Investigate CEO Pay? Investigate Others, Too!

Tomorrow I leave for Florida for a week (work, not fun.... okay, probably a little fun), so I wanted to do another post before I left, but then I started packing, and then started getting my carry-on together and then Smokey and The Bandit was on, so I had to stop for two hours to watch that, and then..... Well, the bottom line is you get a guest post today, from an article by Pam Meister.

Pam asks "If politicians worry that CEOs make too much, shouldn't they also investigate movie stars and Al Gore — not to mention senators who campaign for higher office while feeding at the public trough?" I think it's a pretty good question, so here goes:

Investigate CEO Pay? Investigate Others, Too! by Pam Meister

Certain members of Congress — some of them presidential candidates — think it’s a great idea to investigate how much CEOs of major corporations earn. This is an effort to make Americans think they’re doing something — not to mention an effort to keep class envy alive. Barack Obama is pushing legislation that would allow investors to approve a CEO’s pay based on their satisfaction of stock performance, while John McCain wants to “shine a light” on CEO pay packages.

When Congress decides to get involved in the private sector, be prepared for unexpected consequences. They mean well, of course, but invariably something goes wrong. Guess who ends up paying for the mistake? Hint: not Congress.

Envy and jealousy, those two ever-present human emotions, are at play, and “greedy” corporate fat cats are once again in the spotlight. But when it comes down to it, how many average Americans know what CEO pay is based on? We all imagine the CEO living in his posh mansion and being driven in his limo to his office where he spends maybe a couple of hours a day “working.” Then it’s off to the golf course or the yacht club, where he socializes with his peers, waited on hand and foot by the hoi polloi who bow and scrape for paltry tips.

Do those of us who envy from afar realize how much these people go through to get to the top of the pay scale?

One of my brothers-in-law is not a CEO, but he’s darn close — he’s a CIO for a major American corporation. But he didn’t start out that way. He had an average job as an electrical engineer, making decent money but not scads of it. In a way, he was “discovered,” being in the right place at the right time with the right skills — and he was on the track to corporate stardom. In the process he had to earn two master’s degrees (including his MBA) at night while working days; moved his family across the country four times; and at his last job ended up traveling 80 percent of the time all over the world and not always to nice locations — in some places he actually needed armed body guards. Fun, huh? He travels with his current job too, but only about 20 percent of the time and only in North America — one of the reasons he accepted their offer.

When you get to this level, you often work late and always have to be available via Blackberry, cell phone, and computer at home in case a crisis crops up. Your time is never your own unless you are on official vacation. You have to make big decisions that affect the entire corporation — and if they’re the wrong ones, it’s your head on the block. You are paid handsomely, yes, but your home life suffers. Believe me; he earns every penny of his salary. And he’s a nice guy to boot who enjoys fishing and hunting, and he’s a lifetime member of the NRA. (By the way, he drives himself to work in his own car. He only gets a limo when he goes to the airport.)

But in case my brother-in-law’s story isn’t enough to convince you, let’s look to someone with a little more clout than I have: Thomas Sowell, one of this nation’s most respected economists, who explains why anyone would want to pay a CEO such exorbitant amounts of money:

One popular explanation is that executive salaries are set by boards of directors who are spending the stockholders’ money and do not care that they are overpaying a CEO, who may be the one responsible for putting them on the board of directors in the first place.

It makes a neat picture and may even be true in some cases. What deals a body blow to this theory, however, is that CEO compensation is even higher in corporations owned by a few giant investment firms, as distinguished from corporations owned by thousands of individual stockholders.

In other words, it is precisely where people are spending their own money and have financial expertise that they bid highest for CEOs. It is precisely where people most fully understand the difference that the right CEO can make in a corporation’s profitability that they are willing to bid what it takes to get the executive they want.

If people who are capable of being outstanding executives were a dime a dozen, nobody would pay eleven cents a dozen for them.

When CEOs don’t make the grade, they’re dropped like hot rocks. Yes, many of them receive “golden parachutes.” But it’s likely that those parachutes are packed when the CEO signs on, not in a mad rush to get him out the door.

