Thursday, November 30, 2017

Communitarianism

The Catholic Church has preserved commune living for centuries in religious orders of priests like the Franciscans, Jesuits and Dominicans and others.  These priests and brothers lived in Monasteries and typically support themselves by selling and making wine and bread and growing their own food.  Orders of Nuns like Loreto and sisters of Charity and others lived in Convents attached to schools and hospitals. Education for those choosing to become Nuns and Priests was subsidized by donations. Nuns were trained to be teachers and nurses. Priests were trained in seminaries and typically graduated with a masters in theology.

 

They take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. The “order” owned their convents and monasteries and paid for utilities, food, transportation and healthcare and paid each a salary of $50 per month.

 

In exchange, they taught in Catholic grade schools attached to the Parish and Catholic high schools and universities. The Nuns also ran Catholic hospitals.  After Vatican II in 1962, the hospitals were sold and the schools began to disappear.

 

All of this was additionally supported with donations. Many Catholics included the Church in their Wills. Education in Parish-based grade schools was often free and education in Catholic high schools and universities was generally inexpensive and excellent.

 

All of that is different now. Catholic education is expensive. There are still religious orders, but they are much smaller than they were before 1962 and they work in special ministries. There are still convents, but many Nuns live in houses next to Parishes or near the ministries they now work in. There are still monasteries, but not many. Priests from religious orders often live in Parish rectories and serve as Diocesian Priests.  


The kind of communitarian living the Catholic Church provided worked well for almost 2000 years and didn’t fail because it didn’t work. It failed because the church told its priests and nuns to go out and live among the people. Most of them just had their vows dispensed and they left to become civilians. All were well educated. The Nuns were teachers and nurses and hospital administrators. When they left, the cost of education and healthcare skyrocketed.

In 1962, the rise of secular government control began. Government wanted to replace religion. The Catholic Church had historically been manipulated by the Kings of nation-states and this corrupt influence remains today. Pope Francis continues to be manipulated by the UN and its cadre of Globalist Marxists.

Communitarianism doesn’t work as a national policy in the free market economy with poor populations unless it is subsidized by “contributors”, like US taxpayers. It certainly doesn’t work with prosperous populations that require self-reliance.

Communitarianism worked in the Catholic Church, because it was voluntary for those with a religious vocation. It also works with families who take care of their own.


Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Political Speech

Political speech is the Bolshevik weapon of choice to justify violent protests.

Political speech is guaranteed in the 1st Amendment. Before the internet, all citizens exercised this standing on soap boxes and handing out leaflets in the town square. American Communists have added violence to the art of protest by blocking streets, physical assaults and burning cars and buildings. The media loves it.

Schools and Universities are obstructing free speech and these entities are taxpayer funded.  These have become “rogue” institutions and like “sanctuary cities” could be denied taxpayer funding.

More parents and students are avoiding US university campuses unless the students are studying engineering or medicine or any other profession that pays well and they have no other options.

There are a few universities who are “free market” friendly and offer courses that actually prepare students to be successful in the US. I predict there will be more universities that will convert from Globalist Marxism to Adam Smith Independence.  

I urge government to begin to take action against the rogue entities they fund.


Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Fantasy Island

Liberals live in a land where man-made “climate change” is true, fossil fuel is bad, animals have rights, socialism is good and Trump “colluded” with Russia. 

 

Liberals like to “imagine” if things were true that are not remotely logical and then they want to implement things that won’t work.  They view any questioning of their ideas as “unimaginative”.

 

“It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so.” – Ronald Reagan



Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

The Malignant Personality

These people are mentally ill and extremely dangerous! The following precautions will help to protect you from the destructive acts of which they are capable.

First, to recognize them, keep the following guidelines in mind.

1 they are habitual liars. They seem incapable of either knowing or telling the truth about anything.

2 They are egotistical to the point of narcissism. They really believe they are set apart from the rest of humanity by some special grace.

