Things that anger me

This week, I found a couple news items that have utterly and entirely pissed me off.

I don't try to get political in my posts, but I can't help it this time.

1.  Barak Obama's assault on small business

Full context - http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/07/did-obama-say-if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that/

I'll cherry pick some nuggets that I took some personal offense to.

"We can make another trillion or trillion-two, and what we then do is ask for the wealthy to pay a little bit more …"  Okay, but what about the 46% of the United States that doesn't pay tax?  http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/who-doesnt-pay-federal-income-taxes-legally/  

"They know they didn’t -look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.  You didn’t get there on your own. "  Was the government throwing me a safety net when I paid my employee's salaries and skipped my own when money was tight?  Did the government throw me a safety net when I had to eliminate my health insurance benefits for a year while trying to grow a start up and create jobs?  Is the government giving me personal tax relief on my company earnings despite me not pulling out one red cent above my salary in order to grow and add more staff?  Did the government underwrite any lines of credit or loans, even through the Small Business Association?  

"If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.  There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.  Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.  Somebody invested in roads and bridges.  If you’ve got a business. you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen. "

Sure, I had some great teachers in my 100% public school career.  At the time, my parents and their peers paid taxes which enabled that.  Today, me and some of my peers pay taxes to enable the education of our young people.  No harm, no foul, despite the quality of public school education declining steadily.  Sure, in the American system, we follow in the footsteps of giants.  We're currently paying forward for tomorrow's leaders, just as our predecessors paid forward for us, and so on and so forth.  Roads and bridges?  Okay, I pay taxes that enable the city, state or Federal government to construct roads and bridges.  So what? I didn't build my business?  I call shenanigans.  I took many risks to get to the point I'm at now, and still have a long way to go.

"You’re not on your own, we’re in this together.” - except the entrepreneurs and those 46% who don't have any income tax liability.

My father is a died-in-the-wool Massachusetts democrat.  His answer to every fiscal problem the country is facing?  "Tax the rich".  My point to him is that due to the taxes my company pays, it directly impacts the number of people I can hire.  It directly impacts the benefits I can offer my employees.  If I paid less in corporate tax, I could hire more Americans.  I typically target unemployed, underemployed people for hiring.  I am sure that they have more discretionary cash under my salary structure than they do from unemployment benefits or the part time job they had to take at Best Buy in order to get some money in.  Every person I can't hire is a person that Obama wants the government to take care of. Make it easier on small business to do business and more people will be hired.  More people being hired means more cash in the economy.  More cash in the economy means more people being hired.  More people being self-sustaining leads to less reliance on the government.  Less reliance on the government leads to smaller government.  Smaller government leads to reduced debt, reduced debt leads to balanced budgets, balanced budgets lead to budgetary surpluses, budgetary surpluses lead to reduced taxes, reduced taxes lead to more discretionary income for self-sustaining workers.

2.  Mark Hamill - 

Here's the quote:  "And if you don't vote for Barack Obama, you're insane," he added. ''Cause without him, I think the middle class will completely disappear. And you look at Romney and I'm sure he's a nice guy, but I think he's like The Thing, he only imitates human behavior. He's not actually human himself."  http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2012/07/17/Mark-Hamill-Romney-Not-Human

Being lower upper middle class myself, I find this statement somewhat insulting.  Mark will be at Celebration VI in Orlando next month.  He will be charging $125 for an autograph.  Who is the core demographic for Celebration VI?  The middle class.  Who is he assraping for a 5 second scrawl of his John Hancock?  The middle class.  He's taking purely capitalistic approaches to his revenue generation - pay what the market will bear.  I get that.  I applaud that. It's smart business from his side.  A case in point - http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2012/07/progressivity-of-taxes-and-transfers.html  The middle class, for the first time, is actually receiving more government dollars than they're paying out.  We're gladly falling into the nanny state rhetoric.  I don't need B-list hollywood personalities telling me what to think.  I don't need A-list personalities telling me what to think.  Shut up and entertain me.

3.  Boy Scouts reaffirm ban on gays.  http://www.boston.com/community/moms/2012/07/18/despite-protests-boy-scouts-reaffirm-ban-gays/LdXOZqwuhU9cJyL3NHm2vM/story.html  This isn't unexpected, but disappointing.  The way I understand it, is that parents and organizers are uncomfortable with the idea of boys being around gays.  I can kind of understand it, but the train of thought that homosexuality leads to pedophilia is incorrect.  It's akin to saying that all smokers are arsonists because we use lighters.  I take some umbrance with the religious angle.   Through my research, homosexuality is frowned upon in the Book of Leviticus.  That's all well and good as well.  However, Leviticus also frowns upon eating shellfish, adultery and being raped - yes being raped, not raping!  Are the religious right not serving shrimp at cocktail parties?  Not fucking around on their wives?  I have no problem with religion.  While not "born again", I do consider myself Christian and I do have faith.  However, if God has a problem with homosexuality, that's his call, not mine.  Live and let live, man. If homosexuality is punishable by an everlasting hell, why make it our point to start the process early with their time on earth?  Background check the hell out of any volunteer.  The goal is to have the kids learn, and be safe while doing it.  Shouldn't tolerance and acceptance (being a Christian principle) be a part of that learning?  My girlfriend is active in scouts.  Her boys are active in scouts.  It's not like I don't have a dog in this hunt.  If there's a gay dude out there who can be a positive influence on them to encourage them to continue in scouting and get their eagle, then more power to him.