Dakota Beacon

In light of today's "multicultural" environment, Halloween demands a fair hearing. In perspective, Halloween extends back more than one and a half millennium but few people associate Halloween with observances of the ancient Christian church.

In his book "The Screwtape Letters" C. S. Lewis cites Martin Luther pointing out that the quickest way to deal with the Devil is to mock and ridicule him. He is a defeated foe. We should act like it.

The celebration of All Saints Eve has progressed from the pagan to the Christian to the secular. Even so, this is no reason for Christians to abandon the holiday. "Therefore do not let anyone condemn you in matters of...observing festivals...." (Col. 2:16).

Why not reclaim Halloween in the context in which it was originally celebrated?

In response to the genuine grass roots pro-freedom protests of the Tea Party, Democrat leaders are organizing violent pro-Communism protests on Wall Street and across America. They are preaching the same class warfare rhetoric preached by people like Marx, Lenin, Mao, Castro, Hitler and President Obama.

Planes leave the US every minute to countries that already have the economic system that Democrat are demanding. The problem is that those on the extreme far left (the mainstream of today’s Democratic Party) are unhappy people who believe that they will be happy once everyone else is made to be miserable. They are driven by the jealousy of seeing others happy.

When a nation of 300 million people presumes to determine grade-school hiring and almost everything else through an ever more centralized bureaucracy, you’re setting yourself up for waste on a scale unknown to history. For example, under the Obama “stimulus”, US taxpayers gave a $529 million loan guarantee to the company Fisker to build their Karma electric car. At a factory in Finland.

If you’re wondering how giving half-a-billion dollars to a Finnish factory stimulates the US economy, well, what’s a lousy half-bil in a multi-trillion-dollar sinkhole? Besides, in the 2009 global rankings, Finnish schoolkids placed 6^th in math, 3^rd in reading and 2^nd in science, while suffering under the burden of a per student budget half that of York City. By comparison, America placed 17^th in reading, 23^rd in science, and 31^st in math. So the good news is that, by using US government money to fund a factory in Finland, Fisker may be able to hire workers smart enough to figure out how to build an unwanted electric car that doesn’t lose its entire US taxpayer investment.

In a sane world, Joe Biden’s remarks would be greeted by derisive laughter, even by Fourth Graders. Certainly by Finnish Fourth Graders.

Making ND the No. 2 state, Good news, bad news, oil patch refugees, It is common practice to flare (burn) the gas, siren song of prosperity, Over 10 percent of the students are ELL, calling a black student Buckwheat, no “anonymous voices on our website, “good cop, bad cop”, information for women who are smart and savvy, “a strong streak of moralism”, it should be their choice, technologies to reduce regional haze, a testimonial to Apple Computer founder Steve Jobs

The Republicans now want to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Holder and his fast-and-furious dance of deception.  And I say, dig long and dig deep.  Because with the amount of dirt in Holder’s closet, you’ll find that Obama has created at least one shovel-ready job.

And I’ll conclude by making a request of our post-racial president’s attorney general.  Mr. Holder, you once said that Americans were “cowards” in the area of race.  Well, then, brave man, do you have the sand to come out of the closet?  Produce that card from your wallet; proudly proclaim the beliefs you’ve long held so dear.  Or is it that, deep down, the color other than red that epitomizes you most is yellow?

While the understanding and preparation for Missouri River changes is very complicated, it is what hydrologists, engineers and other specialists GET PAID TO DO. Such professionals must be called upon to do their jobs. And politicians should restrict their activities to insuring that the best minds are employed to do what is right for the victims of flooding and to prevent flooding in the future. Politicians’ only legitimate role is to demand the best minds be employed to manage the situation. Perhaps most importantly, beware of politicians who suggest self-determined or knee-jerk solutions.

There is at present a tension within the ascendant conservative movement. There are the laissez-faire capitalists who largely shy away from the contemporary moral questions to keep the debate on low taxes, limited government, and want to mostly be just left alone, perhaps best termed the Materialist Libertarians. On the other side of the discussion are those who believe that the moral questions as fairly narrowly constrained by the Judeo-Christian traditions of Western Civilization predominate in the arena of public debate. Many commentators fret about the possibility of an election lost as the result of excessive focus on the “divisive” questions of contemporary personal behavior. We must not ever forget the Natural Law foundation of America’s design.

