Family values come into play here because the lack of these values and utter lack of moral character creates the underlying mentality that people use to pass bad bills such as this one.

Imagine a boy who grows up in a strong family value oriented household.  This kid’s father is going to want to teach his son some of the more important things he has learned in life so that his son can avoid some of the mistakes dad made.  He will teach his son ideas like “go to college so you can get a better job”, “drive that car another year until you can really afford a newer one”, “learn about computers because they are the way of the future”, “life isn’t always fair”, “take the lemons life hands you and make lemonade”, “there is no substitute for hard work”, etc.  In fact, you may have heard some of these things yourself.

Dad is going to teach him to do things that need to be done even though he doesn’t feel like doing them.  Dad is going to teach him things like, how to change the oil in his car or low to replace a light switch or how to use basic hand tools.  They may seem rather insignificant, but they aren’t.  Learning all those little lessons in life helps to make a man more autonomous.  It helps him to be a little less reliant on someone else and more self reliant. It teaches him to think for himself and focus on long term benefits of living responsibly.

This is the entire basis for my point about family values affecting political policy.  When people are self reliant, they don’t want someone else telling them how to live their lives.  They don’t want someone in Washington making a law that forces them to follow new rules for things that should be none of anyone else’s business.  He doesn’t want government doing things for him that he is quite capable of doing himself.

Look at the trends

As the family unit continues to deteriorate, you will see more and more legislation passed that tries to force people to do things that dad should have taught them to do.  If you asked your dad, he would have told you that you would be a damn fool not to have health insurance already.  In fact there are numerous people who take a job mainly because they need that insurance coverage.

As the family unit continues to deteriorate, you will see the high school graduation rates stay at ridiculously low levels.  You will see more people on welfare because nobody ever taught them to feel shame for it.  You will continue to see excessive numbers of teenagers using drugs.  More people will believe the lying politicians who tell them that it is not that person’s own fault that they are in a bad situation.  People are quick to blame someone else for their self inflicted problems.

If we are going to mandate anything in this country, it should be mandated that parents have to preserve the family unit once children are born.  Churches tried to do this for all the right reasons, but people shunned them instead of taking their good advice.

Have you noticed any correlation between the deterioration in the family unit and the increased me, me, me attitude in people?  I bet you have.  People’s own character is at fault here.   People of reasonable moral character do not need all of these bullshit government regulations to force them to live in a responsible manner.  Can’t you see that this is really the root of the problem?

The unemployment rate is lower because people have given up looking for work, not because they have been put back to work.  Yet, the Whitehouse tried to spin this like it was somehow positive for the country.

CNBC Article

Romer was encouraged by the down tick in unemployment.  Really?  You are encouraged that people have given up looking for work?  Ahh.. I see.  The Obama plan of economic recovery involves waiting for people to become hopeless in their search for a job so that they choose an alternative approach like retirement.  Great idea guys!  Woo hoo!  What a concept.

What a bunch of idiots. 

This Romer lady is ridiculously incompetent and totally reinforces the accusation that this cabinet is an incompetent one.  When was the last time that the President’s cabinet was populated with this level of total incompetence?  She needs to get the boot along with most of the other cabinet members.

His reasoning was that no person should go broke because they want a higher education.  Is this guy for real?  I have rarely heard anything more ridiculous in my entire life.  Talk about socialism.

The reason some people aren’t attending college is not because of the costs.  They are not attending college because they don’t realize that it is critical to their future success.  They don’t realize how much easier life will be if they could only put for the effort to get an education.  If a person wants to go to a certain college that they can’t afford, it does not prevent them from going to college at all.  It merely prevents them from going to that college.  Ultimately, they decide to go to a less expensive one even if that means a community college. 

Face it.  These kids who choose not do go to college at all just don’t want to learn.  They don’t want to go to college.  If they did want to go, they could certainly afford it.  Any kid can afford to go to a school like ECC or GCC or MCC.  There is absolutely no reason they can’t.  These colleges will accept anyone with a GED.  All you have to do is graduate high school and you are in.

The problem is that these kids who skip college are not interested in learning.  They don’t have a thirst for the knowledge and skills that these higher learning institutions offer.  If they did want to go badly, there is nothing stopping them, including costs.

I am so sick of this argument about college costs.  Stop subsidizing the expensive schools.  Let the market decide how much a student is willing to pay for their higher education.  The whole idea of subsidizing college tuitions is counterproductive to maintaining a low cost of education.  This is basic economics people.  If the government quits paying for people’s college educations, the colleges are forced to find ways to deliver that education for less money.  This is how it is supposed to work.

The goal should not be to give people enough money to go to college.  The goal should be to let the market force colleges to make themselves affordable to students.  When the economy is booming tuitions could go up.  When the economy is suffering tuitions would go down.

