Humble Juice.

A New, Much Needed, Diet for the American People…  not to address the obesity epidemic, but rather the Entitlement Epidemic.

Humble Juice.

This is not about our standing in the world…  this is about our standing with each other.

A watershed moment of growing up is when you suddenly realize you’re not nearly as special as you think you are.  Not only does the Universe not revolve around you… you find out the Universe doesn’t care about you at all.  And it should never be expected to.

This typically coincides with the realization that your parents are not as brilliant and infallible as you thought they were, pets come and go and nothing is free as someone somewhere is paying for it.  But far, far, too many of us never seem to grow up.  And this is a problem because those individuals pose as adults… doing adult things like raising children, buying stuff they can’t afford and voting.  All of these actions effect the rest of us, thus making it our problem.

It’s time for you, and you know who you are whether you want to admit it or not, to drink a full gallon of Humble Juice each and every day while reminding yourself you’re not entitled to anything.  Nothing.  Nobody “owes” you anything… Ever.  You are amazingly unique… just like EVERY other person that is ,or ever has been, alive.

Look in the mirror and repeat the following every morning…

“I am not entitled to a certain standard of living.  My desired standard of living is mine and mine alone.  Because of this, it is mine to support.  If I cannot maintain my desired standard of living it will fall on only my shoulders to answer any debts I accumulated and adjust accordingly my level of what is acceptable.  It is no one else’s problem unless I owe them money.

I am not Entitled to a Loan.  Nobody is obligated to hand me a bunch of money to go buy stuff.  It doesn’t matter what I want to buy… could be a house, could be a horse… it’s not my money and I don’t have a right to it.  When begging for a loan I will respect this fact.  I might bring along a shot of Humble Juice for that moment when I inevitably forget.

I am not entitled to the services of Doctors, Lawyers, Bankers, Farmers, Real Estate Agents, Cashiers, Waitresses, Sanitation Workers, Etc. Etc. Etc.  I pay for these… because they don’t “owe” me anything.

I am not entitled to a retirement provided by someone else, such as my family, the government (read: Taxpayers), my children, neighbors, employers, “Rich People” etc.  Note: Social Security is Bankrupt… it was a promise that could never be kept… and those who made it knew this… those collecting Social Security have, or will have, collected far more than they ever put in.  I don’t expect to see dime.

I am not entitled to have my stuff replaced if it is lost, stolen or destroyed.  If I pay insurance, I have a contract with a business… not an entitlement.  If I didn’t pay for insurance… I have my savings.  If I have no savings… I have broken stuff.  I will think ahead and prepare for such possibilities.

I am not entitled to the love and devotion of my spouse, partner, dating chum… whatever.  This entitlement leads to some of the most unhealthy people on earth.  Symptoms of this misconception include but are not limited to Depression, Anxiety, Obesity, Isolation and the collateral damage to children, family and friends.

I am not entitled to my parents money… as a loan, gift, inheritance etc.  I will grow up!  It’s not my money.  I will earn my own money, then spend it as I see fit.  If I want to give it to my kids, then fine… if not, that’s fine too.  Any hurt feelings are the responsiblity of the person whose feelings are hurt.  No one has the right to force me to hand out my property to anyone.  If I do so, it will be by my choice.

Nobody is obligated to me.  Not my friends, associates, parents, children, neighbors, employees, employers, et al.  I enjoy helping others VOLUNTARILY… and I expect nothing in return.  If I get my feelings hurt it is because I expected something, and that’s my fault.  I will learn to get over it by not projecting my expectations onto others.

I will only receive the voluntary kindness of those who can tolerate me… and there will be precious few who will choose to do so.  And, that’s the way it goes.  Because of this, I appreciate those tolerant enough to be my friend… whatever flavor of friend that might be.

It is my responsibility to understand the decisions I make and take responsibility for the outcomes.  It is my responsibility because that is what is required to remain free.  My Liberty depends on it.

I will work every moment of my life to remind myself of this by choking down my personal gallon of Humble Juice each and every day.”  (In my case, chased with two fingers of single malt scotch.)

