Gag me!

California Senator Diane Feinstein wants to rid U.S. of guns. She'd get rid of all guns except hers, of course, because she's a liberal. And liberals believe that everyone else shouldn't have a gun. Or a bomb. An armed citizenry (or country) is incompatible with liberal rule. That's why liberals always limit others' access to arms.

Liberals don't believe rights come from God. They apparently don't believe in God. Liberals believe all rights come from government. They treat the U.S. Bill of Rights as a list of privileges -- Constitutional "amendments" that may be altered, restricted, or taken away. To a liberal, no right is "absolute", not even the right of free speech. Liberals will be the first to shout down and drown out any "disagreeable" speech, but they will defend to the death anyone's right to agree with them! No one, they'll argue, has the right to falsely yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater. People might stampede for the doors. People have been killed!

So falsely yelling "Fire!" is banned.

Liberals now claim that keeping and bearing arms, particularly in public, is unsafe. They seek to ban all guns (even pastries that look like guns). Then they cower in fear under desks (or behind body guards) when murderous criminals disregard all existing laws (duh!) and murder anyway.

Perhaps we should apply the same "solution" liberals impose to stop gun violence to the possibility of someone yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater. For public safety's sake, we should gag everyone entering any public venue. No one should be allowed to speak -- unless they first undergo an FBI background check, get fingerprinted, pay the associated fees, pass a mental health screening test, attend and pass a "speech safety" course, pay a $200 annual "speech permit" fee, get "registered" for public speaking, restrict their vocabulary to only those words found on a "government-approved" list and, in general, get government permission before speaking out or speaking up.

These measures would undoubtedly solve the falsely yelling "Fire!" problem.

Under the proposed law, not even the possibility of speaking falsely will be permitted. All persons (except government-approved agents and their favorably connected friends) shall be fitted with gags. Anyone found not wearing their gag or otherwise using their voice for any reason (even when threatened with a real fire!) shall be punished by fine, imprisonment, or both, and have their right to speak restricted forever (voice box removed).

Of course, those who relinquish their weapons to the government may experience "Fire!" of a different sort.

Hugo Chavez, RIP (Rot In Purgatory)

Don't puke.

Hugo Chavez was an thug, a thief and a despot. Human Rights Watch (no "right-wing" organization) describes him thus:

"Hugo Chavez and his followers moved to concentrate power. They seized control of the Supreme Court and undercut the ability of journalists, human rights defenders, and other Venezuelans to exercise fundamental rights. By his second full term in office, the concentration of power and erosion of human rights protections had given the government free rein to intimidate, censor, and prosecute Venezuelans who criticized the president or thwarted his political agenda. In recent years, the president and his followers used these powers in a wide range of prominent cases, whose damaging impact was felt by entire sectors of Venezuelan society.”

Chavez is reported to have amassed a personal fortune of 2 billion dollars during his presidency. (How does that happen legitimately?) He left his country in shambles.

Chavez, Castro, Che -- they are synonymous with repression, deprivation and murder. Those on the Left who venerate Chavez are as guilty of overlooking the sins of their "saint" as U.S. Northerners were of excusing the unconstitutional acts of Lincoln. There may be a venerable monument to Honest Abe in Washington now, but the U.S. never recovered from his despotic administration.

With a communist bus driver now running the country down there and a Marxist ice-cream scooper serving up 31 flavors of socialism here, I don't have much hope for either country now.

If only schools were sports teams...

80% of New York City high school "graduates" can't read, write or count. Until recently -- before administrators learned how to "massage" the data -- 20% of all NYC students dropped out!

Public schools (particularly Democrat-controlled schools) are abject failures at educating children. Rather than end these institutions of lower learning, politicians promote and profit from them. They pour ever-more taxpayers' dollars into them, promising "improvements", while propping up crony constituencies, buying votes, and creating dependency.

Of course, I'm cherry-picking. There are public schools achieving stellar results. These schools enforce discipline, demand accountability, and strictly focus on academic fundamentals. They don't have unions. In these school, successful administrators extract the very best from their teachers for a few years, then let them go. Successful administrators intentionally burn their teachers out -- asking for their utmost -- from day one. It's all about the children.

Sports teams don't hire managers, coaches or athletes on a "tenure" basis. Each is expected to perform at the highest level and deliver -- every play, every game, every season. If they can't produce or compete, they're gone!

Our school children deserve no less.

