This one is too easy.  Listening this morning to statistics on migration from states like, California, New York, Illinois etc. to states like Texas, Utah, Montana, Florida.  Florida for example is getting 3,000 new residents a day from places like California, New York, Illinois etc.. 

You can call it Blue State to Red State migration or as one commentator called it:  “The U-Haul syndrome”.  For example, renting U-hauls to move out of California is very expensive.  Renting a U-Haul to move to California is real cheap.  

Remineded me of something I wrote nearly 10 years ago as a “take off” from an Aesop Fable.  

Worth repeating and it follows:

****************************

KINGDOM OF THE LOCUST

with an apology to Aesop

Once upon a time there was a pleasant meadow in a lovely valley.

A colony of ants came to the meadow and saw that the land was good and with work would provide for a lovely place to live for them and their children.

They worked hard and put away food for the winter and cared for the land.

From a neighboring valley a tribe of locusts came to the land of the ants and decided to stay because the meadow was so pleasant and fertile.

The ants welcomed them in as neighbors and soon they all decided that they should form a government and each ant and locust would get an equal vote in the affairs of the meadow.

Some of the  locusts came to the ants and said they were poor and in need.  Being of kind heart the ants voted to share the fruits of their hard work with the locusts.

Being locusts, they did what locusts are prone to do, that is create lots of little locusts and sit in their burrows eating the food produced by the ants and watching their flat screen televisions paid for by the ants.

In time they discovered, as the little locusts grew up to vote, that they now outnumbered the ants and could vote themselves more and more of what the ants were working so hard to produce.

More and more locusts had baby locusts and invited their relatives and kin in from neighboring meadows.

One by one the ants figured out that they were doing all the work and the locusts were doing all the eating and loafing and watching television.

The ants decided that they did not want to continue to provide for an ever increasing number of locusts who did little to provide for themselves.

The ants packed up and left the now ravaged meadow and moved away to another meadow in another valley.

Winter came to the meadow of the abandoned locusts.  The locusts starved and froze because there was no longer any ants to provide for them what they refused to provide for themselves.

And the shadow of darkness fell over the formerly  pleasant meadow in the formerly lovely valley.

End of story.  If you are an ant you know the moral of the story.  If you are a locust you don’t care if there is a moral; you just want to know where the ants went.

Bob Bandy – July 2022

(originally published November 2012)

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

Charles Dickens – A Tale Of Two Cities

***************************

“No one wants to hear your opinion. They want to hear their opinion coming out of your mouth”

**********

As I write this the America I was born into, and grew up in, seems to now be two America’s ideologically split into two warring camps with non-negotiable demands at the extremes. 

At least that is what is portrayed in the media. I suspect that the reality for most folks is more like a 20-60-20 divide with the majority somewhere in that 60 percentile center wondering what the heck has happened to the country most of us thought we lived in. 

The 20 percentile on either end of this spectrum are getting all the media attention and making most of the noise.  Like the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.

We seem to be losing, or have lost our ability to talk to each other without yelling and posters demanding our way or the highway like a bunch of two year old’s. 

Whether it is Abortion, Guns, Racial issues, Inflation or one of the endless foreign entanglements we seem to get into, folks tend to take “set in concrete” positions that defy civilized conversation.  

People, we can disagree intently about something without hating each other.  I was deeply saddened a couple of days back when a friend of many years posted on Facebook that “If you take XXXX position on the Roe vs Wade decision you are “Out of my life”.  

Daring to gingerly touch the politically and morally hot “Third Rail” subject of abortion on demand let me say that I can have a “non-yelling” conversation on the subject. 

I am personally “Pro-Life”.  I believe life is precious and should be preserved and protected whenever possible but am open to a discussion on the subject in cases of rape, incest, violence and the threat of life to the “mother to be” or other medically tenuous situations where perhaps the only real option is the medical necessity for an abortion.  Maybe even for some unplanned pregnancies in the very early term it could be honestly argued and defended under certain circumstances.  In real life people sometimes need to make very difficult and painful decisions.  It is not my place to judge individuals.  I am open to listening and having an honest conversation.  No yelling and no name calling – I promise.

