Your Sense of Morality Doesn’t Matter

How would you feel if the government required you to kill an innocent puppy or kitten, on pain of loss of your job? How about if it was a newborn baby? Or an unborn child at six months development?

Obama has made it clear that he wants to force those doctors and nurses who believe that birth begins at conception to murder unborn babies, even if they believe this constitutes murder most foul. Their moral objections count for nothing. The story is here.

This is, well, for want of a better word – evil. Evil of the nastiest kind.

-Popgun

Taxes

Here we go. Obama’s budget: From Hot Air – $3.6 trillion dollars divided by 139 million taxpayers is $25,573.48 each. In 2010. This is if all taxpayers pay an equal share in the incredible debt Obama is inflicting on us. A breakdown of some of this is here.

Do you really think that the increased taxes are only going to be on people making more than $250,000 a year? Those taxpayers amount to only 2% of all taxpayers, according to factcheck.org.

2% of 139 million is 2,780,000 taxpayers. So something less than 3 million taxpayers, if Obama keeps his promises, are going to pay for the massive increases in spending. The rest of us, of course, will still be paying at about the level we are now.

Just pulling a number out of the air, say about $2.5 trillion of that $3.6 trillion is the NEW taxes that will be borne entirely by that 2% if Obama keeps his promises. So $2.5 trillion divided by 3 million equals a tax burden of $833,333 per taxpayer (who makes over 250,000 a year).

Obviously, this is NOT going to happen. We are ALL going to get a chunk of this. A big chunk.

I have ignored corporate taxes here. This is because corporate taxes are passed on to the consumer. Ultimately, ALL tax burden is born by the taxpayer or the consumer, directly or indirectly, because businesses protect their bottom line – otherwise, what’s the point of being in business?

I guess what I’m really saying here is that Obama’s numbers don’t add up. These numbers are so huge that I, for one, will not live long enough to pay them back.

This is, no fooling, a serious issue. There is a serious budgetary crisis going on, true; but the Democrats are having a spending frenzy in congress, led by Obama, without regard to the consequences. We think we have a financial problem now; wait a couple of years until the bill comes due.

Writing hot checks is not a viable way to solve economic problems. Not for a family, not for a government. The Democrats are writing a lot of hot checks.

Something is going to break. I just pray to God that our country survives the experience. In a recognizable form.

-Popgun

If You’re In A Hole…

Quit Digging!

Somebody tell Obama!

Obama is borrowing trillions of dollars from other countries. We may or may not be able to make the interest payments on these loans in the coming years.

Exactly how is that different than the homeowners getting mortgages that they couldn’t pay, that has caused all this chaos?

-Popgun

Popgun Economics

I watched President Obama last night, and spent some time thinking about this economic problem and the other things he said. What I’m about to explain is part of my understanding of how the world works, and isn’t really related to Obama except in how his thinking deviates from mine.

First, we need to understand that the Government does not produce anything. The Government is (supposed to be) a service organization for the citizens of the United States, to take care of things we need to handle as a group. For instance, foreign policy, international trade, to make us play nicely with each other, and to wage war when necessary. But in terms of economics, the government is parasitic – it produces nothing, and it’s sole source of income is ultimately the taxpayer.

We pay for government because of the services it provides. Just like paying a dentist to work on your teeth. Yes, the government can print money; but when it does, that money’s value is devalued by the amount it dilutes the existing money supply. The total value of the money in circulation does not change (except when something of value is created from scratch or raw materials by talented people). This dilution of the money supply is called ‘inflation’. When this happens, every dollar you spend gets you less value in return.

Obama thinks that expanding government is the solution to the economic problems, and he thinks this is also the way to pursue his socialist agenda of wealth redistribution. The problem with his approach is that it will in fact redistribute wealth – but it won’t produce anything. Some people and groups will in fact get work and jobs – but those jobs are being paid for by the taxpayer.

This is like trying to make a string longer by cutting a piece off one end and tying it back on the other end.

This is why the republican approach of cutting taxes and minimizing government is effective. It reduces the parasitic overhead cost of the government on the taxpayer. This in turn, allows businesses to have more cash on hand to pursue their businesses. And this results in more jobs, and produces more value, ultimately from raw materials and talented minds. In short, this approach results in growth because it produces value.

Government spending is incapable of producing value. All it can do is move it around. And that is why Obama’s plan is destined to fail, at least as far as saving the economy.

-Popgun

“Climate Change”

Have you noticed that the environmentalists have quit calling it ‘global warming’?

They’ve switched to calling it ‘climate change’.

They’re sure something is changing; they’re just not sure which way it’s going.

Snort.

-Popgun

Do You Know…

Here’s a thought: you are going to survive everything that EVER happens to you – except the last thing.

So really, you’ve only got one thing to worry about, right?

Have a nice day!

-Popgun

Trying to Make Sense of it All

Either global warming is happening, or it’s not. There is sufficient data which conflict with the idea of global warming to, at the very least, cast serious doubt on it.

Even if it is happening, there is even less evidence to support the idea that mankind has anything to do with it.

Yet our government is making major decisions based on global warming as if it was a confirmed fact. This is at the very least extremely illogical. These people generally refuse to examine the available evidence.

Statistics clearly and unambiguously show that all violent crimes decrease both in quantity and magnitude in areas where the right to carry firearms for personal self defense is respected. Almost all mass killings occur in ‘gun free zones’. All available evidence shows that more guns equal less crime. Additionally, on an individual basis, you are far less likely to be a victim of a violent crime if you are carrying a firearm.

Yet many people are absolutely convinced that the only solution to gun violence is to ban all guns. There’s no convincing them that they are wrong, either. They refuse to examine the evidence.

There are a great many more subjects like this; for instance, do some research on how the economy really got trashed… if you dare to study, and make up your own mind. Abandon your pre-conceived ideas and actually go study it. You might be surprised.

These and many other topics are examples of ingrained belief systems; people believe a certain way and lose all interest in studying evidence; especially that which contradicts the established belief.

This is a very, very dangerous way to live in today’s world. Bad decisions are made based on incorrect data. It seems to be clear that our government is overflowing with this kind of thinking.

We have a problem.

-Popgun

Oil Supply Revisited

I’ve blogged about this before, but it’s time to mention it again.

Our government is basing energy policy on environmental concerns (global warming) that are not only unproven, but about which serious doubt exists. There are a great many reasons that man-made global warming is in doubt. For one thing, over the past year the global temperature has cooled to the point that it has wiped out the warming over the last 100 years. Here is an excellent article pointing out the flaws in the current thinking. Also, my previous posts are here and here.

I said all that to prepare for this:

The Green River formation in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming has about 800,000,000,000 recoverable barrels of oil available. This is enough to supply our total oil consumption for about 109 years. Plus off-shore and in Alaska, and natural gas in Louisiana and Texas.

All we have to do is go get it.

Many thousands of badly needed jobs would become available almost immediately. And we would save hundreds of billions of dollars EVERY YEAR that we are now paying to foreigners for oil.

Opening these sources up to drilling now would solve the United States’ cash-flow problem, within a few years.

But the Democratic policy is not to allow any more drilling here or anywhere, because they think they are ’saving the planet’, to quote Nancy Pelosi. The obvious fallacy of this is that we’re still burning that oil – we’re just getting it from somewhere else, at great cost. So refusing to use our own resources has NO impact on protecting the environment.

We’ve got major economic problems. We also have a way to solve a great many of them; but we are constrained from doing so by people who are probably acting in good faith, but on bad information.

By drilling for our own oil, we could then leisurely make the transition to alternative sources of energy before our reserves are consumed, and in a much less painful way than the Democrats are trying to ram down our throats at present. Because their goal is to make a transition to alternative sources of energy at any cost – without regard to the economic damage we will take in doing so.

My goal would be to do the same thing, but without going cold turkey on oil, and with a lot less pain.

-Popgun

Lasergrips on my XD-45

Saturday, I had the chance to go waste some ammo at the deer lease, so I took the opportunity to sight in my Lasergrips on my XD-45 ACP. From the factory, they were shooting just a bit high; adjusted one screw about 1/4 turn, and it’s pretty close to dead on. I may refine it a bit next time I go to the lease.

Lasergrips (and lasers in general) aren’t magic and they don’t replace the iron sights; but they are a valuable addition to the effectiveness of your weapon, especially in any light other than bright sunlight. They allow you to acquire a target without the need to line up the iron sights with your eye; under some conditions, target acquisition is very fast; they allow you to hold the gun on target while having the ability to be aware of what else is going on around you. They are excellent for learning trigger control in practice, as you can see the movement of your aim point as you squeeze the trigger. All in all, well worth the money.

-Popgun

Happiness is…

Happiness is NOT having the flu!

-Popgun