Who’s the Boss ?

Posted by PoliticallyUnEZ on January 1, 2013
Posted in: National Politics. 1 Comment

I don’t believe in any of the Democrat ideology and am a strong believer in Capitalism, Constitutionalism and Conservatism.  But nonetheless, their organizational structure and consistency of message is wholly impressive.  Maybe because the Democrats are in the Executive office and the Senate and thus garner the power of the pulpit, but it seems that no matter what flavor of modern progressivism speaks out, the message is consistent.  There is a stated goal, a well organized playbook, consistent ideals and a cohesive national plan for the democratic electorate and they coalesce around that message in everything they say.

Contrast that with our Republican of the Month organizations and one has to wonder who the hell is in charge.   On the Conservative front we have Reagan Republicans, Tea Party Republicans, The RNC, Log Cabin Republicans, Moderate Republicans, Lincoln Republicans, Conservative Republicans, Soft Republicans, Social Republicans, Fiscal Republicans and a virtually non-present National GOP Chair who has consistently failed to tie it all together with a consistent message.  There is no leadership and there is no over lying message.

Like him or not, his predecessor Michael Steele was everywhere.  Although I didn’t always agree with all of his strategies, he was easy to get behind because there was a message.  We really had a champion of the cause.  I have not seen our GOP Chair on TV since the election.  And barely saw him through the election process.  The amount of time we took to settle on a candidate was ludicrous, and our failure to rally behind unforgivable.  Coupled with the incessant in-fighting over message and our party’s love of second guessing everything we are lost before we begin.  And I drop a large part of the blame on Reince Priebus.  Newt after losing his chance, showed up on TV pontificating an alternative message, confusing voters, more than Reince did solidifying the base.   Couple that with continuous Monday Morning Quarterbacking by Huckabee, McCain, Cain, Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, (who sealed the nations fate by stealing votes in a campaign he knew he was ill equipped for)  and you begin to see the breakdown of the organization.  Failure in message, whether in business or in politics always starts at the top.

Before we retool for the next two and four year campaigns, we need to find a Charismatic Leader who can develop and maintain a message and an image consistent with the ideals of the GOP.  Everything else should come second.  Obvious as it is that the conservative message will not get portrayed properly or effectively on NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC or CNN, the message in sound bites can permeate with an ever present leader with good media sense and a strong organizational background.  That Priebus is not even visible on Fox News is astounding.  And yet no one speaks of it.  Everyone bemoans the broken party but fails to identify the guy who’s job it is to fix it.

Dear GOP,  for any chance of success in the mid terms, it IS time to fix this.

Reince, your cab is waiting.

Searching for George Orwell

Posted by PoliticallyUnEZ on December 18, 2012
Posted in: Social Conservative. Leave a comment

Although the Generation Ys have been replaced by the Millennials, the following is as pertinent today as it was when I wrote it in January, 2006.

Searching for George Orwell

Every now and again particular people enter our lives that have a profound impact on the rest of it. Friends, Colleagues, Mentors, Spouses, Business partners, School mates, Casual Acquaintances, people you pass on the street, people to meet in the mall, all share the same opportunity for positive or negative influence on individual decisions and most unfortunately sometimes those of our offspring. Sometimes the directional impact is so subtle that one doesn’t even realize it is occurring. Sometimes the impact is so great that deliberation is measured, thoughtful, complete and well executed based on the previous or present influences of another. For most, the inborn desire for acceptance and assimilation has a direct cause and effect role on our emulation of those we find more “together”, better off, better looking than ourselves. In some cases, quite the opposite. Driven by our disdain and determination to not be like or resemble a particular individual, cultural stereotype or personality group causes decisions to be made which may or may not be in our best long term interest.

Enter the great cultural “Oneness” of Generation Y. Seemingly with great organization, this assemblage of young people ages 18 to 25 have performed a baffling anthropological feat. Without formal study or research they have observed the world that has come before and during their lifetime and assembled or hijacked the characteristics of every social group since 1967 that has had the effect of driving mainstream society everywhere to the brink of total insanity.

