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Overview Heist Society

When Katarina Bishop was three, her parents took her to the Louvre...to case it. For her seventh birthday, Katarina and her Uncle Eddie traveled to Austria...to steal the crown jewels. When Kat turned fifteen, she planned a con of her own--scamming her way into the best boarding school in the country, determined to leave the family business behind. Unfortunately, leaving "the life" for a normal life proves harder than she'd expected.

Soon, Kat's friend and former co-conspirator, Hale, appears out of nowhere to bring her back into the world she tried so hard to escape. But he has good reason: a powerful mobster's art collection has been stolen, and he wants it returned. Only a master thief could have pulled this job, and Kat’s father isn’t just on the suspect list, he is the list. Caught between Interpol and a far more deadly enemy, Kat’s dad needs her help.

For Kat there is only one solution: track down the paintings and steal them back. So what if it’s a spectacularly impossible job? She’s got two weeks, a teenage crew, and hopefully just enough talent to pull off the biggest heist in her family’s (very crooked) history--and, with any luck, steal her life back along the way.

 

 

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Heist Society On Best Price Helpful Reviews : ★★★★  Product By : Amazon  List Price : $16.99 Discount To : Very Low Price! Buy it Now!! Shipping : Usually ships in 1-2 business days   In Stock. & FREE with Super Saver Shipping

Feature Heist Society

• ISBN13: 9781423116394
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!

Overview Heist Society

When Katarina Bishop was three, her parents took her to the Louvre...to case it. For her seventh birthday, Katarina and her Uncle Eddie traveled to Austria...to steal the crown jewels. When Kat turned fifteen, she planned a con of her own--scamming her way into the best boarding school in the country, determined to leave the family business behind. Unfortunately, leaving "the life" for a normal life proves harder than she'd expected.

Soon, Kat's friend and former co-conspirator, Hale, appears out of nowhere to bring her back into the world she tried so hard to escape. But he has good reason: a powerful mobster's art collection has been stolen, and he wants it returned. Only a master thief could have pulled this job, and Kat’s father isn’t just on the suspect list, he is the list. Caught between Interpol and a far more deadly enemy, Kat’s dad needs her help.

For Kat there is only one solution: track down the paintings and steal them back. So what if it’s a spectacularly impossible job? She’s got two weeks, a teenage crew, and hopefully just enough talent to pull off the biggest heist in her family’s (very crooked) history--and, with any luck, steal her life back along the way.

 

 

Available : In Stock.

FREE with Super Saver Shipping Usually ships in 1-2 business days

"And God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me"- Exodus 20

Several months ago I wrote a post called The First Commandment in which I observed this about our society:

I am surprised at how far our society has strayed from this simple commandment. Most public schools teach students to worship reason and logic, and they teach students to not worship God. Schools are increasingly becoming anti-God, and are finding new ways to prevent students and staff from worshipping him in order to follow some perverted interpretation of the 1st Amendment.

Schools and the larger society are increasingly breaking this commandment, and that bothers me, because if you don't believe in God, and if you don't worship him and follow his rules, what is next? Worshipping false gods? The failure to follow the first commandment is a sign that our society is not going to follow the other commandments.

The failure of our society to follow the first amendment is now being seen. Breitbart has video of the Gamaliel National Clergy Caucus holding a New Orleans style funeral procession as they deliver a casket symbolizing the death of old ways of providing health care and pray for a new day for health care in America. The Gamaliel Foundation is the community organizing group that helped sponsor Barack Obama's initial work in Chicago. While praying and signing, these people appear to be singing "Hear our cry, Obama" and "Deliver us Obama".

The video can be seen here.

Combine this with the recent stories about school children singing hymns and songs praising Obama, and what we have here is clear evidence of a society that is no longer worshiping God but is beginning to worship false idols like people (Obama) or nature (environmentalism). I don't want to hop up on my preacher box, but if our society abandons God, don't you think we'd start to see some signs of that in our society, like rising unemployment, falling prosperity, and our national power being challenged abroad?

People need to have a job- they need to do something good for society and feeling good about themselves and paying taxes and being a productive member of society and not just be a recipient of the forced generosity of those who do work in society. And one policy change that the federal government and state governments that they could implement that would lead to more people having a job is to lower or repeal minimum wages.

Dr. Gary L. Wolfram, a Professor in Economics and Public Policy at Hillsdale College, wrote in an editorial that was in the Detroit News called Grow jobs, repeal the minimum wage:

...If we could make the poor better off by simply increasing the minimum wage, why not a minimum wage of $1000 per hour?

The U.S. unemployment rate among16-19 year olds is a staggering 25 percent. In Michigan, 28 percent. That's a recipe for frustrated youths. Often they end up in the underground economy, selling drugs.

It has been estimated that nearly half of Detroit's adult population is functionally illiterate. Michigan's minimum wage keeps these unskilled workers from gaining employment and is partly to blame for the city's high unemployment.

If there were no minimum wage, however, then producers could hire the unskilled and train them. Those of us old enough to remember gas station attendants who washed car windows also remember that many a young person got their first job pumping gas. They learned important job skills that improved their productivity and let them move on to higher-paying occupations.

The minimum wage increases of the last 50 years have eliminated these and other entry level jobs and kept large number of the unskilled dependent upon government for subsistence.

Aside from the harsh unintended consequences, there is also a principle of individual liberty at stake. If you are willing to pay me for my labor at the rate we agree upon, then why should the government tell me that I cannot sell you my labor? Why should a state or local government be able to tell me that I cannot work because I can't produce $7.25 or $7.40 an hour worth of goods and services? Individual freedom depends on the right to one's own labor.

It's time that we restored one of our fundamental freedoms by ending the minimum wage.