Wealth inequality

When one population segment holds a grossly disproportionate share of the wealth, political and economic power gravitates toward that wealth. When that disparity becomes extreme, a feudal system of sorts develops, with the poor effectively enslaved by the rich.

In democratic and despotic regimes, the privileged few maintain (and increase) their extraordinary advantage by restricting access to education and employment. They control major media outlets and manipulate the "message" they wish the public to receive (fictional or otherwise). They "buy" elections (if necessary) and suppress political dissent with defamation and bribes. Once in control, they use the force of law or the law of force to silence opposition and eliminate competition.

As a result, the "elitist" multi-millionaires now holding major political office in America enjoy virtual lifetime appointment (so long as they toe the party line). Gerrymandering and political "racketeering" enable party leaders (both GOP and DNC) to coerce "elected" officials to vote against the interests of The People to enrich those in charge and preserve the status quo.

During the 14 years Hugo Chavez "served" as president of Venezuela (he died yesterday, thank heaven!), he purportedly amassed a fortune for himself and his family of 2 billion dollars! America's ruling class likewise realizes uncommon gains in "public service". They have "legalized" insider trading (for themselves) and "outlawed" it (for everyone else). They run our government like a Ponzi scheme, printing counterfeit currency, using multiple books to befuddle the masses and violating the laws which they have concocted to control the rest of us. Those who manage to get themselves cast from office are either too criminal to avoid prosecution or insufficiently criminal to retain power. Otherwise they are victims of this nation's current demographic sea change. The elites require a docile, under-educated underclass over which to rule. Mexico is a perfect example. Its feudal history dates back thousands of years. Ignorance is as endemic to that culture as rice and beans are to Taco Bell. The American elitists have been importing record numbers of compliant "slaves" for 50 years. Our country is becoming more "Mexican" by the day.

English and Spanish now enjoy parity in the marketplace. My wife went shopping recently and discovered that the woman behind the counter couldn't speak a word of English. This worker required a translator just to do her job! (Who gave her this job? How many Americans have thus been displaced by non-English-speaking, imported, sub-par laborers?) I've joked that soon all sales signs will be written in Spanish. English will be relegated to subtitles, if written at all. (And who will be able to read them?)

Blacks and Hispanics vote almost exclusively along racial and ethnic lines and "what's in it for me?". By and large, they epitomize the "low-information" voter, getting virtually all of their political savvy from comedians, 30-second sound bits, union talking-heads and pop culture icons. Nary one of them ever reads a book. Congresswoman Mary Bono - no genius herself and despite being a "virtual" Democrat - didn't stand a chance once Hispanics became the electoral majority of her district.

I'm a teacher. (Well, I get paid to teach; whether I teach or not is questionable.) In consequence of 17 years of breathing on the job, I now receive a salary that is near the top of my district's pay scale (see page 49). I'm one of the highest paid K-12 teachers in the nation.

I also have a wife who home-schools our six (soon-to-be seven) kids. We live in a big house with a nice pool and most, if not all, of the comforts of home. We drive paid-off (though aging) vehicles and we even have a rental property (with a big mortgage) that barely breaks even financially. Though we live frugally, it's all gone by the end of each month. It's impossible for us to get ahead and almost impossible to get by. (If we didn't have "baby boomer" parents handing us cash or floating us loans from time to time, we'd certainly be "underwater" and maybe even living in a shack on the other side of town by now!)

Why is this germane? Because my income is greater than 77% of all U.S. household incomes! And we're barely getting by! Given that we have, virtually, no savings to speak of, no stocks, and virtually no equity, we will not be able to buy our children cars or pay for their college tuition. By comparison, my father drove a Cadillac to school in his youth and went to UCLA on his father's dime (as did my mother.)

Ours will be the first generation of Americans destined to be poorer than our parents. And my children? Will they be poorer than me? It's frightening.

What can be done about it? The wealthiest Americans previously bequeathed to us a nation of laws and opportunities that enabled us -- with hard work and initiative -- to achieve and acquire more than any other people on earth. Hard work and initiative are now penalized and restricted by burdensome regulation and heavy taxation. The "middle class" is being squeezed out of existence. If this continues, the materially enslaved "poor" will rise up and wage war against the masterful "rich", making an end of all nations. (See Doctrine and Covenants 87.)

Socialism is not the solution. "Taking from the rich to give to the poor" merely substitutes one form of tyranny for another. If "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is not written in our hearts, it won't matter if it is written in our laws.