My question is this:  Can the “Pro-Choice” individual have a “non-yelling” conversation about the consequences of performing a mid to late term abortion on a healthy fetus from a healthy “mother to be”?  “Premature” births of infants from the fifth month on are not uncommon and the babies born this way most often live long and healthy lives.  If a criminal attacks a “mother to be” and kills an unborn baby in the womb, what do we call that?

Is such a conversation even possible?  I believe there is a great number of people in that mid 60% group who would welcome such a dialog.

A similar conversation could be held in regard to the ownership of guns by law abiding private citizens.  Government could confiscate every one of the much feared, even hated, AR-15 Rifles from law abiding citizens  in the country and it would not keep them out of the hands of criminals and killers.  With the reduced funding for law enforcement and “soft on crime” courts the average citizen is at great risk from criminals who love gun control laws that disarm law abiding people.  Most of the gun deaths in our nation are the result of illegal guns in the hands of non-law abiding criminals and gang members, often related to drug traffic and “turf” wars.

Can we have a non-political conversation on this subject that deals with facts and not heated rhetoric and fear?

There are other volatile and divisive topics that are begging for some calm and reasoned discussion and solutions that we can all live with.  As a nation and people we need to seek out those answers that actually work and don’t just feed our egos and bias’s.

We are a badly divided nation at this time and we all can understand that a “Divided House Cannot Stand”. 

Bob Bandy – July 2022

“WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US”

POGO

SOMETIMES it is fun to revisit something I wrote a number of years ago.  The following piece is from January 2011, some two years into the first Obama Administration when we were “only” 14 Trillion Dollars in debt as a nation.

Point of reference, from 1776 to 2009 we, as a country, went from no debt to 10 Trillion dollars in debt.  We went from approximately 10 Trillion Dollars in debt when Mr. Obama took office to 20 Trillion Dollars in debt when he left office 8 years later in 2017. 

Now, less than six years after that we are 30 – racing to 31 Trillion Dollars in debt and sort of paying the Visa with the Mastercard.  I think I see a pattern developing here. 

There is no way to even pay the interest on this debt without a lot of smoke and mirrors, like inflation.

Truly, the enemy is us and we simply lack the discipline to fix this.  Sad.

******************************

BARBARIANS AT THE GATE

I have always had a special place in my heart for the 1971 Pogo Cartoon strip by Walt Kelly (1913-1973) in which our little hero returns from a kind of scouting mission to announce what he discovered about possible invaders. (I think I have that right –  its been a while).   Although Pogo (and Walt Kelly’s ) web site makes a point of not wanting Pogos famous observation to promote any one group or cause, I am sure he would have no problem with the observation that the enemy we most encounter is, as Pogo so astutely observes, ourselves.  I would very much  put myself at, or near, the top of any list I might compose.

I believe that we, as a nation are at a tipping point, or crossroads if  you prefer.  One of our nations  founders wrote (and I paraphrase)  that our democracy would last until the people discovered that they could vote themselves money from the public treasury.  A sort of  “Day of Reckoning”.

Maybe the question we should be asking ourselves it whether we as individuals, and as a nation, can again return to our nations roots and  practice self discipline, financial discipline and the willingness to postpone gratification of desires until we can pay for them.  Or, do we continue to demand instant everything and let our credit cards  and  Uncle Sugar (the government)  pay for it with borrowed money.

I am old enough that I can remember when Lyndon Johnson was President and promised us that we could afford both “Guns and Butter”.  In other words we could afford to fight and pay for the Vietnam War and at the same time launch a massive “War on Poverty” transferring our nations wealth to those in need.  I was thrilled at the time thinking that poverty would be eradicated,  there would be no more poor people and we would all live in a land of plenty.  President Johnson was wrong and I was wrong.  What we did was to acquire several Trillion (that’s Trillion with a T)  Dollars in debt while seriously damaging the family structure for millions of people. All with the best of intentions.  In the process we also created a whole sub-culture who became entitlement “junkies”.