These are the very points that I made several months ago in my own editorial, a blog post called Higher Minimum Wage Laws Have Resulted in Higher Unemployment Rates? In that post I wrote:

But let's say some do-gooder government bureaucrat making 100K/year comes along and thinks that it isn't fair that you are only getting paid the amount that you and your employer both voluntarily agreed upon. This person decides that everyone should now be paid $10/hour, and then pats themselves on the back for making the lives of all of these low-skilled laborers better. The store owner now has a choice- increase the amount of money that they budget for 'sales staff' or hire less people. If they just let their store slip a little in looks, have less staff available for help, automate some of the things that people did better, and not have friendly greeters, business will suffer- but so will the competitors too, so the only real loser will be all of society. If they instead just keep their 'sales staff' budget at $50 and simply cut back the number of employees who work, those employees will have to work harder and there will be more demands on their skill level, but that's okay- there are plenty of people willing to work for $10 hour. Our good businessman now fires all 10 people, re-hires 5 new people with more skills (probably older people with degrees in useless subjects), and moves forward with a store that is lesser than before.

The end result of raising minimum wage in this theoretical exercise will result in higher unemployment, especially in those groups with lower skill levels, and stores that are less appealing.

I don't have any hard data on whether stores are less appealing today than they were back in the old days- myself, I think that it is, with more 'self-checkout' operations, less helpful staff, less personal service, and stores that are less straight and clean. I do have hard data on unemployment rates...

Oh, I know that many out there feel that any job that doesn't pay someone enough to live a life of luxury is a job not worth having- many liberals and progressives are sure to comment that 'you can't feed your family on a sub-minimum wage'. Maybe you can't, but you can feed them a lot better on a sub-minimum wage than you can on no-wage, and while you are doing that you will be doing something productive for our society, earning important job skills, and even giving a little back to society in taxes. Perhaps you need some assistance after that, but that's not the point here- the point is that minimum wage laws act as a barrier for good things happening for those who don't have jobs.

And those people who earn minimum wage right now are usually not earning that wage for a long time- they use their increased skills to secure wage increases and better opportunities and go forward from there, or if they don't, they likely are lucky that they are protected from competition by these laws that artificially force employers to pay them rates higher than they honestly deserve.

Let's be honest- in the name of making themselves feel better because they are guilty for being successful when they really don't deserve it, many liberals and progressives put in place policies that harm those in our society who need the most help; they put in place minimum wage laws that prohibit people from freely making contracts regarding their labor and wages, they put in place controls on businesses and individuals which hurts their attempts to increase their property and wealth, and they make the lives of those who they force to suck down forced charity a little bit less.

Yesterday Michigan Governor Democrat Jennifer Granholm gave her State of the State address- let's take a look at what she said.

First, she announced that she is going to continue her policy of attempting to personally direct the economy of Michigan by focusing the state on new industries like 'green energy' and film-making. Granholm has no major experience or success at any level in starting and running new businesses, yet in spite of this, she is going to use the power and force of government to take money from you and me and then invest it in businesses that she thinks will be successful. I have no problem with her doing this with her own money- but using the power of the state to gamble in supporting risky business ventures is not sound public policy, and our state should not be engaged in it.

Next, let's take a closer look at how she is going to lower energy prices in our state, make energy more affordable to citizens, and lower the overall cost of doing business here- she is going to ban the building and running of coal-powered electric plants in Michigan. Not only will that make energy more expensive and raise the cost of business in our state, she is essentially telling companies that want to invest in Michigan and hire workers here "no"- that Michigan is not open to new businesses if they aren't the state favored 'green' businesses. A government that can pick and choose winners in the marketplace and one that can disallow certain businesses to be built just because it doesn't like them is not a free government in charge of a prosperous society- it is a tyranny that makes society more poor, and you can see that in Michigan, as our government becomes more arbitrary, more corrupt, less responsive, and society becomes poorer as a result.

Continuing on, I would like to announce that I will not be paying my utility bills, house payments, or car insurance any more, since it appears that these are voluntary payments, and the state will use its power to keep the energy on and even provide insurance for me, or at least that is what Granholm is proposing. Once the moratorium expires, I might pay then. She is removing personal responsibility from individuals, and society will be less because of this- these programs will increase economic inefficiencies and drive up taxes, making society poorer, and ultimately as society becomes poorer people will be less able to pay their bills, which the government will have to pay, etc, etc. It doesn't make logical sense, although it is nice, and saying nice illogical things gets you elected now days (Exhibit A: Obama). As a side note, since I brought up Obama, I am also considering no longer paying my taxes, since those are optional as well, at least until you are nominated for public office, and then campaign donors pay the bill.

Lastly, I would just like to comment that this is exactly what you get when you elect a Democrat who promises to improve funding for the arts, provide jobs, keep the cost of education low, and protect the environment- a politician who says nice things, but reality is much different, as we can see now that Granholm- elected to do those things- is now cutting the state fair, turning over wetlands protection to the federal government, cutting the Department of Humanities, Arts, and Libraries, and overseeing skyrocketing tuition increases and unemployment rates. If you want low cost education, jobs, a protected environment, and everything else a Democrat promises to do- vote Republican in the future. Results matter, not words, Granholm.

The information from this post was taken from her speech yesterday, covered in this story in the Detroit News.

UPDATE: On the way in to work today on 760AM, there was a debate between Granholm's guy and an insurance guy, and they were debating the Governor's proposal to make car insurance more fair by increasing regulations and oversight of the insurance industry.

As I understood it, the government is upset that when deciding rates insurance companies rate people based on occupation/race/income, that insurance rates have gone up by 69% since 1989, and that our insurance rates are some of the highest in the nation.

The insurance industry's reply is that basing insurance rates on such factors is established as valid under actuary practice, and that such factors are good predictors between good risks/bad risks, that the increase in rates since 1989 works out to be 3% a year, which is the rate of inflation and is pretty good considering the sharper rise in health care costs, and that the reason why our insurance rates are high is that the government demands a no-fault system with unlimited medical compensation.

Honestly, this debate works out to a typical debate between a Republican and a Democrat- the Democrat wants the best coverage in the world, free from cost, and everyone paying in equal, while the Republican wants to give people choices on what kind of coverage they think is best for their needs, that the cost is based on the benefit gained to the consumer, and that the reason why it costs so much is because of government involvement. It's pretty clear that this insurance proposal of Granholm's is like most of the rest of her ideas- bad for Michigan.

Democrat President Barack Obama's economic programs can be best called "The Inside Deal." There is a long history of 'deals' in our nation, where the government expands unconstitutionally into areas where it is not supposed to be and crowds out human freedom and industry. These deals all have cool names- Square Deal, New Deal, Fair Deal, Great Society- and as Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress have jammed through considerable changes in our nation over the last year, it is appropriate that we give a name to Obama's economic policies. I hearby submit to the world that we call Obama's economic programs "The Inside Deal."

The Inside Deal is Democratic President Barack Obama's domestic economic program and is characterized by extensive government spending for politically connected groups within American society. It is aimed to reward those groups that supported Obama's campaign for the Presidency in 2010, such as labor unions, public employee unions, teachers unions, environmentalists, anti-war protesters, Wall Street, and big businesses. Some of the programs that were passed by the Democratic Congress at the time to reward these groups include the stimulus bill, the healthcare bill, and massive annual budgets.

Increasingly during the height of the Inside Deal, there is a link between who receives taxpayer money from the federal government and their political connections. Called by some crony capitalism, it is increasingly unpopular, and in the face of continuing recession in spite of (or because of) the massive deficits that marked the Inside Deal, this program was largely overturned by Republican Congressional majorities and Presidents from 2010-2020 (hopefully).

Hopefully someone will soon create a wikipedia article on this, describing Obama's Inside Deal in more depth.

The first 'deal' that was made between government and America where citizens traded their rights and liberties for the promise of 'progress' was the Square Deal. The Square Deal was Republican President Theodore Roosevelt's domestic program formed upon three basic ideas: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection. Thus, it aimed at helping middle class citizens and involved attacking the plutocracy and trusts through rhetoric and expansions of federal power while at the same time protecting business from the extreme demands of the rising communists.

Democrat President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had The New Deal. This was a series of economic programs passed by Congress from 1933 to his reelection in 1936. The programs were responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call the "3 Rs": relief, recovery and reform. That is, relief for the unemployed and poor; recovery of the economy to normal levels; and reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression. To see a list of some of the programs that comprise FDR's New Deal, see my post 1930's Are Root of All That is Wrong.

The next 'deal' was offered by Democrat President Harry Truman, who presented a 21 point program of domestic legislation outlining a series of proposed actions in the fields of economic development and social welfare, including the call for universal health care. But in the face of peace and rising prosperity, the country decided that it didn't want to accept this deal, and the boom times of the 1950's and 1960's followed.

But Democrat Lyndon Johnson was inspired by the Fair Deal, and when he became President, he tried once again to make a deal between government and society whereby people would trade their individual rights and freedoms and liberties for some sense of 'fairness' in society. He called his 'deal' the Great Society. Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. New major spending programs that addressed education, medical care, urban problems, and transportation were launched during this period. The federal government has since spent trillions of dollars on these issues, and education, healthcare, urban areas, and transportation systems are now much worse today then they would have been if the federal government would not have stuck its nose into those areas and let human ingenuity and freedom and industry work unchained and untaxed.

Obama's Inside Deal represents then just the latest in a long line of usurpation's that have the goal of reducing our rights to life, liberty, and protection of property. Like our forefathers before, it is up to us to fight and overturn these injustices, least we be reduced to a state of tyranny.

In Next Billion, Christopher Fomunyoh founder of the TFF contends that:

...the African private sector needs to embrace the concept of good governance and democratic governance, and realize that it would be one of the beneficiaries of systems that allow for more clarity and more transparency. And so they don't need to form organizations like NDI; they can be supportive of private initiatives by civil society organizations in their respective countries.Civil society across Africa has become very vibrant, especially in the last 10 to 15 years, and a lot of these organizations are launched by men and women who have ideas but who need resources and sponsorships that can allow them to conduct programs that would benefit people in communities that are outside of the reach of government.

More here

In Exodus 20, the Ten Commandments are listed- how well do you know them? To be honest, I had a vague understanding of them, but had never really read them and thought about them before. One that really got me thinking was the First Commandment:

And God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

In my view, this commandment is fairly easy to understand- believe in God, believe in his power, and worship him and no other gods. Not only that, one should also refuse to 'worship' other things- money, sex, success, beauty, status, etc. Also, this commandment further prohibits one from holding false beliefs about God- in other words, don't believe in a false or incorrect God.

As a conservative teacher, I am surprised at how far our schools and our society has strayed from this simple commandment. Most public schools teach students to worship reason and logic, and they teach students to not worship God. Schools are increasingly becoming anti-God, and are finding new ways to prevent students and staff from worshipping him in order to follow some perverted interpretation of the 1st Amendment.

Schools and society increasingly promotes worship of a new God- Mother Earth. The increasingly worship of this God, increasingly at odds with the God of the Bible and Christians, is a shocking breach of the 1st Commandment. Ask yourself- would you rather work on the Sabbath or envy your neighbors goods, or recycle and buy a hybrid? Which commandments do you follow more closely- which God do you believe in more- the God of the Bible or Mother Earth? What God to you believe in more, which God's rules do you stick the most closely too, which God to you sacrifice the most to, which God do you look to for the future, and which God's learning's do you learn about- Mother Earth or the God of the Bible?

Schools and the larger society are increasingly breaking this commandment, and that bothers me, because if you don't believe in God, and if you don't worship him and follow his rules, what is next? Worshipping false gods (politicians, athletes, celebrities)? Murder (abortion)? Adultery (skyrocketing divorce rates)? Theft (raising tax rates)? False witness (perjury, lying, half-truths)? Coveting neighbors property (redistribution of property)? The failure to follow the first commandment is a sign that our society is not going to follow the other commandments.

A moral society is a just one, and we are losing our morality- we are attacking our morality, and it all begins with worshipping of other gods.

