Monthly Archives: May 2017

Southern Charm Savannah? This is how we represent Savannah? How embarrassing.

After the testimony of Sally Yates, the Tweeter in Chief replied saying, Nothing but old news and when will this taxpayer charade end? The educated voters in this country already know when it will end when he resigns or is impeached because the country cannot survive a full term of this lunatic.

After watching Southern Charm Savannah on Bravo, Im grateful my children werent raised with a silver spoon in their mouths!

The only two sure-fire ways to end the Obamacare mess is 1) let anyone keep it that wants to keep it, along with those exorbitant premiums/deductibles and 2) force all of Congress and their families to go onto Obamacare.

Unless you run the risk of being kidnapped, shot or otherwise disappearing, you should not get to call yourself resistance.

Yes, coyotes would take care of the cats, but what do we put out there to take care of people like you?

The health insurance industry is the only one I know where the goal is to do absolutely as little as possible for your customers. If you actually have happy customers, youre doing something wrong.

While the airport is relocating the wood storks, are there any plans for the eagles that are in the area?

Great Tuesday commentary in SMN by Robert Ringer. Health care/impossible dream says what our nation is up against and some helpful advice.

Because of government inefficiency, all high schools should have Ayn Rand plus George Orwells books as part of their curriculum. I had to read Atlas Shrugged and 1984 myself. Remember them today as a warning we should have taken more seriously.

Please can the columns by Robert Ringer. You have plenty of very right-wing columnists and dont need to go full nut job.

Read more here:

Vox Populi: 'All high schools should have Ayn Rand plus George Orwell's books as part of their curriculum.' - Savannah Morning News

Ron Hart

As Obamacare predictably collapses and the Senate decides how to vote on the House repeal, here is a column I wrote in March, 2010:

Obama says we have been debating the Obamacare bill for a year, and now its time to ram it through in a down or up yours vote. Democrats view this bill as a cure-all elixir, Republicans view it as a suppository.

In the first tough interview of his presidency, he told Fox News that we would know what is in the bill 72 hours before the House tries to pass it. Obama seemed frustrated that the vast majority of the country is against his bill. It turns out that president-ing is harder than community organizing.

Well worth reading, the Obama Administration was foretold in "Atlas Shrugged," which is 1,300 pages long. It took me two weeks to read and it was well-written. This healthcare reform bill runs 2,000-plus pages and is written in cryptic Washington-speak. No one understands it. It feels like we are getting the last-minute hard sell, like the one from a car salesman when he gets you in that little room with the closing guy, starts shoving documents at you to sign, and tells you not to worry your pretty little head over it.

What we saw in the past year was the Democrats having to bribe, using our tax dollars, their own supermajority party to pass this massive takeover of one-sixth of our economy. President Obama said all aspects of the bill are agreed upon except, of course, minor details like how to pay for it, whether it covers illegal immigrants, and how to cover more than 30 million more people who currently do not have health insurance, all without adding doctors and/or rationing care. Other than that, Pelosi and Reid seem to have it done.

Since our representatives have not read the bill, I will not read the bill for you and tell you what it says.

1. There is a provision in the bill to hire all Democrats booted out of office because they voted for this bill. Where? In the government monstrosity they just created. As Representative Billy Tauzin of the politically honest state of Louisiana found out when he championed the Bush Medicare prescription drug entitlement disaster, there are $2 million-a-year jobs with pharmaceutical companies waiting for you once you leave Congress (a.k.a. the scene of the crime).

2. Obama has promised not to stump for Democrats who vote for this bill. Political pundits and the Congressional Budget Office score this as being worth 12 points for any Democrat who can keep Obama out of his district.

3. One of the more egregious deceits of Obamacare is that it front-loads the goodies: Adults up to age 26 and preexisting conditions would be immediately covered. Costs and regulations were pushed to the back end, 2017, when Obama is gone. Simple economics tells us that you cannot get something for free. Premiums and deductibles will rise as insurance companies price in all the government mandates. Obamacare seems like a flimsy hospital gown; you seem to be covered up front, but youre very exposed from the rear.

A syndicated op-ed humorist, award winning author and TV/radio commentator, you can reach him at Ron@RonaldHart.com, Twitter @RonaldHart or visit RonaldHart.com

Go here to see the original:

HART: Obamacare bill: A game of hide and seek - News - The ... - Walton Sun

The Fountainhead, part 1, chapter 7

Howard Roark has begun his new job at the source of all evil, Francon & Heyer. As a condition of taking the job, he asked to do structural rather than ornamental work, and Keating kept his end of the bargain. Even so, it gnaws at him:

The lines he drew were to be the clean lines of steel beams, and he tried not to think of what these beams would carry. It was difficult, at times. Between him and the plan of the building on which he was working stood the plan of that building as it should have been. He saw what he could make of it, how to change the lines he drew, where to lead them in order to achieve a thing of splendor. He had to choke the knowledge. He had to kill the vision.

