Archive for 2010
Notes from the Silent Majority
Posted by: William Thien on: December 28, 2010
Here you will find a collection of essays to be included in my upcoming book titled Notes from The Silent Majority.
Copyright © William Thien 2010
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On Extending the Bush Era Tax Cuts
Posted by: William Thien on: December 1, 2010
Recently I have heard a number of politicians and economists, even a nominee for the Federal Reserve suggest that it is time to end The Bush Era Tax Cuts, at least for the highest income earners. It sounds good on the face of things. And it would seem like a good source of funds, to take the tax dollars from the most wealthy. At least you know where there is some money to take, right? But is that all such economists and politicians have to offer America, some form of communism/socialism?
There is a problem with that logic. For one, using that rationale is the same as saying nobody should be able to make more money than anyone else. Such taxation is punitive.
Such taxation is also a tyranny, perhaps a tyranny of the masses since there are fewer people making such amounts of money and therein lies within the masses the greatest demand. Such method is merely taking from one to give to another who may not be perhaps as happy with their station in life. We all know that most of that money, or at least a large portion of it, will go to pay for social programs and government programs that the government did not offer just 75 years ago and that have grown large social groups that could not survive, indeed flourish without such communist/socialist programs. But the real travesty of such public policy is that it creates a class of people enchained to a government handout, unable to ever be independent citizens by learning how to provide for themselves. AND such policy enslaves a public that must oil and produce such chain by offering up its wages to the state for said redistribution in perpetuity. Only big government prospers given such circumstances, ladies and gentlemen.
Some government programs are useful to us all to be sure, but many more are simply entitlements that are abused, something we all know but that many in leadership will not publicly admit for whatever reason. Perhaps some do not want to admit such a fact for fear of not getting elected or re-elected. That is denial, the most pernicious form of denial to a country such as ours that relies on the democratic process to choose its leadership and a free market economy to perpetuate its existence.
So, as a matter of social fairness, it really is not fair to those who have the most money in the first place to tax them and only them to obtain the tax revenue. Furthermore, it is not as if the most wealthy use more government services. Frequently the most wealthy use fewer services because they can afford to choose, so their tax burden is less. Why then should the most wealthy pay more, simply because the most wealthy have more money? What if you made millions next week on a new product you designed? Would you be alright with the idea of paying half of your income in taxes all of a sudden simply because of your newly earned wealth? Doubtful.
And let us not forget it is taxation of income from those who “earn” it just like everyone else. They simply earn more than everyone else, that is all. It is not only a taking of the tax dollars but a form of punishment, then, as it says to those who make the most money that there is a price for such success.
During the era of The Soviet Union, the same economists would have said that such taxation is also a taking of the incentive to be successful in the first place because the greater portion of your sweat and toil goes straight to the government who then decides what to do with it. The Berlin Wall fell only twenty years ago when The Soviet Union, the world’s largest communist nation ended, but such esteemed economists as those up for nomination to The Federal Reserve have forgotten that sentiment already. How did they win so many awards? Is that how you win an award as an economist, by simply offering some form of communist/socialist dogma as your thesis?
Look, America is has passed that era and is coming out of it.
Even one of the most liberal of them all, the late President John F. Kennedy, said that “It is the paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now…Cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus.” (Nov. 20, 1962)
We must extend The Bush Era Tax Cuts for all and even lower taxes more, so all can have a chance to prosper, to prosper and not be punished for it.
Copyright © William Thien 2010
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Redressing your Grievances and Voting
Posted by: William Thien on: November 20, 2010
Recently after election day I heard someone say, “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain about the government!” I thought about that for a moment, about how absolute that statement is, and I said to myself, perhaps the lady is right.
Later during the week while waiting in line at the grocery store something occurred to me about what that lady said. Most of the items in my cart were tax-free, such as food items, but some other items were not free of sales tax. I was paying for something and had no choice in the matter.
Now, if I were one of those citizens completely turned off by politics and our government and completely apathetic about voting, I may reach the same conclusion as the lady who thinks you have to vote if you want to complain or seek a redress of your grievances with the government. But that sentiment is wrong, You do not have to vote to redress your grievances.
If you purchase anything today, you have a right to redress your grievances to the government because chances are you had to pay a sales tax, something which you probably had no choice in doing. So, you are paying for a service or government services indirectly by paying the sales tax. If you pay for a service, you have a right to complain about that service. It would be ridiculous to think that after paying $1,500 sales tax on a new car that you could not complain about something serviced by the government entity to which the $1,500 eventually ends up.
Furthermore, if you are a citizen of The United States, you have by law the right to “redress your grievances” with your elected officials and the rest of the government.