3 They scapegoat; they are incapable of either having the insight or willingness to accept responsibility for anything they do. Whatever the problem, it is always someone else’s fault.

4 They are remorselessly vindictive when thwarted or exposed.

5 Genuine religious, moral or other values play no part I their lives. They have no empathy for others and are capable of violence. Under older psychological terminology, they fall into the category of psychopath or sociopath, but unlike the typical psychopath, their behavior is masked by a superficial social façade.


Hubris

Hubris is a symptom of bad judgment hiding as infallibility.

It brought down the US automobile companies when they didn’t notice gasoline prices would give foreign auto manufacturers the edge. They were stuck in the 1950s designing muscle cars for the drag races. It is bringing down the Neanderthals in politics and the media. They are stuck in the 1950s when inappropriate sexual advances were the norm.

The poster child for hubris is the Climate “Scientist”, who still supports the global warming hoax. Environmental “Science” has overreached as seen in unnecessary EPA regulations that demand “carbon taxes”, dictate that ethanol must continue to be a corrosive gasoline additive and other similar abuses.

The “Endangered Species Act” has created unnecessary abuse for farmers and ranchers and it killed the timber industry. It needs to be reviewed to remove species that have moved on or no longer exist.  The model for hubris is the “Professor”, followed by the “regulatory zealot”.

Rogue federal agencies should not be allowed to continue to operate forcing targeted citizens to spend their life savings on legal defense based on erroneous agency claims.

Government seizure of land, assets and cash needs to be adjudicated before the seizure is executed or fines are imposed.

 

The federal government has usurped activities that had been the purview of the States and the States have usurped activities that had been the purview of the Counties. When we observe what has happened, we can identify those activities that are in crisis like Healthcare and Welfare that were better handled at the County level.



Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Draining the Swamp

Thanks to Trump, the US Constitution (as written) is back and it still is the “law of the land”. We have a chance to bring the federal government into compliance with the “rule of law” and the “deep state” isn’t going to like it.

 

The “deep state” is a “government jobs program” with disjointed systems and processes guaranteed to create tremendous waste. Nobody cares about throughput or quality. Government employees who lead these agencies only care about covering their ass and avoiding blame. They are the impenetrable bureaucracy. But these disjointed systems can be fixed and these processes repaired, if these Government agencies would apply the same equipment and processes the private sector companies use to reduce their costs and increase throughput and quality.
 

Politicians are elected with platitudes and are afraid to be specific because they don’t want to say anything that will lose votes. But voters will vote for politicians who tell the truth.

.

Our current Federal, State and local laws are geared to shepherd us to the “New World Order” and thanks to Trump, that isn’t going to happen. We are not following Europe into sovereign suicide and socialist poverty.

 

We need to shrink the government footprint and expand the private sector. Some of this needs to be done immediately to keep our economic rally going. Policies need to be more logical and workable than political. We need to either convert Republican politicians to the Trump agenda or replace them.

 

We need to de-nationalize and de-regulate lending for mortgages and loans and get out of the insurance business. Banks can continue to insure deposits if they want to keep their customers

 

We needed to get our corporate taxes competitive decades ago, but that wasn’t the plan then. We need to remove the fraud from the Child tax credit.

 

We need to cut government spending. Most government departments need processes and systems that actually work, so that wasteful costs can be eliminated. We need to cut unnecessary spending. The Federal government needs to remove all the grants and subsidies they can, especially those that are funneled to Marxist groups and UN Agenda 21 implementation. They need to cut grants to States, because these are bribes to encourage government to transform the US into “transit villages” and we don’t need to spend tax dollars on that.

 

Our infrastructure is suburban and we need to continue to sprawl.  We have suburban communities with office parks for plants and offices and we need stores and services localized in the community circle for convenience. But internet shopping has already resulted in Mall closures and brick and mortar retail space demand is shrinking. Developers will double down on getting politicians to let them continue to overbuild commercial space with tax subsidies.