(One of my personal favorites… mainly because of the underwear comment.  Originally posted 102912)

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Death Rattle

Ladies and Gentlemen,
We are witnessing a historic moment on the History of the United States.
It has become clear the immensity of this episode is only going to become greater before it is over.
To understand what you’re seeing we must go back to 1960.
A large part of the 12-24 year old 1960 population figured out there was power in collective screaming. They learned to champion causes only some of which they understood.  They forged their identity in protest and labeled themselves the ‘counter-culture’. They cast away the societal norms the likes of Family, Religion and Americanism. They elevated themselves above all the “ignorant masses” who clung to those time-tested ideas and began a decades long mantra reminding themselves of their superiority. They sought positions where they could administer an intentionally subjective ‘fairness’ of their own varying definition.  They learned how to feel powerful.  When they looked in the mirror they saw the faces of the Deciders… the Administrators… the Philosopher Kings.
Now fast forward to 2016.
These same individuals are at least 67-years old, some are much, much, older.  (Yes… there are young ones, but they lack that romantic view of having ‘done something important’.  They lack a perceived legacy which is now under threat. They lack the same investment while sacrificing all of the other evolutionary rites and rituals society previously valued.)
These Aging Leftists are now finding themselves with no real Family, no real God and no real Understanding of the Greatest Experiment in Self Government the World has ever known.  Now they have watched the election of a person they believe is the antithesis of their Socialist Utopia…  and are powerless to stop him from tearing it down.  It’s all they had.

They are old…
They fully realize they may not make it 8 more years…
They have no identity other than those who dismantled the country as the Founders intended it to be…
They have no investment other than a war to create a Socialist Utopia, which they thought they had won long ago…
They see their lives as meaningless…  They are desperate…  They feel cornered…

We are witnessing the Death Rattle of a Mass Existential Crisis… a forced confrontation of what for most of them is the meaninglessness of their lives.

Be warned, these people are found on both sides of the aisle. Yes they associate more with one, but they know no party exclusively.  Do not underestimate them.  They must be approached with extreme caution…

I’m not kidding.

They are irrational… just as they have been all their lives. They are unreasonable… which is how they learned to secured something they call victory. They are unstable… because their fantasy is being threatened by reality.

It is time to walk softly, but carry a big stick.
It is time to take our country back, but keep one eye open.
It is time to show compassion, but remain firm while the damage we have suffered is repaired.

Tough Love.

In 20 years, the country will have other concerns.

Repeal Obama Care.

I’m trying to put this as simply as I can.

What we had before was far, far better than what is being forced upon us now by President Obama and elected Democrats.

No more time for “fixes”. In other words, no more time to try and get more people addicted to Government Handouts… Entitlements… your tax dollars… whatever you want to call it.

Repeal this Abortion of Law Now!

Repeal it, Repeal it, Repeal it!

Stop with the “adjustments”… “a little more time”… “we just need to get it right”… hogwash.

Obama Care is Socialism pure and simple. It will not, does not nor ever will work. It can not, has not and does not work anywhere in the world.

Repeal the “Affordable” Care Act Now!

Now! Now! Now!

And if you can’t, elect those who will!

That is the only criteria for their election… they do not need to offer up “an alternative” as what we had before worked. They do not need to propose “how to fix” this current Communist approach to the world. They do not need to do anything other than Repeal this POS and do everything they can to stop another 100 Million people from losing their Health Insurance.

Have I made my point John B.?

120613

It’s Under Control…

Top White House officials on Friday worked to reassure the American public that the national response to Ebola is under control.…as Reported by The Hill.

Well Of Course.

Just like:

The Economy – By Gaming the Leading Indicators.

Unemployment – By make 1/3 of the American Population Disappear.

Al Qaeda – By Calling them Different Names.

Health Care – By telling us… well… Frankly I’m not sure How They’re getting away with it.

The Borders – By Simply not enforcing them.

Illegal Immigration – By not calling Their Act of breaking our Laws Illegal.

The Debt – By Ignoring it altogether.

So Sure… I have complete Faith They have Ebola under control.  Why would anyone doubt it?

All they need to do is refuse to implement travel restrictions on those from High Risk Countries while Gaming the number of infected by calling it different names.  Once it becomes a problem no one can deny, ignore it altogether while telling the American Public if they try to do anything about it on their own it will be illegal.  And finally when 1/3 of the American Population disappears for real because the plague has overwhelmed our newly handicapped Health Care System, call in Airstrikes.

Wow.

Now that I’ve typed it out loud, I think they just might have it under control.

Where did I put that bottle of Glendronach?

Healthcare is a human right!

There is no debate.  Healthcare is a human right.

I’m not sure how there can be any misunderstanding here.  Each of us has the right.  We are endowed by our creator certain inalienable rights. (sound familiar?)  And one of those is healthcare.

Everyday, every minute, every second we make decisions that are beneficial or detrimental to our health.  It’s our right being free individuals in a currently free society.

