WHY HATRED OF TIM TEBOW

People all over the country are aware of the attention recently of the young Denver Bronco quarterback who openly mentions his religion and gives thanks to God for his athletic talent. That’s humble enough. Tebow certainly wishes ill to no one. Michael Medved (WSJ, Jan 14-15, 2012, A13) sited several sources of organized negative activity and actual hatred (TebowHaters.com), which is surprising and disturbing. Why are they adamantly pursuing such negative attacks? What do they expect to gain? Is it vanity or attempts to justify their own less than honorable pursuits?  I believe this represents a small minority of people with a distorted concept of respect for others, whether for anti-religious reasons or envy of wealthy persons. Thankfully, the majority of Americans still mind their own business.

In the same article Mr. Medved mentions a quote from one of his friends regarding the “Romney clan”, “All those handsome, perfectly controlled, wealthy teetotalers with their gorgeous wives – I wanted to vomit. There was something unearthly about it. Like some weird superior race on the planet Krypton.”

To some nerdy, undisciplined person, good character, self-control, ‘clean and handsome with gorgeous wives’ is “unearthly?” Have they not heard of positive outlook, good conscience, self-control, good health, no VD or drugs or “strong drinks,” desire for education and looking forward to earning one’s own way for a comfortable and secure life? It is hard to believe that such tripe could even be uttered in regard to positive upbringing of good citizens and desirable families. Such negative thinking is a distortion worthy of idiocy.

Ah, the vagaries of free speech!

David L. Wood, M.D., Long Beach, CA, Jan. 14, 2012

THE UNINCLUDED TAXPAYER

Increasingly one reads the deplorable, irresponsible and weakly-attempted justification in government spending; namely, “the taxpayer is on the hook for the difference,” or “it’ll soak tax-payer dollars,” or “the taxpayers lose again.”  The “tax-payer” designation is bandied around in such a way as to imply a helpless sympathy about an ‘inevitable and unavoidable’ political expenditure, usually of very large proportion. This is supposed to legitimize the action as though it were not only good but regrettably necessary.

The momentously-huge government outlay of almost four trillion dollars in the mere three years of the Democrat political dominance under the Obama regime has been phenomenal if not abominable. What makes it even more unpalatable and unwieldy is the call for ever-higher taxation to attempt to pay for it all at the expense of the present and the future generations of tax-payers. Who could have thought thirty years ago that the degree of political arrogance could reach the huge proportion of ideology-driven self-aggrandizement that we see today? Admittedly, the momentous wealth generated by this great nation has produced enormous tax revenue that could seem ‘endless’ to the undisciplined individual(s) put in the enviable position of expected responsibility for the nation’s security and beneficial stewardship of its prosperity. Still, the enormous, unrestricted borrowing against future revenues from necessarily high, if not impossible, taxation is unforgivable.

The further distortion of the American tradition of free-market capitalism and individual responsibility by the faulty ideology of collectivism is the severe attack by Obama upon private property and those who have achieved high incomes by hard work. These are the destructive concepts of class warfare and wealth redistribution of Marxism, which are so effectively hurled by Mr. Obama and his cohorts. Thus, the tax-generated wealth of this country is now being used to attack its very structure and citizens by clever subterfuge and with deceitful and erroneous pronouncements of the state of employment and destructive business-restrictive regulations that actually hinder the country. The deceit is artfully presented to benefit the so-called ‘middle class.’ This country has been a classless society until Mr. O has chosen to call “middle class” the middle-income majority part of our society.

Sadly, the tax-payers (you and I) are taking a totally undeserved attack and beating at the hands of an undesirable and proven historically-failed philosophy as propounded by a man driven by that very ideology.

David L. Wood, M.D., Long Beach, CA, January 13, 2012

ENTERTAINMENT vs. LEARNING

It seems today we are surrounded by new electronic gems that allow some form of faster communication from simple wireless phones to phones that receive and send emails, and from which we can ‘text’ or ‘twitter’ and take photos (both still and video). We also have extensive wireless items including laptops, iPads, iPods, and new hand-held phone capabilities. Add to this, movies in movie theaters, in Netflix, and on TV. On TV alone there are now hundreds of 24-hour channels on which one can watch news, sports of all kinds, soap operas, quiz games, and any manner of entertainment as well a few educational and history channels. Kids and many young people are fascinated by and busy with the overabundance of action games. There is such a plethora of time-consuming material, one may wonder, how does one find time for productive activity, education, meals, shopping and work or time to think? A person must use a lot of goal-directed will power to use one’s time wisely.

The passive nature of the vastly time-consuming diversion coming in from so many directions could leave little, if any, time for original creativity.  Today, so very much is visual and digitalized that there is inexhaustible material to occupy our time and minds away from creative thinking. This means, if we give in to the ease of being entertained, our minds can become passive. I believe there are likely many who now follow the easy and fun-time consumption. Lack of in-depth thinking is likely one reason why so much opinion can be swayed and influenced by “good-sounding” political ideas and promises.

The standard of living in the United States has become very comfortable with available water, toilets, transportation of all kinds, houses and apartments plus clothing and other necessities. True, there are homeless and the need for charity and food kitchens, yet the easy government entitlement programs together with the vast surrounding diversion available, combine for large numbers of people to become dependent and easily influenced.

The political scene is now front stage filled with vague but wonderful-sounding promises presented by politicians in their attempts to garner votes and ultimately political office. Critical thinking is so necessary today because of the seriousness of the recent alterations in the liberties, which were visualized and earned by our founders and forefathers in the up-to-now success of the true free-market capitalism and its wealth creation.

