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Below are the contents of an email received just this afternoon from Congressman Bart Gordon

My response:

Congressman Gordon, I have a few words for you. Your staff has received the following reply to your e-mail, and it has been posted here, among other places, for public consumption. Similar thoughts will be expressed in your survey if I can ever manage to get the survey page to load.

Having introduced you to those of us who live within our means, allow me now to introduce you to a new word:

Bias

You, sir, have a large one.

You send an email asking for INPUT…for my OPINION…on whether or not credit card companies use deceptive practices. the SUBJECT of your e-mail is “Survey: Credit Cards Companies…Deceptive?” You’ve made every effort later in the email to convince me that you’d truly like to hear my opinion.
Yet you begin your e-mail by presuming a gift I have not given, presuming I fall in a group of unwise, undisciplined, and irresponsible people you label as “everyone”, and then STATING AS FACT the very thesis you CLAIM to be testing.

You are biased, sir. You presume I am in trouble with credit cards, and that I am angry with their “deceptive” practices, and then dare to suggest you actually CARE what I think.

Your survey results, whatever they may be, will not stand up to even the most cursory of statistical examinations.

Cardholders have a personal responsibility to spend within their means — if they default, the card companies should be allowed to impose penalties. Congress should not involve itself.

Any good Kentuckian needs to make one.  And my legendary system STILL has me up overall after 29 years.  (Don’t ask about my system…it’s entirely too complicated for mere mortals to understand.)

This year’s pick:

Pioneer of the Nile

Man will continue his conquest of space. To reach out for new goals and ever greater achievements - that is the way we shall commemorate our seven Challenger heroes.

Dick, Mike, Judy, El, Ron, Greg and Christa - your families and your country mourn your passing. We bid you goodbye. We will never forget you. For those who knew you well and loved you, the pain will be deep and enduring. A nation, too, will long feel the loss of her seven sons and daughters, her seven good friends. We can find consolation only in faith, for we know in our hearts that you who flew so high and so proud now make your home beyond the stars, safe in God’s promise of eternal life.

I am the nation!

I was born on July 4, 1776, and the Declaraion of Independence is my birth certificate.
The bloodlines of the world run in my veins, because I offered freedom to the oppressed. I am many things, and many people.

I am the nation.

I am 200 million living souls and the ghosts of millions who have lived and died for me.

I am Nathan Hale and Paul Revere. I stood at Lexingtion and fired the shot heard around the world.
I am Washington, Jefferson, and Patrick Henry. I am John Paul Jones, the green Mountain Boys, and Davy Crockett. I am Lee, and Abe Lincoln.

I remember the Alamo, and the Maine, and Pearl Harbor. When freedom called, I answered, and stayed until it was over over there. I left my heroic dead in
Flander’s fields, and in the steaming jungles of Vietnam.

I am the Brooklyn Bridge, the wheat lands of Kansas, the granite hills of Vermont. I am the coal fields of the Virginias and Pennsylvania,
the fertile lands of the west, the Golden Gate, and the Grand Canyon.

I sprawl from the Atlantic to the Pacific - 3 million square miles. I am more than 3 million farms. I am forest, field, mountain, and desert.
I am quiet villages and cities that never sleep. You can look at me and see Ben Franklin walking down the streets of Philadelphia.

I am Babe Ruth and the World Series. I am 130,000 schools and colleges and 326,000 churches where my people worship God as they please.

I am a ballot dropped into a box. I am an editorial in the newspaper and I’m a letter to a Congressman.

I am Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein. I am Horace Greeley, Will Rogers, and the Wright brothers. I am George Washington Carver, Daniel Webster and Jonas Salk.
I am Walt Whitman, Thomas Paine, Tom Sawyer, and Walt Disney.

Yes, I am the nation and these are the things that I am. I was conceived in freedom and God willing, in freedom I shall spend the rest of my days!

May I always possess always the integrity, the courage and the strength to keep myself unshackled, to remain a citadel of freedom and a beacon of hope to the entire world!

I am the nation.

Sound advice from Dave in a timely fashion?  No way…can’t be.