 

Inner-cities are no longer necessary for most Metro residents and would do well to copy the suburban circle concept. Rebuilding part of the inner-cities as cultural centers is possible only if these centers are easy to get to by car and have adequate parking. Most inner-cities need lanes added to streets and highways and more space. This can happen if commercial property values are allowed to decline, so that cities can afford to purchase the space to widen roads and highways. Gridlock, blight and overcrowding will just force businesses to leave the inner-cities. 

 

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Georgia Abuse of Citizens

As Citizens of Georgia, you may be surprised to learn that, according to exceedingly broad court interpretations of the Georgia Tort Claims Act (GTCA), you have no recourse against state officials who sexually assault you, sexually harass you, slam your head into a door, or even file your teeth down to nubs.

 

file:///C:/Users/nleahy/Downloads/Georgia-Watchdogs-Newsletter-SOVEREIGN-IMMUNITY-November-2017-UPDATED-PDF.pdf

 

However, The City of Dunwoody has paid thousands of dollars to settle race discrimination lawsuits against one Police Officer for being disrespectful to young Black men during traffic stops.

 

http://www.georgiawatchdogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Georgia-Watchdogs-Newsletter-SOVEREIGN-IMMUNITY-November-2017-UPDATED-PDF.pdf

 

There are other abuses imposed by the Georgia legislature.

 

No-Knock Warrants are still approved and have resulted in shooting deaths inflicted on innocent homeowners by Swat Team Police. In two reported cases, Police got bad information from jailed felons and killed two innocent citizens. They break down your door after midnight and enter with guns drawn.

 

Prosecutors are free to ignore evidence and refuse to prosecute crimes and are not accountable to anybody. This includes District Attorneys and the Attorney General’s office.

 

Fines and fees imposed by cities and counties have become predatory. UN Agenda 21 Ordinances include unnecessary permits and inspections and high fines and fees for everything. Traffic fines have quadrupled.

 

Private property rights are abused by UN Agenda 21 implementation of Lane-Use, Zoning rules and Eminent Domain. There are unnecessary EPA “stream buffer” requirements, zoning for tiny lots and tiny homes and unenforced in-fill building codes. City staffs decide and City Councils rubber stamp their demands. Georgia law allows for milk-toast City Councils to ignore their jobs.

 

The Georgia Municipal Association is the fox who is guarding the chicken coop. They encourage cities to overpay City Managers and Staffs and encourage city policies to be loose with your cash and overuse consultants.  Everybody in government in Georgia obeys them.  They serve as the hub of the “deep state” in Georgia.

 

Regional Commissions continue to operate to control and influence what your transportation taxes are spent on. They are following UN Agenda 21 implementation of “transit villages”, economic development, on-street bike lanes, multiuse paths and green spaces. Not much is spent on widening roads for cars or maintaining roads. These Regional Commissions usurp decisions that were meant to be decided by elected City Councils and County Commissions.

 

Cities and Counties bribing companies with tax holidays to establish offices is common. When this is done in “gridlock Zones” like Dunwoody, it’s suicidal.  When this is done to get a manufacturing plant for a small Georgia city that could use the jobs, it is put to the voters on a ballot and they usually agree.

 

The Hall County Commission hired a company from out of town to revalue Hall County property. The valuations were double what they had been, especially at Lake Lanier. Homeowners had to file suit to prove their case.

 

The cost of road and highway work continues to double and nobody cares. So, now Counties are putting T-SPLOSTS on the ballot to increase sales taxes for “transportation” that includes “economic development” and recreational paths.

 

Failure to pay your auto insurance on time will result in being stopped by Police who impound your car, cancel your automobile registration and municipal courts impose fines up to $700. Obviously the insurance companies “show up” at the Georgia legislature and you don’t.

 

The Georgia legislature changed the sales tax collection process making it harder for with “working poor” to buy a car. The 5% Ga sales tax needs to be paid in full by car buyers. It used to be factored in to the annual Tag tax.

 

The Cobb County Commission saddled Cobb voters with the new Braves Stadium without voter approval, because loose Ga law allows cities and counties to do whatever they want.

