Do You Remember?

Pop Tops

I'm talking about the second one in this image... The 1970's one.  The tab lifted just like the "statab", but the metal part pulled out of the top.  The result?  There were millions of sharp little tops all over the sidewalks, roads, in playgrounds, everywhere!  I do NOT miss these.  I was a kid then, and they pretty much made it so if you went out barefoot in the summer, you were going to get stabbed by one.  The edges of these were not  knife-sharp, but they were not completely dull either.

Video Cassettes

You could set the recorder to capture your favorite shows, like TiVo, unless the football game shifted it, or the damn clock went back to blinking 12:00.  Or you could go to Blockbuster and rent movies on tape.  There were no messy menus or commentary tracks. There were no hidden easter eggs or making of featurettes.  Oh, and there was no way to skip the ads.  You could fast forward them, but there was no menu or skip button.

The quality was spotty, and the flying head technology required frequent cleaning. And when those end credits started rolling, you had to rewind the tape.  It took about 4 minutes to rewind a feature length movie.

Albums

 Here's the deal.  You'd hear a song you like on the radio.  You know, regular FM radio.  Like in your car.  Then you'd decide you had to have the song.  So you'd head over to Tower Records and get the album that had the song on it.  In those days, they bundled the mega-hit you heard on the radio with 18 other so-so songs.  Why not, they knew you were going to buy the album just to get Dust in the Wind or whatever, and the rest of the content was inseparable, so the other songs didn't have to be top quality.  Many audiophiles claim that records have vastly superior quality to tape and CD, but there is this one little gotcha.  If a record is dusty, or has been played too much, or accidentally warps or gets scratched, the sound goes to hell.  The sound is played by basically scratching a needle over the grooves in the record, so the really good players had super-light needles.  Of course if your record is warped, the needle would jump off the album like a dirt bike on a competition course.

A Candidate to Call My Own.

Here's a list of statements I would love to hear a GOP candidate make, that would solidify my support for him or her:

1. Global warming is probably crap, we should stop upending our industries until it's proven by more than a vote of gynecologists and proctologists masquerading as scientists.  A scam, when agreed upon by a majority is still a scam.  Prove it, or stfu!
2. The best thing that government could to to end poverty is to end the welfare state.
3. The best way to help unemployment is to end unemployment benefits.
4. The best way to end the financial crisis is to drastically cut spending, not raise taxes.  This means massive federal layoffs.  This means ending the lifelong exorbitant benefits for everyone who got elected to a 2 year office.  This means forcing government agencies to justify their existence - just like businesses do every day.
5. America has no business engaging in regime change in other countries that do not threaten us.  If the people in some foreign country hate their tin pot dictator, it's up to them to topple him, not us.
6. Any attack on the US and her allies should be met with swift, decisive force - and long, inconvenient lines at the airport is not the answer.
7. The tax code should have 0 loopholes, rebates, and credits, and one rate for all.  That rate should be as small as possible, and all increases to it should have a sunset.
8. Free markets are the best known way to fairly distribute goods and services.
9. The biggest threat to free markets are socialism and cronyism.  Government is the problem in both those cases, not private companies.  When the government threatens an industry and forces them to play ball or get screwed, that's government causing the problem, the companies that play along are just trying to survive.
10. People need to stop relying on the government to steal goodies from their neighbors.
11. Government needs to stop regulating anything not specifically called out in the Constitution.  
12. Saying the Constitution is a living document is like saying that it means whatever the hell I want it to mean.  People who say this plan to do something unconstitutional and mock you for not supporting it.

When I hear Republicans talk about reducing fraud in medicare, without mentioning that the program is unsustainable and should be sunsetted, I realize that the GOP is not the answer for getting back to a responsible, grown-up government.  What we've settled into is a I want goodies for free attitude where you have one side wanting free medical care, money, unemployment, and whatever else they can get, and the other side is just sick of paying for it all.  They work 40 hours a week for 28 hours of pay and the anger level just maxes out whenever they are told that they are not paying their fair share.

This has to end.  Atlas will shrug.  And you'll have to reopen the gulags.

So far all the GOP candidates are making noise that sounds more like I want to slow down the socialism than any kind of real reform.  Until I hear someone that sounds like this, I will have no candidate to call my own.  It's just a choice between liberal and less liberal.

How Conservatism Hates the Poor

It's just been taken as rote that conservatives are selfish and greedy, and wish that the poor would go away and stop begging for stuff - like food and shelter. I mean they are so annoying.

What is this based on? This is one of those cases where if you never check facts, use reason, or look into results, you might tend to agree. Here's the argument from the left's side.

1. Conservatives oppose the welfare state
2. The welfare state gives money to the poor.
3. Without money, the poor would all starve and die.
4. So Conservatives must want the poor to starve and die.

If you think I'm joking, look.

