Someone sent me an interesting analogy via email today. It’s an adaptation of one of Aesop’s most popular fables known as The Ant and the Grasshopper. While I’m sure this work could be improved upon, it is thought-provoking in light of our federal government which seems intent on penalizing work and the accumulation of wealth by those who take risks in business and are self-reliant.

I quote this adaptation below (original source unknown) for you to ponder on the political implications. Please share your thoughts after reading this adaptation of the Ant and the Grasshopper.

OLD VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!

MODERN VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving. CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shiveringgrasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

America is stunned by the sharp contrast.  How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green….’ ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house where the news stations film the group singing, “We shall overcome.” Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper’s sake.

President Obama condemns the ant and blames President Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper’s plight. Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on theant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn’t maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and once peaceful, neighborhood.

The entire Nation collapses bringing the rest of the free world with it.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2010.

As I write this I’m distressed to say it looks like there is no path to victory for John McCain. But since I prefer to see the glass as half full, I’m searching for something positive to write about tonight’s election. Is there anything positive to consider right now?

After careful thought I think so. I think there is still reason for conservatives to hope.

This 2008 election cycle has a remarkable number of parallels to 1976 when Democrat Jimmy Carter beat Republican Gerald Ford. As you may recall, Ford became President following the resignation of scandal-plagued President Richard Nixon. With the Republican brand tarnished by Watergate and the messy war in Vietnam fresh on voters’ minds, Carter eked out a 50.1% popular vote and a 297 to 240 electoral win.

As things now stand, Obama appears to be headed for a similarly narrow victory over McCain. As in 1976, the 2008 Republican brand is deeply tarnished by six years of squandered opportunities, wasteful spending, an unpopular Republican President and war that seems to drag on and on. Add in a candidate who had difficulties mobilizing his base and energizing people with a clear vision and you have a recipe for Republican electoral disaster. For Democrats, though, these factors created the perfect storm to sweep into power.

Rewind to 1976. Carter, like Obama was very inexperienced. Little was known about Carter just as little is known about Obama. Contrasting these Democrats were Republicans Ford and McCain who were both tested and experienced leaders. They were, however, dragged down by sweeping calls for change and widespread desire to put a new face and political party in Washington.

That was the setting in 1976 and again in 2008. As history shows us, though, the four years after 1976 were not pretty. Carter was tested with an international crisis by Iran and he failed miserably. Instead of acting decisively, he focused on talks and cut the military. Furthermore, the economy grew worse as inflation, unemployment and interest rates rapidly climbed.

Ironically, in 2008, Iran is again at the forefront of the international agenda and the economy is extremely weak. Like Carter, Obama puts a huge amount of trust in the power of talks to resolve aggressive conflicts with unreasonable people like Islamic extremists and dictators. Honestly, I fear for our future as a nation.

As Joe Biden warned, the next President will be tested with an international crisis within a short period of time. The response of that unavoidable test remains to be seen. Will Obama continue to look and sound like Carter or will he prove my analogy wrong and lead wisely?

That’s the dark side of my analogy. Is there a silver lining you might ask? Is there anything to give conservatives reason to hope? I think so and here’s why.

After four years of failure under Carter, the nation was fed up with international weakness, unemployment, inflation and failed Democratic leadership. In 1980 the nation was ready to elect a new leader who was proud of America and willing to tackle the problems instead of just talk about the symptoms. In short, the nation was ready to embrace conservatism and his name was Ronald Reagan.

So my question tonight is who will be our Ronald Reagan in 2012? Who will step forward and lead this nation out of the mess that liberalism and socialism inevitably bring? Who will be or next Ronald Reagan? Will it be you?

I regularly read Obama 2.0 and just learned of some very interesting commentary by the talented founder of Macho Sauce Productions Alfonzo (Zo) Rachel. In his own words, Zo is a “musician, martial artist, amateure movie makin’, Christian conservative republican.”

His latest video is entitled 1 More B4 11 04 and builds a strong case for electing a conservative as President. He also describes very well the differences between liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, and Obama and McCain in ways that are very compelling. His logic is tight (I would dispute his dinosaur comment given some historic and scientific evidence that may suggest otherwise) and his reasons for supporting conservatives and John McCain in particular are some of the best I’ve heard. He is passionate about freedom and excessive government involvement in our lives. It’s well worth watching.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Let me clearly state that I don’t like or approve of the recent federal intervention in the United States economy. Government policy over the past three decades, pushed to extremes by left-leaning and radical groups like ACORN and using the Community Reinvestment Act, created the corrupt lending environment that was exploited by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to produce the toxic mortgage situation in which we find ourselves. So, since government is primarily responsible for this crisis, why should we then trust government to fix the problem they created?

This unfavorable economic environment is not a shortcoming of capitalism. It is a direct result of government manipulation within our economy for the benefit of a few people. Sometimes manipulation gives an unfair advantage to the rich and sometimes the poor. In this current environment, those who should not get a loan it were encouraged to borrow beyond their means.  While historically no bank would loan money under such terms, Fannie and Freddie created an unnatural market for banks to offload risky mortgages. The result was the poisoning of our entire financial system.

Unfortunately, as is often the case, the federal government stepped in and removed even more of our individual freedoms and made our economic system less of a capitalistic one and more like a planned economy under socialism. To give you an idea of the extent of the change, we’re now talking about the government owning or nationalizing large portions of our banking system. We’re also talking about government confiscating taxpayer money to buy up and refinance failing mortgages. We’re also talking about government, not shareholders, owners or investors, telling companies how much they can pay their employees and how to run their businesses. Sounds more like the old Soviet Union than what the Founding Fathers set up, doesn’t it?

This is an extremely dangerous precedent that will severely damage our economy in the long run. It makes the American taxpayer the ultimate holder of risks that the market should allocate to willing investors. It also gives government enormous control over our economy, our money and our everyday lives. In effect, a government bureaucrat will soon be deciding who can borrow, how much they can borrow and under what terms. In the name of fairness and environmentalism, other factors will probably be imposed later like how large our house can be and whether we really need what we can afford.

Instead of the massive bailout that was adopted, I wish government had essentially stepped out of the picture and removed as many of the artificial market distortions imposed on our economy as possible. True, those who foolishly risked assets would go bankrupt but those assets would not disappear (yes, all those over-mortgaged houses would not evaporate into thin air and people would still have places to live). Instead, those assets and failing institutions would be transferred to their creditors who would carry on the business of finding renters and owners for them. The system would have adjusted and done so relatively quickly compared to this permanent fix imposed by the government.

Furthermore, such a capitalist move would have injected more fairness and rational decision-making into our economic system instead of advancing our nation down the slippery slope of socialism. Power corrupts. Whether power is concentrated in the hands of government or unfair markets, it still corrupts. The best fix would have been for government to ensure that free markets existed and then to step back and let the incredibly creative innovations of the American people solve the crisis.

In conclusion, the current economic crisis was caused by government intervention in the first place and will not be fixed by yet another bigger government intervention. It is utter foolishness to grant government more power to tinker with our economy. It is especially dangerous to further empower those same forces who pushed the radical agenda that first took our government down the destructive path of socialism decades ago. Furthermore, I’m also very troubled by the lack of real resistance to this massive erosion of our precious American freedoms.

Recently somebody suggested that Presidential preferences are like this: “The ‘right’ wants a President they can have a beer with. The ‘left’ just wants someone really smarter than them.” My reply was something like the following:

I think its deeper than the “beer and smarts” analogy suggested above. The right wants to know confidently that their key principles (the “3 pillars” of free markets, national security and social conservatism) are held at a core level by the President and they (the President) won’t waver on them. They don’t care much about physical appearance, TV image, speaking ability, etc. as long as these core principles are not abandoned. Delegation as a leadership style is fine and a “hands off” approach by government preferred for most issues. In a nutshell, government is not to do much more than safeguard these principles and protect us from evil nations.

The left, on the other hand, wants somebody who feels their pain and is smart enough to fix everything that is wrong. That means somebody with an Ivy League education is preferred since only they are smart enough to hold such power. They must look good on TV and be respected by other players on the world stage so they don’t embarrass us. They also have to speak well to soothe us and make us feel comfortable after convincing us that they feel our pain and want to help us enjoy life.  Image and perception are everything as long as the economy is good and we are safe from all harms including natural disasters like hurricanes and dirty water. Risks are to be eliminated and the federal government is the ultimate safety net for everybody. Everybody should be equally happy.

I know that’s a light-hearted, broad-brushed view of things; however, I feel it does point out many core differences between liberals and conservatives. What do you think?

A liberal friend asked me to read an article entitled “Insanity” by DarkSyde at The Daily Kos and pointed out that he thinks it pretty much sums up how most liberals feel about the past 8 years and what this election is about.  I found the article cleverly written and coming from an unusual angle.  It made me stop and think because on a foundational level I actually agree with a some of the broad assessments made in this article even though many of them are grossly exaggerated.