As a nation we are now 14 Trillion Dollars in debt and that total is growing at the rate of more than a Trillion Dollars a year.  We are rapidly reaching the point where just paying the interest on the debt will consume an ever increasing portion of the nations annual tax revenue.  Do we have the remaining discipline as a people to make the hard choices and practice self denial  to halt and reverse this process?  I am beginning to doubt this.

On its present course this government wagon is one  I do not want to help pull.   I think I will work on a way to not participate!

January 29, 2011

*****************************

Something to think about.

Bob Bandy – June 2022

photo – eBay

WHAT IS AN ASSAULT WEAPON?

CALIFORNIA has declared war on legal gun owners.  Criminals and “gang bangers” get a pass.  Governor Newsome and his Merry Band of Gun Control Advocates would like nothing more than to seize all legally owned guns within the state.  Illegal guns owned by criminals would still be in circulation as the legal system in California turns even habitual criminals back out on the streets as fast as possible and they know where to get the guns they want.  The “Bad Guys” love gun control laws and unarmed citizens.

Two bills in the Senate and Assembly are ready for the Governors anxious signature.  Among other things these bills will make gun owners (except criminals), legal gun sellers and gun manufacturers liable for the misuse of any gun and especially what is popularly miss-labeled in the media as “Assault Rifles”.

California Senate Bill – SB1327 (Hertzberg) would allow private citizens to sue gun manufacturers, distributors and traders for dealing assault weapons, .50 BMG rifles or ghost guns. The bill is sponsored by Governor Newsom.

California Assembly Bill – AB 1594 Ting Firearms Civil Suits: Allows basically anyone to sue a manufacturer, wholesaler or dealer whenever a firearm is used to commit a crime.

The State’s real agenda is to bankrupt gun owners, sellers and manufacturer’s, not protect citizens.

What drives me nuts as a military veteran is the labeling of rifles such as the civilian version of the AR-15 as an “Assault Rifle”.  Fact is, it may look more fearsome than other semi-automatic rifles,  but just like its more modest looking relatives it fires one, and only one cartridge each time you pull the trigger.  Same is true for a double action revolver pistol.  One trigger pull, one bullet.  Any military person, or others familiar with weapons knows that a true “Assault Rifle” is fully automatic and it is illegal for civilians to own a fully automatic rifle, pistol or machine gun.

To repeat…. The civilian version of the AR-15 is semi-automatic just like many other rifles and pistols of the same type.  The term “assault weapon” is a term used for political reasons by gun haters.

Having stated the above, any number of items can be miss-used to commit crimes of mass killings.  Every year more people are killed with knives than murdered with hand guns or rifles.

For your consideration, it is possible, and there are recent incidents of folks using a vehicle perhaps similar to the Ford Pickup pictured above, to run through a crowd killing and injuring large numbers of innocents.  So, using the Governor’s logic should it be possible to sue the seller of the truck and Ford Motor Company for manufacturing the vehicle?

How about if I use a Stanley Hammer to kill multiple individuals? Can you sue the hardware store who sold it to me and Stanley Tools for manufacturing same?

If someone uses a couple of gallons of Prestone Antifreeze to poison a family group should you be able to sue the auto parts store for selling it and the manufacturer for its misuse?

If I use two gallons of Chevron gasoline and burn down my neighbors house, can my neighbor sue Chevron Oil Company?

THE SUPREME COURT HAS PREVIOUSLY RULED THAT YOU CANNOT HOLD LIABLE THE MANUFACTURER OR SELLER OF A LEGAL PRODUCT FOR THE ILLEGAL USE OF THAT PRODUCT.

A gun is not just for hunting or killing.  It is for home protection and self defense as well as sport and competition shooting.  And, of most importance:

THE RIGHT OF INDIVIDUAL PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF GUNS BY FREE CITIZENS IS THE FINAL BASTION AND LAST DEFENSE AGAINST TOTALITARIAN GOVERNMENTS AND SLAVERY AND THE REASON THE FOUNDERS CREATED THE SECOND AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION.

California has gone soft on crime and our streets and neighborhoods are becoming more and more dangerous.

