Archive for September 2017
- NFL is tax exempt yet new stadiums often result in new taxes, so population pays for new stadiums yet NFL pays no taxes.
- NFL charges military organizations for displays during events.
- Players receive outrageous salaries, an insult to the working stiff.
- Excessive commercialization, slowing action, taking more time from your day, and making games 30 minutes longer than just a few years ago.
Makes you wonder if The NFL is just asking for too much? No wonder viewership is down close to 20 percent.
Copyright © William Thien 2017
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I think what stings for many viewers who see NFL players disrespecting the flag and anthem may not be so obvious.
Most people are willing to overlook the outrageous salaries even the lowest paid players receive for just one season, for playing what is essentially a game that produces nothing other than entertainment, ultimately.
Most people are willing to disregard the behavior of the players off of the field. The pressures the players face are tremendous and the social magnification the players have to endure in the media is incredible.
Most people are willing to disregard the ridiculous commentaries of the players on the lives of normal, working people who don’t make multi-million dollar salaries, and that brings many much closer to why they think the player protests are invalid, fake, perhaps even maudlin.
But the fact that The NFL is a tax exempt organization, that upsets a lot of people who invest an entire day preparing for the “big game” only to see their favorite player avoiding the national anthem through whatever method they choose, taking a knee, hiding from the camera by staying in the locker room, what have you, while the guy on the other side of the TV set is thinking how he is going make the payment on his property taxes, make the house payment, or put shoes on his kids.
Maybe The NFL’s tax exempt status should be reconsidered in Congress?
Personally I think The NFL could have put a stop to the protests but they have discovered that the protests add drama to a sport people have been tuning out due to excessive commercialization and often what some believe is boring field play.
Yet, when a guy who has lost his legs in Iraq can prop himself up with only his arms in his wheelchair for The National Anthem at the beginning of a game and the players think they still have something to protest (we are not even sure if there is a general consensus), then I think it is probably time to find something else to do during the game. You can bet most wounded war veterans are paying their fair share of taxes. Why not The NFL?
Copyright © William Thien 2017
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The 1st Amendment and The NFL
Posted on: September 27, 2017
Many people believe The 1st Amendment comes in to play regarding the NFL players taking a knee during the playing of The National Anthem but that is incorrect.
The 1st Amendment comes in to play when the government refuses a permit to speak in a public venue or when the government prevents certain types of speech, not when a professional sports organization decides it needs to do something to increase the “drama” on the field.
Copyright © William Thien 2017
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Found this on Facebook. An ESL (English as a second language teacher gives her opinion of DACA).
STILL FEEL DACA IS WONDERFUL?
From a California school teacher…..
As you listen to the news about the student protests over illegal immigration, there are some things that you should be aware of:
I am in charge of the English-as-a-second-language
Department at a large southern California high school which is designated a Title-1 school, meaning that its students average in the lower socio-economic and income levels. Most of the schools you are hearing about are South Gate High, Bell Gardens, Huntington Park, etc., where their students are protesting – these are also Title-1 schools.
Title-1 schools are on the free-breakfast and free-lunch program. When I say free breakfast, I’m not talking about a glass of milk and a roll … But a full breakfast and cereal bar with fruits and juices that would make the Marriott proud. The waste of this food is monumental, with trays and trays of it being dumped in the trash uneaten. (Our tax dollars at work!)
I estimate that well over 50% of these students are obese or at least moderately overweight. About 75% or more have cell phones.
The school also provides day care centers for the unwed teenage pregnant girls (some as young as 13) so they can attend class without the inconvenience of having to arrange for babysitters or having family watch their kids. (More of our tax dollars at work!)
I was ordered to spend $700,000 on my department, or risk losing funding for the upcoming year even though there was little need for anything. My budget was already substantial, but I ended up buying new computers for the Computer Learning Center, half of which, one month later, were carved with graffiti by the appreciative students who obviously feel humbled and grateful to have a free education in America. (More and more of our tax dollars at work!)
I have had to intervene several times for young substitute teachers whose classes consist of many illegal immigrant students here in the country less than 3 months, who raised so much hell with the female teachers, calling them putas (whores ) and throwing things, that the teachers were in tears.
Free medical care, free education, free food, free day care, etc., etc., etc. Is it any wonder they feel entitled not only to be in this country, but also to demand rights, privileges and entitlements?
To those who want to point out how much these illegal immigrants contribute to our society, because they happen to like their gardener and/or housekeeper, and they like to pay less for tomatoes, I say: Spend some time in the real world of illegal immigration and see the true costs.
Higher insurance, medical facilities closing, higher medical costs, more crime, lower standards of education in our schools, overcrowding, new diseases, etc., etc., etc.
For me, I’ll pay more for tomatoes.
America, we need to wake up. The guest worker program will be a disaster because we won’t have the guts to enforce it. Does anyone in their right mind really think they will voluntarily leave and return?
It does, however, have everything to do with culture: A third-world culture that does not value education, that accepts children getting pregnant and dropping out of school by age 15, and that refuses to assimilate, plus an American culture that has become so weak and worried about “political correctness,” that we don’t have the will to do anything about it.
If this makes your blood boil, as it did mine, forward this to everyone you know including your Congressman and Senators.
Cheap labor? Isn’t that what the whole immigration issue is about? Business doesn’t want to pay a decent wage. Consumers don’t want expensive produce.
Government will tell you ‘Americans don’t want the jobs.’ But the bottom line is cheap labor. The phrase “cheap labor” is a myth, a farce, and a lie. There is no such thing as “cheap labor.”
Take, for example, an illegal alien with a wife and five children. He takes a job for $5.00 or $6.00/hour. At that wage, with six dependents, he pays no income tax, yet at the end of the year, if he files an income tax return, he gets an “earned income credit” of up to $3,200, free.
In addition:
1. He qualifies for Section-8 housing and subsidized rent;
2. He qualifies for food stamps;
3. He qualifies for free (no deductible, no co-pay) health care;
4. His children get free breakfasts and lunches at school;
5. He requires bilingual teachers and books;
6. He qualifies for relief from high energy bills;
7. If they are, or become aged, blind or disabled, they qualify for SSI;
8. Once qualified for SSI they can qualify for Medicare (All of this at taxpayer’s {our} expense);
9. He doesn’t worry about car insurance, life insurance, or homeowners insurance;
10. Taxpayers provide Spanish language signs, bulletins and printed material;
11. He and his family receive the equivalent of $20.00 to $30.00/hour in benefits;
12. Working Americans are lucky to have $5.00 or $6.00/hour left after paying their bills and his;
13. The American taxpayers also pays for increased crime, graffiti and trash clean-up.
Cheap labor is such a ruse as to be laughable.
An Observation on Professional Athletes Disrespecting The National Anthem. Don’t Pray! Protest! It makes for good television.
Posted on: September 25, 2017
Perhaps the reason so many athletes are not taking a knee or sitting during the playing of the national anthem at professional sports venues, NFL games in particular, is not so much that the athletes are doing so in protest but that they think that’s what the media wants them to do.
What? What’s that you say?
Well, If Tim Tebow was ridiculed by the media for praying during The National Anthem but Colin Kaepernick is lauded and applauded by the media for sitting during The National Anthem and all the focus is put on Kaepernick instead of Tebow, doesn’t that set an example for all athletes?
Maybe the professional athletes are simply doing what they think their employers want them to do, and the media, not unlike an employer in a sense, are in fact the largest source of revenue for professional athletes.
It’s as if the media are telling the athletes to keep up the drama or something because the public has decided that professional sports isn’t interesting enough without it any longer.
Copyright © William Thien 2017
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Today’s race riots vs. the race riots of the sixties. Have riots become the new national pastime?
Posted on: September 19, 2017
The levels of unrest in today’s race riots don’t compare to the levels of violence, killing, and destruction of the race riots during the sixties in The US.
During the race riots of the sixties, entire blocks of buildings in business districts were set afire. People were shot by snipers holed up in abandoned buildings. Much of urban America was under curfew during certain times of the year.
Today, if you look at the pictures of the rioters many of them are smiling and they appear to be having a good time. Makes you wonder if riots have become a sort of pastime in America. Kind of suggests that the problems are not as significant as they were during the sixties and suggests the country has changed dramatically. It’s hard to tell, though, since many of the rioters in pics I’ve seen are smiling.
See reference after notice.
Copyright © William Thien 2017
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During an enjoyable conversation last week the subject of what languages we should be teaching in schools these days came up.
One person said we should be teaching Spanish because there are so many Hispanics coming into the country right now and we have to preserve the culture. Another said we should be teaching Chinese because it is an up and coming language. To a certain extent I would have to agree with both of those sentiments.
But what about preserving the Germanic cultures, the European cultures such as French and Italian, Polish, and Czech and Russian? We have just as many if not more people who are descendants of those cultures in The United States right now than Spanish or Chinese.
Furthermore I said, I don’t recall a time in the history of The United States when teachers had to be bi-lingual in Polish or Russian like they are required to be now fluent in Spanish in many classes. Sounds kind of racist if you ask me.
If we are teaching language to “preserve” culture, then we are doing a poor job of it by offering only Spanish and Chinese in schools today. Teaching only Spanish and Chinese sounds more like an incursion to me than it does an attempt to preserve culture.
Copyright © William Thien 2017
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One of the concerns I have with Democrats moving so far to the left is that Republicans will feel they don’t have to appeal to conservatives as thoroughly. I think we are beginning to see that happening already to a certain extent.
Because we live in a democracy, political belief systems have a certain gravity due to the desire to obtain votes. Parties have a tendency to shift positionally based on the voter attraction of another party’s platform.
Copyright © William Thien 2017
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William Thien 
White supremacy or white survival? Part III.
Posted by: William Thien on: September 30, 2017
Most white Americans want nothing to do with any racist or fascist organization but often such organizations are the only organizations publicly enumerating white grievance in The US, where the government and the media often falsely place historical guilt upon white Americans to increase tax levies upon the middle classes, for all manner of social programs, many of which whites pay for but benefit from very little.
While white Americans also comprise a relatively stable number in population, minorities that benefit from such social programs are increasing in size, some of them dramatically, at rates unprecedented in American history.
So, while America’s population of whites remains relatively the same, the tax burden to pay for such social programs and the use AND ABUSE of such social programs is increasing dramatically, correspondingly increasing the burden upon white Americans whose population stays relatively the same.
Attempts by white Americans to organize and enumerate their grievances publicly have been met with 1st Amendment transgressions by municipal leadership or pandering to violent reactionaries in such cities as Berkeley and Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, and Baltimore.
Any attempts by white Americans to organize in the public square are now met almost automatically with false and slanderous calls of fascism and racism by the media and municipal governments as well as the threat of violence from reactionaries.
Unless there is change there will come a day when white America will no longer stand for it.
Copyright © William Thien 2017
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