loPEZ Dispenser

You all know that I am a supporter of McCain in the upcoming election. Besides not liking many of the policies Obama is proposing, the man just gives me an uneasy feeling about the future with him in charge. I think that many McCain supporters feel the same way but have no way to articulate this feeling. Its not something they can easily describe.

Daily, I read Scott Adams blog. He is the genius behind the Dilbert comics. I will post his blog from today and the response from one of his readers. The response I feel does an incredible job of putting to words my uneasy feeling. What do you think?

—————————————————————-
The Blog Post
by Scott Adams
—————————————————————-

http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/vague_feelings_of_discomfort/

Yesterday I was talking to some McCain supporters about how they arrived at their preference. We don’t see many McCain supporters in my neighborhood, so I always take time to hear their views. Admittedly my sample is not large, but of the dozen or so McCain supporters I have spoken with, there is a common thread: Obama gives them a vague feeling of discomfort that they can’t quite identify.

When I ask about this vague feeling of discomfort, the answer has something to do with how his views got formed, his past associations, how quickly he rose to prominence, and how charismatic (slick) he is.

The risk, as I understand it, is that once in office Obama would start sporting a turban and begin each speech with WAHLALALALALALAL!!!! He would appoint Supreme Court justices who favor a redistribution of wealth to unborn gay babies, and he’d legalize crack. It would all be part of his master plan to destroy America. I might have the details wrong, but it goes something like that.

It’s hard to argue against someone’s vague feeling of discomfort. After all, studies have shown that people are actually quite good at determining character and intelligence from nothing more than photographs. I just found it interesting that the people I spoke with described a vague feeling of discomfort in forming their preference. That is not something I ever heard in other elections.

—————————————————————-
The Response
by User Phantom II
—————————————————————-

Scott, I don’t think you actually understood what the McCain supporters were telling you. The problem with Obama is that nobody (or only his closest associates) knows what he really thinks. I heard a PBS recording of some fairly well-known news folks saying, just yesterday, that they didn’t know what Obama was really like – that they didn’t know how he’d handle foreign policy, they didn’t know how he really felt about capitalism versus socialism, and so on. They were saying that the only things they know about him come from the books he’s written and the speeches he’s given.

Now, these are members of the same press that was supposed to be finding out for us what he’s really about. They have had almost twenty months, and they didn’t do their job, for whatever reason. Only just now do they seem to be admitting it.

My problems with Obama are many, but I’ll try to boil them down here. The reason for that vague unease your neighborhood McCain supporters have is that his current words don’t fit his past actions. He has associated with an unsavory, by most standards, group of people, including Tony Rezko, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, William Ayres, Bernadine Dohrn, Rashid Khaladi, and more. Yet he says, in effect, he really didn’t know any of them very well. I don’t believe him. He’s either being disingenuous, or he’s too oblivious to be president (which would seem to fly in the face of that great intellect he supposedly has).

He says that he’s a big believer that we are our brothers’ keepers. Yet his half-brother George, whom he has met, lives in a hut in Africa on $12 per year. His paternal aunt is currently living in the slums in Boston (it took a UK newspaper to find that out, again showing what a poor job our press corps have done), and says she can’t really talk about him (Obama) until after November 4th. Does that kind of thing concern anyone else?

There’s a big blank in everyone’s knowledge of what he did in one important part of his past: his time at Columbia University. It’s as though that time didn’t exist – no one knows what he did during those four years.

He also has, in the past, supported socialism through the redistribution of wealth. He now says that that really isn’t what he’s going to do, but again, I don’t believe him. His work with Bill Ayers in Chicago, particularly his work with the Annenberg Challenge, seems to have been pointed, at least in part, to building curricula to teach teachers how to indoctrinate children in how to become radicals. I don’t think this is appropriate for children. I would rather have the schools teach them how to think, and then present them with both sides and let them talk it out. Obama does not seem to support that kind of free exchange of ideas.

Obama is running on a feel-good platform of “change.” Yet his ideas pretty much mirror those of Franklin Roosevelt. Take Obama’s desire for a “new Bill of Rights,” for example. That was proposed by Roosevelt back in 1944. Liberals always accuse conservatives of somehow wanting to take us back in time. When you peel away the onion of what Obama is saying, it leads right back to the New Deal and the Great Society. I’m not for that.

The bottom line, for me, is that he lacks experience and has had a somewhat radical past. I don’t feel it makes sense to hand the most powerful job in the world over to someone who not only lacks experience but also is largely an unknown.

At the same time, look at what his supporters say about him. Charismatic. A great orator. Gives them hope. OK, that’s a bunch of great feelings, but where is the substance to back them up? If I tell you what you want to hear, you’ll feel good – for a while. But then what happens when the words turn out to be just that: words? To whom will you complain then?

If you’d like an interesting intellectual exercise, then take a look at the major cities that are most out of control in the US. Those that have the highest crime rates, the highest poverty rates, the lowest high school graduation rates, the worst schools; and then ask yourselves how long it’s been since they’ve had a Republican mayor.

My point is that rhetoric, by itself, is meaningless. Take a look at the results. Are the candidates you are supporting proposing solutions, or short-term, feel-good actions that put band-aids on the problems? If you are intellectually honest, the very least you can do is demand of your legislators that they show results. If they don’t, then you should seriously consider evaluating, on an intellectual rather than emotional basis, what it’s going to take to get those problems solved, and who is proposing those solutions, regardless of their party.

