Old one but still true. Screw the world.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Tuesday, August 09, 2011
coming soon to a city near you...
If liberals and anarchists get organized pictures like this will soon be seen in NYC, LA, Miami, Chicago, Kansas City, (you get the idea)...
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Gay Marriage debate...
Lets compare the pro-gay marriage side...
versus the pro-traditional marriage side...
versus the pro-traditional marriage side...
Bad news electorally for Obama...
COOK POLITICAL REPORT ELECTORAL | ||||||
Solid Dem | Likely Dem | Lean Dem | Toss Up | Lean Rep | Likely Rep | Solid Rep |
| | | | | | | |
186 E.V. | 5 E.V. | 60 E.V. | 81 E.V. | 25 E.V. | 22 E.V. | 159 E.V. |
191 ELECTORAL VOTES | 270 ELECTORAL VOTES NEEDED TO WIN | |||||
251 ELECTORAL VOTES | 206 ELECTORAL VOTES | |||||
www.cookpolitical.com
v>Thursday, July 21, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Tuesday, July 05, 2011
why I support Herman Cain...
He is the real deal folks, and finally even the Gallup poll is noticing...
Positive intensity ranking: #1 out of all GOP candidates or potential candidates polled.
Positive intensity score (strongly favorable-strongly unfavorable): 26.
Strongly favorable: 26 percent (highest out of all GOP candidates or potential candidates).
Strongly unfavorable: 0 percent (only candidate in GOP field to have 0 percent "unfavorable").
Name recognition: 48 percent (up 8 points in a single month).
Total favorability: 77 percent (highest in entire GOP field).
Positive intensity ranking: #1 out of all GOP candidates or potential candidates polled.
Positive intensity score (strongly favorable-strongly unfavorable): 26.
Strongly favorable: 26 percent (highest out of all GOP candidates or potential candidates).
Strongly unfavorable: 0 percent (only candidate in GOP field to have 0 percent "unfavorable").
Name recognition: 48 percent (up 8 points in a single month).
Total favorability: 77 percent (highest in entire GOP field).
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
Dayton Wants a shutdown... and this proves it...
Crazy eyes, bipolar-alcoholic nutjob Mark Dayton (I think he might also be manic, believe me I would know, but thats another story) wants to shutdown the government. There is a devestating article in the star-trib op-ed section today that proves this.
First I'm going to show a picture of our disturbed governor...
Gov. Mark Dayton released his plan for a state government shutdown earlier this week, outlining the staff and services that his administration considers essential. The plan was filed in Ramsey County District Court, since the courts will play a major role in any shutdown planning.
While the governor's office says it considers all government services to be essential at some level, the shutdown plan includes only those "critical services to protect the lives and safety of Minnesotans."
The administration also emphasizes that the courts will ultimately determine which services are "critical." But the shutdown recommendations offer a telling glimpse of this administration's priorities and motives.
Dayton's plan is appalling -- not only for the services it deems "critical" but, more important, for those it does not. For example, the governor plans to stop all aid payments to schools.
Additionally, health care providers who serve Minnesotans on medical assistance will also go without payment. And at a legislative hearing this week, an administration official acknowledged that bridge assessments also did not make Dayton's list, apparently failing to meet the governor's "critical service" standard.
The clear strategy: Make any government shutdown hurt as much as possible, as quickly as possible, and as broadly as possible in order to coerce legislators into accepting Dayton's tax hike proposal.
Of course, the Dayton administration would never admit that. Instead, it insists that the state Constitution leaves it no choice but to stop paying health care providers and nursing homes, to stop aid payments to schools, and to take other devastating measures.
According to Rep. Ryan Winkler, a leading DFL voice on all things shutdown, it would be unconstitutional for the state to spend money on virtually anything if a budget deal is not reached by July 1. Winkler says "any spending without appropriation by law is not constitutional."
The Dayton administration has taken a similar stance.
(Of course, another problem with this argument is the fact that the Legislature passed a balanced budget that would have made appropriations for all state services had Dayton not vetoed it.)
Dayton is hiding behind the state's courts and Constitution to justify a cynical and draconian plan motivated more by politics than principle. For evidence, contrast Dayton's shutdown plan with those that preceded it.
Contingency planning for a government shutdown is nothing new to this state. Gov. Tim Pawlenty developed one prior to the state's 10-day partial shutdown in 2005, and Gov. Jesse Ventura planned for a shutdown that was ultimately averted in 2001.
A comparison of the plans is telling. Dayton has deemed as "critical" not only his media and communications staff, but also staff at his official residence. Among those employed at the governor's mansion are Dayton's chef and gardener.
In 2001, by comparison, Ventura planned to all but shutter the mansion. Aid payments to schools? They were included in the Ventura and Pawlenty plans.
Bridge assessments? They were included in the Ventura and Pawlenty plans. Health care? Again, the Dayton administration is alone in its recommendation to stop paying those who provide care for vulnerable Minnesotans.
Dayton's omissions are especially glaring in light of some of the services included in his plan. The state's dentistry board would continue to operate under a Dayton shutdown. Maintenance at Giant's Ridge resort would also continue.
And while Dayton does not plan to pay those who provide health care for vulnerable Minnesotans, he does plan to pay those who care for the state's bison herd.
Dayton's shutdown plans may soon be a moot point. Legislative leaders offered a new proposal to the governor Thursday, offering to remove more than $200 million in tax relief from their budget if Dayton agrees to drop his demand for a tax hike.
Perhaps the two sides are finally approaching a final agreement on how to operate this state for the next two years. Maybe on July 1, instead of preparing for a devastating shutdown, Minnesotans will be planning a relaxing July 4 weekend.
For the sake of the many Minnesotans who would suffer most under a government shutdown, let's hope so.
First I'm going to show a picture of our disturbed governor...
Gov. Mark Dayton released his plan for a state government shutdown earlier this week, outlining the staff and services that his administration considers essential. The plan was filed in Ramsey County District Court, since the courts will play a major role in any shutdown planning.
While the governor's office says it considers all government services to be essential at some level, the shutdown plan includes only those "critical services to protect the lives and safety of Minnesotans."
The administration also emphasizes that the courts will ultimately determine which services are "critical." But the shutdown recommendations offer a telling glimpse of this administration's priorities and motives.
Dayton's plan is appalling -- not only for the services it deems "critical" but, more important, for those it does not. For example, the governor plans to stop all aid payments to schools.
Additionally, health care providers who serve Minnesotans on medical assistance will also go without payment. And at a legislative hearing this week, an administration official acknowledged that bridge assessments also did not make Dayton's list, apparently failing to meet the governor's "critical service" standard.
The clear strategy: Make any government shutdown hurt as much as possible, as quickly as possible, and as broadly as possible in order to coerce legislators into accepting Dayton's tax hike proposal.
Of course, the Dayton administration would never admit that. Instead, it insists that the state Constitution leaves it no choice but to stop paying health care providers and nursing homes, to stop aid payments to schools, and to take other devastating measures.
According to Rep. Ryan Winkler, a leading DFL voice on all things shutdown, it would be unconstitutional for the state to spend money on virtually anything if a budget deal is not reached by July 1. Winkler says "any spending without appropriation by law is not constitutional."
The Dayton administration has taken a similar stance.
(Of course, another problem with this argument is the fact that the Legislature passed a balanced budget that would have made appropriations for all state services had Dayton not vetoed it.)
Dayton is hiding behind the state's courts and Constitution to justify a cynical and draconian plan motivated more by politics than principle. For evidence, contrast Dayton's shutdown plan with those that preceded it.
Contingency planning for a government shutdown is nothing new to this state. Gov. Tim Pawlenty developed one prior to the state's 10-day partial shutdown in 2005, and Gov. Jesse Ventura planned for a shutdown that was ultimately averted in 2001.
