It's Ryan

Mitt Romney announced today, that Paul Ryan would be his running mate. I have no problem with Paul Ryan, but I thought that it would be someone else. Of course, the White House went into full victim hood attack mode, sending out the requisite sound bites to their lapdogs in the media, and to all those whiny victim hood addled Liberals, who can't stand the thought that the American people are not quite ready for Communism.

I hope the Romney/Ryan ticket succeeds in November. I hope that the Republicans get control of the Senate, and increase their control of the House. After that, I want to see some real nasty, mean-spirited Conservatives go after the Left and finish the job Joe McCarthy started in the 1950s. It's time to clean all the Marxists out of our government, military, education system, and corporate America. It's time for some REAL hope and change. 

Health Care 1

I'm still sifting though numerous articles about the Supreme Court's decision on Obamacare. I will post a blog once I think I have done enough research to form an intelligent opinion on the subject. That being said, I do think that we are heading eventually to a government run, single payer system.

Who would lose out  in a  single payer system? Lawyers. If the government ever took over health care in this country for everyone, you can bet that the government would make sure that the government could never be sued. OK, here is the fly in the ointment: A single payer, government run, health care system will not be implemented for a long time, because most of the idiots that we idiots vote into office are lawyers. Consequently, the lawyer lobby has a lot of influence keeping the lawyer idiots that we idiots vote into office, are beholden to the whims of the legal profession,  no matter how much they screw the American people. Once a single payer system is put into place, the malpractice legal industry collapses, followed by the insurance industry, that feeds off of the legal industry. Gee, that might not be a bad thing.

Here is my opinion on a single payer system. I use one, and have access to another one. I am retired military, and continue to use the government run, single payer, military medical system for my medical needs. I have NEVER had a problem with military medicine. I have used the system for everything from emergency room care, gastroenterology, cardiology, primary care, chiropractic, physical therapy, major surgery, and then some. I have never used the Veterans Administration system myself, except for disability evaluations, but I know several veterans who do, and I hear nothing but good things. The only criticisms I hear about the VA system come from Liberals who claim that the VA system is shit. Of course, they would never use such a system themselves, which is ironic, since they are the ones that are pushing for single payer, universal healthcare for all. I guess what they really mean is this: Substandard single payer healthcare for the masses, and a discrete private system for themselves, open only to themselves. If it looks like this is going to occur, the masses have to rise up and make sure it doesn't happen. In the  spirit of fairness, upper middle class, educated, elitist, snobbish liberals have to be forced on the same system that they want to force onto everyone else. If that is the case, a single payer system could work.

Like I said, I use a single payer system, and it works fine. Yes, there are some glitches. 1. You have little say in who your providers are. However, I have never had a bad military medical provider. 2. There is sometimes a fairly long wait in order to see your primary care manager. The work around for this, is you go to the emergency room, and they give you a referral. You then have to see ANY primary care provider in ANY hospital or clinic within a certain time frame. Usually, that is 24 to 48 hours. They will make the appointment for you in the emergency room when they discharge you. In addition, if you can't get in to see your PCM for routine care, you can make an appointment to be seen by any provider in your primary care facility. All your records are electronic, and can be viewed by any medical provider in any government run medical facility, military or civilian, anywhere in the world.

One thing I have noticed over the past 10 years has been the number of contract civilian doctors and nurses working in the military hospitals. This is significant if you think about it, and the fact that eventually, we are going to have a government run, single payer system. Doctors are becoming government employees, so they can avoid paying a staff, and most importantly, they can avoid having to pay outrageous malpractice insurance premiums, driven by greedy lawyers and insurance companies trying to keep ahead of the greedy lawyers. If enough doctors do this, the legal and insurance industries will no longer be able to sustain themselves financially. Like they say, paybacks are hell. Along with this, the ultimate payback is hell, would be "our betters" having to use the same system we "little people" have to use. I can hear the whine and cheese party now.

I see many articles that have come out since the Obamacare decision claiming that this country has now gone past the tipping point, where it will be impossible to prevent us from turning into a Socialist dictatorship. I'm still skeptical about that, but I can see the argument. I do know this, however, if we ever became a top-down Socialist style dictatorship, it would end up being a lot like the military, and military style life is one thing that few Lefties could handle. They would go ballistic when they found out that a vast majority of them would not be part of the ruling class. Hmmm......Maybe something really IS in the works...

