Well you got my attention!

An anonymous reader recently commented ....

"Mitt Romney says if Obama is elected for another term The U.S. could face a financial crisis like Greece. However, in the reality-based community, the slow recovery in both Greece and the U.S. is due in large part to super-wealthy 
corporations and individuals,like Bain and Romney hiding their money in offshore accounts to avoid taxes, instead of putting it to work at home. Meanwhile central banks and government (both owned by super wealthy elites) demand austerity measures that place even more burden on the struggling poor and working class, who can least afford it!"


Thank you for your timely response to Tom Swift's Conservative Slant. You have thoughtfully provided me with, as Mr. Obama likes to say but rarely delivers, a "teachable moment". Now, let me set some ground rules and get one thing straight: this is by no means a public forum for a give and take dialogue in response to liberals spewing the party line. Get your own blog, I have no time for that. Call Hannity or Rush, they'd be glad to take your call and disembowel you on the air. Or if you want to engage in that sort of exercise online, then by all means, vent your spleen on AOL's Huffington Post with like-minded socialists who, based on their number of responses, do nothing all day except seek a higher level of "community pundit" or "super user" status, as if that was actually something to which one would aspire. Alas, in some cases I will use your comments to further my cause, to dispense some wisdom, and of course for my own entertainment.

Your "reality-based community" comment is especially revealing. Why is it that liberals immediately resort to demagoguery, in this case with the implication that Tom Swift does not live in reality. You don't know me at all, and that makes your comment one of those unsubstantiated broad-brush nonsensical attacks that infuriates conservatives. Could it be that, in true liberal fashion, your definition of reality is that place where everyone agrees with your opinions? In fact, Tom Swift does live in liberal-land and is, by virtue of demographics, constantly exposed to the opinions of the left through mainstream media, newspapers, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NPR, HBO, the New York Times, Time Magazine, and online outlets such as the Huffington Post and the Microsoft Network. If Mr. Swift is anything, he is well read. Mr. Swift is therefore well-versed in the opinions of you and your liberal herd. Where is it exactly that you, and most of your ilk, get your information? I would have to suspect that it is from the same sources that I have mentioned. Hardly unbiased. We are inundated with it, saturated in it, and from your comments, I would go so far as to say that you are wallowing in it. And where does your standard issue Northeast liberal get his information on the conservative stance? Why, from the opinions of that same parade of left-wing outlets of course. So you, sir, if indeed you are a sir, have most likely not engaged in a, dare I say, "fair and balanced" exercise of information gathering, have you? Your opinions are most likely based on the opinions of other liberals, and you likely have not come to your own conclusions. You are sheep. You are all sheep. And if you are not, and are merely seeking personal benefit from the policies of a President that admits to redistribution as a hallmark of his entitlement programs, then you are simply the worst kind of opportunist.

It seems that the Obama campaign has, in the absence of any real accomplishment, resorted to lobbing misinformation at Romney from the start, and as always is aided by a more than compliant and cooperative main stream media. Where falsities and outright lies are your bread and butter, the Republican response has been reactive, and by necessity fact based, unfortunately delayed through the time consuming process of fact checking and research. And when the misinformation is proven to be just that, it usually is ignored by the mainstream media or appears buried in the back pages. One word example for you: Benghazi. If you are any kind of leftist political junkie, then surely you watched the debates.......and then probably allowed Diane Sawyer to tell you what you should have derived from them. After a lethargic performance at the first debate, Obama continually attacked Romney for plans that have not been implemented, spinning his own scenario as to whether they would be successful and what they would cost. Romney's attacks, on the contrary, have been consistent, based on Obama's existing record, a dismal record of failure where the only new campaign plan is to stay the course. How novel, more of the same and, most likely in a lame duck second term, more of the same amplified tenfold. Forward, I believe is your rallying cry, despite the slogan being linked rather unfortunately to Karl Marx. And allow me briefly to get ahead of myself: by misinformation I mean nonsense like the "Republican war on women", the "tax cuts for millionaires", the whole "pay their fair share" campaign, the $6000 more every senior will pay for Medicare under the Ryan plan, the destruction of the environment, the tax increase on the middle class, not to mention the personal attacks on Mr. Romney's success, his wealth, his character. What happened to all that coming together, bipartisanship, feel good, hope and change rhetoric of Obama's 2008 campaign? Now it's all class warfare, divide and conquer, style over substance. Does anyone with a shred of intelligence actually believe this nonsense, or is it all fair in the name of partisan politics? Has the Obama campaign devolved into a case of do what you have to do to get our guy in, so you get your bread buttered on someone else's dime......what's in it for me? Where did America disappear to?

Your comment about the Greek crisis is laughable. In three short sentences, you have managed to regurgitate the democrat party line verbatim. What a good little soldier. Greece is in the proverbial crapper for one reason alone: Greece spends more than they have. So does Spain, so does Italy and Portugal and Ireland. And in an ironic turn of events, the "tax the rich" technique has been put into play on a grand scale, except in this case, Germany will be playing the part of the rich. And if you contest Romney's assertion that we are headed down the same path, how do you explain the 16 trillion dollar elephant in the room? How soon we forget Margaret Thatcher: "The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money". Prophetic, indeed. And if you think Europe isn't ahead of us in the department of taxation, government expansion, and entitlements, then you sir, have some reading to do. It's all about the blame game, isn't it? If it isn't Bush, then it's the rich. You can't keep blaming the rich for all our ills, nor can you expand the definition of wealth and then keep going to back to the well for more. If anyone thinks that the middle class is not next on the list of declared wealthy, then hold on to your wallets. How many times have you been told, but fail to understand, that even if we taxed the top 1% of wage earners one-hundred percent of their earnings, it would still fail to balance the budget. Now, Mr. Swift is not what one would normally consider a millionaire by any stretch of the imagination, but in a bizarre feat of what Al Gore would call fuzzy math, it appears that our government has, in Clintonesque fashion (although Mr. Clinton also redefined sex as I recall), altered the definition of millionaire to be two-hundred fifty thousand dollars. By God, I may be rich. Or at least I may have been rich. And after all, I trust that you are a northeast liberal so you know exactly how far $250K goes in say......New York or Boston. If you're not, let me help you: not very far. And all this nonsense about the super-rich hiding their money in offshore accounts and not paying their fair share. Bullshit. The United States of America has the most progressive tax system of the 24 member countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The most progressive. And as further evidence of that system's inherent unfairness, and that is essentially what redistribution is, unfair, the Tax Foundation notes that the top 1% of US earners, defined as those that made 17% of total US income, paid 37% of the taxes. The top 5% earned 32% of all income and paid an astounding 59% of the taxes. Nearly double their fair share. The bottom 50% of income earners paid a mere 2.3% of the tax burden whereas the bottom 5% actually received money in the form of refundable tax credits (ref. Hagopian and Ohanian, WSJ, October 30, 2012) . So in response to your comment, the statistics certainly don't bear out your contention that the burden lies with the "struggling poor" now does it? It would seem that the burden already lies with the top 5 percent. It would appear that not all of the horses are pulling the wagon, some are actually along for the ride. As you digest all these stats, also bear in mind another disturbing fact that you liberals avoid: it's not your money to begin with.

And this illusory concept that wealthy Republicans are hiding all their money in offshore accounts and overseas investments instead of "putting their money to work at home" implies that they are engaged in some nefarious form of illegal money laundering. For God's sake, all those liberal Hollywood darlings like Clooney, Pitt and Jolie don't even live here. I hate to break this to you socialists, but it is not illegal to invest overseas, and frankly, even your basic 401K more than likely has a mutual fund or two that invests in foreign companies. I'll bet Al Gore, the same Al Gore that is worth 100 million dollars, amassed largely on government subsidies to "green energy" companies in which he had a financial stake, has a few bucks stashed offshore. Hell, isn't that where a large chunk of our stimulus dollars went anyway? If the government is good at anything, it apparently is very good at picking losers, and they're doing it with our tax dollars. Ask the 5% if that doesn't just piss them off. Peruse the Fidelity catalog and you will find scores of mutual funds with such illicit titles as "Emerging Asian Markets", or "European Growth Fund". Heavens, somebody call Warren Buffet and the investment police. And speaking of Warren Buffett.....do any of you actually believe that wiley old codger pays less taxes than his secretary? A lesser percentage perhaps, but don't let the spin confuse you. Yes, his secretary paid twenty some odd percent of her 350 thousand dollar (yes, that's 350 plus three zeros) salary, whereas Mr. Buffett paid a paltry 15% of a couple gazillion. But, do the math...... that still adds up to a higher bill for Mr. Buffett. And a few salient points may have escaped you: One, the secretary only paid a percentage in the twenties despite being, by your liberal definition, a millionaire. Two, she was taxed on a salary. And three, Mr. Buffett earned his income on dividends, not a salary, which are taxed at 15%. All of the above parties played by the rules. What's this, you want to change the rules? Not a good idea. Dividends are taxed at 15% to encourage investment. Companies are taxed on their earnings, and then the investor is taxed again on receiving a dividend. To raise the tax on dividends is akin to double dipping and will have the negative effect of reducing the income of seniors dependent on dividends in their retirement portfolios as well as discouraging investment in growing companies, thus stifling growth. Mr. Buffett is no angel and may also be playing both sides of the street by cozying up to this administration and promoting policies while investing in the potential winners if that policy is adopted (Schweitzer, P. Throw Them All Out, Mariner Books). And we all know that this administration rewards its supporters. But we don't have the space for that lesson, so once again, before you embrace this darling of the Obama administration, do your research. Before you embrace any policies of the Obama administration.....do your research.

There is so much more to say and yet, so little time. Thank you again for the opportunity to rant, and please don't write. I realize that there is nothing I can say that will sway you from attempting to destroy America on tuesday. You are likely hunkered down in your McMansion in a liberal northeastern state, with a lawn covered in Obama signs, a Prius in the driveway with an Obama-Biden sticker next to one of those fashionable COEXIST stickers with all the religion symbols for letters, just itching to get into that booth and punch the chad, finger the touch screen, felt tip the line or maybe even pull a lever to cast your vote for four more years of the failed policies of a misguided Obama administration. Whether you vote or not in your state will probably not matter, the northeast states are already painted blue, except perhaps New Hampshire which is populated by peculiarly independent thinkers. As I speculated before, I suspect that it is that "Live Free or Die" license plate that does it. But to you folks in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Michigan, Florida: you may hold the future of America in your hands. God help us all, and God Bless America.