A comparison of the plans is telling. Dayton has deemed as "critical" not only his media and communications staff, but also staff at his official residence. Among those employed at the governor's mansion are Dayton's chef and gardener.
In 2001, by comparison, Ventura planned to all but shutter the mansion. Aid payments to schools? They were included in the Ventura and Pawlenty plans.
Bridge assessments? They were included in the Ventura and Pawlenty plans. Health care? Again, the Dayton administration is alone in its recommendation to stop paying those who provide care for vulnerable Minnesotans.
Dayton's omissions are especially glaring in light of some of the services included in his plan. The state's dentistry board would continue to operate under a Dayton shutdown. Maintenance at Giant's Ridge resort would also continue.
And while Dayton does not plan to pay those who provide health care for vulnerable Minnesotans, he does plan to pay those who care for the state's bison herd.
Dayton's shutdown plans may soon be a moot point. Legislative leaders offered a new proposal to the governor Thursday, offering to remove more than $200 million in tax relief from their budget if Dayton agrees to drop his demand for a tax hike.
Perhaps the two sides are finally approaching a final agreement on how to operate this state for the next two years. Maybe on July 1, instead of preparing for a devastating shutdown, Minnesotans will be planning a relaxing July 4 weekend.
For the sake of the many Minnesotans who would suffer most under a government shutdown, let's hope so.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Life gets better, for everyone...
There is a thing going around called "it gets better" to encourage gay teens from other gays that life gets better. But why limit it to that? My life was hell from 11-15 and it did get better and continues to but I'm not gay, never have been. So where is the heterosexual teen to turn to? Well John Cheese of Cracked.com puts it into better terms than I ever could.
In the last year you've probably heard "It gets better" used as a motto to encourage gay teens who've been the victims of bullying. This is not a rebuttal of that, because I am not an asshole. What I do want to do is expand that message to everyone that age, whether you have a bully problem or not.
I figure it's time, as I tend to write about dark and often brutally depressing subjects, like how I was a smoldering drunk for over half of my life and how much my parents sucked at being parents. But I do it for a reason. I figure there are a lot of people in the same situation who feel like they're alone. That's always the worst part about having a shitty life in your teens or 20s, feeling like everyone else in the world has it figured out but you.
So, as a man with a truly shitty past, let me say that it's not just a slogan. It does get better. Specifically ...
#5.The Money Situation Will Improve (Even if it Doesn't)
I'm not saying you'll be rich when you grow up. I'm saying it's really not about money. It's about freedom.
My girlfriend and I recently broke into the middle class after years of living one paycheck away from homelessness. And when I say "years" I mean all the years from age 15 to age 36. It was never easy, and often was the emotional equivalent of being on the receiving end of a never-ending gang fuck by a herd of Flavor Flavs.
But even at the lowest point of that bottomless pit of gold-plated testicles and giant clock necklaces, I wouldn't have traded it for a chance to be 15-years-old again. Why? Because at this stage of your life, you finally have some control over the situation. And when we talk about things getting better, this is at the heart of it.
As a kid, you just have to sit back and take it, not fully understanding why you're living the way you are. You're dependent on your parents' decisions and actions, whether they lead to bankruptcy or a new swimming pool. A lot of that pressure you're feeling in your teens and 20s is really just powerlessness. You feel like instead of driving the car, you're tied up in the trunk.
When you get out on your own, your financial future is yours, and you can steer that bastard where you want it to go. It's not easy, but even when it's hard there is something liberating about the fact that even if you crash our proverbial car through the front window of a liquor store, it was your decision.
And just to make sure you didn't skip over the "it's not easy" part: If you think "it gets better" means you can sit back and wait for a naked genie to fart cash into your living room, it will not. "It gets better" doesn't mean life lets up, it means you no longer have to submit to it. Not like when you're a kid, when your parents can divorce without your consent or make you change schools or make you get a stupid haircut. When you're an adult, you can get pissed and swing back.
Please, don't wait as long as I did to learn that lesson. My entire adolescent life was spent in poverty because my parents gave up and just accepted that life was a spiked enema, and they just had to bend over and take it. They made no effort to improve their situation, and so that's the lesson my siblings and I took with us when we got out on our own. "There is no escaping your financial fate."
I didn't push back until I was forced to. After 14 years of working an incredibly insufficient, shitty job, my back finally said, "Fuck this," and I was physically unable to do it anymore. I had nothing to go to. No backup plan. No savings. No family to turn to. And then I realized that I did in fact have skills that people would pay me to perform.When I wasn't writing, I was putting in applications all over town. In the next town. In towns 30 minutes away. I applied to places online. When there was no gas in the truck, I walked to put in more applications. I swung harder. There are some days that I write for 16 straight hours, knowing that everything I just typed will be deleted and replaced with a completely different idea, or rejected outright. And that's OK because the success or failure is mine, not somebody else's. You can't put a price on that.
#4.You Will Find Someone
There's a human trait that can sometimes be incredibly beneficial to growth, while at the same time devastating to morale. And that's the desire to have something right fucking here, right goddamn now. If you point that urgency toward something like getting a better job or a promotion, it can be a powerful tool. That urgency is what made all human civilization possible.
It's not so hot when you're lonely and want a companion -- especially when you're young and watching all of your friends joining the boob buffet and you're still alone every weekend. I've seen over and over in my life, people (including myself) who sink into depression because they don't feel that they're ever going to find love. So they look, and look, and look. Depending on who you are, you'll try bars, grocery stores, libraries, online dating services, friends of your mother. Then you latch onto the very first person who pays you any attention, even if they're not right for you. Because, shit, what if nobody else ever comes along?
Then months or years later, you find yourself lonely again, or worse: in a catastrophically bad relationship that you're afraid to leave. "It's better to be in this shitty hookup than to be alone," you'll tell yourself, knowing on some level that you're full of shit. Eventually you get to the point where you blame yourself. "I'm too fat. Nobody will ever love me." "I have this third arm growing out of my forehead. I have no chance." What is hard to realize from that state of mind is that it's the desperation itself that's screwing you. If you're trying too hard, people can smell that a mile away. That in itself is ass-repellant.
I'm not sure I've ever met someone who went their whole life without a "significant other." But I've met plenty of people whose dates took an abrupt halt when they let slip with, "God, before you came along, I was just close to putting a gun to my temple and- oh, the steak is finally here!"
You have to relax. It turns out some lessons taught by romantic comedies aren't full of shit: Concentrate on taking care of yourself first, because 90 percent of a relationship's success is a matter of maturing into the type of person other people want to be around.
If you're young (in high school or college) you don't even know who you are yet. Those early, failed relationships, or lack of a relationship, do not doom your prospects for romance for the rest of your life. Hell, at this point it wouldn't even matter if you met the love of your life -- you haven't even fully become the person who will eventually have something to offer them. Getting down about success with romance at this point is like giving up on a team in the preseason. In your early 20s, your starting players haven't even come off the bench yet.
But this still applies later in life -- I got divorced after a 10 year marriage, and found myself right back in that same, desperate place, scared of being alone. I didn't find anyone until I decided to stop worrying about that and start worrying about making less of a mess of my life. It makes sense, looking back -- when you're in that desperation mode, you put up fronts, and try to be the person you think the guy or girl wants. And that may work for one night, but when you both settle down, that outer "first impression" shell disappears, and you turn into you. Suddenly, you're "not the person I knew when we first met." And they're right. Because the person they met wasn't you.
If you get more comfortable with yourself, you stop trying so hard, you get more relaxed and don't feel like you have to work so hard to hide your true self. You don't stop looking for someone, I don't mean that; you just stop hating yourself so hard for not finding them. I know it sounds like a Catch-22, but it's the lack of self-hatred that will make you attractive.