But it always helps to vote. It’s part of the weight of democracy, a weight that everyone who benefits from a democracy should share. Because even though so many do not vote, they use government resources, resources for which you and I pay. Frequently those who do not vote are the most flagrant abusers of those government services because they are so out of touch with political matters and they have no idea from where the money comes to pay for the services they use. And if there are so many people not voting, then perhaps we should not have to pay their share, should not have to carry their weight.
We must not confuse laziness and sloth with apathy.
Copyright © William Thien 2010
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Income Taxes: Serial Killer of American Small Business
Posted by: William Thien on: November 5, 2010
Workers in The United States and other established industrial countries tend to earn higher wages than in third world countries or the far east. It’s a fact. We all hear stories about large corporations moving their production lines to the far east and Central America and the low wages those workers are paid. We may have seen stories on the news about the appalling working conditions and long hours those workers endure. But is that really why American companies are moving production overseas? I believe there are other more subtle forces at work that unless we examine them over a period of time, we will not recognize them.
What is significant to us is that products can frequently be made overseas for much less than in America. This of course creates a price gap between goods made here in The U.S. and those made overseas. Some countries can even buy the raw materials from us and ship them overseas, fabricate a quality product, and then ship it back to us for less than we can produce it here because the wages they pay their workers are so much lower. Labor is often the largest part of the production cost equation. But as you shall see, there is something more subtle at work as well and it has nothing to do with American workers being paid a living wage.
What is the result of all of these forces, those obvious and the invisible? Industry, particularly small industry and business, that which employs the greatest number of Americans has suffered in The U.S. for the last thirty or forty years. What does small business have to do with what I describe? Small business and industry manufacture consumer goods, small ticket items. It may not seem like it, but small business and industry are the bread and butter of the economy and it is this market into which foreign manufacturers have made particularly substantial forays into our economy. One could view what is happening to small business and industry in The United States as a form of warfare, economic warfare, because it undermines our economy in such a strategically effective way that somehow it could not be by accident. But as you shall see, we have a saboteur in our midst which is of no foreign origin whatsoever, someone in an entirely deceptive set of threads for which we pay and supply, as you shall see — for which we pay and supply dearly.
When a consumer goes to the store, they are most often spending what is called “discretionary income.” They are on a budget and very “cost conscious.” They have particular needs and only so much money to spend. But they spend that money more often, weekly perhaps, and it is that flow of money into the economy that brings necessary economic sustenance to the entire country. Without it, a country such as ours which is based on industrial and agricultural production will eventually suffer hard times, some believe much worse than current conditions. Bread, as the saying goes, is the staff of life. So too then is small business, that which manufactures consumer goods, the staff of life to our economy.
As I’ve stated, low wages paid to overseas workers and appalling work environments overseas in juxtaposition to working conditions here and higher wages are not the only factors that have contributed to the deconstruction of industry in the United States. I believe our government has had a direct hand in it as well. Please read on.
When a consumer goes to the store with a number of purchases in mind, retailers like to have several items available at differing prices, or price points, to allow the consumer to make a purchasing decision. It’s part of the psychology of retail. The consumer doesn’t feel like they are getting something shoved down their throat because there is only one choice, and the retailer or store owner can offer a variety of items from inexpensive to expensive items with the hopes of taking in more income by selling what is more expensive. For the sake of this discussion you could call the difference in prices from low to high on the same type of product as a price spread or gap in price.
Prior to going to the store the consumer has to earn some money, though.
Enter the income tax. When income taxes increase as they have for the last sixty years (In 1952 a family of four paid less than 2% of their income in taxes) consumers are able to buy fewer products made here in The United States because, as I mentioned previously, products made in other countries can often be made for less, much less. U.S. income taxes then shrink or decrease the spread or the gap, the choices based on price of available products an American consumer can purchase.
Income taxes don’t just decrease purchasing power in The United States, income taxes hack at the consumer’s purchasing power as with the lopping stroke of a rusty axe. Today, some of us pay over twenty percent in income taxes. That is an eighteen percent decrease in purchasing power in comparison to the family in 1952 that paid only 2 percent of their income in taxes to the federal government. And when you add all of the social programs we pay into that are not classified as taxes but are deductions to your pay nevertheless, what is withdrawn from your pay can easily exceed forty percent for some before your paycheck is even in your hands. That forty percent is more often than not the difference in price between the products made in The. U.S. and those made overseas. In fact, that very fact is incorporated into the price structure of products made overseas. Products are priced at an amount equivalent to the average income tax rate less than those made in The United States. Products manufactured overseas are priced at a level which brings them in line with your real wages, that which is left after taxes and other deductions. Clever, isn’t it.
