What so proudly we hailed...

Yesterday was Flag Day, when we commemorate the June 14, 1777 adoption of our nation’s standard. For me, the American Flag is a symbol of our highest aspirations of freedom and justice; life, liberty, and the rights to the fruits of our labors; and ultimately, our unquestionable equal worth as human beings created by God. When I proudly display the flag, these are the principles I am celebrating. Every morning my spirit is lifted a little higher out of the dull grogginess of sleep by the sight of the flag that flies, visible from my kitchen window, just across the road. Were I to set out into a new frontier, even to the furthest reaches of space, it would be the Stars and Stripes that I carried. In my eyes Old Glory represents the best aspirations of mankind; as a symbol, it is surpassed only by the old rugged cross.

The flag is not Obama’s insidious socialist hatred of America. It is not Bush’s foolhardy wars. It is not Clinton’s nepotism, nor any of the other failures of her people. Political usurpation, blind nationalistic destruction, the military-industrial complex, social engineering and violation of our individual rights, all of these things stand in stark contradiction to the very symbol of freedom which they hide behind. The American Flag is our symbol of an ideal society, just as Christ is the example of an ideal life. And while we can never live up to such lofty ideals, we can proudly hold them up and do our best.

O! say can you see by the dawn’s early light,

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,

O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?

And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;

O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,

Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,

What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,

As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?

Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,

In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:

’Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore

That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,

A home and a country, should leave us no more?

Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.

No refuge could save the hireling and slave

From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand

Between their loved home and the war’s desolation.

Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land

Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto: “In God is our trust;”

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

- - - - -

All poetry aside, the American Flag is bad-ass. I wear it with attitude. I'll go to my grave with it etched upon my skin, beer and gun in hand, with a shit eatin' grin on my face. And for no other reason than I really like it, here's a picture of Ke$ha, in all her glittery glory, expressing it for me:

God bless all who seek life.

God bless all who seek liberty.

God bless you, me, and Ke$ha.

God bless America.

HOPEYCHANGE MUST BE DECLARED AS INCOME

In the face of psychotically skyrocketing federal deficits and a Fed induced collapse of the dollar, Obama-rama-ding-dong has unveiled his latest scheme to squeeze yet more wealth from the economy: retroactive taxation of gratuities received by minimum wage food service employees for the last five years. Yep, you heard me right. The big O wants wants our change back.

What this means for an unlucky collection of cooks and waitresses is a last minute "corrected" W-2 with a roughly 30% larger taxable income than previously reported. Restaurant owners will be given the choice by IRS henchmen either to pay back taxes on estimated tips for up to five years previous, or to negotiate down the number of years of back taxes owed in return for "voluntarily" enrolling in the relatively new ATIP (Attributed Tip Income Program), which allows the IRS to estimate and automatically tax gratuities received by service employees. For most restaurant owners, this is an offer they can’t afford to refuse.

I imagine a scenario wherein a nefarious Obama, lit by a noxious green smoke, lurks in a darkened oval office and consults with a magic mirror about what to tax next.

"There seems to be a plethora of confusion surrounding the corporate income taxes of companies such as General Electric. Perhaps you take advantage of this by adding yet another tax to the burden of the public shareholders?" suggests the mirror.

"No, I need them to keep funding my elections," replies evil Obama, whilst stroking his goatee. "Besides, I play golf with the CEO."

After a thoughtful pause, the mirror offers another suggestion: "Well, then, how about the gratuities of all the poor sobs who voted for you? I’ve heard it’s common practice to not report waitressing tips to the IRS."

The green glow lights the growing grin of the evil one.

"Yes . . . YES . . . WE’LL TAKE THEIR TIPS! MWAAAH-HAAAAA-HAAAAAA"

HOPEYCHANGEY!

