Morning Folks!!
I have stayed away from politics when I can but with the government getting into the business of business in the way that has happened makes it hard to separate. These are very unusual times and we all need to pay attention. Today I am going to go where none of us are allowed to go. But common sense needs to return and sometimes we need to 'Recalibrate.'
You can’t talk about race in this country. You can’t talk about race because if you express an opinion
not supportive of some on any issue, they just go off on you and you are labled a racist, or a bigot or a homophobe or whatever. So lets look at what happened
this week and last.
First, as several have mentioned and I agree with, the
biggest mistake was by Obama. The most damage was done by and to Obama. That halo came
off in a hurry. He still does not get it and frankly, I am sick of racial stuff
hogging the airwaves. His “Teachable moment” was a wasted and staged Photo op.
The good professor Gates acted badly. He should apologize.
If he had any class he would apologize. Have you ever seen an apology come from
somebody after they call you a racist? I never have. Not once in all my life.
Not once did I see that. Have you? I was hoping in this case the good professor would
realize that he should have been thanking the police not attacking them as even Colin Powell suggested. Maybe he was tired from the long
flight. Maybe he was just wrong for calling someone the “R” word which is a
WEAPON that gets used like “Deuces are wild” in a card game. Maybe the good officer went too far. But the way this could have been a 'Teachable moment' would have been an apology by Gates that would have most probably prompted some words of 'Over reaction' by the officer and THEN we might have had a 'Teachable moment.' Instead we got a phoney and staged Photo op. That is what I call a 'Missed opportunity.' That was a bunch of crap. That was a slight of hand to take the focus off other things. The woman that called in the report did everything right and she was the villan? Is THAT what we want to teach people?? She should have been celebrated and thanked not victimized. Didn't see her at the Photo op. I did not hear the president thank her for being a good and concerned citizen. The teachable moment? If you see something DON'T call the police. Just mind your own business. THAT was what many learned.
There will always be racists however the vast majority of
people are not. We have come a long way. The election of Obama proves it. Election of many governors and that of congress. But
please Mr. Obama, don’t drag us back to a period we thought we have
transcended. Your agenda is beginning to be exposed and it ain’t flying well.
You are anti business. You are anti police. You are anti military. The “American way” seems to be something that you are less than comfortable with.
Please Mr. Obama, don’t destroy what took hundreds of years to build. I thought
your election would have us look to the future in the sense John Kennedy did. A
certain hopefulness that was genuine and futuristic. A figure that could bring
folks together. Something we desperately needed.
Sorry sir, you are no John Kennedy! I think you could have
been. I think you had a unique opportunity. More goodwill than any President
coming into office in my lifetime. An historic moment. An historic era. Folks
really ready to move on and get a fresh start. I think you blew it. The contempt
and arrogance you show at times just can’t be hidden. The USA really is the
greatest country and has done so much good. Please stop apologizing for us when
you can’t even apologize for yourself. Sir, it was YOU that needed the “Teachable
moment” with all due respect. My fear is you learned nothing. You want to
engage dictators, murderers and thugs but shun half the population of America because they 'Cling' to values that were taught to us. There is right and wrong.
Talk to the jerkoff in Iran? Please!
We are told the stimulus was to “Jolt” the economy when you
were selling the program. Now we hear it is to be a long term deal. Then we hear the recession is over after
only 10% f the money has been spent. All this in a 10 day period. Do you think
we are all that stupid? “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. Bullshit, Bullshit, Bullshit. Then
you want my money??? Want to “Re-Distribute wealth?” Raise my taxes? Have me carry water while others drink it?
Make ME a slave?? Sorry, but when any government takes 50%
of your money, you are a slave by definition. The government is turning into a
pimp and we the people are becoming their whores.
Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz
PS: My default in life is we have more in common than separates us. The media and the government are the only ones that focus on what we don't have in common and then they EXPLOIT it to their own advantage. We should be smarter than that. We just get caught in the crossfire and they use us.
XF.com - Aron
Socialism here we come.
The government is about to own every major market we have:
Banks, Cars, Homes etc.
MORE GOVERMENT and MORE CONTROL is not what our nation was founded upon.
Socialism exists when the government owns and controls everything, and the next step is communism.
This isn’t another radical or fanatical viewpoint…
But if you can’t see socialism happening in front of your eyes, you need to visit your Optometrist.