 

Globalist Multinational Corporation influence over Georgia law is abusive and usurps voter input. If it looks like we might pass a Bill they don’t like, they threaten to leave. They are imposing their globalist “values” on Georgia voters.

 

Georgia Politics  - Envision a two-story outhouse, with the Georgia Legislature on the top floor and Voters on the bottom floor.

As a Tea Party Leader, I have worked with other Tea Party Leaders and Conservative individuals and groups since 2011.  These folks are volunteers who go down to the Gold Dome to propose changes in Georgia Law to right wrongs and give the voters a break. Up to and including the last GOP State Convention, the “establishment” continues to exercise tight control over any and all “reformers”.


Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

The “Establishment” in 1860

The diverse group of patriots who contributed to the founding of the US in 1789 were able to use “balanced judgment”. But in the States, the legislatures became the “establishment” of “landed gentry”. The wealthiest land owners controlled the State legislatures and they were the slave-owners. Despite the fact that the majority of voters in the South were not slave-owners, these legislatures voted to secede and became the Confederate States of America. Those who owned large plantations exempted themselves from joining the Confederate Army, but were happy to send everybody else to fight their war. If secession had been determined by the voters, where would have been no Civil War.

The number of slave-owning families in Confederate States in 1860 was as follows:

 

Virginia 26%

North Carolina 28%

South Carolina 46%

Georgia 37%

Florida 34%

Alabama 35%

Mississippi 49%

Louisiana 29%

Tennessee 25%

Texas 28%

Arkansas 20%

Kentucky 23%

Missouri 13%

 

http://www.civil-war.net/pages/1860_census.html

 

The “establishment” continued to control our State and Federal legislatures ever since with mixed results. Today we have Democrats and Republicans, each with their own “establishments” and as long as we were marching to socialism, they functioned as a One-Party-System. They ignore the voters and cater to the special interests who contribute to their campaigns based on short-term issues. But sustaining a nation-state requires long-term considerations.

 

It has been said that “politics is for those who show up” and our voters continue to not show up.  State legislatures are easier to lock up, because they have managed to become invisible. But the damage they do is real. If you do show up, you are not welcomed unless you are identified as a “pre-registered establishmentarian”.

 

I have seen this at Republican Party Conventions to elect the GA GOP Chairman since 2013 “Reformers” got 40% of the delegate vote in 2013 and we got 45% of the vote in 2015 and 2017. We are encouraged that the Trump election will turn the “establishment” to elect a “reformer”. Individual races for State Senate and State Rep are more difficult for
reformers to win, because the attack by “establishment” candidates is relentless.

 


Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Socialism Failed in 1623

The economy of Plymouth Colony was based on agriculture, fishing, whaling, timber and fur.

The Plymouth Company investors initially invested about £1200 to £1600 in the colony before the Mayflower even sailed. The colonists had to pay this money back over seven years by harvesting supplies and shipping them back to the investors in England to be sold.

Each investor in the Plymouth Company was issued shares worth £10 and each adult colonist received one share and were given options to purchase more shares later on. For the first seven years, everything was to remain in the “common stock” which was owned by all the shareholders.
The common stock helped supply the colonists with things like food, tools and clothing. At the end of the seven years, the shareholders would divide the profits and capital (which included houses, land and goods) equally.

Plymouth on a map of New England, circa 1720
Yet, in 1623, the common-stock plan was abandoned and the land and houses were divided so that each colonist could reap the rewards of their own labor.

The colony had been barely producing enough food to survive and the Governor of the colony, William Bradford, felt that the communal aspect of the colony was discouraging many of the colonists from working hard because they felt they were working for others rather than themselves.
When the common-stock plan was abandoned and the new plan put into place, the colony suddenly began to flourish and they soon had an abundance of food. Corn production dramatically increased and famine was averted.