As long as you let politicians keep getting elected because they make you feel good, rather than because they prove they can solve problems, the politicians are going to continue to do make you feel good. I believe, for a lot of people who look to feelings rather than realities, it’s time to grow up.

After watching the third presidential debate between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama I can’t get the simple question posed in the title off of my mind. Does the American middle class really believe in, and desire a Federal Government imposed redistribution of wealth? Of course, the Government has been doing this at varying levels for years through welfare programs, but what Senator Obama is proposing now is much more direct and obvious. He is promising to increase taxes on the wealthy (defined as those making over $250,000 a year) while lowering taxes on the middle class. He is applying wealth envy as an excuse to unfairly tax those who have proven themselves successful in our society, based on the assumption that many Americans, fueled by greed, selfishness and jealousy want to take what is rightfully theirs from those who have more than them.

I read an article a while ago (If I can dig it up I will cite it here) that posed a question basically the opposite of mine. It attempted to answer the following (paraphrasing): “Why do the Republicans and conservative Christians continually elect people into office who go against their best financial interests?” It is a valid question; the majority of the Republican base are hard working middle class people, who would directly benefit from Barack Obama’s proposed tax law changes. If a candidate is basically offering to save us thousands in our taxes every year why aren’t we jumping at the chance to vote for him? The answer is easy; I believe that the Republicans vote more on principle than their financial interests. We fundamentally believe that an imposed redistribution of wealth is wrong, and should be avoided at all costs. We put aside our selfishness and realize that it is immoral to take someone’s hard earned money and give it to someone else, who did nothing to earn it. Of course another principle that most Republicans hold is that a smaller and less imposing Government is optimal, which means that both spending and taxes should be cut.

I often hear the argument that the rich should “pay their fair share,” and that Obama’s plan wouldn’t hurt any of the rich because “they can afford it.” First of all, the rich already pay more than their “fair share.” The United States tax system is progressive, meaning that the tax rate increases with income. Additionally, secondary taxes, such as the death tax are basically only applied to the wealthy, because that incredibly high rate is only applied to wealth beyond the first $2 Million. We have all seen or heard the figures, where the top 5% of income earners pay some much larger percentage of taxes into the system. I will not repeat them, as to not sound like a talking point spewing robot, but it bears mentioning just to show that there is no question that the rich already pay their fair share. But what about that other point? The one regarding their ability to afford increases in taxes? I simply don’t think that is a valid question. If Target began requesting a copy of my W-2, and progressively adjusted prices higher for all of the junk merchandise that I buy there based on my income, the consumer reporter from the local news would have the story on air that night. There would be protests and boycotts. With a concrete example like that it is easy for everyone to see the unfairness of the system, but that is exactly how our tax code is designed, and Barack wants to push it even further in that direction. Based on Democrat lectures I have heard on the subject of taxes they make it seem like a large majority of rich people are chomping at the bit to pay additional taxes. The way Barack spoke of Warren Buffet I assume that he already has next year’s inflated tax checks written, and is gleefully having his assistant drive them to the post office as I type this. If I were a congressman I would put forward a bill at my very first session that would require the IRS to create a donation system. That way all of those rich Democrats would be able to easily pay whatever additional amount they want to the Government each year. I would even make that donation eligible as a deduction on the next year’s taxes!

I am not going to say how much money my wife and I make per year, though we do pretty well. Still, we are nowhere near that magical $250K mark set by Barack Obama. That means that if he is elected, and if he actually pushes for his proposed tax changes, and if congress actually buys off on those changes I would directly financially benefit from his presidency. In fact, almost everyone I know would benefit, yet the majority of them are not voting for Obama. We value virtue over personal gain at the detriment of another; even that other is a member of the “evil rich.” I feel that if John McCain would stand up, and say that he believes that the American people have enough principle to disagree with socialistic, wealth redistribution propositions he would gain traction with some of those still “undecided.” I believe that a majority of the middle class is better than what Barack Obama has assumed, though we won’t know for sure for three weeks.

The following has been floating around the internet for quite some time. I just recently found it for the first time and I found it so enlightening I thought I would share it with all you PEZ fans. Granted, it is a slight simplification of things but that is the point here. Enjoy!

——————————————-

Bar Stool Economics

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.” Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men – the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’ They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20,”declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,” but he got $10!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I!”

“That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics
University of Georgia

For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

Let me just say right off the batt that I am a supporter of John McCain and Sarah Palin for President. This is my soapbox and I plan to use it.

Most people are in the dark about what actually has caused the financial meltdown we’ve been seeing in the last few months. I too do not fully understand all that has occurred to bring us to where we are today. I have done some research into the topic and I have done my best to be non-partisan in that research.

That said, I was sent a video that gives a good summary of many of the things I found in my research. Both sides of our government are trying to blame each other for the events going on and in this election cycle the stakes are critical. At the core of what you will watch are some policies that were made with good intentions but the full consequences were not quite understood or anticipated.

Our government wanted all Americans to have a chance at owning a home. To create this opportunity legislation was passed that in essence forced banks into giving our risky loans (call it a financial affirmative action)…and so it begins.

Try to ignore the fact that the author of this is a McCain support and just look at the facts that are presented. As always, check sources, confirm facts, and be smart. Don’t believe at all that your hear.