EAT THE POOR

In the years since I jumped into the political arena, I have noticed a common tactic used by the left...sympathy. Like Yoda's light saber, progressives wield sympathy with deadly precision for the sole purpose of manipulating your emotions, and ultimately your wallet. The reigning champion in the competition for our sympathies is undoubtedly "the poor". Be ye a minority, a female, a homeless person (bum), or immigrant (legal or otherwise), the one common denominator in your list of exploited "plights" is probably going to be "poverty".

Realizing this, I have decided to submit for your approval my plan to end poverty. If for no other reason than to take it off the table once and for all so it can no longer be used as a distraction in substantive issue debate. But before we examine my plan to end poverty, we will first need to define poverty.

If you possess any of the following, you are not poor:
cell phone
X-Box
I-Pod
20" rims
flat screen TV
case of beer
pack of cigarettes
new "tats"
car
roof
toilet
bed
shoes

You see, "poverty" is when you have nothing...including options. But in America, does that really apply to you, or anyone else? Does a poor person in America really have no way to get by without their government giving them money that's been taken from those who choose to work for a living? In an age where it actually pays to not work, I think I have found a more practical and motivating answer to poverty in America.

Benjamin Franklin once said that the best way to help the poor, is to make them uncomfortable in their poverty. With that in mind, I submit the following solution.

Step one would be to end all forms of government sponsored welfare. This would include unemployment compensation, food stamps, W.I.C., etc. etc. After all, without welfare, there can be no welfare fraud or dependency.

In the place of welfare programs, I suggest we bring back the concept of "poor houses". Because we are a prosperous and generous nation, I do believe in the concept of a safety net for those who fall on hard times. But there is a difference between a "safety net" and a king-size, Sleep Number bed with satin sheets, feather pillows, and accompanying personal masseuse. The purpose of a safety net is to do nothing more than save your life, not enhance and indulge it's every demand. A safety net is not supposed to be comfortable, let alone evolve into a lifestyle. When a trapeze artist falls off the wire and hits the safety net, he doesn't make himself at home, order a pizza, and fire up his X-Box on that net. No, he immediately gets off the net, climbs back up the ladder and tries the stunt again.

I assert that a "poor house" is the perfect safety net for those who's lives have hit the skids. You see, my poor house would cost the tax payer a fraction to operate compared to the bottomless pit our current welfare system has become. That's because people would only go there if they absolutely had no other option in life. And when they got there, they would bend over backwards to get back out. Here's why.

Once registered at your local poorhouse, you would have access to three healthy meals a day, but they would be bland, without variety, and washed down with water only. You would have access to medical care, but only the same no-frills care given to prison inmates, and no elective procedures at all. On the up-side, you would also have access to a library specifically stocked with self-help and vocational books, thus helping you to be a more attractive candidate to a prospective employer, as well as a better citizen in general.

You will also have access to our grooming department where you will be issued all things essential to making a good impression. A grooming consultant will be on hand to assist you. Your consultant will be advised to ridicule you for the following; baggy pants, backward hats, body piercings, tattoos above the collar bone, sagging pants, and wearing women's jeans if you're a male.

This facility will be safe, efficient and maintained at the highest standards of cleanliness. Our staff will be trained to the highest standards of professionalism. As part of their training, they will be taught to do everything in their power to assist you in your attempt to get back on your feet, but in a short, snarky manner. This is due to the idea that being in a poorhouse is supposed to be an unpleasant and humiliating experience, therefore motivating you to make sure you never need to return. In keeping with that theme, your bed will be automated to shorten by one inch for every day you stay following your first six weeks there. At that point, your food will then be served cold, as will be your showers.

The facility's ambient air temperature will vary at random, but always ten degrees away from the standard 70 degree "room temp".

In conjunction with the introduction of these regional poor houses, I suggest we start a national campaign to re-associate shame and humiliation with being poor. Particularly if your poverty is simply a result of your own laziness and bad decisions. Part of the problem with poverty today is that there is no longer a stigma attached to it. Today, it is assumed that if you are poor, it is probably the result of someone else making you that way, making you the victim by default. In reality, it was probably some decision you made that brought you to the steps of my "facility".

My advice...get a job, keep it, and don't spend beyond what that job provides. Stick with that, and you'll never experience the splendor of a poor house.

ROADHOUSE SAVES THE GULF

Yes, I know. It's been quite a while since my last article. Sometimes life has a way of filling your days and weeks, especially with two kids, a wife, an unpredictable work schedule and the final stages of a home addition. But enough about me.

As I've been watching the events in the gulf go on and on like some sort of continuous hybrid of a Three Stooges short and a Michael Bay action adventure movie. Unfortunately, this flick has too few heroes and way too many villains. But for the purposes of this blog, I am going to skip the political aspect of this nightmare and simply offer some solutions.

Keep in mind, I am not an engineer, but that's never stopped me from throwing ideas around until I found one that worked. As for the stopping of the leak, I submit the following ideas to anyone reading this who might be more credible in the field of structural engineering:

1. Jam a cone-shaped solid steel plug into the pipe and repeatedly drop a massive weight onto it until it stops the flow. The deep sea robots currently on the scene can guide the plug into position until time to drop it, and the weight can be guided similarly.

2. Construct a massive steel "can" to be placed upside-down over the leak. Pile solid steel ingots or massive boulders on top of the can until it sinks far enough into the sea floor to seal the oil accumulating inside. The "can" could even have an access valve near the top for collecting oil under controlled circumstances. A tall enough "can" pressed far into the sand with enough weight on top would have to eventually overcome the pressure of the oil flow.

3. Drill a new pipe as close to the leaking one as possible. Drill to half of the pipe's current depth. Lower into the new pipe the most massive, NON-nuclear explosive charge that will fit into it. Then, fill the pipe with sand and detonate the charge. I would have to assume the sea floor would cave in around the pipe and seal the flow of oil.


THE CLEAN UP

To expedite the restoration of the Gulf, simply turn the process into a contest. The President should hold a news conference where he announces a five million dollar prize (tax free) to the individual American who can gather the most oil from the gulf in a two week period. The only rules would be that their method must be deemed safe by the Coast Guard, and not interfere with other contestant's efforts. The "Oil Derby" can be repeated as often as necessary until the gulf returns to a life sustaining condition.
In addition, all oil gathered can be sold on the open market by those who gather it at whatever price they can command.

This plan has muti-fold benefits. One, free labor. Two, competition spawns innovation, so it stands to reason that rednecks across the land will be inventing and field testing new and exotic ways to separate oil from water. Three, as an armada of contestants descend upon the Gulf, they will need places to stay, and food to eat. This solves the problem of revenue lost in the Gulf's tourist industry since the disaster struck.
The "Derby" can be televised and even produced by the guys over at "The Discovery Channel". Mike Rowe can narrate, and even present the first winner with their comically large prize check.

Could any of my ideas work? Maybe, maybe not. But so far, they're better than anything I've seen so far.

THIS AGAIN... REALLY?

First, an update on the status of ROADHOUSE BLOG. For the past month, I have been busting my hump trying to build an addition to casa de Roadhouse for the next generation of right wing extremists I'm trying to raise. In short, 2 kids + one kid's room equals a problem that requires mucho denero to rectify, and little time or energy left to slay liberalism at the level of quality my readers would expect. As I near the end of this oh-so torturous home improvement adventure, I am hoping to be putting the hammer down and getting my humble blog back into the "big hole" (high gear) in the next few weeks.

As expected, hiring a contractor was part of the plan, and not something I was looking forward to. I found that the "word of mouth" method worked best. After all, a recommendation from a friend or family member carries more weight than an Internet listing by people I've never met. In the process, I found that there are two types of contractor, those who hire illegal immigrants, and those who don't. Those who do are easy to spot. They will be the ones who don't call you back after you tell them that the police will be called if there is even the slightest suspicion of their employee's immigration status being fraudulent.

Yes, "fraudulent". This brings us to my brief tutorial on immigration. For those of you who still don't get it, here is why it's wrong to be here illegally. First, you're trespassing. Second, you're a tax evader. Third, you're an identity thief. Fourth, you have not been screened for communicable diseases. Fifth, your criminal record has not been checked. Sixth, you have not agreed to take a loyalty oath, or learn our customs, laws, or language. Seventh, you're a drag on every single tax payer funded enterprise known to man. Eighth, you are spitting on every immigrant who has ever taken the time and made the sacrifices to come here legally. Ninth, you are an unfair advantage over every employer who has the decency to abide by the law by not hiring you. Tenth, until the unemployment rate is 0%, you are not actually needed.

You see, to not make a distinction between legal and IL-legal immigration is akin to seeing no distinction between buying a new Corvette and stealing one. This is not rocket science people. It's not racism either. If you are here illegally from Sweden, you are just as wrong as someone from Mexico, China, Pakistan, or jolly old England. Go home, go back to the end of the line where you belong, and come to our country the right way. Then, and only then, I will welcome you with open open arms, bearing a frosty cold Coors in one hand, and a hearty handshake in the other.

I BLAME MYSELF...and YOU

If ever there were a case to be made for education reform in America, it was Sunday's vote for health care reform. That being said, there is plenty of blame to go around. First, I blame myself. Though I've become known in my social circles as "that guy who wrote that book about politics and junk", I rarely go out of my way to talk to people...let alone start conversations about our government. Not that I assume my contributions to a political discussion would move mountains, my reclusiveness has done nothing to help for sure.
It was also me who chose to pay little-to-no attention to my civics teacher in High School, or the world around me in my early adulthood. I was the one who until September 11th, 2001 crafted my ideology from narratives I saw in liberal sitcoms and stand-up comedians. Before that awful day, I was the one who decided to invest my time in beer and video games. All the while, people in positions of power were plotting elaborate schemes designed to erode the freedoms I was taking for granted. But I was not alone.

What about you? And what about now? Before you go swinging that finger of blame around, take a look in the mirror. When exactly did you start giving a crap? Do you "go there" with your friends and family, or do you keep the peace by not bringing up certain topics?

As with all history, it's water under the bridge now. The question we all need to ask at this point in the game is, did we learn anything from our experiences? Rather than dwell on our past mistakes and indifferences, we need to get our collective asses in gear and prepare for tomorrow. If you have kids, teach em'. Teach them about the founding fathers and our constitution, because their schools certainly won't. If you don't know about those things, then teach yourself! Go to the library. Read a book. If you have a liberal friend or relative, instigate em'. Don't be insulting or rude, but show them where they're wrong. Remember, you might have been a liberal idiot once yourself.

If we're going to right this ship, we are all going to have to start venturing out of our comfort zones. We are all going to have to make our existence here count. Sure, it would be fun to see the look on a liberal's face when their socialist utopia falls apart, and we all love to say "I told you so"...but. It's our world too. When they screw things up, they take us with them. Our new mission needs to be all about saving liberals from themselves, before they get us all killed.

THE ECONOMY EXPLAINED

Listening to liberals try to explain our current economic situation is alot like listening to a four year old trying to explain how airplanes fly. The irony to that is that flight is much more complicated and harder to explain than economics. But for the sake of the liberal readers that occasionally frequent my humble blog, I will explain the basics of free market economics.

The free market is actually less of a "system" and more of an expression of humanity and it's aversion to oppression. To put it simply, it's a matter of buying and selling the things we want/need, for reasons and priorities of our own choosing.
Like the fly in the ointment of all liberal concepts, it is the human condition that drives our economic system. If we were robots, we would require only the most basic of needs and no wants. If we required a car for transportation, the simplest of automobile would be all that we'd ever need. And being robots of coarse...we would never complain. Enter humanity.

As humans, our requirements are different, and so are our tastes. In fact, the idea that we even have tastes and/or opinions at all is what separates us from the robot world. A robot could care less what kind of car he drives to work, or what kind of power drill he uses when he gets there. But a human has a whole set of priorities unique to his individual needs. Maybe he is tall and needs a certain amount of leg room. Maybe he has three kids and needs a four door. Maybe he has small hands that require a drill with a particular style of grip. Maybe he likes to fish on the weekends and needs a truck to pull his bass boat.

It is this individuality that spawns our free market system. For all of our differences, there must be a way to cater to those needs and wants...hence, the entrepeneur. For every Tom, Dick, or Harry with a personal preference, there is someone out there with a way to provide for their needs. Tom likes hoagies? Enter, Subway and Quiznos. Dick likes Burgers? Enter, McDonald's and Burger King. Harry likes trucks, but his wife likes station wagons? Enter, the SUV.

In America, the common denominators between the buyer of goods and the seller of goods is both freedom and liberty. The buyer has the ability to make decisions based on the things important to him/her alone. Be it quality, convenience, or symbol of status, your reasons for purchasing something are as personal as any other part of your life.
The seller has the ability to make the decisions that result in the production of the things the buyer wants/needs. The seller makes decisions based on quality, cost, and competition.

Oh yeah, competition. Another part of the human condition. Again, since the robot could care less about quality, competition would really not be a factor in meeting it's needs. But humans need and want more than just a slab of meat between two buns. We need the Big Mac. We need the five dollar foot long. We need the stuffed crust pan pizza and the Chevy Tahoe with 33" tires for blasting through snow drifts.
It is competition that demands higher quality. After all, there would be no need to improve on the cheeseburger, if there were no other companies to compete with. The Mustang would not be nearly as cool of a car if there were no Camaro forcing Ford to innovate in order to stay ahead of the curve.
How does any of this relate to jobs? Well, unfortunately, cars and burgers do not grow on trees in some magical mystical forest. They are produced...by people. For those people to produce their good or service, they need to hire other people. This is what's known as "job creation". Now, if you were to create an environment that is hostile to this system, you might experience something known as "job destruction".
You might be wondering what could cause a hostile environment for employment. Glad you asked. Imagine you are the owner of a company that makes buggy bumpers. You've just heard your President tell the nation that he plans to raise your taxes in order to implement some pet project that nobody wants. He follows that by promising to create new regulations and standards that will increase the expense of running your business. Are you supposed to ignore him or assume he's bluffing? Or will you more likely take his word for it and take the appropriate measures to prepare for increased overhead? Knowing that the cost of your buggy bumpers will go up resulting in fewer sales, do you think it would be a good idea to throw caution to the wind and hire ten more people, or trim the cost of running your business by laying-off five people.
In addition to you, your customers heard the same message from the President and have decided to cut their spending in all areas in preparation for higher prices at the register. This results in fewer orders for all goods and services as well as their related transportation, warehousing, and retailing. You see, just because your President promised to not raise your tax rate which happens to be below his arbitrary $250,000 line, that doesn't mean he won't be raising the taxes of the people who produce the products you use. A nickle more for a tube of Chapstick here, or a dime more for a box of Pop Tarts there tends to add up after a while. Both costs passed onto you (the consumer) to make up for the cost of someone's brilliant tax increases or job creation stimulus bill.
And let's not forget your boss (if you're lucky enough to have one). Since he falls on the wrong side of the President's fiscal "line in the sand", what do you suppose he's going to do? He's looking at your up-coming Christmas bonus on one hand, and a promise of whopping new taxes on the other. You do the math.
He's looking at your request for a new company vehicle on one hand, and a rising cost of doing business due to up-coming "cap and trade" regulations on the other. Again...you do the math.

I'm not trying to say that Harvard didn't have an excellent business program when President Obama was studying there, but I am saying that business wasn't his major.

RANDOM ROADHOUSE

Cruising around the blogoshpere has lead me to some interesting writing concepts over the years. Not the least of which is the chronicling of random thoughts by the author. One such blogger over at My Voice on the Wings of Change recently inspired me to try this myself. I'm sure I won't be adopting it as a regular format, but I thought it might be cool to try something different for a change...so here we go.

Thought #1: The movie industry relies way too much on CGI today. Yes, flicks like "Cars" and "Toy Story" are fun to watch and are impressive in their detailed animation, but these movies are not trying to mesh with reality. They are just a better quality cartoon and little more than that. Hollywood oversteps their use of computer generated imagery when they rely on it alone, as opposed to simply using it to enhance a scene. Gone are the days of stuntmen and special effects artists. Now, we have CGI cars being chased by CGI monsters. The art of film and cinematography is being shoved aside for the sake of speed and commercial efficiency.
Between that and the guy who will inevitably talk during the movie, I have fewer and fewer reasons to buy an increasingly expensive movie ticket.

Thought #2: Al Gore needs to be strapped to a chair in my front yard, wearing Bermuda shorts and a "wife beater" for a duration of time to last no less than one hour. After he experiences the two feet (and counting) of snow and mid-teen temperatures that encompass my reality for that hour, I will be willing to listen to his views on global warming.

Thought #3: Abortion has been making the news lately, so I would like to clarify some mis-understandings about "pro-lifers" and our position on the topic. There actually is a clear distinction between our views on abortion vs. our views on capital punishment. An unborn baby has not yet had the ability or opportunity to abuse their right to live, unlike a murderer. An aborted baby has not been afforded their right to due process or a trial by a jury of their peers, unlike a murderer. We see no line in the Constitution that decrees your rights do not exist until the severing of an umbilical cord.

Thought #4: The only way I could give President Obama the benefit of the doubt is by considering the following theory. He is actually a double agent of sorts, and mearly posing as a radical socialist, anti-American, naive, narcissist. In realty, he saw the folly of liberalism at an early age, and devised a complex scheme to infiltrate, and eventually lead liberals and Democrats to their own political demise. His plan to expose liberals in Congress and show in living color the horrors of socialism to an America that was previously happy to remain un-informed, is nothing short of brilliant. And as of yet, his execution of it has been masterfull.
Just a theory.

Thought #5: Snow is no longer "fun".

Thought #6: Pop Tarts - still the perfect food.

Thought #7: To call liberals "retarded", is to give the retarded a bad name. I'd be insulted too if someone compared me to a liberal.

RIGHTS AND ABILITIES

Today, in a five to four ruling, the Supreme Court finally decided that all men are created equal...even rich men. After lifting the restrictions on the amount of money a corporation can give to a political campaign and when they're allowed to run ads prior to an election, the Supreme Court all but sealed the fate of "the McCain/Fiengold act" which has made mince meat of the first amendment since it's inception.
As expected, the left is having a tantrum. Why? Because of the long held liberal myth that corporations are nothing more than conglomerations of robotic non-human entities from a far away galaxy who's only purpose in life is to destroy the lives of poor people. Believe it or not though, corporations are actually comprised of American citizens who just so happen to own businesses. That's right, American citizens. Not robots, not elves, not space aliens, and not in-animate objects under the control of some OZ-like character hiding behind some massive green curtain. Corporations are nothing more than groups of people who share a common interest, as well as the same Constitutional rights as we "poor folk".

The Constitution of the United States does not guarantee our rights assuming only that you meet a specific income guideline. It guarantees ALL of us the same rights, regardless of whether you're dirt-poor broke, or the CEO of a major investment firm. And like ALL of us, the American CEO has the right to free speech. That means he/she has the right to purchase a prime time spot to air his multi-million dollar ad campaign for or against any candidate at any time.

This is when the liberal would say "But that's not fair, some people can't afford to buy ads on TV, and that could lead to corruption!". OK, can you point me to the line in Constitution that guarantees the right of the people to "afford", well...anything? To afford something has to do with personal ability, not personal rights. As for corruption, as long as a human being is involved, their could be (not necessarily will be) corruption. As for fairness, it is absolutely fair because both the rich and poor man have the right to purchase air time and speak their mind. The only difference is that one may not have the ability.
Another argument against this ruling is that only the opinion of "the rich" will find it's way into the public discourse. Really? You mean the opinion of a rich person like Al Gore? Or like George Soros? Maybe you mean the opinion of rich guys like Rush Limbaugh or Mitt Romney? I'll see your Barbara Streisand, and raise you one John Voight. How about I trade you one Ted Turner for a Rupert Murdoch? Just what is the opinion of a rich person?

Thankfully for us, these issues were sorted out a long time ago by a group of both rich and poor guys known as our founding fathers. They explain it all in a little piece of parchment called the Bill of Rights.