Part of the reason our educations cost so much is because schools get funding from places other than the enrolled students.  This creates the perfect environment for a wasteful bloated bureaucracy.  Let the markets determine school tuitions.

If the government agrees to pick up the tab for educations at the end of 10 or 20 years, you are going to see an absolutely massive increase in tuition costs.  Pumping more money into colleges does not guarantee a better education.  We have proof of this in the public school system that has had funding increases since the beginning of time.  It is counterproductive.

Prestigious universities and community colleges alike are capable of delivering an absolutely outstanding education if and only if the students are there because they actually want to learn about what is being taught.  If they aren’t self motivated to learn what is being taught, then they come out of there with a substandard education.   

If you want to reduce the cost of education, stop sending kids there who don’t want to be there.  Stop handing colleges free money.  The more you give them, the more they will cry that they need even more.

The populist attitude around this country is that every kid should receive a free higher education and the government should see to it that they get one.  How about focusing on getting them to graduate high school first you fricken morons?  A college education is easily and readily attainable to any kid who wants it right now.

This time it is over healthcare.  The healthcare system reform being pushed by the Democrats calls for new taxes to fund the system.   The average American worker is going to pay these taxes with one exception.  If you belong to one of Obama’s favorite labor unions, you won’t have to pay it until 2018. 

Once again, political corruption runs rampant.  How could you call this anything but corruption?  It is absurd to suggest that one group of citizens be made exempt from these taxes because of union affiliation.  If this were truly about negotiated wages and benefits, then it would have to apply to every single worker in America regardless of union affiliation or not. 

Every single non-union American also works for a negotiated wage and benefit package.  It is called free market capitalism.  It is not a legalized form of organized crime that unions represent.  It is illegal to extort money from people if you do it in the traditional method.  But, apparently it is legal if you do it under the guise of a labor union.

Politicians will be politicians.  How could any decent person want to become part of this loathsome bunch of hypocrites?  These guys are power mongers hell bent on taking as much power away from us average citizens as they possibly can.  As far as I am concerned, we should fire all the sons of bitches.  I think we do a better job of governing ourselves on a local level than we do on a federal one.  Fire them all and return power back where it belongs.  It belongs in our hands, not theirs.

This Obama administration is over the top with this one.  Policies like this that are obviously cut along political lines will most certainly cause unrest among the people.  I am sick of it and I am sick of all the people who think that policies like this one are somehow good for this country.  They are not.  Open your eyes.  This man is not leading this country in the right direction.  He is dividing it more than ever.  This president is causing very deep wounds in the social fabric of this nation that will take a generation to heal from.  Vote him and his entire team of “we know what is good for you” politicians out of office.

These people who elected Obama were so worried about what other countries thought about the United States.  While they were so worried that someone in Europe might not like us anymore, they elected a man who is making us hate one another.   Let history paint Barack Obama as it should; the most divisive presidential failure in our lifetime.

Instead of focusing on putting people back to work, this administration along with the state governments keeps paying people not to work by extending their unemployment benefits.  In my opinion, if you are going to extend anyone’s unemployment benefits in this time period, you had better make sure they are doing something productive. 

These people could be doing government work while unemployed in the private sector.  I mean hell, if the government is going to keep sending them unemployment checks, shouldn’t taxpayers get something in return?  What are we getting in return right now?  I’ll tell you.

We are getting larger and larger deficits.  These deficits cost us taxpayers a crapload of money to pay back.  Remember, we pay these deficits back with interest, not just the principle.  The government is doing exactly what it has told its citizens not to do.  It is overspending.  Think about it.  The entire housing crisis was caused because people were borrowing too much money.  What the hell do you think the government is doing right now?

This debt is going to be a slowly tightening noose around the neck of the American economy for decades.  Yes decades.  Every year we are going to have to pay the interest on that debt until we pay the debt down.  When has the United States ever paid its debt down?  First you need a growing economy so you can tax it.  For every tax dollar you take out of the economy to pay foreign countries the debt we owe them, it is one less dollar that could have been spent domestically.  Doesn’t anyone get this?

After all of the money that has been spent to stop the deceleration of our economy, we still aren’t fundamentally any closer to paying off any of that debt.  In fact, taxpayers so far have gotten a zero return on investment.  If Obama had used this money to put people back to work as he originally promised, then at least our economic output could have been higher.  More people would be working and consumer confidence would be much higher.

What happened to the 4 million new jobs he promised us?  How many has he helped create so far?

Whenever something goes wrong, right away people look for someone to blame other than themselves.  An easy and obvious scapegoat is blaming the government for not doing its job.  People forget to stop and think about what government’s job really is and should be.  They automatically assume that someone in government has control over things and therefore must have screwed up when things go wrong.