(end rant)
Aron
dnoa
sigh.
I’ve lived in a lot of countries and have never found somewhere as hard as the U.S. have a rational conversation about politics:
“You are anti business. You are anti police. You are anti military.”
What hyberbolic nonsense.
Reading an post like this is like trying to discuss football with a painted-face nut yelling”E-A-G-L-E-S” in your face.
Come back to politics when you can discuss it rationally Rick.
Dave Wrixon aka Rubber Duck
Obama is absolutely about Voter Perception. Everything else including financial stability of the nation comes a long way second.
The problem is that most people do not see through this crap. This is opinion forming stuff, especially for those Americans (probably the vast majority) who could not formulate an opinion to save their lives.
Domainer from 1997
If you live in California, your taxes federal and state are already about 50%, if you make over 100k, the state tax is like 9.5% plus federal of 35% plus payroll taxes of 7%, (normally the employer pays this tax) if you self employed paying yourself a paycheck.
jblack
Rick,
Its evident you take the time to articulate and edit your thoughts well. You call it like it is. And most probably cannot say they see it different from the way you see at all.
Josh
Since WWII, the rest of the world has treated the US dollar like it’s gold. It’s”as good as gold”, as they say. That’s given our country huge financial advantages.
But what happens when everyone figures out we’re never going to repay our debt? The dollar is going to collapse. It’s going to happen. This new binge into Socialism might just break the back of the dollar sooner than later.
Now, the government is trapped. The last President who raised taxes in such a serious recession was Herbert Hoover and you remember how well that went. Raising taxes sucks productivity out of the GDP. Spending more to”prime the pump” just makes others want to finance less of our debt and causes the dollar to drop. China, one of our largest holders of debt, is unloading Treasuries as fast as they can in favor of gold, silver, copper, industrial metals, anything than the dollar.
You are preparing, aren’t you??? There will be shortages of everything, maybe even food. Dairy farmers in my state are slaughtering the dairy cows for meat because the price of milk (and many other farming commodities) are being held artificially low. What happens when we need those dairy cows for actual milk? Just one example out of many that I see living in the farming belt of America…
Jacob
Is this still a domain blog?
Troy
Jacob,
When you have had the success that Rick has had with domains you have the right to make your personal blog whatever you want it to be.
I like his thought, probably because I think they are rational and logical.
Troy
David J Castello
Please take into consideration that the first three years of Lincoln’s administration were an unmitigated disaster and only took an upswing when he appointed an alcoholic to lead the Union forces (Grant).
I consider myself both Conservative and Liberal (depending on the issue) and have never bought into the”Obama is a Communist” nonsense propogated by the Right. The fact that we are still the only modern nation without Universal Healthcare is embarrassing, there is no excuse for it and the only”rip-off” I’m experiencing is the continuously hiked Anthem Blue Cross insurance rates we pay for our CCIN employees.
Whenever I hear anyone comment about our current President I harken back to the 2004 Presidential debates where Bush severely ridiculed Kerry for predicting that the Iraq war could cost over a hundred million dollars. It has now cost us over a trillion dollars.
UFO
There is no free lunch.
If the administration makes Insurance more inclusive then policy costs will rise.
Its no different to a tax.
Its like that Fredie and Mac or whatever its called that gave loans to people who couldn’t afford them.
Who foots the increased costs? Think about it. Insurance companies will always push the additional costs back out.
BullShitwebsites
The biggest racists are Techcrunch and wikipidea -they are what we called Domain Racists.
Jacob
Troy,
It was a joke. Relax.
american
My response:
To Rick, and anyone else who gets it: Buy a gun, if you don’t already have one. Especially before they take away our right to have one. It might be important someday.
We are on our own here, whether you realize it or not.
Kevin
It’s very simple.
The bigger we allow government to get on all levels Fed, State, and Local, the higher taxes will go and the more regulated our lives.
The smaller we make government the less taxes and the more Freedom we have.
I’ll give you 2 examples of government gone wrong and these are hard for me to say because I am a supporter of law enforcement and the military, but you tell me what is wrong with the picture in these examples.
In Broward Country there is a Sheriff who is triple dipping the system and making $320,000 a year plus a free SUV. You have to read this to believe it. It is obscene how this is done.
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/07/bso_rick_frey_pension_triple-dip.php
On another note, the military’s GI Bill just started a new program for vets where the government will now match full College tuition, plus pay for your text books, plus give you a housing allowance. Before it used to be capped at $16K. Before it used to be 4 years to serve. Now the army is doing 15 month enlistments. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for taking care of veterans, but there’s got to be some rational monetary planning and fairness here. We already spend $2 Billion a day to support the Department of Defense. How much more can we go on this cost every year???
So if you want to reign in taxes, first we need to reign in the ever growing size of government.
Kevin
Another thing we should do is get rid of the crazy war on drugs. Over 1/2 the people in prison are in on non-violent drug offenses. Plus government spends about $50 Billion a year trying to stop drugs and it hasn’t worked for over 50 years now. That’s easily over $2 Trillion that has been spent and we still have more people than ever using drugs. I was watching a show called DEA last night and it showed 20 cops chasing one goofball drug dealer. Who fricking cares about these losers for a little packet of weed. It’s ridiculous to use that much manpower for one idiot that wants to get high.
Also, we should legalize gambling which everyone does anyway. Legalize prostitution which has been another waste of the taxpayers money trying to stop that.
It’s all just a crazy waste of taxpayer money.
Mert
Did you see any evidence of the so called”weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq ???
Who’s next? Iran ??? And what will be the next reason ???Please…
My response to our friend”american” who advised to buy a gun before they take away his right to have one:
“Yes, you should better be quick to buy one…NOT before they take your right away BUT before your governement SOLD OUT…”
I always prefer to put politics and citizens seperate…I like Rick, John, Mary, Georoge, Michael and all US citizens…I have no problem with them and i’m sure they don’t have a problem with the rest of the world…
Who is trying to make you hate these countries that you personally do not have any personal experience ??? Of course, these countries also have”partners inside” who try to make their people hate you…All synchronized and well planned…This is a big game and we are all watching it…
earl
On the street where I lived there are 12 white males over the age of forty who did not even vote.
We have men and women serving our country,preserving our liberty and yet we do nothing.
The person in the white house was elected because of apathy . Voting has become a spectator sport.
I have friends who rather pop a beer than take 30 minutes out of their life and go vote.
I encourage you not too let this happen again.If you know someone who has not voted, get them to vote.
Find ten people who have not voted and get them to vote.
We MIGHT still have a chance.
Disgruntled
To Earl:
Vote? For who? Republicans? Democrats? They’re all the fucking SAME BULLSHIT!!!!!! They have the voting system rigged and completely controlled so you only have a 2 party choice.
Vote??? That won’t change anything as we just saw going from Bush to Obama.
Steve C
The whole thing was a media event after the pres commented.
I agree with the apology Rick mentions but the media should have never front paged that story for an entire week. Health care is on the front burner and they went for the racisim. Remember their mission is to sell ads. PBS covered it much more neturally and put it in its place in the news.
Huray for the Internet. We now have a choice to ignore the ad based media.
2 cents worth,
SteveC
HOWARD
Much of the spend-spend-spend program that Mr.Obama is promoting could not be accomplished without the lemmings in Congress headed by Head Lemming Pelosi running to get to the cliff as fast as possible. I agree that we need to get people out to vote, but they need to get rid of our reckless spending Congressmen and women who are killing our country one Senate and House vote at a time.
Tom L.
@Steve: Yes, the difference between PBS+CSpan and Fox+CNN+MSNBC is like comparing the grownups against hissy-fit teenagers, respectively. Let’s hope PBS’s funding doesn’t get cut by the extremists.
@Howard: You must be young and/or impressionable. Congress and their infamous earmarks have been around long before Pelosi. Party affiliation is simply not a factor when it comes to bad spending.
Just today, McCain spent 20+ minutes rifling off a list of earmarks in the proposed $120B agricultural bill. Every Congressperson is trying to get money for their districts whether Democrat or Republican. It’s a true bipartisan endeavor and, unfortunately, the nature of the beast
Dick St. Cyr
Hi Rick,
Good post I agree with every word. I knew how Obama would turn out, all you had to do was look at his record.
I told my wife if he got elected I would stop watching ABC, CBS,NBC and CNN I call them the government news channels. I will only watch FOX NEWs now.
There is (in my opinion) one thing that will straighten out this country and that is term limits. Some of our elected officials can’t compete with a worm. HOW SMART IS THAT! you know I could go on and on but who’s listening.
Have a good day if you can.
Dick St.Cyr