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Tired of that $2.6 Million Program that Teaches Chinese Prostitutes to Drink?

by John Ransom


Liberty is about a lot of things; it’s a deep topic. But at its core liberty can be summed up in one simple and reciprocal concept. That concept is respect.

You know the 2010 last election was about many things, but it was mostly about respect.

It was about starting to restore the respect that people have in government, by getting the government to restore the respect that they show to you…by taking liberty seriously.

If you are like me, you think that many of our elected officials from both the right and the left truly believe that what they think of you is much more important than what you think of them.

If you’re like me you’re tired of a trillion dollars in so-called stimulus spending that went to mob-connected asphalt contractors rather than the pockets of working families who own businesses and pay taxes and do all the working and dreaming in this country.

If you’re like me, you’re tired of a $2.6 million program that teaches Chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly while unemployment soars across the country.

If you’re like me, you're tired of an arrogant federal government which pays out $47 billion in fraudulent claims in Medicare every year while they lecture the rest of us about healthcare economics.

If you are like me, you’re tired of the US Postal service wasting $30 million on a program that pays 1100 employees to do nothing. Yes, today, the US Post Office sat 1100 employees in empty rooms, as they do every day, and literally paid them to do nothing. They can’t play cards; they can’t watch TV, in fact they can’t do anything at all. To the tune of $30 million per year.


Yet this very same federal government comes to us now and proposes to manage our healthcare, our retirement, the education of our children, the auto industry, the oil industry, pharmaceuticals, the mortgage industry and lectures the American people that they are under-regulated.

If you’re a middle American like me, from the grassroots, I bet you know someone who owns their own business; if you’re like me you probably know someone who has paid employees of that business on time every week, but hasn’t been able to pay themselves a dime. Yet these very same people who provide half the new jobs in our economy, who have lost money over the last few years, still owe the government tens of thousands of dollars in taxes every year. People wonder where our jobs have gone? They’ve been crushed by a system that doesn’t honor job creation; by a system that doesn’t honor liberty; a system that gives no respect.

And if you are like most of the voters I speak to, you are tired of insiders from Washington and Wall Street on both sides of the aisle, and their wasteful spending schemes that don’t even propose to solve the very issues facing Main Street and working families.

Let’s suppose global warming is real; I don’t think it is, but let’s say it's so for the sake of argument. Show me please how the Renewable Electricity Standard-- which will cost American families $1800 per year-- please show me how it’s going to lower the earth’s temperature. They can’t because the Renewable Electricity Standard wasn’t created to combat global warming and it won’t lower the earth’s temperature.

Ok, so let’s suppose the issue is carbon emission; that carbon is really bad and we have to get it out of our atmosphere. Show me please how the Renewable Electricity Standard is going to reduce the amount of carbon in our atmosphere. They can’t. It wasn’t designed to do that and it won’t do that.

The government doesn't write legislation with solutions in mind, but rather with power and control of your very lives. And it is inside of your lives where you will wrestle back that control.

I’m often reminded that it’s with readers just like you where many of the seminal events of our country happened. It’s in rooms just like you’re in right now that a small group of patriots in Massachusetts planned the Boston Tea Party; it’s in groups just like you are a part of today that was born the Mayflower Compact; it’s in the free association of our citizens, for the common good and with common respect, that the greatness and goodness of our country will always be found.

And as long as people like you, freely associate for the common good and meet in respect, our country will always remain both great and good.

But ordinary people are paying attention, actually reading the Constitution; people are actually asking questions about the 10th Amendment, asking: What kind of power does Washington really have over us?

Unfortunately, there aren’t enough people who have been awakened to that yet, that’s why readers like you are so important. Each individual reading this is so incredibly important because the job you have this year as a citizen has never, ever, ever been more important. The 2012 election is going to determine what it’s like to live in this country for a long time. It’s going to be people just like you, having conversation just like this, in rooms across America that are going to make a difference.

This is the chance to turn the tide. The chance we have today is to bury that last vestiges of big government in our country; to reclaim our liberty from a new deal and replace it with a true deal.

I’ve been very fortunate because over the last half dozen years I’ve been able to travel all around the country working with grassroots activists just like you. I understand, I think, better than elected officials, what makes the grassroots so special. It's you and your ability to communicate.

We have all these new tools available for citizens to communicate that just a few years ago we didn’t have. A few years ago readers wouldn’t have been as energized and as informed because we didn’t have the ability to communicate as we do now. We have been so fractured and fragmented all around the country and around the nation that we feel like we can’t do anything, that Washington is so big and out of touch that we can’t do anything.

In fact, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Now is the time we really do have the opportunity. For the first time in our history ordinary citizens have the ability to communicate with one another over the heads of the media in publications like Townhall. We are networked on social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter that expose us to thousands of people for free.

But when I was growing up there were three TV stations and two newspapers in every town that decided what the news was. There were probably a dozen people in any town that picked our news for us.

Those days are over.

This election isn’t about voting for the next person standing in a long line of elites who will rule over us; it’s about what kind of country we want to be in the future.

It’s about preserving the American dream right here right now. Because when they mess with our liberty, they really mess with our ability to dream.