Responsible citizens can only hope that enough thinking ability remains in our citizenry that best decisions can be made by enough people to differentiate the vague political promises vs. reality in the up-coming political campaigns.  Hopefully, capable and experienced people with a healthy understanding of the proved and strong economic, moral, and societal basics of our successful nation can be elected to lead us into greater financial stability and national security after the November 2012 elections.

David L. Wood, M.D., Long Beach, CA, Jan. 3, 2012

IS NEGATIVITY A PLUS?

The present prolonged political build-up to the November 2012 presidential election is replete with negative accusations and ‘digging up’ missteps and non-events in order to bring discredit to opposing-party candidates or even same-party competing office seekers.

It is astounding in this country to observe the colossal negativity of the left-wing Democrat party supporters and like-minded media commentators who openly believe in collectivism and big government control over the society and its financial system. Their behavior to support the attack upon the successful, entrepreneurial system that developed this great nation is extensive and loudly vocal and is having a devastatingly advance in its reduction and suppression of productivity and employment opportunities of our economy. It has been propounded by language that sounds like the vocabulary of capitalistic growth and opportunity but with the terrible observable results in the socialist systems of nations past (Communist Soviet union and its satellites) and the socialist influence on many of today’s European nations.

This all leads to the negative campaign against all who favor conservative ideals and supporters of the Constitution and free-market mechanisms. The Democrat performance has been so dismal that they cannot rationally support the depressive results of their policies and the devastating pressure on the banking system in the huge “affordable housing” debacle and its global economic effects, so they resort to personal destructive attacks on people and business institutions that are actually responsible for the high standard of living enjoyed by all (even the “poor”). There is just no basis for a rational defense of their position and its outcomes. They are thus reduced to the position of negative assault upon what they see as opposition to their ‘vaunted’ position. That position is held by a very large number of politicians, media, and indoctrinated students in our present public education system.

President Obama and his Democrat cohorts in government and much of the media claim that their program is “American.” What they mean is that they project what, in their view, America should be; not what it is nor what it took to become what it is. The “change” envisioned by candidate Obama was vastly different from what he deceitfully implied in his speeches that were designed to exploit the fiscally unsound programs voted by the previous regime in Washington DC. His program and his presidential power have been devoted to the proposition that the country he grew up in has been wrong and must be changed so all are more “equal” in possessions, and the “rich” must be reduced and their ‘excessive’ earnings (at the expense of others) be redistributed “more equally.” Still his speeches continue to sound encouraging and as if he favors growth and creation of jobs. The frightening aspect of his actions is the wide extent of such nationalizing thinking and acceptance of it in the US today.

The degree of attack upon all who are “conservative” and believe in individual responsibility (Tea-partiers and conservative people now seeking office) is disturbing because of the huge amount of it. A new verb has emerged; namely, to “Bork” or to “be Borked.”  It grew out of the conjured-up character assassination of Judge Robert Bork who had been nominated for a Supreme Court position by President Reagan. Judge Bork’s rejection by the powerful liberal contingency in Congress was the basis for the new verb. The Liberals just could not allow a judge to be nominated who disagreed with affirmative action and abortion and who might influence the court to be more conservative.

Another, more recent perpetrated attack by the liberal media on Republican (conservative) candidate for president, Herman Cain, are the vague accusations of sexual harassment by “unnamed” accusers. This is worse than atrocious, but it has a potentially very negative effect

The early negativity is taking two main directions. First, are the fervent personal character attacks. Second, are the hysterical, stirred-up mobs of, and violence by, demanding students and anti-establishment dissidents “Occupy Wall Street” and occupying main streets in many states, notably in Oakland, California, where so many of these unruly people are destroying property, urinating in the streets and illegally occupying private and public property. It appears that much of the organization and encouragement of this activity is coming from high Democrat places including Acorn, which is now urgently shedding sheaves of documents after being exposed.

These methods of distraction are effective in diverting attention away from facing debate on facts and results of the basic Democrat large, but unproductive and destructive, big-government agenda in this long election campaign.

In summary, there are two basic philosophical systems at loggerheads today. The one, which has historically failed in all instances of use in nations past and present, but, through indoctrination and deceitful propagation, still enjoys the support of a very large number of people who call themselves “liberal;” and that is collectivism or rightly titled, “socialism.”  The other is the economic system of capitalism in a free republic, where individual freedom exists under conditions of liberty. It doesn’t have to indulge in monstrous negativity.

My answer to the question of this paper’s title is, no.

It is discouraging and appalling to me to observe the amount of repugnant political attacks instead of concentrating on debating positive achievements and plans that will produce support of political candidates in the important 2012 election.

David L. Wood, M.D., Long Beach, CA, November 5, 2011.

OPPOSING DEFINITIONS

It is an astounding phenomenon that the Congress can embark on an ever-expanding spending binge, involving borrowed and uncollected revenue, and then piously declaring that taxes must be increased to cover the liabilities.  Citizens’ complaints are then usually fended off by declaring the contenders to be “biased” or “racial” or “conservative” (with a sneering demeanor) as if citizens are all wrong or off base or ungrateful. Oh my, how the government leaders’ emphasis has changed from serving and doing the people’s will to serving their political party’s agenda.

The Democrat and the Republican definitions of “taking the country back” have diametrically opposed definitions.  The Democrats insist that the “progressive” (collective) concept is the best means of societal organization and must be “taken back” to it. The Republicans reject the coerced socialist changes brought on by the present regime and truly want to restore the altered result and intent of the founding fathers’ system of individual freedoms and free-exchange capitalism.

We should be reminded or made aware of six-time presidential candidate for President of the US, Norman Thomas’ quotation from a speech he made in 1944:

    “The American people will never knowingly accept socialism. But, under the name of  
    ‘liberalism,’ they will accept every fragment of the socialist program, until one day
    America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”

Norman Thomas went on to say, “I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democrat Party has adopted our program.”

My immediate thought on the matter is: How arrogant and thoroughly dishonest to promote an historically-failed system on this great nation by means of deception and subterfuge! Sadly the gradualness employed and the stealthy infiltration of the school (and higher education) system has been astoundingly successful in brain-altering such a high percentage of this country’s youth and young adults.

To observe today the demonstrations and riots of the degenerate thinking-into-action of so many misguided and miseducated people is discouraging and disgusting at best.

Ah, the prescience of Benjamin Franklin’s statement: “We have established a Republic, if you can keep it.”

David L. Wood, M.D., Long Beach, CA, Oct. 10, 2011.

FAIR SHARE?

Isn't it astounding that the continuous invective of Pres. Obama and his media sycophants continue to shout, "The super-rich must pay their 'fair share?'"   But, what is "fair share?"  The 'super-rich' already are paying a disproportionate amount of the income tax. Is it "fair" that forty-seven percent of the citizenry pay no income tax?  Every citizen, regardless of income should pay income tax. Paying nothing is only for vote-getting. The whole scene is ludicrous, if not destructive. Add to this scenario the ridiculous huge spending spree by the liberal Democrats, and it adds up to a most serious and precarious situation for this great nation.

It can only change when the composite of responsible US citizens act in concert and vote to throw out the erroneously-believing and -acting government liberals.

David L. Wood, Long Beach, CA, Sept. 23. 2011

REDUCE UNNECESSARY PUBLIC AGENCIES

On September 1, 2011, Thomas Elias wrote in Comment (Press-Telegram, p. A11), “Prop. 13 changes could become a necessity.” Historically, Proposition 13 was passed in 1978 by popular vote.  However, regulations and definitions governing its enforcement are different; so, adopted in 1979, they can be changed by state legislators by legislative vote.

Mr. Cohen mentions that threats of state budget shortfalls could lead to disruptions of government functions, such as further layoffs of police, firefighters, teachers, and sewer workers, etc.

I find it hugely disingenuous continuously to list essential public servants who must be affected if enough tax money isn’t collected to keep them operating. Conveniently never mentioned are the 459 California State agencies that require state funding. Just reading that formidable list is tiring, and one wonders why they exist in the first place.  Yet reducing the funding for these (or eliminating even half of them) could leave the “essentials” alone. This, of course, might disrupt political agenda expediency, so those agencies must remain untouched.

The bullying threats to essential servants, when hundreds of amazingly unimportant-sounding, funded agencies exist, represent an out-of-control bureaucratic attitude that must be changed. The answer does not lie in claiming the necessity of adding to the private and business tax burdens.

David L. Wood, September 8, 2011

HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY

Since the inception of this country, responsible parents have taught: 1. Honesty is the best policy, and 2. If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.

Barak Obama became the 44th President of the United States by subtle misrepresentation of himself in a carefully  orchestrated campaign by sounding ‘moderate,’ and ‘middle-of-the-road’ in terms of changing the then-perceived financial mismanagement of a Democrat majority Congress but under a Republican President.

Hitler did not come to power by announcing that he would cause the destruction of Germany. He came to power to bring “change.” Obama did not come to power by announcing that he would destroy capitalism, yet if the Big O is successful in reducing the US economic system that too will be destructive.

Today, the most glaring example of on-going deception is found in the present President of the United States, Barak H. Obama. He has lied about taxes. He has lied about reducing the deficit. He has lied about spending. He has lied about the budget. There are sheaves of information that expose his deception. Many commentators insist that he is a radical socialist. But, Dinesh D’Souza, author of The Roots of Obama’s Rage, reaches the researched conclusion that he (Obama) is carrying out his father’s anti-colonial belief, using socialism, and that Western countries (including the US) are to blame for the retardation o South African nations and must be punished.

B. Obama spoke frequently, yet vaguely, of “change.” Audiences believed he meant “change to fiscal responsibility,” but to himself he meant “total economic system change” (away from capitalism to socialism). His rhetorical deliveries with his teleprompter were very convincing, using words that sounded encouraging of returning to positive frugality, etc. Certainly, when reflecting on that Congress of 2008, one must also include the many Republicans who did not keep their promises of holding down spending.

The US is an honest nation, and it opposes fraud. Yet it has been tricked into believing that the “change” and “hope” proclaimed by Mr. Obama would be for its benefit.

In reality, Obama was cleverly misleading people’s hopes that here was a man that would return them to positive growth once more, away from the mounting debt of the “fiscal irresponsibility of the Republicans.” All his hopeful appeal, we can now see, was to get into power in order to accomplish his cleverly-hidden agenda of installing socialism in America under the guise of ‘election mandate.’ This was why Mr. Rush Limbaugh said from the beginning of B. Obama’s presidency, “I hope he fails . . . in his projected changing of America into a Europe-like socialist country.”

Mr. Obama knew that the majority of this country is basically conservative. The man eloquently campaigned for the presidency by touting “change” and “hope” using language that sounded ‘conservative’ (or at least “middle-of-the-road” between liberalism and conservatism) in order to capitalize upon the correctly-perceived public who were disenthralled with the then Republican assurances of fiscal responsibility in Washington.
In the last year of George W. Bush’s presidency, the Democrats and many Republicans overspent and even set up TARP money for large financial and manufacturing corporations. The people wanted a change in what they observed was the fiscal unreliability in Congress, and Mr. O. promised “transparency” and “bringing together the opposing factors of government” in Washington DC. He has disingenuously brought just the opposite.

In true socialist tradition, Obama used words in 2008 that were understood one way by the great voting American public, but which for him had very different and calculated meanings. We now can see the malevolent direction he intended by the very actions he has taken in the first two years of office since his inauguration, and those actions were supported by his majority of liberal members of both houses of Congress.

