“Music Monday” Switchfoot is a Christian Band with a great message (Part 4)

Switchfoot The Documentary

Switchfoot is a Christian Band with a great message (Part 4)

One of my favorite bands is Switchfoot. Tim Foreman is the front man and this band has always been very vocal about their Christian faith. I am really enjoying this series on their band.

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Interview: Switchfoot Unplugged

Fri, Feb. 09, 2007 Posted: 10:48 AM EST

LONDON – Switchfoot has come a long way. After their album The Beautiful Letdown went double-platinum in 2004, Switchfoot’s ensuing projects have been getting better and better. The group recently released their latest project Oh! Gravity..

Despite being critically acclaimed on a worldwide scale, the five-piece Californian rock band remains as humble as ever, long having claimed to be “Christian by faith, not by genre.” Switchfoot frontman Jonathan Foreman likes to emphasize that who you are offstage is what really matters, and that life should be your testimony as a Christian.

The following is an exclusive interview with three of the five Switchfoot members – Jonathan Foreman (lead singer), Jerome Fontamillas (background vocals, keys, guitar), and Drew Shirley (guitar) – offstage at London’s Shepherds Bush Empire during their European tour.

How is the European tour going so far?

Jerome: It’s amazing.

Drew: Great.

Jonathan: It’s something to be thankful for. You can come half-way around the world and you have people singing along. That’s an honor.

Any memorable experiences?

Jonathan: [In Germany], we went to the club next door, and there was a jazz session.

Jerome: In Hamburg.

Jonathan: Yeah. There was a club next door that was…

Drew: … a bit open-minded.

Jonathan: A little bit of mic-nite. So there were all these guys with trumpets.

Jerome: Flute players!

Jonathan: It was a club where we found out that the Beatles used to play in. So [I nudged the guys] and said ‘We gotta play there!’ So we went over there, and it was great. We had the flute player join in on ‘Let Your Love Be Strong’…

Jerome: ‘Faust, Midas, and Myself.’ (Both tracks from Oh! Gravity.)

Jonathan: Yeah, ‘Faust’… It’s stuff like that that keeps it fresh, you know?

It’s great that your music is spreading all around the world. I was in Korea two years ago and your music was playing in a restaurant there.

Jonathan: Cool. I’ve got a lot of Korean friends. Our first record The Legend of Chin was named after a friend who is Korean.

So what’s the next step for lowercase people (the online magazine founded by Switchfoot) ?

Jonathan: It’s kind of one of those dreams that you start off with a lot of passion, and not really have any idea or experience of what you’re getting into. We partnered with Geneva Global and that’s been great because they have a lot of experience. I think it’s a lot more of opening our eyes and looking around and hopefully diving in where people need us and our help. There are a lot of incredible organizations that are helping people around the world, and we don’t want to be stepping on somebody’s toes. That requires a lot of thought. So we’re kind of figuring out what the next place to hit is. You only get so many punches, and you want to make each one count.

Let’s talk about your new album. What’s the main message you want to get across through Oh! Gravity.?

Jonathan: I think it’s not as simplistic as having just one message. I think every song has something to say – maybe in different layers. It’s kind of like a relationship. If I was gonna sum up my relationship with Drew, there probably will be a lot of different aspects and facets that we have. In the same way when we’re working on a record, you’re dealing with so many different layers. So for this, if I were to sum it up, I think it’ll be the idea around gravity, like the title – the idea that everything keeps falling apart when it’s supposed to be together. It seems like we daily defy the law of physics, the law of gravity.

(Holding up the album cover) What’s the concept of this drawing? Is that … blood on Jerome’s head?

Jerome: Could be!

Drew: Jerome had a head-bleed that day. (laughter)

Jonathan: We put a lot of the songs in artwork. When you open it up (opens album cover) there are all these hidden stories that we put in there. Different symbols and things that we think are important to the song.

What do these symbols mean (points to a drawing)?

Jonathan: Well, all of them are very subjective and can be interpreted in different ways. All the songs you can see down here: ‘Circles,’ ‘American Dream,’ ‘Yesterdays,’ ‘Dirty Second Hands’ … this is a clock … a boat … and we liked the idea of the bird – but birds have been done so much. There’s a surfboard and a whale there.

Back in the days, you had all these different records you can look at. You have it up, you know, it was a very discernable element of music where you can look at the record as you listen to it. We wanted something that was as large as a record to be able to look at the whole time you’re looking at it. It was fun to make.

Well, it does look fun.

Jonathan: Every one of these were drawn separately …

Drew: … and put together like a collage.

Jerome: Yeah. Like this was a certain section, and that was a section, etc.

Is that an octopus there?

Jonathan: It can be whatever you want it to be. I thought it was a snail.

Drew: I thought it was a fruit necklace.

(Laughter)

So, have you guys heard about the U2charist? It’s an adapted Holy Communion service that uses U2’s songs in place of hymns.

Drew: Yeah, I read about it.

What are your thoughts on that?

Jonathan: When Handel’s ‘Messiah’ was performed in opera houses, people were outraged. ‘Why is this music being sung outside the church? You shouldn’t do it.’ With Johnny Cash, he wanted to play gospel but certain records wouldn’t let him come out with that. I think it’s a struggle we’ll have to continue to deal with. It’s a timeless struggle. You have faith, commerce, and art colliding at the same point. As musicians, we believe in God, we like music, and we also try to pay rent. This is something you wrestle with every time you pick up your guitar. But I think it’s cool; it sounds exciting. It’s like everything; you have different challenges you face with that kind of approach.

Would you like your songs to be sung in churches?

Jonathan: Part of me would be honored, you know, but part of me thinks it might be taking it out of context almost. There are just so many anthems to God from celebrity rock clubs… My idea of worship is more like straight Old Testament songs. I’m a little bit more traditional (smiles) … a bit conservative.

You like them being distinguished?

Jonathan: Yea, like oil and water. But I like modern music. I like U2!

So how do you live out your Christian faith when you’re offstage?

Jonathan: I think the term ‘Christian’ is something that has to be said about you, from a third party, rather than boastfully saying it yourself. It’s easier for me to say, ‘I can fly,’ ‘I can jump off of a building and live,’ ‘I could do all these ridiculous things’ – but the harder thing is for us to actually do it. As far as what we do offstage, we certainly don’t have any book, where it goes ‘do this, this, this,’ and everything goes perfectly. That’s the whole point of the song ‘Amateur Lovers’ (Oh! Gravity.) – the idea that I’ve got a lot to learn. I think all of us [are] still learning – screwing up daily.

Drew: Practicing faith – screwing up daily.

Jonathan: Yeah, so we’re all learning from it and hopefully moving forward. I think to call yourself anything more than a sinner is a lie.

Drew: Seriously.

Jonathan: Thinking that you’re better than somebody else. I think that’s another thing that keeps us at where we are at. Singing songs at clubs, pubs, and bars – even churches…. There is no safe place. There is no industry that is not tainted with greed, pride, lust, fear – all these negative things – including the Christian music industry. So to think that you’re going to be applying a record or a product or a book that’s outside of that is almost untrue.

For us, it’s about living everyday to the fullest. We’re trying to practice daily the Kingdom of Heaven for the Audience of One.

