Our Privy Never Plugged

Our Privy Never Plugged

Charlie Earl

OK, I admit it. I’m a seasoned citizen, a golden-ager. Actually I’m a curmudgeonly old fart. One of the advantages of getting older is the smug appreciation we have for “the way things used to be.” As a child who was reared on a farm in North Central-North West Ohio, I can fondly recall 1952. That was the year we got an indoor bathroom, a reel-type power lawn mower and a 13” black and white television console. Looking back I believe the lawn mower was the most beneficial and enduring technological advance we acquired that year. Television has definitely evolved into Newton Minnow’s “vast wasteland,” and our government now regulates our toilets to the absurd point where we flush them with a mere trickle of water. Our old two-hole privy was never plugged.

Granted it was chilly in the winter as we trudged the several yards from the back door to the lonely little building sitting away from the house. One never dawdled in the outhouse when it was winter. Do your business and get on with it. It was not cold in the summer, but there was no Glade, Fabreze or spray cans of Lysol to minimize the pungency, so if one were inclined to linger in the privy (reading catalogues?), spring and fall were the best times. There is no better environment for developing reading skills than privy privacy. Corncobs were optional.

The point of this little saunter down Memory Lane is to emphasize that things worked well without the good intentions of Nanny State gumming up the gears. We worked hard and lacked many of the great advances of the present day, but we were contented and optimistic. Technological advances have made our lives much easier these days, but along came a government that believes itself obligated to insert its huge proboscis into nearly every facet of our lives. Our privy never plugged, and we didn’t have Big Brother’s representatives limiting our options in the outhouse.

Just as a meddling mother-in-law can undermine a marriage so can a meddling Nanny State mess up a country. Government, per se’, has no more special expertise, skills or talents than do members of the private sector. While it is possible for government to coerce tax money from citizens in order to hire highly qualified minions, it does not necessarily follow that the government “professionals” are more knowledgeable or qualified than their private sector cohorts. Yet government has the advantage of using force to assure that its remedies, proscriptions and preferences are dominant. The private sector must provide superior products, better service or lower pricing in a competitive marketplace. Government output has no real competition because government edicts can favor the public sector over its non-public counterparts. We need anti-trust or monopoly legislation to rein in the government.

My purpose for using our old privy as a discussion starter is simply that despite all the technological progress we have made in the past 60 years, our government and its inane involvement in our lives has grown nearly as fast. Certainly many of the old ways were less convenient for us, but government’s incessant involvement in the minutiae of our daily lives has removed some of the joy from our advances. It’s rather like suddenly discovering the liberating aspects of nudism only to find oneself surrounded by mosquitoes. I suspect that the constant efforts by governments at all levels to control every facet of our lives may be a contributing factor in the levels of mad behavior that appear to be rampant in our society.

If the governments would pledge (assuming I could believe them) to leave me alone, then I am eager to discard some modernization so that I might live with minimal angst. It cannot happen. My NEW privy would violate some health code or obscure EPA regulation. My great political and bureaucratic masters discourage my consumption of raw milk, and in some venues they penalize owners of wood-burning furnaces for polluting the air. The primary pollutant of our day is an overzealous government apparatus that refuses to leave us alone. Enough ranting from me ‘cause it’s time to grab an old catalog and hone my reading skills.

Charlie Earl

cearlwriting@hotmail.com

http://thelibertylegation.blogspot.com

  

Bouncing Checks and Balances

Bouncing Checks and Balances

Charlie Earl

The system of checks and balances designed by our Framers has become a “Three versus One” distortion of the original plan. The Three branches of government, legislative, executive and judicial, have coalesced into a massive impediment for individual liberty and personal prosperity for The One….. We the People. From their initial roles as defenders of our freedom, they have morphed into deniers of our liberty. They may have internal disputes about implementing legislation or adjudicating conflicts, but they appear to share a common goal. They endorse by their actions, their statements and their priorities the sense that they are the elites who are best equipped to rule the rest of us. The balances so laboriously devised by the Framers have been cast aside to aid and abet the “government versus the rest of us” mentality.

Perhaps the starkest example of government’s violation of its duty is the fiscal situation facing our nation today. The cost of maintaining the federal monstrosity far exceeds the revenue it collects while at the same time Congress, the Administration and the Courts continue to enlarge the government portfolio in defiance of the Constitution. Increased government oversight leads to accelerating costs and results in greater deficits and growing debt.

