God’s Assessment of Me…

What if, tomorrow God sent us all a meeting invite with the subject line: Your Life Review, Done by God. How would we react? How would we prepare? Most of us have had our quarterly or yearly review done by our boss or the HR department, but by God? I know it might seem silly but it got me to thinking about my life. And by writing this I hope it gets you to think about yours.

As we know, every good assessment has categories and areas that need to be discussed so that the assessment looks at the most important aspects of what we do in our jobs. But what would God assess? How would (s)he determine if we are achieving success? What is success in God’s eyes?

I don’t know but my guess is God would focus on three categories; Kindness Toward Others (KTO for all of you metric acronym types), Service To Others (STO), and Living Up To God Given Potential (LUTGGP). I think most of us could quickly make a case for the first two measurements and discuss with God the plan we have to do better, but the third measurement is the one that had me thinking and perplexed, LUTGGP. The first thing that came to mind for me was: what are my God Given Skills? And even though I may not have all of the skills I need to be who I want to be - do I have the potential to be that person? You see, it does start to get interesting!

What do I believe was God’s plan for me? I believe we all have a purpose here on earth so we must have been given a plan? Not the step by step type plan but as a pirate might say, “More like guidelines.” What would God say about my potential, and have I lived up to it? Would he say, “Rich, I had so many hopes for you, and it seems you have steered away from every one of the things I gave you the skills to be.” Or would she say, “Rich, you have really taken the lemon of a life I gave you and made lemonade!”

If something is burning in our belly and we conveniently find ways to ignore it, what would God say? “I have given you the passion because I know you have the GGP (God Given Potential in case you forgot) but you have ignored it. Why?” “I did not place the fear there, you did.” “Why do you fear what you desire to do with your life?”

The older we get, the more we seem to reflect on the past. It may be that we just have more past to reflect on, but can it also be that we want to make a positive impact and know time is running out? I am not being doomsday(ish), I just know that time keeps going and we can’t stop time. Someday it will run out for all of us- is all I am saying.

Are we going to be ready for our assessment? Will we have a positive tale to tell? The tale can be as simple as volunteering to help the elderly or disabled. The tale could be you’re a great coach for your kid’s team. It could simply be being the best husband or wife, father or mother you can be. It could be setting your kids up for a bright future, or reading to kids that need help to get to that bright future.

I was just thinking and I thought I would share these thoughts with you. Is that part of my potential? I don’t know but I have a lot of fire in the belly type of things I am and will pursue. I hope I, and you pass the assessment if one ever comes… I hope we all get the promotion!

The True Seed of Racism

We all want to associate with people that share our values. It is human instinct, a survival mechanism, and creates for a civil society. The values often include things like religious beliefs, work ethic, educational desires, housing preferences, and economic status. But when people that believe that racism is a motivating factor to the makeup of a neighborhood (like the HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan has proposed), programs like the “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” is born.

This program assumes that if a zip code has too many people of one race then it must be the result of racism. When you think about the logic of this type of thought, you can’t find any. I compel you to think about why you live in the neighborhood you do? Is it because you’re racist? Or is it because you wanted a good school for your kids, it has a Church you can attend, maybe a nice shopping area, a short commute to work, open space or in the city, and it is a place you could afford to buy a house.

When the population demographics are simply looked at from a race perspective, how do you evenly distribute a Black population of 13%, Hispanic population of 15%, and the White population at 72% (2010 Census data) throughout the zip codes of America as this plan intends to do? More importantly, why would you think that race is a factor in any of it? This is the true reason why the people in the federal government and the left are so dangerous and it is why racism persists.

By trying to force people to live together by simply looking at race, you stir up resentment between the races. The assumption that race is why people live in a particular neighborhood, and then forcing that neighborhood to make housing exceptions in their neighborhood based on race, is divisive. What I mean by exceptions is the fact that forcing people into a neighborhood without the necessary means to live there undermines the economics of the neighborhood. The people that live in that neighborhood have worked, saved, and sacrificed everything to be able to live there. Now you are going to give it to someone that hasn’t done the same to get there like everyone else regardless of race has had to do? That fosters resentment. Not to mention the fact that they are using the tax dollars they have taken from you to make this possible.

Whenever you undermine the values that it takes to live somewhere, you foster resentment toward the people that receive that handout. Racism is on the rise in America not because we are racist, but because racists are stirring the pot with programs like the “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” program. No matter what race a person is, if they can afford a house in the neighborhood on their own merit, they will be accepted into that community in 99% of all of the communities in America. I know the liberals and left that push these programs don’t believe that but the rest of us know it as a fact.

