2nd Bill of Rights

For those of you not familiar, in the 1940s FDR proposed a 2nd Bill of Rights in a speech. It has since been praised by many liberals, including Cass Sunstein, Obama's new regulatory "czar". These are the new rights FDR proposed:

1. The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation
2. The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation
3. The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living
4. The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad
5. The right of every family to a decent home
6. The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health
7. The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment
8. The right to a good education

Let's just discuss a few of these: Rights 1-3. How would the government do this? You can't guarantee a job for everyone. It isn't possible. Unemployment has never been at 0% and it can't be. Then he suggests we regulate how much money people make and receive for their services.

In other words: No matter how hard you work, no matter how much you try, no matter how good of investments you make or how fiscally responsible you are, you won't do any better than the high school drop out who doesn't care about work or progressing this country's industry. Not to mention, how would the money come to guarantee these incomes and these jobs? Well, it would have to be taxed, and it couldn't be taxed from the middle class or the lower class, because that might infringe upon their right to "earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation". So it would be taken from the upper class. The upper class then would be carrying the middle, lower, and extremely poor classes. This would help even everyone out: The upper class would lower to a middle type class, and the lower class would raise to the middle type class. Or, businesses would be taxed, although again this could create problems: If a company is taxed too much it may not be able to pay its employees enough to "earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation", so taxing the upper class is the most likely scenario.

However, this would bankrupt the country. Let's say there's a CEO of an organization making $1 million a year. He worked hard to get to a good school and worked for years to get up to the top of the company, finally making CEO. He's 55 years old and is finally getting paid for his hard work. Suddenly, the 2nd bill of rights comes in. He is now responsible for helping the low classes, who are in the low class for various reasons: unfortunate circumstances, job loss, or laziness. So he is getting taxed majorly. Maybe 75, 85 percent of his income. And it would have to be at least that much, because the top 1-3 percent are supporting all the lower class. So his $1 million dollar salary comes out to 150,000 to 250,000 a year. Yet, he's working harder than almost everyone in the country. But he sees that no matter how hard he works, its not getting any better. He's not making more money, there is no incentive to work harder. He could get an easier job making 500,000 a year and coming out with 100,000 or 150,000 after taxes. Pretty soon, all the upper class realize this, and decide to take easier jobs, or not work as hard.

You see, companies make billions of dollars because of this: They have people who work hard and put in the hours for flights, meetings, business transactions. They spend time working on new products, marketing, all these things. Sometimes they're dishonest, yes, but this is not always the case, and regardless they still have hard workers in their company.

So rather than the country benefiting from all the work the upper class's income, the upper class realize they don't need to work, because they aren't making the money they should, a some guy off the street who may of never had a job in his life because he's too lazy all of the sudden is making $75,000 a year because the government gave it to him.

What does this mean? The innovators, the people who have worked to make businesses function, who make new products, who work internationally, loose all incentive. So the country collapses because there are no more people running these businesses, or the people who are running them don't have what it takes.

Number 4 is stupid. I don't know how FDR though that he could regulate a global market but if he thought he could he was an idiot.

Number 6 is a blog entry in itself.

Number 7 is also stupid. How did FDR propose to end old age death? Or accidents?

I would like to know more about what he thought about #8. Did he think everyone should get into Harvard? Or did he think everyone should be able to get into a public high school?

Yet this is prevalant liberal thought. Most liberals will say "No it's not, that's ridiculous, don't pin that on us." Really? What is the healthcare bill you're trying to pass? Sounds like #6 to me. #1 and #3 sounds like what's happened with the bailouts lately. Not to mention we just raised minimum wage which many republicans are opposed to. That sounds like #2. (Minimum wage raising is another blog entry)

And now there's people in Obama's administration who think this is a great idea (along with a lot of liberals). It is impractical and won't work.

By the way, it sounds an awful lot like communism. The government dictating the economy, businesses, and there being a redistribuiton of wealth. How did that go for the U.S.S.R.? It collapsed on itself. All throughout school my teachers told me: Socialism and communism are a good theory, but will never work. I disagree that it's good in theory, but I agree that it'll never work.

So I'm curious why so many people are in support of this.

Remember Remember the 5th of November

"Remember remember the 5th of November, gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot."

I watched V for Vendetta for the second time tonight which has obvious political undertones. I would like to discuss those here. I actually think that while the movie is obviously making a political statement, it could be argued as to what statement it is making. I think the intention is an anti conservative message, but there's more to it than that. These are my own thoughts, I haven't read or seen any interviews with the directors or producers of the movie, so I can't speak for them. I certainly don't think they meant their message to be pro-conservative, though perhaps they meant it to be moderate, but again I think the most likely case is [they wanted] a more liberal message.

The movie takes place sometime in the near future in England, where a new government has come about, there is much famine, and America has essentially collapsed.

Anti-Conservative:
The Chancellor in the movie is called a conservative. He is also the embodiment of evil in the movie. In addition, there are specific things that have been outlawed in England. Homosexuality is outlawed, as is Islam, and a lot of art. Conservatives in general have pushed for marriage to be between a man and a woman, and are also strong advocates of eliminating terrorist threats, which often causes them to be accused of being anti-Muslim. I think then that these points in the movie are obvious jabs at the conservative party. The people in charge ruin a homosexual relationship, and keep a man from ever being with another man because of laws against it. There are also home invasions and arrests, which I think where most likely meant to pick at the Patriot Act. In addition, in the movie America has collapsed and there are anti-Bush signs in some protests and riots, and America, at least when the movie was made, was less socialized than many European nations.