We witnessed it with hurricane Katrina down in New Orleans.  People automatically blamed the federal government for people’s deaths and suffering.  Was it really the government’s fault though?  If we got hit with a blizzard in Buffalo and there was ten feet of snow dropped in a few days, you can bet that there would be large numbers of deaths.  Would it be the federal government’s fault for not sending in troops to dig us out right away?  I think not.

When people started borrowing more money than they could possibly afford to pay back in order to buy homes they knew they could not afford, was it government’s fault for letting this happen?  Isn’t it really the idiots fault for taking this loan?  Isn’t it really also the idiot banker’s fault for making the loan?  Was it really government’s fault?  I think not.

No matter how much government intervention and regulation we allow into our lives, there will always be people who make poor decisions because of their own greed or their own stupidity.  If government is going to be held responsible for making sure this never happens then they are certainly going to fail.  They have already failed the more than 50% of city high school students who cannot even graduate from one of the simple stinking public school systems across this country.  When are people going to realize that it is impossible to control these things at a federal level?

We must accept responsibility for handling these things ourselves.  We must not blame government for failing at things that are under our control not theirs.  It is our responsibility as decent people to make sure that our kids graduate from high school.  Not doing so makes us failures as parents.  It is our responsibility as neighbors to help out a neighbor who lost their home in a flood.   It is our responsibility as workers to help our companies become more efficient and more competitive in the global economy.  It is not government’s job.  Their job is to allow us the freedom to do this ourselves.

If we expect our governments to do these sorts of things for us then we are certainly going to be disappointed when they fail at it.  Because they will fail.  You can bet your next unemployment check on it.

The federal government’s primary job should be to make sure that no other country attacks or invades us.  They simply aren’t any good at doing much else.  They certainly aren’t any good at micromanaging our economy or at making sure that everyone plays fair.  The original US Constitution was small and limited because the founding fathers knew this.  But people, in their infinite shortsightedness, forget the lessons of history and the reasons why the founding fathers agreed in limited federal government.

The reasons why we have the problems that we have in our country today are not because there isn’t enough government regulation or not enough government programs.  The problems we have can be traced to the people on a local level.  It is our fault.  We have taken things for granted.  We have forgotten that there are billions of other people on this planet who also want to upgrade their standards of living.  We need to become more productive and more efficient ourselves in order to be able to produce superior goods and services at a lower cost than they can.  Otherwise we will end up buying the products from them. 

The banking crisis was our fault.  It was our friends and neighbors who were buying homes that they could not afford just because it was too easy to get a loan.  Where was the common sense?  Where was the parent telling their son or daughter that they were going to get burned as soon as the real estate bubble burst?  Where was the wife telling her husband that this whole thing seemed a little too good to be true?  Was it government’s fault?  No.  It was the inherent greed in that couple’s veins that caused them to do that.  It was the sense that they wanted what the guy next door had and they felt that they were also entitled to it.  Instead of using common sense and good judgment, they let their greed get the best of them.

Now everyone is paying for their bad decisions. We are paying because voters decided it was government’s fault for not making sure this didn’t happen.  It is not government’s fault.  It is our fault.  It is our fault for not reminding each other that there are more important things in life than acquiring the most toys.  There are more important things like teaching your son and daughter not to borrow more money than they can afford to pay back.  How about teaching your kids that above all else they must save at least 10% of every paycheck so they have some kind of security when things don’t work out as planned?  How about setting a good example for the next generation by helping a neighbor who needs it instead of saying it is somebody else’s job?  How about we try to convince our brothers and sisters that it is never too late to go back to school and get a better education?

How about we try to show an obviously troubled kid the right path in life instead of blaming the police for not controlling crime well enough?  How about we get to know our neighbors so that we can look out for each other instead of just hoping the guy next door isn’t a dope dealer?  How about we focus on bettering ourselves so that we can earn more money instead of bitching about greedy businessmen running the world?

The farther we as individuals get away from the basic fundamental principles of human decency and personal responsibility, the more screwed up our whole country is going to get.  It is up to us on a grass roots level to change things.  This is how you build a great country. You don’t do it by electing people who promise they will do it for you.  You must accept the responsibility yourself.

The freedom of a people is directly proportional to society’s willingness to accept personal responsibility for its welfare and prosperity.

This terrorist attack attempt that we saw happen in Detroit on Christmas Day should reaffirm every American’s commitment to winning the war against terror.  It is evident that these no good terrorist sons of bitches are never going to stop trying to kill people that have done nothing to them in this lifetime.  Tell me.  What exactly did America do to this Nigerian S.O.B. who wanted to blow himself and everyone else on that plane to smithereens?