Racism is on the rise in America because we have a President and an administration that believes the answer to “fixing” racism is by being racist. To look exclusively at race to “fix” and “diversify” a neighborhood is to not understand what makes human beings tick. Common values don’t rely exclusively on race. Religious beliefs do not rely exclusively on race. Work Ethic does not rely exclusively on race. Living in a city or suburb does not rely exclusively on race. All of these values are based on individual choices that people make when living their lives. They have nothing to do with race. All races make similar choices when they choose where to live. It is just that race is an easy assumption to make for people that are racist. That is the seed of racism and we need to stop watering it if we want it to die…

Hand’s On Politics Blog Talk Radio Show is Back!

We’re back! My brother Ken and I are bringing back the extremely popular Blog Talk Radio show “Hand’s On Politics.”

We started this program to discuss the 2012 presidential election and try to communicate how bad the policies of President Obama were to the moral and economic health of this nation. Although thousands of people listened, the president was re-elected. Go figure? We tried and failed but we don’t flinch in the light of failure, we press on and will continue to discuss the political issues of the day and do our best to inform the “low information voter.”

As a constitutional “scholar” (I have read the Constitution more times than there are members of Congress), we discuss the issues from a founding context. We will apply economic theory (Ken is an economic “scholar” since he can balance a checkbook) in a way it is easy to understand. Ken will use really simple examples that even I can understand. We will discuss the responsibility of the media in a free society. The NSA and the 4^th amendment (I think we scared away our “low information listeners” already!), and so many other issues of the day.

We will make fun of liberal policies and spoof their results compared to intent. We will be as funny as we can in light of the topic and introduce “characters” like “Richie Bag – O – Donuts” (that’s me doing my best Bronx impressions & Kenny will play the angry, uninformed, full of confidence in what he doesn’t know lefty). We will take the issues of the day and put our spin on them.

We are going to take on some guests but only people we believe are worth listening to like Professor Walter E. Williams (listen here). We will also dig into Mark Levin’s new book “The Liberty Amendments” and Mark if he wants to join us.  We will do our best to support Mark’s efforts with this ambitious project!

Talk shows are a dime a dozen but we have discounted ours to reflect our originality and popularity to a penny for your thoughts.

To our Facebook friends: no need to worry all political discussion will be discussed on the Hand’s On Politics Page. Phew! Collective sigh! Please join our page if so inclined…

The show can be heard Wednesday evenings from 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM Eastern.

The Government’s Definition of “Fair”…

What is fair? Is life meant to be fair? Is it fair that you have to be 6’8” to play in the NBA? Is it fair that you have to run fast to be a marathon runner? Is it fair that you have to be smart to get into Harvard? In order to make many things that we value fair, we have to change the rules and then accept the outcomes of those changes.

In order to make access to becoming an NBA player fair we would have to put in place rules like: there needs to be the same amount of woman, Asians, Whites, Hispanics, and Black players on every team. These players would need to be divided into players that are no taller than 5’1”, 5’8” and 7’0”. This would eliminate the dominance of tall players. We would also have to include a number of slots for people that are disabled. The list of rules to make the game fair could go on for pages.

We could take every institution, profession, and employment opportunity there is and make rules to make the possibility of entry to them fair but the results would all be the same; fair = distributed misery. There is no such thing as ensuring fair outcomes without manipulating the inputs. If you manipulate the inputs it is guaranteed to impact the outcomes in a negative way.

The rules of the game must be fair. The US Constitution is the rule of the game for this country. The Constitution offers a guideline for a limited intrusion into the freedom of the individual. These rules encourage people with exceptional skills, intellect, and drive to become successful without the intrusion of government bureaucrats forcing fairness on their outcomes.

Smart people will always be more successful than not so smart people. Big strong tall people will always have a better opportunity to be a professional sports player. People with a propensity to take risks will always be more likely to be successful entrepreneurs. The federal government can try to dictate that not so smart people should be smart but unless those people apply themselves the result will diminish the institutions they are enrolled in. The federal government can dictate that the NBA hires small uncoordinated people but the result is the NBA will lose its fans. The federal government can give money to people to start businesses based on something other than skill but the result will be less business at a high cost.