Taxpayers have been struck with such excessive taxation in The U.S. since the 1950′s on an increasing, sliding scale. Why? There were great excesses after World War II and nobody thought about the future. There was a melding of political ideals across the globe with some of them heavily socialist/communist which frequently remain today and are enormously expensive to maintain even though they have proven false in communist countries. And finally, people became busier with the woman leaving the house to go to work and they didn’t see it coming.
Now, strapped with high income taxes, on a heavy sliding scale for some, coupled with sales taxes that creep up every few years, real wages, or the net people take home for working the same amount of time and producing the same and frequently more, has been halved in many places. People are working into the middle of the week before they begin earning. Less and less is there any difference between what a person makes in wages in The U.S. in comparison to what a worker makes in the countries where there are such appalling work conditions. But it is not the industrialist or the small business person that is to blame, not the employee whether they be union or not.
It is our own government who frequently seems to pit the employee against the employer to redirect the focus away from the government’s desire to tax more and more. Our own government is working to break up industrial productivity simply to perpetuate its own existence. They understand the economics at work here. Yet, they let the employer and the employee work at each other as if they were enemies. Income taxes also create discord in our industrial economy. Income taxes are divisive. High income taxes are treacherous. A point could be made that high income taxes are treasonous because they undermine a country’s ability to perpetuate itself through its own industrial production and economic self-reliance.
So, the effect of such heavy taxation is to drive the American consumer down to the lower priced products since they have effectively less to spend. And where are the lower priced products often made? All too often it is overseas. Income and sales taxes actually force the consumer to purchase products that are manufactured overseas by hacking away at the choices they can afford. Therein, ladies and gentlemen, lies the saboteur, income taxes, the hacking, slashing serial killer of the blood spattered American Dream. With each week, with each paycheck comes another fall of the axe. “Kill! Kill! Kill!” The shadowy face growls.
If we want to make it possible for industry to flourish here, even just to function here in The U.S., we need to attack income and sales taxes with the goal of making it possible for Americans to buy American made.
Because our taxes are literally cutting us right out of the market.
Copyright © William Thien 2010
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I “approve this message” mostly because it makes me look good. Yes, well that’s kind of academic isn’t it? I mean you are talking to us right now in the advertisement. I am sure the viewer presumes that you approve the message. What, are you trying to insult the viewer? Of course you approve the message. Is this what campaign finance reform was all about?
I recall the massive media interest during 2002 in the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Legislation, the apparent legislative failure meant to completely overhaul allowable campaign method in an all-encompassing way, to rewrite all law governing political campaigns, making campaigns more honest and less socially toxic. There was to be great peace in campaign land as the bipartisan legislation was sponsored by both a Republican AND a Democrat. It was the mudslinging across the aisle that was particularly difficult to endure during campaign season which brought the two fine gentlemen Senators together to provide a solution. Somehow that seems to have failed…miserably. Or lo, wherein lies a design? What was meant to be?
And what is that unruly political advertisement that was spawned along with the reform act? What are those mysterious, biologically unclassified advertisements that seem to slither up from some swamp which have proliferated everywhere like something biblical? Do you approve of those ads as well? In fact, I think I see the media trying to make excuses for such toxic transgressions, now. That is now that people are turning off the television and putting down the newspapers.
Indeed, the only ones profiting from “the act” appear to be the media.
The ads are no more honest. In fact it is quite the opposite. They seem now more than ever to be dishonest, rapid slights.
So what is going on? What is this deceit descending upon the country? Nobody knows who is behind the ads. There isn’t enough time to read the small print, and you have to really turn up the volume to hear who claims to be behind the ads. The media do not do a really good job of policing the ads because it is their bread and butter. Rather, it’s their filet mignon. They look forward to campaign season like a child does the holidays.
I’m not certain the constitution covers the methods used.
Personally I don’t believe there was any reform at all. Senator Feingold, my Senator, a decent guy, though clearly misguided and now apparently misguiding, seems to have given everyone the old political try on the matter. He is after all an attorney, highly skilled and educated. If anyone should know what the result of such legislation would be, it is he. Were doors left open for such behavior in the law? Deliberately? Secret doors behind the bookcase, beneath the stairs that only he would know of for which the bastard creature of reform could access?
Now that it is election time, though, you don’t hear him taking credit for unleashing the slimy creature that Campaign Finance Reform is upon the already heavily burdened constituency. He does remind us that he approves of his own ads, though. My good man, of course you do.
It makes you wonder, is that what democracy is going to be for the next one hundred years? Is democracy even the best political solution for the country any longer? That’s a rough question for someone such as myself to ask since I have developed democratic concepts involving a redistribution of democracy right to the individual, essentially bypassing the voting power of the elected and dividing the power up for the voter to have, something politicians, and the media that profits thoroughly from such a state, fear with great zeal and resistance. Yet, I still vote and I campaign for others as well. Do unto others.
