Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
I agree with Neal Boortz on just about everything, since he’s a capital-L Libertarian who is pro-war. But I must respectfully disagree on this, Barack Obama’s Social Security plan.
“If we kept the payroll tax rate exactly the same but applied it to all earnings and not just the first $97,000,” Obama wrote this week in an Iowa newspaper, “we could eliminate the entire Social Security shortfall.”
Neal’s position, and I get the impression he’s half-joking about this, is that it “would expose Social Security once and for all as nothing less than a grandiose income redistribution scheme.” Well yes, to some among us it is exactly that and not intended to be anything different — and it would expose it as that, to some others among us.
Not the folks who need to learn about that, though.
I’ve written probably tens of thousands of words, in this blog alone, about the Yin and Yang theory which says mature humans have exactly two fundamentally different ways of accumulating the aptitudes necessary to come to what passes for maturity, and end up spending their entire lives in two different villages, trying to communicate across a monstrous chasm with the other half. You know what inspired the Yin and Yang theory to begin with? Yeah, it had something to do with a string of Yang-y ex-girlfriends and ex-wives…that was the personal side of it. But the public-issue side of it was Social Security.
We can’t fix it, you see. Not to the satisfaction of everybody. It is viewed in two fundamentally different ways. When we talk about whether or not it was an experiment that we should have attempted in the first place, we discuss it in the terms under which it was marketed to the Yin: As a retirement vehicle. You get out of it what you pay into it, not one penny more. And supposedly, nobody’s scamming anybody else out of anything through this noble system, since they only recoup their “investments.”
And then when it comes time for us to make good on that promise we made to ourselves, we tend to get all Yang-y. Yes, people can get out of it what they put into it, plus a whole lot more…assuming they put anything in to begin with, which maybe they didn’t. And that’s perfectly alright. It’s all about the “social justice”…Comrade.
It is far too chameleon-like to ever adhere to a singular set of protocols, let alone a set that can allow it to run smoothly. Monday Wednesday and Friday it’s supposed to provide “dividends” to those who “paid into the system”; Tuesdays Thursdays and Weekends it’s supposed to “provide” for those who “deserve it.” See, that’s the problem. We don’t know what this program is supposed to do — we have never achieved agreement on it.
Now, for the half of us who think it’s supposed to take money away from some of us, and give it to others — Obama’s plan is a dream come true. But to them, those who need to learn the lesson, the Obama plan would provide no education. They’ve got a raging case of CBTA, they Can’t Be Told Anything. Some people have money, other folks are supposed to get the money, that’s just how it’s supposed to work.
So no, Mr. Boortz, this wouldn’t provide the benefit you anticipate — although I suspect you realize that already. Those who need to learn what Social Security really is, or has become, wouldn’t learn anything. There’s nothing good about this plan.
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