Then I saw that the unions were still standing there picketing, and they had signs that said “Shame on U.S.D. 123.” As it turns out, the school district basically said FU to the union and they hired “scabs” (which I define as ‘people who are happy to have work at a decent living wage and don’t whine about raises during a major recession’).

Normally, even after the district made a decision like that, they’d have a hard time finding people willing to cross the picket line. Not in this case. The building was swarming with workers. A lot of those guys probably haven’t had work in months, and they have families to feed.

The unions are livid, of course, because the school told them FU. They are used to getting whatever they want, and when they don’t, they just throw a tantrum until people give in to them. Apparently nobody cares about their tantrum this time. I wonder what’s different?

I’m pretty confident I know the answer to that question.

The average Joe takes a look at these self-important idiots who think they can be demanding during a near-depression, and they think “I can’t believe what ungrateful bozos those union guys are! What I wouldn’t give to have a job right now!”

Unions have outlived their usefulness, and now regular people are starting to get the hint. As I was sitting at the stoplight in front of the school, people were rolling down their windows to yell at the union picketers. “Get a life!” “It’s your own fault for walking off the job!” “@#$ you, maybe you should have considered all of the unemployed people!”

I have to admit, I had a tingle of patriotic pride when I realized that everyday Americans were finally realizing how UN-American unions are.

Pay should be based on merit and economic reality, not on blackmail.

Unions are going to fight for their “due” right down to the point where they fight their way out of existence. The U.A.W. is a great example. They had a jillion people 30 years ago, they fought and fought and fought… now they have highly paid workers, but they only have a few thousand left.

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

I mean, that’s twice as long ago as slavery was ended. It doesn’t give me much hope for the end of racial tensions….

Since the beginning of time, one group has whooped other groups and taken their land. For all we know, the “Native Americans” conquered and killed that “Original Native Americans” 1,000 years ago and just didn’t bother to tell us about it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8344449.stm

Obama has promised not to “forget” the Native Americans “as long as he’s in office.”

After he finishes his term, he plans to erase them from memory, but until then… it’s all good.

I’m so sick of groups “clinging” to their so-called heritage that they NEVER ACTUALLY EXPERIENCED! Geez louis!

“African-Americans” that live in America now have never BEEN in Africa, They didn’t get brought over in slave ships. They weren’t slaves. Their parents weren’t slaves. “Native Americans” that live in America now never lived in teepees or hunted bison. They might have been born on a reservation, but that’s only because FOR 300 FRIGGIN YEARS, THEIR FAMILIES HAVE REFUSED TO INTEGRATE INTO AMERICAN SOCIETY.

Why they heck should we as AMERICANS (not talking black, white, etc… just AMERICANS) accept that kind of disrespect for OUR culture and country. America may not be perfect, but it’s a pretty doggone nice place compared to a lot of other countries.

Africa certainly isn’t so great. How many African Americans would willingly go live in Africa if given the choice? Zero point zero zero. That’s because the “idea” of Africa is a lot more awesome than the reality of living in a starving, war-torn tribal mess with corrupt military leadership.

If the Native Americans were so awesome, how come they were still living in teepees and wandering around aimlessly? They had “America” for thousands of years, and that’s the best they could do?

To the victor goes the spoils. That’s what I say.

Discuss.

September 11th Tribute

Now we feel that we are the best, most advanced, most wonderful country on earth. Most of us don’t even care to see England, because frankly…. it’s just a bunch of old stuff. Theirs is an empire that peaked 100 years ago, and ours still hasn’t, best as I can tell.

I don’t feel bad for thinking America is better than everyone. Most people around the world have national pride, even if they live in a dump.

And what better way to celebrate getting free of British imperialism than by blowing stuff up and getting hammered, not necessarily in that order.

Fireworks are illegal pretty much everywhere within a 50 mile radius of my house, yet for the past two days it’s sounded like a war zone in my neighborhood. People unabashedly blow up grenades, dynamite, shoot of their AK-47s, and pretty much light anything on fire that will burn. The police and fire department are too busy arresting drunk drivers to worry about the gunfire and explosions, so people just carry on. Not to mention we Americans feel entitled to do whatever the heck we want on our own property.

So for all you Brits out there, sorry you got beat by a bunch of upstart colonists with pitchforks and shovels. You suck.

In the words of our great founding fathers: Neener neener neener! And in the words of the late, great Charlton Heston: You can have our guns when you pry them from our cold, dead hands.

The concept was to protest the hand-over-fist spending and the inevitable increases in taxes that will have to occur to pay for it in the future. Taxed Enough Already was the acronym. This had nothing to do with Republicans and Democrats. It certainly had nothing to do with being anti-Obama. This was about standing together and letting the government know we don’t approve of the recklessness they’re showing right now… and frankly that they showed the past few years under W.

Joe Biden says it’s patriotic to pay taxes. I’m afraid the founding fathers would disagree with him, since the original reason for the revolution was taxes.

I guess the thing that’s shocking to me is that any American that isn’t a member of congress WOULDN’T AGREE with what they were saying at these tea parties. If you aren’t outraged by the government’s unchecked growth… then as the old adage says, you aren’t paying attention!