The Inside Deal is Democratic President Barack Obama's domestic economic program and is characterized by extensive government spending for politically connected groups within American society. Increasingly during the height of the Inside Deal, there is a link between who receives taxpayer money from the federal government and their political connections. It is called by some crony capitalism. For some politically connected groups in American society, the Inside Deal allows them to to avoid or delay certain mandates, fees, regulations, or restrictions, due purely to their political connections and status in society. During the height of the Great Recession, these deals between Democrat politicians and regulators and bureaucrats and politically favored businesses became increasingly more common.

One such deal was recently struck between McDonald's and Obama's bureaucrats. McDonald's (which has CNN on in all of its restaurants, doubling CNN's viewership) apparently is going to be able to allowed to waive certain requirements of the new health-care laws. After Micky D's threatened federal regulators saying that it would drop its health-insurance plan for nearly 30,000 restaurant workers, Obama's officials jumped to announce that they will exercise discretion this time. There was no announcements as to whether or not the thousands of other employers would be allowed to waive the requirements that will cause thousands more to lose their health insurance coverage.

This McDonald's announcement highlights the kind of healthcare law that Democrats passed into law last year- one that will cause employers to drop coverage of thousands of employees, who will then be forced to go on the government's health care plans paid for by taxpayers or lose health care coverage altogether, unless businesses are politically connected like government officials or labor unions or companies that threaten retribution, who are all allowed to waive the requirements and continue to provide service to their employees free from government interference and fees.

Obamacare is the kind of legislation that creates a society that is based on who you know, on who you donate money to, on who you have political connections with- it creates a deal between favored groups in society and the government masters who dictate policy over them. There might be some incidental good side effects, but at a fundamental level it is tyranny that degrades the human condition and lessens our protections of life, liberty, and property.

The school year is going to begin again soon, and as although I am excited to go back to doing what I love doing, I also can look forward to spending more time around liberal teachers, who dominate the education of your children, and listening to all of their theories and ideas of how the world works. It would be humorous if they weren't actively passing these ideas on to your children. For example, I'm not sure if I ever told you about the typical conversations that go on during lunch breaks with teachers. Before becoming a full-time teacher, I substitute taught for a couple years, and so had a lot of time to observe teachers during lunch breaks.

One usual topic of conversation is students who have misbehaved. According to liberal teachers, the student is not usually at fault for any misbehavior they engage in. Whereas conservative teachers would talk about discipline, leadership, and management strategies, liberals conversations about misbehaving students revolve around ethnicity, status, income level, physical features, and blame.

To these liberal teachers, the student’s bad behavior is not their fault- they are not responsible for their own actions. Instead, their poor behavior, poor test grades, etc is instead to be blamed on other teachers, society, or the testing conditions- but never the student.

The student may have some demented conservative teacher who has been preaching things like self-responsibility and discipline, and then when they go into the safe liberal teachers classroom, they act out their frustrations with the conservative teacher by hitting other students or talking back to the liberal teacher. It isn't the student's fault, and it isn't the liberal teacher's lack of management- it is the conservative teacher's fault.

In breakroom, liberal teachers talk about how it is society's fault that the student is not doing well. When liberals look at people, they break them down by race, sex, condition, sexual preference, religion, and economic status and go from there. I've heard teachers say that the reason why Johny can't read is because Johny is black, and our society does not do enough to help out black students, and we need to offer more intervention programs focuses on black students at our school, and until we do so, Johny isn't going to learn how to read. They will say this even though Johny is the only black student in school who can't read, and that Johny is also a bad kid who refuses to do his own work or help himself. I'm thinking that it is Johny's fault he can't read, but liberals want to take the responsibility out of his hands and instead blame society.

Once I heard a teacher say that the reason why Ron did so poorly on tests is because he was from a Christian family and because of this wasn't able to reason well. He didn't do well in biology class because he must have been rejecting biology because it wasn't in the bible, she would laugh, and the others would laugh too. Oh, how much fun it is for liberal teachers to mock Christians behind their backs- those silly believers!

Perhaps the favorite way for students to take responsibility away from students is to blame testing conditions for any poor tests that students take. It is never the student's fault- someone else in the room must have distracted them, the teacher must not have given the student enough time, the room must have been too cold, etc. It wasn't that the student was weak minded and lacked discipline in focus- nope, it's not their fault. They don't need to change who they are- they are fine, super people, just the way they are- weak, dumb, unruly, super happy people. And, these liberal teachers add to me in breakroom, I should not be trying to change them from who they are by forcing them to be smarter, stronger, more focused people- I'm such a mean teacher, they say.

Yes, I am looking forward to going back to teaching again, but not looking forward to more breakroom discussions that remove personal responsibility from students and blame society. It is conversations like that that make me eat my sandwich in my room.

In my class, I tolerate almost every sort of student- conservatives, liberals, libertarians, socialists, and even moderates. In our discussions, debates, and in simulations, it doesn't matter to me how a student thinks the best way to improve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness- it isn't my place to make them conform with my views or my ideology. But even though I'm tolerate of those groups, I do not tolerate fascists, hypocrites, or those students who openly promote tyranny and seek power over others.

Public education receives a lot of money from the state, and that money comes with a responsibility and obligation that I make sure that there are not students in my classroom who think that it okay to openly support fascism, that it is not okay to serially lie about their beliefs and views on issues, or that it is not okay to promote control over other people and tyranny and oppression. I crack down on those beliefs and try to teach students that those are not acceptable in our free and open society- they can think and believe whatever they want, but as long as I'm getting money from a free state of laws and liberty and freedom, I'm not going to let students openly and with my support think or say anything that advocates its violent overthrow or a take over by any hateful groups out there.

That being said, I am plenty accepting of liberals and socialists- as long as that is what they really are. The problem is that there really are not that many true socialists that come through my classroom, because there honestly are not a lot of real socialists in general. Oh, there are plenty of people in society that pretend they are socialist- they preach equality, redistribution of wealth, no ownership of property, fairness, and a society of rainbows and puppy dog tails- but when it really comes down to it and I make them make decisions about their own lives, their own property, their own liberty, it turns out they believe something else entirely.

