Pelosi, population and compassion

Dear friends,

I was going to chat with today about what we really need to stimulate the economy.

But then Nancy Pelosi had to go and say children are a burden and a lot of the poor ones should never have been born.

In fact, she said it twice just in case you didn’t hear her the first time.

She was on ABC’s This Week last Sunday, discussing the Democrats’ $825 billion so-called “stimulus package.” The conversation didn’t really get interesting until host George Stephanopoulos asked Pelosi about some of the more ridiculous items in the package, like $200 million for contraception, and how that creates jobs.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?

PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?

PELOSI: No apologies. No. We have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.

So much for the notion that expanding government services fosters compassion.

Private charities treat people with dignity and love because their funds are given to them out of a desire to help people.

But as far as politicians like Nancy Pelosi are concerned, the poor and suffering are parasites feeding off a body designed to deliver votes and preserve political power.

Their numbers must be reduced to keep the host healthy. The only question is how many can you cast off without losing the votes you need to win re-election.

The lesson learned from Pelosi’s momentary lapse of honesty is libertarianism is a philosophy rooted in compassion and respect for your fellow man. The voluntary exchange of goods, services and charitable giving creates a country where health care and education are shared for the right reasons – because we love and respect our neighbors.

Compare that to the cold calculations of the government-sponsored welfare state. Born not out of compassion, but out of a desire to buy votes, the well-being of your neighbor becomes a mathematical calculation. How many can you serve without tapping out funds for people who can buy you even more votes? How many can you cast out into the street, or in Pelosi’s case prevent from ever existing, before they stop voting for you?

I’ve volunteered in homeless shelters, schools and my church’s food bank. I’ve never once heard anyone grumble about the number of people we help and propose we do something to prevent them from ever existing.

So as you go out into the world this week, take a moment to share Pelosi’s cold calculations with your friends. Would they rather a taxpayer-funded welfare state where the government begins controlling the population to keep the system from collapsing, or a community of volunteers who realize the poor and suffering are friends and neighbors in need of a little help?

The choice is theirs at the ballot box.

I am still waiting for the miracles Obama promised. He has been in office a few days now, when is he going to snap his fingers and make the world better?

battle rattle

I was watching Battle rattle on National Geographic; which is a good show. But anyway this "fake reporter" was asking the soldier to "Name a functioning Islamic democracy". The problem with that question I think is that even when America formed none existed. We based a large part of our government on the Iroquois and other Native Americans. That's right, those "savages" are where we got our government; surprise, surprise, surprise. They even gave women rights long before even America thought about it...but I digress. I am not going to give a complete history lesson here because you should have paid attention in class.

Then I hear on another show about how Iraq still doesn't have a constitution yet, blah blah. I suppose the media never took history so here is a quick reminder for those of you reading this. The 13 colonies with proper and educated leadership; all with the same goal in mind; after the revolution, took from 1776 to 1787...11 years of peaceful effort to come up with a paper that all 13 colonies would sign. This is our present constitution that we all love and enjoy today. We did not have a constitution when the revolution ended, it took us 11 years to write one; 11 years after the war ended before we came up with our constitution. Yet Americans expect the Iraqi's who have had different ideologies that go back thousands of years to have this drawn up in just a few years while a war is still going on? We couldn't do it, so why do you expect someone else to do it? Give these people time guys, give them time to understand what freedom is about.

No other Islamic country in the world exist with a free and proper democracy, not a single one so let Iraqi's and Afghan's show the world they can do it. But you have to give them time, and support. When did America become a country of quitters? Why does everyone expect these people to instantly accept the idea of freedom? We are a country of "can do" not a country of "can't" so let our soldiers do their job so that the Iraqi and Afgani learn to be free for the first time in thier history. Give these people a few years to understand what we have in America that has been 200 years + in the making. It took us a long time to get to the place we are today so you can't expect these people to just one day wake up and understand democracy.

"I support the troops but not the war" is the next bullshit line I hear from you liberal assholes. Bullshit, didn't catch that? Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit! You do not support our troops, you are just playing the PC game which is a bunch of pussy ass bullshit. Ranger up and say what the fuck you mean instead of playing games. At least those commie loving assholes during Vietnam were honest; they spat on our boys when they come home but at least they did not pretend to support our men and women in uniform while they disagreed with the war. The war may not be justified but we are there now and we need to support our soldiers and the job they are doing. So you either support them or you don't but do not half ass it.

The job they are doing is important and if we half ass this then we do not deserve the privilege and honor we have right now. We might have screwed up going into Iraq or maybe not but that is beside the point. We are there now and the job our men and women are doing needs to be finished. We need to make sure they have the support they need to get the job done and to support the Iraqi and Afgani people while they rebuild and learn from us.

Let me put this a different way so maybe you liberals will understand since you seem slower than most. Do you expect a child to suddenly change his behavior simply because you change the rules they are used to? If you adopt a child that has been abused do you expect him to instantly change over night because he is in a safe environment? How about a dog that has been beaten his entire life? Well that is all these people have known their entire lives; they do not know or understand what it means to be free. So how about you cut them some fucking slack and let our soldiers do their jobs and remember that it takes more than a few days, months or even years to form a "functioning democracy".

