“You didn’t build that . . .”

- President Obama

July 27, 2012

Dear Mr. Obama,

Normally when you utter something so colossally idiotic I tend to see what everyone else does and if its all been done I’m not going to throw out my opinion on the matter. The “Obama Depression” is about to claim the last bit of my 401K and I’m trying to get this new idea off the ground so I’m a bit busy. This little letter writing gig is a voluntary effort, with all due respect to those who seem to think I’m a some famous writer grand standing their true self, or some rich guy doing this because I need to vent. I’m none of that. If I did make that claim I would be as bad as you. Because through out these reactions to that utterance I realized something.

You, Sir, did not build you. Please allow me to explain. Every step of your life has been prepared for you. Every moment you were pampered and buffed for the next phase like some kind of imaginary character in a television program. From your mother to your girlfriends to your job history and your lack of real world skills. It’s frankly miraculous that you kept the facade up for so long. To repeat; you did not build you, someone else did that.

Well, us common folk “Joe Doakes’s” out in the hinterland don’t have that option. We don’t have the safety net of a group of rich socialist friends that are going to protect us at every turn. We are on our own. And for every improvement we make in our lives there is someone out there, thanks to all of your class rhetoric, that thinks they have a legitimate claim on my labor or my dwindling wealth.

You never felt blame. You never had to stare back at your wife and explain why that second mortgage isn’t getting paid. You never had to live with less so others could have more. You never had to sacrifice what you wanted so someone else could have a shot. You never built a life on merit and exposure to risk nor attempted to serve the public good in the vain of politicians like Henry Clay. You never did that.

There’s this guy running for office. His name is Mitt Romney. He has done nothing but that. No one told him when to “zig” or “zag.” No one told him to do what when. He just did it. Mr. Romney is a “Do the right thing” machine. That’s what he does. He’s like one of those perpetual motion machines that you could buy. You can just count on it. That’s what America needs, someone it can count on to relieve it from the madness that is Washington D.C. by any means necessary. Because if you haven’t noticed you didn’t build that city.

We did.

Respectfully,

Joe Doakes

“I need space . . .”

March 26, 2012

Dear President Obama,

In my entire life I’ve never asked another man to give me space. If I did I would have to check my drawers and do a head count. Would it be too much to ask the same of you? Did you like the whole DMZ thing with the binoculars and cool leather jacket? While I must admit anything you can do to shine a light on what the men and women do to serve and protect this nation is a plus in my book; you get to go home, they don’t. I once read a bad joke that you would need to do a water landing after all of the ordnance was detonated on the DMZ and the peninsula was split in two. Regardless, we’ve got to deal with that and the way to do it is not be dealing with the puppet, but the puppet master. Once it is in Communist China’s interest to give up North Korea they will, and not second sooner, all the rest is just hyperbaric artillery fire.

Kind of like the “New Deal.” Which is some really underhanded stuff if you get down and think about it. The Constitution being read in the terms of what government is responsible to steal from another and give to us just because they can get a majority to vote for it? Have you people no shame? Considering Mrs. Pelosi’s comments that our biggest problem is in having a conscience. That would be true. I deal with that the way most men do. Drink and tell the wife “Yes, dear” and to people like Medvedev’s and the Putin’s of the world they get the finger. If the three of you want to get into bed together and do a little “Portnoy’s Complaint” have at it, but could you keep the heavy petting off of the front page?

So the Supreme Court must decide if the government has the power to tell me to engage in commerce. I cannot conceive of anything more vile to the central being of our Constitutional Republic then the notion that I, a free, responsible, and law abiding American whose mothers roots can be traced to the very beginning of this nation or someone who has just raised their right hand and sworn to become a newly minted American can be forced to do anything. We can’t even be forced to vote. Think of that. You are going to force us to buy health insurance even when we are not forced to participate in the core responsibility of our democratic process. A greater level of dichotomy I’m hard pressed to concoct.

I have to trust that The Supreme Court will to do the right thing by giving American’s one more election to determine if this is what they want. Because in the end as the first Republican President Abraham Lincoln once said in the Gettysburg Address “. . . that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” It would be a shame if what the enemies of liberty could not take by force we give up for an empty promise of “health care.”

In fact it would be a crime.

On November 6, 2012 . . . I’m voting for the other guy, I may do some well crafted barking before then, but in the end I will always do the right thing, you could call it a character flaw, one most Americans wish you possessed.

Respectfully,

Joe Doakes

‘“That suggests that people who think logically and have been selected for intellect are more convinced by Democrats than Republicans,” Westen said.”

No, It suggests that professors think that way. There is no evidence presented, empirical or quantitative to suggest that profs think logically.

Liberal academicians are so much smarter than the rest of us that they do not realize the rest of us have grown up and left them behind. It is peculiar to intelligentsia, in a world of their own making, to believe that which they have made.

“Those who can’t do teach”.

It simply means that to be given tenure
at any university you must have a liberal bias. Please don’t perpetuate the
myth that professors don’t educate
their students with the same bias. I am a UC
Berkeley grad and have been through that university’s four year re-education
camp.

You cut deficits by throwing public employees out of work which cuts tax revenue? And he’s smarter than I am? Ok, I’ll bite. Cut one public employee and save one salary. Let’s call it $30k. That employee paid BACK in taxes, let’s say, $6k. PUBLIC SAVED $24K, RIGHT?? DEFICIT DROPS BY $24K, RIGHT?? Now, before you say what about unemployment, Medicaid, etc., remember that those will end when the employee finds a new job, and the public saves bith that and the $24K that would have been spent for the next 30 years that employee would have cost, PLUS their new tax revenue from their new job. So, not only does the deficit not grow, it drops, and by more than the $24K each and every year…..and he’s smarter than I am???

Oh, stop it! Now you’re doing complicated math! They’re intellectuals, and smarter than you. Never mind they are public employees who benefit personally by having the democrat government increase the public employee count. They only vote Democrat because they are smarter!

Westen concisely demonstrates a classic post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Wrong usage. That is a saying from the world of ballet, where injured dancers can still participate by teaching what they know to the next generation.

Drew Westen said: “That suggests that people who
think logically and have been selected for intellect are more convinced
by Democrats than Republicans,” Westen said. “Perhaps that’s not a
surprise when you take into consideration that Republicans defy basic
math by arguing that you can cut deficits by throwing public employees
out of work, which cuts the number of taxpayers (and hence reduces tax
revenue), or that you can increase revenue by cutting taxes to the
rich.”

I guess we should just take him for his word, since he doesn’t seem to comprehend basic math. Unless those public employees are paying greater than 100% of their salaries in taxes, it is impossible for the firing of them to increase the deficit.

But that would be logic, something that is forbidden to be recognized by the left.

What can we expect from a profession that labels Noam Chomsky as the top academic? That dude is about as crazy as is humanly possible.

Wow! Pride definitely goeth before the folly here.

I would think that cost accounting overlaps with math. Here’s what happens when you throw public employees out of work: We all prosper.

Why? Because public employees do feel the tax bite, but they do not pay taxes in the true sense. Why? Because their salaries and benefits, including the taxes they pay, come from tax revenue from earners in the private sector. No new tax money enters the system.

Back in 1960, five and a quarter percent of us worked for government at any level, one in 19. Now we have 22 million in government and eight million in education, academia, research, health and other government-funded positions as against 150 million total jobs (well, a few years back, now down to 144M, but, still, let’s call it one in five).

Back in 1960, government employment paid below average. It took the taxes (of all kinds) of two private employees, roughly, to pay for one public employee. That left the taxes of 16 out of every 19 of us to go toward programs and infrastructure and the other good things that flow from government. Now, public employees make substantially more than average. The taxes of roughly three private employees are needed to pay for each public one. That leaves a single taxpayer out of every five whose taxes can be allocated to anything besides government payroll.

Well, there in academia, in Business 101, you learn DO NOT GROW COST UNITS (or service departments or whatever you want to call them, and government very much fits the definition). And yet we grew government FOUR-FOLD relative to the GDP over fifty years, at the expense of all private sectors. In Management 301 you learn that even the most labor-intensive concerns encounter difficulty past about forty percent of costs in payroll. Our governments are at eighty percent. That means, ridiculously, that we are spending $4 to administer the spending of another dollar. Even with the steep deficits this makes necessary, we are spending a dollar to administer the spending of a dollar. Folly. Back in 1960, we were spending a dollar to administer the spending of $6. Sustainable.

Back the private-to-public ratios back toward 1960 levels, and we all prosper.

QED

Parting note: When I applied to grad school at Stanford, I was called into the program office and told I had the highest entrance scores they had seen in “some years.” I didn’t attend. Academia always struck me as a bunch of fearful people hiding in ivory towers. Like most other intelligent conservatives and libertarians, I preferred the real world.

It is ironic that Dr. Westen claims that liberals are smarter than conservatives and offers as proof the Republican’s perceived inability to perform basic math– i.e. that Republicans believe that cutting the number of public employees will somehow reduce the deficit. In this liberal intellectual’s mind, how can you cut the deficit if you layoff government workers who will now no longer be paying taxes? I am sure in a liberal’s mind cutting the government payroll makes no sense.

Well, to begin, if a public servant is earning $50,000 a year and pays $5,000 in federal taxes (highly questionable if you look at IRS data), the rest of us taxpayers have lost a contribution of $5,000 to the federal balance sheet but we have REDUCED government expenditures by $50,000 for a net deficit reduction of $45,000. How’s that for basic math Mr. Westen?

Moreover, as befitting a liberal academic snob, Westen assumes, as many liberals do, that a former government employee has no marketable skills in the private market for labor and will be incapable of finding a job in the private sector, make a contribution to his fellowman by producing a good or service someone wants, and again experience the privilege and honor of paying taxes (which, it seems, is the sole reason for citizens to exist). Imagine the increase of GDP if every public employee spinning red tape instead built solar panels, homes, or something that people actually wanted to purchase.

Your anology is wrong because of the injury “they can’t”. But we know what you mean.

And this data is a surprise to whom?

VETO PARCIAL A LA LEY DE DISCAPACIDADES DE ECUADOR Según
el texto de Carondelet (artículo 6): “para los efectos de esta Ley se considera persona con discapacidad a
toda aquella que, como consecuencia de una o más deficiencias físicas,
mentales, intelectuales o sensoriales, con independencia de la causa que la
hubiera originado, ve restringida permanentemente su capacidad biológica,
sicológica y asociativa para ejercer una o más actividades esenciales de la
vida diaria, en la proporción que establezca el reglamento”.

Mediante oficio T.5991-SNJ-12-877, el presidente de la
República, Rafael Correa, remitió al titular de la Legislatura, Fernando
Cordero, la objeción parcial al proyecto de Ley Orgánica de Discapacidades. De
esta manera, el colegislador observa 28 artículos; 8 disposiciones
transitorias; y, el numeral 15 de las disposiciones reformatorias y
derogatorias de la normativa, informa la Asamblea Nacional en su portal web.

El proyecto tiene por objetivo asegurar la prevención, detección
oportuna, habilitación y rehabilitación de la discapacidad y garantizar la
plena vigencia, difusión y ejercicio de los derechos de las personas con
discapacidad.

Los artículos objetados son: el numeral 3 del Art 3; el 7 del
Art. 4; Art.6; tercer inciso del Art. 9; primer inciso de los Arts. 11 y 13;
primer inciso del Art. 23; tercer inciso del Art. 25; segundo inciso del Art.
26; Art. 27; segundo inciso de los Arts 28, 30, 33; primer inciso del Art. 38 y
49; Art. 54; Art. 66; último inciso Art. 67; Art. 76; ultimo inciso Art. 78;
segundo y tercer inciso del Art. 80; segundo inciso Art. 85; primer inciso del
Art. 89, 96 y 7 del Art. 99; Art. 100, 102 y 103; disposición transitoria
primera, segunda tercera, sexta, séptima, octava, décima y undécima; y,
observación al número 15 de las disposiciones reformatorias y derogatorias.

Entre los temas a los que se refiere el veto constan: los fines;
personas con discapacidad; calificación; procedimiento y acreditación; registro
nacional de personas con discapacidad; medicamentos, insumos, ayudas técnicas,
producción, disponibilidad y distribución; seguros de vida y/o salud y medicina
prepagada; subsistema de información; derecho a la educación; educación
inclusiva; educación especial y específica; accesibilidad a la educación;
becas; deducción por inclusión laboral; capacitación; accesibilidad a
bibliotecas.

Además, excepciones o limitaciones a los derechos de autor y
derechos conexos; impuesto a la renta; impuesto al valor agregado; importación
y compra de vehículos ortopédicos y no ortopédicos; jubilación por vejez; de la
naturaleza y objeto del Consejo Nacional de Igualdad de Discapacidades; gestión
de la secretaría técnica; funciones de la o el Secretario Técnico; Defensoría
del Pueblo; procedencia y órgano competente; legitimación activa.

De conformidad con lo previsto en la Constitución y la Ley
Orgánica de la Función Legislativa, la Asamblea tiene 30 días para pronunciarse
en torno al veto, sea allanándose a las observaciones del Presidente de la
República o ratificándose en los textos originalmente aprobados por el Pleno.

Professor Westen should have ran his following opinion by a math professor or at least a teaching assistant: “Republicans defy basic math by arguing that you can cut deficits by throwing public employees out of work, which cuts the number of taxpayers (and hence reduces tax revenue), or that you can increase revenue by cutting taxes to the rich.” It is a false statement that is not supported by basic math. His assertion to the contrary must be a purposeful act of deceit or is he that ignorant in basic math skills. If I cut a government employee whom, I pay 100 dollars from which he pays 10 dollars back in taxes, If have made a net cut of 90 dollars thus reducing a deficit by that same amount.

Or it could be that idiots have high opinions of themselves and hence have difficulty giving value to something they do not possess: intelligence. Ignorance is not a virtue. Read a motherfucking book.

Academics are smarter because they actually use their brains actively instead of being spoonfed horseshit from a Fox News bimbo.

Stop making the case that ignorance is the new intelligence. Fox has already convinced you that lies are truth, fear is bravery, war is peace, and a whole lot of other dumb shit, but I will NOT sit here silently and let you or anyone else make ignorance out to be a virtue. IF it were you would be so virtuous, they may make you the next pope.

People do not like to face the FACT that some other people may be smarter than them. Tough shit. There are. Your perspective may be unique, you may have something worthwhile to add to the conversation, but you are NOT anywhere near equivalent to the brilliant minds of our age.

That is not to say that every professor is a genius. There are stupid teachers, just as there are stupid doctors, and as Republicans have shown time and time again, stupid lawmakers.

But there is no true equality. Some people are actually smarter than others. Its physiological, quantifiable, and factually correct.

FUCKING DEAL WITH IT.

The most important conclusion one can make about this information is that public universities DO NOT HIRE CONSERVATIVES! That is why the huge disparity exists in donations. Go to a private college, religious school, etc., and the data will be reversed.