Courtney Lee
Christian Post Correspondent

August 20, 2012 – 1:21 am Categories: Current Events | Post a comment

Francis Schaeffer’s L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland (Schaeffer Sunday)

L’Abri : Sounds & Sites of a Shelter

Uploaded by on Nov 12, 2006

A fun video of the day in the life at L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland. I made this video in 2003 while there and I was trying to capture the sounds and everyday life of it. Was on the Labri.org site for quite sometime. Not meant to be the end all video of what L’Abri is like today, but trying to make an entertaining video for the students and people who are curious about what L’Abri is.

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L’Abri : Sounds & Sites of a Shelter

Uploaded by on Nov 12, 2006

A fun video of the day in the life at L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland. I made this video in 2003 while there and I was trying to capture the sounds and everyday life of it. Was on the Labri.org site for quite sometime. Not meant to be the end all video of what L’Abri is like today, but trying to make an entertaining video for the students and people who are curious about what L’Abri is.

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L’Abri crew in the Vaud Alps

Uploaded on Jun 10, 2006

hiking up high – the sound is a little behind the picture for some reason

 

SOUNDWORD LABRI CONFERENCE VIDEO – Five Ideas – An Introduction to L’Abri – DICK KEYES – 1984

Published on Jan 27, 2014

This video is part of the Sound Word L’Abri Conference videos from the last two years of Dr. Schaeffer’s life. Here Dick Keyes gives five points of emphasis that describe the work of L’Abri Fellowship.

Read more about this series here: http://francisschaefferstudies.blogsp…

 

A Day at Swiss L’Abri – pt 1

Uploaded on Nov 20, 2007

This is part one of a series of videos I made during one day at Swiss L’Abri in Huemoz, Switzerland. If you want to know more about L’Abri you can go to http://www.labri.org or my blog at iamchrismartin.blogspot.com

A Day at Swiss L’Abri – pt 2

A Day at Swiss L’Abri – pt 3

A Day at Swiss L’Abri – pt 4

A Day at Swiss L’Abri – pt 5

A Day at Swiss L’Abri – pt 6

L’abri

 

 

Swiss L’abri

Uploaded on Jul 22, 2006

L’abri is many things–a shelter, a community, a thinktank, study center, and a home. I lived here for two months in the summer of 2006, and this video is an attempt to capture some of the memories.

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L’Abri: 6 Months

Uploaded on Jan 27, 2007

Video I made for the L’Abri website with music by Jozef Luptak. It’s a montage of the people and the day in the life of at L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland. Music performed live by Jozef Luptak in the Chapel in Huemoz.

I love Francis Schaeffer’s works. I remember like yesterday when I was in Switzerland in 1981 looking for directions to get to L’Abri. I never found the directions and I regret that even till today.  Below is a fine paper on Schaeffer and L’Abri:

Francis Schaeffer
Celebrating Fifty Years Of L’abri
By Gene Edward Veith
“The Legacy of FRANCIS SCHAEFFER – Celebrating 50 years of L’Abri” by Gene Edward Veith was the cover story of the March 26 World. Dr. Veith the cultural editor of World, wrote:”Half a century ago, an American pastor named Francis Schaeffer opened his home in Switzerland to anyone who was struggling with the basic questions of life. It was the beginning of L’Abri, a word meaning ‘shelter.’ Over the years, student backpackers, troubled atheists, and thoughtful Christians found their way to this chalet in the Alps. Here they met biblical truth, explained not only with a sophistication that was then rare in evangelicalism- but lived out.”Many who trekked the Alpine hillsides to L’Abri became Christians and learned how to engage their cultures and to apply their faith to all of life. Two generations on, the influence of Francis and Edith Schaeffer and the ministry of L’Abri is evident among evangelical Christians everywhere in their approach not only to evangelism and the church but also to the sciences, arts, business, and politics.”Schaeffer died of cancer in 1984. But L’Abri continues with branches all over the world: in Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, England, Korea, Canada, and two in the United States (in Southborough, Mass., and Rochester, Minn.). These centers for training in Christian philosophy are the legacy of a man who – according to long-time associate and founder of the Francis Schaeffer Institute Jerram Barrs – never considered himself a theologian or philosopher, but simply a pastor and an evangelist.”Schaeffer became a Christian when he was 17, after reading the Bible from beginning to end and finding that it gave answers to questions he struggled with. He studied at Faith Seminary and pastured churches in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and St. Louis. In St. Louis, Schaeffer and his wife Edith started a ministry, Children for Christ. At the same time, conflicts and schisms in the Presbyterian Church forced him to defend a high view of Scripture against liberal theology. He started the International Council of Christian Churches to counter the World Council of Churches. This took him to Europe, where he settled in Switzerland in 1948. But L’Abri had its genesis in a spiritual crisis that engulfed Schaeffer in 1950-1951. Depressed by church politics and power struggles, Schaeffer wrestled with the question: ‘How could people stand for truth and purity and God’s holiness without ugliness and harshness?’ He became dissatisfied, too, with his own failures to live out the faith as the Bible describes it, according to Mr. Barrs.

“Schaeffer felt these problems so deeply that he began to question whether Christianity, if it has so little effect, could be true. Once again, as he did when he was 17, he plunged into Bible reading in search of answers. He found them, becoming convinced that not only salvation but sanctification and the whole of the Christian’s life are by faith. ‘The sun came out again,’ he said, and he found ‘a new song in my heart.’ Now, in addition to holding Bible studies in the Schaeffer home and working with children, the Schaeffers began discussion groups for their teenage daughters and friends to hear their questions and to tell about the Bible’s answers.

“On June 5, 1955, the Schaeffers drew up a plan to turn their home into a place where people could come to work out their problems and to practice ‘true spirituality.’ Without finances and with no assurance that they would be allowed to stay in Switzerland, the Schaeffers purchased property in Huemoz, a rural village high in the mountains with a spectacular view of the Alps. Ranald Macaulay, a student at Cambridge who became involved with the Schaeffers in the early days (and later married their daughter Susan), said the founding of L’Abri was consistent with its organizing principle: to live in constant dependence on the grace of God.

“At a March 11-13 2005 Jubilee for L’Abri Fellowship at the America’s Center in St. Louis, Mr. Macaulay said the Schaeffers resolved to do no advertising for workers, no marketing to attract newcomers, no fundraising, and no planning – principles in stark contrast to most other ministries. The Schaeffers saw L’Abri as a unique experiment. They did not necessarily recommend this radical dependence on God’s providence as a pattern for other ministries, but the needs always were met. Concerned with reaching individuals, the Schaeffers were content with small numbers. Over time, however, the effect of their work multiplied. Over 1,000 L’Abri alumni attended the jubilee celebration, an event that was equal parts conference and family reunion.

“Os Guinness, Harold O.J. Brown, and Chuck Colson – all major evangelical thinkers who were shaped by L’Abri-gave addresses. Screenwriter Brian Godawa, who wrote To End All Wars, gave a workshop on transforming Hollywood. Theologian and cultural critic Vishal Mangaiwadi, from India, talked about his upcoming television documentary series on the impact of the Bible, The Book of the Millennium. Book tables overflowed with titles by L’Abri alumni. Workshops focused on the various facets of the Central Themes of L’Abri, ‘Transforming All of Life,’ and ‘True Spirituality.’ The evenings closed with classical music concerts.”