End of the world

What is up with the History channel for the past week. It's all doom & gloom with their apocalyptic shows all week. Have they gone the way the of the rest of the media and just want us all the think the world is about to come to an end?

That seems to be all I see on the news lately; how the world is going down the galactic drain. The economy is failing, job loss is at an all time high, we are heading into a recession, we are heading for a depression. The whole world is fighting each other over something. I know some of it is news but damn that is all they show.

Where are all the puppies and kittens? No I don't mean literally but how about some good news here and there. Help cheer people up a little sometime, give people some damn hope. Are they trying to tell us that nothing good what so ever is happening in the world? If that is the case someone stop this ride, I want to get the hell off.

evil recruiters

I was going to post this in my last post but decided it deserved its own post. I have ran into a "recruiter" that I truly believe was trying to steal my info. Maybe it is paranoia but here is why I think he was just trying to get all my personal information.

This recruiter; we will call him Bob, called me up with an amazing job offer. It was a permanent hire position for what he said was a fortune 500 company. The pay and benefits were in my pay range (100k) and sounded great. So I agreed to let him submit my resume.

So Bob says he is going to send me some information on the job to look over and some forms to fill out. This sounded pretty routine, I have filled out tons of forms for jobs. So he e-mails me the job description and the "forms". Now comes my first suspicion of Bob, he was e-mailing me from a hotmail account.

These forms; claiming to be applications for employment, seemed a bit odd as well. They did not ask for any work or education experience only personal information such as my social security number, full name, birth date, drivers license, address. They had no logos for either his company or the company I was supposedly applying to, just plan old word doc asking for a lot of personal info.

Now in the 14 years I have been doing IT work I have only had to fill out applications either at start of interviews or after I got the job offer. Every application I have ever filled out wanted a lot of work and education history; even McDonald's ask for this information. They all had legal speak on the applications about how you had to tell the truth and sign and date it. These didn't have this anywhere.

So my alarm bells are screaming in my head. So I start doing some research on his company but Google couldn't find anything. I try to call him back but couldn't get through so I e-mailed back and asked for some clarification on the information he needed. I got a response in a few minutes about how great the job was and they wanted to hire someone next week. He then goes on how he already sent them my resume and I have the job when I fill out those forms and get them back if I could start Monday.

WHAT!? I got hired without an interview to a fortune 500 company? They are going to pay me 105k annually and did not even have to speak to me? Damn, I know and I am good and all that but come on. Not even a phone screen? You should all bow before my greatness, I am so good I get hired off my resume alone! That's right let me say that again so it can sink in; I got a 105k a year job with a fortune 500 company off my resume alone....

OK sarcasm off now; I turned his information over to law enforcement. Apparently this is some sort of scam now out there. They prey on people being desperate for a job to get your information. As badly as I need a job right now if he had been a better actor or more patient I will not lie he would have gotten my information I am sure. I am lucky he was an amateur I guess, he got greedy and tried to fast which set off my paranoid streak which probably saved me.

job search

OK, well I continue to do my job search that I have been doing since early Dec 08. I seem to get a lot of calls from recruiters but very little follow through. I get calls from recruiters with all this "We have the perfect job for you" speak. So after I look it over, and agree I get a little more information and then nothing from the majority of them.

It seems also that with the economy like it is right now companies are moving very slow during the hiring process. Those that are moving with any decent pace want Senior level people at junior level pay. I have done a few of interviews and gotten asked back for 2nd interviews; but no follow up on it.

I think next week will be my week for contacting these company backs to find out where the hiring process is.

Debate the Obama Change.gov Platform

President-Elect Obama has made somewhere in the neighborhood of 450 promises during his campaign. Libertarians understand that the office of the President is one of limited powers and that these promises made by the Executive are emptier than our 401k's.

The absence of a real debate during the campaign was obvious, as both major party candidates advocated the same foreign, monetary, and domestic policies. Now that the "debate" is over, we have even less discussion as the world waits for a savior to come and hit the bailout button to make all of our troubles disappear. We know that won't happen, so let's work together to explain why.

We ran across a unique opportunity for Libertarians to get involved in a debate with other volunteers and activists from other political parties regarding Obama's "Change.gov" platform. This is a great opportunity to help spread the word of Libertarianism at a time when the rest of the country is eagerly anticipating the coronation ceremony.

The debate is to take place on Tuesday, January 13, and will last all day. All questions about the event should be sent to austin.petersen@lp.org

The Website hosting the debate is at http://deepdebate.org/

On Tuesday, anytime all day you can go to http://deepdebate.org/debates/69 and login to join the debate.

Also, if you are looking for opportunities to become more active in defense of liberty, please register to volunteer at www.lp.org/volunteer

Please feel free to forward this invitation to anyone who would be interested in participating in this online debate.