Like any good Randian protagonist, hes tormented by the burden of having to be so much better than everyone else. While he bends over his desk, he inwardly cries out to know why all his colleagues are incompetent subhuman slugs who refuse to bow to his unsurpassable genius:

But the pain remained and a helpless wonder. The thing he saw was so much more real than the reality of paper, office and commission. He could not understand what made others blind to it, and what made their indifference possible. He looked at the paper before him. He wondered why ineptitude should exist and have its say. He had never known that.

Ayn Rand believed herself the supreme devotee of reason above all. Yet it comes through here, possibly even more clearly than in Atlas Shrugged, that her characters dont act like rationalists at all. Roark is a case in point.

Even though it bothers him that other people dont recognize his talent, it never occurs to him that he might be doing anything wrong, or that there might be other means of selling himself and his ideas that would work more effectively. He never tries to learn about human psychology, interpersonal relationship skills, or marketing tactics. He never even considers departing from his usual approach of plopping a set of blueprints down in front of someone and staring unblinkingly at them until they give in and acknowledge his greatness.

A true rationalist wouldnt act like this. If your beliefs fail to align with reality, the proper course of action is to adjust your beliefs, rather than crossing your arms and waiting for the world to change so that your initial hypothesis becomes correct. Being a rational person means considering your own fallibility before all other possibilities; but as in Atlas Shrugged, the only lesson Roark needs to learn in this novel is that everyone else is even more evil and worthless than he had thought.

Meanwhile, Peter Keating, who does understand the concept of asking for advice, keeps calling Roark into his office to help with his designs:

Keating produced sketches from a drawer and said: I know its perfectly right, just as it is, but what do you think of it, generally speaking? Roark looked at the sketches, and even though he wanted to throw them at Keatings face and resign, one thought stopped him: the thought that it was a building and that he had to save it, as others could not pass a drowning man without leaping in to the rescue.

Its hinted that this was Keatings real motive for getting Roark the job, so that he could exploit Roarks architectural genius. But even if thats true, so what?

Were meant to view this as a villainous act. But thats because Rand believes all creation is inherently individual, so asking someone else for help amounts to parasitizing their genius. In reality, the lone genius is the exception, not the rule.

Its absolutely normal for people working in a creative field to collaborate. When Roark wasnt working there, it was different, but now he and Keating are employees of the same company. As long as Roark is paid fairly for his work, he has no cause for complaint. Hes not being exploited; hes just doing what he was hired for.

The logical step would be for Keating and Roark to go into business together. Their skills really do complement each other. Keating, who has a knack for compromise but is too eager to go along with the crowd, would have his spine stiffened by Roarks stubbornness and nonconformist spirit. Conversely, Roark badly needs someone with people skills, like Keating, to sell clients on the virtue of his designs. Of course, if you expected this book to propose or even consider this patently obvious solution, it wouldnt be an Ayn Rand novel.

Then he worked for hours, sometimes all night, while Keating sat and watched. He forgot Keatings presence. He saw only a building and his chance to shape it. He knew that the shape would be changed, torn, distorted. Still, some order and reason would remain in its plan. It would be a better building than it would have been if he refused.

Now hold on just a minute!

On the surface, this seems like a reasonable way for Roark to think. He can console himself that hes making a contribution. Even if his designs are mangled in committee, he can still improve the final product relative to what it would have been otherwise.

But this is precisely the way Roark doesnt think in any other situation in the novel. In every case where hes not helping Peter Keating with his homework, he refuses to make the tiniest concession, even when that means he loses all influence over the outcome. Whenever a client so much as asks him to put a bunch-of-grapes design over a door, he storms out in a huff, even though that means hell lose the commission and the building will be designed by someone else wholl festoon it with urns and cherubs from top to bottom.

The reason for this inconsistency is that Roark isnt a character, hes a philosophical principle, and yet his author cant decide which principle she wants him to be. Is he Artistic Integrity, who refuses to compromise his vision no matter the cost? Or is he Prometheus Chained, who gives freely of himself to sustain the world but is only punished for it? The solution Rand hits on is that he switches back and forth from one scene to another, depending on the needs of the plot.

Other posts in this series:

Go here to read the rest:

The Fountainhead: Selling the Dream - Patheos (blog)