Many people in society claim to be socialist, but in reality they are just thugs- they want others who they don't like to redistribute their property, by force if necessary. They want other people, not them or their friends, to lose their liberties and freedoms- but not them. They want equality, as long as that equality drags others down to their levels- but once they have more than others and are more fortunate, they no longer believe in equality. They talk about the joys of a society that they can build, ignoring the horrors of it in reality.

Victor Davis Hanson wrote about this in a recent article called There Are No Socialists. Here are some of the key parts:

...The strangest things about the global statist crack-up are socialists’ unhappiness with their socialist utopia, and their subsequent efforts to avoid the consequences of the very redistributive state that they themselves once so gladly crafted...

...Here at home, Obama got his ObamaCare. Why, then, did he grant hundreds of exemptions — many to northern California liberals? Should they instead not have lined up to volunteer to implement such a wonderful, long-needed entitlement?

He said energy would rightly sky-rocket, given his determination to curb fossil fuel production (cf. “bankrupt” coal companies). Why then is Obama concerned that gas hit $4; is not such a high price a welcomed retardant to burning hot fuels? The higher the gas prices, the more that subsidized wind and solar power, and electric cars are attractive, and thus the more we enjoy “sustainable” power. Right? Am I missing something about this desire within our grasp of “living within our means”?

Obama enjoyed big majorities in both houses of Congress; and on the campaign trail he had promised a de facto amnesty under the euphemism of “comprehensive immigration reform.” So why did he not grant such exemptions, and absorb 11, 15, or 20 million new “citizens” from Oaxaca? Is not that the point of amnesty, to welcome in new constituencies who will remember a benefactor at the polls?...

....This discussion is, of course, a belabored example of why and how socialists do not like socialism. Indeed, statism is not a desired outcome, but rather more a strategy for obtaining power or winning acclaim as one of the caring, by offering the narcotic of promising millions something free at the expense of others who must be seen as culpable and obligated to fund it — entitlements fueled by someone else’s money that enfeebled the state, but in the process extended power, influence, and money to a technocratic class of overseers who are exempt from the very system that they have advocated.

So what is socialism? It is a sort of modern version of Louis XV’s “Après moi, le déluge” – an unsustainable Ponzi scheme in which elite overseers, for the duration of their own lives, enjoy power, influence, and gratuities by implementing a system that destroys the sort of wealth for others that they depend upon for themselves....

...History is not kind to such collective states of mind. Pay an Athenian in the fifth century BC a subsidy to go to the theater; and in the fourth century BC he is demanding such pay to vote in the assembly as well — and there is not to be a third century free democratic polis. Extend to a Roman in the first century BC a small grain dole, and by the late first century AD he cannot live without a big dole, free entertainment in a huge new Coliseum, and disbursements of free coined money. Let the emperor Justinian try cutting back the bloated bureaucracy in sixth century AD Constantinople and he wins the Nika riots that almost destroy a civilization from within even as it is beset by hosts of foreign enemies....

Victor Davis Hanson is the author of books such as The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern and How The Obama Administration Threatens Our National Security (Encounter Broadsides).

My nana says that in order to be a learned person, you need to make sure that you have read the wisdom of the past. It's a good saying, and I think that it is a shame that students today read so little of the wisdom of those who have come before them. It leads to a society that thinks that it knows everything, that thinks it is the center of the world, and that elects people into office who know little of history or the ideas of the past. These kinds of people do things that everyone knows failed in the past, and rather than stand on the shoulders of giants and make our society better, they jump off the giants back into the muck and make our society worse.

So whose writings do I consider worthwhile reading? One of my readers wrote me and pointed out a list of the 25 greatest thinkers that every college student should read, and it's a good list. College students- or even high school students- should be familiar with these thinkers and have read some of their material at some point in their schooling. Go through the list yourself- have you read these great thinkers?


Western Philosophers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Stuart Mill, Immanuel Kant, Soren Kierkegaard, and Niccolo Machiavelli. Eastern Thinkers like Confucius, Avicenna, Laozi, Siddhartha Gautama, or D.T. Suzuki.

Statesman like Winston Churchill, Thomas Jefferson, Ataturk, Mao Zedong, and Nelson Mandela. Writers and Artists like Mark Twain, George Orwell, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Albert Camus, Khalil Gibran, Kurt Vonnegut, Gunter Grass, Marcel Proust, Issac Asimov, and Arthur Rimbaud.

If you don't recognize any of these writers, and I confess that there are a couple on here that I have not read, check out the article in its entirely. It discusses who the person is and what contributions they made to society.

Lastly, put this information to use. In your own life, try to read these works and draw on the thought and ideas that they present. Listen to others talk, and challenge them when their ideas are deficient or lacking in deep thought. Be a jerk and demand that people display their knowledge of past great thinkers, especially those who would lead you and pretend to rule you. Stand on the shoulders of giants and make our society better.

In my post America's Youth Will Rue the Day They Voted for Obama I wrote:

...(the national debt piled up under the recent budgets of President Obama) is going to destroy the life, liberty, and property of my children and grandchildren. They are going to grow up in a world less secure because our nation will owe money to nations ranging from Middle Eastern oil dictatorships to communist China, our children will have lesser fire and police and hospital and library services than we enjoy today, inflation will destroy savings and inheritances and businesses passed on, Social Security will be gone (or exist in a much diminished manner), Medicare will be gone (or exist in a much diminished manner), higher education will be too expensive except for the richest of the youth, and our society will be one which rewards those children whose parents have political connections and not those children who work hard and innovate. A Leviathan will rule over my children and grandchildren, controlling their actions and dictating to them in a poor society that is yet a shadow of what America used to be, all thanks to liberal and progressives and their failed policies which have destroyed the financial and moral foundations of nations, states, and cities already....