You can make the access to opportunity fair by making the rules of entry the same for everyone. You can try to make the outcome of results fair but that is a fool’s errand. We are not equal when it comes to skills, knowledge, God given genes, and drive, so how do you dictate success? The only way to make outcomes fair is to distribute misery.  And that is something the federal government and all government bureaucracies are really good at… Spreading misery…

Obama Phones: A Telling Tale

Find the entire Obama Phone story here.

It is almost a natural reflex in today’s mixed up, backwards world of politics to turn to the government to “fix” things in our society. Whether it’s; obesity, speeding, freak accidents, bad behavior, or a reaction to any headline the media decides to put front and center. A man jumps off a bridge, lower the bridge. A woman leaves a dog in a car with the windows down, remove windows from cars. People flush 5 gallons of water down the toilet, make toilets 3 gallons. The underlying question is why Americans reflexively turn to the government to “fix” things?

Any casual review of the results of government programs will tell you; government is incompetent at best, evil at worst. Take the issue of Obama phones. To be fair to this president, the program that has become the Obama phone program was started long ago to bring basic service to the poor so they could have a basic line in case of emergency. It was a program of good intentions which is common with every government program, but the results? Fraud and abuse is the result.

Since the program was expanded to include cell phones in 2008, the costs have gone from $822 million to $2.2 billion. This well intentioned program is now being completely abused. But why would we be surprised? Look at Detroit, Camden, Newark, Chicago, NY, and many other places across the country that are littered with government programs intended to help the people it is destroying. Section 8 housing, food stamps, welfare, public education, Medicaid, and on and on. These programs have spread misery, poverty, and ignorance in the communities they are intended to help. So why would giving “free” cell phones be any different? Actually, why would any government program produce different results?

The Obama phones that this reporter was able to accumulate without even lying about his status shows the potential abuse of every government program. So why do we keep asking the government to get involved in matters that are best left for individuals, local communities, churches, and civic groups to fix? Is it just a reflex? Or is it that people just don’t know where else to turn? I think if we can figure out these questions we can begin to really fix our issues as a country.

This reporter received 3 Obama phones which he wasn’t even eligible to have. The reason was that the federal government promises to pay private carriers for every phone they give out under the program. Do you see a problem with that incentive? Why didn’t the federal government?

Income Inequality Morally Wrong?

In President Obama’s latest speech, he promised to place all of his efforts on building, supporting, growing, helping, whatever, the “middle class.” The problem is that this president doesn’t understand how the “middle class” becomes a middle class. A quick side note: we fought to end a class system so I like to call it the “opportunity class.” But that aside, let’s look at why we in the US have more people in a position to live a comfortable life.

We are the only nation in the world that was founded on economic freedom. Individuals that created things, provided services, and followed their dreams and desires were able to interact with others without being encumbered by government. Throughout most of our early history we had what was often referred to as “Laissez Faire” economic policy. Basically, people could trade and barter between each other to create wealth. This economic freedom is the reason so many Americans had the opportunity to live a productive life rather than a life of subsistence as was, and still is, the way of most of the rest of the world.

Economic freedom within the rule of law is the reason we have an opportunity class. The people that created stuff needed people to work for them. The people working for them learned trades and craft and often went out and started something of their own to create more wealth. Millions of economic transactions between people without the meddling of government allowed for wealth to be created and therefore an opportunity class formed. It is not a stagnant class of people. People move in and out of the opportunity class.

Some people move to an ownership opportunity and amass wealth that enables them to live an even more comfortable existence often supporting charities and people who are less fortunate. Other people of the opportunity class squander their wealth and have to start over because of bad choices or circumstances. But the main point is people working in this free environment have an incentive to keep trying in order to move up or stay put.

When this president talks about a “middle class” what he sees is a class of people that are victims of circumstance. They take jobs and their opportunity is determined by some “rich capitalist.” He comes from a school that subscribes to people needing the help of government to succeed. Without the government to take the wealth created by others, these people would starve or remain in poverty. This system and this president don’t believe in the people to take care of themselves even though it is the reason we are so wealthy. So when he talks about growing the middle what he means is that by taking from the opportunity class is the only way to make it fair. To this president re-distributing income is how you grow the middle and punish those greedy capitalists. That is the exact formula for destroying opportunity for the most people.

It is why we continue after 5 years of this policy to see poverty rise and opportunity diminish. So the question to this president is how is income equality fair? Why keep growing government when what we need is more economic freedom? Government is a necessary evil. The people in government are not necessarily evil, but the function of government always ends up spreading evil. Poverty, ignorance, hunger, homelessness are the result of government intrusion in our economy. Making everyone equal in poverty is immoral…