The Stupid Absurdity of Public Employee Unionization

What is the purpose of unions? A basic and exceedingly charitable answer would be to ensure that industry does not take undue advantage of its labor force, and that those workers have easier access to some of the wealth which they helped create. So what’s so absurd about the notion of public service employee unionization? Just that there’s no such freakin’ thing as industry or profits in the public sector, that’s what! As the name implies, these folks have chosen to work in service to the public. They ain’t workin’ for no freakin’ evil corporation, and their efforts ain’t generating no freakin’ profit, anywhere! Time was, in fact, when it was widely understood that public service was just that – a service performed for the benefit of society, often at the personal sacrifice of the public servant. If an individual desired to pursue personal gain, it could be readily found in the free market, where exchanges benefit both buyers and sellers. Public servants, by contrast, can only enrich themselves at a cost to the general public, via the mechanism government sanctioned theft, sometimes referred to as taxation. With servants like these, who needs masters?!

The absurdity is even more apparent when you remember that public employees work, not for private profiteering capitalists, but for public officials which they themselves had a hand in electing. So the whole idea that public employees need to seek union representation in order to negotiate with their already publicly elected representatives is just about the most idiotic redundancy since the first man wore both his belt AND his suspenders.

Beyond this absurdity, it must be acknowledged that there is a sinister tendency for union representatives to seek out and work in tandem with corrupt public representatives (but I repeat myself), an incestuous relationship which ought to be every bit as vilified as corporate-government entanglements.

Ultimately, no matter what their dubiously altruistic intent may have originally been, private sector unions in general tend to grow into parasitic bureaucracies which only serve to further tax and regulate their members. This is okay, so long as union membership is freely offered or rejected, without coercion. Public service employee unions, however, are downright evil, stupid, and absurd from the outset. They should not be tolerated by a free society.

And I managed to get all of that out without making the obvious comparison of unionism to socialism. Are you proud of me?

Medical Progress, R.I.P.

I just finished up assisting in a surgical excision of cancerous bone growth, in a child, no less, a child who will likely go on to live a full and wonderful life. The range of possibilities available to us for the treatment of cancer is a testament to the miracle of the free market. Seriously, you should see our radiation therapy facilities - fricking Star Wars. Last I checked, virtually none of our methods were developed by the British National Health Service. Pretty much entirely products of the American free market in medicine (R.I.P.).

I am proud to work at OHSU, one of the premier medical centers in the world. Amongst our many remarkable facilities is the "OHSU Knight Cancer Research Center". That's Knight, as in Phil Knight, of Nike. It's called that because in 2008 Mr. Knight donated $100 MILLION dollars to the OHSU Cancer Research Center to massively expand it's facilities. This monumental act of charity, coupled with the incredible folks I am honored to work with every day, will be nothing short of a miracle to countless more kids, for years to come. The world will literally be a better place because of them. Mr. Knight's philanthropy is in the tradition of other great capitalists such as Andrew Carnegie, and is a testament to the sorts of mature, community oriented individuals which a free society can produce. Michael Moore, by comparison, is a worthless piece of garbage, whose existence will have been to the benefit of no one but his financial investors, and it's high time he high-tailed it to Cuba, Venezuela, or Russia - but I digress...

Individuals like Phil Knight, combined with the innovations and motivations inherent to the free market, have born more fruits than all of the worlds "national health care systems" combined; that the credit seems to unerringly fail to fall where it is due is sickening.

The free market saves lives. If medical care had been turned over to the government 100 years ago, we'd still be using leeches and tinctures.

"A Day Which Will Live In Infamy..."

2,459 Americans killed
1,282 injured
We made them pay, though.

YOUCUT - the fun new game that's sweeping the nation!

The voters have once again spoken, and like a breath of fresh air they appear to have removed their heads from their rears before doing it. We are one step closer to a constitutional, limited government. Obama's express ticket to bankruptville has been revoked, and the rubberstamp congress which he's used to prove his inadequacy has been flushed. What remains to be seen is whether the new Republican House, under Old Boehner, will heed this rare glimpse of public wisdom and follow through with the drastic government cuts, both in power and in spending, that are so necessary for a true American recovery to occur - something a little more tangible than Obama's pathetic little "recovery summer".

To guide them, our power hungry little representatives need to hear from us, and a new tool has been added to that sadly anemic toolbox. It's called "Youcut", and it's basically a direct line to D.C. which can be used to spotlight those particularly atrocious little grants and expenditures which somehow slip through the budgetary cracks. It's certainly not a cure-all for the metastatic blob of government, but it is a fun step in the right direction. Through this very democratic process, bad spending can be brought to the attention of our stupid congress, and maybe, just maybe, they'll be in a charitable mood and oblige us our request. Anyways, what the hell, right? It can't hurt to try. It's worth it, if for no other reason than the Democrats are very publicly against it. They love wasting your money even more than the Republicans do. And that's saying something.

