Radical Ideas Resonate With the People

Posted on 22/12/2011 by Grumpa Joe
Ron Paul's blimp

Image via Wikipedia

While I still worked for a living, one of my engineers asked me who I was voting for. I answered “the most conservative candidate.”

“Oh, are you voting for Ron Paul?”

At the time, Ron Paul was a no name to me. I didn’t have clue about him or his background. Today, I know a bit more, but still not enough. Paul continues as a favorite in the Iowa polls. Why? I’ve tried to get answers from friends, and they tell me he has some radical ideas and is dangerous to the country. So why does he continue to show so well in polls during the primary campaign?

It is my belief that the man’s ideas resonate with the average person. So what are the ideas presumed so radical, and why do they strike such a strong appeal to we the people?

I had to read several articles to decide for myself what ideas Paul promotes. After doing so, I concluded the ideas are not so radical, and they appeal to me too. A few months ago I took one of those ten question tests to find where I stood on my political beliefs. Before this test, I considered myself a conservative; surprise, I tested strongly libertarian. Ron Paul is also a libertarian. Another person whose ideas and commentary I love is former ABC, and now Fox commentator  John Stoessel. Stoessel is a libertarian who regularly exposes how when government gets involved things go seriously wrong.

Here are the Paul ideas that my friends consider radical:

1. A balanced budget, (Not radical)

2. Obey the Constitution, (Radical only to Progressives and Socialists)

3. Cut One trillion dollars from Federal spending in his first year of presidency, (Radical only to Democrats)

4. Iran is politically no different from any other country, (Yes, radical even to me)

5. All wars approved by the US Congress (In the current Constitution)

6. Remove sanctions from Iran, (I’m not sure on this one)

7. Establish a non-interventionist foreign policy, (Radical to US politicians)

8. Eliminate the Federal Reserve, (Radical to big banking)

9. Withdraw from the United Nations, (Not radical)

10. End the Cuban embargo, (No longer radical)

11. Repeal the Patriot Act. (Not radical)

Out of this list of eleven ideas I see four that may be perceived as radical.  How do you feel about items 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10?

Four out of the five (6,7,9,10) listed are foreign policy issues, the fourth (8) is a banking issue.

Yet, the people of Iowa seem okay with these proposals? My wife often tells me we have no business in Iraq, Afghanistan, or in giving money to foreign governments to see them use it against us. Does that sound familiar to items 6, 7, & 9?

Maybe our foreign policy of past years has been the reason for the mid-Eastern countries hating the USA so much, and if we get the hell out of there they can go about their business of converting the world to Islam. Or, they might just be so happy with their new lives they will convert to capitalism.

I see Ron Paul resonating with common people because they like to hear him say things like obey the constitution, cut a trillion dollars in spending, balance the budget, or go back to the gold standard. The common guy who still believes in working for a living, while supporting government employees with the same labor, like to hear those ideas because they are the ideas the common guy lives by.

The real question, however, is not whether Ron Paul’s ideas are radical, or whether he resonates with the people, but rather can he beat Obama?

I don’t believe Dr Paul will be our next president, but I applaud him for awakening America by passionately discussing his libertarian values.

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Do You Eradicate a Disease, or Just Push It Back?

Posted on 20/12/2011 by Grumpa Joe

Some of my friends tell me they tire of hearing all the bickering going on about the debt ceiling, withholding taxes, and general business in Washington. They are sick of hearing the barrage of news from the opposite ends of the political spectrum. They want to see and hear a middle ground. Most of these people are Democrats. They argue with me that the constant bashing of Obama and his minions is forcing them to lean away from the middle toward uber-liberal Left.

I agree about the amount of bashing going on, it isn’t pretty. I absolutely don’t agree that the arguments make me want to lean toward the left, I am the polar opposite. An analogy popped into my tired old brain today, and I must bore you with it.

When dealing with a disease like HIV, small pox, chicken pox, polio, diphtheria, etcetera, the disease fighters do not look for a cure that will allow them to go middle ground. They want to eradicate the disease completely, worldwide. Even Leftists agree with the approach. Disease fighters have a very good track record at eliminating diseases. Small pox is gone, diphtheria is unheard of, polio a memory, and so on. What my argumentative colleagues don’t see is that the political extreme of leftism is a disease. Socialism does not work, yet proponents continue to foist it upon the rest of us. I see socialism as a disease worse than small pox. Eradication from Earth is the only positive cure. Worse yet, Socialism without God is communism, and I am old enough to know what the communists did to Europe after WWII. I still have relatives in former communist countries who live the way they did in 1940. Socialism will set the world population back, or at least freeze it at its current status much like Islam did to the middle east in the 12th century.

I believe that the Obama bashing I, and all the others do is trying to eradicate a disease running its course through humanity. There is no room for a middle ground at this point, the right must push the left back to zero if we are to return to a civilized middle ground that allows rational debate, compromise, and civilized discourse to occur. I also believe that the country is so divided at this point that another civil war, much like the one of the 1860’s, looms ahead as a possible solution.

The 2012 choice will be telling. If the country gives the communist leaning Obama another four years to carry out his brand of change, the United States will die. The USA will be in the history books as another has been super power. On the other hand, if the country elects a true conservative, there is a chance for the complete survival of a society based on a Constitution, a belief in God, the Rule of Law, and Liberty for all.

So all my friends who are sick of the Obama bashing going on by the right leaning Tea-Party people, put your brains into gear  and decide for yourselves what kind of system you want to live under because the 2012 election is about that.

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Gray-haired Man Freezes His Keester Off

Posted on 10/12/2011 by Grumpa Joe

It was a plan conceived to save an old man’s body from the suffering in low temperatures. It failed. Yesterday, I spent the morning hours begging for money to feed those in need. The plan called for a milder time today. deliberately, I signed up for  afternoon hours thinking the temperature would be milder. It wasn’t. Granted the temps were up from those in the morning, but they were lower this afternoon than they were yesterday in the morning. The result is that this gray-haired old man froze his keester off while begging.

The citizens of Frankfort were most appreciative and contributed generously. My fellow Lion, Tony, who has cerebral palsy and who has been a Lion for over thirty years, showed me up big time. He sat in his wheelchair bundled in his heaviest winter clothes and wrapped in blankets while begging. His bucket is always twice as heavy as any one else’s.

The manager from Jewel came out and told me to come in and to warm up, to have a complimentary cup of coffee, and to not bear the cold. I bravely told her it was better to freeze and look pathetic, people will give more willingly. Is that dumb or what?

My mind wandered as the cold penetrated my layers. This time it only took a few minutes to reach my joints, where yesterday it took an hour before I reached a point where my shoulders ached.

What a wimp I have become, I thought, remembering times past. Why just thirty-something years ago I went on a weekend campout with the Boy Scouts in below zero weather. Here I am standing within a few feet of a building in twenty-six degrees complaining about how cold I am. What a wimp those years have made me. Then, I looked across the front of Jewel to the second entrance and saw Tony patiently sitting in his wheel chair without a whimper. Yes, I am a wimp.

I remembered when I led my Boy Scout Troop 1776 to the Klondike Derby campout in Yorkville in January. The daytime temp was never above zero degrees, and the night-time temp dipped towards minus twenty. Amazingly, not a single scout or leader got frost bite or hypothermia. The crème de la crème came in the morning when the event ended and we all rushed to break camp and get the hell out of there. Not a single car started, and the leaders were all stuck starting frozen cars until four-thirty in the afternoon. That was not in the plan. We were smart enough to call home and have parents come to rescue their boys, but we were all stuck until the last car started and we all got out safely.

Yes! Thirty-plus years have turned me into a wimp. Where the hell is all this Global Warming stuff when you need it?

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Seriously, How Many Miles Does a Shopping Cart Log?

Posted on 09/12/2011 by Grumpa Joe
English: Jewel-Osco - monster shopping cart truck

Image via Wikipedia

 

Today is one of those days when the weather inspired me to write.  The opportunity clock woke me at 7:00 a.m. and I looked out upon a white Frankfort. It snowed last night. By 9:00 a.m. I was holding a bucket begging for money at the front door of the Frankfort Jewel Food Store. My Lions Club agreed to beg for money to feed the needy at Christmas. Our local Jewel sponsors a program where they offer the meals with donations from their customers. They have a can atop each checkout counter, but on weekends they ask local groups to help. The Lions is one group they rely on. Since we also distribute food to the needy on the holy day and we buy some of it from Jewel they are comfortable with our helping them in this cause.

So what does this have to do with inspiration to write? Well the temperature was a cool twenty-five degrees this morning when I arrived at my post. I dressed for the occasion and felt comfortable for about an hour, but the cold  finally penetrated my layers and I was dancing to stay warm. To pass the idle time in between shoppers, and there is a lot of idle time between 9-10 on a cold snowy Friday morning. Shoppers are smarter than old Lions who are out to put the touch on them. The smart ones stay in where it is warm. I played drums by tapping my thumbs on the bottom of the plastic collection bucket, and watched the Jewel employee collect shopping carts from the parking lot. I held the door open for him as he  wrestled a long line of telescoped carts into the store.

The engineer in me jumped into action. I asked Zak the cart collector if he ever wondered how many miles on a typical shopping cart. I got the dumbest, longest look I ever received from anyone. I would love to have had an audible readout of Zak’s mind from that moment. Of course, his answer was “I never thought about it.” I don’t think any one alive ever has either. Seriously, how many miles does a typical shopping cart log before it goes to cart-heaven?

My calculated estimate is 15,000 miles. What is your guess? Leave your answer in a comment.

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Filed under: family, Food, Lions Club, Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

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