Even the casual observer (over age 40) is witness to the following history lessons prevalent today at every turn:

In your face rudeness
Uneducated & unsolicited opinion
Unstudied, arrogant and often ignorant political activism – all from the 1960s
Dress styles of the 1970s
Techno Music from the 1980s
Unwavering focus on easy money of the 1990s

Combined with today’s Peacock Syndrome: loud cars, loud music, piercing, tattoos, public unveiling of flesh, overt sexual content in every aspect of their lives, and immense propensity for video experiences to the alienation of all other activities and pursuits, pointless aggression, unfiltered and inexplicable anger, the me first attitude, and the ever popular “I deserve what you have because I want it and I don’t plan to set about working for it” mentality adopted by several of our infiltrating ethnic groups,

There are myriad research groups working on this phenomenon, struggling not only to capture and define this group as a classification entity but also to understand how to make them contributing employees, to harness their consumer dollars and figure out exactly what the hell happened and how to keep it from happening again. Success however seems unattainable.

So how did we get here? Clearly the problem my friends is us. But no one is taking the blame or offering any solutions. Thus we are living through yet another history lesson from the 60’s and 70s. We sit back in our comfortable homes, our drugs and beer replaced by martini and wine, our loud music replaced by the local jazz station, our glass packed mufflers on cars worth less than our CD collection replaced by our import luxury SUVs and we roll our eyes at our offspring and blame their environment, society, the schools, or whatever else takes the bright light of blame from ourselves. We, as our parents before us, have sidestepped the pointing finger of truth and we now watch for the onslaught of a generation we don’t trust, don’t like very much, and wish to avoid whenever possible head toward the halls of economic, corporate, and even scarier, political leadership.

We need a new Toffler, a new Huxley and a new Orwell. We need to make the picture of the future so scary that our children are forced to take notice and act now to avoid the emergence of their children’s children into a world they can neither understand, control or explain. But in history lesson number 3, the image of the future is never scary enough to affect that change. We continue to look forward with hopeful optimism that “something”, instead of us, will change. The scariest part of Orwell is that he was right. And it can get worse. And we’re not likely to do a damn thing about breaking the downhill fall.

We appear destined for a global outbreak. Pandemic disease, nuclear exchange, environmental collapse or worse. We have been unable to bring the future into focus without painting it with rose colored glasses. Thus, it will most assuredly take a catastrophic event that puts the future in jeopardy to get some notice. Throughout history, that cycle is unbroken. And it’s a cycle that gets deeper with every passing. Perhaps one day it will not turn around again.

Thankfully in His infinite wisdom, even with medical breakthroughs, he has granted us only 4 or 5 score years to watch this cycle, with any luck but twice.

Perhaps he is a merciful God

The Wisdom of the Years ( from 2007, Merry Christmas )

Posted by PoliticallyUnEZ on December 18, 2012
Posted in: Reflective. Leave a comment

I am unfortunately afflicted with a melancholy reflectiveness during the holiday season.  So with Christmas fast approaching, I thought I might share a reflective article I wrote back in 2007.  I hope you find it meaningful.  Merry Christmas.

Like many of my contemporaries I lost my grandparents far too soon to either recognize or appreciate the treasure with which I had been graced.   Adrift in a sea of self absorbed youth, slowing down from my frenetic pace to spend what would now have been cherished time and memories seemed as foreign to me as bird watching.  I spent several years in arm’s reach of my history, tradition and heritage, yet failed to make the connection until all too soon my opportunity succumbed to the passing years.  Having chosen to pursue life’s rewards far flung from the family nest, my children similarly stand to lose a lifetime’s opportunity to connect with their grandparents, their heritage and their history.

With communication so easily available via email, telephone, video phone, instant access cellular communications, and even the antiquated card or letter, it is saddening to recognize that we have allowed ourselves to become so preoccupied and self absorbed that in spite of the ease of access, finding the time to maintain and foster that connection between the past and the future still eludes us.   I found only years later, the sage wisdom of the years that my parents so graciously carry with them.  As surely as they must watch our triumphs with a sense of parental pride, then also must they watch with a sigh of relief that their offspring have accomplished something.  As surely as they must watch our tribulations with parental pain, also must they often watch with a silent chuckle that we are not so smart after all.  The wisdom of the years also must have a sense of humor.  And along with that quiet reflection, they also carry with them, the acquired knowledge and knowing understanding of a lifetime.

