The Rusted Musket

People like Dugout Dick fascinate me. After coming home from WW2’s Pacific theater this gentleman basically lived on his own, with only the occasional guest, in spartan-like living arrangements carved out of Idaho’s Salmon River bank for sixty years. This past week I returned from a week long backpacking trip to Tennessee’s Smokey Mountains in which I too lived in reduced living conditions, a two man tent. One week was enough, Nature +1, Ben 0. The reason for this post is that I admire Dugout Dick as a robust life from a different time, almost mythic, like Paul Bunyan, for Dugout D figured out how to make yogurt from within his cave; this, in my book, qualifies as a semi mythic feat. I also appreciate how he enjoyed his simple existence of endlessly quoting the Bible from his little hole in the wall, and how, despite these simple ways ended up in a National Geographic, a book or two, and a couple words dedicated on TRM…

What shows did you watch as a kid? Captain America? Transformers? Sesame Street? Bugs Bunny? Sponge Bob? Or maybe you didn’t watch TV all that much? These days, for better or for worse, kids generally watch a lot of television. Partly because they like to and partly because a lot of parents find that its a easy way to keep their kids entertained. To an extent TV is fine, and in some cases might actually be good if the shows have good themes behind them. Other times they are nothing more than senseless entertainment, or maybe politically charged drivel.

One interesting aspect of kid’s show nowadays is the lack of a good “manly” figure. What is a manly figure you may ask? Its not the bumbling, burping, jerks that so often get displayed on TV. Its the responsible, providing, leader that young boys want to look up to. Kids, especially young boys, need role models and examples of what a boy should be or what a girl should be, but our society has really muddled those roles now. Young men are no longer stepping up to be the head of the family or to take responsibility, instead they hide behind drugs, sex, TV, video games etc… What takes their place then? Women do sometimes, but more often than not the position remains empty.

Why and how did this happen? Part of it surely has to do with the feminist agenda of past decades. Feminism is all fine and dandy but it can and does go to far. I think it has negatively affected the gender roles of our society. Some women have really started to act like men and to take over the role that men should be in. I’m not saying that women should always be stay at home moms or shouldn’t have careers. What I’m trying to get across is that a lot of men don’t know what it is to be a man. They are emasculated in a sense. Men need to step up and take responsibility for themselves. They need to have commitment and be encouraged to lead their families.

Post inspired by this WSJ article.

Check out this hilarious video. Google’s new ad options..

New Google Phone Service Whispers Targeted Ads Directly Into Users’ Ears

A fantastic and wholly TRM endorsed article, written by Dan Henninger of the Wall Street Journal; speaks of Debt, Greece, Europa, and Us. Short read, worth checking out…

So I just found out that a show my wife and I love is being canceled… Its called Legend of the Seeker. Its a great show based on the Sword of Truth books by Terry Goodkind. Its one of the very few shows/movies that I like better than the books. It is really loosely based on the books and doesn’t really follow the book all that well, but it really stands on its own. So if you’ve seen the show or just feel like helping out, please sign this petition or go to http://www.saveourseeker.com/ to see other ways to help…
Both seasons are available to instant view on Netflix and the last 4 episodes are available on Hulu, though I highly recommend watching the episodes in order.

Cinco de Mayo usually means I’ll go to lunch for taco’s, a burrito, maybe even an enchilada. But if you’re a kid attending a predominately Hispanic public school whilst donning your favorite American flag tshirt, hi-top shoes, or bandanna on Cinco de Mayo, you’ll be sent home. The message, it’s okay to wear patriotic gear, just not on Cinco de Mayo.

Ponder this with me.

By law, every public school must have an American flag flying outside the building. I wonder, did they also take down that flag as the flag wearing students walked to their parents cars?

Greece is just getting all the spotlight lately… Check out this article from the Wall Street Journal.

The Greece government has all but decided to take the EU offer of loan money, but it comes at a hefty price. They must cut spending and raise taxes. The Greek people aren’t too happy about this, since their precious handouts and crazy benefits will be cut. So what do they do? They take to the streets with mass rioting, breaking windows, firebombing and having a country wide union strike. Three innocent bank workers have died as a result. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time and from what I’ve read it sounds like they got trapped in a burning building.

I can understand the Greek people being upset about this legislation, but they’ve been milking the socialist agenda for too long and now it has caught up to them. They either take this offer, or default on their loans, which would cause a lot more problems. However, the way they are acting is beyond childish. They need to grow up and realize that they are just reaping what they sow, and they need to get off their butts and get back to work. Maybe try being entrepreneurial and actually help expand your economy… Instead of letting it stagnate like it is.

The Wall Street Journal has a article aptly named: “Hi. My Name Is America, and I’m a Deficit Addict.”

It is a very interesting article and well worth the read. The author starts off by saying that the deficit (and Federal debt in general) is something that everyone talks about but nobody does anything about. How true is that? Its like this story I heard about some fishermen.

There was a group of fishermen who bought all the latest gear, read all the articles and magazines about fishing, and talked endlessly about fishing. But they never actually went fishing. The government (meaning politicians that are running it), and maybe even American citizens, are like those fishermen. They are afraid of change and afraid of failure. Instead of being a hero and hated (yes both) for fixing the problem they leave everything at the status quo. What will it take to finally make them realize that they are killing this country? We simply can’t afford trillion dollar deficits or we are going to implode.

I got dreams about what would be the ideal solution; such as cutting social security, medicare, department of education and all the other unconstitutional, practically worthless departments that have sprung up. Having actual fiscal oversight and a government website that details every penny spent, who spent it and who approved it.
But I’m a realist, I know that those kinds of changes would to very difficult to make period let alone all at once so then what could be done?

First off do away with our current tax system and adopt the Fair Tax
I wrote a bit about this in my last post about the Greek deficit but the gist is that all federal taxes would be done away with and replaced by a national sales tax. Not a VAT tax (which is a politicians dream tax as they can raise taxes without the general public knowing).

A important thing to note is that businesses wouldn’t pay the usage tax for buying wholesale items from other businesses. So if I make hats the cotton I but from another company has absolutely no taxes added. Why is this good you might ask? Because that tax saving will be passed on to the consumer, just like tax increases are. If you tax a company 10% you can be sure that they will raise their prices by 10%, if you lower taxes by 10% then assuming there is healthy competition, prices will drop by 10%. This would be a enormous and positive change reducing the red tape and some of the frustrating aspects of owning your own business.

The sales tax would be high, probably around 23%, but everything would be cheaper because the businesses that are paying 15% FICA taxes wouldn’t be paying that anymore, so there is a 15% decrease in price off the bat. But it gets better, the several hundred billion dollar tax industry would go away (including many IRS areas), yes lots of jobs would be lost, but doing away with our current form of taxes would be a economic stimulus that you could only dream of.

This tax is the most fair and transparent type of tax out there. It would also be hard to circumvent and easy to collect. Imagine not having to file tax returns every year and actually getting your full paycheck. Heck businesses could raise your salary by 10% just because of tax savings. It is a fair tax because the people that spend money are the ones that pay taxes. Think of all the people that live paycheck to paycheck because they spend all their money. Wouldn’t this type of system be a great incentive to start saving more money? Paying bills? Paying down credit card and student loan debt?

Next point would be to examine federal employee’s pay (and benefits) as compared to the private industry and get it inline. Federal employees are paid on average 20% more than private employees and that is not counting benefits which are generally 2-4 times better for federal employees.

Next all the social services that are offered need to be examined. Medicare is so expensive because it is corrupt and the medical industry wastes so much money. Obamacare didn’t do anything to address costs and so those are likely to just go up. We need to repeal that legislation and put in its place some guidelines to reduce medical costs such as tort reform for malpractice lawsuits, reducing the cases where money is spent on needless tests and examinations, etc… Social security needs to go away. The government can’t be trusted with our retirement money as they love to just squander it away. So anyone currently receiving benefits or close to receiving them gets them, but then no more. Put that money back into citizen’s pockets and trust that they can  take care of themselves.

Fiscal responsibility needs to be mandated somehow. I’ve heard people mentioning a constitutional amendment to limit government spending to a percentage of the GDP and although that sounds good on paper the problem is that I imagine the government would always be at that level, but still that would be better than adding debt every year.

There are many other things that can be done, such as figuring out a way to reduce military expenditure, paying down the debt to reduce interest etc… But what I’ve written is a good guideline. It won’t happen all at once, but if drastic reforms don’t take place then we are in a sorry state.