Public Transportation

I ride public transportation all the time, and I like it. Even though it takes me longer to get to work that is does by driving, I like the fact that I can catch up on my reading, and/or take a nap if need be. Also, I'm discovering that the less I drive, the more I realize that I hate driving. I wish more people would feel the same way.

I live in the Washington, DC area. We have out-surpassed Los Angeles as the traffic capital of the United States. Driving on the Capital Beltway during rush hour is a royal pain in the ass. It takes forever to go 50 feet. There has to be a way to get people out of their cars and onto public transportation, without punitive measures. As a Conservative, I believe people should have choices. The choice of choosing public transportation for commuting to work, needs to out-way the choice of driving by yourself and sitting in a traffic jam for an hour. Public transportation needs to be safe, convenient, reliable, and cheaper than driving by yourself. If one of these things is missing, people will continue to drive themselves for the "convenience" of having their own car, even though they will raise holy hell about sitting in a traffic jam for over an hour.

Here's my assessment of the Washington, DC, metro system.

Safety: Even though their are reports of assaults and robberies on the Metro and the buses, I haven't witnessed any. I have seen some pretty shady-looking characters hanging out at the Rockville Metro station, however. Increased police patrol, and intense police scrutiny, including the unpopular practice of "stop and frisk" harassment  of these individuals on a regular basis, would chase them away. That would be a good thing. Liberals would scream bloody murder about this, but if the crime rate was reduced  dramatically, and it would be, they would look like the fools that they are. Profiling and harassment work. Several years ago, the Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department went on a campaign to eliminate an open air drug market at Hanover Place, NW, Washington, DC. They stopped and harassed every white person seen driving on Hanover Place. They set up sting drug deals, and arrested many white suburbanites coming to Hanover Place to buy drugs. Those suburbanites also lost their cars. But of course, you  didn't hear one peep out of the Left about this, because white people were being targeted and arrested. Oh wait, you did hear about how it was terrible that this practice was affecting the livelihood of the neighborhood drug dealers...

Convenience: This is where Metro falls down the most. Out where I live in the inner ring suburbs, in Prince George's County, the Metro Rail runs until midnight on weekdays, and until 3:00am on weekends. Metro Bus, however, stops running somewhere around 10pm. If you are out late, you either have to walk from the station to your home, which in my case is about a mile through a decaying neighborhood, or you have to have someone pick you up, or take a taxi. If you are in Montgomery County things are not as bleak. Both Metrobus and Montgomery County's Ride On buses run well after midnight in some jurisdictions. If you are in the Rockville area, there are late night buses. In downtown DC, some buses run until 4am and start back up at 5am.  Metro needs to adjust its bus schedules, so that buses meet the trains on a regular basis, and that a last bus meets the last train in the evening from each and every suburban stop. That would encourage evening ridership into and out from the entertainment areas of Washington, DC, and the suburbs.

Reliability: DC's Metro system is fairy reliable, but it is aging and needs substantial infrastructure work at this point in its life. Single tracking operations and station closing are ongoing on weekends, which is a major inconvenience for many riders. Metro, however, has not choice. They have to keep the system running.

Cost effectiveness: During rush hour, Metro is not cheap. Yes, you can use your Smart Trip card and ride buses with unlimited transfers for two hours for a buck and a half, but it will take you until next Wednesday to get where you are going. There needs to be a push for more government subsidies (yes, you heard that right. Even as a Conservative, I believe that certain things need to be subsidized by the government) from the federal, state, and DC governments. With EZ Pass technology expanding, it would be very easy to install EZ Pass readers at the Beltway entrance ramps, and collect a nominal toll, say 25 cents for the privilege of driving on the Beltway. If you don't want to pay the toll, you can always take the back roads. We now have the Inter-county Connector and the soon to be Hot Lanes on the Virginia side of the Beltway as precedent. Both use EZ Pass readers to collect tolls. The Inter-county Connector is not cheap either. It's over $4 each way during rush hour, and that's for a road that is just over 20 miles long. A nominal toll would generate millions of dollars for highway maintenance and other transportation projects, freeing up a lot of transportation money for public transportation. In addition, Metro should either lower the cost of parking at their stations, or eliminate the cost all together. Paying $4.75 to park for the day, and then paying rush hour peak fares, does not make riding Metro cost effective for most people. It's cheaper to drive. Charge a dollar if you must. Most people would be willing to pay that. Also, reduce the rush hour fares substantially, and you will have a huge increase in ridership.

