Ubat kuat cialis. Cialis. Cheap cialis….

I read this early in the day yesterday. It stuck to me like thistles; I couldn’t shake it. My problem was that the column sounds so negative, so dire – and I found most of it to be accurate and……

Nicely stated…

Unfortunately it will take a great hard crash & a severe depression before anything is done. Only when it dawns on the folks that love voting for socialists that they were very, very wrong will it turn around. Perhaps a pocket of America like say the STATE of TEXAS can avoid the depression if we cut loose from the idiots in Washington. Perhaps China can set-up it new HUMMER shop in Texas because Texans will be the only ones who will be able to afford them and only be the ones left in America with gas. Imagine an unconstrained Texas with NO FEDERAL rules & regulations. Sure we have some socialists in Texas but they can move to D.C. and whine to the Obamanation. Texas could mount it’s own military in about one day. I keep seeing more SECEDE bumper stickers and it may be time. The sooner we can stop feeding the beast the better. We will take care of our own parents because we know the federal government will not.

izoneguy on June 3, 2009 at 12:46 PM

When they do leave the union or attempt it, I’ll be there with boots, rifle, gold, and water.

I will eagerly toss my USA citizenship away to be a free Texan if they need my help to secede and be free.

The invisible hand will become an iron fist which will smack him down, and all of us as well.

Dismal times indeed.

TheUnrepentantGeek on June 3, 2009 at 4:55 PM

Faux Winston Churchill,”Gentlemen, we are going to retake Europe. Now you work out the details while I smoke this cigar.”

Or, an even better analogy: FWC,”Gentlemen, once Europe has been retaken I have BIG plans to rebuild it. Aren’t you excited? Now, call me when you’ve won.”

Except the article was worse than that. It proposed a Utopian Europe requiring Herculean effort once victory was achieved. Let’s look at the last time ‘we’ had power, what did we do? Abolish the IRS… no, that would be the battle of a lifetime. “Fix” social security… no THAT would be the battle of a lifetime. Well then, we massively reduced spending and defunded the NEA… no, no, no. But, the magic fairy godmother of victories once invoked will solve all of these things at once thus saving the day at the last second… NO! I say you have confused strategy with a dream. And if I rebel at this so strongly it is because it is a regurgitated victory dance, a very premature dance repeated ad nauseum. He does not even make the appeal that by adopting his platform candidates can win, which is also a dubious assertion.

There is little place in this world to foist oft repeated pablum as meat, and that place is already overflowing. It is not even real pablum, it is the hopey promise of pablum in the future. Adults should know better.

I also don’t have a problem with the end of the solution. I have a severe problem with an article claiming to present a solution, spending 90% of it’s time rehashing the problem, and offering no serious roadmap to the proposed end solution. Such a ’solution’ is a pipe dream without a roadmap. It is a sophomoric article restating what is known. What is unknown is how to get from here to there, overcoming the obvious obstacles demonstrated by the recent past.

I don’t have a solution, but I did not say I had one. You don’t have a solution either, you have a dream. You did not even offer the oft repeated hope that a crash will wake america up enough to change, which is also a dubious assertion.

AnotherOpinion on June 3, 2009 at 4:15 PM

There are places in this world for both strategies and tactics. Solutions require both. If you’ve got something to say regarding tactics, do so, but it’s silly to excoriate someone’s strategic vision for a lack of tactics.

The suggestions above all make perfect sense which is why Obama or ANYONE in Congress for that matter will try to do the opposite.

TheAdmiral on June 3, 2009 at 11:54 AM

EXACTLY. Nothing substantive will be done to foster an economic recovery UNTIL the Democrats get their healthcare “reform”, i.e. nationalization of even more of the private sector.

“Never let a serious crisis go to waste.”

You can dismiss both the problem, and the proposed solutions, as a fantasy if you like, but to quote the redoubtable Sarah Connor: in a few years, it’s going to feel pretty damned real to you, too.

Doctor Zero on June 3, 2009 at 2:49 PM

Theophile on June 3, 2009 at 3:14 PM

I said nothing about the statement of the problem. I also don’t have a problem with the end of the solution. I have a severe problem with an article claiming to present a solution, spending 90% of it’s time rehashing the problem, and offering no serious roadmap to the proposed end solution. Such a ‘solution’ is a pipe dream without a roadmap. It is a sophomoric article restating what is known. What is unknown is how to get from here to there, overcoming the obvious obstacles demonstrated by the recent past.

I don’t have a solution, but I did not say I had one. You don’t have a solution either, you have a dream. You did not even offer the oft repeated hope that a crash will wake america up enough to change, which is also a dubious assertion.

Might I offer a practical step toward this end? Help to organize and promote a July 4th Tea Party protest in your area. Maybe offer to speak at the rally and use the good Doctor’s text as a start for your speech, refined and rewritten as you see fit, but give the speech as close to word for word as you can. It’s important to articulate the reasoning as much as it is the solutions. The solutions will garner applause, but the reasoning is what makes them stick in the memory and it’s what people walk away with and repeat to friends and neighbors.

I know that public speaking is difficult for most people, but that discomfort is really the only immediate sacrifice you’ll have to make (in addition to organizing and promoting the event). Additionally, while at the Party talk to others about finding locals to run for Congress and state legislatures who agree with these ideas. Find local Repub candidates who agree and are genuinely committed to these ideas and join their campaigns. If they exist they’ll likely be attending the event.

The Apologist on June 3, 2009 at 3:24 PM

Great idea.

I know that public speaking is difficult for most people, but that discomfort is really the only immediate sacrifice you’ll have to make (in addition to organizing and promoting the event). Additionally, while at the Party talk to others about finding locals to run for Congress and state legislatures who agree with these ideas. Find local Repub candidates who agree and are genuinely committed to these ideas and join their campaigns. If they exist they’ll likely be attending the event.

Doctor Zero on June 3, 2009 at 2:49 PM

Hi!

I’m fine with a flat tax. The problem of it, since the 80s, has been full of complications–nuance. Another fluffer and distraction from the whole point.

It’s not complicated, but Beltway people make it so. Then it degenerates until we, the people, argue with each other. And isn’t that the aim of government?

Same with the old battle over choosing to die under extreme circumstances. In the 80s, the battle raged around choice to die. Politicians–Dems mostly, fought the idea. This didn’t involve assisted suicide. It was about not having hospital personnel making heroic efforts to resusitate.

All Congress needed was to allow a card, like a donor card, that stipulated no emergency measures would be taken in cases where the injured would be left forever and fully incapacitated.

A personal choice, a chosen desire of a free American. But Congress made it so complex the subject went away.

Congress could F up it’s own funeral. Before it does, it’s going to F the rest of us.

I’m with you on a flat tax but it won’t ever happen. That screws government plans to spend out the ass with impunity.

Too bad, really. We’d all be better for yours and mine ideal.

*golf clap* This artice was a mildly amusing fantasy. The solution it proposes at first blush seem real, but upon closer examination turn out to be invisible pink unicorns. By which I mean, he offers no road map to the ends he proposes other than ~vote~. If that had been a real solution we would not have lost the last election, nor would the Bush administration started bailing out the financial industry. As a fantasy the author proposes a comic book super Regan that a hundred million mythical rational voters will support like Moses’s arms over the battle. And to make matters worse than finding this fairy tale amidst the weeds of current contenders, the author wants us to find dozens of them to retake the halls of congress. No one has had the will or capital to touch the third rail known as social security, and this bozo wants someone who will do that, reduce taxes, and radicaly cut spending. Get real! I can’t even imagine the person who would attempt the last, much less get their plans past congress. The howls of special interest touting their dead babies in rubble like pictures would overwealm any non-Kryptonian man.

Your prose may be pretty but you’ve done nothing more than shout “Rah, Go Team.” And sadly, others here bought your tripe.

AnotherOpinion on June 3, 2009 at 2:15 PM

“Invisible Pink Unicorns” eh?

What is mentioned above might seem unlikely. Unlikely as, say, a very far-left first term Senator with no executive experience, a Muslim background (while we’re at war with Muslim terrorists), very little national exposure, and a history of supporting the most extreme anti-life, pro-abortion policies imaginable beating the Goliath that was Hillary Clinton solely on empty slogans and the dog-in-heat praise of the media, beating the Republican nominee, and then socializing much of the country including General Motors, most of the banking industry, (and soon) health care, giving away billions (nearly trillions) of dollars to every single Democratic pet project and group imaginable and quadrupling the annual deficit all within three or four months of taking the oath of office?

Is it that unlikely? I think so.

But, as has been proven, nothing is out of the realm of possibility anymore. And, once the country fully feels the results of Obama’s policies, most of it will move to the right.

If the Republicans don’t get their act together quickly, then the Libertarians will elect their first President soon (assuming that there are Presidential Elections after 2010).

ballz2wallz on June 3, 2009 at 2:37 PM

Some ideas:

First, if you don’t own firearms, legally get some. And ammunition for all of them. The time might come when you have to defend property and family. BTW–teach all your family to use those weapons safely.

Work your ass off and lay in some savings in a bank best you can. We’ll have time to make full withdrawls when things get really bad. The money might become worthless in the end, but you’ll have something to use in the interim.

Lay in canned goods not to be used right away. Canned foods are cheap and last almost forever, so if the sh*t hits the fan you have something to barter. Forget gold, gems, and other trinkets. The hungry can’t eat diamonds.

Most of all, you and your family are a unit. Use your minds and devise on your best own to win. Stick together, love each other, and weather whatever might come. Take each day, do and be the best you have to offer, and remind those in your household they are also the same.

It’s all we have. Many times, in hardship, that’s more than enough to win.

Nail. Head. Hit.

Thanks!

But I have a serious question: They are talking about a value-added tax on top of the sales tax we already pay (which is crazy), but what is the difference between a value-added tax and consumption-based tax? From what I can see, a consumption-based tax is tax on what you buy i.e. consume, like a sales-tax. But isn’t the value-added tax a sales tax as well? I understand that what they are talking about is piling on the value-added tax on top of what we already pay and not getting rid of anything, but in theory if they did get away with everything else, wouldn’t the value-added tax just be a consumption-based tax?

aggie13 on June 3, 2009 at 2:27 PM

The idea behind the consumption tax is to use it instead of direct income taxes on people and businesses. This means any such plan would include the repeal of the 16th Amendment. The most popular version of this idea to date is called “The Fair Tax,” and you can find out more about it here.

Who decides that attributed ‘value’, but government. And on what might it base the assumed value? Against gold? Against sheep? How about a tax on your rare-breed Himalayan flame-point cat? The beastie might be worth $400 on the open market, so should you pay a value-added tax to adopt one from a shelter?

Liam on June 3, 2009 at 2:34 PM

The Fair Tax guys have some ideas about how to deal with this problem, but frankly the point you raised, plus the sticky business of repealing the 16th Amendment, have always led me to prefer the flat tax reform plan. I also worry that the Fair Tax would make paying taxes too painless, by assessing them in small chunks with every purchase. Filling out a quarterly flat tax form and writing a check to Uncle Sam would hurt. Paying taxes should hurt.

Your prose may be pretty but you’ve done nothing more than shout “Rah, Go Team.” And sadly, others here bought your tripe.

AnotherOpinion on June 3, 2009 at 2:15 PM

My point is that the current system is unsustainable, and rapidly approaching the point of total crisis and collapse. It was one thing to worry about impending doom in the 90s, when impending doom was thought to be twenty or thirty years away… not to say we shouldn’t have taken action then, but it’s easy to see how the Left could lull everyone back to sleep with soothing noises. A population that believes itself to be riding a perpetual bull market is not ready to hear about disasters looming two decades in the future.

Now we have arrived at the edge of the precipice, and I believe we must do all we can to embrace and promote dramatic solutions. The implosion of Social Security will be a complete systemic collapse, unlike anything seen before in American history, and I would dare to suggest unlike anything the world has ever seen. Reckless spending policies and politicized economics have hurried this collapse. If we don’t take drastic steps now, we’ll have to take them among the smoking ruins of a shattered nation. I say it’s better to take them now.

