Absolution at a Terrible Price?

These days I’m sitting around imagining how we night avert a cruel descent of our culture into both a moral and social cesspool, and quickly considering whether such reflection might not be utterly futile. For many years, George Will has written of a “coarsening” of the culture. Today, we might justly wonder if such language would amount to a enormous understatement.

Characteristic of the elation of many people at the election of Barack Obama was the recurring camera shot of an aging Jesse Jackson in tears. Now, Jesse Jackson has been derided as a “race pimp” and a “shakedown artist,” certainly not without cause. But, irrespective of his deepest motivations, Jackson was not alone among elder blacks who were overcome at the events in the light of their long experience with racial tension in America. Many years ago, I asked a conservative black friend how frequently he actually experience racial discrimination in our society. He responded that the last time he was reproached as a “nigger” was that very day in a parking lot. I think such things come from a tint minority in America, today. But, such a minority can and surely will shout abuse out car windows. Anyway, a black man of Jesse Jackson’s age and many like him doubtless genuinely feel the reprieve from a lifetime in which they saw and experienced the disfavor that was once widely accorded blacks in America. So have their children who have heard the stories and though maybe have experienced something different, have never seen it realized in such high hanging fruit as the US presidency. Similarly, American youth prized the opportunity to overthrow the most high-profile closed door of the history they have heard and read of. The plain fact is that the election could not have been won without a strong backing from white Americans generally who wanted to realize the ultimate absolution for prejudice they may have practiced or carried the blame for in public forums. I’m just a middle-aged, middle-class white guy, but I think I get it, and I understand and appreciate it.

Understand, I loathe the fixation on “race” that has pervaded social discussion for the entirety of my now 51-year-old lifetime. Strictly speaking, that distinction is a delusion. There is only one human race. Color does not imply another kind in humans any more than in animals. For the little that it’s worth, the black and white couples that I have known have produced children that were not only whole and healthy but extraordinarily beautiful.
Many will claim that “progressive” (now there’s a linguistic misappropriation) social and political action has induced racial conciliation. Now, many events indicate that propagaing an ethos via popular culture does move the disposition of the masses. There’s the aforementioned enthusiam for “green” technology as well as the enthrall with Barack Obama for whom the organs of popular culture purred. Mike Huckabee spoke of the popularly induced sentiment against smoking and for seat belts and motorcycle helmets.

But, I don’t need textbooks and magazines and television networks to inform me that racism is wrong. Traditional vehicles of decency and wisdom have done that for many millenia. Ironically, the much derided traditions of Judaism and Christianity were quite explicit about that from their foundations, irrespective of how individual adherents may have defied the instruction. I am a Christian. Christianity even today flourishes all around the world and I have watched the decency and fraternity of Christians from every culture and ethnicity. The first catalogued Christian outreach and conversion, noted in the book of Acts, was of an Ethiopian man. The earliest books of the heritage of Judaism (which Christians obviously recognize) instructed repeatedly to treat “the alien” with grace and decency. In that regard, we of those traditional faiths can say to the secular moralists, “Welcome to basic human civility.” By the way, I have long since voted for a black presidential candidate: a conservative one, of course.

If it genuinely works for them, a feeling of absolution is a fine thing, and I’m glad people may feel bertter. But in this case, such feeling was paid for at a potentially terrible high price. Unless conservatives can do something extraordinary, it is reasonable to assume that that price will be WAY TOO HIGH. Notwishstanding his ringing rhetoric (almost a requiste to leading a people to a dramatic move…or mice into a river, or lemmings off a cliff), in the content of his relatively unguarded words, Barack Obama is an exceptionally liberal man. A liberal friend, after asscertaining that I wasn’t only a cold, selfish, leg-biting, hair-pulling conservative, wondered whether I just had an evidently socially-induced need to be identified as a “conservative.” I care little about labels and am not known for a fear of disagreeing with anyone, my Christian and conservative fellows included. And this particular liberal is an exceptionally gracious individual, whom I like as well as some of my conservative friends and more than many of them. He’s also a very literate (a professional writer, in fact) person to whom one needn’t mind one’s diction.

But, call it what you like, to me conservatism is not about disposition or anyone’s dogma. It is about some very fundamental beliefs about objective obligations and human nature and its inclinations in interaction. It isn’t about what I like. It’s about what I believe are the facts of reality and what works. My conservatism isn’t about self-interest or identity. It’s about conviction rooted deeply in my perspective that could seemingly only be overthrown by an infection of chemical insanity.

Chief among those obligations and primary in America’s founding documents, is the right to life. And, as I always clarify, this is not just for the protection of those whose right might be violated. It’s about the civil integrity of the society that reveres that right. God takes care of the victims of abortion. In the big picture, these victims whose deaths like our own is inevitable in any case, are only spared te turmoil of passing through this earthly vale of tears. On the other hand, the society which practices, countenances and assimilates the practice of abortion…of the selfish putting of perceived personal amusement and convenience over the dignity of human life, including ONE’S OWN OFFSPRING! …is in a very bad way: civilly sick and declining. Only those of us who have read the musings of some morally impaired but logically consistent academics who have proposed a grace period to decide whether to keep a born baby alive can imagine a historic posture on abortion more extreme than is Barack Obama’s. Obama has expressed his eagerness to sign a federal Freedom of Choice Act. He has opposed a partial-birth abortion ban of the sort passed nationally and in every state where it was posed. As an Illinois state senator, Obama even opposed, multiple times mind you, a bill to require life sustaining medical attention for infants born alive after a failed abortion. In that solidly Democratic body, he was the only senator to do so and spoke out in his opposition. I’m not even fully in accord with all boilerplate Republican approaches to it. But on this morally and civicly crusial matter, a politician could really not get more extreme. But, that is far from all.

It is a great irony to me that many voters idenitified Obama as more able to deal with America’s economic difficulties. After the election, a large majority expressed confidence that Obama can help our economic situation. That makes no sense and is only one indication that our communications and education establishment have tremendously narrowed the American public’s thinking and historical awareness. That ignorance is particularly accute among our youngest and most media-dominated voters. The week before the election, Peggy Noonan said on “This Week” of these 18, 19, 20-year-olds that, “Not only have they never met a payroll, some of them have never been on a payrol. They live a lovely abstraction from reality.” Lovely or not, anyone who doesn’t understand that taxing and spending does not boost the economy, particulrly in economically difficult times, lives an abstraction from reality. Actually, I’m sure that Obama and most Democrars do understand this. But, they don’t care. Not only will these prescriptions not help, they are usually disingenuous. I think they don’t care because they want to keep power, and you keep power by keeping people down and throwing them crumbs. Obama will not improve the economy with the ideas he voiced in the campaign. John Kennedy was a Democrat who stimulated the economy. And, he did it with policies exactly the opposite of what Obama has proposed.

The tale is that Republicans favor the very wealthy. In fact, I wish I had a nickel for every time I heard “tax cut(s) for the rich,” referring to an across-the-board tax cut. If there is a 5% tax cut, who gets the bigger dollar cut, one who makes $30,000 or one who make $1,000,000. The first pays $1500 less. The second pays $50,000 less. That’s called tax cuts for the rich. But, Republicans rarely talk about the fact that the one who gets the $50,000 tax cut either spends it and makes work for vendors and their employees, invests it and makes work for people, or saves it and provides liquidity for lenders. Those things provide jobs for the former level of worker. When you tax the higher earner, you deprive the lower earner of work. That’s how an economy works. If government takes the money, the work is not provided and government passes a part (after it has taken a part) to those without the work.

That leaves out the fact that expanding government usually sides with large businesses, subsidizing them and maintaining their market advantage. This is what is known in command economies as “industrial policy.” That is economic policy for the entrenched wealthy and entrenched government. The victims are the rest of the peons who might otherwise aspire to achieve a level of prosperity, but in this systemwill not even have o, tax, ccasion to think about it. Recently, government has massively invested in formerly private large industries. I quickly predicted that automobile companies would follow. And so they are now lining up and in office Obama intends to oblige. Everyone wonders how Obama might implement these things, given the current economic conditions. But they can be the excuse for these actions, especially in light of the recent unprecedented federal intrusion into markets under a Republican administration and the decade of outrageous spending that it played a major part in.

One can hope that judicious people might soon gain office and to some great extemt extract government from the domain of commerce. But, I can’t imagine how we might repeal the damage that an Obama-appointed judiciary may well inflict on society for the remainder of my lifetime.

Social Security, Obama and McCain

See the promises made and broken in the introduction and history of FICA (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid), below.

For you young people: Social Security payments today, are 12.4% of the first $90,000 an individual earns. 6.2% is deducted from the employee paycheck by the government. And, 6.2% is paid by the employer. However, that 6.2% is part of the employer’s cost of an employee. So, that is really their cost that cannot be paid to the employee. Thus, the 12.4% cost is ALL born by the employee. The employee “cost” is just more hidden taxation to deceive the average American, just like business taxes that are part of the cost of producing a product or service, which go onto the spreadsheet when calculating the profit that will justify the investment, in order to set the price. The self-employed or contract worker pays the full 12.4% straight out. Again, it is the consumer or end-user that bears the cost of the tax.

Barack Obama proposes to lift the $90,000 cap on FICA tax eligible earnings. Thus if we acknowledge that the worker bears the entire cost, someone who earns $150,000, will see a 12.4% FICA tax increase on the $60,000, or $7440 in additional taxes under Obama’s proposal. And, even adding this 12.4% to what EVERYONE in America earns over $90,000, the most optimistic liberals say that this additional revenue would almost cover (for a short period of time) the FICA shortfall that is now perched on America’s front porch. Other tax increases, benefit restrictions, and monetary inflation would still be needed to confront the established liabilities.

That is why it is so important that John McCain, who will work stronger than most to contain spending (certainly a great deal more than Bush has) is elected, and Barack Obama , who has promised many billions of dollars in new spending, is not. This urgent need for fiscal sobriety is why a strict conservative like OK Senator Tom Coburn is strongly supporting McCain, even though he has often disagreed with McCain, as many of us have: he knows that McCain is uncommonly strong against profligate spending. An Obama presidency with a Democrat-controlled Congress could make the economic woes of the Jimmy Carter years look like a picnic. Add to that thr damage of an activist judiciary generally and Supreme Court, spefically, and the potential danger to humanity and American security of an imprudent foreign policy. Vote McCain!

-------------------

Franklin Delano. Roosevelt
32nd. President, Democrat
Terms of Office March 4, 1933, to April 12, 1945
Franklin Delano. Roosevelt
introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program.
He promised:

1.) That participation in the Program would be Completely voluntary,

2.) That the participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual Incomes into the Program,
3.) That the money the participants elected to put Into the Program would be deductible from Their income for tax purposes each year,
4.) That the money the participants put into the Independent 'Trust Fund' rather than into the General operating fund, and therefore, would Only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other Government program, and
5.) That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income.


Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month -- and then finding that we are getting taxe d< span class="Apple-converted-space"> on 85% of the money we paid to the Federal government to < SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: red">'Put Away' -- you may be interested in the following:


Lyndon Baines Johnson 36th.President, Democrat
Term Of Office: November 22, 1963 to January 20, 1969
Question: Which Political Party took Social Security from the Independent 'Trust Fund' and put it into the General Fund so thatCongress could spend it?
Answer: It was Lyndon B. Johnson
and the democratically Controlled House and Senate.


Question: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax Deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?

Answer: The Democratic Party.


William Jefferson Clinton
(Bill Clinton)
42nd. President

Democrat
Term of Office: January 20, 1993to January 20, 2001
Albert Arnold Gore, Jr.
(Al Gore)
45th. Vice President

Democrat

Term of Office: January 20, 1993to January 20, 2001
Question: Which Political Party started taxing Social Security annuities?
Answer: The Democratic Party, with Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. (Al Gore) [Vice President
Term of Office: January 20, 1993 to January 20, 2001] casting the 'tie-breaking' deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the US .


James Earl Carter, Jr
(Jimmy Carter)
39th. President, Democrat
Term of Office: January 20, 1977 to January 20, 1981 Question:
Which Political Party decided to start giving Annuity payments toimmigrants?
AND MY FAVORITE:
Answer: That's right!
James Earl Carter, Jr. (Jimmy Carter) and the Democratic Party.
Immigrants moved into this country, and at age 65, began to receive Social Security payments!
The Democratic Party gave these payments to them, even though they never paid a dime into it!


Then, after violating the original contract (FICA), the Democrats turn around and tell you that the Republicans want to take your Social Security away!
And the worst part about it is uninformed citizens believe it!
If enough people receive this, maybe a seed of Awareness will be planted and maybe changes will Evolve. Maybe not, some Democrats are awfully Sure of what isn't so.
But it's worth a try. How many people can YOU send this to?

Actions speak louder than bumper stickers.
AND CONGRESS GIVES THEMSELVES 100% RETIREMENT FOR ONLY SERVING ONE TERM!!!


Thomas Jefferson
3rd. President, Democrat
Term of Office: March 4, 1801 to March 4, 1809
'A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.'
- Thomas Jefferson