Aaaaaaand, I'm back

So.  I lost a friend over my last blog.  Which you're not supposed to be reading.  Sigh.  I guess no matter how much people want to pretend they're better than everyone else, at the end of the day we are all the same.  Anyway,

I read an article today about the Democrats proposed 5% tax increase on people who make more than a million dollars.  I don't make that much money.  In fact, if I save every possible dime for the rest of my career, I'll probably still be woefully short.  THIS IS STILL AN UNFAIR PROPOSAL.  That's coming from a poor guy.  Here's what is being said..... "Let's hold the people who make more than 1 million dollars responsible for their choice to be successful".  Because Obama and his people are not "socialists", and I know that because he's said so.  So they're not proposing this because they want to spread the wealth out (even though it's documented that the money raised from the proposed tax increase would go towards extending "long term unemployment benefits").  How about this for a crazy idea?  We hold those who (wait for it) have not EARNED any money responsible for their choices too? 

I don't know why or what the circumstances were, but when I was younger my Dad went to work for Sears changing tires and oil.  AFTER he left his day job.  Where he spent 8 hours a day working on jet engines for the Air National Guard.  I can only assume based on what I know about my Dad that he wasn't getting off of one job he was overqualified and underpaid for and going to a second one because he just loved oil so much.  I assume that our family needed the money, and he took responsibility for us.  He did what had to be done, not because it was fun, but because it was what needed to be done.   My point is this.....many people may be underpaid and overqualified (uuuuuh, me?), but that is not an excuse to shun the work that is out there.  I will happily pay into unemployment benefits the day that I can drive through Tucson and NEVER see a "help wanted" sign.  But if someone out there needs an employee, and a worker is "too good" to take the job, that is called a "poor decision".

If we are proposing to hold the rich accountable for being rich (because that's a choice they made), then we need to hold everyone else to the same standard.  I wake up on a Thursday morning and usually watch the History Channel.  And I do not get paid to do that.  I have to leave my family and my home on Saturday nights to begin a tour of 4 days EARNING money for my family.  You *cannot* tell me that people who are collecting checks by staying home are HONESTLY waking up and saying "Yeah, I'm getting money for doing nothing, but the thing I wanna do most today is go out and work".  If that's the case, then America would have the biggest and best volunteer force in the entire world.  Every park would be spotless, streets would be clean, and there would be no graffiti anywhere.  Think about it.  I'll be honest.  If I thought Obama would pay me enough to support my family, I'd quit working.  If you say you wouldn't, I think you're kidding yourself. 

As always, I risk offending people.  By now, if you're still reading (which you shouldn't be), you should probably know that when I write, I write for me, not for anyone else.  I post it on Facebook because I'm not going to withhold if someone wants to get an insight into what it's like to be completely crazy.  But by clicking on that link, you have bought your reactions to my post.  Click and be offended or don't.  But own your choice please.  In that spirit, I understand that there are working families out there that need the help, and I agree with helping them.  I know that not everyone is milking the system.  Think about how much we could help those who really need it if we got all of the slugs off of the government cheese...... 

P.S.-Some of the things I posted in my last blog about my father came across wrong.  I don't remember how, but in the name of clarification let me say this.  My dad is the best father in the world.  I don't have to agree with some of the things he did or the way he chose to raise us, but I can look at the man I am and blame him.  And I'm a good man.  He did his best, and my success as a father, husband and man are a direct result of his influence. 


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44785065

Scared Straight

So, Laura and I have been watching this show, "Scared Straight" or something like that.  These little wannabe criminal kids get taken to a jail or a prison for a day and everyone yells at them and gets them to see that they want to be better so they don't end up in jail or prison.  The only problem is that these are modern kids.  Society has taken the bite out of justice, and they know it.  There are always two or three who laugh their way through the whole thing, because they know that there's nothing the guard or inmates can acutally DO to them.  And they're right. 
The Liberal will tell you that the problem is that we spend so much money on just "locking bad guys up and throwing away the key" instead of initiating programs where we educate young people before they have a chance to turn into bad apples.  I think this is a pretty flawed way to look at the problem though.  My daughter is 2 years old(stop me if you've heard this one).  When I tell her "Addison, don't pull the scrabble letters out and dump them on the floor", can you guess what she does???  You parents who aren't reading this are waaay ahead of me, I can tell.  She DUMPS THE SCRABBLE LETTERS ON THE FLOOR.  If people are basically good, and they want to do right, why does she do that at such a young age?  Different blog, different day.  My point is this: people are born bad.  We are born to test the limits of what we can get away with.  When you find a $100 dollar bill on the ground, you're never tempted to give it to the first homeless guy you see. 
When I deal with parents at work who's children are out of control, I tell them, "you know, if my dad ever caught me doing that, he woulda left me unconcious on the street and called the fire department to come get the body.....I would have prayed for the cops to find me before my dad did".  I don't know if that's true (it's not out of the realm of possibility), but it certainly felt true enough back then.  Tying this together looks like this to me.  When my daughter is misbehaving, I spank her butt HARD.  I want her to be three years old and think to herself "I don't know why daddy is saying no to this, but I enjoy the good feeling my butt has right now, and I don't want to trade that for finding out what will happen if I do what daddy told me not to do".  I will have plenty of time to explain to her why she can't go running across the street, why she shouldn't touch the blue flame-looking thing on the stovetop, why she can't get ice cream from that guy's windowless van, etc....  But until the time comes when she can understand, she needs to understand that ignoring "no" means pain will soon follow.  Obey, and there is no pain. 
The problem with these kids is that they're functioning at a level below my 2 year old.  Society needs to back off of this "every kid has a mental disorder", "love them straight", "explain it before they can understand it" mentality.  We already took the power away from police officers, we need to reverse this before it gets to be too late.  I've been spit on, right in the face at work.  If you would have spit at a cop in the 1960's, they would have folded you in half.  They would have inflicted so much pain on you that you would have forgotten half of it.  And the country WORKED.  The prison system was not overpopulated, which allowed us to not pour so much money into it, freeing some of those funds up for other things.  We need to go back to pain first, explaination later.  I don't know why my dad didn't have to use very much pain on me.  I got my share of spankings, and unless I'm forgetting some epic beatdowns (which is possible), that pain seemed to do it for me.  Maybe it just works THAT WELL. 

Hello :)

Hi.  I'm pretty sure no one is ever going to read this.  Ever.  And that's ok.  It's kinda like shouting the things that frustrate you or make you angry into a forest.  No one can hear you, and even if they could, how creepy if they shouted back, right?? 

I have been putting "according to me" political rantings on Facebook for a few weeks, and I found that it helps me not be as frustrated.  I've also found, however, that it has doubled the frustration of my Facebook friends.  So my very beautiful and intelligent wife suggested a blog, and I thought "absolutely, let's kill all hope that anything I write will ever be read".  So here we are.  Or I am.  And I'm finding that even though these are empty words taking up a few kilobytes of internet, I feel good. 

I'll pretend you are reading, and I'm being impolite by talking about nothing.  I intend to put my thoughts and feelings about whatever here.  It will mostly be politics from a guy with no mentionable political experience (although I do have to play at work sometimes ;).  Just the world as I see it.  Once I figure it out, I'll probably put pictures of my wife and kids up, just to give the absence of a reader something nice to look at while they get fired up over what an idiot I am. 

Thanks for not reading.  And remember, if you leave a comment, you're just some creepy guy in a forest ;)