Bradford described in his diary, which was later published under the title Of Plymouth Plantation, the reasoning behind the change of plans and why it worked:

“The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato’s and other ancients applauded by some of later times; that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For the young men, that were most able and fit for labour and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense. The strong, or man of parts, had no more division of victuals and clothes than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter than the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labours, victuals, clothes, etc., with the meaner and younger sort, thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them. And for men’s wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it.”

The fur trade industry was the colony’s economic salvation. For the first few years that the colony existed, the colonists struggled to make enough money to pay the investors back. In fact, they had to ask for more money just to keep the colony running and by the mid to late 1620s, they were deeply in debt to the investors.

To help pay down the debt they still owed, the colonists established a beaver fur trading base in Kennebec, Maine by 1625. Beaver were plentiful in Maine where the local Native-Americans tribe had hunted them for generations.

This fur trading business was very successful for the colonists and quickly became an essential part of their economy. Their success in this trade continued well into the 1630s and 1640s but by the 1650s beaver became scarce in New England.

Unable to expand their hunting grounds due to pressure from other colonies, the colonists finally sold their land in Kennebec in the 1660s and fish and lumber eventually became the staples of the colony’s economy.

According to the book Cape Cod and Plymouth Colony in the 17th Century, whaling was a particularly vital part of the economy in Plymouth:

“The whale processed on Cape Cod were Atlantic right whales, so called because they were the correct, or ‘right,’ whales for human use. They were a coastal, migratory whale, which floated when dead, and produced a good quality oil. Most of the whales utilized by Seventeenth-century Cape Codders were beached whales, which had run aground themselves. Other whales were taken directly at sea. Some were killed at sea or driven on to the shore from boats, and others were ‘drift’ whales which had died at sea and were later hauled to shore. Over the century, the number of whales increased, as efforts to kill them at sea failed, and their wounded or dead carcasses later washed up on the shore. However obtained, whales, and especially their oil, were an important item in the economy of Plymouth Colony. Despite whale’s obvious economic significance, the historical sources are strangely silent respecting their number and processing, and it is difficult to determine how much oil a particular whale would yield. The official records are similarly of little help, referring only to whale oil owed to the colony or to those who processed it for the town. One clue comes from Edward Randolph. Writing to England in January 1687/88, he estimated Plymouth had exported two hundred tons of whale oil in the previous months, and predicted that whale oil would replace the fur trade as a staple of the colony’s economy. Another comes from Wait-Still Winthrop. In a letter to his brother he mentioned a report of twenty-nine whales having been killed in one day, and that on a previous visit to Plymouth he had learned of a group who had killed six whales within a few days. Offsetting these rather generous estimates, is Thomas Hinckley’s reference to small whales which produced between seven and twenty barrels of oil.”

Woodcut depicting whaling in the 16th century
In 1627, the Plymouth Company investors were unhappy with the lack of return they saw from the colony and the colonists agreed to buy them out for £1800, which was to be paid in installments of 200 pounds a year over nine years.
Eight colonists pledged their personal credit to buy the investor’s shares. These colonists were William Bradford, John Howland, Myles Standish, Isaac Allerton, Edward Winslow, William Brewster, John Alden and Thomas Prence.
In reality, it took much longer than nine years to pay back the money and the pilgrims didn’t finish paying it off until over 20 years later in 1648.

Ultimately, Plymouth colony never achieved the level of economic success that its neighbor, the Massachusetts Bay Colony, did and was eventually merged with the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1691 and became a royal colony known as the Province of Massachusetts Bay.


Comments

Socialism was tried in the US in the 1600s and it failed. It is being tried again in the US and it is failing again. Despite all the examples of socialist countries going broke, this failed economic model is being used to promote corruption in our governments and is getting support in our churches.

Our current crop of church leaders have criticized Trump and I suspect that they are using scriptures selectively to defend socialism. Despite the fact that scripture supports private property, like “Thou shalt not steal”.  Charity is praised in the “Good Samaritan”, but it was person to person and didn’t involve government. 

