"You do the things you do because you’re a homicidal maniac."

The line is from an X Files episode.  A brutal serial killer asks a clairvoyant to help him understand the deep reasons why he commits such horrific crimes.  That’s the answer. 

Short and to the point.     

I think of this quote whenever there’s a murderous rampage, like Columbine or the more recent tragedy in Aurora, Colorado.  

When a deranged person kills a lot of innocent people the media goes into a frenzy searching for the “why” of it all.  As if there’s always some deep meaning and logical explanation of what happened.  Or something everybody overlooked that might give us a clue to preventing it from happening again. 

They are wasting their time.  Some people simply want to kill a lot of other people to become famous.   That’s it.  Given the opportunity, they will fulfill their darkest, most murderous fantasies to that end.  The more ghastly, the better.  Virtually nothing can stop them.  

Except permanently removing them from society.  Even then, that's usually after the fact.  

Their quest for fame is abetted by the media ostensibly providing “in-depth coverage” of the tragedies – while filling the 24-hour news cycle.  This not only grants mass murderers the celebrity they seek, but also encourages other potentially dangerous misfits, often giving them a helpful how-to for their own shot at infamy.    

We’re all smart enough to know that the media isn’t doing this out of compassion for the dead and wounded.  Nor are they doing it to advance truth and justice. 

Knowing – as we now do – that the Aurora murderer was a brilliant guy and was in the process of dropping out of school is useless.  The fact that he dressed like the Joker for his assault is also useless.  Or that he left the theater and re-entered after he’d put on body armor and gathered his weapons -- useless.  Or the detailed list of all the weapons and ammunition he purchased – also useless.    

What do we do with that information?  And why do we even care?  He’s a mass murderer.  A bright and methodical one, but still a mass murderer.  We got it.

The rest is ghoulish voyeurism.

After all the coverage, here’s the net/net of days of round-the-clock “in-depth” reporting:

He killed a dozen people in a crowded movie theater, and wounded scores of others.  He booby-trapped his apartment to kill even more.       

For the murders and maimings, he should die.  As quickly as possible.  Justice delayed is justice denied.  In this case, it can’t come soon enough. 

But of course that’s not the end of it.  Gun nuts on both sides are using this incident shamelessly to promote their agendas.  The NRA folks think that armed citizens in the theater could have shot him down.  Gun-control folks think it’s just one more sign that it’s too easy to get guns in this country.

Politicians will soon jump into the fray.  They’ll want to know if this was a hate crime, had a causal relationship with violence in movies, if video games had an impact, if schools should do a better job of screening students for psychological problems, if we have enough grief counselors, are we spending enough on mental-health funding, etc.

In short, more political theater. 

And you know the media will milk this for weeks to come.  (There’s surely an “anniversary of the Aurora massacre” on the drawing boards for 2013.)  Be prepared also for the sweeps week specials:  The massacre in Aurora – do YOU know the warning signs your child may become a serial killer? 

Meanwhile, the FBI says it will be months before they can determine his motives.  Wow.  His motives seem pretty clear:  he wanted to kill a lot of people, and he did.

So where’s the mystery?  Let’s have a speedy trial and put this monster down. 

It’s hard to know where to begin with this one

From Fox News in reference to a speech President Obama made on 7/13/12:

President Obama, in a speech to supporters, suggested business owners owe their success to government investment in infrastructure and other projects — saying “if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.” Obama’s comment Friday during a campaign stop in Roanoke, Va., came just days after he urged Congress to extend tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration only to families earning less than $250,000 annually — part of his argument that top earners have an obligation to pay more to trim the deficit.

“There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me because they want to give something back,” the president said. “If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there.  It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen,” he said. “The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.”

Whew. 

The genesis of this talk track was when Elizabeth Warren, the native-American wannabe – dubbed by some as FauxCohontas – went off on a tear a while ago about why everyone owes an enormous debt to big government.

Not the least of which are businesses.

So now even President Obama said essentially the same thing a couple of days ago. 

To my fellow small business owners:  Take heed. 

All the work you’ve put into your business, all the people you’ve employed, all the obstacles you’ve labored to overcome, all the hours you’ve put in, and all those nights you sweated about making the next payroll – well, so what? 

Big deal.  Somebody else deserves credit.  Not you.  Your government made it all possible. 

In short, you owe everything to your government.  What you’ve done is insignificant compared to what your government has done for you. 

Anyone who claims otherwise – that they might have had a larger hand in their success than government – is wrong.   

So my fellow small business owners, stop whining about taxes.  Stop whining about regulation.  Stop thinking that you had that big of a role in the success of your business. 

You got a lot of help from Uncle Sam (you ingrates). Apparently, the government did all the heavy lifting for you.  All the while, you simply sat back and reaped the benefits, but didn't know who to thank.  

Well now you know.  

If anybody still thinks Obama is on the side of small business, this is your wake-up call.

Oh, and he's ignoring one eensy-teensy little thing; something Warren and other big government proponents forget, or refuse to concede ...

All those things government did for us?

We paid for all that.  With our taxes.  We didn't get anything for free.  

Words have specific meanings – and some are trying to change those

Not to be overly pedantic, but most words have very specific meanings.  A dog is a dog.  A cat is a cat.  An ice-cream sundae is an ice-cream sundae, for example. 

We all understand those words and agree on what they mean.  They aren’t nuanced at all. 

However, there’s a disturbing move by some to change the meanings of perfectly acceptable words to suit their agenda.  Or eliminate words altogether.  It’s almost Orwellian; it smacks of newspeak.

Artificially changing the long-established meanings of certain words – to be more inclusive, less “hurtful,” or to twist the meaning to imply the opposite – is intellectually dishonest. 

It’s an affront to the language.  It’s also a crass attempt to avoid dealing the implications of what that word truly stands for.  It’s political correctness running roughshod over reality. 

Take the word “illegal,” as one example.   

Someone who doesn’t follow the normal legal processes for entering this country is here illegally.   They are an illegal alien, or at the least an illegal immigrant.  They are not an “undocumented worker” – which implies they merely lost their paperwork.  They are not simply an “immigrant” – because that includes those who come here legally as well as illegally.

Yet there’s a campaign to stop the use of this perfectly descriptive and accurate word.  Supporters believe it’s hurtful to those who apparently left their papers at home, forgot that their visa expired, or were in too much of a rush to follow immigration policies.  

Yes, they are technically here against the law, but so what?  What's the big deal?  It's just a technicality, in their view.  

Illegal is such a mean word, according to the campaign, and so antithetical to what America stands for, we should all stop using it.  Get rid of this “I” word altogether. 

They prefer “undocumented.”  After all, they say:  “No human being is illegal.”

Got news for you.  If you are a  non-citizen living here in violation of our immigration laws – and it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference how or why you came here, if you pay taxes, or how long you’ve lived here  – you’re here illegally.  There’s no way to nuance that. 

So get used to the real word “illegal.”  That’s what it is.  Sorry if it hurts somebody’s feelings.  If they don’t like it, they can always go back to where they came from and start over. 

Only this time, do it the right way; the way legal immigrants have for years.    

Then we’ll welcome them with open arms. 

Until then, they need to accept reality.  If they get caught being here illegally, they’re liable to be deported.  Again, sorry, but those are the rules in most cases.

Unless you’re the Kenyan aunt of the President, of course.    

All the marches, clever videos, and boo-hoo stories in the New York Times and elsewhere won’t change the fact that “illegal” means exactly what it means in the U.S.

At least for now.       

Everyone should read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Okay, it’s not a particularly well-written book.  It’s not a page-turner.  In fact, it’s a bit of a bore at times, with paper-thin characters, poor dialogue, and an often ridiculous story line.       

So why should everyone read it?

Well, for a book written in the 1950s it’s eerily prescient about what we face today, and what our future looks like if things continue as they are. 

There’s also a possible lesson in it for the Obama administration. 

The premise is simple:  In the name of “fairness,” the government assumes greater control over everything.  It takes over big chunks of the auto industry.  It forces policies on other businesses to dictate who they can hire, how much they pay their employees, how much owners can make, the prices they can charge for their products, the types of products they can make, etc. 

Sound familiar so far? 

Government social policy becomes predicated on the theory that the more “needy” you are, the more you get at the expense of people who have more.  

So victimhood is celebrated – and rewarded – as people are incented to prove they are needier than the next person.  That’s because the more you need, the more you get. 

