Free Market Realities

Anyone who's read more than a few posts at this tiny little blog is probably pretty sure I'm a stark raving conservative.  Oh hell, just run down the sidebar.  You don't even have to actually read a post.

So, you might think that I would sympathize with the owner (or former owner?) of a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco, from whence the picture below comes.

Many thanks for this reference to Maggie's Farm.

Well, I have no sympathy whatsoever for James Chu.  He chose to fight the free-market, and thus his customers and he lost.  And that's the way it should be.

When I had my own home repair and remodeling business, I knew never to tell a customer that they were wrong for wanting anything that was a matter of aesthetics or style or taste.  Outside of anything that was absolutely necessary to get the job done correctly, anything in the variable or optional range was purely at the discretion of the customer.

It's been no secret that over about the last fifteen years, people all over the world have been waking up to the fact that MSG (Monosodium Glutamate) is both an excitotoxin and neurotoxin.  You may not be convinced, and James Chu might not be convinced, but there is enough research and evidence available that myself and millions of others know that we don't need the risk.  As for the gluten, we aren't talking about the gluten that naturally occurs in the plain old wheat or other grains that our grandparents thrived on.  Today a lot of the cheap commercial wheat flour, sold in 25 to 50 lb. bags to restaurants and bakeries, is genetically modified (probably Monsanto patented) to contain double or triple the amount of gluten, but not natural gluten. They did that to make bread have that great chewy texture with only about a third of the kneading time and resting time that is required for regular bread production, thus cutting production time and increasing profits.

No, I'm not against profits.  Not at all.  If you can find a way to increase your profits, good on ya, mate.  But the consumer has (or should ALWAYS have) the right to decide if your resulting product is something they want to consume, and they should have all the information to make that decision.  If you want to eat all the foods that are processed and genetically modified and have cellulose fillers from pine trees and laugh at me for not wanting to put that stuff in my body, . . . well,  KNOCK YOURSELF OUT!

 I'd never heard such a thing as a gluten allergy until about ten years ago.  Today, I think about 1 in 10 people I meet has a gluten allergy that became so severe that it drove them to the endocrinologist to find out what was making them so ill.

If James Chu wanted to not only stay in business but even thrive, he should have listened to the customers and provided what they wanted. 

I'm living in a rural area of Kentucky right now.  In this whole city where I am, there is one little health food store.  It's in a great location in the biggest shopping district.  The population here is about 20,000 in the city limits, within a 6 mile radius of the shopping district, about 35,000 people.  This little health food store is barely hanging on.  Why?  Because this is rural Kentucky.  People still smoke in some of the little Mom & Pop establishments.  There's an empty business space on main street that used to be a gym.  There's another one on an adjacent street that used to be a yoga place.
There is not a synagogue within 100 miles of here.

How long would I survive as a businessman if I opened up a Kosher Deli here?  These people have never heard of knishes or falafel or gefilte fish, let alone would they try it.  How stupid would I be to blame the people who live here for not wanting to buy stuff they don't want to eat?  I would be outraged if anyone blamed me for the local Waffle House closing down because I don't want to eat at a place that cooks pork and eggs and potatoes all on the same grill surface.

James Chu is like a guy who is angry because he decided to sell computers that use 3.5" floppies and only have 586 mb of RAM and he's pissed off because nobody is buying. I once lived in an area of Atlanta where a small Mom & Pop Pizza place opened up.  They quickly discovered that the immediate neighborhoods were full of both Jewish and Muslim families.  They made their establishment completely kosher, or halal if you will.  They made sure they had no pork or shellfish products and they advertised it on their menus, takeout and delivery.  The Domino's and Papa John's places within 10 blocks couldn't match the Mom & Pop's place combined.  That's the beauty of competition.

Notice what the wording of the sign reveals:  "We're closed because of you customers."   He revealed that he didn't think of them as his customers.  That's getting off on the wrong foot right from the get-go.  James Chu failed the reality test of natural selection in free market economics.  Phony conservatives, or what some might call "Neocons," might support James Chu, but I'm a real conservative.  I believe in free choice for everyone.  For James Chu and people who might have wanted to be his customers.

That also means that no money taken from taxpayers should ever be used to subsidize any business.  None, whatsoever.  Not dairies. Not soybean farmers. Not peanut farmers.  Not oil companies. Not chemical companies. Nobody. Ever.  There should be no FDA or USDA or any of these agencies who rubber stamp toxic crap so the gullible public can say, "It must be safe, the FDA approved it."
Check out the stories on Youtube just on aspartame, (NutraSweet).