In response I have heard more than once, “democracy is still the best method of determining our leadership.” That might be true. But the decisions made by the voter have to be based on honest, accurate information. The ads I am seeing clearly are coming from the bottom of the deck (and lo, wherein lies a design?), out of the corner of the mouth (what was meant to be?), and a few other places as well of which I shall refrain for the sake of the fairer sex.
I say repeal it, the campaign finance reform bill. Perhaps an evolutionary democratic step or two back may be necessary. Or maybe campaign finance reform was a step backward in the first place, sponsored by the media. They are after all the primary beneficiaries.
The media appear to be covering their tracks as if they were not part of the process, as if they were not the facilitators in the first place, with their own analysis of the ads using such clever, cute devices as “Truth Meters” and saying whether or not the particular advertiser’s pants should be on fire. No, no, no! You are supposed to warn the weary travelers before they drink from the poisoned well, not whence the toxin has left them helpless and without medical aid, paralyzed, unable to rid themselves of the gathering, biting flies that crawl into the tender corners of the mouth, that bite at the sores, blisters boiled open by the searing heat of the sun, no, the stage lights above the cameras where they mix the media poison.
Repeal it. Because from what I can tell, that’s a cliff up ahead. By the way, who led the country in this direction in the first place?
Don’t forget to vote.
Copyright © William Thien 2010
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How many times have you heard the statement that the reason the media slants things so far to the left is because the media is “liberal?” You have probably heard such a statement hundreds, perhaps thousands of times.
I have a different tack on the matter. I do not believe the reason the media appears to slant things to the left is due to the fact that the media is liberal. I believe it is something else entirely.
First, let’s ask the question, ‘What do people do when they are at home if they are not taking care of some domestic requirement?’ Watch television. Nothing wrong with that.
I think the media is up to something else entirely than simply making life better for everyone by instilling so-called liberal values to everyone sitting in front of the tube. Knowing that slanting things to the left is not good for our industrial economy, that portion of our economy which has traditionally required the greatest number of employees, and will put companies out of work and send people home, the media has implemented a business plan. The media know that if people are out of work, they watch television. And you know what? That is good for ratings. And ratings, in the television world, mean advertisers have to pay more for advertising time. The supposed liberal slant is good for media business. And what is liberal about that?
And there are entire social groups that such behavior appeals to since they don’t want to work, anyway. They have brought up several generations on entitlements and increased their populations while simultaneously being catered to by such a media. Consumer products are tailored to such populations. The liberal slant is really a multi-level marketing plan with a so-called liberal media in complicity, implementation.
There is of course a humanistic slant to the media. But the old saying, “If it bleeds, it leads,” a common journalistic saw, indicates predation, not liberalism. What more must one say?
No, the media is not liberal. I believe instead it is exercising an elaborate business plan, all the while hiding behind the constitution, surreptitiously undermining our economy to improve its own. The men and women of the media are not wholly humanistic as we would like to believe. They are chosen based on thorough studies completed by massive media conglomerates. Since when are corporations liberal?
And who can blame them? It is business. Since when was business easy?
That is what is going on with the media. The media could care less about liberalism, otherwise. The apparent left slant to the media is a business plan to increase ratings and thereby improve its bottom line.
And our constitution supports that type of behavior, the subtle yet elaborate deconstruction of our economy for better ratings.
Copyright © William Thien 2010
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Why is the Federal Reserve Deliberately Stimulating Inflation?
Posted by: William Thien on: October 19, 2010
One of the problems Germany had prior to World War II is the desire to print money to solve its economic problems. The measure was counterintuitive to the belief that it would help the economy at the time. More money?! Well, we should be able to buy more things and pay more bills. Eventually, a wheelbarrow of Deutschmarks was required to buy a loaf of bread. The effect was a devaluing of the currency to mere worthlessness. Fuel for the furnace. Of course if you have had a World History course you know that the method was horribly unsuccessful.
Recently The United States Federal Reserve Chairman, Mr. Ben Bernanke, announced that the Fed would make more money available for lenders to stimulate the economy. They are essentially printing money much like Germany did. They don’t really have any more money. But through manipulations of the value of the dollar and some other tricks, more money is made available. It is not like there is a big pile of money in the basement at the Fed and somebody says, “Get the shovel!”
The “stated” hope (I say “stated” to mark the notion for reference later on in this post) is that the measure will hopefully lower interest rates and make it possible for automakers and real estate brokers to sell more. In general, the method is to be ‘stimulative.’
I hope this will be the net effect. Because we recently saw the same method used by Alan Greenspan during the Clinton and Bush administrations and it resulted in the real estate bubble and a substantial stock market correction, what some are now calling a crash in slow motion because it didn’t happen all in one month. Homes that were mere shacks suddenly were priced like the proverbial mansion because it was so easy to come by a home loan. But the result was that a working stiff could no longer afford to buy a decent home, nor maintain it for that matter. Demand increases price.