I believe that public transportation is the wave of the future, especially in our urban and suburban areas. We need to expand it, and we need to fine tune it. If we do that, people will be willing to use their cars when they really need them for their cargo space, or for recreational purposes. I'm hoping to see more rail-based and dedicated lane express bus public transportation in my lifetime.

UPDATE: July 1, 2012. Metro's fares went up today. Buses are now $1.60 with a Smart Trip card, and $1.80 if paying cash. Rail fares have increased too. So has parking. However, Metro did eliminated the "Peak Of The Peak" fares that made travel by Metro too expensive for many people.They have also added a $1 surcharge for using a paper fare card, rather than a Smart Trip card. Check out Metro's website for more information

Handicapped Spaces

I teach in a private school, where the tuition is more than many people make annually. A common occurrence at this school is parents, or I should say scoff-law parents, parking in  spaces reserved for those with handicapped tags or devices that hang from the rear view mirror when they are not handicapped. One of my colleagues is handicapped, and has handicapped tags. He came to work one day, and couldn't get a handicapped space, so he pulled behind the scoff-law in the space, and blocked her in. When she came out to move her car, she was livid. How dares someone block her in. The fact that she was parked illegally, and should have been issued a $250.00 citation and had her car towed, was irrelevant. She had been inconvenienced, and was late for her yoga class.

This is a perfect example of the class warfare that is permeating this country. You now have a class of meritocratic wealthy people that have no class. It's all about them. Like Marie Antoinette said, "Let them eat cake." Remember what happened to Marie Antoinette.

While I don't advocate the guillotine for selfish jerks parking in a handicapped space, because they feel that because of their wealth they are above the law, I do feel that that individual should have been more than just "inconvenienced." She should have had her car towed, and she should have had to retrieve it in some impound lot that is only open on Tuesdays, while storage charges continue to rack up during the week and the weekend.

This shows the mindset between old money and new money. Old money would never have considered parking in a handicapped spot. New money doesn't care. They are special, and everyone else is a peasant.It's a strange world that we live in.

DC's "Right To Vote."

I hear on more than one occasion from Liberals, that they could never live in the District Of Columbia, because residents of DC don't have the "right to vote." Really? The District has three electoral votes in presidential elections, and elects their mayor and council members. They don't have the "right to vote?"

The Twenty-Third Amendment to the US Constitution, which was proposed by Congress in 1960, and ratified by the states in 1961, gives Washington, DC, three Electoral College votes in presidential elections. It limits the number of Electoral College votes to three, currently, which the amendment specifies is the same number of electors as allowed in the least populated state. As of 2011, that state is Wyoming.

Residents of the District voted in presidential elections for the first time in 1964. Before that time, yes, they didn't have the "right to vote." That voting right continues today. Yes liberals, they do have the "right to vote." What I think these liberals are really saying, is that DC doesn't have a representative in Congress that can vote on the House floor. DC's representative has the same committee voting rights as the representatives of the US Territories: Guam, Marshall Islands, American Samoa, the US Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth Of Puerto Rico. It was the same when Arizona was a territory, North Dakota was a territory, and Hawaii was a territory.

If you read the US Constitution, it specifically states that a Federal District would be established as the center of government, but it would not be a state. DC is not a state. It is a Federal District. In order for DC to have a House floor voting representative, there would have to be a Constitutional Amendment granting DC statehood. With that requiring a 2/3 majority congressional vote from both houses, followed by ratification by 3/4 of the states, that would be just about impossible.