#3.High School is NOT the Best Years of Your Life
I'm not going to sugar coat this: Adults tell you that high school is the best time you'll ever have because they've forgotten what it was like. They just remember the part where they didn't have to worry about bills, and their hindsight becomes so focused and narrow that it couldn't see the period at the end of this sentence.
The truth is, for many if not most of us, high school is one of the most difficult times you'll ever live through. At that age, you're expected to act like an adult while gaining none of the benefits of adulthood. You are criticized for virtually everything you do by just about every adult in your social and family circle. You're expected to start holding up responsibilities, but under their rules.
Everything I said above about how you need to be yourself and grow into a fully formed human being before your life can really start? Those teen years don't make it easy. If you look at porn, you have to hide it. If you hang out with friends that your parents don't approve of, you have to cover it up. When you go out, you have to be home by their set schedule. The house is decorated their way. You eat what they cook. You dress to their standards. You lose every argument because "You're only 16, you don't know what you're talking about yet."
And the entire time you're dealing with all of this stress, your body is fucking with you from the inside out, blasting you with hormones and chemicals that you've never experienced in your entire life until right now. You're sexually awkward because you don't have much, if any, experience. If you're not ready for sex, you're made to feel like an outcast, and you're instantly ostracized from certain social groups. It is terrifyingly hard. Some people don't make it through. You fucking will. Why?
In just a few years, you'll be on your own. Maybe you'll go to college or maybe you'll start work right away. Either way, you will, for the first time in your life, be the master of your own domain. You'll come home from a hard day's work and throw your pants on the floor because they're your pants. It's your floor. Your rules. And as you spend the rest of your pantsless day, relaxing on your self-made pantscarpet, there's not a goddamn thing anyone can do about it.
Why? Because...
#2.Until You're On Your Own, You Don't Know What Freedom Is
First of all, don't look at your parents boring lives and assume that being an adult means living according to their template. No, you don't have to ditch the video games and take up a "grown up" hobby like golf if you don't feel like it. See, once you're an adult, you get to decide.
Want to stay up until 4 a.m. on a Wednesday? Go for it. Want to eat straight whipped cream right out of the container? Have at it. Adulthood is being able to get into your car at 2 a.m. and just drive for no reason at all. It's growing past being dragged to Mom's church every Sunday and being able to decide for yourself what you want to believe. It's eating pie for supper. It's choosing your own friends and buying your own clothes. It's sitting three feet from the TV screen, just because you fucking can. It's watching a movie for no other reason than it has a lesbian sex scene with Natalie Portman.
That's not to say that there are no repercussions for doing those things, but by God this is your life now, and you have the right to learn those lessons in any way you choose. You own those repercussions. They're yours, no one can take them from you.
For instance, almost everyone I've ever met -- and I've lived in six major cities in the United States -- complains that they "have to get out of this shitty town." I heard it in small-town Illinois, I heard it in Los Angeles, I heard it in Minneapolis. There are like two dozen hit rock songs from the 80s on that subject. Well, as an adult, you have every right and every opportunity to make that happen. You might fuck it up and wind up living in your car, but it was your doing. That freedom is the most powerful tool you'll ever own, and it's exactly what enables you to continue growing. And you will grow.
Yes, you'll have problems. But they'll be your problems. And besides, what would you do without them? The problems are what get you out of bed in the morning. They're what makes succeeding at things such a goddamned rush. You can't be a dragon slayer without dragons.
People talk about a "real world" after graduation, as if that's when the "real" stress starts. And in some ways, they're right. But nothing takes away from the feeling of being at the wheel, doing things on your own terms. Besides, there's something you should know about the "real world" ...
#1.The World isn't as Bad as You Think
When you're a kid, your parents shelter you from the worst of what's really going on in the world. As you get older, your worldview changes and expands. You start to think outside of your own town and social circle. You'll see a metric fuckload of bad news. Violence, government scandals, wars over seemingly petty bullshit. At some point (maybe later in high school but most seem to save it for the college years) you'll get cynical. "Why should I live in this world when it's so shitty?" Or later, "How can I bring a child into this living hell?"
We forget that what is happening now is the opposite of what your parents did. They sheltered you from bad news, but the news media shelters you from good news. They literally filter it out; among all of this horrible information coming out of the nightly news, there is so much good that goes unreported because it doesn't get the same ratings.
But as for the bad shit, there has to come a point where you realize the same thing I've touched on over and over again in this article: As an adult, you are now part of the world and you do have some power to change it. As a kid, you didn't have the power to change shit.
The reason you need to live in a world with all of this shitty news is because that world needs you to help fix it. The reason you can bring a child into this life is because when you pass on your morals and beliefs to them, that's one more soldier on the field to fight for the good side.
Chances are you're not going to show up and disarm a bomb at the last second on a plane filled with a hundred innocent people. But you can absolutely donate some trivial amount of money to make sure some farmer in some oppressed country can get medicine to his family so that they can help him harvest the crops that will in turn feed entire villages.
Life gets better because you're going to make it better. Because you'll have the power and the freedom to make it better.
It's incredibly difficult for a teenager in the throes of angst or a college kid knee-deep in debt and stress to see any of that. Depression is like that. It shrinks your view of the world, it chokes off the horizon. You feel like you're being tea-bagged by life -- its hairy ass cheeks planted firmly over your eyes so you can't see anything else.
Don't mistake those ass cheeks for the whole world. The world is actually out there, beyond that ass, and time and effort will make that clear. You have to survive it first though. I promise you, it gets better.
In the last year you've probably heard "It gets better" used as a motto to encourage gay teens who've been the victims of bullying. This is not a rebuttal of that, because I am not an asshole. What I do want to do is expand that message to everyone that age, whether you have a bully problem or not.
I figure it's time, as I tend to write about dark and often brutally depressing subjects, like how I was a smoldering drunk for over half of my life and how much my parents sucked at being parents. But I do it for a reason. I figure there are a lot of people in the same situation who feel like they're alone. That's always the worst part about having a shitty life in your teens or 20s, feeling like everyone else in the world has it figured out but you.
So, as a man with a truly shitty past, let me say that it's not just a slogan. It does get better. Specifically ...
#5.The Money Situation Will Improve (Even if it Doesn't)
I'm not saying you'll be rich when you grow up. I'm saying it's really not about money. It's about freedom.
My girlfriend and I recently broke into the middle class after years of living one paycheck away from homelessness. And when I say "years" I mean all the years from age 15 to age 36. It was never easy, and often was the emotional equivalent of being on the receiving end of a never-ending gang fuck by a herd of Flavor Flavs.
But even at the lowest point of that bottomless pit of gold-plated testicles and giant clock necklaces, I wouldn't have traded it for a chance to be 15-years-old again. Why? Because at this stage of your life, you finally have some control over the situation. And when we talk about things getting better, this is at the heart of it.
As a kid, you just have to sit back and take it, not fully understanding why you're living the way you are. You're dependent on your parents' decisions and actions, whether they lead to bankruptcy or a new swimming pool. A lot of that pressure you're feeling in your teens and 20s is really just powerlessness. You feel like instead of driving the car, you're tied up in the trunk.
When you get out on your own, your financial future is yours, and you can steer that bastard where you want it to go. It's not easy, but even when it's hard there is something liberating about the fact that even if you crash our proverbial car through the front window of a liquor store, it was your decision.
And just to make sure you didn't skip over the "it's not easy" part: If you think "it gets better" means you can sit back and wait for a naked genie to fart cash into your living room, it will not. "It gets better" doesn't mean life lets up, it means you no longer have to submit to it. Not like when you're a kid, when your parents can divorce without your consent or make you change schools or make you get a stupid haircut. When you're an adult, you can get pissed and swing back.