For example;

I have the right to buy bigger bottles of scotch.

I also have the right to put the cheeseburgers down and push away from the table.

Clearly you can see the difference between the two… buying bigger bottles of scotch means more of it when I want it thus it being beneficial, and putting down the cheeseburger being detrimental because cheeseburgers are yummy.

What I do not have is the right to force you to subsidize my scotch consumption through a scheme where the Federal government, via regulation, raises your insurance rates to cover my cheeseburger and scotch habit.

And here is where it gets good…  If you want to lose your human right to healthcare as described above then keep pushing the implementation of Socialized Medicine.  Once fully up and running you will have people like me deciding everything from how big your scotch bottle can be to how cheesy your burger should be.  Assuming, of course, that I allow you to have a burger in the first place… I hear that veggie burgers are better for your health – you with me here?

This speaks to the most basic of our “inalienable rights”.  It’s all about freedom.  The freedom to make the wrong decision even when we know what the right one is.

There is nothing wrong with the health system as it currently exists.  It’s not perfect, but its the only system that doesn’t allow me to put a mortgage on your life to keep me drinking scotch out of ever bigger bottles.  And while not perfect, it’s a darn sight closer to perfect than any of its nearest competitors in other countries.

There is a rush to implement socialized medicine in the U.S. for several reasons.  First is the most basic for leftists, and that’s the power of control over you given to government.  Second is the need to convince you its brilliant before the other Socialist healthcare systems drive their countries into bankruptcy.  (Unless you’re Cuba who has simply stopped supporting any of its other infrastructure in order to prop up its mediocre military and mediocre health care system.) And finally, and possibly the most sinister, is the rush to get people hooked on the access and view it as an entitlement.  In other words, get the needle in their arm… pun intended.

So to sum it up, our health care system could use some scrutiny.  No doubt.  But we need to understand why “private” is a must.

OR

We all need to get bumper stickers reading “It wont be fair until we all have crappy health care” and “I can’t wait to tell you what you can eat.”

(originally posted 011512)

Update:

It’s also important to understand that profits organize markets.  In other words, once something becomes a “right” then profit must be removed.  I just had this conversation last evening… and morning… with a friend and her husband.  Both doctors.  She believes Health Care is a Human Right.  And, Insurance Companies should not be making money from it.  I said ‘f*ir enough’, You should work for free too.

This prompted her to change direction quickly and offer there should be a ‘balance’.  I asked her who should be in charge of determining what that balance might be… she began to tell me what the balance should be in today’s dollar amounts.  I asked her why it should be her who determines the ‘balance’?  She couldn’t answer me… she’s not stupid, she knew where I was going.  I simply said “Thank you for illustrating my point.”

Thus the repost.  It was on my mind.  And it’s valuable to recognize that we will be revisiting the same arguments over… and over… and over…

Chief Justice Roberts, The Benevolent Arsonist.

Roberts has poured gas on the fire.  Intentionally.

This Obama Care ruling with Chief Justice Roberts at the center of it seems to me to be a blessing in disguise.

Let’s look at this in the simplest terms… which is the best way for me as I’m drunk most of the time.

1. The number one tactic on the Left to find legitimacy within the constitution for their schemes is removed.  The Commerce Clause has been and to this point was yet again offered up as authority for Leftists to force. Force anything they wanted… and they were hoping for a victory on Obamacare based on the “authority” of the Commerce Clause thus opening the door to making you do anything they wanted.  This use of the Commerce Clause has been emasculated.
They lost this now and for the future.  Justice Ginsburg is not happy about this…

2. Roberts opinion put’s Obama Care in the category of a tax. Nobody has yet been “harmed” by the tax as it has not kicked in yet. (It is my opinion that Roberts and many of us knew the Left, if losing the case, was going to repackage Socialized Medicine as a tax – just like Medicare – and push it that way. This would buy them another four years of legal wrangling all the while continuing to build their health care bureaucracy in the background where nobody see’s it. Yes, kind of like Iran and their nuclear program. The Socialists and the Theocrats are very similar in most ways.)

But now that it is a tax… and declared as such by all parties… the second it kicks in and “harms” somebody, the suits will start flying. Only this new challenge will have happened much faster than the Liberals would have wanted. Remember, like any good drug dealer you don’t have a solid customer until their hooked, which takes a little time, and that’s what the Liberals have openly stated.