There is a reason why the founders of this country didn't want the center of government to have the same rights as the respective states. At the time, it was expected that those that worked for the Federal Government would live in the District. The idea was to keep those that worked for the government from voting themselves a pay raise, since all bills pertaining to the federal budget begin in the House Of Representatives. Until 1961, they couldn't even vote for the President or Vice-President. That had been in effect since 1789. At the time, and until the 1973, it didn't seem to bother the residents of the District Of Columbia. They lived under a congressional gravy train, with a city government controlled by three Congressional Managers from the House Of Representatives. DC was given home rule by Congress in 1972. Their first mayor, Walter Washington, was elected mayor in 1973.

Here's my idea: make all federal employees, current and retired, no matter where they live, residents of the District Of Columbia as part of their employment contracts. That way no federal employee could vote themselves a pay raise. Those that reside outside of the District would vote by absentee ballot, whether they live in Montgomery County, Maryland, or Omaha, Nebraska. They would also vote for the DC mayor and council, having a say in who controlled the local government of their domicile. With the financial mess that DC is in, that would not be a bad thing.

What about the military? Yes, the military are federal employees. However, there is one fly in the ointment. It's called the Soldiers And Sailors Relieve Act of 1918, reinstated in 1940, and even though it had not expired, reinstated again in 2003 as a formality. One provision allows members of the military to retain their home of record as their legal domicile along as they are members of the active duty military. I was active duty Air Force for 26 years. During that time, I remained a legal resident of Connecticut, which was my home of record when I joined the military. After I retired, I had to become a Maryland resident, since that is where I lived, acquire a Maryland drivers' license, since that is where I lived, and pay state income tax to the State Of Maryland, since that is where I lived, and was now a Maryland resident. While I was active duty, I maintained a Connecticut drivers license, and was subject to Connecticut state income tax, but Connecticut exempts military members on active duty from that tax. That is Connecticut's right under the States Rights provisions of the US Constitution applied to the Soldiers And Sailors Relief Act. The act also covers garnishments and other financial actions, giving them statutory relief while they are in the service of their country. This is a law, not a constitutional provision, so any or all parts of the act could be rescinded by federal law.

The part granting them the right to retain their home of record as their domicile could be rescinded by federal law, while leaving the other provisions in place. However, would Liberals want all members of the US Military to be residents of the District Of Columbia? Most members of the military are Conservatives. Today, and based on my observations, starting about 20 years ago, many military personnel in power and policy positions are fundamentalist, born again Christian, religious Conservatives. They would vote for any Republican running for office in the District. DC might actually end up with a Republican mayor, a Republican council, and a non-floor voting representative that is a Republican. Also, DC's meager three electoral votes would go Republican too.

As a side note: I have never been comfortable with the Fundamentalist Movement that has established itself as the power base of the US Military in recent years. While I respect their right to believe what they believe...after all, their beliefs are protected, constitutional rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, I find it uncomfortable when they promote their religious beliefs in a public forum, or let it be known under the table, that if you  don't belief in a certain aspect of Fundamentalist Christianity, you will not be promoted.  I'm sorry, but this is wrong! I shouldn't have to belong to the "right" church in order to be considered for promotion.

Granting the District more electoral votes by a constitutional amendment would be much easier than granting DC statehood. I believe that most states would go along with that, just like they granted DC residents the right to vote in presidential elections in 1961. That would mean that DC could end up with 7 to 10 electoral votes, rather than 3... maybe more, depending on the size of the federal workforce, including the US Military. If you included retired military, since they are technically still military in retired status, and there are many, it could be 15 to 20 electoral votes, most of whom just might vote Republican...talk about "swing..."

We'll see what happens...

Housing In The Future

I just finished reading an article by Walter Russell Mead called From Levittown To Suburbia. I'm a big fan of Mead. Even though I'm a conservative and he is a liberal, he is a completely common sense liberal, who is not afraid to hold liberalism's feet to the fire. He is a deep-thinking intellectual worth reading on a regular basis.

From Levittown To Suburbia, is one installment in Mead's commentary on America's "Blue Social Model." In this installment, he challenges the current notion that the younger generation preferres to live in New Urbanism style high density housing on top of public transportation lines.

Even though I'm a conservative, I'm a New Urbanism kind of guy; I would prefer to live in a condo above a Metro or high speed rail line, rather than where I live. I live in a small single family home in a former working class suburban neighborhood, but that is just me. Downtown Rockville, Maryland, and Kentlands in Gaithersburb, Maryland, are my models when it comes to housing. I'm also a big fan of public transportation, because I hate driving, especially in the DC area. If I didn't have to haul drum and band equipment, and public transportation ran 24 hours per day, it's more than likely that I wouldn't own a car...back to Mead...