Please, don't wait as long as I did to learn that lesson. My entire adolescent life was spent in poverty because my parents gave up and just accepted that life was a spiked enema, and they just had to bend over and take it. They made no effort to improve their situation, and so that's the lesson my siblings and I took with us when we got out on our own. "There is no escaping your financial fate."
I didn't push back until I was forced to. After 14 years of working an incredibly insufficient, shitty job, my back finally said, "Fuck this," and I was physically unable to do it anymore. I had nothing to go to. No backup plan. No savings. No family to turn to. And then I realized that I did in fact have skills that people would pay me to perform.When I wasn't writing, I was putting in applications all over town. In the next town. In towns 30 minutes away. I applied to places online. When there was no gas in the truck, I walked to put in more applications. I swung harder. There are some days that I write for 16 straight hours, knowing that everything I just typed will be deleted and replaced with a completely different idea, or rejected outright. And that's OK because the success or failure is mine, not somebody else's. You can't put a price on that.
#4.You Will Find Someone
There's a human trait that can sometimes be incredibly beneficial to growth, while at the same time devastating to morale. And that's the desire to have something right fucking here, right goddamn now. If you point that urgency toward something like getting a better job or a promotion, it can be a powerful tool. That urgency is what made all human civilization possible.
It's not so hot when you're lonely and want a companion -- especially when you're young and watching all of your friends joining the boob buffet and you're still alone every weekend. I've seen over and over in my life, people (including myself) who sink into depression because they don't feel that they're ever going to find love. So they look, and look, and look. Depending on who you are, you'll try bars, grocery stores, libraries, online dating services, friends of your mother. Then you latch onto the very first person who pays you any attention, even if they're not right for you. Because, shit, what if nobody else ever comes along?
Then months or years later, you find yourself lonely again, or worse: in a catastrophically bad relationship that you're afraid to leave. "It's better to be in this shitty hookup than to be alone," you'll tell yourself, knowing on some level that you're full of shit. Eventually you get to the point where you blame yourself. "I'm too fat. Nobody will ever love me." "I have this third arm growing out of my forehead. I have no chance." What is hard to realize from that state of mind is that it's the desperation itself that's screwing you. If you're trying too hard, people can smell that a mile away. That in itself is ass-repellant.
I'm not sure I've ever met someone who went their whole life without a "significant other." But I've met plenty of people whose dates took an abrupt halt when they let slip with, "God, before you came along, I was just close to putting a gun to my temple and- oh, the steak is finally here!"
You have to relax. It turns out some lessons taught by romantic comedies aren't full of shit: Concentrate on taking care of yourself first, because 90 percent of a relationship's success is a matter of maturing into the type of person other people want to be around.
If you're young (in high school or college) you don't even know who you are yet. Those early, failed relationships, or lack of a relationship, do not doom your prospects for romance for the rest of your life. Hell, at this point it wouldn't even matter if you met the love of your life -- you haven't even fully become the person who will eventually have something to offer them. Getting down about success with romance at this point is like giving up on a team in the preseason. In your early 20s, your starting players haven't even come off the bench yet.
But this still applies later in life -- I got divorced after a 10 year marriage, and found myself right back in that same, desperate place, scared of being alone. I didn't find anyone until I decided to stop worrying about that and start worrying about making less of a mess of my life. It makes sense, looking back -- when you're in that desperation mode, you put up fronts, and try to be the person you think the guy or girl wants. And that may work for one night, but when you both settle down, that outer "first impression" shell disappears, and you turn into you. Suddenly, you're "not the person I knew when we first met." And they're right. Because the person they met wasn't you.
If you get more comfortable with yourself, you stop trying so hard, you get more relaxed and don't feel like you have to work so hard to hide your true self. You don't stop looking for someone, I don't mean that; you just stop hating yourself so hard for not finding them. I know it sounds like a Catch-22, but it's the lack of self-hatred that will make you attractive.
#3.High School is NOT the Best Years of Your Life
I'm not going to sugar coat this: Adults tell you that high school is the best time you'll ever have because they've forgotten what it was like. They just remember the part where they didn't have to worry about bills, and their hindsight becomes so focused and narrow that it couldn't see the period at the end of this sentence.
The truth is, for many if not most of us, high school is one of the most difficult times you'll ever live through. At that age, you're expected to act like an adult while gaining none of the benefits of adulthood. You are criticized for virtually everything you do by just about every adult in your social and family circle. You're expected to start holding up responsibilities, but under their rules.
Everything I said above about how you need to be yourself and grow into a fully formed human being before your life can really start? Those teen years don't make it easy. If you look at porn, you have to hide it. If you hang out with friends that your parents don't approve of, you have to cover it up. When you go out, you have to be home by their set schedule. The house is decorated their way. You eat what they cook. You dress to their standards. You lose every argument because "You're only 16, you don't know what you're talking about yet."
And the entire time you're dealing with all of this stress, your body is fucking with you from the inside out, blasting you with hormones and chemicals that you've never experienced in your entire life until right now. You're sexually awkward because you don't have much, if any, experience. If you're not ready for sex, you're made to feel like an outcast, and you're instantly ostracized from certain social groups. It is terrifyingly hard. Some people don't make it through. You fucking will. Why?
In just a few years, you'll be on your own. Maybe you'll go to college or maybe you'll start work right away. Either way, you will, for the first time in your life, be the master of your own domain. You'll come home from a hard day's work and throw your pants on the floor because they're your pants. It's your floor. Your rules. And as you spend the rest of your pantsless day, relaxing on your self-made pantscarpet, there's not a goddamn thing anyone can do about it.
Why? Because...
#2.Until You're On Your Own, You Don't Know What Freedom Is
First of all, don't look at your parents boring lives and assume that being an adult means living according to their template. No, you don't have to ditch the video games and take up a "grown up" hobby like golf if you don't feel like it. See, once you're an adult, you get to decide.
Want to stay up until 4 a.m. on a Wednesday? Go for it. Want to eat straight whipped cream right out of the container? Have at it. Adulthood is being able to get into your car at 2 a.m. and just drive for no reason at all. It's growing past being dragged to Mom's church every Sunday and being able to decide for yourself what you want to believe. It's eating pie for supper. It's choosing your own friends and buying your own clothes. It's sitting three feet from the TV screen, just because you fucking can. It's watching a movie for no other reason than it has a lesbian sex scene with Natalie Portman.
That's not to say that there are no repercussions for doing those things, but by God this is your life now, and you have the right to learn those lessons in any way you choose. You own those repercussions. They're yours, no one can take them from you.
For instance, almost everyone I've ever met -- and I've lived in six major cities in the United States -- complains that they "have to get out of this shitty town." I heard it in small-town Illinois, I heard it in Los Angeles, I heard it in Minneapolis. There are like two dozen hit rock songs from the 80s on that subject. Well, as an adult, you have every right and every opportunity to make that happen. You might fuck it up and wind up living in your car, but it was your doing. That freedom is the most powerful tool you'll ever own, and it's exactly what enables you to continue growing. And you will grow.
Yes, you'll have problems. But they'll be your problems. And besides, what would you do without them? The problems are what get you out of bed in the morning. They're what makes succeeding at things such a goddamned rush. You can't be a dragon slayer without dragons.
People talk about a "real world" after graduation, as if that's when the "real" stress starts. And in some ways, they're right. But nothing takes away from the feeling of being at the wheel, doing things on your own terms. Besides, there's something you should know about the "real world" ...