Freedom means taking responsibility for your own life and health.  Do your homework. Otherwise don't bitch when you end up sick, with Alziemers, or multiple sclerosis, or Parkinson's or Fibro-myalgia or a dozen other conditions that were never heard of a 100 years ago.  Sorry, went a little off topic.  I'll stop here.

Shalom and Shanah Tovah

Hypocrisy

Hypocrisy is another of those words that I have almost put into the list of "abused into meaninglessness."  At least three quarters of the time when someone uses it, it does not apply.

Modern liberals and leftists of course, have done this, since they are all about abusing the language for the purposes of controlling the narrative.  Racism and all of it's word forms is the epitome of such abused words in the English language.  For a leftist to call me a racist is now a badge of honor; similar to being called the "Worst Person in the World" by Keith Olberman.

If your mind lives in the world of newspeak and you believe in the propaganda of the left, you can call someone a hypocrite simply because it is the most convenient term you can think of to use as an ad hominem attack for the purpose of discrediting them. You don't want to argue the issues or principles, or more to the point, when you can't argue based on the facts, you try to destroy their character.

If you have ever in your life taken a draw off of a joint of marijuana, you can never, ever tell your child or anyone else about the dangers of taking drugs, or you will be a hypocrite in the eyes of the left.  If you've had an abortion and now suffer the emotional and mental anguish that such a decision cost you, you would be a hypocrite if you told other women to reconsider making the same mistake that you made.  If you cheated on your wife and experienced the heartbreak and damage that it caused and would like to warn others that it is not worth the temporary gratification, you would be a hypocrite to do so according to those who don't like to be told that there are standards that should be upheld.

Never mind that you've repented, made amends, and are now a paragon of virtue in the area in question.  If a modern liberal doesn't like your message and you have any history upon which to base your message.  You are a hypocrite.

President Obama has done me a big favor for the purpose of writing this particular post.

Let's say we have a dictator in the Middle East.  This guy is ruthless and bloodthirsty.  When a large province of his subjects weren't going along with his programs, he sent rockets with VX nerve gas into their territories and gassed tens of thousands of men, women, and children to death.  He did the same with his enemies in the next country to the East, thus proving that he had weapons of mass destruction and was willing to use them. The intelligence agencies of several countries were, and are still convinced that he was actively pursuing nuclear weapons.  This guy thought of himself as a modern reincarnation of Nebuchadnezzer.  He was known to maintain rape rooms and fed people into plastic shredders.  For years he ruled in a reign of terror that made the Shah of Iran look like the Pope.  We ignored him until he decided to annex a tiny sovereign country by force.  He routinely flouted the no-fly zone and other sanctions put in place by the UN.  He funded terrorist activities in other countries.  He hosted terrorist training in his own country, providing camps complete with airliner fuselages with which to run hijacking drills.

According to Barry, we never should have invaded his country or taken him out.  Once we were there and still needed to clean out the rats nest, we shouldn't have done "the surge."  According to the junior senator from Illinois, a president does not have the authority to take military action when there is no obvious direct threat to the U.S.  Apparently "kinetic militiary actions" are something entirely different.  Oh, but there is no hypocrisy here.  None.  Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.  Move along, now.

Hypocrisy is when you are actively engaged in doing the very thing you are preaching against.  Let's get this right.  If you did something in the past and have since proven yourself to no longer do such things and you have seen the error of your ways, and now you are warning others against such action; that is not hypocrisy.  If you are Elliot Spitzer and got elected Governor of New York by touting the fact that you've been busting prostitution rings, and then it turns out that you are their biggest customer, that's the pinnacle of hypocrisy.

When you claim to be a Democrat because you care about the working man and the poor and then you vote for the party that destroys free enterprise and the mechanisms that create wealth and prosperity, that's hypocrisy.

I could give example after example of genuine hypocrisy, but I think you get my drift.  And if you don't, you probably are a loyal member of the Democrat party.

Thoughtful Question

Col. Bunny over at Eternity Road asked the question at the end of a thoughtful piece.

"If life with the ridiculous, laughable, pathetic God of creation is so horrific and unbearable, what do you think it’s going to be like without God?"