Based on his research, most Millenials would prefer to live in single family homes in the suburbs and exurbs, but they can't afford to. What are we going to return to? We are going to return to the multi-generational single family home of days gone by. Many builders are now offering that kind of housing unit: They are offering large single family homes with separate sections for two or three generations of family members. I can also see this becoming a model for two or three unrelated families that get along well, choosing to live together in this type of housing. If you go back in history, it wasn't that long ago, that multi-generational living arrangements were the norm here in the United States. When my parents were first married, and my father was going to graduate school, they lived in the home where my mother grew up with her 12 brothers and sisters...all but 5 who never married, and continued to live in the same house until the day they died.

I am a New Urbanist Conservative; yes we do exist, I do agree with Mead's assessment. Read his article. It makes total sense. I can see an America, where multiple generations share housing, taking a large burden off of the social services industries when it comes to caring for Grandma and Grandpa in their golden years, while they provide valuable services in helping raise their grandchildren without the need for day care, as well as making things easier for the younger generations to get themselves planted in the American culture and economy, with the help coming from two generations of family stability providing family assistance, as opposed to government assistance.

We'll see...

Left Wing Fear

In a previous post, I stated that what we needed in this country was the formation of an asshole party. We haven't gone that far as of yet, but the Tea Party has woken up the American people on both sides of the political spectrum. No, I'm not calling the Tea Party assholes. I am not a Liberal. Actually, Liberals would not call the Tea Party members assholes, they would say they were stupid. The Left considers anyone that doesn't agree with their positions to be stupid as well as any Average American to be stupid. However, I do feel that the Left is about finally to suffer their well deserved comeuppance. We have had enough of their hubris. Average Americans, who Professor Angelo Codevilla dubs the Country Party, are furious. Elite Liberal Americans, who Codevilla calls the Court Party, are scared. They should be. Their entire worldview, based on a society socially engineered into Democratic Socialism with them accruing the majority of the spoils confiscated from small business owners and those without college degrees who work for a living, has finally been shown for what it is: Left wing socially engineered pseudo-Communism. They kept it under wraps for years while they were working to create this "Utopia" behind the scenes through incremental Socialism was put into place.However, things are different now. The lid is off of the trash can, and the little people are looking down into that trash can and seeing the maggots crawling all over the garbage, which stinks to high heaven. It can't be hidden anymore. The Left moved their agenda too fast, and the average Joe and Jane finally woke up and smelled the sewage. The entire Progressive agenda has been shown for what it is. It is a fraud. The social engineering factory has produced too many defective products, and is now poised to go out of business. The "investors" in this system (read taxpayers), are now demanding a full accounting. Through their own arrogance, the Left has set itself up for failure and moral bankruptcy, and their are scared to death. We are no longer buying into their world view. We tolerated it for half a century, but it's now time to clean house.

Americans have finally woken up to the fact that the Left has always worshiped Communism. Liberals have longed for Marx's tenant that there would be a revolution in which the Proletariat would rise up against the Bourgeoisie , which at the time of Marx, through the Industrial Revolution, the Gilded Age, and until we became part of the Global Economy, was the Capitalist Industrialist ruling class. However, the workers joined up with the Capitalists and enjoyed a good solid middle class standard of living. Years ago, this put a class of self-absorbed college educated liberals in a bind. They envisioned themselves as a ruling managerial class that would control the masses until the Proletariat were ready to rise up in revolution, keeping themselves in place as society's managers. To them this was their birthright. However something that Marx never predicted happened. The Proletariat combined forces with the Capitalist Bourgeoisie, and together created a standard of living here in the United States that was the envy of the world. Compare the standard of living of the working classes and lower middle classes in Europe, with the standard of living of the same here in the US. There is about a 40% difference. While the "Managerials" too enjoy a good standard of living, there was something missing. They didn't become the ruling class, which destroyed their self-importance. Not only that, here in America, unlike Western Europe, a high school drop out owning a small business, could earn more money than someone with a PhD. This wasn't fair. How could it be possible that some crude "common" high school graduate owning, heaven forbid, a McDonald's franchise, make a million dollars per year, when the Elite, with a PhD in something ending in "Studies," might find themselves "saving the world" from the Capitalist pigs, working at Revolutionary Books for $10 per hour, or better yet ironically, working for $10 per hour for that high school graduate, or better yet, for that dropout McDonald's franchise owner millionaire, flipping burgers.