Since Mr. Obama was sworn in as President, his liberal-biased news media have continually spewed misinformation, and this has misled millions of people who have depended on the media for accurate news.

Finally, it is clear why he and his biased media and the liberal, left-wing congressional majority are ignoring the “will of the people” because truthfully revealing their real intent prior to the election would have insured certain defeat. They never did intend to follow the will of the people. His planned program constitutes the greatest internal attack upon our capitalistic system that has ever been mounted, and he is doing so by subterfuge and fraud. B. Obama must act to ignore the will of the majority of this nation’s responsible citizenry in order to carry out his agenda of “change” because honesty will defeat him.

Socialism means subjugation of the individual to the state. US citizens do not want to be subjugated. However, the welfare state and the power of deciding the amount, and even the kind of medical care people can have, are principle parts of the subjugation of people to the state.

It is slowly, but painfully, clear that the President is pursuing the implementation of his belief in his concept of “social justice,” which means the change into the Marxist system of societal organization as taught by Saul Alinsky and the Communist Manifesto. The term “social justice” is nothing more than a euphemistic statement in an inaccurate attempt to justify the confiscating (stealing) of citizens’ honestly-earned private property to redistribute it in the form of an entitlement to the non-working “poor.”

It is truly sad that the insidious creeping in of the destructive philosophical system could so thoroughly have infiltrated our nation’s schools and universities to gradually indoctrinate such a large number of well-meaning students into believing its one-sided presentation without at least learning the basics or the history of this great nation, and its founding, tradition, and true economic system of honest and productive, free-exchange capitalism.

The President is weakening our country in economic and national-protection ways and is using deceptive language to do so. With the continued use of terms that describe positive concepts of the free-market economy, Mr. Obama lulls the voters into believing that he is trying to put people back to work. He makes statements like “We must create jobs,” then he proposes to circumvent the Congress by planning to create a new “Department of Jobs.” Mr. O. is falsified by his actions of colossal weakening of the economy by huge overspending and continual pressure to increase taxes. Income and wealth-producing job creation can only be accomplished by the private sector. O’s activity is the suppression of the private economy with high taxes and regulations, but that is not what he vocalizes.

The campaign promises of “transparency,” “bipartisanship,” and “no tax increases for middle-class Americans” are just three of the many promises by Barak Obama in his pre-election campaign, but these he has assiduously broken. As soon as he ‘won,’ He proved the falsehood of his promises by working rapidly to produce programs of enormous cost and control, all by secret planning and writing (behind locked doors) and not only without bipartisan support but also without inclusion of input by any Republican.

The on-going pronouncements to ‘sell’ the Democrat programs, such as the $800,000 ‘Stimulus Bill’ were inaccurate, misleading, and downright deceitful. That bill has been unsuccessful and has been used for purposes other than those claimed. Voters have defeated clearly-stated socialist programs in the past. The technique of say-anything-to-get-elected was clearly spelled out in the writings of the communist writer, Saul Alinsky, who was admired by B. Obama.

Those who reviewed and now read the whole extensive legislation of Obamacare have discovered that the positive-sounding claims in ‘selling’ this bill were colossally untrue. The fraud and deceit that were necessary by the President and his party had to be for political control and are totally unrelated to true doctor-patient medicine.

Here is a list of many of the regulatory government intrusions and controls of medical care:
1.    mountains of mandatory regulations
2.    85 lay committee and agency intrusions into professional physician’s evaluations (diagnoses) and treatments
3.    government control of payments for treatment based upon cost and age rather than medical needs; that spells rationing of medical and end-of-life care
4.    cancer hospitals will ration care according to the patient’ age
5.    Government will impose a prohibition on hospital expansion.
6.    government reduction and control of payments to physicians regardless of specialty
7.    The government will set doctors’ fees.
8.    will provide insurance to all non-US residents, even if they are here illegally
9.    destruction of the private medical insurance companies and mandates the purchase of the government single-payer insurance or face being fined
10.    Those on Social Security will be required to attend an “end-of-life-planning” (death counseling) seminar every five years.
11.    The government will specify which doctors can write an end-of-life order.
12.    controls of pharmacological and medical research by lay political committees
13.    The government will subsidize medical care for all union members, union retirees, and for community organizations (such as ACORN)
14.    Medicare Advantage plans, which cover 25 percent of seniors will be cut in half.
15.    From Medicare, almost half a trillion dollars will be taken out to help cover expenses of this projected Obamacare.
16.    new taxation on capital gains, and a 3.8 percent tax on the sale of your home in 2013. [This is not related to medical care.]
17.    The government will have real-time access to an individual’s bank account and will have the authority to make electronic fund transfers from those accounts. [This is not related to medical care.]
18.    This bill will NOT apply to members of Congress.

This bill is totally extraneous to the free exchange of doctor-patient relationship for medical treatment and care. In the free market when a purchase is made, it is over. However, in this 2000-plus page, ‘new’ law, the controls are continuous. There is a one-word description of this bill: it is PREPOSTEROUS!

Be gradual deception and creeping, the successful system of economic freedom and individual responsibility that built this nation is being attacked. The push is to try to change the economy, by redistribution of wealth, into a subservient and economic “equality” of citizens. Socialism is the greatest case of major deception that has ever been devised or known. It clearly demonstrates the concept of intellectual dishonesty. People do not accept socialism when the truth about it is factually presented.

To quote a great statesman, Winston Churchill: “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy; its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery . . .”

Democrats, posing as paternally concerned, beguile great numbers if people into feeling and thus into non-thinking.