Instead of enforcing the current law, the State of North Dakota (via legislative support of the Streamline Sales Tax Project and the Multi-State Tax Commission) has opted to give its power to control its tax laws to a multi-state quasi federal entity.  This is not acceptable because North Dakota simply does not need the revenue, and certainly should not be giving lawmaking authority to an un-elected body. 

The term “greedy” is usually reserved for anyone who acquires a buck more than one’s neighbor. Sadly, greed is seldom alleged when referring to those seeking the power of the purse intent on squeezing successful entrepreneurs. Obama’s BILLION dollar campaign comes to mind.

To paraphrase P. J. O’Rourke, “When buying and selling are controlled by politicians, the first things to be bought and sold are politicians.”

Middle-class America is dying before our eyes: The job market is flatlined, the college fees soar ever upward, the property market is underwater, and ObamaCare is already making medical provision both more expensive and more restrictive. That doesn’t leave much else – although no doubt, as soon as they find something else, the statists will fix that, too. As more and more middle Americans are beginning to notice, they lead more precarious and vulnerable lives than did their bluecollar parents and grandparents without the benefit of college “education” and health “benefits”. For poorer Americans, the prospects are even glummer, augmented by ever grimmer statistics on obesity, childhood diabetes and much else. Potentially, this is not decline, but a swift devastating downward slide, far beyond what post-war Britain and Europe saw and closer to Peronist Argentina on a Roman scale.

There are countless ways that the tax code is unfair to one type of taxpayer or another.  While it is proper to try to eliminate those differences, expanding the tax burden to include activities previously exempted by federal laws and court cases is not a proper way to handle it.  And we should certainly not be looking at taking money out of consumer pockets in the middle of a national recession.

North Dakota is sitting in a good position financially.  When legislative leadership supports federal laws that would allow for automatic tax revenue increases, at least in North Dakota, they need to follow it up by telling the public where other taxes will be cut.  Otherwise it is really is a tax increase, and North Dakota simply doesn't need any more tax revenue.

Let's focus on making North Dakota's tax policy more competitive by reducing taxes on North Dakotans and less on making others pay more..

Prisoner Joseph Megna escaped into a nearby cornfield, just short of unbelievable, ND is the state with the highest percentage of Norwegians, a small paradise, the son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, rent doubled, We are broke, Seat belts, are you kidding?, wooden grain elevators, WHAT ARE THEY SAYING?, DAKTOIDS

Those who can most afford to emigrate are no longer prisoners of Big Brother. The high tech revolution has freed business owners to run their operations from anywhere in the world. I-phones, cell phones, Skype, e-mail, internet, satellite TV and more facilitate the flight to freedom. Businesses and the wealthy no longer put up with looters, free loaders and politicians. They no longer need to struggle against the US bloated government flush with bureaucrats living off the largesse of the producers.

Capital flight is the natural result of taxing. The erosion of the tax base means fewer people to carry the tax burden. That will only accelerate the exodus.

Ah, but the great advantage of mass moronization is that it leaves you too dumb to figure out who to be mad at. At Liberty Square, one of the signs reads: “F**k your unpaid internship!” Fair enough. But, to a casual observer of the massed ranks of Big Sloth, it’s not entirely clear what precisely anyone would ever pay them to do.

When Fiebiger was a legislator, he always had to fight the North Dakota budget into balance because he was required to do so.  Why would he not want our Federal Government to operate under the same controls?  He says, “Congress can choose to balance the budget” and he is right, they can.  But they don’t and they won’t.  Fiebiger says “it’s been done before” and he is right.  But unfortunately, Congress has only carried that discipline for brief periods of time and then fell right back into the cavalier spending attitudes that have brought our country to the brink of bankruptcy.