More from Sowell:

Given the high degree of specialization in a modern economy, demanding that everything “justify itself before the bar of reason” means demanding that people who know what they are doing must be subject to the veto of people who don’t have a clue about the decisions that they are second-guessing.

It means demanding that ignorance override knowledge.

The ignorant are not just some separate group of people. As Will Rogers said, everybody is ignorant, but just about different things.

Should computer experts tell brain surgeons how to do their job? Or horse trainers tell either of them what to do?

One of the reasons why central planning sounds so good, but has failed so badly that even socialist and communist governments finally abandoned the idea by the end of the 20th century, is that nobody knows enough to second guess everybody else.

This is why I believe Economics 101 should be a required class in either high school or college. Even so, unfortunately, this kind of logic is usually thrown overboard when people are concerned about the economy and their own pathetic standing in it. Personal responsibility to manage your own finances in a sensible manner will always take a back seat to being part of a mob with pitchforks and torches, looking for the nearest scapegoat.

This being an election year, don’t expect Congress and presidential candidates to listen to people like Thomas Sowell, who know what they’re talking about. They must do something to look as though they’re appeasing the masses. More bread and circuses! And so, in that light, I’d like to suggest a few other areas of salary inequity they may want to look into. No, it’s none of their business how much these people make, but neither is CEO pay. And it would make some really good press.

X Movie stars, singers, sports stars, and other entertainment celebrities. Think about it: every time you go to a movie, concert, or sports event, the people entertaining you are making millions of dollars, which often translates into higher prices for you at the box office or music store. And, as is often the case — with movies, anyway — you don’t always feel as though you’ve gotten your money’s worth. Why should you shell out more for increasingly mediocre talent? It’s an outrage!

Additionally, think about all of the starving actors and performers out there who don’t make as much as “big stars” like George Clooney, Madonna, and Tom Cruise. It’s just not fair that they’re making the big bucks and living lives of luxury while the unknowns are waiting tables in between auditions just to make ends meet. Talent, luck, and supply and demand? Fugheddaboutit! If we’re going to level the playing field for everyone else, let’s not leave pampered celebrities out of the loop. And don’t forget the heads of the entertainment companies.

X CEOs who head “politically correct” companies. Why isn’t Congress looking into how much the CEO of Starbucks is making? Because Starbucks is a company beloved by its patrons for giving them that Friends feeling when they buy an overpriced coffee masquerading as something else and sit down in comfy chairs to peruse the New York Times or surf the free WiFi. And Starbucks is at least ostensibly committed to the right causes, like fair trade. Forget the fact that the CEO probably makes more in a month than an average “barista” — that’s a sophisticated name for a coffee server — will during his entire career with Starbucks, right? But if we’re going to look into CEO pay, then Starbucks and all the other companies that make us “feel good” when consuming their products should be fair game too.

X Al Gore. It’s amazing that Al Gore has managed to parlay his concern for the environment into a vast personal fortune. In fact, his fortune allows him to comfortably heat his massive home and zigzag across the globe on private jets, all while telling the rest of us to turn down the thermostat and bicycle 20 miles to work in an effort to reduce our so-called “carbon footprints.” It’d be interesting for Congress to learn just how his “carbon offset” scheme works, especially seeing as how he buys the offsets from a company for which he just happens to not only serve as chairman, but also partly owns. When it comes to Mother Earth, shouldn’t we all be making economic sacrifices?

X Finally, Congress should take a look at the salaries of officeholders who run for higher office. Nothing gets my goat more than public officeholders who spend more time campaigning for a better position than doing what they were originally elected for. Wanna be president? Fine. But you should be made to either wait until your current Senate or House term expires or be forced to resign your post. Why should the taxpayers foot the bill for these yahoos who, rather than doing the work of the American people, are looking for more prestige and power for themselves? One of my senators was among the not-so-lucky contenders for the presidential nomination. He missed nearly 40 percent of the votes that occurred during his time on the campaign trail — and when he threw in the towel, headed back to his nice office in Washington and (I’m sure) will run for Senate again when his term is up. How many of you have bosses who would pay you to skip work to look for a better position elsewhere?

It’s nice to dream, isn’t it?