...our nation will fall father and farther behind in developing energy and be forced to transfer more and more wealth to tyrants overseas just because Obama and the Democrats are slaves to a failed Green God religion and its corrupting influence.

The very nature of Obamacare is to transfer wealth from young to old, by forcing healthy members of society who are choosing not to buy healthcare to buy healthcare and subsidize the old people in society who use it. The promise is there that someday they'll also get to join in the intergenerational theft, but when America's debt soars ever higher, that promise will not be followed through on, and besides, promises of intergenerational theft are still nothing more than theft.

America's youth will rue the day that they voted for Barack Obama on a naive promise of hope and change and togetherness. They will rue the day....

My prediction was that someday in the future, America's youth will look back on the election of 2008 and think to themselves that they should not have voted for him because in this distant future America's youth will be unemployed and facing crumbling foundations and massive debt. My prediction was wrong- it turns out, America's youth should be ruing the day right now that they voted for Obama, because now none of them have jobs:

Just 55.3 percent of Americans between 16 and 29 have jobs.

That means that almost half of all young people are not getting any job experience and are not gaining critical job skills, and in the decades to come, now will be a lost period during which the future did not set themselves up for a brighter future. Instead the young are draining the resources of other productive people in society by living at home and eating food paid for by their parents, who could have been using using that money to invest or save for retirement or give to charity.

Although I was not able to find any information to compare 55.3% to from the Department of Labor, I was able to find a paper which suggests a pre-Obama employment rate for 16 to 29 year olds of 65%. This suggests that the addition of variable "President Obama" to the American economic equation resulted in an increase in 1 in 10 young people not being able to find a job due to his job-killing policies.

The reason why these young people can not find jobs is not because 'Bush lied and soldiers died' in Iraq, it is not because Bush didn't stop global warming, it is not because the Republicans are 'obstructing' tax increases and increased government spending, and it is not because 'tea party people are racist.' The reason why young people can not find jobs is that legislation and policies passed by Obama and the Democrats make it more expensive to hire workers (such as increased healthcare costs associated with Obamacare), make it more risky to expand production (when government policies could change and turn on any sort of industry), when being productive makes you more of a target (the 'evil rich' are being attacked by class-warfare playing Obama), and that the government is encouraging young people to not get jobs by pushing more student loans on them and getting them covered on their parents insurance longer.

Young people, because they are up-and-coming and energetic and healthy and productive and strong, should vote conservative and Republican, so that government gets off their backs and lets them be all that they can be.

Emmanuel Franklyne Ogbunwezeh writes:

Mediocrity constructs the failure of societies. It brews allergy to progress. To this end, a society that applauds mediocrity has booked an appointment with poverty. That society has a rendezvous with collapse. It has a date with failure. Mediocrity kills development. It smothers aspirations to excellence. It eviscerates every passion to innovate. It percolates and corrodes the fibres of the society. Core values erode at its toxic acidity. This leads to a breakdown of social support system which ensures social cohesion. In the light of this, a society which places premium on corruption, and fraud is heading to hell. Because dalliance with the mean has never launched any society into the orbit of development

via NVS

Several months ago, inspired by my reading of Exodus 20, I wrote a post about the importance of the First Commandment- Thou Shalt Not Have Any Gods Before Me. As I wrote earlier, this is a pretty easy command by God to understand- believe in God, believe in his power, and worship him and no other gods. This means that you should also refuse to 'worship' other things- money, reason, sex, success, environment, beauty, logic, status, etc.

In my post I went on to say:

As a conservative teacher, I am surprised at how far our schools and our society has strayed from this simple commandment. Most public schools teach students to worship reason and logic, and they teach students to not worship God. Schools are increasingly becoming anti-God, and are finding new ways to prevent students and staff from worshipping him in order to follow some perverted interpretation of the 1st Amendment.

The point of this statement was to point out that schools are not observing the first amendment or even a separation of church and state. Instead, schools are actively sponsoring the worship of other gods and are using their power and influence over students to actively attack the Christian church. It usually isn't obvious, but the fact that they have classes on diversity, international relations (or even Islamic studies), the portrayal of religion and religious leaders in history books, the absence of any mention of religion in science classes, or the fervent avoidance to any religious texts in English classes- in these ways, schools have tried their hardest to evict God and anything that sounds like God from their walls.

Look at the textbooks that your children take home, ask your child what was talked about by the teacher in their lectures, and by a fly on the wall in staff lunch rooms or between hours and you will hear a lot of public school teachers openly mock and disrespect religion, especially Christian religion.

In my post I directed people to learn more about religion and God by clicking on some links that I found were helpful- they took you to about.com's site on religion. This brought my blog to the attention of the atheism and agnostic blogger for this site, and on his site he decided to attack my views.

This blogger feels that caring about students morality and values and trying to put in place a society closer to God's views "could be one of the problems in America's public schools." In his view, it is a problem to even speak of religion, and the mere thought that someone in public schools might personally care about religion terrifies him. How could he be an atheist and deny God and have people read his blog if people learn about God in schools? Oh, the terror!

Here is the real root of his concern- "I doubt that this Conservative Teacher can find a single example of a society which has enforced Christian dogma and which was just"- in other words, he has so lost his faith and is bitter and angry at the world that he strikes out at it, hoping that if he can tear down God somehow he will be less alone. He thinks that the Christian church is particular has made the world worse off, and suggests that attempting to follow Gods laws makes society bad. I'd find him sad if he wasn't running a blog that thousands of people a day read and take advice from.

In his anger at the Christian church and his hysteria over protecting the liberal interpretation of the first amendment, he misses the point entirely. Read the comment section and you'll see what I mean. According to readers of this blog, God is an "imaginary god," "this world already lacks any gods," "What god?", or mock God by calling him the "Flying Spaghetti Monster." One reader even a says "I hate Enki the incestuous Sumerian semen god and want him dead. Don’t know why, maybe I just want to worship myself, or I don’t want to be accountable to anything bigger than myself. Or I hate love and hope."