“Schaeffer persuaded nonbelievers to face up to the contradictions in their own worldviews by revealing their inability to account for what is most important in life (love, beauty, meaning). He would, as he described it, ‘take the roof off,’ bringing the nonbeliever almost to the point of despair, to acknowledge his lost condition. Then he applied the gospel of Christ. While conversant with the theology of Kuyper, Dooyeweerd, and Van Til, Schaeffer was captive only to the worldview set forth in the Bible-God’s good creation, man’s fall into sin and its consequences, the redemption through Christ-which he said accords with reality in all of its dimensions. Nonbelievers cannot bring themselves to be completely consistent with their own presuppositions, an inconsistency that is a result of common grace. Thus, illogically, he wrote in 1948, ‘men have in their accepted worldviews various amounts of that which is ours. But, illogical though it may be, it is there and we can appeal to it.’

“‘Even with hostile visitors,’ Mr. Barrs said, Schaeffer ‘had an acute sense of people’s brokenness and fallenness,’ and ‘thus would treat them with compassion.’ Mr. Guinness said that the genius of Schaeffer’s apologetics has yet to be fully unwrapped.’ When asked about reaching the culture, Mr. Guinness said that one of Schaeffer’s great insights is that we have to reach not cultures but individuals. Each individual has his or her own questions, personal struggles, and moral brokenness. Schaeffer took them all seriously, addressing people one by one, while giving them-sometimes for the first time-a sense of belonging to a community.

“Many approaches to evangelism and church growth today are impersonal, relying on manipulative formulas and the techniques of mass marketing and consumerism. L’Abri honors the dignity and the distinct spiritual needs of each individual. Many evangelicals think Christianity needs to be dumbed down and made easier to make it attractive to people today. L’Abri teaches that Christianity has substance and depth, that it has something to offer to thoughtful, educated people, and that – undiluted – biblical Christianity can change their lives.

“Fifty years later, evangelicalism once again faces the problem of being negative or ineffectual, worldly, or out of touch. L’Abri remains.”

(c) Gene Edward Veith
Francis A. Schaeffer Institute of Church Leadership Development http://www.truespirituality.org/
August 18, 2012 – 10:00 pm Categories: Francis Schaeffer | Post a comment

Open letter to President Obama (Part 126 B)

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 every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

The buck stops at your desk. I just don’t understand why you think we can go on and act like everything is okay when we have a trillion dollar deficit. Sometimes you run across some very wise words like I did the other day. Kansas Congressman Tim Huelskamp made the following comment on the irresponsible  Budget Control Act of August 1, 2011:

I refuse to dig America into a deeper and un-scalable hole. I refuse to be complicit in recklessly spending and borrowing on the backs of the next generation. And, I believe conservatives should make good on their promises to cut trillions in spending…”

Ted DeHaven noted his his article, “Freshman Republicans switch from Tea to Kool-Aid,”  Cato Institute Blog, May 17, 2012:

This week the Club for Growth released a study of votes cast in 2011 by the 87 Republicans elected to the House in November 2010. The Club found that “In many cases, the rhetoric of the so-called “Tea Party” freshmen simply didn’t match their records.” Particularly disconcerting is the fact that so many GOP newcomers cast votes against spending cuts.

The study comes on the heels of three telling votes taken last week in the House that should have been slam-dunks for members who possess the slightest regard for limited government and free markets. Alas, only 26 of the 87 members of the “Tea Party class” voted to defund both the Economic Development Administration and the president’s new Advanced Manufacturing Technology Consortia program (see my previous discussion of these votes here) and against reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank (see my colleague Sallie James’s excoriation of that vote here).

One of those Tea Party heroes was Tim Huelskamp of Kansas. Last year I posted this below concerning his conservative views and his willingness to vote against the debt ceiling increase:

August 1, 2011

Congressman Huelskamp: My Constituents and Our Economy Deserve a Long-Term Solution

(WASHINGTON) – Kansas Congressman Tim Huelskamp issued the following statement after voting against the Budget Control Act:

“My fellow freshmen and I were sent to Washington to end tricks and gimmicks that put America in this position,” Congressman Tim Huelskamp said. “I voted ‘no’ today because I refuse to dig America into a deeper and un-scalable hole. I refuse to be complicit in recklessly spending and borrowing on the backs of the next generation. And, I believe conservatives should make good on their promises to cut trillions in spending, enact structural reforms, and fill the role of elected representatives, rather than hand control to an exclusive committee.”

“Back in April – when I voted against the continuing resolution for this year – I said ‘no’ because the cuts were minimal. I came to the same conclusion today: these are paltry cuts compared to the $14.3 trillion in debt we already have and the $7 trillion in new debt we can expect in the next decade. This is not a path to fiscal solvency, it’s a path to fiscal insanity. My constituents and our economy deserve a long-term solution that ends the biggest problem: we simply spend too much.”

“Despite having pledged to the American people an open and transparent process and despite having months to fix this problem, we were asked to vote in the 11th hour for a bill that the public had less than 16 hours to read and understand. The culture of fiscal irresponsibility may not have been created by this Congress, but we were sent here to put an end to it; I’m afraid this bill does not rise to that occasion.”

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Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

August 18, 2012 – 9:58 pm Categories: President Obama, spending out of control, Taxes | Post a comment

10 most hated men in SEC football

Got this off the internet:


Nutt makes the top 10 for one of the few times in his SEC Coaching Career

10 Most Hated Men in the SEC

There is no doubt that the college football conference with the most emotion is the SEC.  One of those emotions is hate and this is the list of the 10 most hated people in the SEC.

10. Houston Nutt Head Coach Ole Miss– It’s hard to believe that the longest continuous coach in the SEC is Houston Nutt.  Nutt has been in the SEC as head coach of Arkansas and Ole Miss since 1998.  While he’s great for a sound bite and even better for a humorous photo, Nutt is thought of by most to be the sleaziest coach in the SEC.

This is a man that has a rule unofficially named after him due to his practice of oversigning recruits(he signed 37 recruits 3 years ago).  Nutt also is the man who gave Jeremiah Masoli a chance to be the QB at Ole Miss last year when few other major schools would touch the troubled QB.  Nutt might be the most hated man in Arkansas Football History.  Nutt left the football team in the late 70s as a player, lied to OC Gus Malzahn, led an attack against Mitch Mustain, and left the Hogs to coach a rival team.  Houston also hasn’t helped himself inside the SEC with his crazy post game celebrations that have included such classy moments like destroying the hedges in Auburn’s endzone so he could sing the Arkansas Fight Song.

9. Bobby Lowder Auburn University trustee–  Lowder has been a member of the Auburn Board of Trustees since 1983.  During his tenure he has become one of the most powerful men behind the scenes in the SEC.

Many credit Lowder to be responsible for every Auburn coaching hire since Pat Dye was hired nearly 25 years ago.  In 2003 when Auburn AD David Housel and University President William Walker Jr. privately met with Louisville coach Bobby Petrino, it was Lowder’s jet that was used for transportation.  On May 16, 2011 Lower asked Governor Robert Bentley to remove his name for reappointment on the Auburn Board of Trustees.

8. Lane Kiffin head coach Southern California– 2 years ago Kiffin might be number one on this list, but as time has passed so has the hate of Kiffin.  Still, fans don’t forget.

Tennessee fans won’t forget the way he left the team in the middle of the night, causing small riots around the UT campus.  Kiffin left Tennessee with a NCAA investigation that is still on going today.  Kiffin also angered fans at South Carolina telling recruits that if they go to South Carolina they will just be “gas pumpers”.  Kiffin also got into a bickering match with Gamecock coach Steve Spurrier over his NCAA recruiting test he had to take to become UT head coach.  Kiffin even angered Gator fans by accusing head coach Urban Meyer of committing a recruiting violation, when in reality it wasn’t a violation.

The daddy’s boy who ran his mouth too much, ran out of the SEC before he truly got what was coming to him.

7. LSU Fans– Personally, I have always had a good time in Baton Rouge.  I love being offered Cajun Food at a tailgate.  Unfortunately most in the SEC don’t see the Tiger fans this way.

LSU has the reputation of being the rowdiest and most rude fans in the SEC.  Accounts of bottles of urine being thrown at opposing fans aren’t uncommon.  The fans certainly do know how to have a good time.  A night at Tiger Stadium is basically Mardi Gras in a football stadium, anything goes.

A LSU fan once summed it up best for a friend of mine by saying in a thick accent “Before and after the game you and I are friends, during the game “F” you”.

6. Steve Spurrier Head Coach South Carolina- Since taking the job at South Carolina, Steve Spurrier has admitted that coaching in the NFL humbled him a bit.  He’s no longer the cocky college football coach that poked fun at teams he whipped in the 90s.

When his Florida teams were on the top of the college football world Spurrier found ways to not only beat up opponents on the field, but also off.   It could’ve been a jab at Ray Goff or making fun of Auburn’s Library being full of coloring books, but Spurrier always found a way to rub SEC fans the wrong way.  Most fans still haven’t forgotten the younger Spurrier, and while the media loves him for sound bites, he’s still one of the most hated men in the SEC.

5. Jim Delany Commissioner of the Big 10 Conference– The SEC and Big 10 have had a conference rivalry going on for many years now.  The leader of the Big 10 is Jim Delany.

Delany seems to find every excuse in the book as to why his conference can’t compete with the SEC in football.  He blames it on SEC schools oversigning, he believes the academics of the SEC are lower tier, and he thinks of the SEC as a corrupt conference.  Delany chooses to ignore the changing demographics in the United States and ignores how the game of College Football has started to showcase Southern Speed over Big 10 brute.  He also seems so worried about the SEC’s ethics that Ohio State’s scandal slipped right under his nose.

4. Charles Robinson Yahoo Sports Writer–  If Charles Robinson is talking about your school then you might as well prepare for a bowl ban and a loss of scholarships.  Robinson has become the leading investigative reporter in the NCAA over the last few years.  You have to respect the man’s ability to find a story, but fans hate it when he publishes a story about their school.

3. Harvery Updyke Jr. “Al from Dadeville”- On Jan 27, 2011 a man going by the name Al called into the Paul Finebaum show claiming to have poisoned the 130 year old Oak Trees at Toomer’s Corner on the Campus of Auburn University.  After the call was traced and lethal injections of Spike 80DF were found at the site of the trees, police arrested Harvey Updyke of Dadeville, Alabama.  Updyke said he did this as revenge for Auburn fans rolling Toomer’s Corner after Bear Bryant’s Death in 1983 and for a Cam Newton jersey being draped on The Bear’s statue outside of Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa.  Updyke’s actions were condemned by both the president of Auburn and Alabama.

2. Cam Newton QB Carolina Panthers– Newton might be the most hated athlete ever to step foot on a SEC football field.

Newton originally played for the Florida Gators as Tim Tebow’s backup, but decided to transfer because he was suspended for stealing a laptop computer.  It was also reported by Fox Sports that Newton was facing expulsion due to academic cheating.

After spending a year in JUCO, Newton came to the SEC and shocked everyone by winning the Heisman Trophy and leading Auburn to the National Championship.  For most of the second part of the 2010 season Newton’s elgibility was under review by the media and NCAA.  Newton’s father was accused by Kenny Rogers, a former Mississippi State player, of asking for $100,000-$180,000 for this son to play for the Bulldogs.

It was later proven that Cecil Newton did indeed ask MSU to pay this amount for his son.  The NCAA has yet to be able to prove if Cam Newton knew about the situation and if Auburn ever gave Newton any money to play for the Tigers.

1. Paul Finebaum columnist and radio host- The leading media voice in the South is no doubt Paul Finebaum.  When he speaks, everyone tends to listen even if they don’t like what he has to say.

There really isn’t a fanbase in the SEC that Finebaum hasn’t angered at one point or another.  One reason Bama fans tend to hate him is because in 1993 Finebaum broke a story about Antonio Langham signing a contract with a sports agent while playing for Alabama(1 year after their 92 National Championship).  Finebaum has also reported on rumors that Steve Spurrier would coach at Alabama after Shula was fired and that Urban Meyer would take the Notre Dame job.   He’s said such things to anger Razorback fans, like saying Arkansas being in the SEC doesn’t benefit the SEC.

Listening to Finebaum’s syndicated radio show is like listening to Jerry Springer at times.  He’s certainly found a niche that works because his show now can be heard nationwide on Sirius/XM. Paul does give fantastic interviews and has some great guests, but thanks to him callers like Tammy are now national celebs.

Matt Barber
dixiefriedsports@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/#!/dixiefriedsport

August 17, 2012 – 6:34 pm Categories: Current Events | Post a comment

The flat tax will grow the economy

If we want the economy to grow then we should look closely at a flat tax.

In previous posts, I put together tutorials on the Laffer Curve, tax competition, and the economics of government spending.

Today, we’re going to look at the issue of tax reform. The focus will be the flat tax, but this analysis applies equally to national sales tax systems such as the Fair Tax.

There are three equally important features of tax reform.

  1. A low tax rate – This is the best-known feature of tax reform. A low tax rate is designed to minimize the penalty of work, entrepreneurship, and productive behavior.
  2. No double taxation of saving and investment – All major tax reform plans, such as the flat tax and national sales tax, get rid of the tax bias against income that is saved and invested. The capital gains tax, double tax on dividends, and death tax are all abolished. Shifting to a system that taxes economic activity only one time will boost capital formation, thus facilitating an increase in productivity and wages.
  3. No distorting loopholes – With the exception of a family-based allowance designed to protect lower-income people, the main tax reform plans get rid of all deductions, exemptions, shelters, preference, exclusions, and credits. By creating a neutral tax system, this ensures that decisions are made on the basis of economic fundamentals, not tax distortions.

All three features are equally important, sort of akin to the legs of a stool. Using the flat tax as a model, this video provides additional details.

One thing I don’t mention in the video is that a flat tax is “territorial,” meaning that only income earned in the United States is taxed. This common-sense rule is the good-fences-make-good-neighbors approach. If income is earned by an American in, say, Canada, then the Canadian government gets to decide how it’s taxed. And if income is earned by a Canadian in America, then the U.S. government gets a slice.

It’s also worth emphasizing that the flat tax protects low-income Americans from the IRS. All flat tax plans include a fairly generous “zero-bracket amount,” which means that a family of four can earn (depending on the specific proposal) about $25,000-$35,000 before the flat tax takes effect.

Proponents of tax reform explain that there are many reasons to junk the internal revenue code and adopt something like a flat tax.

  • Improve growth – The low marginal tax rate, the absence of double taxation, and the elimination of distortions combine to create a system that minimizes the penalties on productive behavior.
  • Boost competitiveness – In a competitive global economy, it is easy for jobs and investment to cross national borders. The right kind of tax reform can make America a magnet for money from all over the world.
  • Reduce corruption – Tax preferences and penalties are bad for growth, but they are also one of the main sources of political corruption in Washington. Tax reform takes away the dumpster, which means fewer rats and cockroaches.
  • Promote simplicity – Good policy has a very nice side effect in that the tax system becomes incredibly simple. Instead of the hundreds of forms required by the current system, both households and businesses would need only a single postcard-sized form.
  • Increase privacy – By getting rid of double taxation and taxing saving, investment, and profit at the business level, there no longer is any need for people to tell the government what assets they own and how much they’re worth.
  • Protect civil liberties – A simple and fair tax system eliminates almost all sources of conflict between taxpayers and the IRS.

All of these benefits also accrue if the internal revenue code is abolished and replaced with some form of national sales tax. That’s because the flat tax and sales tax are basically different sides of the same coin. Under a flat tax, income is taxed one time at one low rate when it is earned. Under a sales tax, income is taxed one time at one low rate when it is spent.

Neither system has double taxation. Neither system has corrupt loopholes. And neither system requires the nightmarish internal revenue service that exists to enforce the current system.

This video has additional details – including the one caveat that a national sales tax shouldn’t be enacted unless the 16th Amendment is repealed so there’s no threat that politicians could impose both an income tax and sales tax.

Last but not least, let’s deal with the silly accusation that the flat tax is a risky and untested idea. This video is a bit dated (some new nations are in the flat tax club and a few have dropped out), but is shows that there are more than two dozen jurisdictions with this simple and fair tax system.

P.S. Fundamental tax reform is also the best way to improve the healthcare system. Under current law, compensation in the form of fringe benefits such as health insurance is tax free. Not only is it deductible to employers and non-taxable to employees, it also isn’t hit by the payroll tax. This creates a huge incentive for gold-plated health insurance policies that cover routine costs and have very low deductibles. This is a principal cause (along with failed entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid) of the third-party payer crisis. Shifting to a flat tax means that all forms of employee compensation are taxed at the same low rate, a reform that presumably over time will encourage both employers and employees to migrate away from the inefficient over-use of insurance that characterizes the current system. For all intents and purposes, the health insurance market presumably would begin to resemble the vastly more efficient and consumer-friendly auto insurance and homeowner’s insurance markets.

P.P.S. If you want short and sweet descriptions of the major tax reform plans, here are four highly condensed descriptions of the flat tax, national sales tax, value-added tax, and current system.

August 17, 2012 – 12:14 pm Categories: Cato Institute, Taxes | Post a comment

President Obama:“do not consider ourselves a Christian nation” (Part 5 of David Barton’s response)

America’s Founding Fathers Deist or Christian? – David Barton 5/6

David Barton provided an excellent response to President Obama’s assertion: “We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation.” Here it is:

Is President Obama Correct: Is America No Longer a Christian Nation?

Over the past several years, President Barack Obama has repeatedly claimed that America is not a Christian nation. He asserted that while a U. S. Senator, 1 repeated it as a presidential candidate, 2 and on a recent presidential trip to Turkey announced to the world that Americans “do not consider ourselves a Christian nation.” 3 (He made that announcement in Turkey because he said it was “a location he said he chose to send a clear message.” 4 ) Then preceding a subsequent trip to Egypt, he declared that America was “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world” 5 (even though the federal government’s own statistics show that less than one-percent of Americans are Muslims. 6

The President’s statements were publicized across the world but received little attention in the American media. Had they been carried here, the President might have been surprised to learn that nearly two-thirds of Americans currently consider America to be a Christian nation 7 and therefore certainly might have taken exception with his remarks. But regardless of what today’s Americans might think, it is unquestionable that four previous centuries of American leaders would definitely take umbrage with the President’s statements.

Modern claims that America is not a Christian nation are rarely noticed or refuted today because of the nation’s widespread lack of knowledge about America’s history and foundation. To help provide the missing historical knowledge necessary to combat today’s post-modern revisionism, presented below will be some statements by previous presidents, legislatures, and courts (as well as by current national Jewish spokesmen) about America being a Christian nation. These declarations from all three branches of government are representative of scores of others and therefore comprise only the proverbial “tip of the iceberg.”

.

American Jewish Leaders Agree with History

Jewish leaders, although firmly committed to their own faith, understand that by defending Christianity they are defending what has provided them their own religious liberty in America. For example, Jeff Jacoby, a Jewish columnist at the Boston Globe explains:

This is a Christian country – it was founded by Christians and built on broad Christian principles. Threatening? Far from it. It is in precisely this Christian country that Jews have known the most peaceful, prosperous, and successful existence in their long history. 64

Aaron Zelman (a Jewish author and head of a civil rights organization) similarly declares:

[C]hristian America is the best home our people have found in 2,000 years. . . . [T]his remains the most tolerant, prosperous, and safest home we could be blessed with. 65

Dennis Prager, a Jewish national columnist and popular talkshow host, warns:

If America abandons its Judeo-Christian values basis and the central role of the Jewish and Christian Bibles (its Founders’ guiding text), we are all in big trouble, including, most especially, America’s non-Christians. Just ask the Jews of secular Europe.66

Prager further explained:

I believe that it is good that America is a Christian nation. . . . I have had the privilege of speaking in nearly every Jewish community in America over the last 30 years, and I have frequently argued in favor of this view. Recently, I spoke to the Jewish community of a small North Carolina city. When some in the audience mentioned their fear of rising religiosity among Christians, I asked these audience-members if they loved living in their city. All of them said they did. Is it a coincidence, I then asked, that the city you so love (for its wonderful people, its safety for your children, its fine schools, and its values that enable you to raise your children with confidence) is a highly Christian city? Too many Americans do not appreciate the connection between American greatness and American Christianity. 67

Don Feder, a Jewish columnist and long time writer for the Boston Herald, similarly acknowledges:

Clearly this nation was established by Christians. . . . As a Jew, I’m entirely comfortable with the concept of the Christian America. 68The choice isn’t Christian America or nothing, but Christian America or a neo-pagan, hedonistic, rights-without-responsibilities, anti-family, culture-of-death America. As an American Jew. . . . [I] feel very much at home here. 69

In fact, Feder calls on Jews to defend the truth that America is a Christian Nation:

Jews – as Jews – must oppose revisionist efforts to deny our nation’s Christian heritage, must stand against the drive to decouple our laws from Judeo-Christian ethics, and must counter attacks on public expressions of the religion of most Americans – Christianity. Jews are safer in a Christian America than in a secular America. 70

Michael Medved, a Jewish national talkshow host and columnist, agrees that America is indeed a Christian nation:

The framers may not have mentioned Christianity in the Constitution but they clearly intended that charter of liberty to govern a society of fervent faith, freely encouraged by government for the benefit of all. Their noble and unprecedented experiment never involved a religion-free or faithless state but did indeed presuppose America’s unequivocal identity as a Christian nation. 71

Burt Prelutsky, a Jewish columnist for the Los Angeles Times (and a freelance writer for the New York Times, Washington Times, Sports Illustrated, and other national publications) and a patriotic Jewish American, gladly embraces America as a Christian nation and even resents the secularist post-modern attack on national Christian celebrations such as Christmas:

I never thought I’d live to see the day that Christmas would become a dirty word. . . .How is it, one well might ask, that in a Christian nation this is happening? And in case you find that designation objectionable, would you deny that India is a Hindu country, that Turkey is Muslim, that Poland is Catholic? That doesn’t mean those nations are theocracies. But when the overwhelming majority of a country’s population is of one religion, and most Americans happen to be one sort of Christian or another, only a darn fool would deny the obvious. . . . This is a Christian nation, my friends. And all of us are fortunate it is one, and that so many millions of Americans have seen fit to live up to the highest precepts of their religion. It should never be forgotten that, in the main, it was Christian soldiers who fought and died to defeat Nazi Germany and who liberated the concentration camps. Speaking as a member of a minority group – and one of the smaller ones at that – I say it behooves those of us who don’t accept Jesus Christ as our savior to show some gratitude to those who do, and to start respecting the values and traditions of the overwhelming majority of our fellow citizens, just as we keep insisting that they respect ours. Merry Christmas, my friends. 72

Orthodox Rabbi Daniel Lapin of the Jewish Policy Center unequivocally declares

[I] understand that I live . . . in a Christian nation, albeit one where I can follow my faith as long as it doesn’t conflict with the nation’s principles. The same option is open to all Americans and will be available only as long as this nation’s Christian roots are acknowledged and honored. 73

In fact, with foreboding he warns:

Without a vibrant and vital Christianity, America is doomed, and without America, the west is doomed. Which is why I, an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, devoted to Jewish survival, the Torah, and Israel am so terrified of American Christianity caving in. 74God help Jews if America ever becomes a post-Christian society! Just think of Europe! 75

— — — ◊ ◊ ◊ — — —

President Obama’s declaration that Americans “do not consider ourselves a Christian nation” is a repudiation of the declarations of the national leaders before him and is an unabashed attempt at historical revisionism. Of such efforts, Chief Justice William Rehnquist wisely observed, “no amount of repetition of historical errors . . . can make the errors true.” 76

Americans must now decide whether centuries of presidents, congresses, and courts are correct or whether President Obama is, but historical fact does not change merely because the President declares it.

The best antidote to the type of revisionism embodied by President Obama’s statement is for citizens (1) to know the truth of America’s history and (2) share that truth with others.

Picture Credits:
p. 2, “John Marshall,” Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Theodor Horydczak Collection, LC-H814-T-C01-518-A; p. 4, “Thomas Jefferson,” Independence National Historical Park; p. 7, “Joseph Story,” The Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States (Artist: George P.A. Healy); “John McLean,” The Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States (Artist: Charles Bird King); “David Brewer,” Library of Congress.

Endnotes

64. Jeff Jacoby, “The freedom not to say ‘amen’,” Jewish World Review, February 1, 2001 (at:http://www.jewishworldreview.com/jeff/jacoby020101.asp).(Return)

65. Aaron Zelman, “An open letter to my Christian friends,” Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (at: http://www.jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/christian-selfdefense.htm).(Return)

66. Dennis Prager, “America founded to be free, not secular,” Townhall.com, January 3, 2007 (at:http://townhall.com/columnists/DennisPrager/2007/01/03/america_founded_to_be_free,_not_secular).(Return)

67. Dennis Prager, “Books, Arts & Manners: God & His Enemies – Revie,”BNet, March 22, 1999 (at:http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_5_51/ai_54022321).(Return)

68. Don Feder, A Jewish Conservative Looks at Pagan America (Lafayette: Huntington House Publishers, 1993), pp. 59-60. (Return)

69. Don Feder, “Yes – Once and For All – American is a Christian Nation,”DonFeder.com, February 16, 2005 (at:www.donfeder.com/articles/0502chrisAmerica.pdf).(Return)

70. Don Feder, “The Jewish Case for Merry Christmas,” DonFeder.com, December 5, 2006 (at:www.donfeder.com/articles/0612jewishCase.pdf).(Return)

71. Michael Medved, “The Founders Intended a Christian, not Secular, Society,” Townhall.com, October 3, 2007 (at:http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/MichaelMedved/2007/10/03/the_founders_intended_a_christian,_not_secular,_society).(Return)

72. Burt Prelutsky, “The Jewish grinch who stole Christmas,” Townhall.com, December 11, 2006 (at:http://townhall.com/columnists/BurtPrelutsky/2006/12/11/the_jewish_grinch_who_stole_christmas).(Return)

73. Daniel Lapin, America’s Real War (Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, 1999), p. 116. (Return)

74. Rabbi Daniel Lapin, “A Rabbi’s Call to American Christians – Wake Up! You’re Under Attack,” End Time Prophetic Division, January 19, 2007 (at:http://www.etpv.org/2007/acwuyua.html).(Return)

75. Rabbi Daniel Lapin, “Which Jews does the ADL really represent?”WorldNetDaily, August 25, 2006 (at:http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51671).(Return)

76. Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38, 106-107 (1984), Rehnquist, J. (dissenting). (Return)

August 17, 2012 – 10:20 am Categories: David Barton, Founding Fathers | Post a comment

Why are crimes elavated under “hate crime laws”?

I think that hate crimes laws should be removed from the books. A shooting against a gay should be punished just like one against a straight.

Jennifer Marshall

August 16, 2012 at 8:51 pm

A vandalized Chick-fil-A store in Torrance, California (credit: Reuters)

Yesterday’s shooting at the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the Family Research Council (FRC) stunned the nation. FRC’s long-time security guard, Leo Johnson, was shot in the arm by a gunman carrying a box of ammunition in his backpack trying to gain access to the building. Law enforcement hailed Leo a hero for his role in tackling and disarming the shooter, and reports today suggest Leo is recovering well from surgery. (Full disclosure: I worked at FRC between 1994 and 2002, and Leo’s warm greeting has always been a highlight of return visits.)

Leaders across the political spectrum have condemned the violent act, from conservative allies of FRC to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to President Obama, the Human Rights Campaign, two dozen other LGBT organizations, and the DC Center for the LGBT Community where the shooter reportedly volunteered. The near-universal condemnation (the exceptions seem to fester in the backwaters of the Twittersphere) is a very welcome sign.

In eschewing such violence, we fortify our resolve to live peacefully with our deepest differences and to pursue consensus about societal norms through politics. Broadly speaking, politics isn’t just the electoral mechanics we typically think of. It’s how we conduct our life together as a people. It relies on debate, persuasion, negotiation…and tolerance. It demands that we communicate, especially when it comes to differences about deeply held beliefs, about the merits of our ideas.

While such resolve is fresh in the mind, this is a critical juncture for reflecting on the character of our political discourse over issues related to sexuality and marriage. We await a likely announcement this fall from the U.S. Supreme Court that it will take up cases involving marriage, following what has turned out to be a very hot summer of intolerance toward traditional views of marriage.

Since June, scorching backlash has been directed at the author of a peer-reviewed study that shows some negative outcomes for young adults whose parents had same-sex relationships. Such findings conflict with an assertion in Judge Vaughn Walker’s opinion overturning California’s marriage amendment, known as Proposition 8, that there is no difference between children of same-sex parents and their peers raised in married mother-and-father households.

Mark Regnerus’s New Family Structures Study improves on prior research through its use of a large, nationally representative sample, as three expert reviews published in the same journal acknowledge. Demographer Cynthia Osborne, for example, says that “the Regnerus study is more scientifically rigorous than most of the other studies in this area.”

That didn’t stop the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance against Defamation (GLAAD) from denouncing the study as a “flawed, misleading, and scientifically unsound paper that seeks to disparage lesbian and gay parents.” Another source wrote off the study as “dangerous propaganda.” An assistant editor at The New Republic called Regnerus a “retrograde researcher” and suggested that this study should “mark the beginning of the end of Mark Regnerus’s credibility with respectable news outlets.”

Allegations from an activist blogger triggered a scientific misconduct inquiry into Regnerus’s work at the University of Texas. The editor of the sociological journal that published the study got such intensely hostile responses that he decided to resort to an internal audit to show the integrity of the publication process.

Then came the Chick-fil-A flap in July. When Dan Cathy, president and COO of the privately held company, made comments in a press interview supporting the “biblical definition of the family unit,” big city politicians from Boston to Chicago to San Francisco threatened to bar the chicken franchise from their communities. Chicago Alderman Joe Moreno announced: “Because of [Cathy’s] ignorance, I will now be denying Chick-fil-A’s permit to open a restaurant in the 1st Ward.”

That runs directly afoul of the First Amendment. A government official may not deny a business license because he doesn’t like things that the applicant has said, as my colleague John Malcolm explained in a recent post. As long as they abide by the law, writes Malcolm, “the owners of Chick-fil-A are well within their rights to say what they want and to put into effect their professed desire to operate Chick-fil-A based ‘on biblical principles.’” Based on the enormous response to Chick-fil-A appreciation day, many Americans would like the company to keep doing just that.

But the brutal summer lumbers on, and two days ago, the Human Rights Campaign ran a blog titled “Paul Ryan Speaking at Hate Group’s Annual Conference“—referring to FRC’s Values Voter Summit. As the blog explains, “FRC has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.” The post remains, jarringly, four entries down from the Joint Statement from LGBT Organizations on FRC Shooting.

As my colleague Tom Messner has written, “This is not ‘live and let live.’” These and other episodes fall far short of the tolerance that should characterize public life in America where we enjoy freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of association.

Given the magnitude of the policy questions at hand in our nation’s great ongoing marriage debate, we should encourage more research and dialogue in this area. To marginalize as illegitimate those whose research contributions or statements might support maintaining the institution of marriage as a union of one man and one woman is a disservice to public discourse and social harmony. (By the way, this includes a majority of voters in the 32 states where the question has been put to them.) Even before the FRC shooting, this summer’s string of uncivil responses falls far short of the tolerant discourse we’ll need to navigate the deep and widespread differences on this issue.

It’s good that we can all agree that waving a gun and yelling “I don’t like your politics” sabotages the very definition of politics. Now let’s agree that supporting traditional marriage isn’t cause for shunning from civil discourse and the public square.

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August 17, 2012 – 12:13 am Categories: Current Events | Post a comment

“Feedback Friday” Letter to White House generated form letter response July 30,2012 on Social Security (part 16)

I have been writing President Obama letters and have not received a personal response yet.  (He reads 10 letters a day personally and responds to each of them.) However, I did receive a form letter in the form of an email on July 30, 2012. I don’t know which letter of mine generated this response so I have linked several of the letters I sent to him below with the email that I received. However, I think it was probably this one below:

President Obama’s state of the union speech Jan 24, 2012

Barack Obama (Photo by Saul Loeb-Pool/Getty Images)

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 every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

The Heritage Foundation website (www.heritage.org ) has lots of good articles and one that caught my attention was concerning your State of Union Speech on January 24, 2012 and here is a short portion of that article:

Social Security Silence – David John

In a night of disappointments, the complete lack of any mention of Social Security other than as an excuse to raise taxes was one of the greatest.  Although the Social Security trustees, several of whom are members of the President’s cabinet, has warned that the program faces perpetual deficits, the President evidently has no plan to protect the retirement security of millions of Americans who face a 25% benefit cut in less than 25 years.  Most officeholders join the President in treating Social Security as an issue that can be discussed later – much later, but the reality is that just like a leaky roof, the longer that the President and Congress waits to fix the program, the more expensive the reforms will be.

Tax Reform? It’s Needed, but There’s A Better Way to Go – Emily Goff

President Obama says he is ready and willing to embark on tax reform. This is a welcome statement, as our current tax system is ripe for overhaul. However, instead of piecemeal approaches or solutions that give preferences to one industry or company over another, the President should look to the fundamental reforms that the New Flat Tax, as part of The Heritage Foundation’s Saving the American Dream, would bring.

Obama Doubles Down on the Worst U.S. Tax Policy – J.D. Foster

One of the universally acknowledged banes of the federal income tax has for years been the individual Alternative Minimum Tax.  Borne in its current form in the 1986 tax reform act, this parallel system which runs in parallel to the regular income tax forces taxpayers to calculate their taxes twice and pay the larger of the two.

Today, this tax makes no sense, and most tax reform proposals of sufficient heft seek as a primary goal the repeal of the AMT.  Tonight, President Obama proposed not merely to embrace the AMT in principle, but to extend the principle robustly to the business income tax – to create a new basic minimum tax for businesses.  Once again, when it comes to tax policy, President Obama sees what needs to be done – and does the exact opposite.

___________________

Got to tackle entitlement reform but your speech did not mention that once.

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your committment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

The White House, Washington

July 30, 2012

Dear Everette:

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me.  I have heard from many Americans who are worried about the future of their retirement savings, and I appreciate your perspective.

Retiring with dignity is a promise we must keep to all Americans, and I am working hard to strengthen our retirement system.  That is why I am committed to protecting Social Security and addressing Americans’ concerns.  Social Security cannot be subjected to risky privatization plans because the future of hard-working Americans should not be left to the fluctuations of financial markets.

To better secure their retirement and prepare for unforeseen circumstances, Americans must also save for their future in other ways.  We are laying the foundation for all individuals to participate in workplace retirement accounts.  Employees would be automatically enrolled in pension plans and could opt out if they choose.  Simple and automatic enrollment makes it easier for people to plan for retirement.  This would assist the 75 million working Americans—about half the workforce—who lack access to retirement plans through their employers.  Please join me online to learn more at:  www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/seniors-and-social-security.

Thank you, again, for writing.

Sincerely,

Barack Obama

Visit WhiteHouse.gov

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August 17, 2012 – 12:00 am Categories: Milton Friedman, President Obama, Social Security | Post a comment

Open letter to President Obama (Part 126)

Uploaded by on Jan 18, 2009

Margaret Thatcher’s last House of Commons Speech on November 22, 1990.

________________

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 every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher:

People on all levels of income are better off than they were in 1979. The hon. Gentleman is saying that he would rather that the poor were poorer, provided that the rich were less rich. That way one will never create the wealth for better social services, as we have. What a policy. Yes, he would rather have the poor poorer, provided that the rich were less rich. That is the Liberal policy.

__________

No wonder Ronald Wilson Reagan (who I named my son Wilson after) and Prime Minister Thatcher were good friends. They both saw through the motives of the liberals.

I shared an amazing video last year featuring Margaret Thatcher exposing the left for wanting to keep the poor destitute if that was the price of hurting the so-called rich.

Deroy Murdock makes similar points in a great column for National Review.

For too many liberals like Obama, “fairness” is not about enriching the modest; it’s about impoverishing the moneyed. Multibillionaire Warren Buffett has energized liberals with his still-unverified claim that his tax rate lags his secretary’s. …Somehow, reducing the secretary’s taxes never came up. Instead liberals demand the so-called Buffett Rule, an instrument for bludgeoning the successful rather than boosting the downtrodden. …Here’s how the Right should challenge the Left: “If you dislike income inequality, lift those with the least. Let’s adopt universal school choice, allow personal Social Security retirement accounts (to democratize long-term capital accumulation), radically reduce or eliminate America’s anti-competitive 35 percent corporate tax (to supercharge businesses), and pass right-to-work laws (so the jobless won’t fester outside closed shops). Let’s build the Keystone Pipeline (to create 20,000 blue-collar positions right now and lower everyone’s energy costs), frack for natural gas, and tame the EPA, OSHA, SEC, and other power-mad bureaucracies, so U.S. companies will stay here, and foreign firms will move in.”

Needless to say, the left will not accept Deroy’s challenge.

Too many of them care about enriching teacher unions, for instance, more than they care about educational opportunity for poor children.

And most leftist leaders would like to impose higher tax rates on success, even if the government collects less revenue.

__________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

August 16, 2012 – 11:47 pm Categories: Cato Institute, Ronald Reagan, spending out of control, Taxes | Post a comment

“Friedman Friday” : Jewish tradition is so akin to capitalism but many Jews are socialists, what a paradox (Part 3)

Milton Friedman on the American Economy (5 of 6)

Uploaded by on Aug 9, 2009

THE OPEN MIND
Host: Richard D. Heffner
Guest: Milton Friedman
Title: A Nobel Laureate on the American Economy VTR: 5/31/77

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Below is a part of the series on an article by Milton Friedman called “Capitalism and the Jews” published in 1972.

Capitalism and the Jews

October 1988 • Volume: 38 • Issue: 10 • Print This Post • 11 comments

Milton Friedman, recipient of the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, is a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution. This article is reprinted with the permission of Encounter and The Fraser Institute.

“Capitalism and the Jews” was originally presented as a lecture before the Mont Pelerin Society in 1972. It subsequently was published in England and Canada and appears here without significant revision.

The Jews as an Example of the Paradox

My aim here is not to give a ready answer—for I have none. My aim is rather to examine a particular case of paradox–the attitude of Jews toward capitalism. Two propositions can be readily demonstrated: first, the Jews owe an enormous debt to free enterprise and competitive capitalism; second, for at least the past century the Jews have been consistently opposed to capitalism and have done much on an ideological level to undermine it. How can these propositions be reconciled?

I was led to examine this paradox partly for obvious personal reasons. Some of us are accustomed to being members of an intellectual minority, to being accused by fellow intellectuals of being reactionaries or apologists or just plain nuts. But those of us who are also Jewish are even more embattled, being regarded not only as intellectual deviants but also as traitors to a supposed cultural and national tradition.

This personal interest was reinforced by the hope that study of this special case might offer a clue to the general paradox—typified by West Germany where Jews play a minor role. Unfortunately, that hope has not been fulfilled. I believe that I can explain to a very large extent the anti-capitalist tendency among Jews, but the most important elements of the explanation are peculiar to the special case and cannot readily be generalized. I trust that others will be more successful.

II. The Benefit Jews Have Derived from Capitalism

An Anecdote and Some History

Let me start by briefly documenting the first proposition: that the Jews owe an enormous debt to capitalism. The feature of capitalism that has benefited the Jews has, of course, been competition.[1] Wherever there is a monopoly, whether it be private or governmental, there is room for the application of arbitrary criteria in the selection of the beneficiaries of the monopoly—whether these criteria be color of skin, religion, national origin or what not. Where there is free competition, only performance counts. The market is color blind. No one who goes to the market to buy bread knows or cares whether the wheat was grown by a Jew, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, or atheist; by whites or blacks. Any miller who wishes to express his personal prejudices by buying only from preferred groups is at a competitive disadvantage, since he is keeping himself from buying from the cheapest source. He can express his prejudice, but he will have to do so at his own expense, accepting a lower monetary income than he could otherwise earn.

A recent personal experience illuminates sharply the importance of competition. Some years ago, I attended an International Monetary Conference held in Montreal. The persons there consisted, on the one hand, of members of the Conference, who include the two top executives of the major commercial banks throughout the world; on the other, of persons like myself invited as speakers or participants in panel discussions. A conversation with an American banker present who recounted a tale of anti-Semitism in American banking led me to estimate roughly the fraction of the two groups who were Jewish. Of the first group—the bankers proper—I estimated that about 1 per cent were Jewish. Of the much smaller second group, the invited participants in the program, roughly 25 per cent were Jewish.

Why the difference? Because banking today is everywhere monopolistic in the sense that there is no free entry. Government permission or a franchise is required. On the other hand, intellectual activity of the kind that would recommend persons for the program is a highly competitive industry with almost completely free entry.

This example is particularly striking because banking is hardly a field, like, say, iron and steel, in which Jews have never played an important role. On the contrary, for centuries Jews were a major if not dominant element in banking and particularly in international banking. But when that was true, banking was an industry with rather free entry. Jews prospered in it for that reason and also because they had a comparative advantage arising from the Church’s views on usury, the dispersion of Jews throughout the world, and their usefulness to ruling monarchs precisely because of the isolation of the Jews from the rest of the community.[2]

This anecdote illuminates much history. Throughout the nearly two thousand years of the Diaspora, Jews were repeatedly discriminated against, restricted in the activities they could undertake, on occasion expelled en masse, as in 1492 from Spain, and often the object of the extreme hostility of the peoples among whom they lived. They were able nonetheless to exist because of the absence of a totalitarian state, so that there were always some market elements, some activities open to them to enter. In particular, the fragmented political structure and the numerous separate sovereignties meant that international trade and finance in particular escaped close control, which is why Jews were so prominent in this area. It is no accident that Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, the two most totalitarian societies in the past two thousand years (modern China perhaps excepted), also offer the most extreme examples of official and effective anti-Semitism.

If we come to more recent time, Jews have flourished most in those countries in which competitive capitalism had the greatest scope: Holland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and Britain and the U.S. in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Germany in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century—a case that is particularly pertinent when that period is compared with the Hitler period.[3]

1.   The only other writer I have come across who explicitly stresses the benefits Jews have derived from capitalism is Ellis Rivkin, The Shaping of Jewish History (New York: Scribner’s, 1971). Unfortunately, Rivkin’s interesting analysis is marred by misconceptions about the nature and operation of capitalism. He takes the accumulation of capital rather than free entry as its distinguishing feature.

2.   See for example Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1951), on “court Jews,” also Werner Sombart, The Jews and Modern Capitalism (London: T.Fisher Unwin, 1913) [translated from 1911 German original].

3.   Sombart argues that the relation is the reverse: that capitalism flourished where it did because Jews were given a considerable measure of freedom. But he would not have denied that the relation is reciprocal. And his version has been seriously questioned by economic historians. See Introduction by Bert F. Hoselitz to the American edition of Sombart’s book, Jewish Contributions to Civilization, 1919, chapter viia, pp. 247-267.

August 16, 2012 – 11:45 pm Categories: Milton Friedman | Post a comment