Everyone knows that wages and salaries do not and have never really kept pace with inflation. And generally, for some reason the government’s forecasts and readings of inflation don’t seem to coincide with the truths of the free market. When the government talks about things, they always seem to come out a bit rosier than the dandelions which populate the lawn.
So, if the government (The Fed) wants to make more money available for loans, which is great really (unless you know it will drive inflation up), and the same method used within the last decade no less caused the worst recession in The United States since The Great Depression, then why are we doing it again so soon? What really is behind the repeat performance?
I think I may have at least a partial answer. Taxes.
If interest rates are lowered, people can afford to buy more house and more people, theoretically, can afford to buy their first home. The problem is that the artificial demand created by a Fed manipulated market drives up the prices of the homes. Greater demand increases price. Basic economics.
So why do it? Why drive up the prices of products? Why not let the market work itself out? Is not that what the government is supposed to do in The United States? Protect the free market? Not manipulate it? If they could manipulate it for everyone’s benefit (and let us hope this latest measure will do so) that would be great. But many believe they rarely do so. Yet, again, within the last decade, the constant tinkering with interest rates by Alan Greenspan and the Fed brought about a current economic downturn that even the Fed thinks will take years from which to crawl out of.
So what is going on? A surreptitious increase in taxes. But why? The economy is bad. Sales are down. Fewer sales, less taxes. Sounds devious beyond the scope of the government, right? Why not let the market correct itself? Why not let the price of cars come more in line with what the American public can afford? It is after all a free market, is it not? Let’s find out. Read on.
If you drive up the price of a home, the sales and other taxes are concurrently driven up as well. If you make a car more expensive, you increase your tax levy on that car automatically. In effect, you raise taxes without legislating an increase in taxes, something nobody will go for today. It’s tricky. Real tricky.
The stock market does well also when interest rates are lowered. The problem is when things return to normal, the market corrects itself. I would say that would be fine, but the problem is that so many organizations, both government and private have all of their pension funds wrapped up in the market that when the market corrects itself, people who have been working for five or six decades suddenly find themselves unable to retire because all of their pension funds have mysteriously vanished. That is tricky as well. Perhaps even trickier than the loose monetary policies themselves that bring about the problems in the first place. The problem with driving up the value of the stock market by lowering interest rates and making more money available is that not everybody has the time or the ability for that matter to watch the market and to be prepared when it does correct itself. Since most government pensions are the result of taxation, I think it is incumbent upon our elected officials to install some form of regulation upon the market to address such corrections on behalf of the pensioners, or to ensure that the Federal Reserve is not so liberal with its monetary policies, whether they be to stimulate the economy or to increase taxes as I’ve described, indirectly.
In this anti-big government environment we are currently in nobody wants to say “I’m going to increase taxes.” I have not seen a single political ad (and we are swimming in them right now) that is endorsed by any politician, even the most left-wing, that has said “Elect me. I’ll raise your taxes.” If you are going to say that, you may as well commit political suicide because as they say, “you ain’t gettin’ my vote.”
I believe in fact that the reason Alan Greenspan lowered interest rates so much was exactly that. To raise sales taxes. It’s much easier than legislating higher taxes, making them law, and most people do not really know what is going on when it is done in such a slick manner.
I think it’s great that The Fed is making more money available to lenders to make loans more available to the market.
But let’s not make the same mistake again, so soon, particularly since we are not out of the hole they dug for the country like, what, was it yesterday?
And what repeats itself, again?
That, ladies and gentlemen, is what is behind the latest measures at the Fed. The government is looking out for its bottom line. Which, by the way, is right about at your neck level. And from what I can tell, you have had it up to here!
By the way, the best time to shop for cars is on Sunday morning.
Copyright © William Thien 2010
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Order The Dream Chip on Kindle and nook and have it right away!
Posted by: William Thien on: August 25, 2010
William Thien’s novel The Dream Chip (ISBN: 978-0-7388-6313-9) is now available as an Amazon Kindle book as well as The Barnes & Noble nook and other popular electronic formats.
A quick read melding science fiction and politics into a speculative manifesto, The Dream Chip deals with the subjects of big government and how it can be controlled through the implementation of modern computer technology. In The Dream Chip a software suite called The Common Council Software Program is implemented where the elected must vote on the day-to-day issues of government based upon the preponderance of votes cast by the electorate. No more politicians voting completely opposite to what they promised during the election campaign. Voters respond to emails requesting a vote on such things as the widening of roads in their voting district or other matters that can affect their taxes or individual rights. If voters don’t like an idea, they simply vote it down. And by law, the elected representative then has to vote it down. It is a redistribution of democratic power right to the individual. Naturally, the government and the elected don’t like the idea. To find out what happens next, order your copy of The Dream Chip today.