Imagine if you will, if the entirety of the generations still bestowed with the privilege of having their forebears still alive would stop for an hour per week and call their grandparents, aging parents, aunts, uncles, retired teachers or retired business leaders and just talk.  More importantly, just listen.  Imagine if an hour per week was invested in casual conversation at the local retirement home.  What could we learn?  What pain, trails, and fruitless pursuits could we save ourselves by applying the acquired intellect of an entire generation who has already experienced the parts of life we are experiencing and even more profoundly have already experienced much of our future?  What if we wrote down all that we learned in a book of acquitted knowledge?  What value could we place on it?  What could we learn of our history, heritage, immigrations, sacrifices, etc., that might help to instill in our youth a sense of community, acceptance of diversity, understand of adversity, and perseverance. Of necessary sacrifices for love, freedom, charity, country and god?  Of work ethic, moral fortitude, humility, grace, religion, and politics?  Of the importance of Family, the trust of friendships, and the meaning of a neighbor? Of what home should feel like or the hug of your child, or the love of your spouse?  Of life and death, and times of feast and famine?

Wrapped up in our dizzying pace along with our even more frantic youth, we may never know the answers to those questions.  But the questions are profound.  And for those who accept it, the challenge to make that commitment is rewarding beyond measure.

Never Let a Crisis go to Waste (Attacking the 2nd and 4th Amendments)

Posted by PoliticallyUnEZ on December 18, 2012
Posted in: National Politics, Social Conservative. Leave a comment

As of this week there are a million of us in my state.  We believe in the Constitution, Liberty and the freedom to provide our own security.   We take personal and proactive responsibility for the protection of our family, homes and property.  We are legal and registered concealed weapons carriers.  We believe in the 2nd amendment and that a well armed citizenry is the first and last line of defense against tyranny.  We believe our Founding Fathers understood that liberty and freedom were paramount and that government works best when it works at the will of the people and not by Executive mandate.

Somehow we have taken a detour from the moral highroad and have targeted and labeled the independent patriots in our country as a dangerous subversive counter culture. It is difficult to comprehend that there are active conversations in our Country’s Government about the abolition of our Second Amendment the right to bear arms.  That members of our Congress would openly advocate violating the Fourth Amendment to have our personal and legal property, illegally confiscated by Executive Fiat.

That this is happening to this Great Nation, Conceived in Liberty is a tragedy in itself.

It would have been previously unfathomable that the radical voices of a few could so charge the debate with emotion and contortions of truth that discussion of the discharge of our Constitutional Rights and how best to protect them has become necessary dinnertime conversations.

A few months ago I was in Washington DC and about to get on the Metro when it dawned on me that I was in one of the most dangerous and corrupt cities in America, where Mayor Barry once was once re-elected to office after having been caught on video tape, in a hotel room with a prostitute, smoking crack cocaine, and I, a legal and trained concealed weapon license holder am forced to disarm myself while surrounded by thugs who most likely are not.  The irony of that should not be lost in other large cities either.  It is no surprise that Chicago, The bastion of Government gone wrong and the city with some of the strictest gun laws in America, also has the highest murder rate.   Arm the wolves, slaughter the sheep.

I simply cannot understand the mindset that thinks this is a logical and clear response to the rampant violence in America.  That the answer to high criminal activity is to disarm the law abiding population.  Two plus Two doesn’t equal 4 in this world and I will never understand the gun paranoia.  We have serious issues with violence in America but they are not caused or contributed to by a legally armed law abiding citizenry.  Tragedy and mass murder in American unfortunately happen.  But it has throughout the years and some of the most heinous acts were simply not the result of firearms in the hands of the law abiding.  The worst School Massacre was a bombing in the 1930s that resulted in the deaths of 38 children.  The Oklahoma bombing killed 20 children in the daycare on the ground floor, 9-11 was box cutters and airplanes, and on the same day as the devastating tragedy in CT, 20 plus school children ages 6,7,8 and their teacher where slashed by a deranged  knife wielding attacker at their school in China.

