The five best sentences you'll ever read

I have a good friend here, a good poker player, who despite being a little older than me, has never outgrown his left leanings. He still reads Newsweek and for the most part avoids controversy. Several months ago I shared the following piece with him and we had a subsequent conversation discussing his interpretation of some of the points. He has since written an article expressing his views.(his to share) My unsolicited response is further down and I take issue with his assertions that welfare can lift the poor into the middle class, that unearned income is different because someone else is actually earning it for you and that government should have a direct role in redistributing wealth.

THESE ARE POSSIBLY THE FIVE BEST SENTENCES YOU WILL EVER READ:

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity, by legislating the wealth out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. 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 the beginning of the end of any nation.
5. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

Adrian Pierce Rogers (September 12, 1931 – November 15, 2005), was an American pastor, conservative, author

I have read your piece growing out of the five best sentences. I have no issue with helping those unfortunates who are in financial straits and struggling to get back on their feet. However, I have great issues with your reasoning. The federal government has no right, under our constitution, to take property from one person and give it to another and there is no difference between your property whether it is earned or unearned income.

Unearned income is the product of personal funds invested and in most cases, those funds are placed at risk. The total of the investment could be lost rather than provide a return. The investments earn a return because they provide capital to businesses and therefore create jobs and grow an economy. The return on an investment is not the benefit of someone's labor, but rather the investment provides them the opportunity to earn a living and if the enterprise is successful, the investor benefits.
Helping the needy is a function for nonprofit organizations like church bodies, the Salvation Army, and other charitable groups. They, as opposed to the government, function in the real world with oversight from concerned boards and are most careful in how their funds are dispersed. They raise funds through voluntary contributions from individuals, organizations and businesses. The government can promote those voluntary contributions through tax credits and deductions without getting involved where the have no legitimate business.
How well has government handled this assumed obligation to help the needy? I contend not so well. The government has created huge bureaucracies where success is judged by how much money they dispense. There are 70 federal programs to transfer money taken form one person and give it out to another. From 1989 to 2008, in current dollars, there was a 292% (no decimal) growth in means tested welfare funds dispersed. In 2008 there were 40 million people receiving food stamps and in 1978 that number was 4.3 million. In 2008 dollars, 1980 Medicaid costs were $300 billion and in 2008 that number had grown to $700 billion. Losses in Medicaid programs due to fraud are estimated at over $50 billion per year. I ask, what private enterprise would allow that to happen? When your only task is to give it away, who cares about it? Haven't most federal housing programs for the poor also been disasters, becoming drug and crime infested hellholes?
Ben Franklin counseled us in plain terms. Never give those in need enough to make them comfortable in their circumstance.

In an earlier conversation, I said that I believe you can never have a strong middle class unless there is industry where value is produced. Whether it is the building industries, manufacturing, food processing or selling those commodities, they provide well paying jobs to many in vertical industries. In places like Guatemala, there is agriculture where fresh produce is harvested and shipped to market or consumed. Very little value is added. It is the same with mining and gas and oil production; harvested and shipped. A prime example is the contrast between Ireland and England in a previous century. The Irish had the potato. They grew them, harvested them and ate them or sold them. The English grew wheat, harvested it, and then milled it and then bakers made it into bread, cakes and pastries in a vertical industry.

Most people will voluntarily give to help people in need. They are especially generous in this nation when folks are struggling to recover from disasters. You are right that people are unwilling to give to those who do little to help themselves or to those who squander it. There we have the federal government, to take it and with inadequate regard, give it away or waste it.

Why not drill now

I wrote this in response to criticism of Sarah Palin's view that maybe now was the time to get serious about domestic oil and gas drilling.

Just announcing that we will immediately begin exploration and utilization of domestic energy sources will help stabilize the petroleum markets and gas prices. 99% of cars and trucks run on gas or diesel and will do so for many years. We as a country have painted ourselves into a corner pursuing a foolhardy policy on energy independence. Every building in America should have solar panels and wind turbines should be turning throughout the land. But, that does not alleviate our dependence on petroleum. Government will never solve the problem. When technology catches up with our desire for clean renewable energy, then and only then will it happen and my money is on entrepreneurs in the free market system to get us there. So, if Sarah Palin is an idiot, then those who bash her must be insane for that is the definition of someone who does the same thing over and over again expecting different results. Check out Palin's actions with big oil while governor and then tell me she is in their pocket.

Government's Business

Somewhere in the universe there must surely be one government program that is a model of efficiency, delivering service that meets and exceeds customer expectation. That really isn't a fair statement because consumer expectations of government services are pretty low.
In our county, we still have ABC stores, albeit two stores. Recently it was revealed that these two stores were in arrears to their suppliers more than $100,000 and had been cut off. So far, the investigation points to mismanagement and the manager was in place for 20 years. We can only surmise that no one ever looked at a balance sheet or P/L statement or performed an audit. No one to my knowledge has been held accountable.
My position has always been that the government, at every level, should never be in any business that could be conducted by a private enterprise. Open competitive bidding with transparency would lead to better service at a lower cost because someone will keep an eye on the bottom line and customer satisfaction will be a priority. Free enterprise is the mother of innovation leading to breakthroughs in technology, efficiency, quality and lower costs.
In most instances where government has inserted itself, whether to control pricing, promote fairness, even the playing field, help the disadvantaged, and on and on, the results have been far from the promised benefits and more often damaging to society.
The examples are many and varied. They include prohibition of alcohol, the great society programs, federal Department of Education, campaign finance reform, medicare and medicaid, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the war against drugs, and the federal reserve system.
Now we are being told that the federal government can deliver better health care at lower costs than the private sector while the fact is that medicare and medicaid are rife with fraud at estimates of 60 to 80+ billion dollars per year and the fastest rising costs in health care are in government controlled programs.
Even I believe that government does have a place at times in helping promote and regulate interstate business. The interstate highway system, rural electrification, breaking up strangling monopolies and ending unfair labor practices are some instances. But it is a slippery slope and the bureaucracies created grow endlessly in size and power far beyond original intentions and are often used to control states and advance political objectives. The Department of Energy was established in 1977 to end dependence on foreign oil. It has grown to 16,000 employees in dozens of departments with an annual budget of 26 billion dollars. DOE, a complete failure at its original objective, is just another huge bureaucracy obstructing domestic energy development. The Department of Education was elevated to cabinet level in 1979. Its total funding this year is over 100 billion dollars. Despite all those dollars over all these years, quality of education in US has not improved. Teacher's unions exert unwarranted influence and any meaningful changes like alternative school choices are seldom considered.

Thoughts 7/31

It has taken a long time to get it together to start writing. I promise nothing except to say what I believe, keeping an open mind and verifying whenever I can.
To our customer Priscilla this week, folks like you keep us going.

I've spent time this week reading comments people post following various articles online. Two in particular critical of Glenn Beck. It is amazing to me how much some folks hate the man. They call him a racist, a nazi, a fascist, a conspiracy theorist and more. He is accused of inciting some deranged man to kill people of the Tides Foundation. In that case, because he was the only person in the media who was found to have actually discussed the Tides Foundation. Unlike many of these critics, we have actually watched Glenn Beck on a regular basis since he was on CNN. Yes, he has evolved over the years. Who hasn't? Yes, he has an opinion. Who doesn't? His opinion may be different from yours. But that doesn't make him an evil person.
What we have not seen Glenn Beck do is spout hate or hateful lies or anything like that. He goes to great lengths to research and back up what he says about people, their background, their beliefs and their associations . Whether it is what they did, wrote or said, where they worked, who they worked or associated with, what projects or causes they promoted or espoused. The point is, he backs it up and then states without fail, if I'm wrong, show me where I've got it wrong.
No one else on TV has even bothered to question who the current people in power are, what their beliefs and associations are, or what their political objectives are. No one else on TV has researched the links between people and groups like the Tides Foundation, the Apollo Group, Acorn, SEIU, Bill Ayers and Jeff Jones, the founders of the Weathermen Underground and what is their involvement and influence in the Obama administration.
It was Glenn Beck who came to the defense of Shirley Sherrod after she was fired without a fair investigation following the NAACP speech clip aired by Andrew Breitbart. A clip that was aired to show the hypocrisy of the NAACP calling the Tea Party groups racist. Not Ms Sherrod a racist, but the convention group whooping and clapping when they thought Ms Sherrod had said she had discriminated against a white farmer in her job.
If more journalists and media people actually did their jobs of questioning and digging to get facts rather than circling the wagons to protect their ideological favored, then those like Glenn Beck who do, would not be such a big target for the left.

Musings

It's a strange world when both Duke and NC BB teams get beat on the same night. It's also strange when a Republican candidate wins in Massachusetts. The spin on Brown's win is crazy. He ran a great campaign and his opponent didn't. I'm one of those who think that the despicable behavior of the Democratic leadership incensed the electorate to vote to stop the steamrolling. What happened to the promised transparency in government? You can take the politicians out of Chicago, but you can't take the Chicago out of the politicians. You may figure by now that I'm not a supporter of the Presidents domestic policies. We are Libertarians and we think this country has lost its way and it's not just the Democrats. The founding fathers warned us of developments that would threaten our republic. A powerful federal government topped the list. Government big enough to give you everything is big enough to take it all away.
My partner and I bid two small slams the other night - made one. Love that game.
We'll be gone for several weeks but we'll stay in touch.

I'm Ready To Go

Ocracoke has had some cold weather these last few weeks. Not so cold by other climes, 27 to 36 degrees F, but kind of brisk by local standards. Six months ago we booked four weeks in Aruba. That's the month of February.
This is the very first blog. Hang with me, I am going to post some comments every few days.
Thank you!