#1.The World isn't as Bad as You Think
When you're a kid, your parents shelter you from the worst of what's really going on in the world. As you get older, your worldview changes and expands. You start to think outside of your own town and social circle. You'll see a metric fuckload of bad news. Violence, government scandals, wars over seemingly petty bullshit. At some point (maybe later in high school but most seem to save it for the college years) you'll get cynical. "Why should I live in this world when it's so shitty?" Or later, "How can I bring a child into this living hell?"
We forget that what is happening now is the opposite of what your parents did. They sheltered you from bad news, but the news media shelters you from good news. They literally filter it out; among all of this horrible information coming out of the nightly news, there is so much good that goes unreported because it doesn't get the same ratings.
But as for the bad shit, there has to come a point where you realize the same thing I've touched on over and over again in this article: As an adult, you are now part of the world and you do have some power to change it. As a kid, you didn't have the power to change shit.
The reason you need to live in a world with all of this shitty news is because that world needs you to help fix it. The reason you can bring a child into this life is because when you pass on your morals and beliefs to them, that's one more soldier on the field to fight for the good side.
Chances are you're not going to show up and disarm a bomb at the last second on a plane filled with a hundred innocent people. But you can absolutely donate some trivial amount of money to make sure some farmer in some oppressed country can get medicine to his family so that they can help him harvest the crops that will in turn feed entire villages.
Life gets better because you're going to make it better. Because you'll have the power and the freedom to make it better.
It's incredibly difficult for a teenager in the throes of angst or a college kid knee-deep in debt and stress to see any of that. Depression is like that. It shrinks your view of the world, it chokes off the horizon. You feel like you're being tea-bagged by life -- its hairy ass cheeks planted firmly over your eyes so you can't see anything else.
Don't mistake those ass cheeks for the whole world. The world is actually out there, beyond that ass, and time and effort will make that clear. You have to survive it first though. I promise you, it gets better.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Dayton Wants a shutdown...
From Freedom Dogs...
Derek's post here indicates the possibility of a plan on part of the DFL and Dayton to shut down our state government and blame the Republicans. Yesterday, I received another letter supporting the same idea - in other words, no "negotiation" with the DFL will work.
This is the email I received. Underlining and bold are mine. [comments are also mine]
Clients and friends,
We just received fairly reliable information from the Administration that there is a good chance that the Governor's shutdown plan will include terminating payments to both health plans and health care providers for all government programs effective July 1. We believe that the decision may be that, even though eligibility for programs will continue, providers and health plans will not be paid for providing their services and coverage. The intent appears to be to have an immediate, strong impact of the shutdown to create the greatest possible pain and resulting pressure on the Legislature to resolve the dispute. [A planned attack on our legislators and the still-working people of MN - that is, Dayton will only want a tax increase - those who believe this is only on the rich will have a very pricey awakening]
Many of you would be seriously, if not fatally, damaged by an extended period of time with no payments under government programs. For this reason, we are planning to work with other health care organizations to try to plan and launch an aggressive media, grassroots and lobbying campaign directed toward legislators who are swing votes in overcoming the deadlock and to maintain as much health care program funding as possible. [So pressure the legislature to spend money we don't have; let Dayton increase taxes on MN; where will this money come from?]
We are organizing a meeting for next week and will send you an invitation and more details as soon as we can. We are also asking for data from DHS and other sources to quantify the impact of the vetoed HHS bill by county and hope to be able to share the data at the meeting so that advocacy efforts can be supported by data on the impact on each legislator's district.
If you are aware of any data or analysis on the impact of the HHS bill, please forward it to me. Also, if you have seen some effective communications messages and personal stories that you think are especially effective, please share them with me, too.
This past Monday, June 6, I was told Governor Dayton was a "no-show" at a scheduled state meeting to discuss the budget with the MN Senate. Yesterday, after hearing a panel of Republican representatives, we were told that Governor Dayton has not given his commissioners any negotiating power. They go to hearings in St. Paul but can't day or do anything.
Why does it appear that the "party of the people" is out destroy business, tax the daylights out of everyone else and hurt the very people they claim they want to help? IMO, control, control, control but to what end?
What can you do?
Support your legislators - "Hold the line!"
Write to your local paper - Dayton and his people are now playing with people's lives. There is enough money to keep these places going - Dayton simply wants more.
Stand strong legislative Republicans!
Derek's post here indicates the possibility of a plan on part of the DFL and Dayton to shut down our state government and blame the Republicans. Yesterday, I received another letter supporting the same idea - in other words, no "negotiation" with the DFL will work.
This is the email I received. Underlining and bold are mine. [comments are also mine]
Clients and friends,
We just received fairly reliable information from the Administration that there is a good chance that the Governor's shutdown plan will include terminating payments to both health plans and health care providers for all government programs effective July 1. We believe that the decision may be that, even though eligibility for programs will continue, providers and health plans will not be paid for providing their services and coverage. The intent appears to be to have an immediate, strong impact of the shutdown to create the greatest possible pain and resulting pressure on the Legislature to resolve the dispute. [A planned attack on our legislators and the still-working people of MN - that is, Dayton will only want a tax increase - those who believe this is only on the rich will have a very pricey awakening]
Many of you would be seriously, if not fatally, damaged by an extended period of time with no payments under government programs. For this reason, we are planning to work with other health care organizations to try to plan and launch an aggressive media, grassroots and lobbying campaign directed toward legislators who are swing votes in overcoming the deadlock and to maintain as much health care program funding as possible. [So pressure the legislature to spend money we don't have; let Dayton increase taxes on MN; where will this money come from?]
We are organizing a meeting for next week and will send you an invitation and more details as soon as we can. We are also asking for data from DHS and other sources to quantify the impact of the vetoed HHS bill by county and hope to be able to share the data at the meeting so that advocacy efforts can be supported by data on the impact on each legislator's district.
If you are aware of any data or analysis on the impact of the HHS bill, please forward it to me. Also, if you have seen some effective communications messages and personal stories that you think are especially effective, please share them with me, too.
This past Monday, June 6, I was told Governor Dayton was a "no-show" at a scheduled state meeting to discuss the budget with the MN Senate. Yesterday, after hearing a panel of Republican representatives, we were told that Governor Dayton has not given his commissioners any negotiating power. They go to hearings in St. Paul but can't day or do anything.
Why does it appear that the "party of the people" is out destroy business, tax the daylights out of everyone else and hurt the very people they claim they want to help? IMO, control, control, control but to what end?
What can you do?
Support your legislators - "Hold the line!"
Write to your local paper - Dayton and his people are now playing with people's lives. There is enough money to keep these places going - Dayton simply wants more.
Stand strong legislative Republicans!
Sunday, May 29, 2011
weep for my generation...
Look I know this thread was on a videogame site but still, very disheartening to say the least...
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.287757-Overpopulation-Resources-running-out-What-do-we-do-about-these-things
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.287757-Overpopulation-Resources-running-out-What-do-we-do-about-these-things
Friday, May 27, 2011
Got to see it to believe it...
Its always nice when liberals show their true colors. They hate free speech, well speech that they don't like at least. What happened to dissent being the highest form of patriotism?
Video: DC Liberals Sign Petition to Ban Conservative Websites
Video: DC Liberals Sign Petition to Ban Conservative Websites
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Earthquake "predicted" for tomorrow in Italy...
Normally stuff like this is just laughed off but I am intrigued by this. There was this seismologist in Italy that predicted that Italy would be hit by a 'Big One' on May 11, 2011. The odd thing about the prediction is he made it 96 YEARS AGO. Unusual yes but I'd thought I'd post it on the (very) outside chance this actually happens. From the Telegraph...
By Nick Pisa in Rome 4:21PM BST 10 May 2011
Businesses have reported requests from one in five people to have time off work and many are also keeping children away from school and heading to the beach or country for the day.