How is the United States and the rest of the world supposed to prevent these types of things from happening?  It is so damn easy to travel from country to country.  Can you imagine how bad it would be if the United States were on the same land mass as Africa?  Terrorists from the Middle East could ride here on their camels or in the back of their white Chevy pickups with gun turrets on the back.   At least they would be easier to spot.

As far as I see it there are really only three options here.

1)      All people of the world have to come to accept and respect differences in religion, thus becoming tolerant of religious differences. (How the hell is that going to happen?)

2)      Tolerant religions have to eradicate the intolerant ones from the earth (which in turn makes the tolerant ones become non-tolerant). It is a paradox.

3)      One intolerant religion has to take over the world and enslave or kill everyone else.

What other options are there really?  With modern technology it is way too easy for small groups of terrorists to wage war on a massive scale against the rest of the world.  Every year it becomes easier for them.  We have truly entered a new era.  The time has come when peaceful nations like ours are forced to exert brutality, unwillingly, against other intolerant people of the world in order to preserve our own existence for future generations of Americans that we hope will grow up to be tolerant.

Maybe someday mankind will reach a point where it can release this kind of energy by competing with one another for colonizing outer space instead of fighting senselessly over religion.  God help us if we can’t reach that point.

If everyone was 100% responsible for their own retirement savings, then you would have a lot more homeless old people who have made too many poor choices with their money throughout their lifetimes.  On the other hand, if government were responsible for providing for 100% of our retirement income, then we would likely pay more than 50% of our income in taxes.  Oh wait, some people already do that.

What if you could devise a system where everyone including the poor people were actually required to partake in some of the same habits as the wealthiest Americans do?  What if everyone was forced to invest money in American private sector public companies through DRIP (dividend reinvestment programs) or something similar?  By getting every single American invested into a number of public companies, you would be increasing the awareness of the average person.  Then maybe people would realize that profits are a good thing not a bad thing.  People would realize how important companies are instead of thinking that it is us versus them.

I am not sure how you would do this exactly.  I think this was part of the idea that the Bush administration had planned for social security at one point.  You would need to have a public option that allows people a chance to get a better return on investment.  At the same time you would need to have a fallback plan so that no person could over leverage himself to the point of retirement plan bankruptcy.  Could a system like this really work?

Is there any doubt that this guy should not be commander in chief? How can the commander in chief of the entire United States military arsenal put his army to sleep with his boring drivel? This was completely unbelievable.

The president spent more time playing politics than he did trying to get any real point across. He was constantly covering his ass regarding any questions that anyone has asked recently about his conduct of the war. What a joke of a leader. This speech was all about him and his political career. It was not about those fine young men and woman in the audience (some of whom will likely die under his command fighting a war that this president is completely unfit to lead). How disgraceful to the office of the president.

Get him the hell out.

He completely lacks the ability to stir emotion in his own troops. Had he served in the military, he certainly would not have made any significant rank. He is obviously out of place in a setting like that and should choose to never address the troops in such a manner ever again. He is obviously a giant pussy.

Why did you fricken meat heads vote for this schmuck? He is an embarrassment to the United States military. He is going to spend taxpayer dollars to the point where we cannot afford to pay them back. What the hell did you actually expect him to accomplish? Do you really think this country is better off with this yo yo in office?

Say what you want about George Bush. At least he was a real leader. He went against popular opinion because that is what leaders do. Not like this shirt and tie Obama schmuck. Barack Obama is more concerned about covering his political ass. He is just another typical politician who only cares about his own power. He is unfit to lead this powerful military in a time of war.

People are leaving this state in droves. They are leaving for jobs. They are leaving because New York is so unfriendly to business that big businesses do not want to operate here. The only way we can get a real fortune 500 company to expand operations in Western NY is to bribe them with some kind of tax breaks or other incentive. How ridiculous is that?

The funny thing is that corporate America knows that the population of New York State is a highly educated one with plenty of skills. Yet this obvious advantage is not enough to overcome the red tape and other baggage that comes along with a New York State corporate address. That is a damn shame.

I can’t count how many people I graduated high school with who have uprooted their families for greener financial pastures in places like North and South Carolina. We were reminded of how many people have left Buffalo when we saw the thousands of Buffalo Bills fans at the Carolina Panthers game a couple weeks ago. That is downright embarrassing.

These damn politicians (Paterson excluded) just don’t realize what they have done. Instead they keep raising taxes on the people who remain here to make up for the shortfall from the ones who left. They are dreaming up ways of collecting new revenue. Instead of altering the tax and spend policies that are at the root of the problem the exacerbate the problem even more. Political genius at its best.

When is there going to be a state constitutional convention for voters to vote on in the ballet box? Isn’t it about time we had one?