The Fools and the Fools that Follow Them

The Stoa is a silent and contemplative place. An ideal local for deep thought and internal contemplation. There are no televisions here, and certainly no telephones.
On my way to the Stoa today, I heard several items on both the radio and the Internet. Interesting how the media spins things for the masses.

The poor, ignorant masses.

The media thinks them ignorant at their own peril. The vast majority of us are simply too busy to pay attention to the news on a regular basis. In an economy like ours, families are working two and three jobs to make ends meet.

The expanding underclass, those that were unemployed prior to 2008 and the generationally welfare-ridden citizens, are the ones that hear this message. The Main Stream Media (MSM) is a propaganda arm of the DNC, and the Government when the Democrats (S) are in power.

Ditto Hollywood. They are targeting the guilty rich and the ignorant affluent. Movies have been too expensive for this modest Stoic to afford for quite some time.

Here are some items, in no particular order that I'd like to bring up for the class to consider.

1. Unemployment has dropped from 9.8% to 8.5% over the last 18 months.
-The reality: unemployment drops every time the unemployment agency stops making payments to the unemployed. They are now "not counted" in terms of statistics. They have now "stopped seeking employment". Guess they don't really exist anymore.

2. The manufacturing sector is expanding.
-The Reality: No. The sector has "added" 300,000 jobs in the last six months, AFTER shedding nearly 15 MILLION jobs over the last 3 years. Industry is being killed by increased taxation and regulation (unfunded mandates). No CEO is going to hire a wave of employees in this environment.

3. Obama is fiscally conservative.
-Whoa, what a whopper. The reality: Presidents 1-43 (Bush-43) accumulated in round numbers, $4.3 Trillion in debt. President 44, Obama, has accumulated $4.5 Trillion in 3 YEARS and has requested ANOTHER $1 Trillion from Congress for his 4th year in office. Think on that a bit. It took 43 presidents and Congresses to accumulate $4.3 Trillion in debt. It took Obama 3 years to EXCEED $4.5 Trillion with another Trillion on the way for year 4.

4. The world will end on the winter solstice, 12-21-12.
-The reality: No. The whack-jobs say that the planets, the Sun, and the "Center of the Galaxy" will line up and cause an Apocalypse. No. The planets are like grains of sand compared to the mass of the Sun. All 8 planets lined up in 1988 or 1989 and no one seemed to care. When you think about it, the Sun always points to the Galactic center. So this has already happened. We're still here. The Galactic Center is 30,000 light years away from us. I think we are good. We are more at risk to a low mass black hole wandering into our solar system and wrecking up the joint then we have to fear from the Galactic Center and an alignment. Remember, even the Mayan calendar continues on after 2012, so again, I think we are good.

5. Mitt is a Conservative.
-The reality: any politician from MA is NOT a Conservative. I believe the last one left a generation ago and did not leave a forwarding address.

6. Newt is a Conservative.
-The reality: No. Newt supports a form of government control in just about every part of our lives. He began the decline of the GOP from a part of conservatives to a party of RINOs. The next GOP candidate may be the last GOP candidate. I doubt that the Tea Party will remain quiescent for much longer. Nor will the 3%'ers.

7. Global Warming is real.
-The reality: It happens. It has happened and it will happen again. Does it have anything to do with us? Not hardly. I'd like to go so far to say, "Not at all." 300 million years ago, the Earth was way hotter than now, and had way more oxygen in the atmosphere. Bugs were HUGE! 100,000 years ago, the Earth was frozen. A nearly infinite number of mixed drinks could be made with all that ice. We are simply living in the middle of an Inter-Glacial period right now. I'm more worried about global cooling than I am about Global Warming. Remember, humanity likes it warm. We evolved in warm weather. Siberia and Canada are full of snow and ice. Global warming will make vast areas of the Earth available for food production.

8. Smart Cars and Electric cars are "Green".
-The reality: no way. The laws of physics are not called concepts or "good ideas". They are called laws because they can not be changed by us or our good intentions. Mass x Velocity = Force. If my car, an X-Terra, hits a "smart" car head on and we are both doing 50 mph then my quick math tells me that........I'm going to drive home in my X-Terra and you are going to DIE. Is the environment that important to you?
-Reality Check 2: To create the batteries used in electric cars, the company must mine and refine lots and lots of heavy metals. Heavy metals are VERY toxic to the environment. The battery packs in a Prius must be replaced from time to time. It is just a reality. Those batteries must be recycled or disposed of. Where does all that refined heavy metal go? You know, now that you think about it, where does all that heavy metal COME FROM? You guessed it, THE ENVIRONMENT! It is not an artificial creation. Mankind, simply gathers it in low concentrations, and then CONCENTRATES the metal into a useful amount. It only becomes a problem when you produce the batteries and concentrate the hazard. Idiots.
-Reality Check 3: The tax payer has to fork over $10,000 for every battery that will only save $3,000 in fuel. Again, a quick check of my math tells me that.........you are ignorant. Let me check the figures again...nope, I'm right, you ARE ignorant.