Romans are taking it so seriously that local newspapers have even been publishing survival guides with tips of what to do – if – the ground starts to tremble.
The panic has been fanned by Facebook, Twitter and text messages around a prediction by Raffaele Bendani, a seismologist who forecast in 1915 that a "big one" would hit Rome on Wednesday.
He is also said to have predicted other earthquakes which hit Italy during the last hundred years before his death in 1979.
Massimo La Rocca, headmaster of a school in the Trastevere district, said: "We have had quite a few parents calling in and saying they will not be sending their children in."I've told them the school will remain open and there is nothing to be scared about but they are adamant – although this is not a justifiable absence for a pupil."
A barman named Massimo said: "People have been talking about this for the last week. I know dozens who are taking the day off – I'm going to sleep in the camper van with the wife to be on the safe side."
Bendandi believed movement of plates and therefore earthquakes were the result of the combined movements of the planets, the moon and the sun and perfectly predictable.
In 1923 he predicted a quake would hit central Italy on January 2 the following year – he was wrong by two days.
For his work Bendandi was even given a knighthood by Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini – and ordered not to make any more predictions on pain of exile as officials feared he would create immense panic.
However seismologists have been quick to step in and say his theories are without any scientific proof and despite his claims earthquakes are completely unpredictable.
Seismologist Alessandro Amato, who works at the Italy's National Geophysical and Volcanology Institute, said:"There is absolutely no evidence to say that an earthquake will hit Rome on 11th May and we have told that to the hundreds of people who have called.
"There is a possibility that on the day in question the country as a whole will have an average of 30 or so tremors but that is perfectly normal and the figure we expect.
"It is not scientifically possible to predict the exact date that an earthquake will occur and that's why we are holding these open days at the Institute to better inform people."
An estimated 20 million people live at risk from earthquakes in Italy, which is also home to some of the most active volcanoes in Europe.
The Eurasian and African plates meet along a line which runs through North Africa and crosses the Mediterranean near south Italy and Greece. As a result, two main fault lines cut across the Italian peninsula. Memories are still vivid of an earthquake in the central Italian city of L'Aquilam which lies to the north of Rome, in 2009, which killed 300 people.
By Nick Pisa in Rome 4:21PM BST 10 May 2011
Businesses have reported requests from one in five people to have time off work and many are also keeping children away from school and heading to the beach or country for the day.
Romans are taking it so seriously that local newspapers have even been publishing survival guides with tips of what to do – if – the ground starts to tremble.
The panic has been fanned by Facebook, Twitter and text messages around a prediction by Raffaele Bendani, a seismologist who forecast in 1915 that a "big one" would hit Rome on Wednesday.
He is also said to have predicted other earthquakes which hit Italy during the last hundred years before his death in 1979.
Massimo La Rocca, headmaster of a school in the Trastevere district, said: "We have had quite a few parents calling in and saying they will not be sending their children in."I've told them the school will remain open and there is nothing to be scared about but they are adamant – although this is not a justifiable absence for a pupil."
A barman named Massimo said: "People have been talking about this for the last week. I know dozens who are taking the day off – I'm going to sleep in the camper van with the wife to be on the safe side."
Bendandi believed movement of plates and therefore earthquakes were the result of the combined movements of the planets, the moon and the sun and perfectly predictable.
In 1923 he predicted a quake would hit central Italy on January 2 the following year – he was wrong by two days.
For his work Bendandi was even given a knighthood by Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini – and ordered not to make any more predictions on pain of exile as officials feared he would create immense panic.
However seismologists have been quick to step in and say his theories are without any scientific proof and despite his claims earthquakes are completely unpredictable.
Seismologist Alessandro Amato, who works at the Italy's National Geophysical and Volcanology Institute, said:"There is absolutely no evidence to say that an earthquake will hit Rome on 11th May and we have told that to the hundreds of people who have called.
"There is a possibility that on the day in question the country as a whole will have an average of 30 or so tremors but that is perfectly normal and the figure we expect.
"It is not scientifically possible to predict the exact date that an earthquake will occur and that's why we are holding these open days at the Institute to better inform people."
An estimated 20 million people live at risk from earthquakes in Italy, which is also home to some of the most active volcanoes in Europe.
The Eurasian and African plates meet along a line which runs through North Africa and crosses the Mediterranean near south Italy and Greece. As a result, two main fault lines cut across the Italian peninsula. Memories are still vivid of an earthquake in the central Italian city of L'Aquilam which lies to the north of Rome, in 2009, which killed 300 people.
Monday, May 02, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
SOTW #28 Help is on the Way-Rise Against
Normally I don't like social commentary songs (Green Day being the exception) because they are (almost) always far-left. Well this song is a social commentary song and even though the band members are borderline socialists (vegetarians, 'straight-edge', PETA supporters who make normal progressives look fascist) this is a good song with a message about help not coming for Katrina or when the BP oil disaster happened last year, specifically they mention New Orleans (the Crescent City is its nickname). Anyway enough of my talk here's the song...
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Why Americans Choose Opportunity Over "Fairness"
Great article here by Arthur Brooks...
President Obama’s criticisms of the Republican budget proposal put forward by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin center on one main objection: It is unfair.
The Ryan plan is based on three premises. First, our economy is headed for a predictable disaster because of the ruinous levels of government spending. (Standard & Poors’ decision this week to downgrade its outlook for U.S. debt only confirms this worry.) Second, we already have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, and we can’t load more income taxes onto entrepreneurs without expecting collateral harm to jobs and economic growth. Third, therefore, we must cut spending and reform entitlements, and this would necessarily affect the nearly 70 percent of Americans who take more from the government than they pay in taxes.
The president isn’t buying it. “There’s nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires,” he said in a speech on April 13. Knowing that some polls show support for tax increases, he also complained that, over the past decade, “the top 1 percent saw their income rise by an average of more than a quarter of a million dollars each. And that’s who needs to pay less taxes?” And in his town hall meeting Wednesday, he called for a tax code that is “fair and simple,” proposed spending cuts that are “fair” and ask for shared responsibility, and concluded that he wants to “live in a society that’s fair.”
While conservatives have criticized the economic principles and class-baiting cadences of Obama’s budget rhetoric, no one has answered his fundamental charge that the Ryan plan is unfair. Conservatives have long stayed away from fairness debates, preferring to build unemotional arguments on the right angles of economic efficiency. This is a lost opportunity. Advocates for limited government can win the fairness argument in a walk.
For years, economists have conducted experiments to study attitudes about economic fairness. One such experiment is the “ultimatum game.” Two strangers are asked to split $10. One is given the $10 and instructed to choose how much to offer the other. Say you and I are the players, and I offer you $3, meaning I would keep $7 for myself. If you accept my offer, we both keep the respective amounts. If you reject it, we both leave empty-handed.
Economic theory predicts that you should accept any positive offer — even one penny — because it’s better than nothing. But, of course, that’s wrong. If the offer seems too unfair, you’ll walk away out of spite and punish me for my selfishness. In the United States, games like this have an average offer of about $4, and offers are accepted about 85 percent of the time.
Note that merit is not part of the experiment; nobody earned the $10. When we bring merit into the mix, the results change. Another experiment shows this by asking subjects to imagine they are lying on a hot beach, craving a cold beer. Would they be willing to pay more, less or the same for their favorite beer if it were purchased from an upscale resort hotel versus from a run-down grocery store?
It turns out that people are willing to pay up to 77 percent more to buy the beer from the fine hotel. A reasonable interpretation is that if you have high prices because you run a nicer business with higher costs, people believe it is fair for you to charge them more than if you have low costs and worse service. An additional inference is that it would seem unfair to force the hotel to lower its prices just because the grocery store charges less.
In general, when resources are perceived as unearned, people think it fair that they be split up somewhat evenly. But when merit is involved, people believe it is fair to reward it with more money. This exemplifies the two most common definitions of economic “fairness” in public policy. The $10 game involves redistributive fairness; the beach-beer experiment reveals meritocratic fairness.
Public opinion studies show that Americans tend to prefer beer on the beach. In 2006, the World Values Survey asked a large sample of Americans to imagine two secretaries with the same job but one earning considerably more. However, the higher-paid secretary is “quicker, more efficient and more reliable.” The survey asked whether a pay difference between the two was fair. About 89 percent said the gap was fair, while about 11 percent said it was unfair.
Of course, for this example to translate into a fair economic system, both secretaries must have the opportunity to develop their skills. It’s not fair at all if the less-effective secretary couldn’t go to school and doesn’t know how to read.
And so it is in our country. If opportunity in America is a sham — if the system is rigged and some people get the breaks only for reasons of luck, birth, or discrimination — then merit is fictitious and redistribution brings greater fairness. But if America is an opportunity society — if you have the chance to work harder, get more education and innovate — then rewarding merit is fair, and it is fair for some to make more money than others.
Most Americans believe we live in an opportunity society. The General Social Survey has asked Americans since 1973 to answer whether people get ahead because of “their own hard work” or because of “lucky breaks and help from other people.” For four decades, 60 to 70 percent of Americans have said “hard work,” while never more than 16 percent have said “lucky breaks.”
It’s hardly a shock that seven in 10 Americans believe in the American dream. If you descended from immigrants, ask yourself: Why did my ancestors come here? I suspect it wasn’t to find a fairer system of forced income redistribution. It was to find a place where they could get a fair shake, where they could start their own business, and where hard work and good ideas would be rewarded.
Politicians have denied the core American belief in opportunity at their peril. In 1972, Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern delivered a campaign speech to blue-collar workers at a rubber factory near Akron, Ohio. He announced his plan to raise estate taxes to dramatically reduce inheritances and to redistribute the money to people like those assembled. He felt sure his message would resonate with his working-class audience.
Instead, he was booed.
You may be thinking that, yes, opportunity is real in America, but it’s certainly not the only thing. Luck, discrimination and birth affect life outcomes, too. In my case, I was born into a family with little money but was lucky to have parents who valued honesty, thrift and education. Others weren’t so lucky.
Good parents are one kind of luck. Studies have emerged showing that life is easier for beautiful women and tall men who don’t lose their hair. And even if you’re short, bald and unattractive, you can still game the system. We have all had lazy colleagues who have brown-nosed their way to some success, with less merit than us.
Since equality of opportunity is not universal, doesn’t this invalidate — or at least weaken — the romantic notion of meritocratic fairness? Of course not. You’re living in a dream world (or you have tenure) if you really believe merit doesn’t matter. Everyone can think of times when things went well as a direct result of hard work. We can also come up with cases in which we were punished at work or in life for laziness, incompetence, free-riding or stupidity.
And even if only a portion of the outcomes in life were due to merit, we should still gear our system to the part that is under our control. Otherwise, we have no incentive to be industrious, honest, innovative and optimistic — and there’s no reason to teach these values to our kids, either.
Most important, if we reject the ideals of opportunity and meritocratic fairness, we will end up with a system where outcomes are simply based on luck or political power — it would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. In a 2005 study published in the American Economic Review, economists at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology studied 29 countries and showed that a belief in luck over merit was strongly linked to the level of taxation and spending on social programs. Furthermore, they showed that the more citizens believed in a merit-based system, the more their public policies produced such a system.
In contrast, when populations believed that outcomes are a product of luck, birth, connections, or corruption, the people demanded more distortions to the free-enterprise system and ended up with a system that only affirmed their anxieties.
When politicians argue that, for the sake of fairness, we must raise taxes on the entrepreneurial class — and make those “millionaires and billionaires” bring us a few state-subsidized beers on the beach — they are unwittingly undermining the possibility of achieving the opportunity society they regret not having.
We are not a perfect opportunity society in the United States. But if we want to approach that ideal, we must define fairness as meritocracy, embrace a system that rewards merit, and work tirelessly for true equal opportunity. The system that makes this possible, of course, is free enterprise. When I work harder or longer hours in the free-enterprise system, I am generally paid more than if I work less in the same job. Investments in my education translate into market rewards. Clever ideas usually garner more rewards than bad ones, as judged not by a politburo, but by citizens in the marketplace.
There is certainly a role for government in this system. Private markets can fail due to monopolies (which eliminate competition), externalities (such as pollution), the need for public goods (such as education, which is indispensable in an opportunity society), corruption and crime. Furthermore, most economists agree that some social safety net is appropriate in a civilized society. When the government focuses on these things, it assists the free-enterprise system.
But when a government that has overspent for years turns to tax increases instead of spending cuts simply for the sake of “fairness,” it weakens free enterprise, lowers opportunity and impoverishes us in many ways.
And that is simply unfair.
Arthur C. Brooks is president of the American Enterprise Institute and author of “The Battle: How the Fight Between Free Enterprise and Big Government Will Shape America’s Future.”
President Obama’s criticisms of the Republican budget proposal put forward by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin center on one main objection: It is unfair.
The Ryan plan is based on three premises. First, our economy is headed for a predictable disaster because of the ruinous levels of government spending. (Standard & Poors’ decision this week to downgrade its outlook for U.S. debt only confirms this worry.) Second, we already have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, and we can’t load more income taxes onto entrepreneurs without expecting collateral harm to jobs and economic growth. Third, therefore, we must cut spending and reform entitlements, and this would necessarily affect the nearly 70 percent of Americans who take more from the government than they pay in taxes.
The president isn’t buying it. “There’s nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires,” he said in a speech on April 13. Knowing that some polls show support for tax increases, he also complained that, over the past decade, “the top 1 percent saw their income rise by an average of more than a quarter of a million dollars each. And that’s who needs to pay less taxes?” And in his town hall meeting Wednesday, he called for a tax code that is “fair and simple,” proposed spending cuts that are “fair” and ask for shared responsibility, and concluded that he wants to “live in a society that’s fair.”
While conservatives have criticized the economic principles and class-baiting cadences of Obama’s budget rhetoric, no one has answered his fundamental charge that the Ryan plan is unfair. Conservatives have long stayed away from fairness debates, preferring to build unemotional arguments on the right angles of economic efficiency. This is a lost opportunity. Advocates for limited government can win the fairness argument in a walk.
For years, economists have conducted experiments to study attitudes about economic fairness. One such experiment is the “ultimatum game.” Two strangers are asked to split $10. One is given the $10 and instructed to choose how much to offer the other. Say you and I are the players, and I offer you $3, meaning I would keep $7 for myself. If you accept my offer, we both keep the respective amounts. If you reject it, we both leave empty-handed.
Economic theory predicts that you should accept any positive offer — even one penny — because it’s better than nothing. But, of course, that’s wrong. If the offer seems too unfair, you’ll walk away out of spite and punish me for my selfishness. In the United States, games like this have an average offer of about $4, and offers are accepted about 85 percent of the time.
Note that merit is not part of the experiment; nobody earned the $10. When we bring merit into the mix, the results change. Another experiment shows this by asking subjects to imagine they are lying on a hot beach, craving a cold beer. Would they be willing to pay more, less or the same for their favorite beer if it were purchased from an upscale resort hotel versus from a run-down grocery store?
It turns out that people are willing to pay up to 77 percent more to buy the beer from the fine hotel. A reasonable interpretation is that if you have high prices because you run a nicer business with higher costs, people believe it is fair for you to charge them more than if you have low costs and worse service. An additional inference is that it would seem unfair to force the hotel to lower its prices just because the grocery store charges less.