No where do I see in the post on Austin's Atheism Blog or in the comments is my original point disputed- that once you disconnect people from God, they are disconnected from reality and usually in their desperation resort to worshiping other false idols, whether it is the state or other men.

"...After decades of centralized “command and control,” government leaders espouse market-led economic growth and community empowerment without a clear understanding of the changes this likely requires in their roles and behavior. After years of operating as what many in their own lands considered “pariahs” and “profiteers,” business leaders are unfamiliar with emerging norms of public-private cooperation and corporate social responsibility. And, eternal advocates for change, civil society leaders often lack a clear understanding of the need for business and government alike to satisfy multiple stakeholders in order to create truly sustainable prosperity and peace. For there to be progress, the next generation of leaders in all three sectors must come together:
• to identify and address their personal strengths and weaknesses as leaders,
• to understand the challenges they face as participants in a rapidly globalizing society,
• to share and refine their respective visions of the society they would like to live in, and
• to lead by example in building this society.
It is for these reasons that The Africa Leadership Initiative has been conceived..."

In June 23, 2009 I wrote a post against attempts to regulate smoking, but apparently at that time I did not write a post stating my views on the local Michigan smoking ban. I did call in to some local radio shows then and express my view that the smoking ban would likely lead to less patrons visiting bars and resulting less tax revenue and more unemployment, but most of the radio hosts and other people in the state ignored that sort of advice, and so our Democratic Governor and Democratic Legislature went ahead and passed a ban on smoking in bars and restaurants.

One year later the results are coming in, and like most attempts by Democrats to govern our society, the result is a society that is less richer, prosperous, and free (and although the data would be hard to come by, I would also contend that since smokers now are forced to smoke in their own homes now, there are more home fires caused by smoking and so more losses of life). And as business has fallen and sales of food and liquor have fallen due to this smoking ban, that has meant less revenue to the state to support police, fire, education, and libraries, all things that liberal Democrats pretend that they support.

From story Bar Owners Plan Smoking Ban Protest -- With Taxes:

...the group Protect Private Property Right in Michigan is proposing some pretty drastic measures to get lawmakers to take a second look at it. They want bar owners to stop paying taxes completely until the smoking issue is brought back up. And some bar owners TV5 spoke with didn't think that’s a bad idea...

“It's hurt us. I don't know anybody in the small bar industry that it's helped,” said (Co-owner of the Red Horse in Saginaw Chris) Adams. Just down the street from the Red Horse, bar owner Jerry Baleck at Patty Flemings feels the same way.


“I’m against it. I think it's private property here, and I should be allowed to say whether I want to smoke or not,” said Baleck.

That’s why a growing number of business owners are taking matters into their own hands. They love their bars and hate the smoking ban law, so some are trying to get Lansing’s attention where it hurts -- right in the wallet. A group of Michigan bar owners said they'll set up private escrow accounts and hold off on paying their taxes. “Maybe they ain't got enough money to pay their taxes in the first place with the smoking ban,” said Baleck.

“If we're not making money, why should we give them money?” said Adams. At least 200 bar owners have pledged to stop paying their taxes. It's a drastic step and owners TV5’s Liz Gelardi spoke with aren't sure if they're ready to go that far. “I don't know. I’d have to know the ins and outs and know all the particulars before I would jump in and do something so drastic,” said Adams. “But yeah, I probably will consider it.”

“Are you going to keep paying your taxes?” Gelardi asked Baleck. “Well, yeah, [I] don’t need no tax problems,” responded Baleck.

“Hopefully we can get more numbers,” said Adams. “Hopefully we can double that, you know, so we can get twice as many people together and make a statement to the state and tell them we're tired of being pushed around.”

On one hand, you have someone who provides a service to society (a restaurant or bar where people can smoke) that people freely engage in and harms no one except others who freely choose to go to those bars and restaurants. This person works hard and pays your taxes. On the other hand, you have a government official, usually a Democrat or liberal, who wants to control this person and make him make his bar or restaurant non-smoking so that he can go with his happy rich family and not have smoke in their faces, and so passes a law that results in a society that is less prosperous and free. That's the story of Michigan's smoking ban in a nutshell.

UPDATE: Thank you The Daley Gator for linking to this story!

Today I was talking with a friend of mine who recently sat down with several state legislators to discuss Governor Synder's proposed budget cuts. He was there representing teachers, and argued that teachers should not be having their funding cut. Also there was the head of a local movie company who was arguing against cuts to subsidies for movies studios, and there was a retiree there arguing against taxing retirees, and there was a police officer there arguing against cuts to police, and there was a local government official there arguing against cuts to local government funding. According to my friend, they all supported one another and backed one another up as they badgered the legislators who talked with them to make no cuts to any of them.

Now, in Michigan the budget has to be cut- there isn't revenue to match expenditures at the state level and the state of Michigan has to have a balanced budget, and our current Governor doesn't have the advantage of getting federal bailouts or tobacco settlements and isn't willing to paper over the debt with creative accounting measures or push it to future years. So I pointed out to my friend that someone has to be the 'loser' in this budget- not everyone can be a 'winner'.

He disagreed with me, but not really- as a good solid liberal, he explained the way that unions, teachers, green companies, movie stars, police, retirees, and librarians can 'win' this budget battle- by making everyone else be a loser. Like most liberals, the secret is to tax and tax and tax some more, and direct those taxes to those groups in our society who have the luxury of being able to have or make money- under his plan (which fits with what the liberal Governor we had previously did), taxes would be raised on young workers, small businesses, 'unfavorable' businesses, the rich, the wealthy, those who invest, and those who are productive. By extracting more wealth from these groups, he argued, everyone in society would win, except for those who lost, but they don't count to him because they are all bad people.

You see, the beauty of a budget is that it forces you to make choices and decide where you stand on issues- what groups or services or powers or abilities government should have and which ones it should not have or do. At the federal level, our national government wanders around spending more and more money and never figures out its place in society because it does not make and keep a balanced budget, but at the state level, our budget will produce winners and losers, and we can't all be winners.