To reach a correct conclusion, one must start with true premises and use valid logic. Rare is the person who masters this lesson. Unfortunately, the lesson is largely unlearned or circumvented. Open discussion of two sides of questions used to be the basis of open debate of issues in colleges, but in the last few decades, in most of our institutions of higher learning, a rigid, one-sided presentation of collectivist philosophy (Marxist) has been unilaterally advanced. Anything to the contrary is ridiculed in derogatory terms and suppressed. This has resulted in large numbers of higher-educated people believing and mouthing that belief and opinion while at the same time disdaining anything they associate with “conservative.” This biased thinking is reflected in so much of the printed and verbal media of today and is proclaimed in such a way as to degrade any opposing idea.

Too many politicians break or bend the rules of accurate and logical thinking to further their own agendas or careers. Still, honesty cannot be quantified! A concept, belief, or an idea is honest, or it is not. What a dismay to realize that many politicians today act as if they believe that if the size of a transaction is very large, then the honesty of it isn’t important.

To be in a position of power, modern liberal politicians, by conscious design and political gamble, use untruth, innuendos, criticisms, and obstructions to obtain their objectives. Even the present Al Qaida titular head, Zawahiri, makes self-serving, fatuous statements like, “The United States is the criminal of the world.” In the 1960s, radical, collective activists assumed the less-threatening labels of “liberal,” “progressive,” and “populist” because the designation “socialist” was held in contempt.

Following the early August 2011 Republican presidential candidates’ first debate, the question was asked, “What happened to Obama?” Norman Podhoretz (WSJ, Aug. 13-14, p. A13) answered “Nothing happened to him. He is still the same anti-American leftist he was before becoming our president, and it is this rather than inexperience or incompetence or weakness or stupidity that accounts for the richly-deserved failure both at home and abroad of the policies stemming from that reprehensible cast of mind.” (Italics mine)

It is heartening to see that large numbers of Americans, for example, tea-partiers, are seeing through the erudite Democrat subterfuge and are making their observations widely known. Polls indicate that large numbers of Americans believe as the tea-partiers but have remained silent. The answer for significant change to take place is for those “silent,” conservative people to inform themselves accurately from non-biased sources which speak rationally and factually. Informed voters are more reliable than just emotional voters. Responsible citizens understand the real meaning of preserving the true values of the United States Government “by the people” and “for the people.”

When enough responsible citizens work unitedly, then this negative, egalitarian experiment of changing beliefs and institutions in this country can be short-lived and temporary.  In the 2012 election, one can only conjecture what will happen if droves of union-member voters together with dead voters, pets, and illegal aliens are brought to voting booths in great aggregates to outnumber reliable citizens.

David L. Wood, M.D., Long Beach, CA, August 29, 2011

THE US’ BIGGEST PROBLEM

David Limbaugh (Aug 9, 2011) rightly describes “spending” as “just our second biggest problem.” The first biggest problem he observes “is a stubborn, defiant lack of will on the part of President Obama and his Democrats to join Republicans in implementing reforms.” I must ask, why would rationally-thinking individuals expect Mr. O to favor any endeavor to reverse his so cleverly-imposed intentions?

Can you not see that implementing reforms for what he and his Democrat cohorts have elaborately accomplished is exactly what he does not want?  His excuses and his blatant ‘job-creating’ speeches are merely smoke screen to misdirect and delay attempts to disrupt his intended outcomes.

Blame, blame, blaming is just a mechanism of covering Pres. Obama’s intent and to impose his belief in socialist mechanisms as a means of imposing the “change” that he so eloquently proclaimed. B. Obama knows only class warfare and blame projection. He surmises that redistribution of wealth is what is needed to humble and ‘correct’ this nation’s “imperialism” and “wrongly-acquired wealth.” He must accomplish his changes. Altering them is not in his thinking.

He brought himself to power by devious and downright fraudulent, misleading speech, pretending to sound middle-of-the-road and ready to bring financial moderation to the earlier administration’s overspending. Liberals getting “what they want” requires misguiding voters and potential conservative opposition by good-sounding rhetoric to divert or throw off the thinking that could mobilize to thwart their intended plans. Parenthetically, their rhetoric has not fooled the large numbers of plain citizens who make up the “Tea-Party.”

By overspending, by being in favor of giving housing money to millions of people who had no means to repay those loans, by the deceptive “stimulus” billions, the bailout (controlling) of many large financial and automotive companies, the favorable laws and presidential edicts for labor unions, the huge increases in the size of the government and its regulations, the monumentally huge national debt, and much more, are proof of his true intentions by what he does. In the light of the founding and history of moral-capitalistic growth of this nation, Mr. Obama’s actions, in my opinion, are greatly criminal, and all ‘justified’ by deceptive, yet ‘proper,’ pro-business-sounding speech through reading his teleprompter.

Add to all that anti-capitalism the obsequious bowing to foreign enemy dignitaries and working to lower the military budget plus countermanding the recommendations of our generals, are further proof of his desire to weaken this country. Maybe Mr. Rick Perry should have leveled his accusation of “treason” at the President instead of the Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke.

Not ever before have I been inspired and motivated to write my observations about the major US national executive like I am now. But, never before in my lifetime has such blatant fraudulence been perpetrated in this country by any national politician with so much destructive results from his philosophy and coercive performance.

My purpose here is to expose the true cause of the wide-spread distress experienced now across the nation. It has been imposed by conscious intent. It is unconscionable and unnecessary, yet it is real. Like all non-functioning phenomena, understanding the causes is the only way to determine a solvable problem and a workable solution. That solution must work in November 2012.

David L. Wood, M.D., Long Beach, CA, August 23, 2011

PERSONAL vs. POLITICAL MODUS OPERANDI

In the country of the United States where individual liberty and freedom are emphasized and idealized as well as fought for, it is natural for people to try to improve themselves by education, training, and experience in order to improve their lives and standard of living. Learning by making and correcting mistakes is part of that experience. It is simply human nature to seek gain in whatever we do.