Picture this.  You and your family are watching television.  You hear a banging on your front door and loud voices of armed men demanding entrance as they are breaking their way in.  Every second counts.  If you can call 911,  law enforcement is 5-15 minutes away.  The State of California has taken all your guns away.  What do you do?

Maybe you would like to support Governor Newsome and put a “GUN FREE ZONE” or “NO GUNS HERE” sign in your front yard see how that works for you.

Remember, criminals love unarmed citizens and gun control laws.

Think about it.

California is truly in the hands of a “Cereal Gang” of fruits, flakes and nuts.  Coddle criminals and disarm law abiding citizens.  At the state level they make these laws up based on “feelings” and emotions and not on common sense.  As Bugs Bunny used to say “What a bunch of Maroons”.

Bob Bandy – June 2022

“Lord, they have killed Your prophets…”

I Kings 19:2

I am no prophet and in all candor do not want to be one.  I am only an observer and, in my small way, a reporter of what I observe to some unknown number of thousands who read my writings.

For some reason I have in recent days and weeks been seemingly flooded with comments on an article I wrote some two years ago.  A copy of the article follows this introduction.

It seems self serving to say that I find myself drawn into conversations about the unfolding disaster that is happening in our nation and either my wife, a friend or I will comment that I wrote on this subject either recently, a few months or even several years ago.

That does not, repeat does not make me a prophet and as I stated above, I do not want to be one.  We know what they do to prophets who tell them what they do not want to hear. I so wish that much of what I observed as “unfolding” had not , and would not now be taking place. 

This is not prophecy so much as it is observation of Natural (I call them God’s) Laws and uncontested facts.  Math and gravity are facts and you can’t change them because you don’t like them, or, as I read long ago, you cannot get 10 pounds of potatoes from a 5 pound sack.

Fact:  Our government has become corrupted, probably past repair, because of a political lust for power and spending of money it does not have which has resulted in a national debt that cannot be repaid in todays dollars. 

Fact: Mathematics takes over.  When the rate of inflation is greater than the amount you can pay in interest on the debt you get spiraling out of control inflation.  At some point your life savings for your retirement won’t buy a jar of peanut butter.   

Looked at another way,  10% interest on 30 Trillion Dollars of debt is 3 Trillion Dollars a year and that exceeds all of the tax revenue the government has in a year and leaves nothing for all the cost of government and the programs it supports.  This means they have to print more paper money which is worth less and less.

Being a Republican or Democrat makes no difference. Math and gravity don’t care.

So, what to do.  As a financial pundit commented on a news program the other day:  “A hurricane is coming”.  It is coming whether we want it to or not and will catch many unprepared.  You can’t stop it by “killing the prophets”. 

Fact: Debt is like gravity.  It has no soul.  It will “suck in” all available resources till there is nothing left but a “black hole”.

When governments become drowned in debt they become more and more Totalitarian and must disarm the “unwashed masses” to keep them from building Guillotines.  Post World War I Germany experienced Hyper-Inflation and became a breeding ground for the Nazi movement of Adolph Hitler.

An individual who gets swallowed up in debt can file Bankruptcy and start over. Governments cannot file Bankruptcy but they can print more and more paper money which becomes worth less and less and less…….

Best “Batten Down the Hatches”. 

Bob Bandy – June 2022

***************************

GO TO YOUR ROOM AND STAY THERE!

from May 2020

The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men do Nothing.

quote credited to Edmund Burke

I have a growing fear of being enslaved by a corrupt ruling class of demigods driven by ambition and a thirst for power.  

In addition we are seeing negation of  our Constitutional rights through massive government overreach in the supposed cause of protecting the public health.  Governors, Mayors and Federal Agencies are acting with Dictatorial edicts which we are not even supposed to question.

We have also learned of abuse of power and corruption that occurred at the highest levels of the FBI, the Justice Department,  the Central Intelligence Agency and other related government agencies.  The “Deep State” at its worst.

Too many elected politicians, and often un-elected “public servants”,   demonstrate they are little more than Clowns, Criminals or Lunatics.

These folks, who consider themselves superior, have also made themselves immune from prosecution for actions they would put us in jail for if we acted in the same way.    

There are good people in government but I no longer have any faith or trust in most agencies because of the “bad apples”, too often “at the top”of the political food chain, who have politicized everything because of their political parties ambitions.   

I would not even consider answering questions from the FBI without a good lawyer present and duct tape firmly in place over my mouth.

The mainstream “Tabloid” Media cannot be trusted.  They have become no more than Propaganda Lemmings for the political agenda of their chosen party.  You can get more accurate reporting from “The Enquirer” and other “Supermarket Tabloids”.    

Elected officials in places of power that are willing to bankrupt, even destroy our country if it will achieve their desired goal of turning the United States into Cuba, Venezuela or some other Socialist “Paradise”.

Too many politicians who have come to view this Coronavirus Covid-19 not as a Pandemic threatening the lives of all us but as an opportunity to pursue their own political agenda. “Never let a crisis go to waste”.

Sad to say,  I have lost faith in our government.  I wish it were not so.  Lie to me once, shame on you.  Lie to me twice, shame on me.  

Bob Bandy – May 2020 

Janet Yellen

photo iO.wp.com

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in Senate Testimony before Senator Tim Scott (R – South Carolina) stated that she believes free access to abortion is good for the economy.  Her message being that unwanted babies are a drain on economic resources and can add to inflationary pressures.

Fighting back sorrow and anger my thoughts turn to her logic.  If terminating unwanted babies because their care is a potential burden to society, where else might she look for savings?

• Consider the hopelessly drug and alcohol addicted living in filth on the streets and by-ways of our major cities.  The cost of public funds for maintaining them causes inflation and a heavy burden on society.  Should we “terminate” them?

• Able bodied working age adults who refuse to work and instead live on various government programs paid for by working taxpayers.  Their care and feeding no doubt is inflationary and offer further opportunity for Ms. Yellen.

• There is an element in the “Progressive” movement that considers our senior citizens a burden to society because of their healthcare and other needs.  According to one New York Congresswoman it would be better if they would just die off and relieve society of the cost of keeping them alive.  That should help with inflation.

• The State of New York does not allow the death penalty, except in the case of a near term, fully healthy, viable fetus in the womb of a healthy “mother to be” who decides the coming infant is unwanted and “inconvenient”, in which case it could be considered “good for the economy” if we terminate it’s life through abortion.

• In the same State of New York,  if a young man who is a racist and murderer kills 10 innocent people,  the most punishment for his crime he can receive is life in prison. There the taxpayers will support him for maybe 50-60 years at a cost  of perhaps 80-100 Thousand Dollars per year.  The cost of his incarceration no doubt contributes to inflation.  How about if we just do a “post natal” abortion on him?  There seems no  logic in keeping this killer alive but terminating the life of the near born infant.

Excuse me, but what the hell are we doing to ourselves?  Where are our values?  I seem to remember a Commandment that says “Thou Shalt Not Kill”. 

Consider the richness and joy the very young and the elderly bring to our lives.  Should we consider their lives expendable if they become inconvenient, a burden or no longer wanted? 

Are we as a people just careening down the road to our own destruction as a nation and society?

If we pursue Ms. Yellen’s train of logic, we must consider where this kind of thinking has led nations in the past.

History from 1941 brings to mind a regime that sought a “Final Solution” to an unwanted population whom they considered harmful and costly to their society.  Does the name Heinrich Himmler ring a bell?  During the Holocaust the German economy seemed to “boom” for a couple of years. 

I do not suggest and do not believe Gas Chambers and mass Crematoriums are in her thoughts, so perhaps Ms. Yellen would instead lead us down the Soylent Green path where unwanted citizens can receive a kind of “Post Natal” Abortion and be turned into Soylent Green Protein to feed the drones of what is left of society.

***************

“Let Them Die And Decrease The Surplus Population”

        Ebenezer Scrooge – Charles Dickens’ – A Christmas Carol

  ****************

Think about it.

Bob Bandy – May 2022