I suspect that the churches have entered the devils bargain described in UN Agenda 21 and are being promised the end of war in exchange for the “new world order”. They forgot that these communists want to eliminate religion and have the state replace it.  They are also missing the point that church attendance has been declining, because of their leaders’ liberal leanings.


Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Kitchen Table Economics

Being self-supporting requires us to earn enough money to pay our bills. We need to pay for housing and utilities. Our monthly bills can include a mortgage payment or a rent payment. It will also include a water bill an electric bill and may include a gas bill. It will certainly include food costs. 

It may include a phone bill and a TV cable bill. Beyond that, most of us need a car to get to work.

 

Bills are normally paid monthly. The first $1000 will probably be for housing and another $500 might go to paying for water, electric, gas and phone. Another $500 will go for food. A car payment, maintenance, gasoline and auto insurance may cost another $500. If your net pay is $2500 a month or more, you may be able to keep a roof over your head, but you will need an emergency fund for tires and other expenses. You will need to earn at least $35,000 a year and spend as little as possible to be self-supporting unless you have a roommate to share the basic costs. You could also work two jobs.

 


Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Surviving in the US Economy

Investors have a history of herding their money on to “greener pastures”. This results in a roller-coaster ride that creates wide swings in investment values. When interest rates were high due to inflation in the 1970s, investors bought fixed interest investments to get earnings over 7%.

 

Mortgage interest topped out at 13% in the 1980s and began to drop through the 1990s. Stocks languished through the 1960s and 1970s, but In the 1980s, stocks began to move up and fixed rates began to drop. Stocks out-performed fixed rate investments in the 1990s, but middle-class jobs were moved overseas and household incomes began to drop. Mortgage interest rates declined in the 1990s to 10% and then 7% and moved lower in the 2000s and 2010s to the 3-4% levels we had in the 1950s and early 1960s. Money printing for “quantitative easing” in the years between 2008 and 2012 provided free cash for the banks to lend to “day traders” to keep the stock market propped up.

 

Inflation over the past 60 years we’ve seen prices of homes increase from $30,000 to $300,000. Home prices in 1900 were closer to $5000.  Automobiles in the 1960s sold in the $2000 to $3000 range and now new cars cost from $20,000 to $50,000. A good family income in the 1960s was $10,000 a year and now it’s $100,000 a year. The cost of a loaf of bread in 1900 was 2 cents and now bread is $3 a loaf. Inflation in the US declined along with the drop in household incomes. Interest rates have flat-lined at 3% for a decade and won’t move until consumers and governments can afford for it to move up. Household debt is at $17 trillion and needs to be reduced. Homeowners who can convert to a 15 year mortgage loan should do this now.

 

Every move in our economy offers “false flags”. Companies in the Apartment business suggested that home values would decline, but they didn’t. Companies that sell Gold and Silver continue to advertise it despite the fact that their prices are stuck in a flat-line and the Fed is clawing back their 450% increase in the money supply.

 

Our largest Corporations are planning big cost reductions to stay alive. They also need to attend to consumer discontent. Consumers don’t like companies usurping voters to lobby for laws that benefit the companies at the expense of the voters or imposing their political views. Many of the companies that were big in the 1960s have been absorbed into conglomerates and some have gone out of business.

 

A home is an investment that appreciates in value over time. We were married at age 21 in 1964. We bought a 4 bedroom ranch with a basement on a 1 acre lot in a subdivision in St. Charles County Mo in 1966; we were 23 years old. It was a 6 year old home next door to my brother and was heading for foreclosure. I paid the seller’s $700 in back taxes and assumed his 4% loan balance of $16,000.  We lived there for 9 years, fixed it up and sold it for $36,000.  We moved to Kansas in 1975 and we bought a 4 year old two story, 4 bedroom home in a subdivision in Salina Ks for $55,000. We sold it for $85,000 in 1983. We moved to Atlanta GA in 1983 and bought a large two story 6 bedroom home in Dunwoody for $133,000. The mortgage interest was 13%. We refinanced that loan to 10% and again at 7% with a 15 year mortgage. We paid it off in 2003 and remain there today. That home is now, in 2017 worth about $600,000. Home ownership requires maintenance, so you need to preserve buckets of money to replace roofs, sewer lines, driveways, HVAC units and other mechanicals. If you buy right and sell right, you will recoup your entire cost of home ownership including interest costs.

 

I kept my TIAA $5800 balance in fixed income in 1975 and by 2015, in 40 years that $5800 had grown to $90,000. I signed up for a 401K in the 1980s and transferred the 401K to a SEP in 1993 in the Vanguard 500 Index that produced about $200,000. I worked as a Personnel Director and Consultant and my wife worked as a Dental Hygienist from 1986 to 2017. We took Social Security in 2009, but continued to work part-time until 2017. I started to wind down my private consulting practice after the 2008 Meltdown. My wife went from 4 days a week to 2 days and 1 day and then to be an “on-call” fill-in Hygienist for two dental offices.  We are now age 74 and have more time to spend time with our 6 kids, 13 grandkids and 2 great grandkids, friends and each other. We did our world traveling throughout our marriage.

 

We have time to reflect and be grateful. We came from great families and had great educations. We enjoyed the jobs we had in high school. I started my own Rock Band in 1957. I was 14 and played 3 nights a week through high school. Then I joined a Blues Band and played 6 nights a week through college. I graduated and went to work in 1965, but continued my music career. I joined a Jazz Trio and played weekends until 1975.  We had careers we loved during a very prosperous time.

 


Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Monday, November 27, 2017

Families

Successful families form when capable couples work together and make the “decision to love” each other every day. Couples need to share their feelings with each other. Unnecessary acts of kindness are appropriate and serve as “decisions to love”. Couples who believe God put them there for a purpose are likely to ask God’s help and that is their secret weapon. Marriage is not designed to work for the immature. It is a relationship that requires sacrifice. Feeling happy is a sign that you’re doing this correctly. Feeling unhappy is a sign that you need a course correction. Happiness is an “inside job” that you design for yourself.
Feeling grateful is a sign that you are on the right track.

The children that arrive in these families have a stable environment to learn to become capable themselves. Parents need to strive to take time to spend with their children, so that their children will feel free to ask questions and get feedback.  Parents need to limit their distractions and attend to family dynamics. Parents are the “bread-winners and are hopefully working in jobs they love. This enables them to teach their children the joy of work and puts them on the path to leading happy, successful lives.

Failure in marriage is a disaster. There is little hope in saving a marriage marred by alcoholism or drug addiction. Some couples make it, but most do not.


Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Kids

Kids are like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get. Some will do everything effortlessly and others will struggle to keep up.  Some are more outgoing and energetic than others. Some will become self-supporting and even wealthy and others will not.  Some will be happy and some will not. Some will be lucky at cards and unlucky at love. When Jesus told us “the poor will always be with you”, He was talking about our children. He was warning us that our children will always need our help. The family is the basic economic unit in our economies and is responsible for its members’ well-being and survival. Charity begins at home and ethics teaches us that we need to take care of others that we encounter who are in trouble. The people who we are in the most proximity with are our family members.  As the primary economic unit, families are the crucible designed to nurture and educate children. Children need to exercise their abilities, develop their talents and discover what they love to do. Our civilization is built on families to ensure the survival of the species.

You as parents will get to see your kids make the decision to excel and will remember these life-changing moments. Those kids who are gifted students may end up becoming Doctors.  You may notice that some children of wealthy parents will not become wealthy themselves, but will choose a different path.  It’s also common to find children of poor families who become wealthy as adults. Your kids did inherit genes that can determine abilities, but what your kids choose to do with their abilities is up to them. All you can do as parents is to give your kids the opportunity to discover what they love to do. If they spend their lives doing what they love, they will be happy and successful.