The prime role of parents is to guide and teach children the rules of successful living at home, at school, and in society. The selfish desires of childhood must be schooled to learn respect and concern for others and how to “get along” with the rules of a lawful society. Of course, the rules of good hygiene and diet contribute to the health and success of living.

These concepts are almost universally accepted, although differences of opinion and how to achieve those experiences exist. The freedom to choose is most important, and in this country such differences are approached peacefully.

The reason to reiterate this continual process of correcting mistakes and learning from those errors is that continuous growth and maturing is achieved by the improvements we make and not repeating mistakes. In private lives successes in education and in the work-place result from the solving of missteps and errors.

Most of us can take pride in becoming close to what we work for by continuing to enhance that which works and to correct past blunders. Nonetheless, the emphasis in politics is to search out past mistakes or past statements (though since changed) to attempt to degrade and embarrass a political opponent, as if those past actions comprised all that the person is today. The negative language can be crude and terribly negative and hurtful. Some party hacks go to great lengths to “dig up dirt” of past actions on opponents whom they try to degrade. This whole mechanism is so counter-productive, and it raises the question of the perpetrator’s abilities and potential positive actions if elected.

Generalizations are not always fair and inclusive, but today’s major difficulties, restrictions, and debt creations are the result of coercive performances by the very elected people of the national government to whom we have looked for providing orderly administration to help us improve our lives and standard of living and to keep us secure. It would make great sense to be more cautious and conscientious in checking the characters and intentions of those whom we elect.

David L. Wood, M.D., Long Beach, CA, August 3, 2011.

THE PROFESSION OF CONGRESS

A recent joke starts with the obvious: You know the difference between “pro” and “con?”
The answer, they are opposite. So, what is the opposite of progress?  Answer: Congress!

In the beginning (of the country) citizens voluntarily served in the House and the Senate, then they returned to their private means of support; namely, jobs and professions.  That has certainly changed. Over the history of the country, the situation has morphed into a more solid way to support oneself and insure a post-work comfortable income for retirement. Also, it has become a means of imposing what your party favors over what the majority of the citizenry wants. The latest huge example of legislation, passed by a party over the wishes of the majority of the citizens, is the mandated Obamacare.

The days of high motivation for the good of fellow citizens and the “good of the country” appear to have become a ‘legal’ way to impose a social belief system that a group of elected individuals want to promote. Benjamin Franklin answered a lady’s question regarding what the founding fathers had established by stating, “A Republic if you can keep it.” With the election of the present liberal President and a majority of his like-thinking government people plus his appointment of same-party employees, the application of redistribution of wealth, and the uncanny spending far beyond the intake of revenue have positioned this nation into a most precarious place of economic devastation. This is all in the name of the “progressive” (liberal) system of socialist belief.

In particular, since World War II the federalized school system has become modified to teach minimal and altered US History so that the genius of the system of freedom under the condition of liberty has been diluted and presented in such a way that large numbers of young future responsible citizens have been influenced to question their very loyalty to their country. So many ‘liberated’ 1960s people, who didn’t want to accept the responsibilities of authority and self-support and who believed the ‘progressive’ ideas of the Marxist thinking, became teachers and professors in the government-regulated educational system. Thus their contorted and perverted rationalizations have influenced so many young Americans away from individuality and love of liberty before those youths knew enough to compare alternatives and think for themselves.

The far-above-average, self-assigned medical and retirement benefits now in Congress are relatively rich rewards for working for government.  The earlier ideal of “serving the country” has changed to serving party and self. Though it is easy to discern the present situation, it is not so easy to change it. A good start was in November of 2010 by electing eager young Congressmen to control spending, and another is learning from former Florida Governor, Jeb Bush, in his improvement of the education system in his State.

Thank goodness there are some courageous individuals (for one, the present House Speaker) working to serve the interests of this United States and to change today’s misinterpretation of the true dynamics of the economic system that built this great nation.

David L, Wood, M.D., Long Beach, CA, July 23, 2011.

CRIMINALITY PURE AND SIMPLE

Underpinning a successful economy and societal structure is the importance of honesty and justice in the respect for and protection of private property. Any unlawful and coercive disruption or displacement of property by definition is termed criminal. Criminality is punished in this society. The greater the degree of lawbreaking, the greater the punishment!

Every new President of the United States is sworn in, with his hand on the Bible (to add solemnity and moral strength), by taking an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States. He thereby accepts the obligation and responsibility to act consistently with that sworn duty to protect the citizens of this country and their Constitution. It is not his privilege to act to change the basis of organization or the established and successful economic structure of the nation or weaken its security against its enemies.

In the first two years of the Obama Presidency,
1.    He and his cohort Democrats have doubled the National Debt, higher than all the administrations put together from the beginning of this nation till now.

2.    He has sued a State in the United States to force that State to allow Illegal Immigration.

3.    He has put a moratorium on off-shore oil drilling and thus put 87,000 workers out of work plus accentuated dependence on foreign oil.

4.    He has wastefully used revenue money arbitrarily to invest in inefficient and insufficient “renewable” sources of energy (sun, wind, and corn), which should be a normal function of private free-enterprise if they were profitable.

5.    He took over General Motors, unconstitutionally fired its CEO, and arbitrarily gave    
        labor unions a majority stake in GM ignoring the lawful interests and investments of
        stockholders.

6.    He filled his Cabinet and circle of advisers with people who could not keep current on their income taxes.

7.    His out-of-hand enormous spending bills and “stimulus” money have put   tremendous strain upon the value of the dollar, causing it to be devalued to the point that the IMF is now calling for the replacement of the US Dollar, as the World Reserve Currency.

