War in The Capital of Capitalism

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Ephesians 6:12

The New Year ushered in the inauguration of a new mayor in the largest city in America, which also happens to be the most important city in the world. New York City ushered in the era of Bill de Blasio, and the leftist agenda that aims to make the Big Apple "fairer." It promises to be a period of harsh rhetoric and accusations that go beyond embarrassment, to inciting hatred and whipping up violence. Professional prize fighting has the Marquis de Queensberry rules, and war among nations has the Geneva Convention, but this push to remake America is no-holds-barred: there are no rules.

The key ingredient of this war is to make people feel like crap. It's really odd that perpetrators of this vile viewpoint have to paint (inaccurate) pictures of blight and despair while setting themselves up to be the heroes that have come to the rescue. People that might otherwise be proud, and certainly content with their achievements, are told they could have had more; successful people have taken too much from the honey pot. So, the construction worker earning $100,000 a year, most of his life, becomes disgruntled when told the building owner will earn $10,000,000.

Envy is a human emotion; and this is why it's always in the quiver of troublemakers looking to make hay, when other parts of their pitch make little sense. But, what New York City is facing will be an effort to trigger war, along several lines, including racial.

"Let the plantation called New York City be the city of God, a city set upon the hill, a light shining in darkness. Elevate our valleys. Make low our mountains. Make our crooked places straight and our rough places smooth. Oh God, oh God, oh God, break every chain, break every chain, break every chain."

-Rev. Fred Lucas

During his prayer during the inauguration of Bill de Blasio, Rev. Fred Lucas called NYC a "plantation". He talks about "breaking chains and shackles". He also mentioned a new Emancipation Proclamation, civil wars, and a new Reconstruction Era; incendiary stuff that sets the stage for a push for higher taxes against businesses and individuals. For someone who grew up in New York, and commutes to the city five days or more each week, it's a despicable manner to usher in a new era.

Start spreading the news
I am leaving today
I want to be a part of it
New York, New York

-Frank Sinatra

NYC is the most vibrant place on the planet and is still the destination for those looking to make a larger-than-life mark on the world. Of course, the city isn't perfect and does have issues.

There are a lot of "isms" pulsating through the skyscrapers of New York, including elitism, cronyism, nepotism, sexism, and racism, but New York City is the place where people of all nationalities and religious backgrounds come to be successful. The city has been a magnet of people that want to be extraordinary, and in the process the city has become just that. But, it's the school systems that have pandered to unions, which put teachers ahead of students and parents that are okay with little Johnny getting great, but watered down grades.

The irony is that liberals and unions have looked over a city, where they've paid lip service to people at the lower end of the economic ladder. Special interest groups purport to help would lose power and money and eventually, the need to exist if they were ever actually successful in their stated missions.
Still, the entire nation needs to look at NYC, not only as a harbinger of the things to come nationally, but as a lesson for how to avoid this anti-capitalism message from sweeping the country. The thing is economic messages aren't winning or losing elections; it is the election message of the notion of economic fairness that is dictating financial outcomes. Now, it's much easier to say I didn't succeed, not because the next person worked harder, took greater risks, was more committed; even if I did those things, I wouldn't have received the same rewards.

It's a powerful message that dovetails into other ideas, such as $15.00 minimum wage. Sure, it not only rewards mediocrity but encourages it as well. Why work to be a great student? Why seek knowledge? Why work hard, if indeed you can command pay that is just fractionally less than the median of those that have worked to position themselves for something better? In a world moving at warp speed to a knowledge-based society, why bother when I can simply reap the rewards anyway?

Of course, NYC also has the police policy of stop and frisk as a backdrop. It's not an economic policy, but it's one so powerful that it helped shape the election outcome. This policy has never been articulated by anyone in power, where the rules are understood. If indeed, it's simply that any black or Hispanic kid can be stopped and searched- then it's anti-American, and an easy tool for any troublemaker to use. There are people I see from time to time that I think should be stopped and frisked, but my 17-year-old son isn't one of them.

This law, if I understand it correctly, says my son is a potential criminal first and a human being second. I consider myself a law and order person, believe in the death penalty, and never understood why rapist and criminals that prey on children ever see the light of day. Stripping a person of their dignity isn't criminal justice. All it does it make it easier for Rev. Fred Lucas to make the kind of statements he made on New Year's Day. Moreover, it brings to power men like Bill de Blasio, whose goals are to destroy the great symbol of capitalism...NYC.

There is a huge ongoing economic battle in this country and the way it's presented will dictate our fate for decades to come. The debt obligations, entitlements, rules, regulations, and taxes put into place during the past five years have already created serious obstacles to success. If it's carried out for another seven years from the White House, and in more and more cities and states, then even the bedrock of greatness upon which we are founded, will not protect our fall. America isn't Greece. America hasn't crumbled because of its cycles, where success has begotten success over two centuries, while staying true to the promise of being a more perfect union.

Slay the Idea not Flesh and Blood

As sickening as it was to hear the hate on inauguration day in NYC, my frustrations with those that have decided to defend America often seeks to crush people, rather than to crush the idea. For those that think that Christians only look like them, or throw up their hands because they can't compete against crappy, free cell phones and food stamps, you make it so easy for the Bill de Blasio type to get elected. The inability to articulate a message that sounds better than "free stuff" is a cop- out, and why the most successful nation on the planet is willing to listen to those, that would say otherwise.

