Why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? As you know that federal deficit is at all time high (1.6 trillion deficit with revenues of 2.2 trillion and spending at 3.8 trillion).
On my blog www.HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com I took you at your word and sent you over 100 emails with specific spending cut ideas. However, I did not see any of them in the recent debt deal that Congress adopted. Now I am trying another approach. Every week from now on I will send you an email explaining different reasons why we need the Balanced Budget Amendment. It will appear on my blog on “Thirsty Thursday” because the government is always thirsty for more money to spend.
No objective is more important for the new Congress than putting America on course toward a balanced federal budget. We used to balance our budget regularly but, except for a short period during the late 1990’s, Congress has been unable to accomplish what should be a clear-cut mission. Americans understand that deficit spending may be unavoidable in wartime or in a Katrina-like emergency, but we also believe that in the absence of these events, there is no excuse for irresponsibly increasing our national debt.
Unfortunately, our national agenda no longer seems to include a balanced budget. President Obama established a national debt commission (whose report I will address in a future column), but that was only after cranking up federal expenditures and deficits to previously unseen levels.
We all know that the big enchiladas in the Federal budget are Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and national defense. That still leaves a lot of money to be saved elsewhere, yet even these opportunities are far too often belittled by elitists. For example, Jackie Calmes, a New York Times reporter, wrote that while there is general agreement on an earmark ban, “… [it] would hardly dent the projected annual deficits.” Paul Krugman, her colleague at the Times and the current economic guru of the left, routinely dismisses any savings at all, his most recent tantrum being Obama’s proposal for a two-year freeze on pay raises. He states “The actual savings, about $5 billion over two years, are chump change given the scale of the deficit.” These are two examples that occurred within days – and I could probably cite hundreds more, from both sides of the aisle.
The United States has a budget crisis that should be met by expenditure reductions, but our government has acted only with foolishness and cowardice. Let’s say your employer came to you and said “Look, the company is struggling, but I can keep you on if we reduce your annual salary from $80,000 to $70,000.” You would go home, sit down with your spouse, and figure out where you can start saving money. You could skip the Saturday night movies and join Netflix. You could learn to live without HBO. You could stop getting water delivered to the house. The bottom line is that you would adjust your expenditures because you have no choice; after all, you can’t print money or sell bonds to your neighbors. Not even to China.
What our government is doing has been going on for hundreds of years, ever since the Rothschilds made their fortune lending monies to the monarchies of Europe, and it has become an international problem of gargantuan proportions. Political leaders all over the world are making fiscal promises that they cannot keep, and this irresponsible practice has exploded in the past seventy-five years with the advent of left-wing, socialist governments. Overspending has become so pervasive that our society makes fun of it. In his recent HBO special, Dennis Miller spoke about not understanding the deficit. Miller said that he asked his son if he was upset that his generation would be saddled with the national debt. His son replied “Christ no Dad, I’m just going to saddle my kids with it.” It was good for a laugh – but Miller would never force his own kids to pay his credit card bills.
Virtually every parent I have ever met worries about what will be left for their children or grandchildren when they die. These people understand that it is immoral and sinful to leave their kids a pile of debt. Yet when it comes to the government – for which we are all responsible – people perceive it as some amorphous entity that can merrily spend more each year than it takes in without any consequences. They believe government, apparently, can pay for everything.
And unfortunately we do. Prodded by spineless and corrupt politicians who consider power far more important than responsibility, government has become the fixer of all our problems. People can live in a flood plain without insurance and then get paid by the government to rebuild in that same flood plain only to be wiped out again in the next flood. Every challenge that we have in this country is being discussed by a commission that lasts forever without ever solving the problem. Responsible Americans put their hand out when they hear of a government program because they rationalize they want their share, and if they don’t get it now someone else will. The sense of communal cost has disappeared.
The numbers are staggering. If the U.S. government had to employ the same accounting standards used by major corporations, it would report an annual deficit between $4 and $5 trillion. 41% of our current federal expenditures are paid for by borrowing money, and by 2015, America will be about $20 trillion in debt.
Our elected officials must face these facts, along with the immoral and pathetic aspects of their reckless behavior. Polls that say that taxpayers demand certain things need to be disregarded, and responsible leaders with some backbone must instead broadcast the simple truth: The jig is up and we need to reverse course. You cannot have everything you want. You can have Social Security, but you should expect less and start saving for yourself more. Medicare will help with your retirement healthcare, but you should have something saved for that as well. If you have a catastrophe, you’d better have an insurance policy because we cannot guarantee every one of your risks. And if your parents get ill in their old age, you’d better be prepared to take care of them just as they took care of you.
Saddling our kids with more and more debt is just plain wrong. The debt is bad enough now and we need to stop it from getting worse. The time is now and this Congress was elected to do just that thing.
Bruce Bialosky
Bruce Bialosky is the founder of the Republican Jewish Coalition of California and a former Presidential appointee.
In an exclusive interview at The Heritage Foundation, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) sharply criticized President Obama for engaging in class warfare and accused him of shifting the focus away from his own failed policies in advance of next year’s election.
“My view is he’ll have a hard time convincing Americans he deserves four more years of this,” McConnell said. “There’s nothing he’s done the American people approve of, so of course, he’s trying to change the subject.”
__________
I love these videos from the Heritage Foundation. They include great interviews and very good illustrations. Below are some links.
School choice offers families the opportunity to select schools that meet their child’s needs. Watch the video from Heritage Foundation explaining school choice, how it benefits parents and children and why school choice is needed.
What is School Choice? Uploaded by HeritageFoundation on Aug 2, 2011 School choice offers families the opportunity to select schools that meet their child’s needs. Watch the video from Heritage Foundation explaining school choice, how it benefits parents and children and why school choice is needed.
1,000 Days Without A Budget Uploaded by HeritageFoundation on Jan 24, 2012 http://blog.heritage.org | Today marks the 1,000th day since the United States Senate has passed a budget. While the House has put forth (and passed) its own budget, the Senate has failed to do the same. To help illustrate how extraordinary this failure has […]
Sen. Mitch McConnell: Americans Don’t Approve of Anything Obama Has Done Uploaded by HeritageFoundation on Dec 8, 2011 In an exclusive interview at The Heritage Foundation, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) sharply criticized President Obama for engaging in class warfare and accused him of shifting the focus away from his own failed policies in […]
Senator Blunt Vows to Keep Pressure on President Obama Over Contraceptive Mandate Uploaded by HeritageFoundation on Feb 13, 2012 http://blog.heritage.org/2012/02/13/sen-blunt-vows-to-keep-pressure-on-obama-… | Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) introduced legislation to protect religious organizations from Obamacare’s overreach last summer. Now, as President Obama presses forward with his anti-conscience mandate, Blunt is prepared to keep the pressure on the […]
Senator Lee Fights Back Against Obama’s Unconstitutional “Recess” Appointments Uploaded by HeritageFoundation on Feb 13, 2012 Few lawmakers have expressed as much outrage over President Obama’s unconstitutional “recess” appointments as Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT). He was among the first to warn about the consequences of the president’s unilateral action on Jan. 4. More than a […]
Senator John Barrasso On the Fight Against Obamacare Uploaded by HeritageFoundation on Mar 26, 2012 Sen. John Barrasso earned the nickname “Wyoming’s Doctor” after working for 24 years as an orthopedic surgeon in Casper. Today he represents the state in the U.S. Senate and is one of the leading critics of Obamacare. More than two […]
David Barton on Glenn Beck – Part 3 of 5 Uploaded by ToRenewAmerica on Apr 9, 2010 Wallbuilders’ Founder and President David Barton joins Glenn Beck on the Fox News Channel for the full hour to discuss our Godly heritage and how faith was the foundational principle upon which America was built. _____________ David Barton is a historian […]
Rep. Paul Ryan Blames Obama for Dividing America Uploaded by HeritageFoundation on Oct 28, 2011 Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is mighty disappointed with President Obama. The chairman of the House Budget Committee, who has bested Obama in head-to-head policy showdowns, blames the president for failing to outline a solution to the debt crisis while dividing […]
The Role of Economic Freedom Uploaded by HeritageFoundation on Jan 6, 2012 According to the 2012 Index of Economic Freedom, a joint publication of The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, global economic freedom has declined over the past year. But what does this mean for America and the world? Economic freedom empowers ordinary […]
Bacon, however, clearly expressed his atheistic pessimism: “Man now realizes that he is an accident, that he is a completely futile being, that he has to play out the game without purpose, other than of his own choosing.” On another occasion, he remarked: “We are born and we die and there’s nothing else. We’re just part of animal life.”
Thus, Bacon, in terms of humanity and the supernatural, reached not only a position of unbelief but of despair. His paintings express modern humanity’s condition: dehumanized man dispossessed of any durable paradise.
I first read about Francis Bacon in a book written by Francis Schaeffer. I was interested in looking into his art. His art really shows where modern man has come to the place of desperation since modern man has embraced the closed system that does not include God. What is left for man but what time and chance can bring. Bacon admitted that he was very depressed about man’s future and it comes out in his paintings.
I wish he would have read the work of Francis Schaeffer. I have posted links to Schaeffer’s works below.
Photograph of Bacon taken by John Deakin for Vogue, 1962
The Striptease of Humanism
This, then, is “the striptease of humanism,” a gathering crisis of optimism, an escape from reason, a surfacing of subterranean pessimism. Understanding it as the daily climate of our time, we can now analyze more closely certain features of its arrival and of its permanent residue.
First, there is the strong element of surprise. For any who had read Nietzsche, this should not have been so but in fact it was. In 1929 Freud remarked on this in Civilization and Its Discontents: “Man has, as it were, become a prosthetic god. . . . Future ages . . . will increase man’s likeness to God still more. But . . . present day man does not feel happy in his Godlike character.”33 In 1951 Camus felt it still more keenly: “During the last century, man cast off the fetters of religion. Hardly was he free, however, when he created new and utterly intolerable chains. . . . The kingdom of grace has been conquered, but the kingdom of justice is crumbling too. Europe is dying of this deception.”34
The situation is pregnant with irony: There is a crisis of disbelief as well as a crisis of belief. Some religious thinkers may be endlessly reporting the death of God (almost as their contemporary creedal confession), but the fact no longer seems heroic to the perceptive atheist. If the city of God has been razed, who is in need of a home now? Who feels the chill most keenly?
A second feature is the irreversibility of the exposure of humanism. It would be comforting to regard the present pessimism as a cycle, or swing of the pendulum, but there are various reasons why we cannot. For one thing there are new factors which prevent a reversal. Here we come to the difference between Oswald Spengler and Max Weber. Spengler thought the decline of the West was essentially what had happened before. Weber held that what was occurring had never happened before. It was different because, although there were similar symptoms, the “disenchantment of the world” by technology was new. So the situation was irreversible.
These elements of surprise and irreversibility were two features of the arrival of the crisis, but of even greater importance are the various symptomatic features of its continuing presence. We shall now examine these. The key to the understanding of each of them is that they stem from the humanist’s lack of a basis, the loss of center, the death of absolutes.
Alienation
The first symptom is alienation which occurs when the lack of basis is actually seen, felt or experienced. Whenever a man is not fulfilled by his own view of himself, his society or his environment, then he is at odds with himself and feels estranged, alienated and called in question. Optimistic humanism, lacking sufficient basis for the full range of humanness, also lacks sufficient balance, and alienation is inescapable when this is so. First of all this is true today of metaphysical alienation. Denying the optimistic implications of Darwinism, Nietzsche pointed to man’s “ontological predicament”: “Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman — a rope over an abyss.”49 Caught between the all-too-human and the superhuman, man, if he is not to despair, must stretch across an unbridgeable chasm to the revalued ideals of the overman. Nietzsche himself felt mocked, even in madness, by this impossible struggle. As all-too-human he knew only anguish, terror, loneliness, desperation, disgust, “the great seasickness” of the world without God.
This last phrase was picked up by Sartre in his first novel Nausea, a classic of existentialism. Walking in the city park one day, Roquentin was overcome by the nausea of the meaninglessness of life. Looking around him, he concluded, “Every existent is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance.”50 He was forced to the unhappy conclusion that the key to life is its fundamental absurdity. Man as man has to reach towards being God in order to fulfill his aspirations, yet with God dead and the world as it is these aspirations are limitations cast back in his face as an absurdity. Sartre’s reluctant conclusion is that “man is a useless passion.”51
The drastic extremity of this is well portrayed in the drama of Samuel Beckett, whose Parisian home and early research in Marcel Proust’s philosophy of time bring him close to the thought world of existentialism. In Waiting for Godot, Godot’s failure to arrive reduces all of life to the level of irrational absurdity.52 In Krapp’s Last Tape, the personality of the old man is completely desiccated by the sequential flow of time shattering his identity into fragments.53 Beckett’s ultimate in economic starkness is Breath, thirty seconds in duration, with no actors nor dialogue nor any props on the stage except miscellaneous rubbish; the whole script is the sigh of human life from a baby’s cry to a man’s last gasp before the grave.
The same metaphysical alienation, expressed in terms of the counter culture, is brilliantly distilled in Yoko Ono’s single line poems in Grapefruit.54All of them are capsules of nihilism, variations on a theme of meaninglessness. “Map Piece” reads, “Draw a map to get lost.” Another called “Lighting Piece” runs, “Light a match and watch it till it goes out.” These are the poetic counterpoint to Breath.
The same sense of alienation can be heard in many expressions of protest chafing at the constricting philosophies and psychologies dominant today. Paul Simon cries out in “Patterns” against the reductionism of determinism that conceives of man as a rat in a cage.55
Jean Luc Godard says much the same in his film La Chinoise.56When love is meaningful, to say “I don’t love you” is tragic, but when love is reduced to the chemistry of the color of the eye or the preference of the sweater color, to say “I don’t love you” is to say almost nothing.
Metaphysical alienation is also seen in the attempt to escape from nihilism through gamesmanship. Whether the games are crass, like the money or success games, or sophisticated and esoteric, like aesthetics or meditation techniques, they are only games created to escape the meaninglessness. Speaking as an artist, Francis Bacon says that man now realizes that he is an accident, a completely futile being and that he can attempt to beguile himself only for a time. Art has become a game by which man distracts himself.57
The heightened tragedy of the contemporary situation is that this is being confirmed, cemented and compounded by a newly felt sociological alienation. This alienation stems partly from the disjointedness of society, but even more from the estrangement induced by a modern technological environment in which men feel unfulfilled, depersonalized, dehumanized and condemned to grow up absurd. Jacques Ellul describes this graphically: “The human being was made to breathe the good air of nature, but what he breathes is an obscure compound of acids and coal tars. He was created for a living environment, but he dwells in a lunar world of stone, cement, asphalt, glass, cast iron and steel. The trees wilt and blanch among sterile and stone facades. Cats and dogs disappear little by little in the city, going the way of the horse. Only rats and men remain to populate a dead world.”58 Man is ill at ease in this environment and the tension demanded of him weighs heavily on his time and nerves, his life and being. If he tries to escape, he is drawn towards an entertainment world of dreams, and if he complies, he falls into a life of crowded, organized routine in which to conform is to feel the malaise of maladjustment.
This alienation, metaphysical and environmental, is an inescapable consequence of humanism and symptomatic of its lack of a basis, making man unfulfillable on the basis of his own views of himself…..
Modern humanism also refuses to touch the danger points, to face the logic of its own premises. It prefers to live in intellectual inconsistency. In The Disinherited Mind Erich Heller says, “In Kafka we have before us the modern mind, seemingly self-sufficient, intelligent, sceptical, ironical, splendidly trained for the great game of pretending that the world it comprehends in sterilized sobriety is the only and ultimate reality there is — yet a mind living in sin with the soul of Abraham. Thus he knows two things at once, and both with equal assurance; that there is no God, and that there must be God.”83
Kafka was not unique. Nietzsche himself, for all his scorn, made his leap of faith. He asserts that any attempt to understand the universe is prompted by man’s will to power but fails to see that his own conception of the will to power must then be admitted by him to be a creation of his will to power. What to Kafka was a weakness is now a disease of almost epidemic proportions. Erich Fromm ponders, “In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead, in the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead,”84 but Fromm shies away from exploring the connection between the two. R. D. Laing poses the alternative, “Deus absconditus. Or we have absconded,”85 but his vision of the divine is Eastern, not Christian, and his use of Luther’s concept is merely rhetorical.
Thus optimistic humanism is currently in the throes of a gathering crisis. But we dare not let this negate the humanness of its ideals. What is needed is a stronger humanism, not a weaker one. We need a concern for humanness that has a basis for its ideals and the possibility of their substantial realization.
There are several requirements which any contending solution must satisfy. First, it must provide a basis that will define and demonstrate the individuality of man as human. Here the Eastern conceptions of man with their essential negation of the value of man in this life, the communist subordination of the individual to the state, and the post-Christian failure of Western man to resist the trends of dehumanization point to answers which do not satisfy this first requirement.
Second, it must provide a basis for the fulfillment of an individual’s aspirations. The Eastern religions, communism and humanism again fall short for similar reasons. So also do determinism and existentialism.
Third, it must provide a basis for the substantial healing of man’s alienations in terms of an individual’s becoming more fully himself. Many views falter here.
Fourth, it must provide a basis for community, combining social unity and diversity, and it must avoid the chaos of relativism or the swing to control seen in many modern states and intentional communes.
These together must provide a basis for defining and demonstrating a humanness sufficiently robust to be an anchor against the dehumanization coming from social disruption and the fear of global destruction.
A Third Way is obviously required — one which speaks to the basic situation of humanity, both in individuality and in community. It must provide an answer to existentialism and a fulfillment to optimistic humanism. But this is still to run ahead of ourselves.
With the erosion of the Christian culture and the crisis of humanism, the direction of Western culture is uncertain. Will we see a desperate vacuum from which nihilism will rise? Will we lurch on uneasily to a new technological barbarism? Will a novel mysticism turn the West into the East? Or will the slow disintegration of Western culture herald a decline of power, until the egoism of Western culture is judged by the hammer of the Soviets?
Only the future will show. Curiously, the recent pre-occupation with “the end of ideology” has given rise to a new ideology — futurology. Here evolutionary optimistic humanism has its last chance. If, searching into his future, man finds grounds for believing in himself and his ability to control his future, then secular humanism may become solvent again. This quest forms the story of our next chapter.
Notes
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Gay Science, 125, in The Portable Nietzsche (New York: The Viking Press, 1954), p. 96; C. G. Jung. “Epilogue,” Modern Man in Search of a Soul (New York: Routledge Books, 1933); Bertrand Russell, Has Man a Future? (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1961), p. 110; Federico Fellini, Fellini’s Satyricon, ed. Darlo Zanelli, trans. Eugene Walters and John Matthews (New York: Ballantine Books, 1970), p. 269.
Quoted in Kenneth Clark, Civilisation (London: John Murray Ltd., 1971), p. 104.
Quoted in ibid., p. 101.
Peter Gay, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1966), p. 44.
Ibid.,p.417.
Michael Harrington, The Accidental Century (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1967), p. 31.
Gordon Childe, Man Makes Himself (New York: Mentor Books, 1951).
Julian Huxley, ed., The Humanist Frame (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1961), p. 44.
Ibid.,p.7.
Algernon Charles Swinburne, “Hymn of Man.”
J. Huxley, p. 6.
Ibid., p. 26.
Harrington, p. 35.
Heinrich Heine, quoted in WaIter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist (New York: Meridian Books, 1956), p. 375.
Nietzsche, The Will to Power, 1-2, quoted in Kaufmann, p. 103.
C. S. Lewis, Christian Reflections (London: Geoffrey Bles Ltd., 1967), p. 82.
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Constance Farrington (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1967), p. 251.
lbid., p.21.
Letter of Aldous Huxley to Sibylle Bedford quoted in Time, May 4, 1970.
J. R. Platt, The Step to Man (New York: John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 1966), p. 196.
Norman O. Brown, Life Against Death (London: Sphere Books Ltd., 1968), p. 267.
See discussion in Nigel Calder, Technopolis (London: MacGibbon & Kee Ltd., 1969), pp. 98-99.
Arnold Toynbee, “Changing Attitudes towards Death in the Modern Western World” in Arnold Toynbee and others, Man’s Concern with Death (London: Hodder and Stoughton Ltd., 1968), p. 125.
Arthur Koestler, The Ghost in the Machine (London: Hutchinson & Co. Ltd., 1967), p. 15.
Viktor E. Frankl, “Reductionism and Nihilism” in Beyond Reductionism, ed. Arthur Koestler and J. R. Smythies (London: Hutchinson & Co. Ltd., 1969), p. 398.
Mortimer J. Adler, The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes (London: Holt, Rinehart & Winston Ltd., 1967).
Quoted in T. M. Kitwood, What Is Human? (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1970), p. 49.
Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, IV, 1, as quoted in Kaufmann, pp. 83-84.
Harrington, p. 26.
Koestler, p. 313.
Fanon, pp. 251-52.
Harrington, p. 36.
Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, Standard Works of Freud, 21 (London: The Hogarth Press Ltd., 1961), p. 91-92.
Albert Camus, The Rebel, trans. Anthony Bower (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1962), pp. 243-44.
Nietzsche, The Gay Science, 125.
Quoted in Gay, p. 65.
Quoted in Kitwood, p. 54.
Erich Heller, The Disinherited Mind (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1961), p. 75.
Nietzsche, p. 409.
Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, I, 11, in The Portable Nietzsche, p. 160.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Possessed (New York: Signet Classics, 1962), pp. 384-85.
Camus, The Rebel, p. 199.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, Inc., 1968), p. 733.
Quoted in Camus, The Rebel, p. 58.
Quoted in ibid., p. 62.
Quoted in ibid.
Quoted in ibid.
Heller, p. 76.
Nietzsche, Zarathustra’s Prologue, 4, in The Portable Nietzsche, p. 126.
Jean Paul Sartre, Nausea (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1965), p. 191.
Sartre, Being and Nothingness, trans. Hazel E. Barnes (London: Methuen, 1957), p. 566.
Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (London: Faber and Faber Ltd., 1956).
Samuel Beckett, Krapp’s Last Tape (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1958).
Yoko Ono, Grapefruit (London: Peter Owen Ltd., 1970).
Paul Simon, The Paul Simon Songbook, C.B.S. 62579.
Jean Luc Godard, La Chinoise, filmed 1967.
Quoted in H. R. Rookmaaker, Modern Art and the Death of a Culture (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1970), p. 174.
Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society, trans. John Wilkinson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970), p.321.
Chores and Roy Medvedev, A Question of Madness (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971).
“Psychoadaptation, or How to Handle Dissenters,” Time,September 27, 1971, p. 45.
lbid., p.44.
Quoted in Harrison Salisbury, “Introduction,” The Prison Diary of Ho Chi Minh (New York: Bantam Books, 1971), p. ix.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot (New York: Bantam Books, 1958), p. 71.
Jerzy Grotowski, Towards a Poor Theatre (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968), p. 123.
Erich Fromm, The Sane Society (New York: Routledge Books, 1956).
R. D. Laing, The Politics of Experience (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1967), p. 24.
Ibid., p.24.
David Cooper, ed., The Dialectics of Liberation (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1968).
Malcolm Muggeridge, Tread Softly for You Tread on My Jokes (Glasgow: William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd.), p. 28.
Ibid., p. 29.
Christopher Booker, The Neophiliacs (Glasgow: Fontana, 1970), p. 70.
Ibid., p. 44.
Ibid., p. 339.
Ernst Fischer, The Necessity of Art, trans. Anna Bostock (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1963).
Lewis Feuer, “What Is Alienation? The Career of a Concept,” New Politics, Spring 1962, pp. 116-34.
Fischer, p. 80.
Erich Frornm, Marx’s Concept of Man (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1961).
