This Post is About as Well Written as My Dog Could Make it

My fiancee is a communist.  Seriously, she believes in communism (which may say something about the Democratic party given her proclivity to defend them).  She's also an atheist.  She's one of the most generous hearts I have ever known.  In college she spent most of her time dealing with rape victims and she wants to have a charity to help battered women.  I suspect there is a libertarian Christian sneaking around in her.  We drive by a number of homeless beggars every day.  The corner of St. Charles and Louisiana, the overpass of I-90, the turnabout at the end of the Uptown side of St. Charles, etc.  The guy with one arm is a regular at the turnabout, the guy with the well fed dog is a regular at Louisiana.  I've never seen the guy with one arm not holding liquor when he's not begging.  There is a mission near by.  When they hand out meals the homeless leave the styrofoam cartons scattered about the underpass, generally not that far from the many trashcans that also litter the underpass.  They step into traffic to stop cars to get a dollar and generally make life inconvenient.  I would never give any of them a dime, including the new lady who showed up with a baby.

A man who had the good taste to marry a friend of mine recently told a story about his encounter with a homeless man in the wind-swept plains of Lubbock, Texas.  His generosity to this person was met with disdain and the inane ramblings of a man who must be unstable (of course, if you tricked me by telling me we were going to the liquor store and you took me home, I'm not sure I would have been as kind).  His reward for his kindness was to be told that hypocrites and whores would be the only people to attend his funeral (the crazy guy said preachers and painted ladies, but the translation is what I have said before).

So why do I write about this, you ask.  And by you, I mean my mother, the only person who will likely read this, mainly because I have to write these to pay my rent for her basement.  I don't want people to give to the beggars.  I do want them to give to the missions.

The one armed man uses the money of generous people to buy booze.  The man with the impeccably groomed dog is likely a professional.  The charity is a litterer.  I'll choose the litterer.  The truth of homelessness is that the permanent homeless are generally mentally ill.  There are also those that prey on the sympathies of others to make a living.  I used to work at a place called "The Strip".  Before liquor sales were legal in Lubbock, there was a group of stores just outside of the county that sold to all the college students and workers.  It was lit up in neon signs, hence the comparison to the Vegas Strip.  There were always beggars near the Strip.  I remember seeing a local TV news report that followed them home in their $60,000.00 cars.  They made a good living at it.  John Stossel has also exposed similar practices.

I want to give.  I just made a ton of money on a case and the first thing I was trying to figure out was how much I could afford to give to the disabled veterans charity that I try to always give to (I also try to give money to the Republican Party, but that's a pretty hopeless charity).

I say these things because I love the hearts of men that give, but encourage giving to be tempered by intelligence.  This is the same reason that we cannot have an effective federal charity (i.e. welfare and unemployment) system.  My friend and I can choose where and what is effective.  If we make a mistake, we can correct it in the future to make our efforts more effective.  My fiancee knows that she can't help the one armed man and she holds other suspect, but wants to help.  We all do.  We can't throw money at a problem and expect a faceless program to be more effective than we are.  What was it Reagan said? Trust but verify?

We are good.  As Americans we give more per capita than any other society.  But we have to acknowledge effectiveness over emotion.  Otherwise you have a one armed man petting a well groomed dog while sharing the bottle of gin you bought them.

Uphold the What Now?

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D. Cal.), the author of the proposed assault weapons ban, may have inadvertently admitted what she and many others in Congress believe about their responsibilities.  Pressed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R. Tex.) about the constitutionality of such a ban, Ms. Feinstein responded: "Congress is in the business of making the law.  The Supreme Court interprets the law.  If they strike down the law, they strike down the law."  So Sen. Feinstein apparently feels absolutely no compulsion to consider the constitutionality of a law when she's drafting or submitting or, for that matter, passing it.  She'll leave it to the lawsuits to clean up the mess.  So much for that whole oath of office thing.

Sen. Feinstein further gave the standard liberal response to being challenged about an idea.  After Sen. Cruz' questioning, she became offended, saying she wasn't a sixth grader, then, after sufficient speech about her outrage and her qualifications and education, never bothered to actually defend the idea.  Ah, the refreshing intellectual arguments of the left, which amount to "Look!  Behind you!"

Big Government Profiting Off the Backs of the Poor

Prices at the pump unquestionably create a greater hardship on poor people than wealthy people.  So who is really price gouging and placing a burden upon our nation's impoverished?  Well, the typical profit margin for "big oil" is 7-8%.  According to some sources, this ranked 90th among other industries.  So this hardly seems to be gouging.  I don't remember hearing anyone decrying "big periodicals" for their 53.1% profit margin.  So how about the local distributor?  Well, it appears that for the last ten years, the local gas station has made less than a 2% profit margin.  That's not exactly gouging, either.  It would seem the free market forces have dictated a high volume, low price commodity.

So, what about the non-market forces, i.e., taxes.  California has just decided to raise its excise tax on a gallon of gasoline to $0.39.  This is a tax that doesn't vary by price.  With an average per gallon price in California of $4.211, this means the state of California profits on each gallon at 9.26% per gallon.  Of course, that doesn't include the California sales tax on gasoline of 2.25%.  So, in the end, California has a profit margin of about 11.5%.  The federal tax on gasoline is 18.4%, an even higher margin than those crazy left coasters in Cali.  Now, California is one of, if not the, highest gas tax states, and their profits include additional fees which are not discussed here.  According to the tax foundation, even the lowest state burden on tax was $0.08 per gallon as of January 2012 in Alaska.  At their average price of $3.996 per gallon, this is a relatively reasonable burden of 2%.

So what we see here is that even in the lowest burden state, government taxes constitute about 20% of the price of a gallon of gas and go as high as the 30% range while to people who produce and sell the product constitute about 10% of the price.  From these numbers, it is obvious that if anyone is engaged in price gouging and placing a heavy burden on our nation's poor, it is the government at federal and state levels.  The single highest price gouger is the federal government and that burden has been the same since about 1993.

So the next time you hear a politician demonizing big oil and their windfall profits, maybe you should but a mirror in front of them and blame big government.  Or just vote them out of office for lying to you.

Only the Wicked Governors of Men Dread What is Said of Them 2

In November of 2009 I wrote a brief piece with the above title regarding a quote from Benjamin Franklin and comparing it to our current President.  Since that time it has only become more applicable.  Word came out today that the editor over Lanny Davis, former aide to President Clinton and supporter of President Obama, was threatened by the White House that if he continued to publish Davis' column, his reporters would lose their White House credentials.  This comes on the heels of Bob Woodward, famed reporter who exposed the Watergate scandal that brought down Republican President Richard Nixon, reporting that the White House threatened him saying he would regret what he is doing in reporting the truth that the sequester originated from the White House.  It is worth repeating the Franklin quote here:

"Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom, and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech, which is the right of every man as far as by it he does not hurt or control the right of another; and this is the only check it ought to suffer, and the only bounds it ought to know.

This sacred privilege is so essential to free governments that the security of property and the freedom of speech always go together; and in those wretched countries where a man cannot call his tongue his own, he can scarce call anything else hi own. Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.

The administration of government is nothing else but the attendance of the trustees of the people upon the interest and affairs of the people; and as it is part and business of the people, for whose sake alone all public matters are, or ought to be, transacted, to see whether they be well or ill transacted, so it is the interest and ought to be the ambition of all honest magistrates to have their deeds openly examined and publicly scanned. Only the wicked governors of men dread what is said of them."

Clearly, this country has not seen a more wicked governor of men.

And the Best Picture Goes to..."Inception"!!!

The Academy Awards brought in the big gun to announce the big award, as First Lady Michelle Obama was piped in via satellite to announce "Argo" as 2013's best picture.

So let's get this straight.  A representative of an administration that blamed a movie for a terrorist embassy attack that had nothing to do with the movie, where they failed to protect the ambassador, who died, and the only person in jail for the killing is the filmmaker, announced the best picture was a movie about a CIA operation that actually rescued embassy personnel from terrorists by acting is if they were shooting a movie.

I think my head just exploded.

President Barack Oblackmail

Let's make one thing clear right off the bat, "sequestration", the vilified "cut" in spending across the board in discretionary and military spending, is not a cut in spending.  "Sequestration" is a decrease in the increase in spending.  If that seems odd to you, you don't work for government.  In fact, spending is set to increase about $110 billion over the ten years of the "cuts".  Let's also keep in mind that this increase is on top of the massive spending increase of 2009 which has led to annual deficits of approximately $1 trillion.  In other words, the "cuts" will add on top of those $1 trillion dollar yearly additions to the debt brought on by our benevolent leader.  So by no means is the hyperbole from both parties that this will somehow cripple the government correct.

Given this, enter President Obama yesterday, surrounded by firefighters warning that sequestration would have dire consequences.  Teachers would be laid off, first responders would lag behind as your house burned to the ground, thousands would lose jobs, investments in failing "green" energy companies would go away, medical research would screech to a halt, the moon would turn the color of blood, the seas would boil, the middle class would lose class, a third "Garfield" movie would be green-lighted and chimps, forced to eat grains instead of meat products would not have enough solid feces to fling.  And all because Republicans stubbornly refuse to hand him a second tax hike in a matter of months.  I mean, hey, it's not like you have any interest in the fruits of your own labor, right?

Well, who decides where those cuts in discretionary spending would go?  That would be the executive branch.  For those of us who are strict constructionists, we recognize that the executive is headed by a President.  I think his name is Barack Obama.

So, assuming that's correct, what President Obama just did was to give a speech in front of a bunch of people he is threatening to fire (as opposed to say having the USDA not pay for $200,000 of "sensitivity training") if he doesn't get his way.  Even though his budget is increasing.  That just seems like blackmail.

Goodbye, Christian Warrior

This morning I learned that my grandfather, Cecil Girard, passed in his sleep.  It's a little ironic because I happened to be on the phone last night with my fiancee, discussing what to name our new German Shephard, and his name came up as one of the possibilities, which we discussed for some time.  These are the things I know about my grandfather.

Granddad was a a veteran of WWII.  Though he never served in a theater of war overseas, he trained men to go into combat as a drill instructor.  Picturing my grandfather as R. Lee Ermy only with a prohibition against cursing always brought a bit of a smile to my face.  After the war, he flew cargo to China.  When my best friend Chris came to visit with me one year, the Navy veteran and sonarman discovered an instant connection with my grandfather.  Chris (i.e. Jonesy) had been listening to subs aboard essentially the same plane that Granddad had flown.  At times it seemed like I wasn't even in the room as they chatted about their experiences.  Granddad was always my picture of the perfect warrior.  The dignified man of God and country, never ashamed of being so.

Granddad was also a dedicated husband.  His wife, Everma Joe, gave him three children, which gave him seven grandchildren.  I'd be lying if I tried to tell you how long they were married, but when she passed away in 2002, I'd venture it had been 50 plus years, and closer to 60 than 50.  They fit so perfectly together that they always represented what a married couple should be.  These people were Norman Rockwell's goal every time he started a piece.  And he never got close to how good they were.  At that same visit when I was there with Jonesy, I got the first indication of how much her passing had on him.  He broke at one point, choking back tears while talking about her.  I had never seen this man, 6'3" and wide across the shoulders as a football player, always fit, show one second of weakness in his life before that time.  It made me understand just how special a relationship a husband and wife can have and how truly deeply she had been his heart.

He was a humorist.  This wasn't Bill Cosby, by any means.  His humor was so dry I once watched a glass of water evaporate as he told a joke.  He wasn't above cheesy humor either.  He'd often point out a sign on the road that said "STOP AHEAD" and gleefully tell my brother and I "Stop, a head!"  In large part, I think my sense of humor developed from his own.  At times my sarcasm is thick as molasses.  Other times I can resort to the cheesiest joke I can possibly think of laughing giddily.

In some ways, he inspired me by showing me respect.  A conservative man, politically, he recognized my own interest in politics as it developed at a young age.  As I studied political theory and economics, before I was in high school, he had gotten me a subscription to "The Limbaugh Letter" and later, another to a public policy quarterly magazine.  It was more impressive, to me, that when my grandmother faced a second hip replacement surgery, he asked my opinion.  Keep in mind, I wasn't out of high school.  I'm not 100% sure I was out of middle school.  The doctor had but Grandma on a new drug that was supposed to help with the degenerative nature of the joint disease, so Granddad sent me a study on the drug's effectiveness and asked what I thought.  I told him they would likely be recommending the replacement within three weeks.  Turned out I was right.  He and Grandma always expected the most of me, and I have to say, I didn't live up to those expectations.

Granddad was a patriarch in the truest sense of the word.  The unquestioned head of the family, his children and grandchildren were doctors, architects, artists and one unfortunately, became an attorney.  His children are good, moral people, his grandchildren have followed that example.  Okay, I'm not the best about it from the perspective of getting to church and I've had my crises of faith, but there are few situations in which I haven't done my best to be good to others.

Granddad was a Christian.  It defined him in a way that few of us who believe can claim.  His religion wasn't shoved in your face.  It was there, open and evident from the way he conducted himself and his beliefs.  He was a regular at his church and participated in the choir.  It was where he went to exercise when he got old, until they needed him to go someplace where he could be supervised.  

Towards the end of his life, his mind became distracted.  Little registered on him long enough that he wouldn't often repeat the same question he had asked five minutes previously.  I hate to admit that it effected my desire to be around him.  It was hard to see the giant man who was the stereotype of a WWII marine from the black and white movies suddenly transmogrify to mortal flesh.

I had the pleasure of introducing him to my fiancee only a few months ago.  One of the brightest moments he had in the last few years was when she was discussing how her father is older than her grandmother.  His eyes instantly lit and his laugh came to the front as he asked about this odd circumstance.  It was clear to me then, given the right prompt, his mind was still capable of catching fast to something of interest and being engaged, if only briefly.

In the end, he had recently moved into a retirement village of sorts.  Karen, the fiancee, had been asking last night after him, if she should go visit him, being six hours closer than I am.  It was his desire to pass peacefully in the night, and from all indications, he did.  He missed his wife terribly.  Today I know he is with her and he is happy in her arms again and in the arms of God.

I will miss him, and when I look at the world today, I know that much of what is wrong is that there are less men like him, and more men like me.  I know that I would be well served to spend the remainder of my life trying to get to a point where I'm like him.  A Christian, a warrior, a man of principle, a man of service.  Everything we think of when we think of the "greatest generation".

God bless you, Christian Warrior.  You will be missed.