From the theeconomiccollapseblog:

 http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/55-facts-about-the-debt-and-u-s-government-finances-that-every-american-voter-should-know

55 Facts About The Debt And U.S. Government Finances That Every American Voter Should Know

The future of the United States of America is being systematically destroyed by our politicians, but unfortunately most Americans don't really grasp exactly what is happening. 30 years ago, our national debt had just crossed the one trillion dollar mark. Just recently, it crossed the 16 trillion dollar mark. Prior to every election, politicians from both parties swear up and down that they will do something about our exploding debt, but it never happens.

Once again this year, our politicians are making all kinds of grand promises about getting U.S. government finances under control. But they are also promising all kinds of new plans and programs which are going to cost a lot more money on top of what we are already spending. For the average American, all of this can be incredibly confusing. That is why I have put together a list of facts about the debt and U.S. government finances below. These are things that every voter should know. The federal government is stealing more than a trillion dollars a year from our children and our grandchildren, and they are spending that money in some of the most foolish ways that you could ever imagine. We have accumulated the largest mountain of debt in the history of the world, but our politicians just can't help themselves - they appear to be absolutely addicted to spending money. If we continue on the path that we are currently on, our entire financial system and our entire economy will be destroyed by all of this debt. Time is running out and urgent action is needed to address this crisis.

Many of our founding fathers attempted to warn us about the dangers of government debt. For example, Thomas Jefferson once said the following...

I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing.

Where would we be today if such an amendment had been added to our Constitution?
How much brighter would our future be if the federal government had been forced to only spend what it took in all these years?
Those are very good questions.

The following are some of the 55 facts about the debt and U.S. government finances that every American voter should know....

#1 While Barack Obama has been president, the U.S. government has spent 12 dollars about 11 dollar12s for every 7 dollars of revenue that it has actually brought in.
#2 During the fiscal year that just ended, the U.S. government took in 2.449 trillion dollars3.538 trillion dollarsover a trillion dollars32 p

#5 Over the past year, the number of Americans getting a free cell phone from the federal government has grown by 43 percent. Now more than 16 million Americans are enjoying what has come to be known as an "Obamaphone".
#6 When Barack Obama first entered the White House, about 32 million Americans were on food stamps. Now, nearly 47 million Americans are on food stamps. And this has happened during what Obama refers to as "an economic recovery.”27 million dollars$300,0002all the social inte

#10 The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave the largest snack food maker in the world (PepsiCo Inc.) a total of 1.3 million dollars in corporate welfare that was used to help build "a Greek yogurt factory in New York."
#11 The National Science Foundation recently gave researchers at Purdue University $350,000. They used part of that money to help fund a study that discovered that if golfers imagine that a hole is bigger it will help them with their putting.
#12 If you can believe it, $10,000 from the federal government was actually used to purchase talking urinal cakes up in Michigan.
#13 The National Science Foundation recently gave a whopping $697,177 to a New York City-based theater company to produce a musical about climate change.
#14 The National Institutes of Health recently gave $666,905 to a group of researchers that is studying the benefits of watching reruns on television.
#15 The National Science Foundation has given 1.2 million dollars to a team of "scientists" that is spending part of that money on a study that is seeking to determine whether elderly Americans would benefit from playing World of Warcraft or not.
#16 The National Institutes of Health recently gave $548,731 to a team of researchers that concluded that those that drink heavily in their thirties also tend to feel more immature.
#17 The National Science Foundation recently spent $30,000 on a study to determine if "gaydar" actually exists. This is the conclusion that the researchers reached at the end of the study....