8.    His policies have caused the US unemployment rate to be the highest since the
        Depression of the 1930s. The devalued dollar and the unemployment rate rob
        millions of families of their means of support (property). This amounts to a  
        criminality of huge proportion.

9.    His and his party’s passing the “Obamacare” against the will of the majority of the   
      American citizens is a form of forcibly (coercively) adding a huge monetary
      burden, which will require great increased taxation on this and future generations.

When large numbers of institutions and people clamor for and receive government-granted privilege as their ‘right,’ then one can concur with Frederic Bastiat, the nineteen-century economist, when he called this legal looting, “legal plunder.” When the government takes from the working population (taxation) to give to the non-working (or anyone else who didn’t earn it), then we experience a form of indirect stealing (as opposed to direct stealing of an individual’s property). According to Robert Nozick, when you tax away from someone the fruits of five months of his labor, it is ‘forced labor,’ a form of indirect stealing. Thomas E. Woods, Jr. writes that  we are taught to believe ‘indirect’ stealing is morally different from ‘direct’ stealing. Pres. Obama believes that huge escalation of taxes must be made to support his outlandish increases in spending, which is nothing more than ‘indirect’ stealing or ‘legal plunder.’

These observations are enough to recognize that by simple universal definitions (presented at the end of this writing) that huge displacement and destruction of private property has been and is taking place before our very eyes and perpetrated by the occupier of our highest office. Attributing all this to the President’s anti-colonial or socialist ideology, or his possible ignorance of economic history, or his total lack of executive experience matters little because the results of his actions are nonetheless disastrous and criminal.

Why isn’t anyone else putting this together and describing his actions for what they are?  Actions do speak louder than words. I know the tradition of this country has been to trust and respect the highest executive of our country, at least outwardly, to try to protect and further the interests of the people.  I realize that Presidents Wilson, FDR, Johnson, Carter, and Clinton had socialism tendencies, but never before has our nation experienced the extensive degree of the historically-unsuccessful collectivist agenda that we are seeing now.  Insulting the US’ strongest ally, Britain, by returning the earlier gift of a bust of Winston Churchill the day after his inauguration, does nothing to protect our foreign policy interest with England, and this weakens our security. His disregard for and treatment of Israel is another action to weaken our security abroad.

Numerous reports have been written regarding the fraudulent and deceptive speech Mr. Obama used to get elected and then to pass legislation unwanted by the majority of responsible citizens. His speeches only sound excellent because of a teleprompter. Socialist aims and policies have never been sold by honest disclosure but only by deception and outright lies.

The whole purpose of this paper is to recognize the overt, coercive offenses of this President’s actions against the development and ownership of private property, against this nation’s security, and against our independence. His deserved punishment must be left up to the decisions of my fellow citizens who must be his jury.  As for me, this man is guilty of high crimes against us and our property and therefore should face impeachment or recall for his abject forsaking of his sacred oath to our country and our Constitution.

PRIVATE PROPERTY – HOUSING

The United States of America was founded on the basic concepts of personal freedom and the importance of development and ownership of private property. The free market exchange between two entities or two individuals was the chosen economic system under the condition of protected liberty. The necessity to pay for what is purchased is the responsible and recognized feature of honest exchange.

Not before, to this extent in the history of this country, has the government taken this large a position to alter this market-exchange situation until the specter of “affordable housing” was introduced by Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank whereby the unnatural support was made by government for encouraging people of modest (and poor) means to purchase normally unaffordable houses by providing arbitrary government loans. These “poor” people could not afford to buy such housing without the arbitrary government loans (at taxpayers’ expense). This whole program of giving tax-revenue moneys on such a huge scale has led to unbelievable debt excess to the whole economic structure of the country. Also, it has led inevitably to the ultimate outright loss of a very high percentage of those unaffordable houses.

The “affordable”  program not only has been a failure, but part of the mechanism of political achievement was the verbal threats and intimidation by federal agencies to banks across the country if they didn’t adhere to the otherwise unsafe and unwise business of giving loans to people who could not afford to repay them. One bank in southern California paid the penalty of $500,000 rather than acquiesce to the aberrant request to make such loans. That bank preferred the outrageous payment instead of the likely far greater losses due to the coercive requirement of the political program. That type of false alternative is like the offer: “Which would you prefer, a broken arm or a broken leg?”

The housing market for both new and used homes at this time is many times lower than projected, and government intervention is to blame. What a shame that the federal government, the institution that was constructed to give protection to property and business production, has become the aggressor against them.

David L. Wood, M.D., Long Beach, CA, June 6, 2011.

President Obama’s Courageous Order

It has been a week since the president’s TV announcement of his order to take out Osama Bin Laden in his protected, seclusive hideaway in Pakistan. What a surprise it was to hear of a military action B. Obama himself after criticizing so much of it during his campaign for office in 2008 and given only lukewarm support for the military since assuming the presidency in 2009. Commentators, news media announcers and writers all praised the president for taking such definitive action. This nation and I felt proud and grateful for the courageous and successful mission.

However, starting the very next day, over a dozen varying accounts have emerged from the White House regarding the many changing details of “fire fight” vs. “no firefight,” and Osama’s death.  There was no mention or praise of the security measures so carefully put in place by the previous administration (including ‘enhanced’ interrogation). It all left me wondering, what in the world can we believe or trust. The sudden appearance of Mr. Obama at Ground Zero to lay a wreath looked like a ‘photo-op’ to me and made me conjecture that maybe he (Obama) had been reading the mood of the country’s lowering confidence in his presidency regarding the failing economy, the growing debt and unemployment and his questionable foreign policy, so that he ordered the killing of Obama to raise people’s estimation of him. I wouldn’t scoff; his bungling of the narrative of the post-killing of Bin Laden, his lack of giving credit for those responsible for the mechanism of intelligence and specialty military force speak awfully loud for such a conclusion. Nonetheless, whatever the reasoning, the decision to do it was correct.  But, in addition, the unnecessary attention to “religious respect” of Muslim burial rights even makes me question his pronounced religious loyalty.
 