First published in 1997 at Electric Works Publishing, The Dream Chip was originally available only as an electronic book, sent to you as an email attachment or on a diskette. Electric Works Publishing later went out of business. Then in the year 2001 John Feldcamp, CEO of Xlibris, approached William Thien and asked if he would like to have The Dream Chip published in paperback format? “It was an exciting time with all the new publishing formats becoming available,” Thien said. “I jumped on the opportunity. Ten years later we are back in electronic format again. You knew it was going that way. It was just a question of when.”
William Thien was the first to represent that an approximation of the human soul could be stored in digital format in The Dream Chip and describes what the process might look like if and when it becomes a reality. He explains how a person’s thoughts and memories might be stored for eternity using an advanced computer chip originally designed for deep space flight communications.
Order your copy and have it right now for your Kindle and nook readers.
Don’t have one of Amazon’s Kindle readers or a Barnes & Noble nook book, you may also enjoy The Dream Chip in other formats such as on your Sony Reader, or if you have a mobile computing device you may read The Dream Chip as a MOBIPocket book. Order yours now and have it now!
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Men and women are not equal.
I believe there is a natural order amongst the sexes and I believe that if society strays too far from the path of that natural order the consequences for society can be negative, substantially negative.
I’m not talking about which sex is better, men or women, who is the faster runner or who can lift the most weight, I’m talking about a distribution of responsibilities within the family or at work for example to mature, rational adults who want to be productive members of society and not social burdens.
I believe much like a factory, when certain employees complete certain tasks while other employees complete other tasks, the tasks at hand can be completed far more efficiently and with much less cost and effort, leaving more time to produce more products, work on improvements to the way things are done, or simply take a break.
You might say, who views their family as a factory? What kind of analogy is that? OK. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps viewing the members of a family as employees in a factory is a bit withdrawn emotionally from the matter. Factories are not living things, you might say, and nothing like a home.
OK. OK. Calm down. Let’s try this. The other night I was watching some of those beautifully filmed nature shows that air on Sunday night. The narrator was talking about a variety of animals and their courtship rituals. Some were very elaborate, some rather blunt. In one scene, the narrator talked about a land development that had changed the path of a waterway slightly, causing the male of a species of amphibian to have to change route of travel. This in turn increased the deaths in the males of the amphibian as they were now run over crossing the street which resulted in fewer couples of the species, which resulted in fewer offspring and consequently caused a crash in the population of the animal in that area. In other areas, the animal was doing fine but under observation. Later the narrator discussed a completely different problem of the same nature causing the female of the species to change its habits thereby making it impossible to rear its young. Population crash. I believe these last two examples of nature offer much better analogies rather than the factory because they incorporate a viewpoint of the struggle of living mechanisms rather than the analogy of the family as a factory. Though it can be stated that in their sexual roles, men and women have completely different responsibilities and also illustrate completely different behaviors to achieve a common goal, evidence again that there is indeed a natural order. There is in fact more obvious evidence that there is a natural order in the sexual roles of men and women than there is of any biblical explanation of human sexual behavior.
But even more significantly to come out of these observations of nature is the belief that many naturalists hold. In fact, it is the foundational belief of environmentalism today. It is quite elegant in its simplicity and even more importantly, it holds true under scientific observation. Here it is essentially in its simplest form. “If you mess with the nature, there will be negative consequences.” We have all heard that statement in some context or another. The consequences of messing with nature can be observed in such things as polluted drinking water, polluted air, problems with food containing poisons drawn up from the soil, all of them the result of lack of understanding of and the manipulation of our environment.
And I believe an analogy can be made to things such as polluted drinking water and air to a natural order amongst the sexes and such things as crime committed by juveniles who don’t have both parents at home or an increase in taxes. In fact since the sexual revolution in the 1960′s when the roles of men and women in The USA were redefined both by law and the media crime has increased in some areas thousands of percentiles as more women raise their children on their own or have children out-of-wedlock. The tax burden to simply police these areas is enormous much less to provide the partial families with social services. I don’t need to enumerate all the costs. Anyone that is reading this knows the costs unless they have been living on another planet.
Some of you may be old enough to remember the female football players that entered into The NFL for a couple of years during the height of the sexual revolution. “Don’t stay in the house” the feminists chanted, go play football, work construction. That didn’t last long, of course. Why? Because they were not designed for it by “nature.” Not by men. The fact that women are not as good at football as men has nothing to do with any societal restriction by men on the activities of women. No. And don’t even try to suggest that (this was one of the techniques of the feminist movement, to suggest that women in The USA were repressed by men as a whole). The fact that women are not as good at football has nothing to do with men. Women are not as good at football as men due to their “nature” and physical build. Men have nothing to do with that. It has to do with a “natural order.” And to the contrary, men are no good at bearing children. In fact, I’ve not heard of one case of a man bearing a child. Why? There is that natural order thing again, and again it has nothing to do with men.