Ah, the "unfairness" of the Capitalist system. It doesn't recognize intellectual talent like a command and control European style Social Democratic system where salaries are based on education level, and dictated by federal law. This mindset was addressed by the famous Austrian School Economist, Ludwig von Mises in a book called, The Anti-Capitalist Mentality, published in 1956. It's worth a read, and is available as free download from the Ludwig von Mises Institute website. In addition, von Mises addresses another bone of contention of the left...the fact that their leaders in academia and the non-profit industries get little respect from the American business community. That's because the Capitalist American business community considers them a bunch of Socialist whiners. European society is more willing to suck up to them than we are. This is one of the main reasons for the Left pushing for a European style Social Democracy here in America. They feel that they are entitled to that level of respect when all they have accomplished in life is acquiring a college degree, and been involved in spending other peoples' money.

Here was the Liberals dilemma. When was Marx's revolution going to take place, in which the workers would rise up against the Capitalist system and allow the "Managerials" to lead the revolution, rise to dictatorial power, and secure their place as the vanguards of the Proletariat. What happened to their self-ordained birthright to become society's ruling class? It didn't happen, and it's not going to happen.

Here's the irony. As we have evolved from a manufacturing economy to a service economy where college degrees are the necessary pedigrees needed to secure a career that will allow a solid upper middle class existence, those educated, arrogant, paternalistic liberals have become the new Bourgeoisie...and the Proletariat are ready to rise up in revolution against them. The Progressive Left is scared to death. This is why Liberals are so quick to denigrate Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman. Both ladies, while only one is a serious presidential contender, have stirred up the masses. The Left claims that Sarah Palin is politically irrelevant. If she is, why spend so much time trying to destroy her? Because, she has mobilized Middle America, and the Left hates and fears Middle America more than they hate and fear the failed products of their social engineering factory that reside in our inner cities. Things could get violent and they know it.

This is something that is happening world-wide. Look at the riots in Greece, Italy, and Ireland, and the current riots in Britain. When are those riots going to happen here? Wait, they are. Take a look at the "flash mobs" comprised of young Black men that are attacking white people. If you look at the pictures and amateur videos of the riots in Britain, you will notice that the rioters are black, white, male, and female. All are products of an over-generous safety net, that has included the American dollar equivalent of about $80,000 in public education costs that they didn't contribute one penny to. Now let's look at the flash mobs in this country. Notice anything? You don't see those hoodlums going after the rednecks. Rednecks have guns, and they will use them. They are going after those that are considered easy targets: members of the class of middle class and upper middle class whites and/or their children. Most of them DON'T have guns.

Why are these youths rioting and creating mayhem? In England, the standard excuse is they are angry, because of an increase in college tuition and a reduction of social services. I think that is goes much deeper than that. Using the United States as an example, I have other ideas. Here's a theory. It's "Rage Against The Machine." Could it be that the youth of the Black community have started to wake up to the fake bill of goods sold to them by guilt ridden and power hungry white liberals? BINGO! These policies have done little to benefit those that the policies were designed to benefit. Instead, they created a permanent underclass of unsocialized urban blacks, rural poor whites, a new class of suburban poor Hispanics, while creating a self-ordained ruling class of college educated "professionals"drunk with the entitlement of power to rule over the other demographic groups? Ah, the poverty industry. Flush with government money, corruption is king, and it has devolved into a racket. Al Capone would be proud. Guess what? We the Little People noticed. Like I said, the lid is off of the trash can. The Left can not hide their intentions any more.

What is at stake here is an ideology bases on the following: revenge, restitution, reparations, revolt, redistribution, re-alignment, and rage, not necessarily in that particular order. We are no longer going to tolerate those seven "r" items. There is going to be no more free lunch. The kitchen is closed. I will address each of these items in subsequent posts.