Pam Meister is the editor of FamilySecurityMatters.org (the opinions she expresses here are her own), and her work has also been featured on American Thinker

Lets Give Politics A Break....

You know, I'm trying to keep this blog going, with at least one or two posts a week, but sometimes even though there is news out there, it bores me. Today, I'm going to take my lead from my friend Chris over at Redhogdiary.wordpress.com. While Chris and I rarely see eye-to-eye on politics, we both share a passion for good music, and since there was so much cross-pollination of our musical tastes when we were roommates in college. Today Chris had a post of top ten favorite songs - for today at least at http://redhogdiary.wordpress.com/2008/04/19/top-10-favorite-songstoday-anyway/

Check it out (but then come back). Chris got me to thinking about that age old question: If you were stranded on a desert island, what five albums would you take with you. Before I answer that question, let me speak to the under-30 crowd: An "album" is kind of like a CD, only bigger, and was played on a thing we called a "record player". Also, a CD were these shiny things that we listened to in the days before we had Ipods. You'll understand this a few years from now when you're forced to explain to your own kids what an Ipod is.

And no, you can't take your Ipod. I know, I know, an Ipod is a lot smaller than five albums (or five CD's), but if that's the case you have to sit hear and read the list of the 3,000 albums that I would take on my Ipod, and no one wants that.

As a background, I have no musical talent whatsoever, although I continue to harbor delusions of grandeur that one day I will break through as a rock star. The good news is I get closer every year, not because my (nonexistence) talent is improving, but the bar for "rock star" gets a little lower every year. Can you say Courtney Love? Terry Schibo had more talent than that women.

But I do love music, and personally own about 2,000 CD's, and just added my 10,000th song to my Ipod. I listen to Pop, Rock, Acid, Easy Listening, Country, Rap, and just about everything else under the sun. Sure, some of it is crap, and I'm not going to tell you that what I listen to is good for you, but I'm telling you that I like it.

And with that, let me present my top five CD's for a Desert Island, in no certain order:

LITTLE FEAT: Waiting For Columbus. Now some people would say you can't include this album because it's a live album. Others would say it has to be two of my five, since its a double-album (kids, ask your folks). To those people I say, get your own damn blog.

Little Feat is a band that has been around in some variation or other since the late 1960's, and they still tour and release material to this very day. And, in the vein of the Grateful Dead, most of the CD's they release are live shows, of which Waiting For Columbus was their first. And while the group is still great, they are a mere shadow of whom they were when founder Lowell George was still alive (Lowell died in June of 1979 at the age of 34 of a massive Heart Attack). It was Waiting For Columbus, which was released in 1978, that was their biggest seller, and still sells well today. According to Wikipedia, "The group's 1978 live album Waiting For Columbus, hailed by critics and fans alike as one of the greatest live records ever released." Check this one out, you will not be disappointed.

BARENAKED LADIES: Gordon: Many people know the Barenaked Ladies (or BNL, as they are known to their fans) through their hit One Week. This is the first CD released by the Barenaked Ladies, and while their more recent release are solid, they will never again reach the peak the achieved with Gordon. This album is hard to describe. Several songs are pop, some are rock, and most have a real intelligent strain of humor running through them. As musicians they are flawless, and their vocals are perfect. I can honestly say that there is not one wasted track on this CD. I bought this CD based on a two paragraph review in People Magazine, which has lead to seeing the band four times in concert.

REO SPEEDWAGON: You Can Tune A Piano, But You Can't Tuna Fish. That's right, REO Speedwagon. Actually, I debated between this album and "Got Live If You Want It", but I didn't want to push my luck with two live double-albums.

REO Speedwagon falls into a group of late seventies Midwest rockers that define my youth. This group includes Styx, Cheap Trick, Head East, and Foghat. Maybe it's because these were the bands that came through Cedar Falls at that time. Now REO Speedwagon really hit the big time with Hi Infidelity (and at the same time left the big time with the same album), and while that was a great album, nothing beats You can tune.... except maybe "Riding The Storm Out" from the aforementioned live album. But with such tunes as Roll With The Changes and Time For Me To Fly this is one great album.

THE ALAN PARSONS PROJECT: Tales Of Mystery And Imagination: Like all of the artists listed above, I love just about everything Alan Parsons has ever done, and it would be easy to make a realistic argument for I, Robot, or Eve, or Eye In The Sky, or any of a dozen other Parsons albums being named their best. And one of the reasons I choose this one is A) because it was their first album, which of course introduced them to me, and B), the unique premise on which this album was founded.

This album was a concept album, based on the poems of Edgar Allen Poe, and while that is a recipe for disaster, it actually works quite well here. Parsons has also based albums on the life and works of architect Antonio Gaudi (Gaudi), and gambling (Turn Of A Friendly Card).

As if I need to sell him further, know that Alan Parsons was an engineer (at age 18) on The Beatles Abbey Road album, as well as Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon and Al Stewarts Year of The Cat.

And that brings us to the fifth album (drumroll please...........)

Aw come on, you didn't expect me to stop at five, did you. That means I would have had to choose from Boston by Boston, Heaven Tonight by Cheap Trick, Hotel California by The Eagles, Back In Black by AC/DC, Born To Run, The River, or Born In The USA by Bruce Springsteen, Toys In The Attic by Aerosmith, From The Inside by Alice Cooper, Life Beyond L.A. by Ambrosia, Just about anything by The Beatles, Whatever and Ever, Amen by Ben Folds Five, The Stranger By Billy Joel, Night Moves by Bob Seger, A Hangover You Don't Deserve by Bowling For Soup, BR5-49 by BR5-49, Built For Speed by The Stray Cats, Lines by Charlie, Twangin' by Dave Edmonds, Seconds of Pleasure by Rockpile, Van Halen I by Van Halen, Making Movies by Dire Straits, Fickle Heart by Sniff n' The Tears, Out Of The Blue by ELO, They Only Come Out At Night by The Edgar Winter Group, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John, Flat As A Pancake by Head East, Running On Empty by Jackson Browne, Deja Vu by CSN&Y, See The Light by Jeff Healey, M.U. by Jethro Tull, Anything by Jim Croce, London Calling by The Clash, Songs You Know By Heart by Jimmy Buffett, Night & Day by Joe Jackson, Scarecrow by John Mellencamp, Who's Next , Tommy and Who Are You by the Who, Deguelo by ZZ Top, anything by Led Zeppelin, and for Chris, Fotomaker by Fotomaker.

And about five hundred more.....

Guess I'm going to have to take that Ipod after all.

And dear reader, what albums would you bring.....

The Ship Is Sinking, And Obama Is Rearranging The Chairs On The Deck

Consistency. Websters defines it as “an attribute of a logical system that is so constituted that none of the propositions deducible from the axioms contradict one another” Quite a mouthful. In laymans terms, consistency means speaking a consistent message.

Why am I defining consistency for you? Well, I’m not speaking to ALL of you, just the Obama supporters, because I doubt that they understand the meaning of the word. It’s clear their candidate doesn’t.

We all know that Obama continues to support his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, even after Wright has used inflammatory language in sermons that have been characterized as being anti-American, anti-Semitic, and racist. But that’s old news.

Wright has retired, but Obama’s current pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ, Rev. Otis Moss, wasted no time in using race to defend Wright by equating criticism of Wright’s language with a public lynching. Equating, for those of you unfamiliar with the word, means that one thing is the same as another. Yeah, criticism of ones speech and hanging someone from a tree are pretty much the same.

Another Chicago minister strongly supportive of Obama is James Meeks, who is also an Illinois state senator. Meeks has come under fire for his own choice language and positions. The minister has drawn the ire of gay rights advocates for his strident stands against homosexuality, which some critics categorize as homophobic. Meeks has refused to denounce the bashing of whites, even referring to white American mayors as “slave masters.” He has also called African-American ministers he sees as working for the current system “house n*#@ers.” Despite these points of friction and intolerance, the Obama campaign has not severed ties from Meeks. Instead, it has sought to merely downplay his statements.

Then there’s the Rev. Michael Pfleger, who has helped set Barack Obama’s “moral compass” for 22 years — which is longer than Obama has known Wright. Pfleger also happens to be a radical apologist for the Nation of Islam, and he has asked followers to murder (his exact word was “snuff”) a firearms retailer because he’s against the ownership of firearms. Despite calling for the death of John Riggio for engaging in lawful commerce and his own history of anti-Semitic diatribes, Pfleger is still featured on the campaign’s “People of Faith for Obama” page.

Well, so far I’d say Obama has been consistent, and I’m sure his supporters would support this consistency by saying Obama is a forgiving man. It seems that infamous anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan is one of the few radical Obama supporters who has been rejected by the presidential candidate. Although this only happened after Obama was badgered about that support in a debate with Hillary Clinton.

But I don’t want to talk about any of those instances today. Today I want to discuss Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski. Haven’t heard of her yet? This past weekend, Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski — a Carpentersville, Illinois village trustee elected as an Obama delegate to the Democratic National Convention — was encouraged by the Obama campaign to resign for inflammatory speech. Ramirez-Sliwinski did not assert that America was run by hate groups. She did not state that the country deserved terrorist attacks; nor did she indict our government with conspiracy theories of racial genocide. And she didn’t try to goad followers into snuffing out a man’s life for running a legal business she does not like.

What Ramirez-Sliwinski did do was tell children to stop playing in a small magnolia tree “like monkeys.” The two children are African-American. The mother of one of the two children called the police over the slight, which Ramirez-Sliwinski insists was not racial in nature. Ramirez-Sliwinski was issued a citation for disorderly conduct, even though she claimed to have acted on behalf of the safety of the boys.

For the weekend slight, the Obama campaign convinced Ramirez-Sliwinski to resign on Monday. She has since reversed her decision, and decided to fight the disorderly conduct charge and remain a delegate. The mother of one of the children has stated that if Ramirez-Sliwinski fights the disorderly conduct change she will “involve” the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, though it’s unclear what purpose would be served by having the civil rights group take sides in a case pitting one minority it serves against another.

Now I don’t know about you, but when I put this woman’s comments up against the comments of someone asking their followers to “snuff” a fellow human being, I know right away which one I’d be most likely to forgive first. And honestly, is their any one of you reading this whose mom, dad, aunt, uncle or neighbor didn’t at least once call them a “little monkey” when they were a child. I know I heard this phrase dozens of times.

But lets assume that Ramirez-Sliwinski did mean it in a racial manner. So what? Okay, okay I know that doesn’t sound real sensitive, but the point I am trying to make is that, in the state of Illinois at least, you can be issued a citation for calling a person a name. Seriously? Hell, if name calling were illegal, the playgrounds of America are going to be pretty empty.

And no, I don’t support name calling, be it a highly racial term (of which I don’t think “little monkeys” really is), or simply “Booger Face”. Should this kind of behavior be dealt with? Sure, at home, by your parents. If my mom would have ever called the cops to complain that a neighbor called me a name, they would have laughed in her face, and rightfully so.

Considering Obama’s historical support from radicals and his record of hesitatingly distancing himself from them (if at all), it was curious that Ramirez-Sliwinski found herself in discussion with Obama staffers Monday about her status as a delegate for the campaign. Especially since it was over a statement that most are willing to write off as an unfortunate word choice.

Or perhaps it isn’t surprising at all.

Although the controversy over Jeremiah Wright’s sermons still resonates across American society, Obama will not risk damaging his long-established relationships with local Chicago firebrands. This is because they assure his future after this one long-shot presidential election bid. Wright, Meeks, Pfleger, and other Obama supporters like them in Chicago are part of the local power base that assured his assent from local politics to the U.S. Senate. No matter how venomous their rhetoric, these acidic relationships also protect his reelection. Obama is wise enough to plan for the long term.

People on the edges of Obama’s campaign like Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski may make mistakes and be guilty of nothing worse that a poor vocabulary choice. But with the candidate’s judgment and relationships already in question, “just words” may now be enough for his campaign to throw supporters to the wolves.

Randi Rhodes Is At It Again

Two posts in two days! Wow.

So last week I tuned into Air America on Tuesday (I appreciate a good laugh on my drive home), only to find Sam Sedar filling in for Randi Rhodes. I have a real love/hate thing going with Rhodes, you hate her because she is such a pinhead, but then again you have to love her, because she’s a pinhead for the left. Okay, she’s one of many pinheads for the left.

Anyhow, Sam was filling in for Randi. Then when I went to pick up my daughter from school on Wednesday, I again was greeted with Sam’s voice instead of Randi’s. Oh well, even pinheads need vacations, I guess. Thursday is my day to close at work, so on Thursday I get to listen to Randi on my drive into work, insuring a fun-filled day all day long. Of course by now I was expecting Sam instead of Randi, and Sam I got. I also got an explanation for Randi’s absence: She had been suspended.

Of course Sedar was apprehensive to go into the details as to why Rhodes had been suspended, so when I got home I went to the Air America website, and found this:

New York - Air America has suspended on-air host Randi Rhodes for making inappropriate statements about prominent figures, including Senator Hillary Clinton, at a recent public appearance on behalf of Air America in San Francisco which was sponsored by an Air America affiliate station."

Air America encourages strong opinions about public affairs but does not condone such abusive, ad hominem language by our Hosts," said chair Charlie Kireker.

That was it. That was the entire explanation. So I dug a little further, and it seems that Randi was doing “stand-up” at an event in San Francisco, an event sponsored by the local Air America affiliate. Now I found this information to be dubious at best, because Randi Rhodes doing stand-up is an interesting concept, since Randi Rhodes isn’t funny, at least not intentionally. We all know that one person that thinks they are the funniest person on the planet, while they in fact are rarely the funniest person in the room, even when they are the only person in the room. That person, is Randi Rhodes.

Here is a sample of some of Randi’s “comedy” from the San Francisco show: Apparently she repeatedly called Hillary a "big f***ing whore", to both cheers and jeers from the audience. In addition, Rhodes referred to former Democrat vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro as "David Duke in drag".

Before we go any further, lets look at some of the things that Randi has done in the past on her show that did NOT result in her being suspended: In February she aired a piece on her show, a psychotic “faux ad, supposedly for Mitt Romney, says his supporters will commit mass killings if John McCain becomes the nominee. Here is part of the script from that piece of “comedy”:

ANNOUNCER: "... If John McCain is the Republican Presidential nominee, it will destroy the Republican Party. We’re Romney supporters and we know. Cause, if you vote for John McCain, we’re going to go on a killing rampage. Hey, better dead then moderate.”REPUBLICAN

CHARACTER VOICE: "Look, I for one don’t want to die in a hail of gun fire from crazed Mitt Romney supporters, but it’s better then nominating a man who opposed the Bush tax cuts. Hell, John McCain spent years in a North Vietnamese prison. A prison? That doesn’t make him a hero. That makes him an ex-con.”

It goes on, stating such classy things that if John McCain is elected he’ll call for legalizing sodomy among other things. And no, she wasn’t suspended for this.

This following an earlier skit calling for the assassination of George Bush. Here is that “ad”:
The announcer: "A spoiled child is telling us our Social Security isn't safe anymore, so he is going to fix it for us. Well, here's your answer, you ungrateful whelp: [audio sound of 4 gunshots being fired.] Just try it, you little bastard. [audio of gun being cocked]."

Classy. And again, no suspension.

She also claimed on the air that Blackwater started the San Diego wildfires, and that she had been mugged by a “conservative operative” when in fact she passed out drunk in a New York Bar. No suspension. Hell, Randi Rhodes wasn’t even suspended after – and I am not kidding about this – she urinated on the Christmas Tree at the company Christmas party.

But call Hillary a “F*&%#$g Whore”, and she’s off the air. If that doesn’t show you the scary kind of power that Hillary has, nothing will. Apparently calling for the assassination of a sitting president is slightly less offensive than calling a candidate a name.

Now it might surprise you to know that I am with Randi on this, not because her target was a Democrat, but rather because the real target is freedom of speech. I believe Ms. Rhodes has the right to say whatever she wants. I also believe the people who pay her have the right to do whatever THEY want, and in this case I think they should fire her, OR let her remain on the air. If they had suspended her after the other incidents that I listed, I would have felt a suspension was fine here as well. However, they are clearly just proving what we as conservatives already know: Liberals do not believe in free speech. They believe in the freedom of THEIR speech, just not yours or mine, at least if our speech disagrees with them.

Some of you may know that I run a book store. I have been with this company for a short time, and yet almost daily I find books written by conservative authors either mis-shelved, hidden behind other books, or turned around so the spine is facing in. Occasionally I’ll find a pro-George Bush in the “Humor” section (okay, that’s kinda funny). Why? Because Liberals don’t believe in free speech, and they want to surprise what the right has to say at any cost.

And in the same amount of time I have not once, not ONCE come across a book by a liberal writer being treated in similar fashion. Why? Because conservatives don’t believe a damn thing liberals have to say BUT the respect their right to say it. Okay, I will admit I have a hard time not shelving Hillary’s autobiography in the “Fiction” section, but I have not.

And so, I would like to say that like most things that come out of the mouth of Randi Rhodes, I find this latest episode sick and disgusting. And at the same time I totally stand behind her right to say it, moronic as it may be.

There is an old philosophical question that asks “If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it make a sound?” I think the real question is “If a talk show host is suspended from a station no one listed to in the first place, has she really been “suspended” from anything?”

Bumper Sticker Philosophy From The Left....

I was driving home today when I got stuck behind a soccer mom in her minivan, and the slow traffic gave me plenty of time to read her multitude of bumper stickers. I’m pleased that she was so proud of her Honor Roll middle-schooler, and I was equally pleased that we didn’t pass any garage sales, because apparently she brakes for them.

But the one that caught my attention was the one that said “The more I learn about men, the more I appreciate my dog.” Oh, as you can imagine I just laughed and laughed. Not. And if that weak joke wasn’t bad enough, It stuck in my head the rest of the way home, although by the time I rolled into the driveway I had changed it slightly to read “The more I learn about liberals, the more……” Well, I’m still having trouble figuring out Liberals. Which brings me to today’s post.

I want to share a few quotes with you today. See if you can find a common theme….

QUOTE #1: At a time when our entire country is banding together and facing down individualism, the Patriots (the New England Football Patriots) set a wonderful example, showing us all what is possible when we work together, believe in each other, and sacrifice for the greater good.

QUOTE #2: It is thus necessary that the individual should come to realize that his own ego is of no importance to in comparison with the existence of the nation; that above all the unity of a nation’s spirit and will are far more than the freedom of the spirit and the will of the individual…. This state of mind, which subordinates the interest of the ego to the conservation of the community, is really the first premise for every truly human culture…. we understand only the individual’s capacity to make sacrifices for the community, for his fellow man.

QUOTE #3: There is the great, silent, continuous struggle: the struggle between the State and the Individual; between the State which demands and the individual who attempts to evade such demands. Because the individual, left to himself, unless he be a saint or a hero, always refuses to pay taxes, obey laws, or go to war.

QUOTE #4: Ethics begin with the acknowledgement that it is not the individual who confers meaning on society, but it is, instead, the existence of a human society which determines the human character of the individual.

QUOTE #5: We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society.

So, did you catch the common thread in those five quotes? I’ll give you a hint: Individual!!!

It probably won’t surprise you that quote number one comes from none other than Ted Kennedy. Don’t you just love it when politicians glom onto the accomplishments of pro athletes? Like the New England patriots couldn’t have made it without the help of Uncle Teddy. I guess he did do one thing that contributed to the Patriots making it to the Super Bowl…. He didn’t drive them to practice. And really Ted, do you think the Patriots could have become one of the greatest teams in sports history unless they had each first decided to be the best at their individual positions.

And quote number 5 comes from Hillary “It Takes A Village” Clinton.

So what about quotes two through four? Well, number two comes to us from Adolph Hitler, Number three from Benito Mussolini, and our final quote comes from Mario Palmieri, writing in The Philosophy of Fascism, 1936.

Hey, I finally figured out my bumper sticker: “The more I learn about liberals, the more I learn about fascism”