Hermann Dooyeweerd, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, 4 vols. (Nutley, N.J.: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1957); The Twilight of Western Thought (Nutley, N.J.: Craig Press, 1960).
Francis A. Schaeffer, The God Who Is There (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1968); Escape from Reason(Downers Grove, III.: InterVarsity Press, 1968).
J. A. Rushdoony, “Preface,” Dooyeweerd, The Twilight of Western Thought, p. 9.
Camus, The Rebel, p. 16.
Nietzsche in a letter to Gersdorff, November 7, 1970, quoted in Erich Heller, p. 70.
Ibid., p.181.
Fromm, Sane Society, p. 360.
Laing, The Politics of Experience, p. 118.
Author
Os Guinness is an Englishman born in China during the war with Japan and educated at the University of London. He has traveled widely in the East and lectured to student groups in Europe, the United States and Canada. His major work was with Francis Schaeffer at L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland.
Today I read an article in the New York Times, “Son of Evangelical Royalty, turns his back and tells the tale,” August 19, 2011. The liberal Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times Blog called this article by Mark Oppenneimer “the best reading of the morning.” Oppenneimer asserted: Edith Schaeffer also wrote books, and in 1977, Frank, an amateur filmmaker, […]
E P I S O D E 1 0 How Should We Then Live 10#1 FINAL CHOICES I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes. A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes. B. But society has to be led by an elite: John Kenneth […]
E P I S O D E 9 How Should We Then Live 9#1 T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads to Pessimism Regarding a Meaning for Life and for Fixed […]
E P I S O D E 8 How Should We Then Live 8#1 I saw this film series in 1979 and it had a major impact on me. T h e Age of FRAGMENTATION I. Art As a Vehicle Of Modern Thought A. Impressionism (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Degas) and Post-Impressionism (Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, […]
E P I S O D E 7 How Should We Then Live 7#1 I am thrilled to get this film series with you. I saw it first in 1979 and it had such a big impact on me. Today’s episode is where we see modern humanist man act on his belief that we live […]
I have made it clear from day one when I started this blog that Francis Schaeffer, Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan and Adrian Rogers had been the biggest influences on my political and religious views. Today I am responding to an unfair attack on Francis Schaeffer’s book “A Christian Manifesto.” As you can see on the […]
E P I S O D E 6 How Should We Then Live 6#1 I am sharing with you a film series that I saw in 1979. In this film Francis Schaeffer asserted that was a shift in Modern Science. A. Change in conviction from earlier modern scientists.B. From an open to a closed natural system: […]
E P I S O D E 5 How Should We Then Live 5-1 I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Francis Schaeffer noted, “Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection. But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there was a unique improvement. A. […]
Exempting half the people from paying income tax does not seem like a bright idea. President Obama has a funny way of spinning that. Dan Mitchell’s blog has a good way of presenting that.
The Economic Case for Tax Havens Uploaded by afq2007 on Sep 10, 2008 Statist politicians and international bureaucracies such as the OECD and UN routinely attack tax havens, claiming that they lead to “harmful tax competition.” Yet at no point do critics bother to provide any evidence for this claim. This mini-documentary from the Center […]
Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute rightly has pointed out that President Obama is off base to be critical of Paul Ryan’s budget since it allows the government to grow by over 3% each year and he wished that the Republicans would taking a sharper knife to the budget cuts!!!! Appearing on PBS to Debate […]
Michael Cannon on Medicare and Healthcare You want to know the real truth about Obamacare then check out these videos and articles linked below: American people do not want Obamacare and the regulations that go with it March 7, 2012 – 8:02 am In this article below you will see that the American people do not […]
Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute has some great videos and I have posted lots of them on my blog. I like to go to Dan’s blog too. Take a look at some of them below and then the links to my blog. It’s Simple to Balance The Budget Without Higher Taxes Uploaded by afq2007 […]
The Rahn Curve and the Growth-Maximizing Level of Government Uploaded by afq2007 on Jun 29, 2010 Government spending can promote economic growth if money is used for core “public goods” such as rule of law and property rights. But the burden of government spending in the United States and other industrialized nations is far higher […]
Dan Mitchell always has some great cartoons he posts: Michael Ramirez is a first-rate cartoonist for Investor’s Business Daily. Here are two of his recent gems. As always, humor works when it is based on something true. With that in mind, do you prefer this cartoon, which shows Obama scolding the Founding Fathers for their […]
Tim Sandefur Discusses ObamaCare’s Medicaid Expansion Uploaded by catoinstitutevideo on Mar 26, 2012 http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=9074 Tim Sandefur of the Pacific Legal Foundation explains some of the implications of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion. ___________________ Great chart from Heritage Foundation on Obamacare: Obamacare expands dependence on government health care DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES (JPG, Color) Slide 1 | […]
Take a lot at these figures from the Cato Institute: New Academic Study Confirms Previous IMF Analysis, Shows that Lower Tax Rates Are the Best Way to Reduce Tax Evasion Posted by Daniel J. Mitchell Leftists want higher tax rates and they want greater tax compliance. But they have a hard time understanding that those […]
Uploaded by WSJDigitalNetwork on Feb 23, 2012 Editorial board member Steve Moore breaks down Mitt Romney’s and President Obama’s tax plans. _____________________ President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them […]
Ernie Dumas in the Arkansas Times, Jan 18, 2012 argued: A big majority of Americans are concerned about growing income inequality and government favor for the rich, and they understand that lower taxes do directly affect federal budget deficits, which Republican orthodoxy for 30 years has denied. However, I like most Republicans would argue the […]
John Calipari’s Kentucky program isn’t just No. 1 in the country. It’s the hottest program since UCLA used to win it all every year. (Getty Images) The conventional thinking is that John Calipari won a national title because he went to Kentucky. However, when he left Memphis he had the best recruiting class in the […]
One Shining Moment 2012 HD Everything you will read below by Dan Wetzel is true, but it all started when Derrick Rose was taken first in the NBA draft after spending one year under Calipari at Memphis. John Calipari stuggled to recruit top players to Memphis the first 4 years he was there because the […]
Kansas will build a good lead going inside of two minutes and then Kentucky will hit some big shots and Kansas will miss some key free throws as Calipari’s Wildcats squeeze out a victory. I do think it will be dramatic and it will be totally opposite of what happened to Calipari’s team in 2008. […]
Enlarge John Calipari address the press on his first day as Kentucky basketball coach. John Calipari stuggled to recruit top players to Memphis the first 4 years he was there because the “one and done” rule had not been put into place yet and many of the talented recruits of his skipped college and […]
#1 Kansas vs #1 Memphis National Championship 2008 (Part 3) The paths of Self and Calipari cross for championship By Kory Carpenter Sunday, April 1, 2012 More New Orleans, La. — Bill Self’s start in coaching is probably well known by now. A guard on the Oklahoma State basketball team, he worked at a Kansas […]
Kansas vs. Memphis – 2008 NCAA Title Game Highlights (HD) Kentucky vs. Kansas: Bill Self a Fitting Final Obstacle to John Calipari’s Title By Josh Martin (Featured Columnist) on April 2, 2012 Stacy Revere/Getty Images The long and winding road to an NCAA Tournament title has led John Calipari back to Bill Self‘s door. […]
Memphis Tigers John Calipari Interview 2008 Basketball Final FOX Sports Exclusive Calipari, Self more than just recruiters NEW ORLEANS There is an inherent silliness to a profession like the one that has made rich men of John Calipari and Bill Self. They spend months, even years, burning thousands of gallons of jet fuel and […]
Kansas vs. Memphis – 2008 NCAA Title Game Highlights (HD) The same matchup as 2008 coming tonight. Is John Calipari truly the villain against Bill Self? Rob Dauster Apr 1, 2012, 3:20 PM EDT Leave a comment Over the coming two days, one of the story lines that will be the most intriguing to follow is […]
Memphis’ epic collapse at the end of the ’08 title game opened the door for a Kansas championship. (AP photo) Kansas vs. Memphis – 2008 NCAA Title Game Highlights (HD) #1 Kansas vs #1 Memphis National Championship 2008 (Part 1) After the collapse in the last 2 minutes of the game by Memphis, Kansas went […]
Memphis Tigers John Calipari Interview 2008 Basketball Final Kansas vs. Memphis – 2008 NCAA Title Game Highlights (HD) Knoxnews.com reported: Calipari (and Kentucky) get Kansas again for title NANCY ARMOUR – AP National Writer (AP) Posted April 1, 2012 at 12:18 a.m., updated April 1, 2012 at 3:04 a.m NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Well, this […]
_____ Kansas vs. Memphis – 2008 NCAA Title Game Highlights (HD) What happened last time Calipari and Self faced each other in a national championship game? KMBC reported: San Antonio, TX — (Sports Network) – Mario Chalmers hit the tying three-pointer with 2.1 seconds left in regulation and Kansas rallied from a nine-point deficit late […]
Kansas vs. Memphis – 2008 NCAA Title Game Highlights (HD) Associated Press breaks down second national championship game between Calipari and Self: NEW ORLEANS (AP) A look at Monday night’s national championship game: KENTUCKY (37-2) vs. KANSAS (32-6) KENTUCKY ROAD TO THE TITLE GAME No. 1 Kentucky beat No. 16 Western Kentucky 81-65; No. 8 […]
Picture BY CHRIS WARE Today I read an article by Jerry Tipton that quoted John Calipari using the Buddhist term “karma” and it got me thinking about what his religious views are. Here an excerpt from the Lexington paper that got me thinking this morning: On several occasions this season, Kentucky Coach John Calipari counseled fans not […]
Seth Davis discusses the question: “Did Pitino help Calipari get UMass job?” Published on Mar 27, 2012 by CBSSports CBS Sports Network college basketball analyst Seth Davis joined the Tim Brando Show to break down the matchup between Kentucky’s John Calipari and Louisville’s Rick Pitino as they prepare to face off this Saturday in New […]
John Calipari Pre-Louisville Press Conference Uploaded by uknationofblue on Mar 27, 2012 Kentucky head basketball coach John Calipari talks about the upcoming game with Louisville in the Final 4. ______ Related posts: Calipari’s been to 4 final fours and his record is 1-3 so far March 26, 2012 – 9:35 am > Kentucky Wildcats head coach […]
Over and over in the 2012 NCAA Tournament the Louisville Cardinals have been counted out. Now John Clay has counted them out again. (Wally Hall of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette is picking Kentucky.) The tables are now turned. Calipari’s program has the advantage in tradition, fan base and, in this case, talent. To whom much is […]
> Kentucky Wildcats head coach John Calipari celebrated with the team after the University of Kentucky defeated Baylor University in the NCAA South Regional final played in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Ga., Sunday, March 25, 2012. This is second half action. UK won 82-70. Charles Bertram | Staff HERALD-LEADER Buy Photo Calipari is going […]
We came close to get two in but only Kentucky got in. Calipari’s wife and son can be seen in this picture below: > Kentucky Wildcats head coach John Calipari hugged his son, Bradley, and his wife Ellen after the University of Kentucky defeated Baylor University in the NCAA South Regional final played […]
My son was at this game in LA when Ronaldo got this goal. Wilson said it was unreal. You can access more video clips and articles by checking out these links below:
Italy Four Time World Cup Winner 1934 – 1938 – 1982 – 2006 AP Photo With Europe on the brink of war, Mussolini’s Italian team, defending champions, reveled in their role as tournament heel. Their fixtures in France drew boisterous mobs of exiled Italian anti-fascists, up to 10,000 strong, who came to jeer their country’s […]
Vegalta Sendai were up 1-0 in the first half of their J-League match against defending champions Nagoya Grampus Eight when the losing home side’s keeper, Yoshinari Takagi, came out of his area to collect the ball. He took too long to clear it., allowing Atsushi Yanagisawa to take the ball off him for a seemingly […]
My 10th best player is Brian McBride and I think this video clip says it all. Brian McBride – US soccer legend Brian McBride From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search For other people of the same name, see Brian McBride (disambiguation). Brian McBride Personal information Full name Brian Robert McBride[1] Date […]
World Cup 2010 – Spain – All Goals Wilson’s 10th pick for the greatest soccer team ever! Every other player is a superstar!!! Everette Hatcher says that Italy in 2006 had the 10th best team. By the way, the USA tied them!! Italy – 2006 World Cup Highlights _______________________________________ World Cup 1958 Final – Sweden […]
I thought about this one to be number one but I changed my mind. George Best- ‘The Best Tribute’! George Best _______________________________ Wilson’s 1st pick is both Young Lionel Messi – Rare Clips HD shows rare clips of the best player ever, Messi!!! Lionel Messi 2011 – This is my life story I love this […]
Hope Solo: ‘I will be a better sister’ By BOB PADECKY PRESS DEMOCRAT COLUMNIST Published: Wednesday, July 20, 2011 at 11:03 a.m. The text sent to U.S. goalkeeper Hope Solo, the day before America was to play Japan for the Women’s World Cup championship, contained encouragement and affection from her half-brother, David, CEO and president […]
United States’ Abby Wambach celebrates scoring her side’s 2nd goal during the semifinal match between France and the United States at the Women’s Soccer World Cup in Moenchengladbach, Germany, Wednesday, July 13, 2011. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) MOENCHENGLADBACH, Germany (AP) — The United States is in the World Cup final for the first time since it […]
As Kentucky fans celebrate their latest basketball championship, the team’s dominance has revived questions about the NBA’s One-and-Done rule, which requires players to be 19 and just one year out of high school. Gwen Ifill and guests discuss.
No matter where Anthony Davis and his buddies go to make their millions, their ol’ Kentucky home will long remember this championship season.
The Wildcats hit the jackpot with their lottery picks Monday night, ignoring Davis’ bad shooting night and parlaying a roster full of NBA talent into a 67-59 victory over Kansas for the team’s eighth national title — and its first since 1998.
The one-and-doners did it in a wire-to-wire victory — a little dicey at the end — to cap a season in which anything less than bringing a title back to the Bluegrass State would have been a downer. They led coach John Calipari to his first title in four trips to the Final Four with three different schools.
Doron Lamb, a sophomore with first-round-draft-pick possibilities, led the Wildcats (38-2) with 22 points, including back-to-back 3-pointers that put them up by 16 with 10 minutes left.
The Jayhawks (32-7), kings of the comeback all season, fought to the finish and trimmed that deficit to five with 1:37 left. But Kentucky made five free throws down the stretch to seal the win
Davis’ fellow lottery prospect, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, was another headliner, creating space for himself to score all 11 of his points in the first half.
Davis, meanwhile, might have had the most dominating six-point night in the history of college basketball. He finished with 16 rebounds, six blocks, five assists and three steals — and made his only field goal with 5:13 left in the game. It was a surefire illustration of how the 6-foot-10 freshman can exert his will on a game even on a rare night when the shot isn’t falling.
Helps when you’ve got teammates like this. Davis is the likely first pick in the draft should he choose to come out, and Kidd-Gilchrist won’t be far behind. Another first-round prospect, freshman Marquis Teague, had 14 points. And yet another, sophomore Terrence Jones, had nine points, seven rebounds and two of Kentucky’s 11 blocked shots.
Kansas also has a lottery pick in AP All-American Thomas Robinson. But he was harassed all night by Davis and Jones and finished with 18 points and 17 rebounds on a frustrating evening nonetheless.
John Calipari has been to four Final Fours and has now earned his first national title. The Bracket Breakdown panel discusses the future for the Kentucky head coach.
John Calipari’s Kentucky program isn’t just No. 1 in the country. It’s the hottest program since UCLA used to win it all every year. (Getty Images) The conventional thinking is that John Calipari won a national title because he went to Kentucky. However, when he left Memphis he had the best recruiting class in the […]
One Shining Moment 2012 HD Everything you will read below by Dan Wetzel is true, but it all started when Derrick Rose was taken first in the NBA draft after spending one year under Calipari at Memphis. John Calipari stuggled to recruit top players to Memphis the first 4 years he was there because the […]
Kansas will build a good lead going inside of two minutes and then Kentucky will hit some big shots and Kansas will miss some key free throws as Calipari’s Wildcats squeeze out a victory. I do think it will be dramatic and it will be totally opposite of what happened to Calipari’s team in 2008. […]
Enlarge John Calipari address the press on his first day as Kentucky basketball coach. John Calipari stuggled to recruit top players to Memphis the first 4 years he was there because the “one and done” rule had not been put into place yet and many of the talented recruits of his skipped college and […]
#1 Kansas vs #1 Memphis National Championship 2008 (Part 3) The paths of Self and Calipari cross for championship By Kory Carpenter Sunday, April 1, 2012 More New Orleans, La. — Bill Self’s start in coaching is probably well known by now. A guard on the Oklahoma State basketball team, he worked at a Kansas […]
Kansas vs. Memphis – 2008 NCAA Title Game Highlights (HD) Kentucky vs. Kansas: Bill Self a Fitting Final Obstacle to John Calipari’s Title By Josh Martin (Featured Columnist) on April 2, 2012 Stacy Revere/Getty Images The long and winding road to an NCAA Tournament title has led John Calipari back to Bill Self‘s door. […]
Memphis Tigers John Calipari Interview 2008 Basketball Final FOX Sports Exclusive Calipari, Self more than just recruiters NEW ORLEANS There is an inherent silliness to a profession like the one that has made rich men of John Calipari and Bill Self. They spend months, even years, burning thousands of gallons of jet fuel and […]
Kansas vs. Memphis – 2008 NCAA Title Game Highlights (HD) The same matchup as 2008 coming tonight. Is John Calipari truly the villain against Bill Self? Rob Dauster Apr 1, 2012, 3:20 PM EDT Leave a comment Over the coming two days, one of the story lines that will be the most intriguing to follow is […]
Memphis’ epic collapse at the end of the ’08 title game opened the door for a Kansas championship. (AP photo) Kansas vs. Memphis – 2008 NCAA Title Game Highlights (HD) #1 Kansas vs #1 Memphis National Championship 2008 (Part 1) After the collapse in the last 2 minutes of the game by Memphis, Kansas went […]
Memphis Tigers John Calipari Interview 2008 Basketball Final Kansas vs. Memphis – 2008 NCAA Title Game Highlights (HD) Knoxnews.com reported: Calipari (and Kentucky) get Kansas again for title NANCY ARMOUR – AP National Writer (AP) Posted April 1, 2012 at 12:18 a.m., updated April 1, 2012 at 3:04 a.m NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Well, this […]
_____ Kansas vs. Memphis – 2008 NCAA Title Game Highlights (HD) What happened last time Calipari and Self faced each other in a national championship game? KMBC reported: San Antonio, TX — (Sports Network) – Mario Chalmers hit the tying three-pointer with 2.1 seconds left in regulation and Kansas rallied from a nine-point deficit late […]
Kansas vs. Memphis – 2008 NCAA Title Game Highlights (HD) Associated Press breaks down second national championship game between Calipari and Self: NEW ORLEANS (AP) A look at Monday night’s national championship game: KENTUCKY (37-2) vs. KANSAS (32-6) KENTUCKY ROAD TO THE TITLE GAME No. 1 Kentucky beat No. 16 Western Kentucky 81-65; No. 8 […]
Picture BY CHRIS WARE Today I read an article by Jerry Tipton that quoted John Calipari using the Buddhist term “karma” and it got me thinking about what his religious views are. Here an excerpt from the Lexington paper that got me thinking this morning: On several occasions this season, Kentucky Coach John Calipari counseled fans not […]
Seth Davis discusses the question: “Did Pitino help Calipari get UMass job?” Published on Mar 27, 2012 by CBSSports CBS Sports Network college basketball analyst Seth Davis joined the Tim Brando Show to break down the matchup between Kentucky’s John Calipari and Louisville’s Rick Pitino as they prepare to face off this Saturday in New […]
John Calipari Pre-Louisville Press Conference Uploaded by uknationofblue on Mar 27, 2012 Kentucky head basketball coach John Calipari talks about the upcoming game with Louisville in the Final 4. ______ Related posts: Calipari’s been to 4 final fours and his record is 1-3 so far March 26, 2012 – 9:35 am > Kentucky Wildcats head coach […]
Over and over in the 2012 NCAA Tournament the Louisville Cardinals have been counted out. Now John Clay has counted them out again. (Wally Hall of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette is picking Kentucky.) The tables are now turned. Calipari’s program has the advantage in tradition, fan base and, in this case, talent. To whom much is […]
> Kentucky Wildcats head coach John Calipari celebrated with the team after the University of Kentucky defeated Baylor University in the NCAA South Regional final played in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Ga., Sunday, March 25, 2012. This is second half action. UK won 82-70. Charles Bertram | Staff HERALD-LEADER Buy Photo Calipari is going […]
We came close to get two in but only Kentucky got in. Calipari’s wife and son can be seen in this picture below: > Kentucky Wildcats head coach John Calipari hugged his son, Bradley, and his wife Ellen after the University of Kentucky defeated Baylor University in the NCAA South Regional final played […]
Statist politicians and international bureaucracies such as the OECD and UN routinely attack tax havens, claiming that they lead to “harmful tax competition.” Yet at no point do critics bother to provide any evidence for this claim. This mini-documentary from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity looks at the empirical data and scholarly research and reports that tax havens actually have a very positive impact on the global economy.
______________
The size of government needs to be reduced. Eventually people will revolt against the tremendous amount of taxes they are forced to pay. Furthermore, corrupt scams like Solyndra and bailouts make people resent paying their taxes and people will look for tax havens in other countries if taxes are not reduced.
We now have another group of taxpayers who are fighting back against greedy government. My ancestors in Ireland have decided that enough is enough and there is widespread civil disobedience against a new property tax.
Ireland is facing a revolt over its new property tax. The government said less than half of the country’s 1.6 million households paid the charge by Saturday’s deadline to avoid penalties. And about 5,000 marched in protest against the annual conference of Prime Minister Enda Kenny’s Fine Gael party. Emotions ran raw as police backed by officers on horseback stopped demonstrators from entering the Dublin Convention Centre. …One man mistakenly identified as the government minister responsible for collecting the tax had to be rescued by police from an angry scrum. Kenny said his government had no choice, but to impose the new charge as part of the nation’s efforts to emerge from an international bailout. …The charge this year is a flat-fee €100 ($130) per dwelling, but is expected to rise dramatically next year once Ireland starts to vary the charge based on a property’s estimated value. Anti-tax campaigners have urged the public to ignore the tax demand, arguing that the government doesn’t have the power to collect it.
What makes this new tax so outrageous is that Irish taxpayers already have been victimized with higher income tax rates and a more onerous value-added tax. Yet they weren’t the ones to cause the nation’s fiscal crisis. Ireland is in trouble for two reasons, and both deal with the spending side of the fiscal equation.
2. Irish politicians decided to give a bailout not only to depositors of the nation’s failed banks, but also to bondholders. This is a grotesque transfer of wealth from ordinary people to those with higher incomes – and therefore a violation of Mitchell’s Guide to an Ethical Bleeding Heart.
Heck, no wonder the Irish people are up in arms. They’re being asked to cough up more money to finance a bailout that was both corrupt and wasteful.
Let’s close by looking at American attitudes about tax evasion. Here’s part of a column from Forbes, which expresses surprise that Americans view tax evasion more favorably than behaviors such as shoplifting and littering.
A new survey suggests Americans consider cheating on their taxes more socially acceptable than shoplifting, drunk driving or even throwing trash out the window of a moving car. …only 66% of the participants said they “completely agree” that “everyone who cheats on their taxes should be held accountable” and only 72% completely agreed that “it’s every American’s civic duty to pay their fair share of taxes”–suggesting, as the Shelton study does, that perhaps disapproval of tax evasion is not as strong as, say, disapproval of stealing from private businesses.
I’m not sure, though, why anybody would be shocked by these results. We have a government in Washington that is pervasively corrupt, funneling money to corrupt scams like Solyndra.
These same people want higher tax rates, which will further encourage people to protect their income.
This Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation video demonstrates that low-tax jurisdictions offer millions of people around the world a safe haven from tyrannical and oppressive government. For this, and many other reasons, there is a powerful moral case for preserving and promoting tax havens. This mini-documentary is the second installment of a three-part series on the beneficial impact of low-tax jurisdictions. In addition to showing how tax havens promote human rights and individual liberty, the video exposes the hypocritical anti-tax competition efforts of statist international bureaucracies such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. For more information: http://www.freedomandprosperity.org Link to Part 1 — The Economic Case for Tax Havens: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi0lkJBTi58
Related posts:
Here are some posts that include videos from Dan Mitchell:
In this post I have gathered several videos from the Cato Institute concerning the subject of failed stimulus plans. _____ Government Spending Doesn’t Create Jobs Uploaded by catoinstitutevideo on Sep 7, 2011 Share this on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/qnjkn9 Tweet it: http://tiny.cc/o9v9t In the debate of job creation and how best to pursue it as a policy […]
It’s Simple to Balance The Budget Without Higher Taxes Steve Brawner in his article “Safer roads and balanced budgets,” Arkansas News Bureau, April 13, 2011, noted: The disagreement is over the solutions — on what spending to cut; what taxes to raise (basically none ever, according to Boozman); whether or not to enact a […]
Dan Mitchell did a great article concerning the affect of raising taxes in these two areas and horrible results: How Can Obama Look at these Two Charts and Conclude that America Should Have Higher Double Taxation of Dividends and Capital Gains? Posted by Daniel J. Mitchell As discussed yesterday, the most important number in Obama’s […]
The Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation has produced videos showing the economic and moral benefits of so-called tax havens. This final video in the three-part series addresses some of the most common myths put forth by politicians from high-tax nations. Using academic research and data from international organizations, the video shows that the most common attacks made against low-tax jurisdictions are empty demagoguery.
Arkansas Razorbacks head football coach Bobby Petrino meets with the media before practice concerning his motorcycle accident over the weekend
______
Image by ArkansasRazorbacks.com
Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino addresses the media Tuesday in his first public appearance since suffering multiple injuries in a motorcycle accident Sunday near Crosses, Ark
Wearing a neck brace and the scars and bruises that came with a Sunday motorcycle accident, Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino said he feels “very fortunate” to be out of the hospital and back at work.
Petrino was released from the hospital less than 48 hours after the wreck. He was at Razorback Stadium for practice on Tuesday after sustaining a number of injuries including four broken ribs, a cracked vertebrae and a neck sprain.
“I’m very fortunate and feel very lucky to be here and be in good health. It was a situation where I don’t remember a lot about exactly what happened,” Petrino said. “I noticed the sun was going to be in my eyes the rest of the way home and it got to the point where I wasn’t going to be able to maneuver the turn. There was about 15 seconds where I said, ‘Oh no, here I go.’ ”
Petrino landed in a pile of brush about 20 yards from where his Harley Davidson left the road just outside Crosses, Arkansas. He confirmed (as ArkansasSports360.com reported on Monday) that he was not wearing a helmet at the time of the accident.
Before leaving his house in east Fayetteville for a ride that took him past Elkins and southeast of town on Highway 16, Petrino said he considered two helmets. He settled for a hat after deciding one helmet option would be too hot and the other unflattering.
Arkansas law does not require riders over the age of 21 to wear a helmet.
“Obviously bad call,” Petrino joked. “We wouldn’t have converted the third down.”
Throughout an interview that stretched more than 10 minutes, 30 seconds, Petrino cracked several jokes. But there were a number of serious moments as well.
Petrino recalled the moments immediately following the wreck.
Motorists passing by the scene picked up Petrino, he said, helping get him into town where he was handed over to state trooper Lance King, who handles the coach’s security during the season. King transported Petrino to Physician’s Specialty Hospital in Fayetteville where doctors were preparing for treatment.
Petrino said his first call was to team doctor Chris Arnold. Doctors released Petrino from the hospital mid-morning and cleared him for work, but he’ll be in a neck brace for one and maybe two weeks. During his Tuesday press conference Petrino noted he had neck surgery last year.
Arkansas State Police have yet to release an accident report. But Petrino said a blood test was administered and would show he had not consumed alcohol prior to hitting the road on his motorcycle.
“I absolutely had no alcohol in my system,” Petrino said.
Petrino did not dismiss the idea he would ride again. Any future trips, however, would include a helmet, Petrino said.
“It’s something that really puts a scare in you,” Petrino said. “I can’t say I am not going to ride a motorcycle again because I might do that.”
Bobby Petrino Press Conference after accident Uploaded by arkrazorbacks on Apr 3, 2012 Arkansas Razorbacks head football coach Bobby Petrino meets with the media before practice concerning his motorcycle accident over the weekend ______ Image by ArkansasRazorbacks.com Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino addresses the media Tuesday in his first public appearance since suffering multiple injuries […]
Image by Chris Bahn The site of Bobby Petrino’s motorcycle crash in Madison County, photographed on Monday. The object in the right-center is a lamp from the motorcycle. I have checked several sources this morning (KARK, update from Arkansas Sports 360 as of 9:04 am this morning) From ESPN: Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino was […]
The other day my son Hunter went into a store with his Murray St shirt on and the person behind the counter said, “Now that Murray St is undefeated and ranked in the top ten in basketball everybody is jumping on the bandwagon now!!” My son replied, “My cousin Davis Sayle is a freshman football […]
I got to know John Thompson when he was the defensive coordinator at Arkansas and he is the real deal. He is also a fine christian man. Below is a story from Hootens (here is a link to a good article by Arkansas Times on Malzahn): ASU names John Thompson as D coordinator by ASU […]
I am glad that Petrino got more defensive players than offensive players but time will tell if he can develop these three star players like he did in 2008 when that class later turned the hogs into a national contender in 2011. Below is an article from http://www.ajc.com Alabama (26): The national champs added to their […]
I know that many of us are disappointed that Dorial Green-Beckham did not sign with the Razorbacks but we just have to move on. I am not interested in reliving the whole thing and going through all the negative things said about the Hogs during the process. That always happens in every recruiting case and […]
I was disappointed that Vandy had a better class than Arkansas but I was glad that we got a chance to get a quality linebacker to switch to the Hogs at the last moment. Otis Kirk’s Recruiting 360: Arkansas’ Peoples Key In Landing Otha Peters by Otis Kirk, Hawgs247.com 2/2/2012 at 1:06pm Arkansas struck late in […]
I really thought that we would get him because of the position that he plays and the fact that Bobby Petrino is the best coach in the USA for players like him. Below is the story from Arkansas Sports 360: Dorial Green-Beckham Chooses Missouri Tigers Over Arkansas Razorbacks by Chris Bahn 2/1/2012 at 8:39am Dorial […]
These are the years that Arkansas finished in the top 8 in a major poll 13 times according to Arkansas Democrat Gazette: Year, Record, Rank, Polls, Coach 64, 11-0, 2, AP/UPI, Broyles 65, 10-1, 2, UPI, Broyles 69, 9-2, 3, UPI, Broyles, 77, 11-1, 3, AP/UPI, Holtz 2011, 11-2, 5, AP/USA, Petrino 62, 9-2, 6, […]
I enjoyed the Little Rock Touchdown Club and have posted a lot about it all fall. I have links below to earlier posts. Yesterday Wally Hall and Steve Sullivan had some good insights. Below are some of the thoughts of Jim Harris that he shared at the lunch. BUILDING THE DEFENSE: How nice it would […]
I remember when USC beat Arkansas 70 to 17 back in 2005. The score was 49 to 7 in the first half and USC could have made it 100 to 7 if they wanted to but they put in their subs in the 3rd quarter. However, Wally Hall said they ran up the score because […]
Earlier I wrote about where I think Arkansas could win a national championship with just two more wins. Below is a portion of an article by Jim Harris of the website Arkansas 360: AND ON BOBBY: Schlabach, on Arkansas’ coach: “I said when he was hired that Bobby Petrino would make Arkansas a contender for […]
A few days ago it looked like we would not have the opportunity to play into the national championship game, but now all that has changed. Life is funny that way sometimes. The Arkansas News Bureau reported: “I think we’ll have the opportunity,” Bequette said. “That’s what I believe.” All we got to do is […]
Wally Hall actually said on his radio program on Nov 22, 2011 that the Arkansas v. LSU game on Nov 25, 2011 is the most significant game in razorback history. I have to respectfully disagree. I will agree that it is in the top 5, but I will start a list today of other games […]
John Calipari’s Kentucky program isn’t just No. 1 in the country. It’s the hottest program since UCLA used to win it all every year.
(Getty Images)
The conventional thinking is that John Calipari won a national title because he went to Kentucky. However, when he left Memphis he had the best recruiting class in the history of mankind coming in to Memphis in 2009 ( Jerry Meyer called the Memphis Tiger 2009 class “arguably the best recruiting class ever”)and his Memphis team of 2009-10 was going to be more talented than any team in the country that year. Furthermore, Xaiver Henry had signed to play with Memphis and his stats were very impressive too. In fact, when Calipari took the Kentucky job, Henry got out of going to Memphis because of the Calipari exception clause (later such clauses were outlawed when the NCAA passed the “John Calipari rule”) and had a great year at Kansas. Below are his stats:
Calipari’s ability to recruit almost anybody he wanted started when Derrick Rose was taken first in the NBA draft after spending one year under Calipari at Memphis.
John Calipari stuggled to recruit top players to Memphis the first 4 years he was there because the “one and done” rule had not been put into place yet and many of the talented recruits of his skipped college and went straight to the NBA. Then everything changed.
Memphis reaped the benefits of the talented recruits Calipari brought to Memphis. In 2008 Derrick Rose led Memphis to the NCAA finals and he was chosen first in the NBA draft. This is where his recruiting really took off. That is why I really do think that Calipari could have had a national title sooner if he stayed at Memphis. We will never know and I do think he will be very successful in the future at Kentucky. Maybe the SEC will win their first ever triple crown this year (national titles in football, basketball and baseball).
Kentucky will have many new faces next season but it’s success shouldn’t change.
(Getty Images)
Kansas vs. Memphis – 2008 NCAA Title Game Highlights (HD) The same matchup as 2008 coming tonight. Is John Calipari truly the villain against Bill Self? Rob Dauster Apr 1, 2012, 3:20 PM EDT Leave a comment Over the coming two days, one of the story lines that will be the most intriguing to follow is […]
Memphis’ epic collapse at the end of the ’08 title game opened the door for a Kansas championship. (AP photo) Kansas vs. Memphis – 2008 NCAA Title Game Highlights (HD) #1 Kansas vs #1 Memphis National Championship 2008 (Part 1) After the collapse in the last 2 minutes of the game by Memphis, Kansas went […]
Memphis Tigers John Calipari Interview 2008 Basketball Final Kansas vs. Memphis – 2008 NCAA Title Game Highlights (HD) Knoxnews.com reported: Calipari (and Kentucky) get Kansas again for title NANCY ARMOUR – AP National Writer (AP) Posted April 1, 2012 at 12:18 a.m., updated April 1, 2012 at 3:04 a.m NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Well, this […]
_____ Kansas vs. Memphis – 2008 NCAA Title Game Highlights (HD) What happened last time Calipari and Self faced each other in a national championship game? KMBC reported: San Antonio, TX — (Sports Network) – Mario Chalmers hit the tying three-pointer with 2.1 seconds left in regulation and Kansas rallied from a nine-point deficit late […]
Kansas vs. Memphis – 2008 NCAA Title Game Highlights (HD) Associated Press breaks down second national championship game between Calipari and Self: NEW ORLEANS (AP) A look at Monday night’s national championship game: KENTUCKY (37-2) vs. KANSAS (32-6) KENTUCKY ROAD TO THE TITLE GAME No. 1 Kentucky beat No. 16 Western Kentucky 81-65; No. 8 […]
Today I read an article that quoted John Calipari using the Buddhist term “karma” and it got me thinking about what his religious views are. Here an excerpt from the Lexington paper that got me thinking this morning: On several occasions this season, Kentucky Coach John Calipari counseled fans not to root against any other […]
Seth Davis discusses the question: “Did Pitino help Calipari get UMass job?” Published on Mar 27, 2012 by CBSSports CBS Sports Network college basketball analyst Seth Davis joined the Tim Brando Show to break down the matchup between Kentucky’s John Calipari and Louisville’s Rick Pitino as they prepare to face off this Saturday in New […]
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For / U2 The Rolling Stones Satisfaction (rare) If you want to see the path that Kerry Livgren and Dave Hope of the rock group Kansas took to find true satisfaction then listen to their song “Dust in the Wind” and then read their testimony at this link […]
John Calipari Pre-Louisville Press Conference Uploaded by uknationofblue on Mar 27, 2012 Kentucky head basketball coach John Calipari talks about the upcoming game with Louisville in the Final 4. ______ Related posts: Calipari’s been to 4 final fours and his record is 1-3 so far March 26, 2012 – 9:35 am > Kentucky Wildcats head coach […]
Over and over in the 2012 NCAA Tournament the Louisville Cardinals have been counted out. Now John Clay has counted them out again. (Wally Hall of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette is picking Kentucky.) The tables are now turned. Calipari’s program has the advantage in tradition, fan base and, in this case, talent. To whom much is […]
Uploaded by gwain30 on Jan 29, 2012 A review of the new Liam Neeson film, the grey, as iI say there may be some minor spoilers but nothing too drastic, enjoy and dont forget to comment, rate and subscribe ________________ Uploaded by ClevverMovies on Dec 5, 2011 http://bit.ly/clevvermovies – Click to Subscribe! http://Facebook.com/ClevverMovies – Become […]
(If you want to check out other posts I have done about about Steve Jobs:Some say Steve Jobs was an atheist , Steve Jobs and Adoption , What is the eternal impact of Steve Jobs’ life? ,Steve Jobs versus President Obama: Who created more jobs? ,Steve Jobs’ view of death and what the Bible has to say about it ,8 things you might not know about Steve Jobs ,Steve […]
> Kentucky Wildcats head coach John Calipari celebrated with the team after the University of Kentucky defeated Baylor University in the NCAA South Regional final played in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Ga., Sunday, March 25, 2012. This is second half action. UK won 82-70. Charles Bertram | Staff HERALD-LEADER Buy Photo Calipari is going […]
Several members of the 70′s band Kansas became committed Christians after they realized that the world had nothing but meaningless to offer. It seems through the writings of both Woody Allen and Chris Martin of Coldplay that they both are wrestling with the issue of death and what meaning does life bring. Kansas went through […]
We came close to get two in but only Kentucky got in. Calipari’s wife and son can be seen in this picture below: > Kentucky Wildcats head coach John Calipari hugged his son, Bradley, and his wife Ellen after the University of Kentucky defeated Baylor University in the NCAA South Regional final played […]
Coldplay – 42 Live Coldplay perform on the french television channel W9. In 1992 Woody Allen took up with one of his adopted kids and lived in with her. He was given over to the pursuit of pleasure. Actually he has made that a major focus of his life. In the latter part of his […]
Brian’s Blues, Brian Jones on guitar in the early stones years. unreleased track Brian Jones died at age 27 just like Amy Winehouse did. I remember like yesterday when I first heard the song “I can’t get no satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones. I immediately thought about Solomon’s search for satisfaction in the Book of […]
Papa Roach – Last Resort (Censored Version) Amy Winehouse died at the young age of 27 and she had lived a life filled with drug and alcohol addiction. This series on Papa Roach is meant to provide answers to those who feel trapped. Hopefully it will people to avoid troubles like Amy Winehouse experienced. Today I […]
Coldplay seeks to corner the market on earnest and expressive rock music that currently appeals to wide audiences Here is an article I wrote a couple of years ago about Chris Martin’s view of hell. He says he does not believe in it but for some reason he writes a song that teaches that it […]
The Daily Hatch 