9. Charter Schools are bad for your child's education.
-The Reality: wrong. Anything that is done in the Private Sector must survive in the harsh reality of the profit margin. This means that they must deliver the best product at the lowest price. Sometimes a lot of money is spent to accomplish this, but at least it is spent EFFECTIVELY. This is like paying $200 for a Big Mac because each staff member has to be paid $100,000/year WITHOUT regard to the quality of that Big Mac. To make things better, not only are you PAYING $200 for a Big Mac, get a crappy product, but you also have to PAY ever increasing taxes so that the staff can continue to get raises and benefits.

Please think on number nine for a bit before going ape on my mail box.

10. The United States is a Democracy.
-The Reality: No, we are not. The Greeks and the Romans knew that Democracy was the worst form of Tyranny. Not only did it take too long to make quick political decisions, but it was essentially the Rule of the Mob. Any charismatic person, think Pericles or Alcibiades could become a Tyrant. The minority, by simple majority vote, could be driven out, denied due process, or worse yet, fall victims to genocide. The Romans figured this out and modified a system of limited checks and balances. Eventually, that was overthrown by a series of would-be tyrants like Pompeii, the Gracchi brothers, Sulla, Marius, and finally, Caesar and Octavian.
-Reality Check 2: Since Lincoln, the Federal government has sought to weaken and stymie the checks and balances in our Constitution. That document was drawn up to protect the people from an over-reaching government. It was INTENTIONALLY designed to SLOW and STYMIE a would-be Tyrant. Obama, Pelosi, Reid, George "W" Bush, Carter, Nixon, LBJ, FDR, Hoover, Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, et al. are going to be known in future history books as primarily responsible for the decline and death of the American Republic. Check it. Mark it. Do your own research.

11. The Arab "Spring" is a good thing.
-Reality: Hardly. In every country where Spring has Sprung, liberties have been lost, Sharia has gained, and Islam has become more radicalized. How is this a good thing? I'm sure that if there are any women permitted to think for themselves they would disagree with it being characterized as a "good thing". The traditional dictators I grew up with like Assad and Assad, Ghadaffi, and Mubarak are being deposed and replaced with Theocracies. Certainly not good.

12. America has a two party system.
-Reality: America actually has many parties. We happen to have two dominant parties at this time. The names have changed since 1787, but two parties have generally dominated the show. You can even write in Mickey Mouse if you want. Many do.

13. The Dollar is still the world's currency of choice.
-Reality: True, though whether that still means anything remains to be seen. The dollar has been so devalued through over-printing that inflation is going to rear its ugly head. The only thing that has kept us from collapsing yet has been the awful economy. Ironic, ain't it? There is still a huge downward pressure on prices that keeps inflation under double digits. Even so it is now around 8% per year. I don't trust the Treasury or the Federal Reserve to report the real numbers any longer.

14. Fiat currencies work.
-Reality: No, they don't. The dollar, the Euro, even the Swiss Franc are backed by....nothing. The penny is mostly zinc with a copper coating about one molecule thick. The nickel is not even made out of nickel any longer. The dime and quarter are mostly base metals with a spray coating of silver. Our paper money is not backed by gold and our coins are not even made out of rare metals any longer. Literally, and I do mean literally, we pay for things with Monopoly money. Fiat currencies are failing around the world and things will have to change.
-Reality Check 2: from our earliest days we either traded items of value for other items of value or we have traded pretty silver or gold metals. This worked until 1933 in America. It sort of continued until the 1960's and then was abandoned all together by 1971. So, more than 10,000 years of value-backed exchange vs. 41 years of fiat value. One word: FAIL

15. Justine Bieber is cool.
-Realitiy: no. Not now, not ever. A dorky punk with a bad copy of a bad 70's hair style.

16. Grimmjow is cool, perhaps even AWESOME.
-Reality: yes. One word: WIN

17. Pelosi ran the most transparent and ethical Congress in history.
-I didn't think I could get that all typed out without both crying and laughing at the same time.
-Reality: Not even in the realm of human imagination can that Congress be called either "Transparent" or "Ethical". Bills passed without any debate. Bills passed without any public review. Bills passed without even being read. Some bills were "deemed" to have bee passed BEFORE THEY WERE EVEN WRITTEN! Suuurreee, ethical. Those in Congress are like little kids who get to make up their own rules. When something does not work the way they want, they simply "make" it work. When I was younger we had a saying, "Let's not and say we did." That is what deeming is. Lets just say we passed a bill that allows us to do this and there won't be any vote that will hang on our necks come re-election time. I can hear a stoner in my mind saying, "coooooolllll".

18. Eric Holder and the ATF, the Justice Department, and others had no idea that "Gunwalker" was getting people killed.
-The reality: not only did they know, they banked on it. Democrats have to deal with a lot of crap when they try to touch our guns. What better way to grab them all then to let American-made guns "walk" over to Mexico and kill 50,000 people? See how bad they are? Evil American gun manufacturers. Look what you did! We'll just take those from you now. This is the worst kind of political manipulation that I can accuse another American of doing. Knowing that YOUR policy will result in the death of ANYONE, Mexican or otherwise, is simply evil. This is not the American way. It is not my way. Holder and Obama MUST be held accountable. Border agents are killed and terrorized by the cartel packing massive firepower and the government ignores the cries of the family. Real ethical, Obama.

I guess that is all I have for today. It was only a 20 minute drive in to work for me. It is amazing all the garbage you hear on a radio in 20 minutes.

Live well.

--Zavost