Conversely, the more you have, the more you have to “share.”  If you have a job and someone doesn’t, you’re obligated to support them.  There’s no incentive to actually work for anything anymore. Why bother when the government will take from someone else to give to you? 

Before long, the majority of the population is dependent on the government.    

Neediness guides government policy on business as well.  So it props up failing businesses with political suck – like those with unions – by taking away from and penalizing successful businesses.  It forces successful businesses into bad business deals and unnecessary featherbedding to reward political cronies and “level the playing field.”  

Special incentives are given to favored businesses, and special penalties and restrictions are placed on businesses who have too much or are otherwise out of favor.

Again, sound familiar?    

Successful business people are vilified by the government and its followers as greedy, uncaring and selfish.  The more successful in business someone has been – and the more money they’ve made – the greater the vilification. The fact that these business people risked their own capital, worked hard and built businesses based on their own inventions and ideas is irrelevant.  Quaint, almost.    

The government aggressively promotes the belief that the successful only got that way by being unfair to others – employees and competitors.  Government needs to step in to restore “fairness.”    And equal outcomes for all, earned or not.  The public eats it up. 

 “Fairness” and having a social conscience – such as acquiescing to whatever the government and the needy want – is preferable to capitalist greed.  Even if you go broke in the process. 

Then the unthinkable happens.  All those vilified business owners, entrepreneurs, inventors, artists and others who actually create things simply quit. 

They disappear.  They are nowhere to be found. They decide enough is enough and walk away. 

The government and the needy are outraged.  There’s no one left to milk for supporting their social agenda.  No one to efficiently run the businesses they’d always counted on to be a constant source of paid jobs.  No one who actually works and produces anymore. 

All that’s left is the government and the people dependent on it. 

Kind of where we seem to be headed today. 

And if that doesn’t scare the crap out of you – think about this:  Atlas Shrugged  by Ayn Rand was written in the 1950s.  We’ve had over 60 years to see this coming. 

Pick it up.  Give it a read.  Not a great book, but if you don’t find yourself shaking your head and saying “oh my God” a few times in the process, I’ll be truly surprised. 

The lunatics on the far left and the far right are controlling the conversation

And we are all suffering as a result.

We are tired of the “wars”:  the “war” on teachers; the “war” on women; the “war” on traditional family values; the “war” on religion. 

It’s not bad enough that we are stuck in real wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere, where U.S. soldiers and civilian contractors are dying.  We have to invent new “wars” to demonize one side or the other for political points.  Everything now is of end-of-the-world threat proportions that call for scorched earth tactics that would make Sherman uneasy. 

Enough already.  Please STFU for a while. 

So now, House members and Senators … How about you just do your jobs for a change? 

Stop with the petty bullshit you’re spawning just to get the support of your lunatic fringes.  Stop making getting re-elected the sole focus of your political career. 

Which also means stop making up new laws just to pander to one group or another.  

You have enough on your plate already – like the economy – so if anything else is functioning passably okay now, don’t screw it up.  Stop wasting time on the Defense of Marriage Act, the Stolen Valor Act, the Dream Act, and other “feel-good” bills that make a point but ultimately will accomplish nothing. 

These are time vampires; you have more important things to do.

Focus on real answers for our economy – not short-term “popular” ideas – but ideas that recognize a simple fact:  we’re broke.  Party’s over. We can’t print our way out of this one. 

Everybody’s going to have to pony up to get us out of this mess politicians created and you’re going to have to cut spending at the same time.  So we can’t afford your pet projects, expanding entitlements, bogus infrastructure-building and green-energy jobs right now. 

We need real long-term solutions, not pie-in-the-sky experiments. 

Plus, everybody – really everybody – is going to have to accept there will be higher taxes on everyone and fewer services.  And there will be fewer credits, deductions, subsidies and other handouts to corporations as well as the general public – we simply can’t afford these anymore.   

Right now you spend too much time crafting specious pieces of legislative crap to affix your name to so you can get laid, go to better parties, get higher speaker fees, be more “popular” or “likeable” and raise more campaign funds. 

Those days are over. 

We’re not paying you to be popular, likeable and re-elected.  We are paying you to solve the problems of the country; not simply the problems or issues of one group or another.  And we’re certainly not paying you to create new problems. 

We don’t care if you’re ever popular or likeable.  We just want you to act responsibly. 

So if you want to start making us more pleased with your KPIs, you’ll need to stop taking contributions – and advice – from lobbyists for special interest groups, period, whether that’s SEIU, the Chamber of Commerce, Planned Parenthood or Right-to-Life groups, among others.

Grow a pair and refuse to be bought and used like a cheap whore – which, unfortunately, is what an increasing number of us think you are.  

If you doubt that, just look at your approval ratings. 

You need to push the loonies aside – far left or far right – and start acting like grownups; adults  who’ve just found out their credit cards are maxed out. 

Try that for a change.  You might find there’s room for civility if you all stop acting like children in perpetual tantrums. 

To some people, the answer to every problem is to raise taxes—on someone else

It’s enough to make your head explode. 

They always want higher taxes – on someone else.  Never themselves. 

They may say: “I would pay extra taxes.”  They are lying.  They aren’t willing to pay an extra dime of taxes for anything, no matter how lofty the goal, or how truly real the need. 

But they always think somebody else should. 

 As long as the higher taxes are placed on people they don’t like, or on practices they don’t agree with – such as smoking, drinking sugary soft drinks, eating candy bars or buying expensive boats, whatever – they’re all in.  If it’s not on them, or on something they and their ilk use all the time, Hell yes, raise taxes. 

So, wonder how they’d feel if there were a special alternative minimum tax – regardless of income – on the 47+% of people who now pay no Federal taxes. 

Or a national sales tax on everything, with no exemptions or exceptions – a true consumption tax, in other words. 

Oh no, no, no – can’t do that. 

Instead, let’s simply tax someone else.  Let’s put a special tax on something that affects other people, but not me.  Let me keep all my tax deductions and credits but deny deductions and credits to others.  Give me all the positives with none of the associated pain. 

These freeloaders—and that is the precise word for them – want all the benefits of what they imagine would be an “enlightened society” without kicking in personally to cover the cost.    

They are like Wimpy:  they would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today for them and all their causes.  Except Tuesday never comes.  And never will. 

Talk is cheap when you’re not footing the bill. 

So they want billions poured into “green” initiatives.  Billions more for “green” jobs.  Billions more to protect the jobs of state and local government “non-essential” personnel.  

That’s on top of bailouts for automakers to preserve union jobs.  Bailouts for stupid homebuyers and greedy speculators who bought properties they could never afford.  Bailouts for graduates who borrowed thousands to get degrees in worthless, self-indulgent majors and now can’t pay back their loans.  Bailouts for mismanaged pension funds that promised the world based on unrealistic numbers. 

Now they want to extend unemployment benefits indefinitely.  They want to keep student loan rates artificially low.  They want to continue the payroll tax cut that reduces the money going into Social Security, but want Social Security benefits to be more expansive. 

They want free prescription drugs.  They want free healthcare for everyone.   

They want.  They want.  They want.  But they don’t want to pay anything themselves.  Just give the bill to someone else. 

It’s insane.    

Yet not a day goes by that you won’t hear someone say the answer to all our budget problems – and the way to fund any crackpot schemes – is to raise taxes, always on somebody else. 

In defense of the ACA’s individual mandate/tax … sort of

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled on the constitutionality of the individual mandate – which it repackaged as a tax rather than a penalty – conservatives are going wild. 

They are going after the wrong bait. They shouldn't attack the mandate; they should try to broaden it to make everybody in the country -- legally or illegally -- responsible for paying into it.  No exceptions.  No exemptions.  And start charging everybody without insurance immediately.   

There are so many other egregious parts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that will bloat government even more, and drive costs up, that are much more worthy of attack. 

Honestly, within reason, it makes sense for everybody to be paying something to have health insurance.  If everybody was paying something for insurance – the healthy as well as the sick – it would help lighten the burden on those of us that have been paying for health insurance for years.  As it stands now, the payers are already supporting the large number of non-payers who use the emergency room as a free clinic for even minor ailments like the sniffles. 

If you think that’s not the case with our current system – where anyone, anytime can get treated in an ER with or without any insurance – you’re wrong.

That’s where everybody without insurance goes.  The poor, the not-so-poor, and illegal aliens; anybody without insurance, citizen or non-citizen, can go to any hospital in the U.S. and get treated for free.  It’s a Federal law that no one, really no one, can be turned away for financial reasons.