There were a lot of East Coast snobs thumbing their noses at the tea party idea as a bunch of right-wing kooks. I guess they must like the warmth of the sand around their heads. This should cross party lines. What we want is for the government to get back to what they are supposed to be doing and get their hands out of everything else. If you read the constitution, the list of things the FEDERAL government is supposed to be doing, it’s a pretty darn short list. The rest is left to the states.

Frankly, if a state can’t figure out how to run itself, then everyone will move out. That’s the beauty of our system. Nobody has to live somewhere in the US that they don’t like.

I could never live in California. That state is run by the biggest bunch of crooks and kooks in the country. They are regulating their way out of existence.

I could also never live in New York or Boston. They’ve decided that they want to basically be localized welfare states with ridiculous tax rates. Between the New York city tax and the New York state tax, it adds up to 21%. And then you still have to pay the feds. To put that into perspective, my total local and state tax here in Kansas is about 5%.

But people have a choice. If the state of New York acts in a stupid enough manner, they will drive out their residents.

My desire is that people stop getting their news from one place. Whether that be Fox, MSNBC, CNN, Wall Street Journal, New York Times… all of these news outlets have their own agenda. Instead of believing whatever they spoon feed you, why don’t you venture out and see for yourself what the grass-roots taxation movement is all about.

This is a 15th century crime, why are we once again having to deal with it?

There are a few reasons that are driving the rise in piracy. First, most of Africa is a steaming pile of crap, so people there are desperate. Add to that the fact that we’re completely paralyzed at the thought of our military actually killing anyone. And finally, we have all of these merchant ships going around the horn of Africa and none of them carry any guns on them. Why? Because if they did, they’d have to be inspected at every port they enter and it would be such a tremendous pain in the butt the merchant marines would prefer to be killed by pirates.

I see two possible solutions for this problem.

We could stop sending ships to where the pirates are. They pretty much only have access to boats they’ve constructed out of flotsam and jetsam anyhow, so chances are they won’t be going hundreds of miles to attack a ship. Apparently that shipping lane is rather important to world commerce, though, so that option seems unlikely. The most interesting/ironic part of this latest pirate attack was the ship they hijacked was bound for Somalia loaded with food for them. Duh.

ANYHOW.

Option two is we actually grow a pair and start sinking anything pirate-related that we see. Yes, hostages might get hurt or killed, but it will stop piracy. If the pirates STOP getting paid off by everybody and start getting killed anytime they try it, they will definitely think twice. It worked in 1600, and I’m guessing it will still work now. They’re basically sea-terrorists. You can’t negotiate with them unless you want to encourage more of the same behavior.

It would of course be nice if merchant ships all started carrying armed security forces, but unfortunately that would require massive changes to International laws and treaties that I’m pretty sure won’t ever be happening, particularly as long as there are wusscake countries like Germany out there. The Germans have gone from being one of the most ruthless countries in history to being a giant bag of sissy.

Overcompensation? You betcha.

I personally prefer combining both methods – avoiding pirate waters but also happily sinking any pirate vessels that wander out too far. Whatever we do, it should not include paying them off. THAT approach hasn’t really panned out the past year, has it?!

However, terrorists aren’t even protected under the Geneva Convention. In order to be a “prisoner of war” you have to first be part of a national military and have to identify yourself as such.

Why would we grant due process to terrorists? Why shouldn’t we torture them? They want to play unfair, let’s do it their way. It’s not as though they have a geographical location we can bomb. If we can’t take it to them, how can we ever win?

Some will say that we are “stooping” to their level, and that since we’re more civilized, we should give them the same considerations we give American citizens.

I call BS.

You can’t fight a guerrilla army by traditional methods. You can’t get information through normal interrogation from a prisoner that is HOPING to die at your hands. That’s what we seem to fail to understand about our enemy. They want us to kill them. They want to be martyrs.

I don’t think we should summarily execute enemy combatants, but I definitely think we should find out what they know. If that means causing them some discomfort, I’m all for it. Let’s not forget that the “torture” methods we were using included keeping them awake, playing loud music, etc. It’s not as if we were pulling their fingernails off or electrocuting them.

Obama’s plan is to sit around the campfire and sing songs with them. He’s going to shut down our CIA-run terrorist prisons and do what with them? Send them to Leavenworth? Hmmm. That’s right in my backyard. I don’t want them here. That’s great – let’s give terrorists incentive to target specific places in the US. Brilliant.

They want to throw out all of the rules of engagement. If we want to win, we don’t have a choice but to do the same.

I hope that he’s successful about pulling us out of the Middle East. We have no business being there, and we never have. It’s always been about oil, always will be until someone draws a line in the sand (so to speak) and we finally look inside the US for our energy. Of course, my preferred methods would be continued coal plants and the addition of many nuclear plants. My firm belief is that if we pull out of the Middle East and find domestic energy alternatives, the Middle East will be a giant sandbox and the inhabitants will be back riding camels and fighting with swords inside of a week.

