The age of a Democracy

I was listening to Dr. James Dobson on the way to work the other morning and during the radio program he mentioned the quote below as a warning to voters:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

I thought this was remarkable.  He was quoting Alexander Tytler who was a Historian in Scotland that died in 1813.  How could such an old quotation ring so true in today's times?  It seems like that is exactly what people are doing these days they are voting themselves large benefits from the treasury which will lead to a financial collapse. 

How tempting is it to vote yourself more benefits?  How tempting would it be to vote yourself a raise?  Look at congress every year on Jan 1st they vote themselves a raise!  Why?  Because they can.  There are judges waiting to be voted on, budgets to pass, any number of bills laying around with dust on them, but this bill always seems to work its way to the top of the list and gets voted on and passed immediately.

Obama is promising a huge government with entitlements galore, he is doing a rather great impression of Robin Hood and stealing from the rich to give to the poor through his tax plan.  People are surrounding him in droves just to look at him, as if he is the second coming.  What is the attraction to most voters?  Seemingly free money!  Nothing is free folks, that free money came from someone.  The government should be a stop gap not a life style.  The government should be there to help you when you are down but there should be a limit to the benefits. You should not be able to live your whole life on welfare and pass that mentality onto your children and on to their children.

Well it turns out Dobson was dooped!  The quote only dates back to the 1950's and was not breathed by a historian in the 1700's but rather has unknown authorship.  The origins is not true but I think the quote is being lived out right in front of us!

Snopes Entry: Don't believe everything you hear!

Redistribution of Wealth

Funny article I stumbled upon.

"Today on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a sign the read “Vote Obama, I need the money.” I laughed.

Once in the restaurant my server had on a “Obama 08" tie, again I laughed–just imagine the coincidence.

Suddenly, it hit me. An experiment is in order.

I asked the server, did he really believe that Obama's platform was a good one? Yes, he did.

When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept.

He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need – the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight.

I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10, and told him to thank the server inside as I've decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful.

At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn, even though the actual recipient needed the money more.

I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application - at least if it is your wealth that is being redistributed."

Originally Posted Here

The power of a box

Heather and I drug 5 children to our early voting location yesterday and stood patiently in line for an hour to cast our votes.  The younger children were fine but the older children were asking why we had to endure this long line with all the babies just to vote.  I told them it was our "Civic Duty" to vote.  That is the short answer and the one that matches their attention span when it comes to politics.

As I was marking the little boxes I was thinking how much power there is in these little unassuming boxes.  They are meaningless just sitting there by themselves on a piece of paper until we come along and provide meaning to it.   They are more than a check mark in the box, they represent ideas.  I understood fully why I put a check beside the names I did, it was not because I like them on a personal level, it is not because they are charismatic, it is not because of their race, it is not because their gender, it was not based on popularity, it was not based on what the news media spins about them, it was because I believe in the ideas behind that check mark. 

Yesterday I voted for all of the unborn children that will never have a voice because their life was ended by the choice of a politician, their collective voices were heard through my marking of an unassuming box.  The next President will appoint at least one and perhaps 4 Supreme Court Justices in their first term in office.  This is the arena where the fate of these unborn children will be decided.  I voted for a smaller government which means spending less and taxing less allowing us to keep more of our money in our pockets and letting us decided what to spend it on.  I voted for bringing our troops home in a way that will leave a democratic and stable government in Iraq so that my children do not have to fight this war again.  I voted for the protection of our homeland without the depletion of our freedoms.  I voted against the redistribution of wealth.  I voted against socialized healthcare.  These are some of the things that these boxes mean to me.  Rather than looking at the people I looked at the ideas behind the people.  I know what the boxes mean to me and I hope as each American goes to the booth they know what the boxes mean to them and are not just making the boxes about who they like because they look good on TV, or that they are so disappointed with Bush that they are simply voting against him.  The boxes have ideas behind them and the ideas affect us all.  I am not telling you who to vote for just to make sure you understand the ideas behind the vote or don't vote at all.  Vote with wisdom and knowledge.

Officially, somewhat, maybe, could be interested...

Both of my biological daughters have had this aversion to anything physical or team related all their lives.  I have tried to get them interested in team sports from the time they were very little.  I wanted them to develop the team building of a team sport as well as the exercise they would get while participating.  They have inherited some of my bad genes unfortunately.  I can look at food and gain weight.  I can eat a 100% cholesterol free diet and still have high cholesterol.  It is genetics at its worst.  They did get my striking good looks so I guess it is a toss up right? 