I remember watching a news show during the height of the feminist movement in the 1960′s. The newscaster was interviewing a doctor who (and I’m glad I don’t have this guy as a doctor) suggested that men and women are identical, except for a few very minor differences. He had a chart with diagrams of the male and female bodies and some charts about similarities. In the time of about one minute the newscaster, a woman, and the good doctor, concluded that aside from a few very minor differences in body composition, body fat content for example, that men and women were equal, exactly equal. “Well, there you have it,” the female newscaster concluded. “Men and women are exactly alike in every way.” This was the viewpoint taken by all media networks from that point on and the federal government as well in the course of dealing with cases of discrimination on the job. Men and women from about that point on were considered equal on the job, both physically and mentally. And in most cases they are. But in many, as in the female NFL player or the man giving birth, we see they are not. The good doctor was lying to the female newscaster. Or he was an imbecile. Or he was no doctor at all. Or maybe the media has a vested interest in erasing the differences between the sexes as I’ve demonstrated in my previous posting titled “Who is Really behind the Sexual Revolution? What it is…”
Some of you may be laughing at my choice of examples, but I’ve chosen them for a reason. They are the most extreme examples, women playing football and men bearing children, and indicate what society seems to be trying to do today with “equality,” and that is to disregard nature, a natural order. And that is OK. Because we are men. We are not animals. We can rationalize our way through life. But the word “rational” means acting with “reason.”
And when I look at my wallet, I see it’s not working, we are not acting with reason as a society because I keep paying for so many things, women having children out-of-wedlock for example, in the form of taxes to which I do not benefit. Because my taxes are going up and up. And much if not most of it has to do with addressing “irrational” or violent human nature, the result of tinkering with a “natural order,” to which of course I believe I have clearly demonstrated there is a natural order. And if someone is not happy with their nature, I don’t think I should have to pay for it.
It’s one thing to work for equality. It’s an entirely different thing to disregard the truth entirely, that men and women are completely different and society works best when both bring their differences together to achieve a common goal.
Men and women are not equal. And there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, that’s the best thing about it. Once we realize that again as a society, things will get better…and much less expensive, for everyone, men and women both.
Copyright © William Thien 2010
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Welcome to Post 9/11 America: The United States of Police States. An Argument for Profiling.
Posted by: William Thien on: December 28, 2010
The dictionary on my desk defines a Police State as “A state in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls, especially by means of a secret police force.” But it is a small pocket dictionary and does not offer a very comprehensive perspective of what a police state might be in my estimation.
And admittedly I am more concerned in this discourse with the most blatant symptoms of what a modern police state might be in such a country as The United States. First, for those of us unfamiliar with the term “police state” and to remove any logical false conclusion from the discussion which might get under foot, let me explain that a police state is not a state where only police reside. And I am not discussing the local municipal police in your community, though they do participate in the activities I describe here from time to time in an ancillary way. We can all appreciate the services of the local police. It may seem simple to you and I, but it is necessary to make those statements omitting such a potential misunderstanding in order to proceed with this argument. Now that we have that out of the way, we can get to the obvious.
The most obvious and blatant symptom of the police state in which we now reside, “The United States of Police States” it could be called, is the groping of elderly American women and men at the airport by The Transportation Security Administration and Homeland Security. It is first and foremost a position by our government that everyone is suspect. It is an absolute condition of the state to which there is little or no variance. It is a “rigid and repressive” form of control as described in my dictionary’s definition of a “Police State.” This to me is the most obvious indication that we are living in a police state, although a modern form of a police state, one not clearly defined by the little pocket dictionary within reach on my desk.
One might say, well in order to be as comprehensive as possible, everyone boarding a plane must be searched. Nonsense! She’s ninety years old. Get your hands off of her you imbecile! Someone else might say, we are doing that in order not to discriminate against any other social cross-section of society; we do not want to profile. Again, nonsense! And a complete waste of tax dollars and resources. We are fighting a war and clearly losing it by those standards then, even though the declared enemy has a small, minute fraction of our forces. No, something else is going on here. This isn’t about a war against terrorism. This is about the desire for a complete and total authoritarian repression of the American public. You know this because the law extends and is exercised even upon the most vulnerable and fragile, the most cherished and harmless of us, our elderly, as if even they are the enemy. If certain segments of society were not subject to such searches, it would mean then that complete and total authoritarian control was not in effect. Simple as that. Such things don’t always seem so obvious on the surface of things. And we can’t let our fear of getting on some list or catching the attention of “the authorities” prevent us from speaking up about such behaviors by our government. That’s how it all starts. That’s how it gets out of hand. That is why we are having this discussion today.