The senseless attack on legally owned firearms is akin to the TSA and school resource officers in that they provide a completely false sense of security.  The real security would come from adopting the Israeli policy of all teachers being armed.  Many with assault weapons.  They don’t have this kind of problem in Israel.  They do have a bombing problem, but when you look at the worst domestic attacks in our history with the largest losses of life, so do we.  The mainstream media always panders to the radical anti gun fringe on this issue because its easy and emotional.  They will never address the myriad difficult issues at play in all incidents like the CT school killings such as the need for active profiling, the stigma of mental health treatment, the need for increased active security, the moral breakdown of the single parent or no active parent home and poor parenting in general.    Its too easy to barrage the nightly news with emotional feel good pleas for banning this gun or confiscating that gun which will do nothing to address the heart of a problem that’s taken generations to create.  Its time to stop the knee jerk feel good reactionary calls for unconstitutional acts against law abiding Americans and address the real causes of violence in America.  In a subsequent article I will address the culpability of the Movie and Game industry in the trend toward violence in America and how their contributions to the left fuel the anti gun debate while ignoring the effect of first shooter games and a steady outpouring of violence from Hollywood.

Last, you may not have paid attention to how quickly the news coverage of the Oregon Mall shooting came to an end.  It was evidently inconvenient for the media to cover  in depth that that killing rampage came to an end after the shooter was confronted by a concealed weapons carrier and knew there was no escape but to kill himself thus saving further bloodshed.

I will not be a Racist , I will not be a Racist, I will not ….

Posted by PoliticallyUnEZ on December 11, 2012
Posted in: Conservative Business, National Politics, Social Conservative. Leave a comment

I will not be a Racist , I will not be a Racist, I will not ….

I admit it.  I almost fell into the trap of thinking I was the problem.  If I listen to the media for more than an hour, I can easily convince myself that I am a racist and solely responsible for keeping others down.  That I through my conservative viewpoints and beliefs am the cause of great racial and financial divides. That it is I who force those “oppressed” to commit street crimes and violent crimes and somehow must share in the guilt and great shame of our fathers simply for being a successful conservative.

HOGWASH !

I refuse to play any longer.  I say to all my friends and colleagues, “STANDUP !”.  I hereby refuse to be guilty.  I will not be the target of your guilt deflected admonitions. I will no longer hide my success, and I will no longer try to make you not feel so bad about your failures.

For far too long, successful conservative business people of all races have been the target of the envious, lazy, and nefarious who hold us up as the cause of their inability to reap the great fruit of opportunity.   Far too often we have fallen victim to the charade being perpetrated by the left that somehow our drive for success is greed and our achieved success immoral.   Nothing could be more insipid in thought and more damaging when we buy into it and let it fester.

Recently, you may also have noticed that besides being greedy, criminal, unethical, and immoral, that every successful businessperson is now racist.  That term, once reserved for the most vile of the anti civil rights segregationists, now gets thrown around so often that it has lost its meaning and now even sounds petty when bantered about on national TV.   We now look at the user of the term as being juvenile, paranoid and using the term to hide their own shortcomings.  Where once the term racist when properly applied would destroy careers, so it is now that I, a second generation American of immigrant grandparents, who owns an ethnic business run by a team of mostly Hispanics and African Americans, am called a racist.

No where is this misuse more orchestrated, premeditated and tactically prevalent than in the national political discussion.  The left has adopted the term and integrated “Racist” into every aspect of their political policy.  We cannot question our African American Attorney General regarding people murdered under his watch in two countries due to his incompetence and failed policies, because to do so is racist.  We cannot suggest that the President’s Socialist, Marxists Agenda will certainly and severely damage our republic before the end of his 2nd term because it would be racist to bring it up.   We cannot question the motives of our UN Ambassador who covered up the murders of 4 members of our diplomatic corps in Libya, or question that Van Jones an avowed communist was ever let into the administration, or question why Val Jarret, a civilian friend of the President has Secret Service protection on our dime.  We cannot question the morals of Jessie Jackson, the integrity of Al Sharpton, repulsive musings of Louis Farrakhan or any of the unanswered and potentially criminal questions hanging over this Presidency and those who publicly support it, or we are called Racists.

And we are called Racist by collectively the most publicly bigoted group of American leaders in our history.

Well I’ve had enough.  Its my quest for the American Dream makes me work hard, not greed.  My desire to reap the rewards of my efforts without government intervention and to be able to provide opportunity for others drives my success, and that is not immoral.  I will no longer allow you to label me, detract from my accomplishments, or derail my enthusiasm for capitalism and the free economy.  I will not buy in to the call for me to willingly share my wealth with the lazy, the cheaters of the system, the chronically unemployed, those who abuse the unemployment system, abuse our safety nets, and live as parasites off my success out of fear that I might be labeled a racist.  Go Label Me!  And that YOU labeled me will be a badge I will proudly wear.

I am not naive. I have no doubt that what I do not give up willingly, you will steal from me before this is over either through taxes, regulation, mandates or fines.  But it will be a tough fight.  In the meantime,  I will proudly work night and day for every dime I earn, provide opportunity for others, contribute instead of take from the economy and be happy for the opportunity to do so in the America of my dreams.  It would be so much better if you would stop calling names and hiding behind labels and join me in an honest days work.

Dear Willing to Work, Where Are You ?

Posted by PoliticallyUnEZ on December 8, 2012
Posted in: Conservative Business. Leave a comment

I am always dismayed by the unemployment numbers and the drama that surrounds the chronically unemployed. The mainstream news nightly plays up the plight of the unemployed, supporting the President and the Left’s push for increased entitlements and benefits for those who are held up as being victims of the conservative system.

In response to the daily barrage of news stories covering the plight of the unemployed I have a question. Where are You?

I say that not out of ignorance but from a perspective of a job creator. My company employs about 120 individuals and we have been in business since 2003. So to the unemployed desperately seeking employment but unable to find work, I ask you. Where are you hiding?

Being in the hospitality industry as we are means high turnover and a constant list of open positions. Over the course of the last several years our total annual employment (W2s) has hovered between 200 and 300 employees in a combination of part time and full time jobs. All of these positions are not transient. Of the 120 positions we have about 40 full time employees among our hourly employee ranks and roughly 17 in our full time salaried management company. ( Like every other business our size, that of course will change this year thanks to Obama Care ) But that is the way it has been. We have about 40 employees who have been with us more than 2 years. So in addition to an opportunity to work we also provide the opportunity for longevity and advancement as all of our 17 managers have worked themselves up through the ranks. And we pay fairly well for our industry with tipped employees making minimum wage plus tips, ( averaging $13 to $15 per hour and other positions paying as high as $15 / hour. Our management team salaries range from $32,000 to $60,000.

From time to time for compliance purposes I review the applications and resumes that come in. Hundreds per year. I am continually shocked that none of these applications, not some, or a few, virtually none come from individuals who have been unemployed for considerable periods of time. None. I have had meetings with my management teams who have confirmed to me what I have found. None.

So again I have to ask. Where are you? If you want employment, we have jobs. If you want to make more than minimum wage, can read, follow direction, show up on time and communicate well, we have jobs. So where are you? The media informs me nightly that you are legion; vast populations in my community of downtrodden, beaten up by the system of which I am a part and somehow responsible, destitute, struggling to put food on the table for your families. Where are you? Why in 8 years have you not shown up at my door ready to work?

I think the answer now that the election is over is uncomfortable.

I believe most of you exist or cease to exist by political whim and snap into existence when it pleases the court of public opinion by whichever side needs to make a point for either increasing or decreasing entitlement, benefits and budgetary supplements. While the real unemployment numbers are obviously manipulated, I think many of you are quite happy with your 99 weeks of unemployment compensation which subsidizes your under the table gray market jobs. I think many more of you have figured out that without having to get out of bed with the rest of us and go to work, you can comfortably shop at food pantries, talk to your relatives on your government phone, stay warm with heat subsidies, shop with EBT cards, care for your children with WIC, stay dry in subsidized housing and live quite comfortably off the system. With the available subsidies, food pantries, church and community programs and government entitlements, without ever working a minutes the comfortably unemployed can knock down the equivalent of a $40,000 per year job.

So, I think your hiding. And not very well. I think the government is lying. And not very well. And of course the mainstream media is complicit. And now that the election is over, we have no chance of catching you. You scam the system and cheat those who really need the assistance and will always vote for the hand that feeds you. And you are rewarded.

The System is yours. Congratulations. You have sold your dignity for economic slavery.

The Small Business ObamaCare Paradox – We always hurt the ones we love

Posted by PoliticallyUnEZ on December 5, 2012
Posted in: Conservative Business. Leave a comment

To a small business owner like myself who doesn’t think in terms of handouts and entitlements but only how best to keep a happy and productive workforce the precepts behind ObamaCare are mind bending.   Conversations similar to the one below are happening between business owners and their CPA / Tax Attorney / Insurance Agent and Financial Advisor are happening all across the country.  The results are historically predictable in that anytime the Social Mafia rears their head and attempts a class warfare end game to establishing a 2 class system, the ones they purport to want to protect, are always the ones who take it in the shorts.  The following was relayed to me, but could be and most assuredly is happening hundreds of times a day.

“My business provides jobs and income ( above minimum wage and a combination of hourly and salaried ) to about 120 people on any given day.  We employ mostly young americans, 20 to early 30 somethings.  We have historically provided partial 50% premium coverage for medical, dental and vision insurance to our employees but have managed the administration at no cost if they choose to add their spouse or dependents to their plan.  We also pay for the administration of an AFLAC and 401k plan.  Our employees have been happy, and we experience low turnover over for our industry even though there is rampant competition in our area.

And so comes Obamacare. What will now have to happen is a simply crazy game of mathematical gymnastics to maintain profitability which will drastically change forever our relationship with our employees due to the draconian redistributive mandates of the Affordable Care Act.

This is an example of the real world calculations that now come into play.

#1 – We have 120 employees so we know we will have to participate in the Affordable Care Act.

#2 – The next calculation is out how many full time employees we had.  Using the administration’s formula we established that we had 38 Full Time Equivalent employees by taking our total number of hours and dividing by 120 for the single month last year that had the highest number of employees on the books.  The 38 employees include 17 full time salaried managers and 21 hourly employees who are transient in varying degrees in that they are in college, considering their career, just out of high school, etc.

#3 – Since we would be liable for 75% of the 38 employees premiums, ( we pay 50% now ), and 66% of their dependents coverage, ( we pay zero now ) 38 is of course too high a number.  We know that immediately we need to cut down that number of Full Time hourly staff and since our organizations are field managed, the safest number to manage is zero full time hourly employees.  So immediately 21 employees who used to be fully employed by us will go to part time status, have to get second jobs, which will increase turnover, etc.  By capping all hourly employees at 28 hours per week, we eliminate the first part of the problem.  Will good employees leave us?  Maybe.  But I don’t know where to since EVERY business like ours in our service area is having the same conversations with their advisors as we are, so I don’t think competitively we miss a beat.

#4 – That will leave us with 17 Full Time Salaried employees.  ( Very few of them now participate in healthcare at all, but under O-Care we have to provide insurance to them unless we eliminate our insurance plan and pay the penalty .. )

$5 – BUT – If we eliminate our health coverage all together, these individuals can now go the exchange, and as a company we can take advantage of the 30 person exclusion on penalties and avoid the penalties all together.  (an interesting off shoot of this is that our revenue actually increase now that we will not be paying 50% of the healthcare premiums for these employees who “used to”  participate in our plan.)

And will THAT cause us a competitive disadvantage ?  Not really.   We actually provided more benefits to our employees than most so now we are competitive with everyone else who owns a business like ours and who is now doing the same thing and having the same planning conversations.

#6 – Now we are having a meeting with our Tax Attorney to discuss how to manage our income below the threshold of $250,000, perhaps buy more hard assets that we can sell in the Next Administration.  ”

I have an old saying that my Dad taught me over the years before he died well into his 90s.  He had seen a lot.   The REAL Poor will always be taken care of, the Rich and those in Business will always find a way – but the middle class, those easily ginned up by envy or greed become pawns in the Socialists Class Warfare strategy.  Historically they were called useful idiots.  The ones who really need to be protected from themselves, Always pay the price.