Through their friends at church they now realize that team sports can be fun and rewarding.  The oldest wants to play soccer and the youngest wants to play volleyball.  We are going to give it a go the next available opportunity.  They are both very interested in reading so it is hard to pull them away from their books to get them out but I think we may have an opportunity with this.

I didn't force them to participate in sports when they were younger because I knew it would be unsuccessful if they didn't want to do it.  Not sure if that was the right approach or not looking back.  We signed them up for several non-sports related things growing up but none of them really stuck.  The point was not to force them to do anything but let them at least experience it and see if that is what they enjoyed or not.  I probably should have done that with sports as well just to give them the experience to decide for themselves.  Maybe I will take a different approach with Baby K and Baby T-money if we get to adopt them.  I have a feeling I will have a lot more chances to get it right or at least more right!

Protect your data!

Just thought I would give you a tech tip for today!  Most everyone lives in a digital world these days I know we have our entire kids lives on disk from the time they were 3 or 4 until now and it would be irreplaceable if we lost all of those pictures and memories!  So what can you do?

Here is what we have done.  We have an external hard drive where we store all of our data as one line of protection.  If the Operating System freaks out or the internal hard drive crashes we have all of our data on an external drive.  To add another level of protection you can use AllWaySync (***Free product***) to sync your internal hard drive with your external hard drive in real time.  This gives you the data in two places.  This is a great protection plan however it does have limitations.  If there is a fire, or theft of your PC then both drives and data are gone!  So the next step is to get all of that data offsite.  I highly recommend Mozy.  This will copy your data from your hard drive to a data center.  For home use you get UNLIMITED storage for $5 a month.  You can not beat that!  So we have over 100GB of data offsite and protected.  If your hard drive crashes, is stolen, or you have some sort of other disaster then your data is safe and sound.  You can restore one file at a time if you delete something you didn't mean to or you can have them overnight you DVD's of your data.

So your data flow would look like this:
Internal Hard drive on your PC through  AllWaySync to your External Hard drive through Mozy to the offsite storage.  Both of these are set and forget programs meaning you set them up once and then they work in the background.

 

Ghost Hunters

My youngest daughter has an odd fascination with all things creepy.  Not sure where it came from or more importantly where it is going!  Nonetheless I thought it was time to entertain her with a little Halloween fun.  I decided to take the girls to a haunted house for the first time (They are in their early teens).  I figured it would go down like this... The oldest would be way too freaked out and decline to go and opt to stay at home and read and it would be me the youngest going out to pay people to scare us and pretend to try and kill us, you know, good clean fun.  Well turns out the oldest was super pumped and the youngest got pretty skittish.  Go figure. (Are you done figuring yet? OK I'll wait)

Well after hours of searching for a good haunted house I discovered that it was a minimum of $18 each for haunted houses in our area an there were really not any that were close.  I had one picked out that was about 45mins away and $10 each but when I looked up directions it ended up being 2hrs and 45mins away.  Not sure what happened there.  Darned internets!

So instead of the Haunted House we just stayed home and opened and closed the Power Bill, far scarier but somehow I can't help imagine less satisfying.  Maybe next year.

What happens when you write to a Senator?

Like a lot of people I was pretty passionate about the bailout plan and decided to write my senators because they took up the bill after the House rejected it. You know the story they stuck more pork in it and called it good! Then the House decided it finally had enough pork in it and blessed it as well! I still do not think this is the right choice for America because we were given no other alternatives it was this bill or depression. I saw one of my favorite financial guru's of all time Dave Ramsey (Common Sense Fix) on the Huccabee show the other day and he had some pretty great ideas but no one was listening unfortunately.

At any rate I went to the Texas congressmen/congresswoman's websites and e-mailed them requesting they vote no against the bill. Below is the response given by Kay Bailey Hutchison.

Dear Mr. F:

Thank you for contacting me regarding the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. I welcome your thoughts and comments on this issue.

On September 19, 2008, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced a plan by the Bush Administration to stabilize the financial services sector of the economy. This plan included broad authority for the Treasury Secretary to purchase troubled financial instruments with very limited oversight and few protections for taxpayers.

In July, I voted against a similar proposed bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac because it did not provide taxpayer protection and limits on executive compensation for a government owned entity. For the same reasons, I was not willing to support the Administration’s initial proposal, and I encouraged my colleagues to continue work on a plan that would protect taxpayers, provide strict oversight, and place limits on the benefits to executives who accept taxpayer assistance.

In the days following the Treasury Secretary’s announcement, concerns about the danger to the broader economy deepened. The high-profile failure of numerous financial institutions caused the commercial lending market to accumulate and hold cash. The credit markets effectively froze, making it difficult for consumers to obtain loans for purchases such as homes and automobiles. The lack of lending in these areas began to place further pressure on the troubled housing market and threatened to spread deeper into the economy. Similarly, many small and mid-sized businesses were finding it difficult to obtain financing to meet their payroll obligations and purchase inventory. Many cities were entering the bond market and getting no bids, even with AAA ratings. The current liquidity crisis still poses a real potential for significant job losses. After consulting with numerous financial experts, small businesses, and bankers in Texas, it became clear to me that normal commercial lending activity would not resume without action by Congress.

Despite this realization, I was still not inclined to support the Paulson plan. After weeks of negotiation, however, a bi-partisan compromise was reached. While there are provisions in the bill that I do not favor and would not have drafted, overall the need for action to stabilize the market and to protect the retirement savings of millions of Americans weighed heavily on my mind. Ultimately, I supported the Senate bill along with 73 of my colleagues. The bill we passed was a major improvement over the initial plan announced by Secretary Paulson.

We increased the deposit insurance cap from $100,000 to $250,000 so that families will have added protection for savings and retirement accounts. While the initial proposal authorized up to $700 billion to purchase distressed assets, the measure we passed takes a more cautious approach, initially authorizing $250 billion and requiring the approval from Congress and the President for additional funding. Importantly, the bill we passed includes restrictions on the benefits received by executives whose companies are selling some of their distressed assets to the government. In return for purchasing the assets, taxpayers will obtain an ownership stake in the companies. Many leading economists believe that the real estate market will turn around in the foreseeable future and government owned properties and assets will be sold at a profit. A provision in this bill that I supported requires any profits realized to be placed in the nation’s treasury to reduce the deficit. If, however, after five years the government is facing a loss in the program, the President must submit a plan to Congress recommending how the money will be recouped from financial services companies. I believe that these protections are a dramatic improvement over the Administration’s initial proposal.

The bill passed by the Senate included an important package of tax policy provisions. One of these provisions is an extension of the state and local sales tax deduction, which is a matter of fairness for states like Texas that do not have a state income tax. The average Texan will save $520 when they file their federal income tax forms next year. We also shielded low and middle-income taxpayers from higher taxes associated with the flawed alternative minimum tax (AMT) and included tax incentives to spur energy production and innovation including the wind energy production tax credit and the research and development tax credit.

As Texans, we have learned to take responsibility for our actions and being asked to pay for the mistakes of others is something many, including myself, find deeply troubling. However, after careful deliberation, I believe that the risks associated with doing nothing outweighed the risk of passing a less than perfect bill that nevertheless includes important protections for taxpayers. Economic evidence clearly suggested the problems were spreading into the broader economy. That is why I voted for the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act.

I appreciate hearing from you. Please do not hesitate to contact me on any issue of concern to you.

Sincerely,
Kay Bailey Hutchison
United States Senator

284 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-5922 (tel)
202-224-0776 (fax)
http://hutchison.senate.gov

What if firefighters ran the Congress?

I love this commercial.  This is the way congress should be run!  "This is a lot of paper to tell me we need clean water" "Do we need clean water guys?" "This is the easiest job I have ever had" Very true very true.

Answer the Question Already!

First of all please do not report me to child protective services but...  I made my 13 and 11 year old daughters watch the debate last night.  I knew they were not interested but I wanted them to get an idea of what there future is and how this election with affect them.  Probably and exercise in futility and more of a punishment than a civics lesson but they suffered through it.

Now to my point.  It drives me crazy listening to politicians talk sometimes.  They were asked very specific, pointed questions in the debate last night and neither of them would answer the questions given they would just spout out their "Plans" whether they were relevant to the question or not.  That is one thing my 11 year old noticed.  She asked "Did he answer the question?"  I said "No sweetie he didn't even come close".   They were too busy pointing fingers at each other and their respective parties to answer the questions.  "Obama voted for raising your taxes 97 times!"  If you don't know the secret of congress here it is:  They vote against funding the troops because somewhere deep in that bill to fund the troops is a "goodie" or "pork barrel" expenditure for growing mold in Alaska or something totally irrelevant to the bill itself but something that benefits the author of the bill.  Without the line item veto they have to pass or fail the bill as a whole so great legislation gets voted down all the time because there it junk in the bill likewise bad legislation gets passed sometimes.  Don't believe either candidate when they claim the other voted to kill puppies 27 times.  The part about killing puppies was attached to a bill that promotes better education so instead of throwing the baby out with the bath water they pass the bill that also kills puppies.

NOTE: No puppies were actually harmed during this post nor was there ever a bill that killed puppies it was just a ridiculous example to make a point.

Getting your Groove back

The dull thud of the bass drum, the slap of the snare, the sizzle of the high hats, the crash of the symbols, the low round notes of the bass guitar melding together to drive a song, to push it, to keep it together.  This is the groove of the song, it is one of those things you never notice until it is off.  The drummer speeds up and slows down or the bass player tries to do too much or too little and it is off and noticeably so. It is a symbiotic relationship. You generally never remember the groove but are more likely to remember the melody line, the hook, that is what gets stuck in your head, but the grove is what gets you tapping your feet or drumming your finger tips on the desk. 

I have played with many drummers over the years and by far the best relationship was with my brother.  Of course much of our DNA is identical so perhaps that helps but we knew what each other was going to do without it being said.  When he went to a drum role I knew to follow and I instinctively knew when he would end it.  I knew how to fit my bass line to compliment his drum style and when it was on it was magical.   With him it was instantaneous but with other drummers it took time and learning, it took defining the patterns, marking the timing, taking note of the style.

If you are married and have a family you and your wife produce the groove for your family, you push it, keep it on time, and in sync.  There are times when you get out of sync for one reason or another and just like the bass and drums it is noticeable.  We went through this recently as our family grew from 3 children to 5 children in a matter of days.  It threw us off our groove and it has been noticeable.  It has been about a month now and I finally feel the groove coming back, things are clicking and, the toes are starting to tap again, and the fingers starting to drum.  It is not audible, just like in music you feel the groove you don't always hear it. It is easy to disrupt the groove with practically anything but weather you realize it or not your family depends on that groove between you and your spouse. They may not know it but they can feel when it is off.  There will be many more disruptions to the groove but it is important we as parents get back in sync as quickly as possible.  Without it our lead instruments, our hooks, our children will have no foundation to spring from. 

The best and brightest?

We live in the best country in the world! Our government, although only 232 years old, is one of the best in the world!

We have some of the best Universities the world has to offer.  Our Universities are filled with the best and brightest of other countries because they know to get the best education they need to be educated on American soil.  In turn those students (most of them) fall in love with this country and decided to stay here, work here, raise families here, and fulfill the American dream.  As a result their countries are in an intellectual deficit.

Our founders framed a country that was by the people and for the people.  We have a say in what our government does.  They represent us as a whole in the way they vote.  They founded our freedoms in the Constitution and it has survived to this day as a complete document still governing our society.  It was extremely well thought out from the ground up.  While you may not agree with everything our government does, which it would be odd if you did, you would be hard pressed to find another better or even equal to it.  The fact that you can openly disagree with our government without fear of reprise is a testament to its greatness.

The United States is the most philanthropic nation in the world.  When there is a disaster anywhere in the world Americans are the first on the scene to offer Aide through our non-profit companies like the American Red Cross as well as huge sums of money from our federal government.  We take care of the world in times of need.  We come to the defense of our allies that can not defend themselves.  Some people call that the world police but if we do not take up for our allies then they will be taken over by our enemies.  The heart and bravery of our country is unparalleled throughout the world.

I said all of that to say this...  With a country full of the brightest, most caring, and wealthiest people in the world we end up with Obama and McCain as our only choice for the leader of the free world.  In my opinion these are not our brightest, our best.  Take off your blue jersey or red jersey for a second and realize that to make it to that level you have to be willing to play the political game which means you lend your ear to the lobbyist in return you get money for your campaign.  All that is required is you swing your power to look out for their best interests.  The best politicians never make it far enough to get voted on because they are not willing to sell their beliefs to the highest bidder.  This may sound like a contradiction to the first part of the post where I said that this is the best government in the world.  It has it's flaws but it is still the best.  We need reform at the top level, we need more than two parties to choose from, we need the lobbyist out of Washington and let this country get back to being run by the people and for the people.  We need honest politicians to choose from that are not going to sell their votes but will stand up for what they believe in.  Is Obama going to do that for us?  Is McCain?  The short answer is no.  You can be a Democrat or a Republican but I think it is dishonest to say they are the best we have to offer or that everything they do is right just because you wear the same jersey.

Vote for who you want to but if you do not vote then you have not earned the right to complain.  You still have time to register!