3. Since it is a tax… it lands squarely back into the hands of Congress and our duly elected representatives who are up for election in 120 days more or less.  Hmmm…

4.  The court has reinforced the states right to not participate.  The court has reinforced the ability for the states not to proceed with the Medicaid expansion without retribution.  The Left does not like this either…  Socialism has no room for State’s rights and the 10th Amendment.

I think Roberts knew exactly what he was doing in the name limited government contrary to popular belief. But I seem to run contrary at times.

It appears to me that he has pushed this to a fight.  He has accelerated what he knew would otherwise be a long drawn out exercise to the benefit of the Socialized Medicine crowd.  He has also opened a multi-front war on this program combined with the right amount of governing philosophy required to report on it.  Who knows, may be the American people will learn something over the next few years.  May be not.

I will always stand tall to be corrected…  we’ll see.

None of you will remember what I’ve stated here in two years anyway.

(From exactly Two years ago… originally posted 062912)

ref: The John Roberts Dart Board

ObamaCare Penalizes the People It Claims to Help

From FreedomWorks. Link Here.

ObamaCare: picking on poor people because, why not?

By Logan Albright

posted 061314

Remember how ObamaCare was going to make health care affordable and accessible for everyone? Remember how we were told we had to vote for a government takeover of one sixth of the American economy to level the playing field and make things fair for the nation’s poor? Remember how the rich had to be forced to pay their fair share for the common good?

Yeah, you can go ahead and forget all that. Not only hasn’t it happened, the actual results have been the direct opposite of what was promised.

A new report from the Congressional Budget Office reveals that the yearly penalty from ObamaCare’s individual mandate is expected to fall on 4 million Americans. Of those, 1 million are classified as low-income, and 200,000 are actually below the poverty line.

You read that right. The massive health insurance law that was ostensibly designed to make the health care market more fair and equal is actually imposing an additional tax on a million low-income people who can’t afford the inflated premiums they are legally required to buy. As is so often the case, big government is actively punishing the people it claims to want to help.

The CBO report also estimated that 30 million Americans would still be uninsured by 2016. For those of us who understand human behavior and incentives, this comes as no surprise. The fundamental flaw in central planning is the fiction that people, who have free will and minds of their own, can be manipulated by policy like pieces in a puzzle, to behave in ways that “society” deems optimal.

Of course, people don’t work that way, and studies like this one reveal the fallacy in treating individuals like numbers. As much as progressives would like it to be otherwise, you can’t plug human behavior into a bunch of fancy equations and expect a certain outcome. You can’t mandate health insurance on 300 million people and expect them to just roll over and comply.

Barack Obama has always been hobbled by his tendency towards micromanagement and his idea that societal problems can be “solved” like a Rubik’s Cube by a particularly clever operator. When 10,000 pages of regulations fail to get people to behave the way he wants them to, his answer is always another 10,000 pages.

To the rest of the nation, not chained to the ideological underpinnings of government health care, the fact that subsidized premiums provided on the health insurance exchanges have been vastly higher than promised was only to be expected. Individuals all over the country have been experiencing sticker shock as their health insurance bills skyrocket—that is, if they are not dropped from their plans outright. Only committed central planners seemed surprised that the imposition of a bloated, inefficient bureaucracy on the health insurance market would result in higher costs.

Big government programs never help the people they claim to help. They always end up rewarding well-heeled special interests and Beltway insiders instead of the truly needy.

Still, it’s rare to have so overt an attack on the poor. Most other social programs do indirect harm through limiting opportunities or prohibiting productive behavior with trumped up claims of “consumer protection.” ObamaCare attacks the livelihood of low-income families outright.

All the talk of amending or “fixing” ObamaCare is misguided in the extreme. The only logical course of action for dealing with a monster that openly, remorselessly hurts people is to kill it, and give freedom a chance.

I’ve Done Nothing Wrong

I should not need Subsidies or Exemptions, anymore than I need a stay of execution or a pardon.

Why do we sit back and accept, no… empower Government and those who occupy it with the control they so deeply desire.

Obama Care must be Repealed… not “fixed”, “tweaked”, “twerked”, “massaged” or anything else.

We can solve all of these problems by getting rid of this POS legislation. By doing so none of us will be left begging for a subsidy or exemption. Both of which, by the way, are Temporary in nature and exist at the Benevolence of Government… and those who occupy it.

Stop accepting that the Government has a Right to Power and Control over you.

Stop it, stop it, stop it.

We are the only country on Earth designed (while not currently practiced) as a Bottom Up Government… not the other way around. It was born out of the Enlightenment, appropriately.

You must ask yourself why those in power would wish to change it into something else… something else mimicking all the other tired, worn out, oppressive designs found across the world.

Simply stated, it keeps them in power… and you dependent, reliant, enslaved.

All I have ever advocated is a return to the framework of the Enlightened Brilliance embodied in The United States Constitution. It would initially be very disruptive as we have wandered far, far off course onto a dark Statist path. It would make many leaders very, very unhappy as they have built their Power and Influence on Statist Control and Policies. But our Freedom would be restored. Our Liberty refreshed.

It starts here with Obama Care.

It’s as Simple as that.

The Fourth Horseman

What is there to really be afraid of?

Three of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have been here in U.S. for decades wreaking their destruction on our Free-Market Economy.

Our politicians work very hard to not to talk about them.  Instead the focus is placed on social issues or “jobs” or any other myriad topics that serve as a distraction from our impending doom.  However, the three are simply waiting patiently for the fourth.  And he is here.

Those of you who know where I’m going have already identified Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.  These three Socialist programs have made the U.S. very sick indeed.  The destruction of wealth via the debt created to support these schemes, and the fiscal insolvency the U.S. is a breath away from, is obvious to most reasonable people… unless they are elected to public office.

Suddenly we were told the problems associated with the finest health system in the world (demonstrated by those socialists with enough money to come here for medical attention doing so)  can only be fixed through government control.  A communal approach where the “state” will be the provider of health care to those less fortunate.  Nevermind that those less fortunate regularly receive better care in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world.  Stop thinking!  It’s caring that counts and if you oppose big government controlling your life your mean-spirited.  This has been a dream of the Socialist Party since Woodrow Wilson,  Norman Thomas and FDR.

With the addition of Socialized Medicine to the other three Progressive Utopian programs, the incremental Socialists will have won the war.  And they know it.  This is why the Left has rallied every effort to drag out, slow down or ignore any opposition to a single payer system… while we dither it grows.  Implementation is the key to this rider’s success.  All of the debates, all the equivocations; this part is “good”, this part is “bad” is simply allowing for the building of greater dependency and ultimate “entitlement” status.  From this grand scheme born out of “the best of intentions” will come the final push over the cliff of fiscal insolvency leaving the U.S. to be rebuilt by the very social engineers promoting it.   And, free market capitalism is not in the plans.

In my opinion, to deny this is to deny that we are in trouble.  It is a hard argument to offer that we are not… but many for various reasons still try.  If you recognize the situation for what it is and then refuse to acknowledge the incredible inefficiency associated with everything government does, the waste, fraud and incompetence which go hand in hand with statist programs then you’re naive or you must intend to mislead the American people.  There are many politicians currently in office resembling the latter.

Government controlled medicine is being pushed vigorously by two kinds of the above mentioned politicians; those true believers that capitalism needs to be destroyed and/or those that think they will be long gone by the time it all comes crashing down.  Both think you will continue to vote for them while being dumb enough to believe them when they apologize saying they were “just trying to do the right thing.”  Unfortunately for the rest of us experience has taught them they’re correct.

(Most of us don’t want to assign ill intent… But let me ask you, how do you come to any conclusion other than it is intentional?  How can you think that the people driving us over the cliff don’t intend to do so when politicians unconstitutionally “invest” your social security money, with the best of intentions,  in companies doomed to fail?  Or, just spend it to buy votes… period.  I can hear you saying “Grow up, they all lie, it’s just politics!”  For you, let me point out that they all lie because you and the rest of us allow it… and your cynicism without action is a weak attempt to make yourself feel informed without being informed, while expending no energy to do anything substantive.  You are part of the problem.  You are part of the reason we are here.)

It’s our job to stop freedom destroying, innovation killing, fiscally irresponsible, anti-capitalist ideas like Socialized Medicine.

It is our job to vote out those politicians who support such ideas.

(Originally posted 011812.  Posted again because we are seeing it happen right in front of us… to the exclamations of “Who knew?”  We knew.)

We Need More Time! II

“We just need More Time to get as Many People Addicted to Government as Possible so you can never Escape Socialized Medicine!” – An Honest Progressive Leftist.

So Kathleen Sibelius is asking for an Investigation of her own Website.

The Progressives know that any investigation will take years…. and allow them to postpone any change, let alone a full repeal, of this disastrous Health Care Law because we “need to wait for the results of the investigation”. It’s a very old tactic, which still works today. Delay, delay, delay.

Are we that stupid? Maybe.

How about this instead; Fire Her and Repeal this Steaming Pile of…