"Gaydar is indeed real and… its accuracy is driven by sensitivity to individual facial features"

#18 Back in 2011, the National Institutes of Health spent $592,527 on a study that sought to figure out once and for all why chimpanzees throw poop.
#19 The U.S. government spends more on the military than China, Russia, Japan, India, and the rest of NATO combined. In fact, the United States accounts for 41.0% of all military spending on the planet. China is next with only 8.2%.
#20 In a previous article, I noted that close to 500,000 federal employees now make at least $100,000 a year.
#21 In 2006, only 12 percent of all federal workers made $100,000 or more per year. Now, approximately 22 percent of all federal workers do.
#22 If you can believe it, there are 77,000 federal workers that make more than the governors of their own states do.
#23 During 2010, the average federal employee in the Washington D.C. area received total compensation worth more than $126,000.
#24 The U.S. Department of Defense had just nine civilians earning $170,000 or more back in 2005. When Barack Obama became president, the U.S. Department of Defense had 214 civilians earning $170,000 or more. By June 2010, the U.S. Department of Defense had 994 civilians earning $170,000 or more.
#25 During 2010, compensation for federal employees came to a grand total of approximately 447 billion dollars.
#26 If you can believe it, close to 15,000 retired federal employees are currently collecting federal pensions for life worth at least $100,000 annually. That list includes such names as Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, Trent Lott, Dick Gephardt and Dick Cheney.
#27 During 2010, the federal government spent $33,387 on the hair care needs of U.S. Senators.
#28 During 2010, U.S. Senators pulled $72,370 out of the "Senate Restaurant Fund".
#29 During 2010, an average of $4,005,900 of U.S. taxpayer money was spent on "personal" and "office" expenses per Senator.
#30 In 2013, 3.7 million dollars will be spent to support the lavish lifestyles of former presidents such as George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
#31 During 2011, the federal government spent a total of 1.4 BILLION dollars just on the Obamas.
#32 When you combine all federal government spending, all state government spending and all local government spending, it comes to approximately 41 percent of U.S. GDP. But don't worry, all of our politicians insist that this is not socialism.
#33 As I have written about previously, less than 30 percent of all Americans lived in a home where at least one person received financial assistance from the federal government back in 1983. Today, that number is sitting at an all-time high of 49 percent.
#34 Back in 1990, the federal government accounted for just 32 percent of all health care spending in America. This year, it is being projected that the federal government will account for more than 50 percent of all health care spending in the United States.
#35 The number of Americans on Medicaid soared from 34 million in 2000 to 54 million in 2011, and it is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.
#36 In one of my previous articles, I discussed how it is being projected that the number of Americans on Medicare will grow from 50.7 million in 2012 to 73.2 million in 2025.
#37 If you can believe it, Medicare is facing unfunded liabilities of more than 38 trillion dollars over the next 75 years. That comes to approximately $328,404 for each and every household in the United States.
#38 In the United States today, more than 61 million Americans receive some form of Social Security benefits. By 2035, that number is projected to soar to a whopping 91 million.
#39 Overall, the Social Security system is facing a 134 trillion dollar shortfall over the next 75 years.
#40 When Barack Obama first took office, the U.S. national debt was about 10.6 trillion dollars. Now it is about 16.2 trillion dollars. That is an increase of 5.6 trillion dollars in less than 4 years.
#41 The federal government has now run a budget deficit of more than a trillion dollars for four years in a row.
#42 If right this moment you went out and started spending one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.
#43 If you were alive when Jesus Christ was born and you spent one million dollars every single day since that point, you still would not have spent one trillion dollars by now.
#44 Some suggest that "taxing the rich" is the answer. Well, if Bill Gates gave every single penny of his entire fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for 15 days.
#45 If the federal government used GAAP accounting standards like publicly traded corporations do, the real federal budget deficit for 2011 would have been 5 trillion dollars instead of 1.3 trillion dollars.
#46 The United States already has more government debt per capita than Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland or Spain does.
#47 At this point, the United States government is responsible for more than a third of all the government debt in the entire world.
#48 The amount of U.S. government debt held by foreigners is about 5 times larger than it was just a decade ago.
#49 Between 2007 and 2010, U.S. GDP grew by only 4.26%, but the U.S. national debt soared by 61% during that same time period.
#50 The U.S. national debt is now more than 37 times larger than it was when Richard Nixon took us off the gold standard.
#51 The U.S. national debt is now more than 5000 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was first created.
#52 The U.S. national debt jumped more on the very first day of fiscal year 2013 than it did from 1776 to 1941 combined.
#53 Historically, the interest rate on 10 year U.S. Treasuries has averaged 6.68 percent. If the average interest rate on U.S. government debt rose to that level today, the U.S. government would find itself spending more than a trillion dollars per year just on interest on the national debt.
#54 A recently revised IMF policy paper entitled “An Analysis of U.S. Fiscal and Generational Imbalances: Who Will Pay and How?” projects that U.S. government debt will rise to about 400 percent of GDP by the year 2050.
#55 Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff is warning that the U.S. government is facing a gigantic tsunami of unfunded liabilities in the coming years that we are counting on our children and our grandchildren to pay. Kotlikoff speaks of a "fiscal gap" which he defines as "the present value difference between projected future spending and revenue". His calculations have led him to the conclusion that the federal government is facing a fiscal gap of 222 trillion dollars in the years ahead.

Even if some of this economic analysis is exaggerated or overstated, nonetheless it is illustrative of a government that has grossly exceeded its constitutional parameters and its capacity to perform effectively. Who is checking and who is balancing as power becomes more concentrated among the marble and granite halls of government?

As government through its various devices attempts to “level the playing field,” it is engaged in a massive concentration of power that limits the choices for citizens. Soon…we will be forced into a “one size fits all” society with few remedies available to us. Who is checking the power of runaway government? Who is balancing the power to prevent tyranny?

Charlie Earl

cearlwriting@hotmail.com

http://thelibertylegation.blogspot.com

Salad in the Sun

Salad in the Sun

Charlie Earl

One of the highlights of my youth was the annual church picnic. The entire congregation would go to an area park, enjoy an outdoor service, a scrumptious picnic lunch and an afternoon of softball, swimming, volleyball and friendly chatting. Typically the food would remain on the tables until it was time to go home. Invariably…our tasty fare included potato salad, macaroni salad and various other types of egg-based delicacies. Frankly I’m lucky to be alive given the July heat and long exposure to the sunlight those delectable dishes endured. I haven’t attended any of those church picnics for many years, but I assume that today after lunch is over, the food is securely packed into 5-day coolers with cold packs. It’s a new “wussie” world we inhabit, my friends.

We didn’t have a “5-second rule” when I was a kid. Even when a tasty morsel was dropped on gravel, we would rinse it and consume it. If one were fortunate enough to drop the culinary creation indoors, a slight taste of “Pine-Sol” or “Murphy’s Oil Soap” would enhance the flavor of the recaptured sustenance. As a consequence I never had worms or internal waxy build-up. The only exception was the dung or manure pile. We wouldn’t try to salvage the wayward food….but would attempt to convince younger siblings that it was still “OK.” By the way… my younger sister and brother are still alive although they both have an addiction for breath mints.

As a youngster growing up on the farm, I managed to avoid ornery cows, angry sows and rampaging roosters. My luck wasn’t always perfect because I had the mumps, measles and chicken pox, but I somehow escaped the polio threat of the 1950’s. We children did a lot of stupid things back in the day such as attempting to fly from hay lofts, climbing tall and slippery windmills and engaging in BB gun fights. We worked around dangerous machinery and ignored whatever child-labor laws may have existed in those days… and most of us are still here. Maybe a few of us were maimed, but we learned the lessons of survival and how to overcome fear. As an example, one of our adult acquaintances contracted the mumps but continued riding his tractor while working the fields. I can recall hearing that the mumps “went down on him,” and my pre-pubescent mind recoiled at that painful notion. We learned from others as well as from our own mistakes.

Times have changed and Big Brother and Nanny State are committed to protecting us from ourselves. We no longer learn from our own stupidity and recklessness as quickly as we did in earlier generations. Our innate ability to acquire wisdom and common sense from our adventures has been stunted by government’s “bubble-boy” mentality. Our learning comes from secondary sources and does not carry the power or endurance of hands-on mistakes. The Nanny State’s over-protective stance may indeed prevent some tragic consequences from our lack of judgment, but we are failing to learn the lessons of losing as vividly as we might if we erred. We are becoming soft and dependent as government protections increase their controls over our lives.

The ultimate government interference in our lives is epitomized by the “death panel’ provisions of Affordable Healthcare Act (Obamacare). When we become infirmed or grow older, government will assume that we are incapable of addressing our own “end-of-life issues.” Care will either be withheld or administered depending on a series of undefined criteria….which given Big Brother’s lust for secrecy may never be revealed. Well….pay attention, my government masters, I defy your insistence on determining the quality and quantity of my life. It represents my personal decision to nullify your egregious over-managing of my life. I have lived to this age by consuming dirty food and outwitting surly sows, and I neither desire nor will I tolerate your notoriously inefficient meddling. So far, Big Brother and Nanny State, you have undermined my quality of life. I will not allow you to determine its end. Please pass that gnarly potato salad…. time for a snack.