Conservatives Want Poor Kids' School Lunch Money (Literally ...
Republicans Want to Kill Poor People!!!!!!!!!!!! - Federal Way ...
Why do Republicans oppose the gov giving poor people enough help ...
Rep. Grayson says Republicans Want Sick People to "Die Quickly ...
The GOP's war against the poor and sick - Federal Deficit - Salon.com

This is of course pure crap. Here's what we truly feel about the poor, and the welfare state.

1. The welfare state is too expensive, and a measurable failure.
2. Stealing money from working Americans and handing it out is not helping the poor.
3. Poverty is better helped with a strong economy (pro business = pro jobs = helping the poor)
4. The welfare state as it is now pays itself first (massive bureaucracies, thousands of employees, wreckless spending) and then metes out what's left to the actual poor.
5. Fraud is rampant.
6. What the poor need is not to wrest a living from the wallets of the rich, but an opportunity to earn their own living.
7. The welfare state as it is, is actually BAD for the poor, as it traps them and makes them lifelong dependents.  And even though you can always find people who shudder at the prospect of having to get a job, after a time it would be better for all concerned.

So if not liking the concept of robbing the working man to give to the lazy man makes me a hater of the poor, then I guess that must be true.  Conservatives like me are enemies of the poor.

Inhuman Working Conditions

So I was doing a little research on Wal Mart, and I found a lot of liberals complaining that they are running sweatshops overseas.  From the 5 articles I read, 4 were full of innuendo, like employees forced to work long hours without any real numbers or sources, not one fact you can sink your teeth into, and one had an interview with 1 disgruntled employee out of 5,700.

Most of the text in these articles referred to Wal Mart's efforts to enforce human rights standards on their suppliers, and some even included the fact that Wal Mart had blacklisted many factories in this effort.  Yet the narrative always ended up going back to either WalMart is not doing enough, or WalMart is doing this whole thing as a PR gesture, and they don't really care about working conditions at all.

That's when I was reminded of a story during the Clinton era about Congressional staffers not having any minimum wage, no maximum work day, no medical plan, basically US Labor laws just don't apply if you work for Congress.  Strangely, when I Google for that - the silence is nearly deafening.  There is this article...

http://www.congressfoundation.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=117&Itemid=50

This report includes the following...

At first glance, Congress is not an attractive place to work. Staff typically work exceedingly long, unpredictable hours that leave little time for outside activities; receive lower pay than both private sector and federal executive branch staff; work in cramped quarters with no privacy; exercise minimal control over their work schedules; and have virtually no job security.

The real problem with Wal Mart

The real problem liberals have with WalMart is not sweatshops in foreign countries.  It's that they employ hundreds of thousands of people, none of whom pay any union dues.  If WalMart unionized its store associates, the sweatshop stories would evaporate overnight.  That's because these unions would be shoveling money into liberal campaigns - which was the real goal all along.

Fanfare for the Needy

The United States was built with an ingrained disdain for the caste system.  We love the notion that true greatness is not some idle duke in a white wig, but an ordinary hardworking citizen, keeping the wheels of society smoothly turning by the sweat of his brow.

Capitalism is constructed to let those hardworking citizens elevate themselves through advancement and education to new levels - if he only desires it.  Workers become supervisors, then managers, then someday they can strike out on their own and be the owner.  All they need is time and ambition.  Truly, the fanfare for the common man is for every line worker and laborer in the workforce and it's not a lament, it's high praise.

This Yankee love for the common man has become a bit twisted of late.  Well if the common worker is the new nobility then the more common, the more noble, right?   Instead of admiring the hard worker who rose through the ranks to higher levels, we despise them.  When they make it to great heights, we single them out for new and higher taxes, they become targets for lawsuits, they are demonized in our popular culture.  When was the last time that you saw a movie where the boss was the hero?  In day-to-day life the boss is more than a guy who sits behind a $30,000 mahogany desk while others work - he is the one making the hard choices and taking heat from all directions to keep the company going.  It's his vision that keeps the place alive.  And those of you who envy him and wish you could sit there behind that expensive desk doing nothing and smoking cigars would fail within a day.

Enter the weeping hero
When I turn on the TV, I don't see a love for the successful, I don't see hard work and intelligence glorified.  These are the things that make the common man noble.  This is who the fanfare is for.  I see the weeping glorified.  If you are on welfare, have 8 kids, and dad is gone, or too crippled to work (or better: dead) - then some TV show might come build you a house!  I can just imagine the audition tapes for that show.  People purposely damaging their houses so it will look like the most pathetic one in the stack.

Today the common man in our song is not hardworking, he's on welfare, food stamps, and working under the table to hide his income and keep the benefits flowing.  He destroys his body with drugs and alcohol and demands free health care.  He sits on the internet watching porn and trying to hack into businesses just to spread the misery of his own pitiful existence.


The one great thing about the United States and capitalism is that we give the common man the opportunity to become great - not that we promise to tax and punish others to take care of him and make sure he can be as common and pitiful as possible until the day he kicks off.  We need to stop valuing the pitiful and remember how to admire success and achievement.  We need to look upward with ambition instead of disdain.