Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, May 15, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Index

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, May 15, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Index

Segment 1: The Left has failed at social activism by my standards

Segment 2: Why I think Communism, Socialism and Liberalism cannot work

Segment 3: Could Habitat for Humanity produce more houses?

Segment 4: The Deprived: A method of having children volunteer to get educated

Segment 5: Is there a Conservative solution to Social Security?

Segment 6: Why do you think we are at war with the Irreconcilables of radical Islam?

Segment 7: Why is Bush hated? Just askin'.

NOTE: I do not claim that all of the above is original. Where I have been able to do so, I have given links. If I have plagerized someone else's works without attribution, please give me the link and I shall make an update.

The Left has failed at social activism by my standards

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, May 15, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 1

Last week I tried to make the case that the words are the problem in our society. This week I'm going to try something else.

There was a guy who pointed out in one of the on-line magazines that I read that for mathematicians, if someone said that 1+1=3, then the man is an idiot. If the man convinced five of his friends that 1+1=3, then all six of them are idiots. If the man convinced 1M people that 1+1=3, then to a mathematician all one million and one of them are idiots.

The problem arises when a political movement is based on the premise that 1+1=3, that is: What happens when people believe something that is demonstrably untrue, yet they refuse to acknowledge that the premise and the entire argument is untrue?

Communism, Socialism and Liberalism are from the same root. They all believe that a strong central government will bring about social justice. That term social justice is a strange concept because it presupposes that everyone can agree that the outcome of any event was correct.

Karl Marx had a problem when he defined Communism. No one had ever tried to base a society on Communism. Every experiment that had been tried using something close to Communism had failed catastrophically. Marx in his writings made it clear that for Communism to rise above Utopian dreams, there had to be some basis in Reality. As near as I can tell Marx expected the modern day equivalent of the Peasants War to overturn Capitalism and replace it with Communism. It was just inevitable.

The Peasants War in Germany was not covered when I was in school. I ran across it just recently. This happened in the 1500's in Germany. The peasants were paying all the taxes and rents, the nobles and the Catholic Church were living off the taxes and rents in luxury and the peasants had no say in how the money was spent. The peasants were owned by the person who owned the land. In certain cases the rent plus taxes required a peasant to fork over 80% of their crops. That did not leave much for them to live on.

What I am getting at is that Marx assumed that modern Europe was made up of classes. He assumed that these classes were homogenous and had loyalty to each other rather than to the nation state they lived in. He assumed that the poor were a class. The poor would revolt once the profits of Capitalism fell to the point that Capitalists were forced to exploit the poor like the nobles and clergy did prior to the Peasants' War. He also made the point that this immiseration had to come about before the coming of true Communism. If immiseration did not come about, then Communism was just another Utopian dream which could never be attained. If the poor did not overthrow Capitalism, then Communism would never have legitimacy. Communism was supposed to be scientific socialism. The whole point of Communism is to help the poor by insuring that the land, the labor and the capital are in the control of the workers. In short, everyone could get what they needed and no one would suffer from want of anything.

The problem for Marx was that the United States spoiled everything. Our poor have never been consigned to poverty for life. Through hard work a person from a poor family can move up to being a millionaire in their life. In order to be immiserated, the poor have to stay poor. The poor in our country have not gotten with the program and stayed poor. Less than 10% of the US populace start poor and stay poor for their entire life.

All right what I am getting at is that no one has listened to me for the last 24 shows. Or rather one of two people have listened to me, but done nothing to help me get the program to work the way I want it to.

SOoooOo I'm going to tell you this Erma Bombeck joke to make my point.

Erma Bombeck was a housewife who wrote columns about raising children. She said in one column that she was astonished by what she read in the Dr. Spock books and other child rearing books about how to raise children. She decided that she was an open minded person, so she wanted to give them a fair shake.

One of the sections in a children rearing book she saw, said, "Do not order children about. It hurts their self-esteem. It shows no respect for their self-actualization. It might damage their self-image... When something must be done, what you should do is point out the problem and the child will happily remedy the situation."

So Erma put this huge dictionary on the floor in front of the door where her children would pass once they got home from school.

The eldest, a girl, wanders in. Erma says, "There is a book on the floor."

Her daughter looked at the big book and then back at her and said, "Yeah, there sure is, someone should do something about that." So she goes on up to her room.

Her second child, a girl, comes in and trips over the book. Erma says, "There's a book on the floor."

Her daughter says, "Yeah, I tripped over it. Someone should do something about that." So she too goes up to her room.

The youngest, a boy, comes in the door. Erma says, "There's a book on the floor." The little boy looks at her, then looks at the book. Then nods his head rapidly up and down, smiling a silly smile.

By that time. Erma'd had enough of this, so she says sharply, "Well, pick it up and put it on the shelf behind you."

The little boys eyes get real big and he says crossly, "Why didn't you tell me to do that in the first place?" So he picks up the book and puts it on the shelf.

All right. You're saying, "What's that got to do with anything?"

Well, we are going to play a little game tonight. As I have said, I have a blog. I have bemoaned the fact that my invitations to you to come to my blog and make comments have not worked. The blog is at: mastercraftsmon.blogspot.com. Mastercraftsmon is one word spelled, .

I am now going to make my case for various social policies. I want you, yeah, you to go out and make comments or rebut my assertions. I am assuming that there is at least one person out there listening. By my standards that may be too generous. KEOS looks to have about 300 people donate in our last pledge drive, so the audience has to be thin on the ground for this station, much less my right-wing meanderings.

Again, I want you to go out to my blog is at:
mastercraftsmon.blogspot.com.

Mastercraftsmon is one word spelled, .
Wait... You people do know that there is a http:// in front of that.