You can dismiss both the problem, and the proposed solutions, as a fantasy if you like, but to quote the redoubtable Sarah Connor: in a few years, it’s going to feel pretty damned real to you, too.

So what do we beyond stocking up on canned goods? Should I pay off my mortgage now, or should I wait and let inflation wipe out the value of the mortgage? Should I purchase land, or will the government start confiscating private property in the same way they are now violating bankruptcy laws and nationalizing businesses? Where do I put my investments that they won’t be wiped out by (1) decreasing stock market values and (2) inflation? At what point does it become beneficial to pull the money out of the 401K, pay the penalties, and put the money in … what?

…none of this is anything that I can do personally, and I have to wait at LEAST another yr to do anything about it, which is limited to only voting someone else in Congress, which doesn’t necessarily mean any of what you wrote about is going to change.

What I want to know is, what I be doing to protect me and my family RIGHT NOW?

aggie13 on June 3, 2009 at 2:27 PM

Who decides that attributed ‘value’, but government. And on what might it base the assumed value? Against gold? Against sheep? How about a tax on your rare-breed Himalayan flame-point cat? The beastie might be worth $400 on the open market, so should you pay a value-added tax to adopt one from a shelter?

We’re quibbling about taxes here when over-bloated government is the problem! We shouldn’t be fretting over tax rates. We should be concerned about a sickened government trying to tax us to death in the most insipid ways it can find.

Progressive taxation is a moral and practical atrocity that should be replaced with a flat tax or consumption-based tax

But I have a serious question: They are talking about a value-added tax on top of the sales tax we already pay (which is crazy), but what is the difference between a value-added tax and consumption-based tax? From what I can see, a consumption-based tax is tax on what you buy i.e. consume, like a sales-tax. But isn’t the value-added tax a sales tax as well? I understand that what they are talking about is piling on the value-added tax on top of what we already pay and not getting rid of anything, but in theory if they did get away with everything else, wouldn’t the value-added tax just be a consumption-based tax?

The Fair Tax is looking better all the time.

Bugler on June 3, 2009 at 1:20 PM

Dittos on that!!

About the only way things will change at this point is a genuine revolution, armed or not, against this government that is sliding toward a tyranny. Wait till this joker in the WH is forced to declare martial law and suspend the Constitution.

Think it isn’t going to happen? Wait another year. Congress might end up dissolving itself but you can bet your bottom dollar (worth 13 cents compared to 1973) those F-ers will still get their pensions.

The fledgling United States recreated an economy in 1784 and look where freedom got us. Now we’re about to lose all that.

Time, it seems, to re-water that tree of liberty, as Thomas Jefferson once wrote.

Otherwise, we’re sunk and all our mighty words won’t change that outcome.

Your prose may be pretty but you’ve done nothing more than shout “Rah, Go Team.” And sadly, others here bought your tripe.

I wonder how those 95%ters are going to feel when they get hit w/Cap&Trade, VAT and oh wait he wants to tax ALL healthcare!

xler8bmw on June 3, 2009 at 1:15 PM

75% of Americans don’t even know what Cap & Trade is…..
I am sure the Obamabots have a plan to spin the huge increase
in electricity bills as Bush’s fault.

This is what the rest of the country will experience under Obamanation rule…

…….. +7%!

We have to shut down the government. A great deal of it, anyway.

I’ve been wondering a lot about this myself. About how to beat the government at it’s own game before it’s not possible. I just haven’t nailed exactly how to go about it.

If we allow the Obama Administration to produce a false economy based on the cult of Global Warming and National Health Care, it will always be at the teat of government similar to Amtrak and ethanol.

If Obama’s ambitions were truly interested in reducing oil consumption and health insurance for everybody, he would be dropping government regulations and allowing a free-for-all of capitalism to find solutions.

But he isn’t. Like I tell my kids. Never listen to what a politician (especially a dem) says, watch what they do.

I can’t stomach listening to him, and what he is doing is making me even more sick.

Re: education. My grandson just finished first grade. Seven of the seventeen students is his class were held back. His school has never passed the ISTEP tests. I think his parents are going to send him to a private school next year.