Charlie Earl

cearlwriting@hotmail.com

http://thelibertylegation.blogspot.com

      

Q-tips, Safety and More

Q-tips, Safety and More

Charlie Earl

On the festive label of my box of “Q-tips” is the line…”variety of uses.” It seems, however, that my primary use for the fuzzy little dumbbells is neither recommended nor suggested. For many years I have utilized the cottony cleaners to swab my ears after showering. Lo! I have discovered that such action is ill-advised and that I may in fact be compacting the wax into my ears. What’s a dude to do? Using “Pledge” with its “No waxy buildup” promise seems ineffective….primarily because I don’t want my ears to be more shiny than my nose. I gave up stealing my Mother’s “bobby-pins” years ago to complete the slithery task, and the little squeeze bulb provided by my doctor does no more than arouse the tender hairs on my ears. Vexed, I tell you, I am truly vexed and going deaf.

One of the rules of travel that I learned long ago was “never order the meatloaf” because it always fails to match Mom’s. Yet…being the obstinate dimwit that I am, I routinely violate the rule. I consistently suffer the consequences. Meatloaves are like people. Each one is unique. Some are great. Some are good. Some are bland while others are spicy, and some are downright atrocious. I probably shouldn’t have written this because some bureaucrat at the FDA will decide that content labels should be included with every serving of meatloaf. That, of course, begs the question: Do I really want to know EVERYTHING that’s in that delectable pile of mystery meat? I think not. Ignorance is bliss.

Jim Croce sang it, and maybe I will learn to follow it someday:

     And they say you don't tug on Superman's cape

      You don't spit into the wind

      You don't pull the mask off an 'ole Lone Ranger

      And you don't mess around with Jim

Our family business is undergoing an expansion that requires several steps of bureaucratic approval. Apparently there are some dedicated selfless public servants who either read these columns or are aware of my sometimes uncharitable dismay with government workers. Suffice it to say that tugging the cape of Big Brother can cause one to suffer bruises on the buttocks as a result of several swift kicks. I am standing on principle….because I cannot sit. Or…. perhaps it’s my paranoia and typical bureaucratic inertia.

I’ve learned a lot over my lifetime and have forgotten most of it. So…I’m the skin and bones example of “Reinforcement Theory” at work. Because of time constraints, I selectively choose my exposure to ideas and information. My 60+ year-old filter discriminately chooses the perceptions that I acquire, and my aging mental apparatus discards most of it.

Speaking or writing of theories such as “Reinforcement Theory:” There are some theoretical constructs that seem to be intuitively true. Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Human Needs” is one that I’ve found helpful while attempting to discern motives and understand actions. One can quibble that the hierarchy’s priorities can change depending on circumstances, but we can see their effects in most human action. It has been a goal of mine (not yet begun) to integrate both of the above theories into a systematic distinctively-Christian theology. It seems to me that if one mined Proverbs and the New Testament, one would find RT and Maslow’s principles. Despite our best efforts…we cannot trump God. (sigh…but we continue to attempt it)

Considering things not done and dreams unfulfilled: my bucket list is a sieve.  

The time has come for me to seriously consider shaving my whiskers and cutting my hair. As I was walking the other day, I narrowly averted being shot by my neighbor. He realized at the last moment that I am too short to be “Sasquatch.” He does have some interesting pictures that may appear (photo-shopped version) in the “Daily World News” at your local supermarket checkout. (Just kidding)

Mental political picture of the day: Visualize Sarge Snorkel hanging on a branch just over the edge of the cliff as Beetle Bailey gazes from above. Given our recent “solution” for the fiscal cliff, we are the Sarge.

Charlie’s advice: When you observe a politician doing something, and you think, “I wish I could do that,” remember the old punch line – if you pet him, maybe he’ll let you.

A beloved reader remarked that my columns have been too depressing as of late. So…former Dragon Lady, this is for you.

Charlie Earl

cearlwriting@hotmail.com

cearlliberty@gmail.com

http://thelibertylegation.blogspot.com

www.littlestuff-minoosha.blogspot.com