I give up. Either you figure this one out or you don't. I am attempting to get people, that means you, dude or dudette, to come help me fix some problems in our society. The Internet has the capability to marshal resources and get things done. Well, get involved. Life is a full contact sport.

The lament that "someone should do something about that" is idiocy to me. In the history of the world, I am the radical. The Liberals of this country are the status quo. I believe that people can take care of themselves. I believe that people working together in community service groups can do a better job of providing a social safety net than the government. If you believe otherwise, then make your case.

The Liberals of this country have in fact failed to achieve their goal of social justice. Period... 1+1 does not equal 3. If you believe that social justice can be attained by a nanny state, then you are insane by my standards, because NO ONE IN HISTORY HAS EVER MADE ANY FLAVOR OF SOCIALISM TO WORK. Over 70 nations have tried various forms of socialism and communism. All 70 failed to achieve much of anything except have their economies collapse and increased the suffering of the poor.

Why I think Communism, Socialism and Liberalism cannot work

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, May 15, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 2

Let's go back to the start of this program and I will try to get the answers to questions I have been asking for the last 24 shows, except I did not ask explicitly enough.

First let me talk about Communism. Why won't Communism work? Well, it can, assuming you want to live in a mud hut. If you want to live in a high tech society, Communism makes that impossible, because it quickly eliminates master craftsmen, people committed to excellence in their craft.

There was this guy named Conner in about 1830. He came over to the U.S. from Scotland with the idea of proving that Communism would work better than Capitalism. Yeah, Communism, predated Marx. Anyway. Conner gave speeches to the entire U.S. government when he arrived in Washington, D.C. He had to give his talk twice, because not all the Congressmen, members of the Supreme Court and the President could make it for the first one. Are you getting this? Conner was able to get the Executive, Judicial and Legislative branches of the U.S. federal government to come and hear him speak. He made his case and went out to Ohio to set up a Communist utopia in a town that he had bought for the experiment.

The problem he had was that the master craftsmen wouldn't work for the same salary as the street sweepers. The best black smiths, window hangers, and whatnots just got tired of getting less than what they could get elsewhere and left town. Very quickly the town started to fall apart physically. Conner tried repeatedly to make the project work and it failed. After repeated failures, Conner gave up and went back to Scotland. His son ended up with the property and made a go of it using Capitalism. In short, when a master craftsman has an alternative, he doesn't stick around and allow Communists to exploit him.

What about the Soviet Union? That was a totally Communist country. Surely the master craftsmen would be required to stay around? Yep, they sure were, but the master craftsmen lost heart and stopped being the best. To be the best you have to have the best tools and resources to explore improvements in your trade. They couldn't get that in the Soviet Union. I mean, if you are a creative person and have to fight bureaucrats for every single nail, you just give up after a while. And that's what you saw in the Soviet Union, their tech base slowly degraded. They were just unable to keep up with the U.S. because their master craftsmen kept giving up and becoming second raters. By the third generation, the Soviet Union was a Third World country with a nuclear arsenal... that probably never would have worked.

What about Socialism? Surely the Europeans are living in a paradise. Nope, not by my standards. Their master craftsmen are slowly becoming second raters. Their tech base is degrading and they are finding it hard to simply keep things going. Socialism by and large can work, but it causes master craftsmen to give up after a while. I mean, to be the best you have to commit yourself to BEING the best. If you constantly see these lazy layabouts having a good time while you work hard, you slowly lose heart and become a second rater or worse decide that having fun is fantastic so you become a third rater. If you think Europe under Socialism is working, I draw your attention to the fact that few Europeans have won Nobel Prizes in last few years. Where is the innovation? In the arts? Yeah, great, but you can't keep up a high tech society with English majors.

Then there is American Liberalism. As far as I can tell Liberalism won't work, because it wipes out master craftsmen on many different fronts. First there is the family. Feminism has the ideal that a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. Without a two parent family, it is difficult to get a master craftsman. Then there are the Gays. Their goal is to eliminate monogamy in marriage. It is almost impossible to keep a marriage going without sexual fidelity. And of course there is the Liberal creed that everything is relative. Pi is defined as about 3.1415. If you try saying that pi is 3.0 then buildings start falling down. Plus there is the emphasis in Liberalism on government funding of attempts at social justice. Under a totally Liberal controlled polity, your master craftsmen finally give up, because they just will not support people they perceives as lazy layabouts. In short, your tech base starts to degrade, slowly, admittedly, but things do indeed start falling apart. I draw your attention to Detroit. They ran out all the master craftsmen and the city is falling apart. And what about New Orleans? Each of these cities has been under Liberal rule for many years. If Liberalism was going to work, wouldn't you see indications that these two cities were more prosperous than places under Republican rule? Wouldn't you expect that the areas that have been under the Democratic Party to be more just, wouldn't you expect that poverty would be less? Wouldn't places where Democrats have had a chance to implement their agenda be much better places to live?

Show me. That's all I'm asking. If you can show me some cities in this country where philosophy of Liberalism has been implemented and social justice has been achieved, I would appreciate it. I have heard that some of the Northern cities have gotten things to go well under Liberalism, but there appears to be a net immigration from these cities to other parts of the country. I could be mistaken. I have also heard that certain of the West Coast cities have achieved a form of social justice, but, again, I could be mistaken.

In short, Communism, Socialism and Liberalism do not work. If they were going to work, they would have worked by now... somewhere. They cannot work in a high-tech society, because they degrade the tech base to the point that you are living on charity from other countries. Communism and Socialism have been tried in over 70 countries. Liberalism has been implemented in a large number of cities in this country. They have not produced good results. In fact, if you implement a Socialist agenda on a Capitalist state, your economy collapses pretty damned fast. I draw your attention to South Africa under Nelson Madela. I hasten to point out that I know the White South Africans were morally wrong, but you cannot dispute that their present economy is failing.