I’m a big fan of Homeschooling. For parents who can homeschool their children, it is the most time-effective way to allow your children to function a couple of grades ahead of their age group. It starts when they are born and can continue in grades K through 12 and include AP college courses on-line. Homeschooled students become self-learners quickly and are exposed to all of the activities that help them to do what they love. Curriculum and tests are available on-line for parents to select. Homeschooling involves tutors for special skills and activities with Homeschool groups. Their playmates are often other neighborhood kids. 


Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Sunday, November 26, 2017

Freedom of Association

The US was designed to be a small government, free market meritocracy and has been more successful than any other country. The fact that we were free to operate the private sector economy with little or no government interference allowed the US to provide the highest standard of living on the planet.

 

Business Proprietors chose who they would deal with and were careful to select those who were smart, honest and fair. They spent time with their business associates and got to know them well. They judged people individually based on their abilities and the “content of their character”.

 

Government has drifted from this practice and became so large and intrusive that they have made government corrupt and have encouraged corruption in the private sector.  The Congress has allowed many unconstitutional laws to allow our liberty to be diminished and by 2016 it had been almost destroyed.

 

Freedom of Association is a personal right and is necessary to engage in free enterprise.

Annotation 12 - First Amendment - Right of Association

''It is beyond debate that freedom to engage in association for the advancement of beliefs and ideas is an inseparable aspect of the 'liberty' assured by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which embraces freedom of speech. Of course, it is immaterial whether the beliefs sought to be advanced by association pertain to political, economic, religious or cultural matters, and state action which may have the effect of curtailing the freedom to associate is subject to the closest scrutiny.'' It would appear from the Court's opinions that the right of association is derivative from the First Amendment guarantees of speech, assembly, and petition, although it has at times seemingly been referred to as a separate, independent freedom protected by the First Amendment. The doctrine is a fairly recent construction, the problems associated with it having previously arisen primarily in the context of loyalty-security investigations of Communist Party membership, and these cases having been resolved without giving rise to any separate theory of association.  

 

http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment1/annotation12.html

 

As you can see from the article above, the legal system treats freedom of association only in its political context and encourages sedition. It ignores freedom of association in business.

 


Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Redefining Liberty

Americans recognize that their Liberty has been diminished over the decades. The emergence of the Libertarian Party in the 1970s, the Campaign for Liberty in 2008, the Tea Party in 2009, Glen Beck’s 9/12 Program and the Trump election in 2016 is evidence of that.

 

As the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was being debated, Senator Barry Goldwater said: ‘You can’t legislate morality’. But Southern States needed to end their segregation laws.

 

Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States. They mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in the states of the former Confederate States of America, starting in 1896 with a "separate but equal" status for African Americans in railroad cars.

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=Southern+States+segregation+laws&rlz=1C1CHWA_enUS664US664&oq=Southern+States+segregation+laws&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.38633j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

The Jim Crow laws were evil and ignorant and failed to recognize the similarities between the races. But the federal government had added unconstitutional activities that had “unintended consequences”. When schools were desegregated, they broke up Black neighborhood schools. Welfare laws destroyed the Black families. When businesses were desegregated, Black-owned businesses disappeared. Desegregation of private businesses like hotels and restaurants allowed Blacks access to necessary services, but when government mandated desegregation in private businesses it crossed the line and business owners no longer had unfettered “freedom of association”.

 

The federal government had already desegregated employment for government employees. The Civil Rights Act also ended discrimination in employment for all private businesses and that was a good thing. Americans would learn that minorities had abilities.  But the law ignored individual differences, allowed employment mistakes and set up an “entitlement mentality”. Too many Blacks had been encouraged to be angry and violent and demand that everybody had to put up with them. Companies had become sloppy with their “Performance Appraisals” and gave inaccurate ratings that resulted in expensive settlements. At the same time, wise business consultants like J Edwards Deming were telling us not to remove the joy from work.

 

Most Employment Lawyers were not helpful and too many were “regulatory zealots”. I picked my lawyers carefully. I also read the law and continued to use employment tests to ensure that finalists were competent. I had no problems and the workforce was grateful.

 


Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader