Time to redirect my efforts

Hello readers of Freedom, Choice, Cost.

As my work continues to gain a wider national appeal, It has been more efficient to focus my attention on larger media outlets to get my word out.

Now that most of my published work can be read at Real Clear Markets and Education News, I have focused my attention away from posting on this blog..

Please visit these sites or simply Google my name and a few key words of interest and I'm sure you will be directed to many of my works.

Thank you so much

Dean

Congress should keep up with the Joneses

Basic debt ceiling economics

By Dean Kalahar

If Congress does not raise the debt ceiling, the result will be no different than the Jones family deciding that they have maxed out their credit cards; and that if they continue borrowing and spending over their means, there will be significant pain to the family at best and bankruptcy at worst.

The economics of government is no different

Mr. and Mrs. Jones want to be able to provide for themselves in their retirement and hopefully leave a little something after they are gone to provide a better life for their children and grandchildren. They understand living in the moment and not planning for the future is a plan for failure.

The economics of government is no different

The Joneses know if they stop borrowing they will not become destitute, or default on their loan payments and obligations, because they will continue to work and earn income.  (Just as the government will still take in tax revenue) They know that if they reallocate and budget, which includes paying the interest and some of the principle on their credit card debts, and live within their means - nothing disastrous will happen!

The economics of government is no different.

The Joneses know they have a spending problem -not a revenue problem, and their extravagance must end. They will have to define what is essential for the family to provide stability. This will not be fun or easy, but 

they know their free spending choices have costs and they have decided personal responsibility to their accounts now is better than painful accountability later.

The economics of government is no different.

Sure the kids will whine and their friends will begrudge losing the benefits of cozying up to their big spending neighbors; but the basic family obligations of securing the home, providing food for the table, and making sure the children have clothes will ensure the health of the family.

The economics of government is no different.

If the Joneses want some things they can’t afford, they can become more efficient, increase their productivity, sell some of their assets, hold a garage sale, or just plain old save for that special purchase on a rainy day.

The economics of government is no different.

Over time the Joneses will adjust to their new financial way of life, pay off their bills, and get back on solid economic footing. At that time, they will have the option of having more credit extended to them because their credit rating will not only be secured, it will be enhanced.

The economics of government is no different.

Character and integrity are important to the Joneses, because living up to their commitments is not a slogan, it’s a moral obligation. Over time the self-respect they have shown turns those who were once resentful of their bounty and scornful of their austerity into neighbors who view them with admiration and strength.

The economics of government should be no different.

If Congress decides to stop borrowing money and not raise the debt ceiling - nothing disastrous will happen! And any attempt to prove otherwise is futile because it’s just not true.

Why?

Although Adam Lanza is personally responsible for what happened at Sandy Hook, we are all complicit in the tragedy.

By Dean Kalahar

The question you hear most often in regards to the Sandy Hook shootings is “why?’ The usual linear “intentional causation” analysis as to why Adam Lanza became a killer is inadequate and intellectually lazy. This horrendous crime can’t be explained away simply by blaming guns, video games, or disabilities. If we truly want to honor the fallen, a systemic approach into the causes of the crime is necessary and may offer clarity, solace, and hope.

Nature played a vital role in the temperament of Adam Lanza. His unique biology created a human with developmental disabilities; possibly including Asperger’s, Autism, and anti-social personality disorder. Hallucinations & delusions must have also lived in Lanza’s psychotic mind. The gunman was in all likelihood, void of conscience or empathy and had great trouble with neurological processing. If he was “brilliant,” handicaps were a part of the package.

Nurture also played a role in the creation of the killer. The parental environment from birth to age 5 molded his neuroses where critical periods of development were impaired. The impact of divorce on worth was devastating. Teaching a disabled child how to use a gun, and allowing violent adult video games, spawned a set of learned behaviors that lead to tragic results. Poverty was not at play as the mother and her son lived in luxury. God only knows what happened in that household.

Society also offered a more subtle influence to Adam Lanza. Institutional decline since the 1960’s has removed the social constraints once taken for granted. The family institution has eroded the nuclear unit. Illegitimacy, divorce, “children’s rights,” feminism, parental negligence, and loss of values all weigh in on violence.

Religion’s role has been all but removed from society; replaced with a secular humanism of ego-centric narcissism. The community and church no longer act as co-parents watching out for all children and keeping them on track.

The education institution was destroyed by the self esteem movement, “student rights,” a lack of discipline, progressive education ideology, and a non-judgmental philosophy that says “anything goes.”

Lastly, the government has become an overpowering absentee nanny that offers a welfare culture of specific rules and laws that attempt to define freedom and create equality of results at the cost of losing personal responsibility.

The media is also a part of cultural decline, providing violent movies & television shows; while the 24 hour news cycle endlessly promotes criminals. Hollywood embraces morally corrupt anti-social behavior to boost celebrity status at the cost of human decency, decorum, class, and the golden rule. They willingly defined deviancy downward, coarsened language, desensitized, and embraced deindividuation.

Modern technology (internet, social networks, and cell phones) have created a situation where we communicate more but talk less. We no longer look people in the eyes. We have de-humanized interpersonal relationships; and hide behind screens, becoming ever more emboldened malcontents that lash out without the fear of accountability.