Ah, but people committed to Communism, Socialism and Liberalism perceive themselves to be more moral than me, because their philosophy is better than Capitalism. I say it is not, because of slavery. Yes, that's pretty harsh, but that's the way I look at it. Taxes are a form of conscription or involuntary servitude, when they are wasted. I say that you waste taxes when you get no results OR worse when the governmental solution makes the social problem bigger. I accept that there has to be some conscription in a society, but I refuse to say that something is moral, if it achieves no real results.

Let's take a simple example. I was on the local Head Start board of directors for a while. The goal of Head Start is to cut down on the number of at risk kids that drop out of school before they graduate from high school. It doesn't work. There are numerous studies that show kids who were in Head Start are just as likely to drop out of school as those who were not. Why am I paying taxes to support a program that has failed? Ah, the answer from Liberals is that, if we did nothing it would be worse. That's what gets me. The program has failed. All the literature that I have seen, shows that Head Start doesn't affect anything past the 6th grade. If it was up to me, I would privatize Head Start and let volunteers handle the kids. You see, there are some facets of Head Start I agree with, but it should be done with volunteers, not paid staff. Right now too many people involved in Head Start have to have masters degrees to work in the project. Someone with a masters degree gets paid more than someone who does not. Why should I pay someone with a masters degree to do a job that can be done just as well by someone who does not have a masters degree?

If you are going to conscript me to do something, then you best know that what you are doing will work OR are pretty sure it will work. Why in the world should you conscript me to do something, if you have evidence that the solution achieves no results? By my standards that is a form of slavery. What part of "I am a Republican and I am against slavery." do you not understand?

What I want you to do is rebut what I have said above. I want you to go out to my blog and make comments about this set of ideas, because I perceive that social activism from the Left has failed. I perceive that social activism from the Right is a better solution, because the way I want to attack problems is volunteerism. I do not believe that the conscription method works.

Could Habitat for Humanity produce more houses?

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, May 15, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 3

Let me start over. When I started this program 24 weeks ago, I approached the problem incorrectly. The first project I threw out 24 weeks ago was to increase the number of houses produced by Habitat for Humanity nationwide by 100000 when fully implemented. In short the goal of this project is to make an additional 100000 houses available to poor people under the Habitat for Humanity project... each year... nationwide. Remember, I said nationwide, not local. That is a very important point so write that down for future reference. What I need you to do is help me get together a presentation to Habitat for Humanity, so that they would be interested in doing the project.

The basic idea here is that people go to sporting events. People over the years have lamented that we can spend a gazillion dollars on sports stadiums, but not a penny on relieving the plight of the poor. What if we asked people at sporting events to volunteer to build houses for the poor? Do the math. How many professional sports stadiums are there for football, basketball and baseball? Now, how many college sports stadiums are there for football, basketball and baseball? Semi-pro? Why not? High school? Interesting concept that? Then you have to do the math on how many people actually attend such events and assume that between 1% and 0.1% of the people would be interested in doing the project. I don't know about you, but that looks like to me that both of those numbers are kind of large. You divide the number of stadiums into 100000 to see how many houses per stadium you could produce, then you divide 100000 by the number of people who might participate in the project. When you do that, you can see that the project is doable. BUT can it be done in the real world?

Plus there is one other aspect of this project that you should consider. People going to ball games are not holding on to their money as tightly as at other times in their lives. People going to sports events would be more likely to donate to a project like this, IF it was associated with the team. Think about it. What if you as a sports fan could say, "Yeah, my team had an 0-50 season last year, but there are 50 families that have a good house to live in. I know, because I help build one of them." It adds an interesting dimension to the concept of being a fan, does it not? I mean, your team can stink, but your house builders could be better than the other team's house builders. Wouldn't you donate your money, if you couldn't donate your time?

Let's just talk about local for a moment. The idea I have is that we don't build the houses on a foundation. Build each of the houses on the house moving structure close to an Aggie football game. Then move the completed house to the foundation it will set on.

Some number above 26000 people attend Aggie football games each week. What if 1% helped with the four houses? That's 260 people. You can complete quite a houses with 260 people pretty damned quick. Ah, but what if it was only 0.1% or 26 people. Still that would be enough.

Ah, but what if we didn't complete the houses in the Aggie football season. So what? It's always ball season. We run with it for during a certain portion of the year, then we bounce it, then we hit it. And if you include soccer, we even kick it a lot. It's always ball season.

There is a possible problem with this. Habitat for Humanity has an elaborate screening method for choosing a recipient for a house. What if that screening method cannot physically be ramped up for additional houses? Right now, each recipient must work a certain number of hours on their own house or someone else's house. They must be trained to be responsible home owners. What if an influx of an additional families is just not doable? That begs the question: How many houses maximum can Habitat do per year? Don't know. If you will help me with the presentation, the we'll just have to find out. Whatever the number is, my method would be an improvement on the possible number of houses. Or would it?

In a Capitalist solution to a problem, you have to worry about land, labor and capital. I perceive that the biggest holdup in producing house for the poor is that Habitat has a shortage of labor. What if I am wrong?

The problem would be that you would have to have repeat people. I mean, Habitat has this training program they put people through before they allow them to work on a house. I agree with that. It is suicidal to put untrained people on a construction site. So it requires that people come back week after week to work on the project. How many would do that? I say it would be many, if you motivated them correctly.

How can people be motivated to do something for their community? The most common motivations are, of course, religion, tradition, patriotism and simple greed. There are others, but I will give examples of just these few.

What if each church in our community that was interested in helping was given the task of holding a prayer breakfast on the house building site? That is symbolically correct. At dawn you pray and the minister speaks of death and rebirth symbolized by the coming of the day. Or the sermon could be on the need for charity in a civil society. Or... I don't know, each church would have to work it out.

I mean, think about it, you pray at dawn, work to help your neighbor before kickoff, then see an Aggie football game. At the end of the day, you could look back on a day well spent. It just don't get better than that.

And why does it have to be restricted to Christians? I mean, surely there are Jewish religious communities locally that would be interested in a project like that. I know, there is a restriction about working on Saturday. A Talmudic scholar would have to ponder deeply whether he would condone such an enterprise. I would pose the question to him, "If your neighbor lives in a rotten house and you can do nothing about it, that is one thing. If you can do something about it without much extra effort, would that not be a mitzvah?" Of course such a scholar would have to consult the Torah, communicate with various religious authorities and pray for guidance from above. OR he could consult his mother... who would say, "OY, God is my witness, I tried. Oh, God, I tried to teach this boy right from wrong. Then he went off to the yahshiva and all his common sense leaked out of his head. Of COURSE it's a mitzvah, you're going to the game anyway. Why not work on a house for someone who has none?" Ah, it probably turns out that I have offended all the Jews in the world. No one has a Jewish mother like that anymore. There probably IS a religious restriction against donating your time to a worthy cause on the Sabbath even if you do have a religious service on the grounds. There might even be a restriction against attending Aggie games on Saturdays. If so, I apologize. I invite you to participate in this project, but cannot demand it, for I am but a voice from the velvet black calling to you across the gulf of our mutual incomprehension.

As for people of Islam, I worry at that. The fatwas coming out of Mecca make me wonder whether Muslims could have morning prayers on a Saturday, arise from their prayer mats and build a house for an unknown neighbor. Too much mutual incomprehension there as well. It looks like from press reports Muslims in this country consider themselves Muslims first and Americans second. To build a house for an infidel might be an unclean thing to do. I would invite Muslims to participate in such a project but would not be able to predict whether they would be interested. How would you phrase such an invitation so that it is correct behavior for a Muslim to participate?

That's the religious aspect to appeal to. And, yes, I probably left out your religion, but I wanted to make the case that charity seems to be in many religions and greeting the dawn and working for the common good is pretty normal across cultures. Pray, work for the common good and then play. Is that not a day well spent?

What about a call to tradition? Barn raising used to be a common aspect of American life. Why not set up a time and place for people not involved in religion to come and build on the house, then go off to the football game? You can be an atheist and still want to help your neighbor. I have always felt that hard work puts a certain savor on a cold drink at a good game. Could just be me.

And then there is patriotism? Al-Quida has many mighty destroyers, but such a project would proclaim to the world that we... are mighty builders.

And of course there is simple greed. Why not figure out how to allow some people to build a house and go to the game at a discount or... whatever? I just don't know what incentives are available for this one, but I do know that such an incentive should be considered.

Ah, well, that was the start of the first project. Go out to my blog and make comments and ask questions. We have a lot of ground to cover before we present this to Habitat. I'll be asking you to contact Habitat and get them involved at some point.

You might say, "Well, you can do all that." Sure, but that's not my goal. I am interested getting you, that means you, dude and dudette, to become involved in their community. I'm already involved. The point of this show is to increase involvement, not simply sit around and bemoan the fact that things are not going well and 'someone should do something about that'.

The Deprived: A method of having children volunteer to get educated

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, May 15, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 4

There seems to be a large number of children who think they cannot make it in this country, so they drop out of high school without getting a degree. Their thinking goes that since they're going to a have a crappy life, then why get a high school degree? Or they believe that getting good grades is a waste of time.

I think there should be a club for children who think their lives are hopeless. I came up with a name for the club, The Deprived. The idea is that the children in The Deprived volunteer to have a better life. I know, that sounds kind of strange, but the problem is that too many kids are just so screwed up in the head that they feel deprived of their birthright. I mean, in America each child should have a reasonable expectation that their lives will be better than their parents' lives. What if the parents have dropped the ball? What if events have conspired to make it seem impossible for them to achieve even a modicum of prosperity? Why not try to catch the kids before they make the mistake of rejecting an education?

Too many children are being raised in single parent families. Any sane person knows that children in a single parent family are in deep trouble. What if you could get the kids to believe that they ARE in trouble? What if you said that there was a way out, if they joined a club for people who ARE losers, but want to win? What if the club offered college scholarships to everyone who went through the program? Or alternatively offered scholarships to trade school? OR promised to back them financially so they could start their own business?

I can see the posters to be put on the walls of the school.

Are you having a rotten life? Do you feel your future is a deep dark chasm about to suck you in? Is there no light at the end of the tunnel for you? Maybe you need to consider joining The Deprived.

The way I conceive of the club is for the children in high school to swear off promiscuous sex, drugs and alcohol. There would have to be some pretty hefty parties to make it seem worthwhile. There would have to be quite a few lectures and application of lectures on personal finance, job interviews and starting their own business. The goal of dating would change from having sex to getting ready for marriage.

Let me tell you a story from history. In the early 1800's, England became very wealthy, very fast. The time period was called the Edwardian era. The family crumbled. People became rootless. The children of the Edwardians became the Victorians. The Victorians REALLY wanted structure. They were tired of having families falling apart. They established one of the strictest codes of conduct I have ever run across. You thought the Puritans were straight laced. These folks were REALLY straight laced. The problem was that no human could live up to that code of conduct, so there was a huge amount of hypocrisy. In public, people acted proper. In private they acted as they pleased. I am not in favor of a strict moral code. I only give this example to make the point that the kids of libertines CAN decide they don't want to go the same way as their parents.

You've got to understand that too many children in this country are growing up in an unhealthy family environment. When they get to high school, they seek out cliques to provide the structure that they are not finding at home. In some cases the cliques are destructive gangs. In other cases, it's just a set of friends to hang out with. The problem arises when the clique has a self-destructive outlook on life. I read a book called, Beyond the Classroom.

In it the authors did a ten year study of seven schools to determine what was wrong with the public schools in general. They were trying to decide why school reform was not working. I mean, the battle cry of the 1970's was that things would get better in the schools when the Pentagon had to hold bake sales to buy supplies. In short, we should be spending as much on our school systems as we are spending on Defense. Well, we have done that. Right now the federal, state and local level governments spend more on schools than the federal government spends on the Pentagon.

Why are the schools still so bad? Or rather why do people still seek to improve the schools, because they do not perform at the level people think they should perform?

This book, Beyond the Classroom, determined that children in high school form cliques who either reinforce their drive to better themselves or destroy any hope of bettering themselves. The cliques for Orientals pushed their members to make A's. The cliques for Populars pushed their members to make something close to B's. The cliques for Blacks pushed their members to ignore school all together.

The whole point of the book was that once children get to high school, it's the clique they are with that makes the difference in whether they succeed in getting a high school degree AND at what grade level they graduate, if they graduate.

Again, we as a society have become so wealthy that we have made it possible for our children to choose not to get an education. School reform is not going to work until we get the students to volunteer to get an education. I know, that seems like an obvious statement, but somehow the entire discussion about school reform has missed that point. Kids have to decide that getting an education is a good idea. All the increases in school spending mean nothing unless we can convince children that a good education is worth the bother.

When a child is moved from public school to private school, normally their grades go up. Why? Well, their clique has changed. From a set of people committed to partying, they are exposed to people dedicated to getting an education and going on to succeed in life.

I would point out that if money was the major indicator of school performance, then the Kansas City Independent School District should be the highest performing school in the nation, because court mandated school spending on the school district took up, at one time, 60% of the school funding in the entire state of Kansas. That's not the case. Kansas City ISD is toward the bottom as far as test scores.

Something has to change. We have to convince our children that volunteering to get an education is something they have to do. How do we do that?

I perceive that The Deprived has to be sold in the context of rebellion. The 1960's generation failed to get a better life through sex, drugs and Rock'n'Roll. I believe that there are a large number of teenagers who have come to the conclusion that the model that their parents have given them is a model of failure. If The Deprived can be sold as a way to declare to the world that the teenager is unhappy with their parents, then I can see where it might work.

Then there is the promiscuous sex. The idea behind promiscuous sex was that it would free women and show their independence. The show, Sex and the City, made the case that if a woman could bring out her inner slut, it would make her as strong as a man. That's great if all women view men the way the radical feminists do, "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." It doesn't work that way. Too many women are waking up to the fact that even when they are in bed with a guy, they suffer loneliness. The behavior that screws up lives begins in high school.

Right now the driving force behind dating in high school is to have sex. There is some emotional baggage involved, but mostly it is dressing up the concept that dating leads to sex. Why is that a good idea? Can you prove to a teenager that being married is a better idea than going through life single and ultimately alone? I say that it should at least be tried. Despite what you have heard, sex inside marriage is better than outside marriage, because a married couple have the ability to practice. They also should be close enough that they can discuss sex in the context of needs and wants.

How do you say to a teenager, "You have to put off sex or you're going to be screwed."? I say that the emphasis has to be on showing examples of what happened when the adults in their life had a long string of lovers as opposed to what happened when they became married. What if you had speakers come in and talked about their real life experiences?

As I see it, The Deprived should push for educating teenagers in how to date with the goal of getting married instead of having sex. In addition, The Deprived should teach teenagers how to run a marriage. Then there is the education in how to get a job or how to start a business or go to college.

You could have successful people and failures come in and give presentations. Presentations would be in all aspects I have described above.

The only way I can see this working is if there is massive parties given by The Deprived. Nonalcoholic parties do not sound like much fun, but they could be, if planned extensively. As I said before, logistics is everything. Putting on massive, exciting parties once a week, would tax the energy of even a group of teenagers. The mechanics of putting together a party would train kids in how to undertake any large scale project. Plus it would be a way of raising money for scholarships and training for the members.

A club like this would be expensive, because it would have to promise scholarships for trade school or college plus grants and loans and support for people who wanted to start their own business. The alternative is probably more expensive. Kids that drop out of school or who do not get a good education or have a bad home life, have a tendency to become criminals. It's either encourage them to be productive citizens or pay for their room and board in prison.

Is there a Conservative solution to Social Security?

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, May 15, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 5

What are you going to do when you retire? Do you believe that Social Security will be there when you do retire? Shouldn't you want to make sure that you will have enough money to retire?

Think about this... too many people believe that benefits from companies are a right. The company is backing you. The company is doing these great things for you. In actuality, the company when it gives you benefits is deciding for you how to spend your money. Benefits are part of your salary package. You pay taxes on benefits.

I think benefits are a stupid idea. Whether you know it or not benefits are a solution to a problem that no longer exists. During World War II, there were wage and price controls. Companies came up with the idea of benefits to get around the wage controls.

The problem companies are having is that the benefits have gotten out of hand. I draw you attention to General Motors. They my go bankrupt. One of the largest companies in the world may go under because its pension plan is part of the company instead of owned by the individual worker.

I think there should be a company to handle your insurance, pension and other financial matters. I keep coming up with rotten names for the project. Help me out. Go to my blog and tell me what I should call it, after you listen to what I am talking about.

The goal of this project is to establish a corporation to take the salary of a given person and get the best group insurance rates available for that person. The corporation should invest in a pension fund for the worker. Instead of the company employing the worker paying the withholding taxes, the benefits company should do that for the worker. If we could just get social security privatized, then a benefits corporation would take care of pensions instead of the government. With this idea for a financial company, an individual would have their pension safe from their employers going bankrupt and they could move their pension from employer to employer. It also allows a person working for a small business to have the advantages of working at a huge company. A large employer can get the best rates on insurance and other services. A large financial company like this benefits company could do that as well.

The major question becomes: how do you start a company like that? And I don't know the answer. I do know that the company would have to have in its bylaws that the company would be dedicated to the long term wealth accumulation for its clients. I know that the benefits company would have the advantage of keeping the costs of an employer down, because the costs of pensions and insurance would suddenly be off the books.

I have been wondering whether a benefits company could purchase pensions from other companies. I have been wondering whether the benefits company could contract to take over the insurance for companies that already have insurance as one of their benefits. The whole point of the benefits company would be to stand beside the worker and provide all the financial services they needed. Too many financial companies are dedicated to pleasing their stockholders. The thing is that the benefits Company wouldn't be in the pension business, nor the insurance business, nor even the banking business. It would be in the people business. The goal of the benefits company would be to get the best deal for its customers from the specialist companies that already exist. By pooling customers they could get the best group rates possible. There is a practice in banking called securitizing loans. It means that you pool the risk of loans and sell the interest accrued from a set of loans. I believe that there is a way of doing this using customers as well. The benefits company could even have insurance for a pension fund going under, so that their customers would not be impacted in that unlikely event. Maybe not.

I need to get some more information before I do anything about the benefits company project. Do you want to help me out? Do you want to help found a corporation that would make a major impact on future generations, then go out to my blog and make some comments and suggestions and help me get things started.

Did you know that there was a poll taken and people under 35 were asked whether they thought they would get their social security? They also asked whether the same people believed in UFO's. More people believed in UFO's than believed that Social Security would pay them what they put in or more.

Something has to be done about Social Security going under. The lament "Someone should do something about that" should be met with "I'll try to do something myself. I won't wait for some politician to decide by polling data what needs to be done."

Why do you think we are at war with the Irreconcilables of radical Islam?

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, May 15, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 6

The major questions I want you to answer for me is: Why do you think we are at war with the Irreconcilables of radical Islam?

My response is based on a web site I saw.

I am not asking you why we went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am not asking you whether we should have gone to Iraq and Afghanistan. I am asking you as to what you think the root causes of 9/11 and the War on Terror.

Let me make my case as to what I think the root causes are.

By my standards the root causes of 9/11 and the War on Terror are because the Irreconcilables of Radical Islam are caught in a double bind. The Qu'ran is inerrant. The Qu'ran cannot be wrong. My assessment of Reality is that the Qu'ran tells Muslims unequivocally that Muslims deserve to be rulers of the world. The Qu'ran also says that Islam is the only true faith. The Qu'ran says that to be Muslim is to be the best that humanity can offer. On the other hand, Muslims throughout the world are not part of the dominate cultures of the world. Almost all Muslim countries are poor and their people cannot hope to get better. How can the Qu'ran be mistaken, because it is surely not wrong?

The Irreconcilables of Radical Islam are fighting to defend God's honor. They look at their plight and cannot admit that their problems are caused by their own failings. The Qu'ran says that if they are good Muslims, they will have all the good things in life. That is not what is happening. Their internal world says one thing. Their external world says another. They desperately want their internal world, the world of their dreams and their faith, to match the outside world.

In short, we are presently at war with a set of people who believe that their religion is so great that everyone else has to either convert, die, become a second class citizen or become a slave to members of Islam. The members of radical Islam are quite willing to behead, torture, maim and burn anyone who disagrees with them. Why is that correct behavior? Why are so many people condemning the behavior of the United States and not condemning the behavior of the Irreconcilables?

I have to accept that there are people in Islam who do not support the Irreconcilables. It sure doesn't look that way, because very few members of Islam are speaking up against the Irreconcilables. Why does that make sense? As near as I can understand, members of Islam, even in this country, are afraid to speak up, because they fear being hurt by their co-religionists. Freedom is NOT free. If the members of Islam refuse to condemn the behavior of the terrorists, then they appear to condone their behavior. If they cannot condemn the behavior because they are afraid, then are they truly free?

In addition there are a large number of American academics who seek to excuse the beheadings, torture, maiming and burning anyone who disagrees with Islam. In fact there is a web site called the Daily Kos which is part of the mainstream of the Democratic party. When three contractors working for Haliburton were killed, burned and their bodies hung up from a bridge. The editor of Daily Kos said, "Screw 'em. They're mercenaries and deserved to die." No, I'm not kidding you. The ensuing comments on the web site were even uglier. Why do people condemn the United States for bad behavior, yet applaud the bad behavior of the Irreconcilables or at best ignore it? How many letter writing campaign have been launched to protest the treatment of hostages held by the Irreconcilables in Iraq? You know, maybe they've tried that... I wonder what happened when those rats in human form got those letters, did they die laughing or what?

People have compared the insurgents in Iraq to our military in the Revolutionary War. The problem I have with that is that the terrorists in Iraq wish to establish a tyrannical state. They have proclaimed their intentions. Our Founding Fathers never said any such thing and subsequent events proved that they did NOT set up a tyranny despite what some would say.

In one context I believe the people who compare the Revolutionary War in this country to the terrorists in Iraq are right. During the Revolutionary War, only about 10% of the people in the Thirteen Colonies were in favor of full independence from the British Crown. If the Revolutionary War had gone the other way, most people in the colonies would have proclaimed their love of the British crown and gone on. Same way with Islam. If radical Islam triumphs worldwide, almost every Muslim will make a show of dancing in the street either figuratively or literally. If you're listening to this, you're saying that there is no damn way that radical Islam could ever triumph over the West.

You're mistaken.

There's two scenarios where I can see Islam winning. By winning I mean, that the Caliphate comes about and radical Islam takes over the rest of the world. The Caliphate is a political unit that should by their standards stretch from Algeria to Indonesia right now. They cannot quite understand why it does not. The first stage of their project requires that the Caliphate in fact does stretch from present day Algeria to Indonesia. After that, then the rest of the people's of the world will become part of the Caliphate.

In the first scenario, radical Islam gets enough room to create a viral agent that kills off 60% of the human race. From the ashes of world civilization would arise a Islamic state like no other in history. The leaders of such a political entity could reasonably proclaim that God had vanquished the nonbelievers and they would now rule forever. This one seems kind of unlikely at the present time, because it would take a nation state to fund such a project. I know, the Russians spent a gazillion bucks trying to come up with a delivery system for a biological weapon. They failed.

Times have changed. The Irreconcilables just have to infect a couple of hundred of their followers and have them shuttle between all the major airports in the world infecting travelers. They wouldn't even have to tell the poor nutjobs that they were infected with a deadly virus. The end result would be that a huge number of people would die.

You might say that the members of radical Islam could not possibly think that they could achieve their goals doing it that way. You are not following what the Irreconcilables say in their own language. They REALLY want to kill the infidels. You might suppose that they would worry about killing lots of Muslims. Nope. The Irreconcilables do not think there ARE any REAL Muslims except them. I draw your attention to the fact that too many of the dead in Iraq ARE Muslims. The Jordanians just now noticed that. It kind of upset them.

All it would take is if the United States were to let up pressure enough for the Irreconcilables to catch their breath and go forward with this project. In the chaotic environment that exists now in the Middle East, such a project would be revealed or someone would make a mistake and release the virus too soon.

If we ever let up, then this project could go forward.

The second scenario is where they take over Europe and little by little take over the world using the resources they acquire in the conquest of Europe. That scenario seems more likely every day. The Europeans are dying out. To have a breakeven point in your population, you have to have 2.1 births per female on average. Europe has an average birth rate of 1.7 per female and falling. At the same time the number of immigrants from the Islamic World is increasing and they have more children than the Europeans. Why couldn't a Muslim party come to power, declare the Caliphate in Europe and like Hitler cancel all future elections? The populace is disarmed in Europe. The have no second amendment right. What is to stop the Muslims from taking over? Their army? Not too put too fine a line on it, but the armies of Europe are unionized. They do not spend much on them. How can they protect their citizens from the one man, one vote, one time scenario? I had thought the Muslims would initiate this scenario about 2050, but the car-b-ques of the last few months have made me think that Europe will lose its freedom to the Muslims in the 2010-2020 period. I hope to God no one on our side of the ocean decides we should bail them out one more time.

Oh, there IS one thing that I think people on both the Left and the Right should understand. People on the Right have been REALLY upset with Bush because he continues to call Islam, the Religion of Peace. I mean, too many on the Right consider that name for Islam to be ludicrous, because they can point to Shariah's demand for beheadings for murder, hand removal for thievery, lashings for all manner of crimes, stonings for adultery and the ever-popular religious backed wife beating. All I can say is that you are missing something about how jihad is declared under Shariah.

The radical Islamists defines jihad as anything they want it to be. Under a closer inspection of the Qu'ran, you should know that jihad can only be declared when Muslims are being oppressed. By saying that Islam is a Religion of Peace, Bush has cut the legs out from under radical Islam by making it hard for them to say that the United states government is oppressing the Muslims in this country. Bin Laden wanted the U.S. to oppress domestic Muslims after 9/11, so they would awaken from their slumber in this country, rise up and overthrow our government.

Admittedly, so-called Muslim civil rights groups have found numerous cases of Muslims being oppressed in this country, but they have had to REALLY work at it and be REALLY hypersensitive to make the case that Islam is being oppressed in this country. My point is that Bush is a canny man. He has made it harder for a fifth column to form in this country. He has not eliminated the possibility of a fifth column, but he has made it harder for Islamic religious leaders to declare a general uprising in this country without them looking stupid in front of their members.

I find that kind of fascinating, because people over at Little Green Footballs have a hard time grasping that nuanced position. I know, I know, that's a stupid joke. Nuanced positions are by definition, French and Liberal positions, but it does not change the fact that Bush was confronted with the possibility of a general uprising of Muslims in this country and he made a decision to calm the waters for the moment. I find that to be a good strategy given the minimal cost to us by simply mouthing the silly phrase, Religion of Peace.

The only way we can lose is if we attempt to appease the Irreconcilables. If we modify our behavior to suit their tastes, not our own, then we will have lost.

Too many people in this country do not believe that we are at war with an implacable foe. The thinking on the Left is that we can appease the Irreconcilables. I think that is a stupid idea.

People have made the comparison between the War on Terror and the Cold War or even the run up to World War II. Unfortunately it is not exactly the same. The destruction of the fascist causes in Europe, could be done by force of arms. The destruction of Communism was possible because Communism doesn't work as an economic system.

How do you get an entire religion to accept that portions of their holy book are incorrect? I mean, under the Qu'ran, there is adequate passages to support the position that the West is decadent and must be destroyed. People who come out and say that the Irreconcilables are a fringe group with little in the way of scripture to back up their position are silly.

In 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams met with the ambassador of Lybia to Great Britain. The ambassador's reasons for attacking American ships in the Mediterranean were very similar to Osama bin Laden's reasons for attacking us today, except the representative of the Barbary pirates was more sure of his position than Osama bin Laden. The same logic applied. We either paid tribute to our betters or our ships would be attacked.

What we're seeing today in the terrorist attacks from the Irreconcilables is not a fringe position. It is mainstream Islamic thought. The cartoon jihad has proved that to any who wants to be convinced.