Almost all positive and complimenting comments regarding the daring and professionally performed US Navy Seals’ mission were heard from all quarters except from B. H. Obama, who praised himself.

My deep respect and admiration of the military seals are very high and give me great comfort knowing they are on our side.

David L. Wood, M.D., May 8, 2011.

PURPOSEFUL POLITICAL DECEPTION
Or
INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY

Intellectual dishonesty is the advocacy of a position that is false. Another way to put it is, when a person is aware of the evidence and agrees with the conclusion it portends, yet advocates a contradictory view; he (she) commits intellectual dishonesty. (An important difference is that if a person is unaware of the evidence, his position is ignorance.) As one cannot quantitate honesty, intellectual dishonesty cannot be “partially honest.”

To say that this great nation of the United States of America is facing a ‘crossroads’ situation today is almost an understatement. This country was founded by bright, educated, experienced, insightful, and humble men who were inspired to write the brilliant and most cogent document in history dedicated to the establishment and preservation of citizen freedom ever written; namely, the US Constitution. It established the important concept of development, ownership, and free exchange of private property under conditions of liberty. It also established a government “of the people and by the people” and negated the concept of sovereign and all-powerful central government control of the people.

For over a century, the belief in central societal control of production of goods and services and people by government has taken hold in this country and propagated by gradual means until that system has achieved a dominant role in our affairs. It began in England in 1883 as the “Fellowship of the New Life,” but later was named the “Fabian Society.” Sidney Webb, a close friend and collaborator of George Bernard Shaw, wrote the first tract, Facts of Socialism. Webb further initiated the Fabian program of “permeation,” or the infiltration of all major political parties to make certain that socialist programs would be enacted no matter which party was in power. G.B. Shaw wrote of the need for “gradualism” in accomplishing the aims of socialism. Gradualism is nothing more than the concept of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto.

Fabian penetration in Great Britain was appreciably successful in 1923-1924 by achieving recognition and trade support of the Soviet Union. Although warnings to the British by Winston Churchill after WW II not to accept the “unrealistic promises of the radical socialists in the Labour Party,” nonetheless, it was voted in. It is history that Britain embarked on centralized economic planning, immediate wholesale nationalization of industry, and the socialization of the healthcare system. By 1949, the British Empire unraveled. However, it took another thirty-seven years before the economic structure of the USSR would completely disintegrate. In all of history, there is not one example of successful societal socialism.

Although the McCarthy hearings in the 1950s were doggedly misrepresented by the ‘liberals’ in government and the media, the American citizens became aware of the subversive activity of the socialist elements in the US Government and the totalitarian nature and expansionist thrust of the Soviet Union. By 1948, the six-time socialist party candidate for president, Norman Thomas, founded the ACLU with a socialist origin and agenda. In the 1960s, radical activists assumed the less-threatening labels of “liberal,” “progressive,” and “populist.”

Since then, to be in a position of power, modern liberals, by conscious design and political gamble, use subterfuge, innuendos, criticisms and obstructions to obtain their objectives. Democrats, posing as paternally concerned, beguile great numbers of people into feeling and thus into non-thinking.

The socialist ‘gradualism’ has created a laxity of accurate education in the public school system by slowly softening the emphasis on the importance of the correct history of the American Republic, its Constitution and Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers, and the history of Western Civilization in general. Many textbooks have been rewritten to inculcate the collectivist philosophy and to downplay the powerful motivation of independence. This is a blatant and knowing misleading of the youth of this nation. Add to this the almost universal “liberal” speech codes on university campuses, which allow for only one-sided, left-leaning and left-supporting political discussions as well as invited campus speakers. I cannot think of more serious examples of intellectual dishonesty in our education system.

It is a belief in gradual deception that is attacking the successful system of economic freedom and individual responsibility that built this nation to try to change us into a subservient and economic “equality” of citizens by redistribution of wealth. Socialism is the greatest case of major deception that I have ever read about or known. It clearly demonstrates the concept of intellectual dishonesty. People do not accept socialism when the truth about it is factually presented.

Today, the most glaring example of on-going deception is found in the present President of the United States, Barack H. Obama. He has lied about taxes. He has lied about reducing the deficit. He has lied about spending. He has lied about the budget. There are sheaves of information that expose his deception. Many commentators insist that he is a radical socialist. Dinesh D’Souza, author of The Roots of Obama’s Rage, reaches the researched conclusion that he (Obama) is carrying out his father’s anti-colonial belief, using socialism, that Western countries (including the US) are to blame for the retardation of South African nations and must be punished.

Regardless of the several-stated reasons for the Big O’s actions, the outcome is the same; i.e., negative and degrading results of attempting to change the whole system of the United States by weakening it. (Incidentally, of that, he and his party are succeeding.) Apropos is the significant Russian proverb: “What you do rings so loudly in my ears, I cannot hear what you say.”

B. Obama went to schools and universities here in the US. I maintain that there is no way he is unaware of the free-market exchange system and the Constitution of our country. I have not heard of one action Obama has taken that supports his oath to defend the Constitution and maintain the security of the United States. Therefore, the only conclusion I can reach is that Obama’s knowledge completely exposes his blatant misleading of this country and is thus a major example of intellectual dishonesty.

David L. Wood, M.D., April 12, 2011.