AURORA, GOD, MAN AND THE DEVIL

Federalist Paper # 10

The tragic deaths of those movie goers in Aurora, Colorado is by now a familiar tale. A tragic event inflames passions and there is a rush "to do something." This is the danger of direct democracy and why fellow Virginian James Madison, the father of the Constitution advocated a republican form of government. In Federalist Paper # 10, Madison stated  "A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party. Hence it is, that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths". Jemmy had it right.
 



Lexington and Concord

Of  course, the action being proposed is to restrict gun ownership. I am a passionate supporter of the 2nd Amendment, it is our most important individual right, because without it, we would have no rights whatsoever.  The battles at Lexington and Concord that sparked the Revolutionary War ( the Shot Heard Around The World") were fought because our own government attempted to disarm the citizenry.

Light or Darkness?

However, I am not going to "bang" on about gun rights, I want to identify and articulate upon the root cause of the Aurora tragedy: EVIL.  This is a subject that the liberal media avoids, because to do so would acknowledge certain spiritual truths that make them ( and truthfully most of us) extremely uncomfortable. For if one acknowledges the existence of God (which 90% of Americans do), then a whole panoply of sequential choices assert themselves which cannot be avoided. In another words,....if God exists, then what? The first choice is do we run to the light and submit to Him or do we escape to the darkness?

Satan, Lucifer, the Devil. In polite society and elite circles, the very concept of Satan elicits guffaws and sneers from the beautiful people. Only boorish snake handling hillbillies and rubes from the bible belt believe in "the devil." I will not try and convince you of Satan's existence, but I will state that the presence of Satan and man's imperfect and flawed nature is a central theme in  all Christianity. C.S. Lewis wrote much on the subject and believed as I do in not only Satan's existence, but in our complete power over Satan through Christ.




LIVE FROM WASHINGTON:
TODAY GOD REVEALED
HIMSELF, THOUSANDS OF
 HEARTS CHANGED

 Evil exists all around us, yet as a nation we never seem to have a dialogue about it because we are not supposed to talk about such things,.... it is impolite. Yet, if we acknowledge the existence of God, which a vast majority of us do, then isn't God's nature the greatest question and unsolved mystery in all of humanity and shouldn't this topic be the headline in every paper and the lead off story on "the nightly news?"

I am convinced that the reason we do not debate the nature and essence of God with the same vigor we discuss gun control  and other issues is because we are AFRAID.  If we acknowledge and submit, then we cannot be our own god, and it scares the hell out of us.

If through Christ we can conquer Satan and thus all evil, then wouldn't this solve all of the world's problems? James Holmes committed an evil act, yet last month in Chicago, there were 47 murders, 47 evil acts. Every night there are roughly 3,400 violent crimes committed against our brothers and sisters.

It seems to me that we as a nation waste an awful lot of time jawboning about little issues and avoid THE issue. If a way to stop all this madness has been divinely revealed to us, why isn't this discussion our national debate?

ROB

( who by the way is a woeful sinner and imperfect man)

BAIN CAPITAL, JOBS AND YO MAMA

HOW DARE HIM BE SUCCESSFUL

President Obama was on the stump yesterday, whelping his battle cry: "Bain Capital outsourced jobs." This is the modern day political equivalent of screaming "Yo Mama," when one is not clever enough to manufacture a non-nonsensical comment.

I have always been argumentative ( some might say cantankerous, but it is really my love of humanity that drives me to tell others how to think).   Being always RIGHT about pretty much everything, I have spent a lifetime helping people by correcting their wrong  headed ideas and letting them know how  stupid they are. Most always, the recipients of such helpful instruction have appreciated my kindness and generosity in "showing them the light." I can remember playing football in high school, razzing another player, if they had no clever comeback, the dullard would simply say "Yo Mama."    President Obama has no "comeback" to the dismal economy he created, so he merely screams "OUTSOURCING! " He might as well say "Mitt Romney- Yo Mama," and sit down because it would be just as idiotic.  ( For the proper ettiquette on when one is allowed to say "Yo Mama," see post script below).

There is nothing wrong with outsourcing. The goal of business is to create PROFITS, not jobs. Profits create opportunities (jobs) for others as the free flow of capital will naturally flow to where it will be deployed most efficiently. The role of a business owner is to deploy whatever capital he has as productively as possible. No business owner sets as his goal to create "jobs," nor should this be a primary concern of any business owner: the pursuit of profits is  the sole motivating force behind all business. 




Bain Capital and Joe the Dry Cleaner must produce a product that people buy on their own volition. This is not easy to do, especially as Bain and Joe have many competitors trying to sell their products to the same people. The drive to achieve these sales and beat the competition are the essential stimulants to productivity; which demands an efficacious use of resources. If outsourcing labor functions to China eliminates waste and inefficiency by driving down labor costs (thus enhancing productivity), then jobs must go to China. The people who lost their jobs to China must find a way to be more productive by producing a service that an employer will pay for, thus making sure that labor is being as productive as possible. This push to be productive enhances societal evolution and creates human dignity.  Capitalism is a continuous cleansing process, washing away waste and inefficiency, forcing  us all to be productive in our output of our energy and resources.  It is the vibrant engine that has created the largest explosion of wealth in the history of mankind.



DYNAMIC CAPITALISM

 What President Obama is effectively saying is that Romney should have made the products and services that Bain produced more expensive to buy in order to keep unproductive people unproductive.  This is idiotic. Moreover, outsourcing is more than a Zero sum game, as the products produced are then resold to American consumers at low prices, creating more wealth (capital) to be deployed in other areas. Each unit of wealth produced creates more opportunity for greater wealth, as each widget produced overseas ( a unit of capital) is then shipped back to the US where free people make money handling that product/unit of capital.  This  rising tide of  economic opportunities ultimately creates jobs and dispenses greater wealth to all elements of society as every dollar of profits produced HAS to be deployed in the greater economy. Think about it: you make a dollar, it either goes in the bank where it is used to provide capital to others, or it is used to buy a product, say a Diet Coke, where the purchase supports a chain of production starting with vanilla bean growers in  Madagascar, to shipping, trucking and rail providers, insurance entities, aluminum can producers,  convenience store operators, etc. That one dollar of profit is responsible for a small fraction of the salary of literally millions of workers.

Go Live In France
PLEASE!!!!

Capital in a free market is not static. The invisible hand of the market place is contstantly at work molding and shaping capital to be as productive as possible, analysing trillions of bits of information every minute to produce what society wants and needs.  One cannot view outsourcing in a simplistic, myopic way by professing that each job shipped over seas  takes away a job in the United States. This is silly, sophomoric, insulting and down right STUPID.

I think Barack Obama should be outsourced to France.

ROB


POSTSCRIPT:

See Page 67 Above On "Yo Mama"
Rules of Etiquette 

The etiquette on being allowed to say " Yo Mama" is well established. In basketball,  one  gets to say "Yo Mama," when you have done something good. It is perfectly proper to say "Yo Mama" when you score on somebody or block their shot, but you don't say "Yo Mama" when you get called for traveling or shoot a free throw and miss the rim. It's stupid. Barack Obama, a socialist ninny who hates business and is presiding over the worst economy since the Depression is lecturing Mitt Romney, tremendously successful venture capitalist on job creation. It is vulgar breach of Yo Mama ettiquette.










 

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University of Virginia Brouhaha

Teresa Sullivan

Much has been written about the controversy at the University of Virginia. I really don't know all the details that led the Board of Visitors to fire President Teresa Sullivan, so I won't be too judgmental. However, I do think the BOV is the governing body of the University,  and it was well within their rights to take the actions they did. Having the faculty and students "run" the school is much like having the inmates run the asylum, and I think a dangerous precedent. Regardless of whether the BOV's action was wise, it is very timely to have a debate about "education" and its "costs."

Those faithful readers of this column know that I dearly love the University of Virginia, but it is not necessary to go to the University of Virginia ( or any other top institution of higher learning) to be well educated. In fact, it is not even necessary to "go to college" to be educated and/or  a "learned"  individual. Like all man made institutions since the history of time, the more money and power an organization has, the more corrupt it will be, so it is with the "education establishment" in America.

Ivy Tower

Corruption generally starts with good intentions: GI Bills, taxpayer funding, student loans, Pell Grants, etc. and then suddenly morphs into an elite, self entrenched bureaucracy totally removed from the original aims and goals of such organizations when they were modestly funded. So it is with education. It should not cost $100,000 ( the 4 year in state costs at Virginia) to be a well rounded, well read, critically thinking individual imbued with the powers to assess facts and reach a reasoned, rational decision. Isn't this what education is? And where is it written that this "so called education" is magically bequeathed on 'children' between the ages of 18 and 22?  The fact is "education" is a life long process that derives from intellectual curiosity and desire, it doesn't just magically happen. I know a number of Ivy Leaguers who are complete dolts, and I know guys who went to Podunk State who are fascinating, interesting and extremely engaging. Higher education has become a giant,  self-serving guilt trip imposed upon all of us by elitists who get paid to promote a lie.

James Madison

The big lie is that somehow we need all this expensive ornamentation: huge capital expenditures, huge administrative salaries, huge everything to reach this imaginary academic panacea that is supposed to solve all of our problems, but is really a huge "con-game." Despite my father's hard earned money, due to my own immaturity,  I didn't learn much at the University of Virginia. I was a history major, however, I did learn that the lessons of the past give us perspective on the present. I have an ancestor, a Presbyterian preacher, the Rev. James Waddell who taught James Madison his Greek and Latin. He did not attend an accredited college and did not earn a "degree." Needless to say, the Education Establishment  would not  allow him to teach kindergarten today.  There was no public education in Colonial Virginia, yet this period produced perhaps the greatest and most erudite thinkers in two millennium. All that is needed to learn are a few books and a passion for learning.

Technology has a way of eviscerating inefficiency. The light bulb did away with the candle, the car replaced the horse, and thankfully, the Internet will do away with the fantastic behemoth that is "higher education." There is very little being taught at the University of Virginia that can't be delivered by some entity, perhaps much better with more quality to millions of people for pennies. This is the revolution in education. History teaches us that this revolution will be fought with tremendous tenacity by those who are threatened by its success: tenured faculty, administrators, politicians, accrediting agencies and a host of others who live off the fat of the exiting system.

If this is what the debate was about that brought Teresa Sullivan's ouster, good. It is a vital and necessary discussion.