Anti-Liberal:
While I'm sure some of my liberal friends will disagree, here's what I see in the movie: I think the biggest enemy in the movie is the government and the power given there. Throughout the movie, the chancellor and his staff are trying to make the English people more dependent on the government. The create viruses and famines so that the people will turn to the government for help. In addition, the government setting so many laws and getting so involved in so many things is what corrupts. They dictate everyone's lives. There's no freedom of speech. There are laws telling everyone what they can and can't do, down to the smallest thing. The hero throughout the movie is trying to destroy parliament and take down its leaders. He is trying to take down the government that has become more like a dictatorship. Now: aren't those liberal techniques? Socialized healthcare=more dependence on government systems for health and medicine. (And as I stated in a previous post, doesn't the government want us to run to it during disease times? Like when Obama said we're "behind" when we only had a few cases of swine flu in our country?) Nationalized banks/bailing out so many businesses=private sectors dictated by and dependent on government. Living Constitution=leaves things open for the government to change how they influence and affect peoples lives. In addition, a liberal mindset tends to be tolerant of everyone. I find this to be true unless the person is a right wing conservative Christian, then they're criticized and neglected. (Now it also seems that if you're rich or sucessful you are criticized.)

Regardless, I think most would agree that the main evil in the movie is that the people are told what to think and how to act and not free to think for themselves. I would argue that that aligns with liberalism and the big government aforementioned, though I'm sure many disagree.

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan Video Click Here

Obama 100 Days

"So -- so, you know, when you -- when you see, you know -- you know, those of you who are watching certain news channels, that -- on which I’m not very popular, and you see folks waving tea bags around let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we’re going to stabilize Social Security. Claire and I are working diligently to do basically a thorough audit of federal spending. But let’s not play games and pretend that the reason is that because of the recovery act, because that’s just a fraction of the overall problem that we’ve got."-Barack Obama (1)

Recovery Act=787 Billion Tax Payers Dollars (2)

White House Press Secretary Roberty Gibbs: "Well, look, I think that one of the main purposes of a task force like this is to orient the policies of this government going forward more toward the demands and the needs of the middle class. I think one of the critiques that the President had of the previous administration was a tendency to help those that already had done quite well while many in the middle class were seeing their wages either hold steady or, in many cases, decline. So I think it's important that a task force and a group be assembled to ensure that the policies of this administration are friendly to the American middle class."(3)

(1)(http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5&docID=news-000003106438)
(2) http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/29/news/economy/Obama_100_days_analysis/?postversion=2009042906
(3) http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Press_Briefing_1-30-09/

Health Care, Swine, and Obama

Obama today said:
“One thing is clear — our capacity to deal with a public health challenge of this sort rests heavily on the work of our scientific and medical community, and this is one more example of why we cannot allow our nation to fall behind, and that's exactly what's happening”(1&4)
He's also said this about scientific research in America: “make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.” (2)
It's important to note that when he made this first comment, there were 20 or fewer documented cases of swine Flu in the U.S., while there were 1500 cases in Mexico, and about 100 deaths (in Mexico) from the disease. (3&4)

Why is Obama bringing up our nation "Falling Behind"? He's already gone all over the world talking about America's shortcomings, and now he's saying that we're falling behind? LOOK AT THE STATS BUD. When he said that, there were 5 times a many deaths in Mexico from this disease than there were entire cases in the U.S. We're falling behind? Behind who? He has consistently painted a negative picture of America since he's been in office. "I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we've struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We've made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions." (5) And then proceeded to talk about how much he loved America. Why does he talk junk about us then talk about how great we are? Does no one realize that he went all over the world saying these things? "I'm sorry about America....about Bush....yada yada yada." And today apparently we're way behind on things. You want things based on facts Mr. President? Not "ideology" as you yourself said? So if our country is so "behind" and his socialized healthcare is going to save America, explain this to me:

Why do British kids (who have socialized healthcare, and is a favorite example of Liberals) have to come here for certain Cancer treatments that we're pioneering if we're "behind"? (6) Why do some British patients have to wait a full year just to see a specialist? (7) They're having disasters in the emergency rooms because of government regulated 4 hour laws (7). I was watching the news about a week ago, and a British congressman was on there talking about a problem in England, that some of their best Doctors leave to come here, because of healthcare competition. He was pleading the U.S. not to turn to a socialized healthcare system because of the havoc it had caused in the UK. Why do we have a massive problem with illegal immigrants crossing the border to get into our hospitals? (8) (Which is another topic altogether, the strain illegal immigrants are putting on our healthcare)

So just to get things straight, you want science based on facts? Then don't talk crap about our country's scientific advancements, when we're clearly the envy of countries for our healthcare and medicine. And next time you say our country's "Behind" wait until we're actually "behind" someone else. I don't see any Americans running into Mexico to get into a hospital, or rushing to the UK to wait for a year to see a specialist.


(1) http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21745.html
(2) http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21580.html
(3) http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Press-Briefing-On-Swine-Influenza-4/26/09/
(4) http://www.latimes.com/la-na-obama-science28-2009apr28,0,6382080.story
(5) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/us/politics/24text-obama.html?pagewanted=4&_r=1&sq=obama%20berlin%20speech&st=cse&scp=2
(6)Daily Telegraph (London) Jan. 23, 2007 Tom Leonard "British Cancer boy needs..."
(7)Daily Mail (London) Dec. 21, 2006 Daniel Martin "A&E Patients Left in Ambulances..."
(8)http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17760618/

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy
out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another
person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to
anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody
else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work
because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other
half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is
going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end
of any nation.. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931-2005