Americans travel. We have freedom of movement here in The United States. We are a society that travels. All of the terrorists during 9/11 were of a particular social persuasion. They were not elderly American men and women. In fact, they were the furthest removed! Instead, we are searching the victims as if they were the terrorists! Such nonsense must not be allowed to persist or it will sneak up on us as a country in the future in some other form.
Our government, or some portion of our government, or perhaps a foreign or a conglomerated concern deftly manipulating our government (the most frightening aspect of this discussion indeed and fuel for another essay on the matter, I’m sure), is simply using the war on terrorism to further its war on Americans. And the groping of elderly women at the airport, whether it be by a human, or a machine, is the most obvious indication. And if it is not a war on Americans, that is the net effect of what is happening, an inwardly directed form of repression. Americans are the ones having to endure the conditions.
Often the most obvious indications are not the most insidious, the most dangerous to us and to our freedoms, however shocking to our sentiments they may be.
From my perspective, the most dangerous aspect of allowing such warrant less searches of our elderly is the mere fact that someone is probably saying, well if they will let us get away with that, we can probably do just about anything we want to them. The groping of elderly women at the airport is then a symptom, an indication of something coming, a disease of a waning, sick, once free state, now a “Police State” where more pernicious activities are sure to follow as time advances and transgressions against the citizenry become progressively worse. This to me is the most dangerous aspect of the current situation.
Welcome to post 9/11 America: The United States of Police States.
So what are my conclusions? First, what has happened essentially is that our government has labeled everyone “a suspect.” They have done this not to catch terrorists or to prevent terrorism, it is perhaps to place themselves above us in order to maintain their perception of control. They are after all the experts on security. Right? Secondly, our government has labeled everyone “a suspect” to justify their existence. Without the so-called necessity to search everyone, even our most elderly, World War Veterans, you name it (our government does), there would be no need for such massive blanket, warrant less searches. In other words, if they only have to search a small fraction or a segment of our society, we don’t need them. And as a result, if we don’t need them, we also don’t need the massive expenditures involved.
Here is what we must do:
We must start profiling once again. Why, if profiling is racist? Because searching elderly women and men at the airport is worse, it is indecent, it is un-American, and it is just as if not more importantly, inefficient. We search them regardless of the race or denomination, by the way. So, as a matter of such profiling being racist, the point is invalid.
You might say, well how would you like it if they profiled you? They probably already do. The government at every level has never liked my rhetoric. If you think I wouldn’t know what I’m talking about, read my “About” page. You might add, aren’t you afraid someone will play the “race card” and accuse you of racism? No. I’m not afraid of “the race card.” And we cannot make security policy based on fear of one social group or another screaming racism if it opens up a defensive hole to us all as a country, as a society to which a terrorist can pass through. What is the greater danger? Everyone is already searched anyway. I’d be more than willing to endure a search at the airport to relieve others of it if the profile was “white males,” but it isn’t. That’s all. If it were males of another race I should hope they would have the intestinal fortitude to accept such profiling instead of dragging the rest of us into the organized chaos within which we reside today.
Secondly, the cost to the taxpayer of such blanketed searches is tremendous and counterproductive. What do you mean it is counterproductive?
If one fights a war, one does not concentrate all of its resources on non-combatives. That is the surest way to lose the war. But that is exactly what is happening. 99.9999999999 percent of people who pass through security at an airport, for example, are not terrorists and have no such inclinations. But all are searched. This is nonsense. The government knows these people are not planning on blowing up the plane. But the government concentrates massive expenditure and effort to search these people. No, there is something else going on. As paranoid as it sounds, Americans are being sized up for something to come. This is perhaps a test, a test to see if they can soon be at our door and we shall not be able to stop them. They will be in our bank accounts only to withdraw. They already collect all of our credit card transactions using systems such as LexisNexis and then run them through profiling software to see if our monetary activities indicate potential terrorist behaviors (As an aside some media outlets have this access as well, and I don’t know why. It should be illegal. That is definitely an abuse of the constitution). If they are profiling all of our monetary activities, then why not selectively profile at airports?
If we allow such behaviors by our government to persist, if we do not screen the most criminal and stop wasting our resources on the most benign, we will surely pay as a country, and not just in terms of the massive tax expenditures to perpetuate the “Police State.” We may not have a catastrophic terrorist event. But the greater catastrophe is that we will be left without the country we once had. Or, isn’t that what has already happened?
Welcome to post 9/11 America: The United States of Police States.
Copyright © William Thien 2010
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