I have no permission from Mr Ramsey to repost this…but it’s too RIGHT not to share.  Obviously, if someone from his organization wishes, I’ll remove it.

By and large, 70% to 90% of you wanted something to be done to calm the economy, but you didn’t want $700 billion in new debt to bail out Wall Street. The stock market has had record declines since then. What’s going on?

You need to remember that you need to take control of your life. It’s disturbing that people in government totally disregard what the people tell them to do. It’s disturbing that the market goes down and the media panics about this. It’s disturbing that greedy banks made loans to people who couldn’t afford to repay, and people signed up for the trip when they couldn’t afford it. It’s disturbing that Washington ignores its constituents and takes huge strides toward socialism.

All of these things are disturbing, but none will cause this great nation to cease to function. They are not the beginning of the end. But the most disturbing thing is some people’s reactions. Don’t react based on fear or panic. Another negative reaction is that you are looking to Washington to fix your problems. They have never fixed your problems, and you want Obama or McCain to fix things. There has never been a president who can fix your problems. They always say they can and they never can.

YOU are in charge of your destiny. YOU are in charge of your life. When you look to Washington to solve your problems, we’ve got the seeds to destroy this country. It’s time for you to change your life. It’s not Washington’s job to fix what’s going on with you. If you are waiting on Washington to change something, you’ve got a very long wait! It is YOUR job to take care of you. Don’t sit around and watch TV and panic and think you can’t do anything. I’ve made and lost money, and every bit of that had to do with me being smart and diligent or stupid.

Quit blaming Congress or looking to them to fix you. YOU have to fix you! When you wait on the government to fix your life and wait for money to be taken from others and given to you, that’s a spirit of envy. The only system that works is capitalism functioning under moral restraint. Go be somebody!

Author: Lea MacDonald

It was noon on a Sunday as I recall, the day a Mustang P-51 was to take to the air. They said it had flown in during the night from some US airport, the pilot had been tired. I marveled at the size of the plane dwarfing the Pipers and Canucks tied down by her. It was much larger than in the movies. She glistened in the sun like a bulwark of security from days gone by.

The pilot arrived by cab, paid the driver, and then stepped into the flight lounge. He was an older man; his wavy hair was gray and tossed. Looked like it might have been combed, say, around the turn of the century.

His flight jacket was checked, creased and worn - it smelled old and genuine. Old Glory was prominently sewn to its shoulders. He projected a quiet air of proficiency and pride devoid of arrogance. He filed a quick flight plan to Montreal (Expo-67, Air Show) then walked across the tarmac.

After taking several minutes to perform his walk-around check the pilot returned to the flight lounge to ask if anyone would be available to stand by with fire extinguishers while he “flashed the old bird up. Just to be safe.”

Though only 12 at the time I was allowed to stand by with an extinguisher after brief instruction on its use — “If you see a fire, point, then pull this lever!” I later became a firefighter, but that’s another story.

The air around the exhaust manifolds shimmered like a mirror from fuel fumes as the huge prop started to rotate. One manifold, then another, and yet another barked — I stepped back with the others. In moments the Packard-built Merlin engine came to life with a thunderous roar, blue flames knifed from her manifolds. I looked at the others’ faces, there was no concern. I lowered the bell of my extinguisher. One of the guys signaled to walk back to the lounge. We did.

Several minutes later we could hear the pilot doing his pre flight run-up. He’d taxied to the end of runway 19, out of sight. All went quiet for several seconds; we raced from the lounge to the second story deck to see if we could catch a glimpse of the P-51 as she started down the runway. We could not.

There we stood, eyes fixed to a spot half way down 19. Then a roar ripped across the field, much louder than before, like a furious hell spawn set loose—something mighty this way was coming. “Listen to that thing!” Said the controller. In seconds the Mustang burst into our line of sight.

Its tail was already off and it was moving faster than anything I’d ever seen by that point on 19. Two-thirds the way down 19 the Mustang was airborne with her gear going up. The prop tips were supersonic; we clasped our ears as the Mustang climbed hellish fast into the circuit to be eaten up by the dog-day haze.

We stood for a few moments in stunned silence trying to digest what we’d just seen. The radio controller rushed by me to the radio. ” Kingston tower calling Mustang?” He looked back to us as he waited for an acknowledgment. The radio crackled, “Go ahead Kingston .” “Roger Mustang. Kingston tower would like to advise the circuit is clear for a low level pass.” I stood in shock because the controller had, more or less, just asked the pilot to return for an impromptu air show!

The controller looked at us. “What?” He asked. “I can’t let that guy go without asking. I couldn’t forgive myself!” The radio crackled once again, ” Kingston, do I have permission for a low level pass, east to west, across the field?” “Roger Mustang, the circuit is clear for an east to west pass.” “Roger, Kingston, I’m coming out of 3000 feet, stand by.” We rushed back onto the second-story deck, eyes fixed toward the eastern haze.

The sound was subtle at first, a high-pitched whine, a muffled screech, a distant scream. Moments later the P-51 burst through the haze. Her airframe straining against positive Gs and gravity, wing tips spilling contrails of condensed air, prop-tips again supersonic as the burnished bird blasted across the eastern margin of the field shredding and tearing the air.

At about 400 mph and 150 yards from where we stood she passed with the old American pilot saluting. Imagine. A salute! I felt like laughing, I felt like crying, she glistened, she screamed, the building shook, my heart pounded.

Then the old pilot pulled her up. and rolled, and rolled, and rolled out of sight into the broken clouds and indelibly into my memory.

I’ve never wanted to be an American more than on that day. It was a time when many nations in the world looked to Americas their big brother, a steady and even-handed beacon of security who navigated difficult political water with grace and style; not unlike the pilot who’d just flown into my memory. He was proud, not arrogant, humble, not a braggart, old and honest, projecting an aura of America at its best. That America will return one day, I know it will.

Until that time, I’ll just send off this story; call it a reciprocal salute, to the old American pilot who wove a memory for a young Canadian that’s lasted a lifetime.

Yesterday’s posts contain the names of US Senators who spoke in support of the Bailout package passed by the Senate yesterday.

But not all of them. Those are the senators who justified their vote…who excused a deliberate and intentional descent into socialism…by saying something MUST BE DONE to keep the flow of credit alive.

Let us, for a minute, consider the nature of debt. What, precisely, is debt?

Several dictionaries define debt as An action, state of mind, or object one has an obligation to perform for another, adopt toward another, or give to another; The state or condition of owing something to another; Money that one person or entity owes or is required to pay to another, generally as a result of a loan

Wealth…that is, value, or money as a store of it, is the result of work. It is the result of production. The Man who gives the efforts of his mind or body to create a product, service a product, produce a product, or deliver a product is WORKING. In exchange for doing work, he demands compensation. his work has value, and he gives it in exchange for something of equal value. Money…or wealth.

Why? What is the purpose of money? Why have a store of value (whether or not our current fiat currency satisfies that definition is a discussion for another day)? If man’s work creates, produces, services, delivers, or otherwise provides things of value, why does He need money to store value?

Simple…He needs a method by which he can exchange value for other value. His work…it has value. His product…it has value. But he wants or needs other things of value. He can produce, say, an apple…but he needs milk.

Could he exchange an apple for some milk? Certainly…presuming the man with milk wants or values an apple. But what if he does not? he’s quite willing to exchange his excess milk for value equal to the work which produced it…but he does not want an apple. The owner of the apple is quite willing to exchange his apple for something of a value equal to that work which created the apple…but his apple is not valued by his market. What now?

Enter money as a tool of exchange. Its fundamental purpose…its reason for existence…is as a STORE OF VALUE. It is, if you will, the “concept of value” made physical, tangible, and real. The Man with the apple may now deal with ANY market that desires an appple…regardless of whether they have milk to offer in return. They may offer him MONEY…physical value…which he may then offer to the owner of the apple.

That is the nature of money. It is the tool by which men may trade the VALUE created by their WORK.
So what about debt?

Debt seeks, quite simply, to remove the necessity to create value…to, quite literally, as Rand put it, MAKE MONEY.

It is a tool by which a man with NOTHING to offer except the PROMISE of FUTURE work may claim to be offering value for value…when in fact, what he is doing, is offering a PROMISE for value. He is saying, to the man with milk, “I have nothing of value to anyone. I own nothing. I desire your apple. If you give it to me, I promise I will, in the future, create value, and give it to you.”

Think about what this simple transaction has done.

It has asked the man who produced…the man who holds something of value…to exchange it for nothing.

It has asked the debtor…the man with nothing but a promise of future value…to give up the ownership of his work. His work, and the product of it, now no longer belong to him. The apple producer now has claim.

Morally, this can NOT, in any sense of the word, be right.

Time and time again, we have been told this week that our economy runs on credit. That without a bailout, you will be unable to obtain a car loan, credit for Christmas shopping, student loans, you name it. Observe that EVERY single thing the supporters of the bailout have threatened you with…EVERY SINGLE CALAMITY they have foreseen is BASED ON DEBT.

They’re right. Our economy is based on debt.

Where they’re wrong is in insisting that this is just and moral, and should be continued at all costs. Indeed, they propose not only to shore up the insanity of debt, but to do so WITH MORE DEBT.

Perhaps you’ve been there…perhaps you’re there now. Debt hell. heard of it? Know it? I do. See if this sounds familiar…

You finance..oh…a car. Your first car. You learn the joy of WANTING, without needing to EARN…with no need to produce FIRST…and having your wants fulfilled with the stroke of a pen. It seems a small price…you’re not giving up your life, merely the product of it…and a small percentage of that.

Sure, you understand that the bank owns the car…but do you understand that the bank now also owns YOUR LIFE? What is your life? What value does it have beyond that value you create with it? But that value you create with it is now owned BY THE BANK.

No matter…it’s only a small part of it. Soon, because your car loan and regular payments have enhanced your “credit rating”, pre-approved credit card offers arrive. How wonderful! You can add a new stereo to the new car, AND replace your aging television!

More of your life, signed away at the stroke of a pen.

Soon, it seems you never have any money. You never have any tangible store of value around. Why? Simple…YOU’VE PROMISED ALL OF YOUR VALUE TO OTHERS. You don’t hold any money, because the moment you make it, its RIGHTFUL OWNER claims it!

What now?

More debt, of course. You have to eat, right? Well, there’s room on the Visa for a meal from Dominos. Congratulations…you have just financed a pizza!

Perhaps you know the end result…maybe you’ve lived it, or are doing so now, or know someone who has.

More debt incurs more debt which incurs more debt. Before long, you’re paying ridiculous interest rates because the only place that will loan you money…the money you NEED because you have none…is the payday lending place down the road.

It will end. It has to. There will come a day you have nothing left to offer…even in promise. You can not promise another minute of your life, not even for a gallon of milk…because your life is completely owned by others.

Look around. Look at our nation. Look at our nearly $10 TRILLION (let me write that out. That’s $10,000,000,000,000) national DEBT. Look at our government BORROWING to fund the social programs that serve the morality of need=claim. Look at the value of our dollar, backed by nothing but the ‘full faith and CREDIT’ of our nation.

Listen to your congressmen tell you this bailout is necessary because WE ARE A NATION OF DEBT.

And ask yourself…what does our government produce? It has made promises of future value! THAT IS WHAT DEBT IS! Where is this value? Where are the apples, the milk, the cars, the computers, the steel it produces?

They are YOURS. YOU produce them. CITIZENS produce them.
The government lives on debt. It ENCOURAGES you to do so. And the promises it makes to incur that debt?

THE SAME VALUE YOU HAVE PROMISED TO OTHERS TO INCUR YOURS.

Your life. Your work. Your production.

The bailout, ladies and gentlemen, is an ever more desperate grasp at something…anything…to sustain that which is UNSUSTAINABLE…a life spent in debt to others. It’s the trip to the payday advance place.

Eventually, it has to end. Eventually, all Men must deal with other Men in the only moral and fair way Men can trade. Not need for value…not promises for value…not want for value….but VALUE FOR VALUE.

The longer a Man takes to realize this, the more difficult it becomes to achieve it.

What makes us think it is any different for nations?

Holy mother of GOD you suck.

85,000 - 6,000, but we don’t understand.  Blow me, you power mad bitch.