 It is most interesting to me because he says he is not a Christian.  It is sad to me that over my life I have noticed that some of the most moral people I've met have refused to take on any religious label, and most often would make the point of saying that they weren't a Christian.  And here I am today, after a long time of wearing that label, now no longer able to, but for completely different reasons. I'm unable to wear that label because of the vast majority of people who wear it, but for whom it means little or nothing, and the resultant damage they do to it.  Perhaps I should one day post only on why I am not a "Christian."  I am a Messianic believer; a follower of "the way," as recorded in Luke's book of Acts.

In the developed world, we have so bought into scientism and materialism. Yes, scientism, not science. What used to be scientific endeavor has eroded into finding or making up data to support political agendas, rather than seeking the truth. The squashing of intelligent design theory and the global warming hoax have proved that in spades.  The modern world is so full of people who are so thoroughly confused about real science and the scientific method, that they simply accept anything the media tells them about "news" from the world of science.  Most people simply read or hear, "Scientists said . . ." or "Study revealed . . ." and they just buy it all, lock, stock, and barrel.  Then months or years later when it is revealed that the data was misinterpreted or the methods were sloppy or the conclusions incoherent and wrong, nobody pays attention.

In keeping with Col. Bunny's question, it is interesting to note that even many of the philosophers who doubted God's existence or denied it outright, at least thought about the consequences of their ideas. They reasoned that man is a wild beast and needs to be ruled by his superiors of the same species, and that using the concept of "God" is a good way to keep the herd in line.  I wish I still had all my files with the quote from one 19th century philosopher who said that if people didn't believe in a God, the elites would need to invent one to keep the people in line.   In the times of monarchs with absolute authority, this was known as "divine right," and was useful for keeping the people cowed. Philosophers all the way back to Plato have understood that people had to have some kind of belief in a cosmic being with ultimate authority or society would break down into anarchy. Of course, past tyrants would have salivated at the modern technology we have today that could make it possible to watch and threaten the masses into near complete submission.

Many who have dislike or outright hatred of Christianity love to ask, "What about the crusades?"  Young skulls full of state propaganda from government schools are convinced that "religion" is the cause of all the world's ills. Pay no attention to the fact that it was Nazi socialism, Lenin and Stalin's communism, Mao, Pol Pot, and others who adhered to a doctrine that specifically and militantly prohibited the God of the Bible from having any part in the ordering of their societies, and executed, -- not just killed in war -- murdered upwards of 50 million people combined.  I'd like to resurrect some of those people and ask them if they would prefer living under a king who believed he would eventually have to stand before the judgment of a righteous God, or if they thought the concept of living under the Ten Commandments was just too much of a burden.

The Hitlers and the Maos and those who would be our "progressive" leaders can't tolerate any fundamental, true belief in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Why?  To believe in the God of the Bible would lead to radical ideas about man being endowed by his Creator with certain unalienable rights.  People might start believing that man is not meant to be a slave to the state in order to serve the good of the masses. You true believers in the God of the Bible are a hindrance to our well-ordered society.

Life is hard. This is true for but a few buckets in the ocean of humanity. There is no system of human government which can change that fact. Not one. Whether you choose to work for material wealth like an Edison or a Ford, a Rockefeller or a Gates; or you decide to live on the streets and beg for your sustenance, life is a struggle. In a free society, men get to choose which struggle makes them happiest. In a totalitarian state, unless you are willing to lie, cheat, and murder, you will be told what struggle you will endure.

The founders of the United States may have disagreed on many doctrines of various denominations of Christianity, but they all agreed on the basics of morality as expressed in the Judeo-Christian Bible.  People like Bill Maher and others can make all the baseless claims they want to about the founders not being Christians.  A few exceptions do not alter the history as recorded in the deliberations in Congress or the federalist papers or in the personal correspondence of those founders. And I dare you to walk through Washington, D.C. and point to the words and pictures carved into the buildings and tell me that the founders didn't care about the influence of the Bible on government in the affirmative. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of the founders were indeed men of the Bible.  Dr. Benjamin Rush, signatory to the Declaration of Independence said that if the Bible ever got replaced as the basic primer for education in America, we eventually would not be able to build jails fast enough. How prophetic.  John Adams, the second president, said, "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

Something Col. Bunny alludes to but does not state specifically is that nature abhors a vacuum.  We are all going to live by somebody's set of values.  There is no such thing as a valueless society.  Muslims, and yes, I mean ALL muslims, adhere to the doctrine of their prophet Muhammed, and they can all claim various levels of adherence to the dictates of this Imam or that Imam, but when push comes to shove, and the powerful clerics who exercise the real muscle and  issue the fatwahs and direct how Sh'ria law is to be obeyed, the rest of the so-called "moderate" muslims will fall in line.  Muslims do not believe in "live and let live."  They believe that all the world is destined to be under Islam; under "submission," which is what Islam actually means.  If you are not prepared to fight to keep this ostensibly Judeo-Christian society from being overrun by muslim jihadis, then welcome to dhimmitude under an Islamic caliphate.