Republicans are often blamed for all the nation’s problems of the past 8 years. I concur that the GOP has been part of the problem for 4 of the past 8 years; however, remember, the Senate was evenly divided when Bush was elected and then 1 GOP member switched to Independent and caucassed with the Democrats so the GOP didn’t control both houses until 2003 and then lost in 2007 after the 2006 election cycle. In fairness to Republicans though, during the 4 years of complete GOP control, Democrats have blocked and/or watered-down virtually all Republican proposed solutions to the problems this article blames them for.

However, in spite of the problems, the overall issue is bigger than simply who controls Washington. The underlying problem in Washington, as I see it, is systemic and part of human nature. It’s something our Founding Fathers were aware of and repeatedly divided government in an attempt to mitigate. It’s simply this: Power corrupts. It doesn’t take a rocket scientists to see that both parties are now corrupt. That doesn’t mean that all members in both parties are corrupt but that the system is corrupt with power. There’s a creeping loss of individual rights and personal liberty every year regardless of which party is in power.

So that brings me to my next point. Since both parties are corrupt and there’s no third party that stands a chance at winning this election cycle, what am I to do as a voter?  I feel I must take the path of less damage and that’s why I am going with the Republican Party.  Most everything listed in the “Insanity” article would have occurred regardless of who was in power — 9/11, the mortgage crisis, a weak economy, Wall Street corruption, etc.; however, each party responds to these problems differently. While both parties continue to pass legislation that reduces my individual liberties and erodes my rights, I feel the Democrats are more restrictive and erode them faster.  For example, I’m a business owner and employer. Democrats want to tell me how to hire and fire and what kind of pay and benefits I have to offer my employees. Republicans restrict my ownership rights in these areas also but not as much. Democrats go so far as to try to require faith-based organizations like churches to hire people who hold beliefs contrary to the positions the church espouses (imagine being forced to hire an atheist for a church outreach program).

Both parties take huge amounts of taxes, but Democrats are more greedy with my money than Republicans.  Both parties create ridiculous “entitlement” programs but Democrats create more and bigger ones.  And on issues of national security, do you really think the defense-cutting Democrats would do a better job protecting us from the “fundamentalist Sunni Monarchs and the communist Chinese” as the “Insanity” article blames Republicans for turning our national economic future over to? (I have an answer for dealing with the Sunni Monarchs: Drill Here! Drill Now! but that’s for another article.)

The shipping of jobs oversees has been going on for decades and didn’t slow down under Democratic Presidents Carter or Clinton.  If the Democrats succeed in taxing corporations for “excessive profits” that will force them to leave our borders — it’s like killing the goose who lays the golden egg. The result would be reduced overall tax revenues and a weaker economy as more jobs are lost.

The article concludes with “Conservatives are worried that Democrats might do the same astonishingly lousy job Republicans have done for the last eight years.”  Actually, I’m concerned that the Democrats’ overall job performance would be far worse than the poor one performed by recent Republicans. This constant concern is one reason why I actually have some excitement about the McCain/Palin ticket since both have proven records of taking on corrupt government and private interests including ones in their own party.  Can the Obama/Biden ticket demonstrate taking on their own party ever for anything?

I think there will be less government growth under a McCain administration than an Obama administration. We don’t need more and bigger government and so I will vote against its expansion whenever I can.

Note: In this post I’m ignoring a host of social issues that also put me more in line with the Republican Party. That’s for another article and another day.

What follows is kind of a “stream of consciousness” rant based on my reactions from Barack Obama’s Acceptance Speech last night during the Democratic National Convention.

After Obama’s speech last night I was very disappointed in him. Honestly, I saw the night as historic and wanted to enjoy the moment 45 years after Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. I expected to hear an uplifting speech that talked about the greatness of America. In spite of my reservations regarding Obama’s vision and viewpoints on many issues, I was prepared to take pride in the process and a nation that could overcome slavery and racial prejudice to consider a minority for the highest office in the land. However, in spite of my best intentions, Obama turned me off and actually made me angry.

For starters, you can’t give 95% of families a tax cut when a huge percentage of them pay nothing in taxes. He simply lied since it’s impossible. How can you cut somebody’s taxes who doesn’t pay taxes? Obama likes to criticize George W. Bush but at least Bush told the truth when he said everybody who paid taxes would get a tax cut. If elected, Obama will have to cut taxes on “the rich” to even partially keep that 95% pledge. (See here for a chart breaking down who pays taxes — note the bottom 50% of income earners pay less than 3% of federal income taxes and the top 1% pay almost 40%!)

You can’t tax the rich enough to pay for and simultaneously grow the economy enough to do everything Obama promised last night. What I heard was old-fashioned, liberalism politics as usual and I hated it.  He painted a very dark and exaggerated picture of my country and then promised to fix it.  Remember all the “I will” statements?  It’s not his money to spend as he sees fit. And then there was that crazy political promise to end our dependency on foreign oil in 10 years while only hinting at the possibility of drilling. That’s impossible unless we rapidly increase supply or remove about half the cars in the country.

As a small business owner I shuddered to think of what he’s planning to do to people who produce goods and services and hire others.  He can paint a sad picture of people losing their jobs from being sick, etc. but it’s not business’ responsibility to hire people. That’s a by-product. It’s business’ responsibility to fulfill their responsibilities and obligations to their customers. We all don’t like delays. Take an airline, for example. A pilot or mechanic or whatever cannot continually not show up for work, whatever the good reasons may be, and expect to keep his or her job.  It’s not the airline’s responsibility to protect his or her job. It’s their responsibility to fly people safely.

How is Obama going to fix all those human problems he mentioned and promised to address without taking away my freedoms to spend my money, hire as I wish, and live life as I choose?  He was talking lies and socialism. I was so disappointed. For most of this election cycle I actually wanted him to win over Hilary but I found my respect for her grow (very little I might add but in comparison to Obama it was growth) as his speech went on. I kept thinking “how are you going to do that?” — especially in a free society. I don’t want to be Sweden or even Canada. It’s not the federal government’s job to be everybody’s safety net — let the states and local governments (or faith groups) do that if they choose but don’t make me pay for another botched bureaucracy.

We already have universal healthcare — have you ever seen somebody turned away from a hospital?  I’ve never been asked for money up front and still get good treatment. Why should I ask the government to get involved and further mess that arrangement up?  What has the federal government done, really, to improve anything on a national level like education or healthcare that couldn’t have been done better on the local level if the resources were available? Instead, the federal government takes local resources in the form of huge taxes and then politically spends them with lots of waste and bumbling. The local level is left to fight for the scraps with the hope that our “guys in Washington” bring some largess back to us.  It’s madness. Let’s skip the middleman and avoid the federal feeding frenzy.

Let the federal government do their Constitutional requirements and leave the state/local governments to the rest.  Why don’t the liberals complain about the abuse of the Constitution by the trampling of states rights?  I’m really angry about this and very frustrated at Obama’s squandering of his Convention. I had hope for the Democratic Party and was excited about the prospects of post-racial politics but instead I saw politics as usual. I’m willing to trust a maverick McCain and a non-Washington insider hockey mom who has shown success on the state and local level and who knows what it is like to have a son deployed to Iraq, to have 5 kids, to have owned/operated a business, to have a child with special needs, and to succeed in spite of all those things. I’m ready for change but it’s not coming from Obama/Biden (who in spite of what they say vote about 90% of the time with McCain since most Senate votes are nearly unanimous for naming post offices and other almost meaningless things).

This brings me to my final rant. When will the Democratic Party stop emphasizing the single mom without healthcare and talk about “normal people” like me?  When will they highlight somebody who actually has a traditional family and works and achieves something?  When will the Democrats care about those who take risks and succeed and pay taxes and produce and hire other people and then stay up at night figuring out how to make payroll and quarterly taxes and workman’s comp, etc. and hope there is enough after all the bills to pay themselves? I’m tired of hearing about victims all the time and not at least occasionally about people who make the country work. Even those rare Democratic examples of success are somehow made into victims. Our troops are mentioned and then simultaneously matched in the same sentence with some kind of combat stress disorder. The truck driver is lauded for owning his own truck finally but yet he has no health insurance.  What about the truck driver who is successful because he lives in America? What about the military hero who beat the enemy and adjusted well to society and is now a successful airline pilot or football coach?  What about what’s good with America?  Why can’t we be proud of success and wealth instead of lowering the bar and taking from the rich to give to the poor?

I want everyone to succeed and be rich. Remove the barriers and let people innovate and succeed. When they do they hire others and pay taxes and lift their communities, states and ultimately the nation. Let’s be excited about our opportunities and aim for the stars!