                       

Although we have always been a nation of weapons, we have embraced a culture of violence. The six shooter and western rifle has been replaced with Pacino’s “little friend.” Rap lyrics aimed at killing “pigs” combined with ever more vivid video games, (where the word violent no longer can adequately define the carnage) embrace an alternative reality which has warped the brains of our youngest children. The “boob tube” generation set the stage for the video game to eat our children whole.

Lastly, we have chosen to ignore the fact that just under the surface of man is a barbaric animal that is susceptible to the darkest force of human nature, EVIL. Far too many in our therapeutic society of gum drops and lollipops, refuse to accept the brutal fact of man’s nature and the history of his actions against his fellow man. We must stop believing man is good because he does “good.”

All together, these factors created a neural, environmental, social, institutional, and cultural concoction of evil derangement, and destruction in the life and mind of Lanza. One can hope this recipe was a one-time event, but sadly, the cocktail has been served all too often as of late.

Nobody should say they are surprised the tragedy occurred, just that it happened at Sandy Hook. Because, truth be known, this could happen anywhere. And nobody should say that any one of the singular causes can be focused on in order to fix the problem our nation has with unspeakable immoral violence.

Although Adam Lanza is personally responsible for what happened at Sandy Hook, we are all complicit in the tragedy. We have allowed our society to devolve, and in doing so, have removed the cultural constraints that at one time inhibited this type of behavior. We are all torn apart by the senseless murder because our social fabric has been torn apart.

As we mourn the death of the children and their teachers at Sandy Hook, it’s time we, as a nation of individuals, look in the mirror and make some major changes to the way conduct our lives.

The slavery of redistribution ideology

By Dean Kalahar

"Not since the days of slavery have there been so many people who feel entitled to what other people have produced as there are in the modern welfare state."  -Thomas Sowell

The idea that we should take from those who have and give to those who don’t is viewed as proper and just among liberals. In fact, if you do not subscribe to redistribution ideology, you are attacked as being greedy at best and racist at worst. The problem is that income redistribution in practice promotes one of the same moral injustices found under slavery.

A simple inquisition will explain. If morality is defined by private property; meaning a person has a right, based on natural law, to their person and their possessions. And if property is generated by the productive and wealth creating behavior of a person’s labor; then immorality is defined as any force that seeks to injure or take away ones property (murder, theft, rape, etc). As such, using the productivity of another for one’s personal gain is immoral.

We can then extrapolate this theorem. If taking the productive output of a slave and using it for another’s personal gain was immoral; then taking the productive output of any worker and using it for another’s gain is immoral, no matter what race, color, gender, or socio-economic status the producer happens to be.

Logic leads us to one conclusion. A modern form of slavery is taking place within in the welfare state. And no matter how you slice it, property theft to promote a false ideology of “fairness” or advance a twisted form of “compassion” to gain power is abhorrent. It does not matter how many ribbons and bows decorate the rhetoric of “Robin Hood” redistribution, the final analysis is the promotion of servitude.

Redistribution ideology is not about a safety net for the truly needy or the necessity of government to tax in order to perform their proper functions of protecting people, property, and enforcing the rule of law. President Obama may call redistributive efforts “economic justice,” or “economic rights,” but in the end, using the power of the state to take ones property is as immoral as taking the wealth created by a slave to benefit the slave owner.

Those on the left will look you straight in the eye and profess they defend liberty and property; but one need only to read the words of the President in regards to his definition of “social justice.”

“I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody"

“I actually believe in redistribution”

"Spreading the wealth around is good.”

 ‘Bring about significant re-distributional change”

“Actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change”

 “I do not believe that those two things- fair distribution and economic growth are mutually exclusive”

“I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts”

“The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society.”

“I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change.”

And of course the classic lines “You didn’t build that” and “those who do not pay their fair share” show the Presidents belief that private property is to be confiscated while ignoring the unalienable rights defined in the Declaration of Independence.

By advancing the welfare state and income redistribution through class warfare, one of the greatest intellectually inconsistent ironies of liberalism is exposed. The indefensible position of trying to defend equality and the dignity of man by violating the human rights of those very people you claim to be defending. The hypocrisy of the left knows no boundaries.

Far too many American’s have shed blood to protect the sacred rights of life, liberty and property. History reminds us the Civil War’s fight to end the abuse of human dignity was a victory that came with a high price.

The nation’s current trajectory of wealth redistribution will eventually polarize its citizens into a fight between the takers and the makers because entitlement creates resentment. Americans must find moral clarity on property rights within the framework of the Republic before the battle grows ever more volatile and the resolution becomes violent.

Jamie Foxx SNL monologue was bigoted

Regarding Jamie Foxx SNL monologue:

It was bigoted, racist, militant, ignorant, and self-adoring.
It made me feel sick and sorry for Mr. Foxx
It was not comedy and he can't hide behind the "it was comedy" banner.
He should not get a pass by the media and society for his bigotry because he is black.
He owes the nation, and all those who have given their lives so he could become a wealthy "celebrity" and host SNL, an apology.

If SNL had previewed and approved his monologue, they too owe the nation an apology.

Definition of BIGOT : a person who is intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance