Miscellany 49: President Obama Is a Traitor; End the Sports Franchise; Nonproductive Lawyers; America’s Debased Currency; A VAT for the US?; You May Charge Interest Only to Enemies?; Plato Was Right about Democracy; US Abets Illegal Aliens

Copyright © 2009 Joseph George Caldwell.  All rights reserved.  Posted at Internet website http://www.foundationwebsite.org.  May be copied or reposted for non-commercial use, with attribution to author and website.  (29 October 2009)

Contents

Miscellany 49: President Obama Is a Traitor; End the Sports Franchise; Nonproductive Lawyers; America’s Debased Currency; A VAT for the US?; You May Charge Interest Only to Enemies?; Plato Was Right about Democracy; US Abets Illegal Aliens. 1

Miscellany: Commentary on Recent Events and Reading. 2

President Obama Is a Traitor 2

President Obama Does Not Deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. 2

President Obama’s Duplicity. 2

President Obama Is Redistributing Wealth. 3

End the Sports Franchise. 3

Nonproductive Lawyers. 4

US Public Denied Knowledge of Bailout-Fund Uses. 4

America’s Debased Currency. 4

A VAT for the US?. 4

You May Charge Interest Only to Enemies! 5

Spirituality. 5

Plato Was Right about Democracy. 5

The Last Ferry in America. 5

US Health Care: No Free Lunch. 6

Ladies-Only Buses in Mexico City. 7

Regression to the Mean?. 7

A $1,500 Car for America?. 8

Throw the Bums Out! 8

Good Times Are Back! 9

Slow Down before Braking. 9

What Is Really Important?. 10

US Government Abets Illegal Aliens. 10

Miscellany: Commentary on Recent Events and Reading

President Obama Is a Traitor

The US Constitution requires the President of the United States and other high elected officials to take an oath that they will defend the country from invasion.  President Obama is aiding and abetting the invasion of the US by 12-20 million illegal aliens.  By this action, he is guilty of high treason.  Every US president since Dwight Eisenhower (“Operation Wetback”) is guilty of treason, for the same reason.

President Obama Does Not Deserve the Nobel Peace Prize

On 9 October 2009 it was announced that the Nobel Peace Prize was being awarded to US President Obama.  He does not deserve this prize.  He is currently waging two massive wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan.

President Obama’s Duplicity

While running for president, Obama promised to end the war in Iraq within sixteen months.  All he is doing is transferring troops from the war in Iraq to the war in Afghanistan.  This is cynicism and duplicity of the highest order.

President Obama Is Redistributing Wealth

President Obama has authorized the increase in the US money supply (“printing of money”) of over a trillion dollars.  This massive increase in the money supply will soon lead to very high inflation.  The US debt is now so large that a large portion of our budget is required to pay interest on it (“service the debt”).  There is little chance that this debt can be repaid, so eventually it will be “monetized” (paid for by printing more money), further increasing inflation.  While running for office, President Obama promised to redistribute wealth in the United States.  The high level of inflation is a very effective means of redistributing wealth.  It dramatically reduces the value of wealth, while much money is paid to nonwealthy citizens in the form of various government transfer programs.

End the Sports Franchise

The US government grants franchises to operate sports teams, such as football, basketball, and hockey.  This policy grants private individuals or corporations – the wealthy elite – the right to profits from these teams.  Because of this monopoly, the ticket prices for sports events are very high.  Worse, many municipalities use public money to build large sports facilities.  For example, the 2003 renovation of Soldier Field cost 633 million dollars.  The sports franchise and public support of sports facilities is an egregious example of the US government’s policy of “socializing the costs” and “privatizing the benefits.”  In countries that do not enfranchise sports, there are many more teams and the cost of attending sports events is much less (e.g., soccer in Britain).  The US-government sponsored sports franchise is a massive rip-off of the public.  This obscene practice should be ended.

Nonproductive Lawyers

On the 2 October 2009 edition of his Fox News television program, Glenn Beck reported that US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wondered why the many bright lawyers that he sees practicing before the Court do not enter productive fields, instead of practicing law.

US Public Denied Knowledge of Bailout-Fund Uses

Elizabeth Warren is head of the Bailout Oversight Panel.  She complains that the US public is not allowed to know how banks are using the bailout funds.  This is a ridiculous situation.  If you pay the money, you get to see the show!  The US government demonstrates nothing but contempt for its citizens and unbounded support for its wealthy-elite controllers.  It supports the banks and insurance companies, and the transfer of massive funds to bankers, to cover their derivative-bet losses.

America’s Debased Currency

From time to time I report on the cost of items when I was young, and the cost today.  My wife told me a few days ago that Family Circle – the homemaker magazine sold at supermarket checkout counters – now costs $1.99.  When I was a young husband, this magazine cost ten cents.

A VAT for the US?

It was reported recently (8 October 2009) by Sean Hannity that Nancy Pelosi suggested that the country might consider a national value added tax (VAT).  In 1987 I wrote a book on the VAT.  It is posted at http://www.foundationwebsite.org/VAT.htm .

You May Charge Interest Only to Enemies!

According to the Torah, Jews are allowed to charge interest only to enemies.  Does this mean that all people being charged interest by Jews are considered their enemies?

Spirituality

There is more spirituality in the secular New Age movement than in all three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam).

Plato Was Right about Democracy

Plato was right.  He asserted that under democracy, people will always elect poor leaders who will promise them anything.  The US middle class had a very high standard of living in the 1950s – the highest in the world.  This high standard of living was enabled by technological superiority.  Under the policy of massive international free trade, our leaders gave this advantage away and forced US workers to compete with workers around the world.  Soon US workers will be as poor as those in the rest of the world.

The Last Ferry in America

On 28 September 2009, Bob Dotson, national correspondent for NBC’s Today Show (“American Story” segment), reported that the last rope-and-pole ferry in the United States was about to be closed.  The local historical society had offered to assist in paying the salary of the ferry operator, but could not afford the liability insurance.

Insurance companies were behind the derivatives scam that severely damaged the global economy and prompted the massive transfer of US tax funds (collected mainly from the middle class) to cover the insurance companies’ losses.  Now America’s litigious, insurance-based system is destroying the last ferry in America.  When will this madness end?

US Health Care: No Free Lunch

On 14 October 2009 I returned home from a trip to Arizona, and I heard a news report that the Senate had passed a health-care bill that contained no “public insurance option,” required mandatory health insurance, and would increase coverage to 40 million more people – all at no additional cost to the government!  The US government is giving the insurance companies everything they want.  Under US government policies, the cost of health care in the US is twice what it is in the rest of the developed world, and yet 46 million people have no health-care insurance (the mechanism by which medical services are provided in the US).  All of this cost will be born by the public, either directly or indirectly, and the total cost will increase.  To state or imply otherwise is deceitful.

The US government is not interested in universal health care, only in universal health insurance, provided by private insurance companies.  It has engineered our health care system to be the most costly in the world, and it wants private insurance companies to reap the rewards from this system.  Health care is now so expensive in the US that most people cannot have access to it without insurance – employer-paid insurance, since it is now so expensive (about $1,000 per month for a healthy family!).  If health care were universal, we would not need any insurance companies at all.  They would serve only as unnecessary middlemen, or as private “rationers” of care.  Why do people object to rationing of care by the US government, but not by private insurance companies?

Ladies-Only Buses in Mexico City

I read recently where Mexican men are fondling Mexican women so much on public buses that Mexico City has started operating “ladies-only” buses.  That such an action would be necessary is a very sad commentary on Mexican culture.

Regression to the Mean?

The term “regression to the mean” originally referred to the fact that the heights of the children of very tall or very short individuals will tend to be closer to the average (mean) height of the general population.  This phenomenon was observed a long time ago by Francis Galton, who developed the statistical concepts of correlation and regression, and coined the word eugenics.  The concept of regression to the mean applies not just to height, but to any characteristic for which the first mean represents a sample of extreme values and the second mean a sample from the general population.

America was founded and developed by exceptional individuals.  They were inquisitive, daring, capable and brave.  They destroyed the indigenous peoples of America and took it for themselves (the concept of “Manifest Destiny”).  On the other hand, recent generations of Americans have allowed their country to be overrun by many millions of illegal aliens, and have allowed the population to explode to the point where few people now have access to the country’s natural beauty (even as simple as living or camping on a lake, in the mountains, or at the beach).  This appears to be an instance of regression to the mean.  The American population, once impressive in their accomplishments, is now giving away what their ancestors gained for them.  While on the surface this appears to be very foolish, it is perhaps inevitable.

A $1,500 Car for America?

The Tata Nana automobile costs just $1,500.  This car, manufactured in India, is not allowed in the US.  Here, our cars cost ten times this amount.  The US government is not about to let US citizens have access to cars costing $1,500.  Massive wealth is generated for the wealthy elite by keeping economic activity at a high level and keeping prices high.  US citizens will be forced to pay $15,000 for a new car, not $1,500.  Keep those bastards working!

Throw the Bums Out!

Since things have gotten so bad in America, you often hear people say that they will vote out the incumbents and replace them with people from another party, e.g., replace Democrats with Republicans, or vice versa.  The electorate does not seem to understand that the Democrats and Republicans represent the same group – the wealthy elite – and that nothing will be changed by doing this.

In his recent exposé of ACORN, Glenn Beck observed that destroying ACORN would not change anything – that the government would simply fund another similar organization to take its place.

Good Times Are Back!

It has recently (October 2009) been reported that Wall Street banks and insurance companies are planning to pay billions in employee bonuses, just a year after wrecking the global economy and causing the worst recession since the Great Depression, and having the government spend hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money to cover their losses (mainly bad bet from credit-default-swap derivatives).  Socialize the costs and privatize the benefits – that’s the American way!  Let the good times roll!

Slow Down before Braking

For a long time, scientists thought that the amount of kinetic energy in a moving object was proportional to the mass times the speed, until Emilie du Châtelet, an eighteenth-century French aristocrat, demonstrated (by dropping balls into clay) that the energy was proportional to the mass times the square of the speed.  That is, E = m s2, where E denotes kinetic energy, m denotes mass, and s denotes speed.  This formula was extended by Albert Einstein to represent the energy that can be obtained from matter, in his famous equation E = m c2, where c denotes the speed of light.  (You can find out more about Emilie du Châtelet in David Bodanis’ books Passionate Minds (Crown / Random House, 2006) or E = mc2 (Berkley / Penguin, 2000), or view the NOVA DVD, Einstein’s Big Idea (2005).)

This simple formula has a profound implication in braking your car.  Since the amount of wear on your brakes is proportional to the square of the speed, you can extend the lifetime of your brakes tremendously simply by letting the car slow down (from wind resistance, which is proportional to the cube of the resisting area) as much as is practical, before applying the brakes.

What Is Really Important?

A few weeks ago a guest preacher at our church told the story of a family that was being forced to flee mainland China at the time of the Communist takeover.  They were told that they could take at most 200 pounds with them.  After much time and effort, poring over personal items such as the typewriter, books and vases, the family presented themselves for inspection prior to leaving.  The inspector glanced at the couple’s two children, and asked, “Did you weigh the children?”  His question put things in a completely new light.  All of a sudden, their prized possessions weren’t so valuable any more.  (The visiting pastor was Dr. George G. Wilkes, III, and he attributed the story to the Methodist minister Dr. Fred Craddock of Emory University.)

US Government Abets Illegal Aliens

The October 12, 2009 issue of the Arizona Daily Star contained an article by James C. McKinley, Jr. and Julia Preston of the New York Times, entitled “Post-9/11, still tough to curb visa scofflaws.”  Here follows an excerpt:

Dallas – Eight years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and despite repeated mandates from Congress, the United States still has no reliable system for determining whether millions of foreign visitors leave the country after their visas expire.

New concern was focused on that security loophole last week when Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, a 19-year-old Jordanian who had overstayed his visa, was accused in court of plotting to blow up a Dallas skyscraper.  Last year alone, 2.9 million foreign visitors on temporary visas such as Smadi’s checked into the country but never officially checked out, immigration officials said.

While officials say they have no way to confirm it, they suspect that several hundred thousand of them overstayed their visas.

Overall, the officials said, about 40 percent of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States came on legal visas and overstayed.

Smadi’s case has brought renewed calls from both parties in Congress for Department of Homeland Security officials to complete a universal electronic exit-monitoring system.

[End of excerpt.]

The US government has no intention of stopping illegal immigration.  This is in direct violation of the Constitution, which requires the government to defend the country against invasion.  The US government is guilty of high treason in refusing to discharge this sworn obligation.  The wealthy elite have hijacked the government – originally of, by and for the people – and it now serves only them.  All illegal aliens should be deported immediately, and the government could accomplish this within a month, if it wished.  It does not wish to do so, because the wealthy elite who control the country do not wish it to happen.

I have been a visitor in many countries that care about whether their country is being overrun by illegal aliens.  When you arrive at a hotel, you are required to show your passport, and it is registered and reported to the government.  In Zambia, where I lived for three years, if you overstayed your visa you were immediately arrested and put in jail.  The US government is destroying the country through massive illegal immigration.  Every additional person added to the population causes the destruction of one acre of natural land.  Illegal immigrants are destroying American land.  They are destroying American traditional culture.  They are taking up space.  They are killing more Americans than die in the war in Iraq.  They should be expelled immediately.  The US government should be taken to book for its treachery in destroying the country.

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