate high school and and join the military. Those kids will die for your freedom but will have no right to vote. I will buy an acre of land and sell 1x1 sq foot plots for $1.00 so our miitary can own deeded land and vote. Martini doesn't want tarrifs cause he drives foreign cars.

What the right really wants is go back to the days of a test to vote and then they will bit^h when the Left establishes free clinic to help with passing the test. The greedy Right will establish for profit schools to help pass the test. 

Short Bus why don't you just say require blacks to pass a test.

Name:	Shortbus -	Reply
Subject:	While you are on Gov't subsistence, no voting!
Date:	2/10/2014 11:48:41 PM

"IF YOU CAN'T FIX IT WITH A HAMMER,YOU'VE GOT AN ELECTRICAL PROBLEM"

PUT ME IN CHARGE . . .

Put me in charge of food stamps. I'd get rid of Lone Star cards; no cash for Ding Dongs or Ho Ho's, just money for 50-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese and all the powdered milk you can haul away. If you want steak and frozen pizza, then get a job. 

Put me in charge of Medicaid. The first thing I'd do is to get women Norplant birth control implants or tubal ligations. Then, we'll test recipients for drugs, alcohol, and nicotine. If you want to reproduce or use drugs, alcohol, or smoke, then get a job.

Put me in charge of government housing. Ever live in a military barracks? You will maintain our property in a clean and good state of repair. Your "home" will be subject to inspections anytime and possessions will be inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or Xbox 360, then get a job and your own place. 

In addition, you will either present a check stub from a job each week or you will report to a "government" job. It may be cleaning the roadways of trash, painting and repairing public housing, whatever we find for you. We will sell your 22-inch rims and low profile tires and your blasting stereo and speakers and put that money toward the "common good."

Before you write that I've violated someone's rights, realize that all of the above is voluntary. If you want our money, accept our rules. Before you say that this would be "demeaning" and ruin their "self esteem," consider that it wasn't that long ago that taking someone else's money for doing absolutely nothing was demeaning and lowered self esteem.

If we are expected to pay for other people's mistakes we should at least attempt to make them learn from their bad choices. The current system rewards them for continuing to make bad choices.

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	Wow!
Date:	2/11/2014 7:12:41 AM

Gee, it seems to me that you have such low expectations of black people that they can't own property.  Ah yes, just like you do with our current president you likewise have low expectations for people of color...such soft but insidious bigotry. We would welcome anyone that owns property to vote regardless of race, creed, sexual orientation, etc.  And as for young people you don't seem to have a problem them not being able to buy tobacco until they are 21. Hmmmmmm.......  I think it would greatly benefit this country if only people that owned property could vote because they would be far more responsible and conservative than those that don't. That is a fact and all you have to do is look at the voting patterns. But hey, I'll even throw in this additional caveat. If you pay federal income taxes you can vote in federal elections.  If you pay state and local taxes you can vote in those elections as well.  What, are you now going to tell me I might as well say blackes can't vote?  Tsk, tsk GF, there you go again with that soft bigotry. 

But it as I said in my response that horse has already left the barn and is standing in the middle of the interstate which is giving us the wreck we are in.