The trouble makers have learned how to make people that would have been content with their own success, spiteful enough to want to destroy the success of others. Part of it is not that hard, because we are humans. The mission is to tap into other human traits, such as joy, pride, and even the feeling of happiness, when others are doing better than we are. I think we begin with saying the country isn't perfect, but its track record is amazing. It's moving in the right direction and reaching the pinnacle is a legitimate dream and goal for all.

If the tide doesn't turn soon, New York City, and then America will be a plantation. It will be a nation ruled by elites in big houses and tall skyscrapers, where individualism, grand dreams, and ambition are prohibited. Like those "A" students in the watered down New York City educational system, we will all be told we're first class, but in reality we will all be second class. When some politician tells me all they need is to get out the base, I can only hope it's a reference to all the voters. I can only hope they tried to conquer flesh and blood, with a message that speaks to inclusion, rather than be sucked into the war of them versus us.

America is already a shining light; the Reverend Lucas et al, are trying to mask its greatness with darkness. It's an old trick, but it seems to be working these days.

Initial Jobless Claims

According to the Department of Labor, initial claims during the week ended December 28 totaled 339,000, decreasing from the 341,000 revised figure reported for the prior week and landing above the Street's estimate of 333,000. The initial claims' four-week moving average was 357,250, increasing from the prior week's average of 348,750.

Now, it's much easier to say I didn't succeed, not because the next person worked harder, took greater risks, was more committed; even if I did those things, I wouldn't have received the same rewards.

While this is often, probably usually, the case, I think conservatives weaken their case when their rhetoric assumes it is always true.

There is a LOT of luck involved in who gets ahead and who doesn't.

In liberal eyes success is largely or always unearned, and in conservative eyes it is assumed to be always or almost always earned.

Actual fact is that it is a mix of the two. I doubt anyone knows the actual average mix.

I LIKE a system where who gets ahead is determined by a mix of luck and hard work. Certainly preferable to any system devised by humans with the idea of making thinks more "fair."

But I believe we should recognize that luck or chance has a lot to do with success, especially at the very top. Lots of people work hard and take risks, and never do really get ahead, for the same reasons in reverse.

Not making my case very clearly. My apologies. What I think I'm trying to say is that way too many successful people are smugly confident that their success is due solely to their superiority, and that anyone who hasn't done as well is therefore inferior. Don't like that.

OTOH, those who won’t even bother to try to stay in school, study, or educate themselves in some trade, and lift even their little fingers to do a spot of labor, or have the brains, or use them, to be successful in somerhing which requires intelligence, or apply themselves to manual labor, aren’t ever going to be anything in life, and it’s nobody’s fault but their own. So they have no room, and no right, to demand a “share”, so-called “fair” or otherwise, of the property of those who did make demands of themselves and sacrifice some years of “fun” in order to become a self-supporting citizen.

Agreed.

IOW, it’s a great deal more complicated than either side likes to admit.

Another way to say this is that hard work and sacrifice are generally, though not always necessary, but they are also not always sufficient.

IOW, it’s a great deal more complicated than either side likes to admit.

How is this for simplification:

1. There is no guarentee of equal outcome, but the system is intended to provide equal opportunity.

2. Given equal opportunity, those that make no effort to make themselves a marketable commodity to employers, or those unwilling to work hard, self-improve and take risks to become employers themselves, will undoubtedly fall short of others that do.

3. With no guarnetee of success, even hard work and risk taking can lead to failure, but it is the more likely path to achieving one's goals.

4. As far as luck being a component - Luck is simply defined as: "when preparation meets opportunity". Therefore, hard work and self-improvement are always the key factors in determining one's achievements.

I don’t believe in luck, but I do think many people are successful for reasons that have nothing to do with hard work, etc. Let’s face it, life isn’t fair. I see some wealthy people who are dumber than a box of rocks, and does that make me resentful? Why, yes, it does, and that is a fault that most people share, I think. It’s natural to be envious at times and to covet what others have, particularly when you think they didn’t earn it or don’t “deserve” it. That ubiquitous failing is why “Thou Shalt Not Covet” is one of the Ten Commandments.

However, even though people make it to the top by kissing rear ends, and others who work hard and follow the rules (to borrow an overused phrase) are trampled and left behind, the difference between a liberal and a conservative is that conservatives know that any political answer to life’s unfairness only makes things worse.

Inequality will never go away, and only the free market gives people the opportunity to do the best they can with what they have. The “undeserving” rich will always be with us, and socialism ensures that there will be even more of them. Who earns more for doing less than a politician, a bureaucrat, and their toadies and cronies?

conservatives know that any political answer to life’s unfairness only makes things worse.

Quite agree.

The “undeserving” rich will always be with us

As will the poor who deserved more.

Just realized what we’re talking about here is what T. Sowell calls cosmic justice.

It is not attainable by imperfect humans, and attempts to achieve it invariably make things worse. The more strenuous the attempt to reach it, the worse things are made.

Communism was, in theory, the most strenuous attempt to achieve cosmic justice ever made. It was going to provide both political/legal and economic equality.

Wound up with the highest pile of corpses in history.

I think the closest we can get is political/legal equality as provided by our Constitution, if properly applied. Going for economic equality is a bridge too far.

Big mistake; NYC isn't the capital of real capitalism. Instead it lives and breathes a “capitalism” that reeks of cronyism and connected insiders who grease each other’s palms with bribes to survive and prosper. I hope that the new communist NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio actually destroys NYC and bankrupts it like Detroit on the Hudson. NYC is long overdue in its comeuppance for the harm it has done to America.

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