I hope he’s successful at fixing the economy. I hope he does this by promoting personal and corporate responsibility, not by promoting government intervention and social spending. If you’ve read here often, you know that I believe there should be a social safety net. No child should ever go hungry. No handicapped person should be refused a decent life. No elderly or sick person should be left to die. However, I also believe that there should be consequences for actions. Laziness should breed poverty. In fact, it does if it’s left alone. Handing out bread to people who HAVE the means to work but choose NOT to work… that’s simply unacceptable. America’s strength comes from the capitalist system – people can become successful if they work hard, refuse to give up when they fail, and take responsibility for themselves. If we take away the consequences, we take away the most fundamental motivation to succeed, and thus take away our ability as a country to succeed.

I hope Obama is successful at bringing out the best in our sworn enemies – whether that be a terrorist group or a despotic nation like North Korea. I hope that his plan to appeal to the better angels of their nature can actually work. While I doubt that our sworn enemies will want to negotiate, I would rather have Obama having meetings with them than going all over the world bombing people. Deep down, I’m really a pacifist, isolationist, “Live and let live” kinda guy. My doubts aside, it would be fantastic if his policies can improve our image in the global community. I just pray that this new approach does not get conveyed as weakness. Many global players are watching to see what the “new America” will be like, and hoping that we crumble.

I hope Obama is able to make corporations, insurance companies, and medical professionals play nice together. I expect this will be a cumbersome task, since each group has the same objective – make money. I fear that requiring insurance companies to do things like cover preexisting conditions will simply drive them out of business. I most certainly oppose the government running the healthcare system, as I am a fan of going to the doctor when I want to, not 6 months from now when they say I can. I worry about the government paying for catastrophic events to lower premiums. My guess is that private companies are much more efficient at keeping costs down than the government, and I struggle to understand how it helps the individual, since tax money would pay the bill ultimately. But as a citizen, I’m interested in seeing medical costs coming down without socializing it or putting companies out of business. If he can pull that off, he has my support.

I hope Obama is successful at securing our national borders. He makes many broad claims about how he’ll accomplish this… in fact, far more than Bush ever did. While I expect he supports broad amnesty for the illegals already here, if he secures our borders first, I’d spot him one last amnesty. Mostly because it’s totally impractical to deport 20 million people.

I hope Obama cuts taxes left and right. Tax cuts are one of the defining characteristics of a conservative, so I imagine there’s a catch, but I fall into the “95%” who will get a tax cut under Obama. I have a philosophical problem with wealth redistribution, but, having lodged my protest, I’m happy to accept any money the feds want to send my way. I hope Obama leaves small businesses alone. The feds are bailing out huge corporations and leaving mom and pop businesses to die. Small businesses employ more than 80% of the workforce in the US. It seems like screwing them would be a bad idea.

I hope Obama chooses to appoint Supreme Court justices who believe in what our founding fathers wanted for America. That limited government, personal liberties, and freedom from taxes and government oppression where what would make our country succeed where others had failed. Their beliefs went into a document called the Constitution, one of the wisest documents ever created in the history of man. I hope Obama upholds the Constitution – not what many want to twist it into – but really supports the Constitution, dusty as it may be, and that his appointments concur. Yesterday he vowed to uphold it… now it’s up to him to be a man of his word.

I hope that American finds its way back to what made us great in the first place. I hope that we do NOT change into something else. I do not want change AWAY from the founding principles. I want change BACK to those principles. If Americans paid attention to world history, they’d want the same thing.

Obviously she’s a woman. That’s good. She’s a governor, so she has executive experience (albeit not for very long). She’s pro-life and has traditional Reagan-esque philosophy.

The Democrats immediately came out and said that you can no longer attack Obama’s experience, because now there’s an inexperienced woman on the Republican ticket. What they fail to mention is that she has roughly the same amount of political experience that Obama does, and making a comparison between their Pres choice and the GOP’s VP choice is absurd. McCain has more experience than Obama and than Biden. Biden has more experience than Palin, but Obama doesn’t.

The brilliant stroke isn’t that it will get Hillary supporters to vote for McCain. I really don’t see much of that happening. But it will get women who were ambivalent out to vote. And, it will get the conservative base that was ambivalent about McCain (like me) out to vote, too.

The Democrats are now scurrying around looking for anything they can say to discredit this woman (in their typical sexist fashion), but the problem is – she’s untainted. She’s not a Washington bureaucrat. She’s not an idealogue. She’s a normal American woman with a spotless record of conservatism.

Oh yeah… she’s WAY hotter than Hillary, too. Just sayin.

McCain, have a drink on me.

Tomorrow we celebrate Independence Day. Independence from the stuffy, snooty, repressed, washed-up British who wanted to dominate the entire world but only succeeded in screwing up a good chunk of it. South Africa comes to mind.

And how do we celebrate our Independence Day?

Laziness. Shopping. Beer. Explosives.

Or in other words, the American dream.

Yes, only in America do we celebrate the most important date in our country’s history by sleeping in, spending a bunch of money, getting drunk and blowing s@#$ up.

Why would anyone want to live anywhere else?