“The show must go on”, legal assistance to Minot flood victims, Ft. Berthold Reservation irony, I feel bad for the state of Minnesota, UND led Fresno State in Fresno, Democrats may have an advantage, an uphill task, Sixty-four per cent of North Dakotans are overweight or obese, This is a different group of people, We're out of everything, It was a beautiful, but quiet store, Pour me a “Wood Chipper,” bartender!

Conservatives respect the wisdom and thinking of their predecessors. They grow skeptical of proposed wholesale revisions of societal norms and structures. In other words, the essence of conservatism preserves the ancient moral traditions of humanity. Natural law significantly developed our legal and political practices and remains integral to the moral standards for judging individual and governmental conduct.

Obama says America has “gotten a little soft”. But there’s nothing soft about a dead-parrot economy, a flatline jobs market, regulatory sclerosis, “green jobs” multi-billion-dollar squandering – and a mountain of dead Mexicans. In a soft nation, “centrist” government is hard and cruel. Only the media coverage is soft-focus.  

Obama says America has “gotten a little soft”. But there’s nothing soft about a dead-parrot economy, a flatline jobs market, regulatory sclerosis, “green jobs” multi-billion-dollar squandering – and a mountain of dead Mexicans. In a soft nation, “centrist” government is hard and cruel. Only the media coverage is soft-focus.  

Obama says America has “gotten a little soft”. But there’s nothing soft about a dead-parrot economy, a flatline jobs market, regulatory sclerosis, “green jobs” multi-billion-dollar squandering – and a mountain of dead Mexicans. In a soft nation, “centrist” government is hard and cruel. Only the media coverage is soft-focus. 

Election 2012 must be about economics and fiscal policy. The process know as “budgeting” occurs at all levels of society, from the family, to the small biz, to the mega-corporation, to government. But at only one of these levels is budgeting bastardized into something other than the practice of basing spending on income. That outlier is government. Patterson’s “demographics” have nothing to do with what makes government unaccountable. Government is unaccountable mainly because in order to buy votes needed to stay in power, politicians succumb to the irresistible urge to spend other people’s money—which those politicians assume they will always be able to obtain.

Election 2012 must be about economics and fiscal policy. The process know as “budgeting” occurs at all levels of society, from the family, to the small biz, to the mega-corporation, to government. But at only one of these levels is budgeting bastardized into something other than the practice of basing spending on income. That outlier is government. Patterson’s “demographics” have nothing to do with what makes government unaccountable. Government is unaccountable mainly because in order to buy votes needed to stay in power, politicians succumb to the irresistible urge to spend other people’s money—which those politicians assume they will always be able to obtain.

The federal government has grown to mammoth size and consumes more than it takes in revenue, it must now find more revenue so it searches for untapped sources and it finds the "rich and the wealthy." These are the Gates, Waltons, Buffetts, Jobs, Kochs, Zuckermans, et al. So, if we took it all, how long would the wealth of our richest Americans keep our government going? The estimate is about a week--when their money is gone--who is next?

As for the "Investing In The Future" part of the President's plan,  that means lots more government, lots more half billion dollar payoffs to pseudo-businesses cooked up by cronies, lots more 4.8 million-dollar-per job taxpayer subsidies paid for with money borrowed from our unborn grandchildren. In a perfect snapshot of this Administration's witless banality, the President travelled last week to the Brent Spence Bridge across the Ohio River and claimed that, despite the fact that the structure connects the home states of the Republican House leader and the Republican Senate leader, the mean spirited GOP is going to kill the jobs bill and thus all prospects for a new bridge between their two states.

As for the "Investing In The Future" part of the President's plan,  that means lots more government, lots more half billion dollar payoffs to pseudo-businesses cooked up by cronies, lots more 4.8 million-dollar-per job taxpayer subsidies paid for with money borrowed from our unborn grandchildren. In a perfect snapshot of this Administration's witless banality, the President travelled last week to the Brent Spence Bridge across the Ohio River and claimed that, despite the fact that the structure connects the home states of the Republican House leader and the Republican Senate leader, the mean spirited GOP is going to kill the jobs bill and thus all prospects for a new bridge between their two states.