That’s why a lot of the ACA propaganda was pure BS.  People without insurance get a lot of healthcare for free now.  Do they get exhaustive tests?  Probably not.  But do they get life-saving care whenever they need it?  That’s a certainty.  And there are a lot of free clinics that supplement the healthcare needs of the non-insured, including those that provide free prenatal care and contraceptives, free screenings, etc., among other services. 

Who is paying for all that now?  People who pay insurance premiums already and Uncle Sam. 

Maybe that’s why Republicans originally proposed individual insurance coverage mandates to reduce healthcare costs overall, long before the Democrats.  You can look that up – Republicans started this.    

It just makes sense that if everyone – really everyone – were paying something toward their potential health issues, the premium burden would be spread more equally.  More people in the pool – the healthy as well as the less healthy, and the young as well as the old – would mean the financial exposure risks for insurance carriers would also average out more. 

In a perfect world that would be a win/win for everyone. 

However, we don’t live in a perfect world.  Most of our politicians preach equality, but only truly believe in Orwell’s Animal Farm equality (where some animals are more equal than others – particularly special interest groups) so that’s not what we are going to get.

The ACA is not going to make everyone pay for healthcare insurance.  Or the healthcare they consume.  Only the people already paying for it will continue to pay in full for it.  Special groups will get it for free, or will get subsidies to effectively get it for free. 

Which is how it works now, anyway, for all practical purposes. 

People who could afford insurance but don’t buy it will be assessed a penalty – sorry, it’s now a “tax.”  But it’s likely these are the same people not paying any Federal taxes already – the 49 percenters if you like – who are going to find a way to not pay that tax either; the gutless in Congress will find a way to exempt them, too. 

Presuming more people are added to the free/subsidized coverage, one way or another, which is apparently the goal, who pays for that?  Ah, there’s the question … not really answered.    

Businesses that don’t provide insurance for their employees will pay a tax instead – which, from personal experience, will be a fraction of the cost of providing traditional insurance benefits.  (There is a credit for small businesses that provide insurance to their employees which is meaningless; you can’t pay decent wages and qualify.)    

So a lot of businesses will probably drop the coverage they provide now – the tax will be so much cheaper – which will push more people into the “exchanges” the ACA is so fond of.

Businesses that do provide company-paid insurance will probably lose the ability to write that expense off as they do now.  Another incentive to drop insurance altogether. 

Oh, and employees who now get healthcare insurance provided by their company as a benefit will have to pay taxes on the value of that benefit.

We’re not just talking about those in the really rich plans – the oft-derided “Cadillac” plans (unless you’re a union) – but most likely those in all employer-paid plans eventually … which some politicians have longed to tax for years.

Clearly the goal is to get healthcare to a single-payer (government, of course) structure.  And eliminate any competition to that single-payer plan. 

Really?  Well, they are also working on driving insurance agencies that market health plans out of business, too; in 2014 they’ll be eliminating broker fees and commissions on healthcare policies, so there will be no income from selling these.

The major healthcare insurance carriers may not realize it yet – much like the frog being brought to a boil a little bit at a time – but they are in danger as well.  They may think they will benefit from a mass influx of new insureds through the enforced mandate, and they might in the very short term, but it will be brief.  They are simply too attractive of a target; too easy to demonize; and potentially too logical of a competitor to a government-run plan. 

By eliminating access to alternative insurance plans, by driving businesses out of providing coverage, by incenting businesses to drop the plans they now offer, and by penalizing employees who get company-paid benefits, it’s almost a slam dunk for single-payer.   

For the present, however, nothing’s really going to change for those of us already providing healthcare insurance to our employees or for those getting essentially free healthcare now. 

Only now there are greater incentives than ever before to drop employer-paid coverage. 

An unintended consequence?  Don’t think so …

Plus, now there will be more IRS agents to enforce the mandate/tax, more bureaucrats to make sure there are more regulations to be administered, more people getting more stuff for free, and more people more dependent on the government to keep the goodies coming.   

In short, more people on the government payroll; and more free-stuff addicts on the public tit.    

It’s some politicians’ wet dream. 

If everybody had skin in the game – if the mandate/tax were applied equally and everyone had to pay something for healthcare every time they used it – costs would probably go down. 

Unfortunately, we are setting up an all-you-can-eat buffet of healthcare where consumption will absolutely go up because someone else is footing the bill. 

You.