Someone has to lose in this budget. Myself, I think teachers can take a small loss, but not on the level that Synder is pitching, and I think that other groups should be big losers (like movie studies, government employees, and other companies that get tax credits because of their political connections). Winners should be wealth generators, because when they are free to generate wealth and be wealthy, all of society will benefit from the surplus of life, liberty, and property that they generate freed from the bounds of government control and taxes.

Last week on Frank Beckman's show on WJR 760AM, Frank asked Michigan Congressman Thaddeus McCotter (R-11) if he thought that Obama was engaging in Cloward-Piven Strategy. This question surprised and intrigued me. I wrote about the Cloward-Piven Strategy before (see post Cloward-Piven Strategy), but for those of you who are sadly not frequent readers of my blog, I'll explain it to you now.

The strategy is called the Cloward-Piven Strategy after a pair of radical socialist professors from the 60's who came up with it. The idea is to purposefully create a series of crisis, each one of which will then be blamed on capitalism, de-regulation, low taxes, free markets, etc. After the crisis is at its peak and conservative ideals have been successfully blamed, you then advance a solution for the crisis- a solution to put in place a more socialist, state-run, liberal society. This solution will not make society better, but will instead create more crisis, which you then in turn blame on conservative ideas, and advance more solutions that are liberal. Eventually, the state will take over every aspect of our lives and run our society as a radical socialist utopia.

When I first suggested that the national Democrats were engaging in this policy back in 2008, I was drawing on my long experience watching Democrats in Michigan, particularly Detroit. In our state, Democrats put in place their liberal ideas, they backfire, and we get more liberal ideas, which backfire, leading to more liberal ideas, and eventually, you get Detroit (dominated by liberal Democrats for over 40 years) and to a lesser degree Michigan (dominated by liberal Democrats for almost 8 years). I figured that the series of crisis which followed the Democrats regaining control of Congress in 2006 were not due to bad ideas, incompetence, or just plain stupidity, but due to an organized and concentrated plot to create crisis so that that you could then advance liberal solutions.

For example, this current healthcare bill is not just an idiotic attempt to destroy our nation out of a foolish and misguided attempt to make things better, but a grand conspiracy to actually create a crisis in the healthcare system by putting in place laws and regulations that will lead to higher costs and lower coverage and benefits, and the response then will be an even bigger and stronger healthcare bill (which will then create an even worse situation, like we see in Canada, which will then lead to calls for more government, etc, until government controls everything).

In other words, the Democrats are purposefully overloading the system in an attempt to collapse it- adding more regulations and laws and taxes to our capitalist free-market system so that people will then think that the capitalist free-market system is failing, where in reality it is the very liberal policies that are creating the crisis.

In his interview, Frank Beckman suggested that the Democrats were engaging in this policy. Congressman McCotter disagreed.

McCotter thinks that it isn't an intelligent conspiracy of not letting any crisis go to waste to put in place more government, but rather just plain out liberal elitism and incompetence. He thinks that it is instead simply a selfish desire to create permanent dependent constituencies that will then vote Democrat, who will then distribute benefits to them. It isn't 1984, but rather more like the People's Republic of Haven (from the Honorverse). He makes a good argument, as most liberals that I have come across are really not evil manipulative people, but rather idiots and fools who lack an understanding of people, history, economics, and policy.

It does bear watching though if the pattern laid out in the Cloward-Piven Strategy holds true- if we get another crisis followed by more government control which leads to another crisis and more government control, etc. Keep your eyes on it- we have one more year of Democrats running the show in Congress, and they are sure to create more crisis in our society, either through an orchestrated strategy or incompetence, and keep your eyes out for the resulting 'the market failed' rhetoric and the 'more government is the solution' rhetoric that will follow.

President Grover Cleveland was a Democrat, and yet even he knew that though the people support the Government, the Government should not support chosen people. Recently I was reading the message that he sent to Congress after he vetoed a relief bill, and I was struck by his deep understanding of government and its proper role in our country.

The proper or correct role of government, he knew, was not to support chosen groups or individuals- federal aid to support chosen individuals or groups encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government- it changes the relationship that you have with the state from one where you are in charge of the state to one where the state is in charge of you. Further, having the government step in and provide goods and services to those people or groups it chooses to support weakens the overall sturdiness of our national character- rather than people striving to improve and be better, they sit and wait for the government to rescue them. Lastly, having the government step in and provide benefits, money, and support for chosen groups dissuades those kind and good people among us who would give charity and help out, weakening further the bonds of common brotherhood in our nation.

President Cleveland was a wise man- he knew that if the government stepped into to help out anyone who needed charity, society would be less off and not better off than it is. Providing healthcare to the poor, extending unemployment benefits, paying for college, running readings programs for Spanish-speaking citizens, and providing jobs to people is not the proper role of government. I understand the desire that people have to want to help- but using the power of the state in the end creates a worse society. And it isn't just that people are taxed so much that they can no longer give to charity- it is that they are told by the government that the government is taking care of it, so they no longer should help out and be kind to their fellow man.

No one, not even the most rabid conservatives, are doubting that times are tough right now. No one is arguing that things are good. This isn't about conservatives being greedy, or racist, or evil- it is about the proper role of government in society, and creating a happier, more prosperous, more free society.

Our Founding Fathers knew this, and President Cleveland knew this as well- that the Constitution was put together with much thought and care by decent men and that it is not the power and duty of the Government to be extend to relief to individuals who are suffering. This is something that is properly related to the public service or benefit. We should steadily resist as a nation any tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty. And it is important that we teach people why we are resisting this tendency- not out of any bad will, but out of understanding, trust, faith, and kindness.

I believe in America still. The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly demonstrated in our times- after hurricanes or terrorist attacks, the American people have stepped up and done more and better than our government could to help people. We need to once again unleash the American people and let them achieve their full measure- and resist the tendency to have government step in and do this instead of them.