YOUCUT

Can't find a that specific grant you were looking for? That's fine, you can still give them some general ideas right here.

Something to bear in mind: While encouraging, using Youcut to correct the culture of government is a bit like using tweezers to remove fleas from France. This is a huge problem, and it's going to take some serious DDT level solutions.

Rock on!

The Dependence of Diversity Upon Liberty

Much is made of the virtue of diversity, and rightly so. Consider the history of the United States, the melting pot of the world: while many books have been written about the inevitable clash and abuse between so many disparate peoples thrown together in this exceptional nation, still many more have been written of her beautiful fruits, cultivated in the fertile soil of American liberty. It is diversity which gives choice to our liberty. Indeed, the entire history of America is an expression of the greatness which can be achieved when the infinite possibilities of diversity are given the liberty to act.

To celebrate diversity without an equal regard to the liberty in which it thrives, however, is to remove all practical worth from the former. There is a symbiotic relationship between diversity and liberty. Diversity represents mere potential, of little or no practical value, just as a mechanics tool is meaningless until it is put to use. Our toolboxes may be full, but we must above all else be free to use those tools. Diversity of thought and expression, of experience and ingenuity, of culture and belief, these are vitally important characteristics of which we are all possessed, but it is only in our free exercise of reason and unrestrained utilization of free will that our diversity flourishes, providing us with the infinite expressions of life of which we are each capable.

Is it any wonder that the Greeks placed the utmost value on mans ability to reason, or that St. Augustine later spoke of the incredible gift of our God-given free will? Even later still, Kant wrote that our highest moral virtue lie not in our circumstance or achievement, but in the ethics which we each discern and freely choose to live by. Even that bitchy syphilitic layabout Nietzsche believed in the need for the individual to formulate and express his own personal philosophy in order to achieve his highest state of being. Reason, free will, moral virtue freely chosen, self actualization; a common purpose connects even these uncommon thinkers. As mans understanding has developed throughout the centuries an ever more complete explanation of our innate need for individual liberty has emerged.

It could easily be argued that we live today in an era dominated by the issue of diversity. Globalization, information exchange, and the civil rights movement have made it so. Then let it also be argued that we have opened a new chapter in the quest for liberty, for without it we can have no expression of diversity. Life without liberty will be like the capital city of the dark planet of Camazotz, from Madeleine L’Engle’s book A Wrinkle In Time:

Below them the town was laid out in harsh angular patterns. The houses in the outskirts were all exactly alike, small square boxes painted gray. Each had a small, rectangular plot of lawn in front, with a straight line of dull-looking flowers edging the path to the door. Meg had a feeling that if she could count the flowers there would be exactly the same number for each house. In front of all the houses children were playing. Some were skipping rope, some were bouncing balls. Meg felt vaguely that something was wrong with their play. It seemed exactly like children playing around any housing development at home, and yet there was something different about it. She looked at Calvin and saw that he, too, was puzzled.

“Look!” Charles Wallace said suddenly. “They’re skipping and bouncing in rhythm! Everyone’s doing it at exactly the same moment.”

L’Engle is describing a world devoid of diversity, because free will had been eliminated by a demonic figure known as “IT”. IT boasted that through the banishment of liberty, IT had achieved a world without inefficiency, unhappiness, or war. IT had achieved the ultimate sinister goal of social design: perfect equality of outcome. A world without diversity.

“…that’s exactly what we have on Camazotz. Complete equality. Everybody exactly alike.”

“No!” she (Meg) cried triumphantly. “Like and Equal are not the same thing at all!”

Madeleine L’Engle’s allegory beautifully describes the dependency of diversity upon liberty. We are consistently barraged with the message of diversity, but seldom is liberty’s inherent role acknowledged. Remove liberty, and life will lose its free expression of diversity. Diversity will become as meaningless as the color of our skin.