There are a huge number of people in this country who do NOT want to be convinced that the Irreconcilables mean what they say. I have heard various theories as to why the Left has adopted the position that the Irreconcilables can be placated, but the people who believe that are deluded. The Irreconcilables cannot appeased.

Again, I want you to go out to my blog and answer the question: Why do you think we are at war with the Irreconcilables of radical Islam? I have told you why I think we are fighting them. Please tell me why you think we are fighting them.

You might ask what this has to do with social activism. How can you have social activism if there is a chance that our Civilization will be wiped out?

Why is George Bush hated? Just askin'.

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, May 15, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 7

The big problem I have with the Left right now is that I do not understand why the Left hates President George Bush. I would really like you to come out to my blog and tell me why you hate Bush. I can't figure this out. Very few on the Right have been able to understand the fury that Bush elicits in the Left. We on the Right have started calling the condition, Bush Derangement Syndrome, B.D.S.

It looks like to me that to the Left, George Bush is one OR all of the below:

o Bush is an idiot. He is so stupid that he has to ask Karl Rove to make all his decisions for him.

o Bush is a devil. He can cause hurricanes to come in and destroy Louisiana and in the process wipe out the Democratic Party's stranglehold on New Orleans.

o Bush is the same as Hitler. I mean, Bush has rounded up his political enemies and has killed them. Or rather he wants to round them up and kill them. Or rather he refutes his political enemies and makes them look stupid, so that makes him Hitler. Let me get back to you on that one.

As near as I can tell, BDS causes the Left to overestimate and underestimate Bush and then be surprised when he does what he says he was going to do. Why does that make sense? If you are going to oppose someone, shouldn't you be able to articulate a reason why you opposing them, besides, "I hate the guy."? Just asking.

Let me tell you why I like George Bush.

Some years ago when Bush was Governor of Texas, some idiot wandered into a church in Fort Worth and started shooting people. One of the church members stood up, stared the guy in the eye and said, "You can kill me, but you cannot kill my faith." They stood there staring at each other, then the gunman lowered his gun, walked over, sat down in a pew and shot himself.

A media circus was convened. Traumatized church members had to put up with crazy media people hounding them with crazy question. George Bush heard about the tragedy. He got in his car in Austin and drove to Fort Worth. He showed up and started walking around, kind of scoping things out. He did not arrive with big fanfare. He did not make statements showing how great George Bush was. He was offered the podium and did not take it.

No, he was there to make sure the government didn't screw up. He was there to witness. He was not there to make it appear that the story was about George Bush.

A little while later, there was a memorial service for the dead. George Bush showed up. He did not make speeches. He did not make the memorial about him. He simply let people know that he was there and that he was there to help by bearing witness.

This meant to me that Bush is a humble man who does not need the limelight. In subsequent years I have never seen George Bush grab the limelight to make himself look big.

Another story, George Bush flew in and landed on the aircraft carrier Lincoln. The Left labeled it as a stunt. It meant nothing.

To the military, it meant that George Bush has courage. Ask any Marine who has had to sit in the second seat of an aircraft doing an aircraft landing. It is one of the most frightening experiences you can have.

The plan starts out at about 10000 feet. The aircraft carrier is a dot in a sea of blue. As the plane comes in the aircraft carrier gets bigger and bigger and suddenly it looks like a ten story building. When the aircraft touches down, it hits the trip wire and it feels like it crashed. In the back of both occupant's minds is the worry that there can always be a sudden gust of wind that will cause the aircraft to hit the back of the ship. It happens every once in a while.

Bush was frightened by that landing, but he did it anyway to honor the military. He gave his speech declaring the war in Iraq over. Afterwards in the galley, he cut turkey slices for the crew. The symbolism was, 'As you serve me, so I serve you'. How many leaders in this world would make such a gesture and mean it?

And then there is the story of Bush showing up in Baghdad for Thanksgiving. The Left called that a grandstand play as well. It meant nothing.

To the military it showed he had courage, because Baghdad was still a hot zone by most people's standards. An aircraft had been fired upon taking off from that same airfield. He gave his speech and then wandered around talking to the military present. During the process, he lifted up a turkey and showed it to the camera. The media went nuts over that. Screaming that it was a horrible thing to do. To me, it just meant that Bush was showing the parents that their kids were being fed okay. I found out later that no one actually eats the turkeys that are prepared like that. They're show turkeys. That's why Bush could not cut the turkey that time. He stood in the mess line and filled plates for the men and women of that ship. Again, 'As you serve me, so I serve you'.

Bush was there for many reasons, but mostly I think it was to determine whether the soldiers were discouraged. He wanted to find out how morale was. I am absolutely convinced that, if the troops were telling him that the cause was lost, then Bush would have backed out of Iraq. If the man is an arrogant swaggering person, then why doesn't it show these stories?

Then there are the stories of Bush meeting with the kin of the fallen soldiers. These are private visits. There is no limelight involved. Why is that?

Even Cindy Shehan got a private visit with Bush. Oh, wait, you probably didn't hear about that. The protest in the ditch in Crawford was Mother Shehan trying for a second private visit with Bush. Bush had met with her privately about a year earlier. He wasn't going to do it a second time. It served no purpose.

All right. I want you to go out my blog and tell me why you hate Bush or attempt to rebut the stories I have given. Again, that is mastercraftsmon.blogspot.com where mastercraftsmon is spelled mastercraftsmon.

And no, this has nothing to do with social activism. I'm just curious as to why people on the Left hate Bush. It makes no sense to me. I'm really curious.

Well, people that about wraps it up for the night. If after all my exhortations, I get no comments on the blog, I am going to have to do something extreme. I am not real interested in doing it, but we shall see.