Listen carefully, very carefully from now on when President Obama speaks.  Listen not only to what he says; listen to what he doesn’t say.  Here are some key examples:

1.    Obama says that Universal Health Care must be passed and passed very quickly to reduce the cost of health care.

a.    Obama “doesn’t say” what he actually means by reducing the cost of health care, how this will be accomplished, what health care will mean to you, the individual.  As all common sense people know, everything has a cost either in dollars or in product or service.  Obama doesn’t say” that health care will be rationed to save money; in other words you won’t receive health care the same way that you used to receive health care.  He “doesn’t say or explain” that statistical analysis will be used to justify the denial of health care primarily based on age and probability of recovery.
b.    He “doesn’t say” or explain how spending 2 trillion on health care by borrowing from foreign countries actually generates a savings.
c.    He “doesn’t say” that all of this spending will NOT result in everyone being covered anyway … because it’s not enough money.
d.    He “doesn’t say” that you will give up your freedoms; freedom to choose your physician, to choose your hospital, to choose when you will get your care.
e.    He “doesn’t say” that up to 35% of the 46 million uninsured DON’T WANT IT;  these are mostly young people who have done the math and decide that it isn’t worth it based on their age … not because they can’t afford it.
f.    He “doesn’t say” that 25-30% of the 46 million are illegal aliens and, at the least, should pay for the health care they receive without any subsidy from legal aliens and citizens as a simple matter of right and wrong.

2.    Obama says he doesn’t wish to “meddle” with the internal situation in Iran or other countries.

a.    Obama “doesn’t say” that he doesn’t wish to meddle with Israel.  On the contrary, he creates a moral equivalency between the building or expansion of settlements in the West Bank and the fact that Israel has no partner in any serious peace negotiation because there is no Palestinian representative willing to recognize the State of Israel or even admit to any sense of legitimacy.

3.    Obama says that we have to get back to fiscal responsibility and a “pay as you go” system.

a.    Obama “doesn’t say” that this is quite a statement since he just spent 10+ times more than any other modern day President in just the first 100 days of his administration and how that can make any sense at all.
b.    He “doesn’t say” that all Americans, rich, middle class and poor, will pay huge new taxes on virtually everything we pay for.
c.    He “doesn’t say” that under active consideration is a VAT (Value Added Tax) or National Sales Tax that we will all pay in addition to everything else.  He further “doesn’t say” that the so-called tax cut on 95% of Americans is ultimately a ruse to help mask the real agenda of huge, unprecedented spending, taxation, regulation and huge infringements on our liberty we all face dead ahead.

4.    Obama says that he has saved over 100,000 jobs so far and projects 600,000 saved jobs in the next 90 days.

a.    Obama “doesn’t say” that he has no idea how he can say this because there is no known metric for measuring “saved jobs.”
b.    He “doesn’t say” that we have lost an additional 2+ million jobs since inauguration day.
c.    He “doesn’t say” that the unemployment rate is now more than 1 percentage point higher than he said it would go.

5.    Obama says that he doesn’t want to be in the auto business or the banking business or the insurance business.

a.    Obama “doesn’t say” that he is in the auto business and could have avoided it completely by letting the natural course of capitalism, the bankruptcy laws and the free markets deal with it as it has always done so well and efficiently.
b.    He “doesn’t say” that he did it to protect the labor unions for the votes and to shoot the finger to the capitalists that invested in the bonds of the auto companies.
c.    He “doesn’t say” that the he didn’t readily accept repayment of the TARP from the likes of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley because he doesn’t want to relinquish control and authority over executive pay.
d.    He “doesn’t say” that he has no interest in returning AIG back into the free market instead opting to maintain control of the largest insurer in the world affecting financial relationships across the country and around the world.

6.    Obama says that he wants to make sure that all stimulus money is well spent and accounted for and that “no one messes with Joe” referring to Joe Biden who was put in charge of making sure of all of this.

a.    Obama “doesn’t say” that the stimulus isn’t really about stimulus anyway.  It’s mainly a political document that serves to reward all those constituents, mainly the labor unions that supported him and the Democrat Party.
b.    He “doesn’t say” that the stimulus hasn’t resulted in 1 provable new job, at least in the private sector.

So, when President Obama speaks … LISTEN … but not just to what he says or how he says it … LISTEN to what he doesn’t say.  The real truth about what drives this President and his policies can be found just by careful listening.

Arthur Cooper

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On Tuesday, California voters sent a resounding and complete rejection of new and confiscatory taxes on a whole range of Propositions. Too bad all states couldn’t do the same thing through this process of voting on specific proposed increases in spending and taxes.  California has been a very “blue” state voting for liberal and democratic politicians, particularly over the past 15 years.  Tax increases on income, sales, property, etc were all defeated on Tuesday.  These were not squeaker votes; they were all landslides with 60%+ plurality.  So Hurray for California, hurray for limited government and hurray for the individual … FINALLY!

California has sent the strongest message yet that REAL PEOPLE, though they may still like the style of President Obama, when it comes down to our daily lives and the reality of bigger government, controlling government, the country is really CONSERVATIVE on the ground.

Have no doubt about this:  Obama, Reid, Pelosi and their ideology will be proven to be wrong, dangerous and detrimental to the country.  Many who voted for Obama thought he was bringing to us a new day of change.  However, it will become clearer and clearer, as the facts on the ground become evident, that raising taxes whether it is through income taxes, cap and trade, nationalizing health care, dictating to private industry and assuming more and more control of the individual are not in the interest of the country and the individual himself.

It was interesting and ironic that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn’t even in California on the day of decision by its citizens.  He was in Washington DC, with President Obama, taking accolades for policies, initiatives and actions that do nothing but seek to control our lives.  Specifically, Obama was praising the “governator” for California’s Auto Standards, environmental initiatives, etc.  This is what Obama seeks for the entire country, despite the fact that these kinds of standards, initiatives and plain command and control of everything that they can get their hands on, has created one of the greatest financial crises in history.  California is in deep deep trouble.  President Obama is following California’s lead.  All Americans are witness to this and are certainly beginning to see the cause and effect.  The fact is, those that have been successful in California are leaving the state in droves.  The same is also happening in all of the high tax states like New York, New Jersey, Michigan, etc.  States like Texas, Nevada, Florida are gaining new citizens as a result … they DON’T TAX INCOME and their property taxes are very low, at least by comparison.

While high tax states are the losers so will the United States be the loser as we drive CAPITAL, the lifeblood of free markets and commerce, away from our shores.  This is happening and will continue to happen as long as government continues to treat capital badly.  When you tax investment gains, corporate profits, etc, private capital seeks a better place.  The better places include Singapore, China et al that do not tax capital or corporate profits.  As capital leaves to other countries that welcome capital and just plain treat it better, each and every one of us will suffer.
However, the citizens in California have sent the first real message of rejection to policies that can only lead to failure and hardship.  This same state voted overwhelmingly for Obama just 6+ months ago.  What has changed?  One word … REALITY.  The same is destined to happen across the nation as the realities of what President Obama’s changes will mean to the lives of individuals.  When your utility bills whether it is oil, gas, electric, and hot water all skyrocket through Cap and Trade … all in the name of global warming … you will see what this all means to you.  This carbon-based tax will significantly increase the price everyone pays for everything from gasoline to food and anything that uses carbon-based energy sources in the manufacturing and distribution process.

Likewise, when you see your personal choices are limited or removed by the government in virtually every aspect of your lives including health care, automobile purchases, financial services including credit cards and loans, etc, you too will ultimately reject these assaults on your personal freedom and liberty.  Rather than change, you will come to realize that this is only the reemergence and acceleration of the long term trend of government to command and control over every aspect of your life in subservience to the state.

So, Hurray for California.  We, the People, need to take back our country and reassert our natural rights and severely limit the power, authority and control of government as was the vision and the genius of the framers of our Constitution.

Arthur Cooper

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What exactly do I mean by this title?  Am I saying that government agents are coming to American homes, one by one, seizing your prized possessions?  Am I saying that the government is taking away people’s homes? … Of course not.  Private Property represents all those life’s possessions we have earned, traded for, acquired or inherited throughout our lives.

However, take a close look at this list and tell me what you think is happening to our private property.

1.    Income Taxes - all those earning a living, above the poverty line, pay federal and state income taxes.  The rates generally range from 15% (a few pay 10%) to 35% depending on income level.  The top rate will rise to 40%+ with the expiration of the 2003 tax cuts in 2011.
2.    Payroll Taxes - another 6%+ of your income for the first 100+K of your income.  Payroll Taxes are supposed to go the Social Security Fund for you personally, but actually doesn’t.
3.    Medicare Taxes
4.    State Disability, Workmen’s Compensation and Unemployment Insurance Taxes collected by most states.
5.    Sales Taxes paid in most states.
6.    Property Taxes

Have I told anything you don’t already know?  Probably not or at least you haven’t looked at your gross income as your private property.  However, it surely is.  But none of these taxes existed 100 years ago.  We accept these taxes as part of the necessary truths we need to keep on going.  I am not proposing a ban on taxes as the government certainly needs funds from its citizens to provide for the defense and protection of the country and the states, to provide certain essential services to insure a free-flowing and increasingly efficient society.

However, since 1933, and now under great acceleration under the Obama Administration, the government has seized a huge new mantle of “rights” that government, not the individual, bestow on the individual; this is as if the individual doesn’t have his own set of natural rights and responsibilities without the oversight or interference by a controlling central government.

So, now we have a huge acceleration of the war on private property; in fact, I maintain that it is a direct war on the individual himself.

Consider these unfolding facts:

1.    Cap and Trade - if enacted, all carbon-based products, processes, manufacturing, et al will be strictly controlled through punitive tax policy.  This will trigger huge increases in the prices we all pay for everything we buy or use.  Few understand what this will mean and it will only be recognized when the individual sees their utility bills double or worse, food prices skyrocket, gasoline go shooting up.  Where will the money go … directly to the government.
2.   Universal Health Care - this is a multi-trillion dollar program dictated by a government seeking to further tax and ultimately control your life; under this socialized form of medicine, the individual is completely obliterated in favor of government control of exactly what health care will mean to you.  Choice of provider (doctor, hospital, therapist and therapy) will be taken from the individual and controlled by the government.  Statistics will be used instead of personal choice to justify and prescribe, what will be done, if it will be done, when it will be done and by whom it will be done.  Don’t let anyone tell you that the government will pay for it … the government never pays for it … you pay for it … just another part of your private property.
3.    New Taxes Forever - whether it is smoking, alcohol, sugar, fats, preservatives, travel, gasoline, investments and capital gains, your private property is under attack … relentlessly.  Even death carries a tax.
Why?  … why does the government, regardless of party to a greater or lesser degree, continually grab more and more of your private property?  Read “Liberty and Tyranny” by Mark Levin to get a very complete answer and insight.  However, it comes down to the willful determination of a central government to control and direct the lives of the individual.  Levin calls it the “statist” referring to the diminution of the individual and the absolute power of the state.  You can call this the death of the individual.  The government is seeking control of the banking system, insurance companies, the automobile industry, under the guise of protecting the public.  It is nothing like protecting the public however.  Freedom and free market capitalism is being wiped away.  The very essence of our Constitution is being trashed and ignored towards this inexorable drive to control our lives in every way possible.
What made this country great is the flow of immigrants coming to a new world to gain true freedom, to build a life for themselves, by themselves with equal opportunity to pursue life, liberty and happiness.  This country was born out of complete subservience to the individual and tight controls on the power of a central government; it was called Federalism and Reagen proposed a “new” Federalism 25 years ago to specifically reassert the principals and concepts of the US Constitution.

The statist is waging war on you and your private property.  It is up to the individual, one by one, to work together to oppose this assault on our personal freedoms, rights and responsibilities.

What do you think?

Arthur Cooper

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Let’s see now … the US Government is trying to nationalize or socialize the health care system.  To some, this sounds good.  After all, it sounds like you won’t have to pay for health care; it will be a civil right according to Obama and the Liberal Left.  The Obama administration states that we need to do it because there is no way we can deal with our long term economic problems unless we deal with health care to decrease cost.  The “promise” is for universal coverage with improved quality.

So, the US Government is campaigning to take over the health care system.  Let’s look at the track record of the US Government to see if it is qualified to assume full command and control of our health care:

US Postal Service - need I say more? Perennial annual losses, unionized work force, business decisions that defy logic. Since when does it make sense to constantly increase your prices in the face of declining usage? This business is a loser and is destined become irrelevant.

The Social Security Administration - a screaming fraud. Few Americans realize that the money that they pay in Payroll Taxes, the Social Security Tax, is not put into an account for them. Rather, it is used by the US Government for regular budget-busting spending. All the government is doing is providing you with a voucher that you paid the tax; kind of an IOU. Further, the historical return on the money for Social Security recipients is something like a paltry 1%. This is another “right” that was granted to US Citizens, originally by FDR, to provide the “right” to a secure retirement. How secure do you think people relying on Social Security are feeling? Why do I call it a fraud? It has never lived up to what it was supposed to be; a well-funded backstop to provide a secure retirement.

Medicare and Medicaid - destined for bankruptcy as documented by the Congressional Budget Office on numerous occasions.

Whether one agrees or not that the government should do anything other than exactly those things that are stated in the Constitution, the track record is terrible.  Would you hire this man?  When has the government ever … EVER reduced your cost of anything?  Give me one example.  Please comment.

Arthur Cooper

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