According to some, rich people should pay more taxes, because they’re rich. Poor people should pay less taxes because they’re poor. And if some stinky old Republican, like GeeDub Bush, cuts taxes, then rich people must be paying less and that’s somehow a bad thing.

Raise taxes! Punish the rich! Rah rah rah!

Ok. Now that the emotional part of the post is over, let’s look at some hard facts.

In 2000, the top 10% of Americans, with regard to income, paid about 67% of all taxes collected by the IRS. That means that 90% of America only contributed 23% of the tax revenue. Wow. So, I guess the rich already are paying more taxes, huh? A lot more.

Oh.

Well, when Bush cut taxes, he only cut taxes for rich people and now poor people are paying more!

Ya think? Well, I hate to tell you, that since the 2001 tax cuts, the ratio has gone the opposite direction. In 2006, the same top 10% of income earners paid over 70% of the tax revenue. Yes, after Bush’s tax cut, the rich are now paying more. Whereas, during the Clinton years, in the mid-90’s, the ratio was around 60/40. So, when Slick Willy was in office, the poor and middle class had twice the tax burden that they have now under Bush’s tax cuts.

Oh.

Please don’t take my word for it. Read it for yourself here.

I’ve never liked labels. I think every person is unique with infinite nuances that make them who they are. But there are times when people can be grouped based on a few of their multitude of attributes.

I am a (Big-C) Conservative. Yeah, I know. Stop the presses. But why? What makes me lean that way? I am a Christian first, true, but there are many Christian liberals. (I work with two.) My parents are conservatives, but poll after poll shows that heritage has little to do with political stance.

I like to think that it’s because I think. I evaluate. I make my stand only after researching the truth. I never make a decision based on emotion or the media or a political speech. You’d think that would be common sense, but the longer I live the more I find out it is extremely rare. I hope and pray that all of my readers are amoung the rare thinkers and not the herds of sheep.

Smart folks like us are offended at the notion that Sarah Palin was chosen as a ploy to lure Hillary voters to the Republican ticket. Seriously, who’s dumb enough to think that Palin and Clinton have anything in common other than the “F” on their driver’s licenses. However, as it turns out, there are millions of people who are that dumb.

There is a blog in my feed list, a Christian blog, written by someone you might normally assume was an intelligent thinker. However, here are some quotes from today’s post.

A month ago I was committed to vote for Obama. Why? For reasons of his biography. For wanting to participate in history. And for the simple fact that I had no compelling reason to vote for McCain.

Exhibit A: Your vote was entirely based on the fact that Obama is black? That’s racisim, people!

When Obama chose the worst of all possible running mates, the “I bet my IQ is higher than your IQ” blowhard who has done nothing except be a lifelong politician, my soft support for Obama weakened to the point where I had just about decided not to vote at all.

Exhibit B: Joe Biden’s hard-core, pro-abortion, pro-gay, pro-tax, anti-gun, uber-liberal policies have no impact on your vote. Instead, the fact that he’s a “lifelong politician” (regardless of what he has or has not accomplished during that life) was almost (but not quite) enough to change your vote. So, if Biden was completely inexperienced (*cough* Obama *cough*) you’d have no problem voting for him, even if he is a pinko-marxist-libral?

When McCain [chose] Palin … I was instantly hooked … She had me when she walked on stage after a simple introduction and gave that endearing one-flapping-arm wave rather than the two arms over the head politician’s gesture.

Exhibit C: So, you’re telling me you your vote for the the most important public office in the world is going to be based on the fact that she waved one hand instead of two?

I’m starting to think that Thomas Hobbes was right. The populous is not smart enough to be trusted with decisions as grave and world-changing as this. God help us all.

It’s finally here. The presidential election season starts today with the Democratic National Convention. Boy, it’s about time we started hearing news about the election, huh? I wonder why the media waited so long to start covering the race.

Oh, wait. That’s right. They’ve been beating us over the head with it for over a year already!

The next time we elect a president, for God’s sake can we do a background check?
– David Letterman

Amen. So how much do you know about your candidate of choice? Hmmmm?

In case you’ve been living under a rock or only watching “MSM” coverage (these two are synonymous), Russia has thumbed its nose at the world to an even greater extent in the last week. Russia has now signed two cease fire agreements, both of which stipulate an end of aggression in Georgia and the latter of the two requires Russian’s to pull back to their August 6th positions. They have done neither.

In this clip, a Georgian reporter is making a live report for the outskits of  Gori (where Russian troops are razing the entire town and killing anyone who has not yet evacuated). In the midst of her report, she is struck in the arm by a sniper’s bullet, presumably Russian. From what I can find out, it’s an injury she’ll recover from, but the video is shocking none-the-less.

This is the third video I’ve seen in the last two days in which Russian troops open fire on press teams approaching the city. Remember what I said about the invasion and video coverage? The Russian army does not want any media within 100 miles lest the world get a glimps of atrocities they are perpetrating.

This news article confirms the location and identy of the reporter.

How long will Washington continue to tip-toe around Russia’s grotesque genocide in Georgia?

“[Russian soldiers] said, ‘Putin has given us an order that everyone must be either shot or forced to leave.’ They told us we should ask the Americans for help now because they would kill us if we stayed.”

Read the complete article.

I remember back a few years ago, when Russia was beginning to recover from their economic collapse, seeing Vlad Putin make an impassioned speech about Russia’s return to greatness (or something like that). I remember getting a cold feeling about Putin. He just looked so “Soviet.”

I shrugged it off and blamed it on the fact that I grew up during the Cold War. Probably just some old propaganda in my subconscious, right? Riiiight.

In more recent years, good ol’ Vlad has been doing a lot of chest thumping. Blocking Bush’s missile defense plans. Making friends with our enemies (*cough* Iran *cough*). Generally sounding more and more like the old bullies that the “old Cold War propaganda” warned me about. Still, this is just a guy looking out for his own country, right? Doing what a president… er… sorry… prime minister should do. Right?!

But don’t forget. Russia is famous for it’s chess masters. They understand dubious strategy (maybe better than anyone). Let’s take a chess master’s look at the Georgian conflict.

With oil hitting record prices, the entire western world has been focused on our energy dependence problems.  With all our hand wringing over the Arab shaikhs taking all our money, we probably didn’t notice that Russia is a huge oil exporter and has been quietly raking in the dough, not to mention that Putin’s government has been centralizing the energy market, putting all that black gold under government control.

Georgia, a pro-western US ally, has been working with its central Asian neighbors to build some natural gas and oil pipelines to eastern Europe and the Mediterranean. This would undercut Russia’s control of Asian oil.

For the last few months, any headlines that are not about the high cost of gas are focused on the US presidential race. Now, for the next couple of weeks, every self-respecting journalist in the world is holed up in China covering the Olympics. You could say we’re all a bit preoccupied.

If I was a power-hungry leader of a first-world country and I wanted to punish a tiny little neighbor of mine for mucking around in my power structure, my first concern would be media coverage. If a bunch of bleeding heart western journalists started broadcasting video of my tanks crushing this third-world annoyance, there would be all sorts of outcries, political pressure would abound and those saps over at the UN would start spitting out non-binding resolutions like crazy. I can’t have that. So, I’d wait until all the world’s journalists (at least the good ones that anyone will listen to) are completely preoccupied and unable to combat my state controlled media reports.

If, somehow, the word did get out, and the West got wind of my little sand kicking exercise, I would make sure the world knew that the little guy started it (“The aggressor has been punished…”) and then I would graciously offer the little pip-squeaks a cease fire.

Of course, the conditions of that cease fire would have to include that the little guy’s military would have to stay exactly where they were. No retreat and regroup. No fortifying weak spots. Just freeze. Then, I could run a couple dozen tanks right up to whatever target of opportunity I could find and blast the blazes out of it. No media means no video and no video means I can deny the whole thing as sympathizer propaganda. (“A Western news photographer” is a pretty poor eye witness. Easy to dismiss.)

Some pundits are waxing quizical over Russia’s apparent back-stepping. They look to internaltional pressure, economic threats, etc., to say that Putin has been “forced” to back down. That’s straight up bolshevik. Putin did exactly what he wanted to do. He gave the little nerd a big, puffy, black eye and now he just has to mutter an unsincere, “sorry,” and walk away. Nerds with big, puffy, black eyes tend to be more careful in the future about crossing the big bully.

Georgia is not destroyed, but they have been punished and that’s all Putin needed. He’s set a precedent. If you mess with me, I’ll black your eye and it’ll be over before the teacher can do anything about it. I may get a detention, but you’ll still have a black eye. And don’t think for a minute that all of Russia’s little neighbors (all former soviet republics, by the way) got the message loud and clear.

About a year ago I wrote a post about the immigration reform debacle. Since then, there hasn’t much much talk about it. I ran across an article last week that proves a very important point.

You see, after the Bush administration’s complete failure to reform the immigration law, they switched to enforcing the existing law with renewed fervor. The running theory is that this was an attempt to stir up sympathy for the illegals and build momentum for a future amnesty bill.

However, the effect has been quite different. It turns out that when you enforce the law, the law serves its purpose. It dissuades people from breaking it!

According to a recent report by the Center for Immigration Studies (based on Census Bureau data), the estimated illegal immigrant population has decreased by 11% (about 1.3 million people) since the Bush administration gave up on their reform bill and started serious enforcement (around August of 2007).

You might be thinking, “Of course the population is down! We’re deporting all those poor immigrants!” But you’d be wrong. The US has only caught and deported about 185,000 illegals. That means that nearly ten times as many have left on their own.

According to the report, there was a spike in illegal immigration last summer when congress was debating immigration reform (folks hoping to get across the border in time to cash in on the amnesty bill), but as soon as the legislation failed, the exodus began.

Imagine that. Law enforcement works. It’s a tough job being right all the time, but somebody has to do it.

You can read the full report here. But keep an eye on your clock. It’s forever long.

Let’s start off with this week’s white board quip.

I put a dollar in one of those change machines. Nothing changed.
– Steven Wright

That means that, once again, I have two WBQotW posts back-to-back. Which means that I have, once again, gotten lazy about blogging. Yes, I know. I said that I’d be busy and that posts would get scarce, but it’s not just the blog that has fallen behind.

So, I’m back to that point in the cycle of my life where I’m irritated at myself. Call it procrastination. Call it sloth. Call it plain old lazy. Whatever it is, it’s crept back into my life. Time for a change.

Change. There’s been a lot of talk about “Change” in the last year thanks to one particularly shallow and insipid presidential campaign. Change is a dangerous word if left to itself. Change what? Why? How? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, then change can ruin.

In my personal case, the “what” is my attitude toward tasks and goals, my level of self discipline, my work ethic. These things need to change. The “why” is pretty basic. I have a lot of things to do that aren’t getting done. This reflects poorly on me both personally and professionally. The “how” is more complex (as it always should be). I need to get back to making lists and accomplishing those lists. I need to more closely manage my time. I need to get back into an attitude-building routine.

But what if you seek change without answering the qualifying questions? “We need change.” Ok. From now on, your salary will be paid not in US dollars, but in monopoly money. That’s change. Or, from now on, police officers will be allowed to shoot you if they think you’re ugly. That’s change. Or, from now on, you’re only allowed to eat lawn trimmings and dog turds. That’s change. What if change means destroying the economy with huge tax increases, taking away basic freedoms, protecting trees and bugs while declaring human life expendable, and making the pursuit of happiness impossible?

I hope you see where I’m going with this. Sometimes change is needed, but only when you can answer the what, why and how. If you want change just for the sake of change, you’d better not be ugly and you better have the stomach for some mulch and dog turd stew.

You may have heard about Newt Gingrich’s “Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less.” campaign. But accessing out own natural resources is only one of the three points in Newt’s plan. Watch this to hear all three very simple and sensible steps in his own words. And SIGN THE PETITION!!

Okay, I need a sanity check here. First, watch this YouTube clip of a Heinz commercial currently running in the UK.

Do you get it? Mayo with a New York deli flavor. Mom is making the sandwiches with New York deli flavor, so Mom “appears” as a rough, tough, stereotypical New York butcher. Get it? Ha haaa… Clever-ish. And the kiss at the end comes off as slightly comical, with some shock value.

Enter my friends at the American Family Association. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I respect what those guys do. I appreciate the work. I need someone else to keep an eye on things that I don’t have time or opportunity to watch. Without the AFA, I would not have known about Ford pumping money into “gay pride” parades and running explicit ads in “gay” magazines because, well, I don’t go to those parades nor do I read those magazines. I don’t have eyes or ears in the advertising market to let me know when someone’s putting money toward that kind of thing.

But there are times, when the folks at the AFA really puzzle me. Did anyone watch that commercial and jump to the conclusion that Heinz was promoting gay marriage? I could be wrong, but I don’t think gay marriage is even a hot button issue in Britain. It’s not legal and I haven’t heard anything about a push to legalize it.

You can read the AFA’s alert here.

Is it just me or is the AFA way off the mark on this one? I mean, seriously. Who looks at that and thinks, “Oh, that big, burly butcher with the New York accent must be the homosexual lover of that wimpy little Brit. And look! They have kids!” I can just imagine what that big, burly butcher would say if you told him that, but I can’t print it here because my blog is rated PG.