In general, when resources are perceived as unearned, people think it fair that they be split up somewhat evenly. But when merit is involved, people believe it is fair to reward it with more money. This exemplifies the two most common definitions of economic “fairness” in public policy. The $10 game involves redistributive fairness; the beach-beer experiment reveals meritocratic fairness.
Public opinion studies show that Americans tend to prefer beer on the beach. In 2006, the World Values Survey asked a large sample of Americans to imagine two secretaries with the same job but one earning considerably more. However, the higher-paid secretary is “quicker, more efficient and more reliable.” The survey asked whether a pay difference between the two was fair. About 89 percent said the gap was fair, while about 11 percent said it was unfair.
Of course, for this example to translate into a fair economic system, both secretaries must have the opportunity to develop their skills. It’s not fair at all if the less-effective secretary couldn’t go to school and doesn’t know how to read.
And so it is in our country. If opportunity in America is a sham — if the system is rigged and some people get the breaks only for reasons of luck, birth, or discrimination — then merit is fictitious and redistribution brings greater fairness. But if America is an opportunity society — if you have the chance to work harder, get more education and innovate — then rewarding merit is fair, and it is fair for some to make more money than others.
Most Americans believe we live in an opportunity society. The General Social Survey has asked Americans since 1973 to answer whether people get ahead because of “their own hard work” or because of “lucky breaks and help from other people.” For four decades, 60 to 70 percent of Americans have said “hard work,” while never more than 16 percent have said “lucky breaks.”
It’s hardly a shock that seven in 10 Americans believe in the American dream. If you descended from immigrants, ask yourself: Why did my ancestors come here? I suspect it wasn’t to find a fairer system of forced income redistribution. It was to find a place where they could get a fair shake, where they could start their own business, and where hard work and good ideas would be rewarded.
Politicians have denied the core American belief in opportunity at their peril. In 1972, Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern delivered a campaign speech to blue-collar workers at a rubber factory near Akron, Ohio. He announced his plan to raise estate taxes to dramatically reduce inheritances and to redistribute the money to people like those assembled. He felt sure his message would resonate with his working-class audience.
Instead, he was booed.
You may be thinking that, yes, opportunity is real in America, but it’s certainly not the only thing. Luck, discrimination and birth affect life outcomes, too. In my case, I was born into a family with little money but was lucky to have parents who valued honesty, thrift and education. Others weren’t so lucky.
Good parents are one kind of luck. Studies have emerged showing that life is easier for beautiful women and tall men who don’t lose their hair. And even if you’re short, bald and unattractive, you can still game the system. We have all had lazy colleagues who have brown-nosed their way to some success, with less merit than us.
Since equality of opportunity is not universal, doesn’t this invalidate — or at least weaken — the romantic notion of meritocratic fairness? Of course not. You’re living in a dream world (or you have tenure) if you really believe merit doesn’t matter. Everyone can think of times when things went well as a direct result of hard work. We can also come up with cases in which we were punished at work or in life for laziness, incompetence, free-riding or stupidity.
And even if only a portion of the outcomes in life were due to merit, we should still gear our system to the part that is under our control. Otherwise, we have no incentive to be industrious, honest, innovative and optimistic — and there’s no reason to teach these values to our kids, either.
Most important, if we reject the ideals of opportunity and meritocratic fairness, we will end up with a system where outcomes are simply based on luck or political power — it would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. In a 2005 study published in the American Economic Review, economists at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology studied 29 countries and showed that a belief in luck over merit was strongly linked to the level of taxation and spending on social programs. Furthermore, they showed that the more citizens believed in a merit-based system, the more their public policies produced such a system.
In contrast, when populations believed that outcomes are a product of luck, birth, connections, or corruption, the people demanded more distortions to the free-enterprise system and ended up with a system that only affirmed their anxieties.
When politicians argue that, for the sake of fairness, we must raise taxes on the entrepreneurial class — and make those “millionaires and billionaires” bring us a few state-subsidized beers on the beach — they are unwittingly undermining the possibility of achieving the opportunity society they regret not having.
We are not a perfect opportunity society in the United States. But if we want to approach that ideal, we must define fairness as meritocracy, embrace a system that rewards merit, and work tirelessly for true equal opportunity. The system that makes this possible, of course, is free enterprise. When I work harder or longer hours in the free-enterprise system, I am generally paid more than if I work less in the same job. Investments in my education translate into market rewards. Clever ideas usually garner more rewards than bad ones, as judged not by a politburo, but by citizens in the marketplace.
There is certainly a role for government in this system. Private markets can fail due to monopolies (which eliminate competition), externalities (such as pollution), the need for public goods (such as education, which is indispensable in an opportunity society), corruption and crime. Furthermore, most economists agree that some social safety net is appropriate in a civilized society. When the government focuses on these things, it assists the free-enterprise system.
But when a government that has overspent for years turns to tax increases instead of spending cuts simply for the sake of “fairness,” it weakens free enterprise, lowers opportunity and impoverishes us in many ways.
And that is simply unfair.
Arthur C. Brooks is president of the American Enterprise Institute and author of “The Battle: How the Fight Between Free Enterprise and Big Government Will Shape America’s Future.”
Friday, April 22, 2011
Failblog/Failbook/FML friday...
Today, I finally filed the divorce papers I was putting off for weeks. This is my third divorce. After my first husband cheated on me, and my second husband and I learned we had VERY different views, now my third husband is cheating on me with his fiancee. I'm a marriage counselor. FML
Today, I was reading my students' Halloween stories I made them write for my creative writing class in high school. One of my students wrote about attacking me. She got my street address perfect and everything. FML
Today, I returned home for the first time in a year, and found my entire computer missing. I asked my grandma about this, and she told me that she threw "the TV" away because it "no longer responded to the remote control." FML
Today, I got bailed out of jail. I was there because I saw a girl being hit by her boyfriend. I rushed over to help only to have her hit me repeatedly. The cops came and she blamed her bruises on me. The boyfriend corroborated her story. FML
Today, I learned I have over $10,000 in debt, despite never owning a credit card. Apparently, my ex-roommate had been replying to the credit card offers I was receiving in the mail. That also explains my missing driver's license a few months back. FML
Today, I went for a run in a new pair of shoes that left me with huge blisters. As I finished cleaning them up so they could heal, I limped to my bed to take a nap. I was woken by the fire alarm. My building was having a drill and we couldn't use the elevators. I live on the 9th floor. FML
Today, I was at a party where I ate bowl of disgusting snacks because I didn't want to drink on an empty stomach. I spent the next twelve hours trying to prevent the world from collapsing into millions of demonic shards, cause apparently that's what a large dose of magic mushrooms does. FML
Today, my boyfriend of six years broke up with me for a girl he's known for less than 72 hours. Why? He wanted someone pure. I lost my virginity to him five years ago. FML
Today, I wore my cool new shirt with an oriental character on it to class. The Chinese TA burst into laughter and told me the shirt read, "I am a sad, pathetic person." FML
I see a 'sack' which appeared to contain a liquid. Being the curious type, I cut open the sack, spraying said liquid over me and my desk. My teacher, after giggling, informed me that the liquid was in fact urine. I was pissed on by a dead pig. FML
Today, my girlfriend sent me a naked picture of herself and I wish she hadn't. FML
Today, I had gotten home from dropping my boyfriend off when my dad said "your phones been buzzing". I had a text saying "you're grounded," from my Dad. My Alarm saying 'Birth Control Pill' had been going off for a half hour while I was gone. FML
Today, at my sister's engagement party, my cousins thought it would be funny to get my nanna drunk. They regretted it when she told them, and everyone else at the party about her sex life and how she fakes orgasms with my grandpa. FML
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