So, which system do you want to live under?  If you think Islam is the way to go, you can convert and move to a country which already has Sh'ria in place.  If you like the fully socialized Utopian dream, Cuba, North Korea, or Venezuela awaits you.  But how about doing the rest of us a favor and leave us alone.

A Form of Sacrifice

No, this post has absolutely nothing to do with religion.

This post was prompted by a post I read over at Questions and Observations.  The post is titled "The major tasks for the incoming GOP House."  It might be helpful for you to go read the brief post before continuing on here, but I trust what I have to say can stand on its own.

Before I go on, I need to stop and define who I'm talking to. Conservative voters.  All of my instruction and cajoling is directed at you.  If you are a leftist drone or someone who has given up on voting, you are welcome to stay, but I can't imagine why.

We the people who are not going to Washington to legislate have this terrible habit of merely showing up at the polls, holding our noses and voting for the lesser of two or three evils, and then doing little or nothing beyond that, other than complaining loudly about how the GOP sucks, and even then, we only do it with others who think the way we do.  While at parties or church or any other social setting, with rare exceptions, we will smile and nod and keep to safe topics of conversation for fear of getting that wilting look or sharp elbow from a spouse who doesn't want to risk being thought of badly by anybody in the room.

It has been my experience that the leftist drones and such have no qualms about speaking up at parties.  I can't count the number of times I've experienced this personally. I was married to a government school teacher for 21 years and saw it a lot, and most of the time I let her reign me in, and when I didn't "heel" I typically paid for my indiscretion for days afterward.  I even remember attending a wedding shower where there was a woman that I had once considered a friend, the wife of an Episcopal priest.  This was near the end of Bill Clinton's second term, when it was well established that the man was a womanizer, a rapist, and a pathological liar, and yet here was this woman talking about how great a man he was.  Three people who knew me well immediately turned in my direction, I presume to see if I was about to explode. Because it was a wedding shower, and out of respect for the guests of honor, I simply left the room.  I was told later that the mother of the bride made it clear she didn't want to hear Bill Clinton's name mentioned again.

There is a time and place for engaging in political debate, but I don't go looking for it where it doesn't belong. Now that we are over the cliff and dropping into the pit of hell known as socialism, the time for showing polite deference to people like my former friend is now well past.  Of course I have to admit that I've moved up into the mountains and so my exposure to such people in person is limited.  When we go to the feed store or such places as are frequented by folks who cherish freedom and self-sufficiency, it's doubtful that we are going to encounter those who are champions of the involuntary collective.  But if it happens, I will NOT be quiet.  Most of the people that I share DNA with really won't have anything to do with me for that reason.

How many of you know that the revolution that brought about this once great republic was really only supported by about a third of the population or less?  How many know that Benjamin Franklin saw his own son deported to England after the war for being a loyalist to the British crown?  Don't you think there was much anguish and tears in that relationship?  I can't see how any decent father would find any pleasure in being so estranged by his own son.

If there is to be any hope left that we can still live in a free republic, enjoying individual liberty under a rule of constitutional law rather than the whims of a ruling political elite, those of us who claim to be conservators of the principles that this country was founded on are going to have to shed our desire to be liked by those who would go along with a socialist agenda.  We are going to have to speak up.  We are going to have to learn to argue and debate and point out the flaws of the collectivist voodoo ideology that insists that a man-made Utopia can be created.

Don't you wait for the Rand Pauls and Marco Rubios to make the case for truth in the media.  You get in the fray.  Obama instructed his myrmidons to get in the faces of "our enemies."  Well, let's take them on where were we can't be edited like so much video on TV.  Ask your left leaning friends and family who still seem to have a couple of brain cells to rub together, why they think the methods and ideologies that created the conditions in North Korea, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Venezuela, Spain, and Greece will somehow magically work here.

Don't expect incoming Speaker Boehner to use his position to champion true conservatism.  He's already proven that isn't going to happen by how he handled the tax deal he did with Obama.  Boehner is just more of the same, lame, ostensibly loyal opposition to the hard left communist democrats.  Boehner believes that if he just seems to throw an occasional bone in the direction of the majority of GOP voters, they'll quiet down and go back to watching football or American Idol or whatever.  And I fear he may be right.

It isn't just about negative harping either.  The new guys that got elected by conservatives need to hear from you as well, because the media is going to constantly demagogue the issues as if to tell them they were wrong about why they got elected.  Let them know when they are getting it right.

Good Answer

I wish I could have written this answer.  It may not perfectly fit everything I believe, but it comes very close.  Maybe someday I will take the body of the text and embellish on it.

I think my favorite aspect of his explanation on the answer is the fact that we conservatives, and I mean true conservatives, and not the George Bush, John McCain, Karl Rove types, have to explain our conservatism in contrast to leftists/progressives.

Where We Started

It is good to think upon this on a day when we are on the verge of a new revolution in this country.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Let me paraphrase.  Let me expound on the things that I see in the text in a spirit of being true to exegesis in honor of the authors.  Let me not speak what I would wish it to say based upon some selfish notion of egalitarianism or other nonsense, but what did the men who were willing to sacrifice their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor  mean to say.

The introduction above speaks to the understanding that in the late eighteenth century, the modern world believed that kings reigned  because God had ordained it.  That unless a king was so unredeemingly corrupt and evil that appealing to his good graces could bring about a correction of abuses of government, it would be wrong to go to war in order to achieve justice.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. 

I was once told that, if I didn't like how the government did things, I should move.  That if I didn't like the way the Supreme Court interpreted the Constitution, I should just find another country.
I don't have enough words, or words that have the power to contain my anger or commitment to see the death and destruction of such evil.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. 

How many people ever consider that the men who created the Federal government of this land expected us to always be prepared to tell the Federal government:  "To hell with you, WE will tell YOU how it is going to be.    You don't dictate to us.  We dictate to you.  And when you start acting like you think you know better how we should live, we will put an end to your sorry and worthless existence."

The Constitution of the United States of America is the first governmental document in the history of the world that had the purpose of telling the government that, "You can do these enumerated things and no more."  The Constitution of the United States was a contract by which the People loaned the government very restricted powers to carry out just the minimum necessary things  that only a government could do in order to protect the rights of the people.  Contrary to modern misunderstanding, the constitution does not grant any rights to the people.  Let that sink in.  The Constitution does not grant any rights to the people.  The Constitution assumes that all rights are inherently belonging to the people from God.

I've read history.  I've read the Federalist Papers.  I hope to spend some time reading the Anti-Federalist papers.  From all of those sources it is abundantly clear that the founders of the United States saw government as a necessary evil.  Something akin to a pit bull on a leash that needed to be beaten back on occasion to make sure it didn't get out of hand.  One founding father compared government to fire; a useful servant and a fearful master.

If you wish to live in a land where the government will dictate to you which lightbulbs you can use, what kind of house you can build, how much sugar you can eat, what kind of medical care you can receive, what kind of car you can drive, what kind of job you can have, then you need to move to a country that already does those things.  Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, China, France, England, Mexico, etc.  The world is full of places that  already are happy to dictate every aspect of your life and pride themselves in providing everything you need as a "right."

I'm willing to make a deal with you.  You people on the left can take California and New York, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and most of the New England States.  Continue to turn them into the Democrat/Socialist utopias that you have so much confidence in.  Go ahead, show us how wrong we are.   We'll take all the other States and see what happens.

What makes me so angry about leftists is that they lie about what we conservatives want.  We conservatives just want to be left alone.  We want a very small government because we know that a government big enough to give you everything you need is also big enough to take everything away.  We are willing to be offended by groups and individuals who have disgusting and abhorrent lifestyles because that is the price of freedom. We believe you should be free to make billions of dollars as long as you don't do it by force or fraud, or you can live as a hobo subsisting on the charity of people who voluntarily support your lifestyle, as long as they don't demand that the government tax us to support your laziness.

I have so much more to say, but I'm tired.

I Miss Him

Unfortunately, I did not appreciate Ronald Reagan as much as I should have when he was president.  I was too young and didn't understand how dangerous and evil the rabid leftists were, even though some of them were supposedly friends of mine at the time.  They hated the man.

This is part of his farewell speech that makes me swell with pride.  This is the kind of oratory that makes politicians want to compare themselves to Reagan.