I believe that the ability to dream is worth handing down to our kids.

I believe that it’s our dreams that makes us the most dynamic country in the world.

It’s the dream that brings jobs and prosperity to the US.

It’s a dream that treats promises like they really matter.

And it’s the dreams that are the promise of America.

Because when politicians treat the promises they campaign on like they matter, when they are held accountable to those pledges-- by us-- we will restore the respect they owe us.

I know alot of high paid people who hate their jobs. I don't play violins for them, but I do empathize.

On the FE/PO relationship: from wikipedia: FedEx SmartPost specializes in the consolidation and delivery of high volumes of low-weight, less time-sensitive business-to-consumer packages, using the US Postal Service[2] for final delivery to residences.

Agree agree agree on your last point.
>> ^shagen454:

Not that it even matters to me, but first class mail will be replaced by FedEx and UPS priority deliveries as first class mail will become a two day service.
The guy probably does not hate his job's payout because even a SCM makes over 130K including bonuses so I'm sure this guy is rolling in it. Never ever heard about USPS handling FedEx duties.... I still stand by my statement FedEx fucking sucks a corrupt company; but I guess that doesn't make them much different than most corporations in the America? And people seem to be fine with that.
>> ^longde:
@shagen454 Of course within your post you directly addressed the teleprompter guy: "the way this guy speaks, completely disingenuous, stale, planned is exactly the way that company is all the way to the top." ; that's why I responded acerbically. I really don't know what you expect that guy to do. I'm sure he hates his job too. No need to dump on him in an empty way if your target is really FedEx.
People didn't "fall for" it; I would guess the 3 upvoters (wow, how many power points will that get me?) were simply rubbed the same way I was with your post.
I am a little familiar with the operations of FedEx, UPS and the Post Office. I wouldn't want to be a grunt in any of those places either; having my times constantly checked. Does that mean I would chuck a monitor over a fence? At least they didn't can that guy.
Since Fed Ex is actually contracted by the Postal Service for some mid- and long-haul routes, shutting down the Postal Service would actually hurt some parts of FedEx. Also, I don't think that UPS or FedEx will offer a replacement for 1st class mail.

Here is that link again. I don't know why it crashed earlier.

It absolutely supports the argument for the very reason that UPS is unionized. Corporations exist to turn a profit. Many of them can support union employees. The government, on the other hand, does not exist to make money. It simply cannot fund the same types of benefits the private sector does. >> ^NetRunner:

I'm not sure where that link was supposed to go, but that situation doesn't support the argument you're trying to make. It's not that the Post Office's pension plan is so unbelievably generous that it's bankrupting the company, it's that Republicans passed a law that requires the Post Office to pre-pay pension benefits 75 years in advance. That is clearly crazy, unnecessary, and is somewhat obviously meant to tank the Post Office's budget.
Try this link out for more info.
Oh, and UPS is unionized too you know.
>> ^silvercord:
Yet UPS realized a 62% increase in profits last year while the Post Office went into the tank. Why did it tank? The US Postal Service would have shown a net profit of $76 million in April had it not been for the $458 million charge for future retiree health benefits (RHBTF) imposed by Congress. In other words, the USPS would have made money if it weren't for the fact that it is paying into a retirement fund that is so onerous that it is going to break the bank before it can pay many of those retirements.

>> ^NetRunner:

I'm not sure where that link was supposed to go, but that situation doesn't support the argument you're trying to make. It's not that the Post Office's pension plan is so unbelievably generous that it's bankrupting the company, it's that Republicans passed a law that requires the Post Office to pre-pay pension benefits 75 years in advance. That is clearly crazy, unnecessary, and is somewhat obviously meant to tank the Post Office's budget.
Try this link out for more info.
Oh, and UPS is unionized too you know.
>> ^silvercord:
Yet UPS realized a 62% increase in profits last year while the Post Office went into the tank. Why did it tank? The US Postal Service would have shown a net profit of $76 million in April had it not been for the $458 million charge for future retiree health benefits (RHBTF) imposed by Congress. In other words, the USPS would have made money if it weren't for the fact that it is paying into a retirement fund that is so onerous that it is going to break the bank before it can pay many of those retirements.


good post, but there's a little bit of irony here, your link leads to a 404

I'm not sure where that link was supposed to go, but that situation doesn't support the argument you're trying to make. It's not that the Post Office's pension plan is so unbelievably generous that it's bankrupting the company, it's that Republicans passed a law that requires the Post Office to pre-pay pension benefits 75 years in advance. That is clearly crazy, unnecessary, and is somewhat obviously meant to tank the Post Office's budget.

Try this link out for more info.

Oh, and UPS is unionized too you know.

>> ^silvercord:

Yet UPS realized a 62% increase in profits last year while the Post Office went into the tank. Why did it tank? The US Postal Service would have shown a net profit of $76 million in April had it not been for the $458 million charge for future retiree health benefits (RHBTF) imposed by Congress. In other words, the USPS would have made money if it weren't for the fact that it is paying into a retirement fund that is so onerous that it is going to break the bank before it can pay many of those retirements.

It's quite a leap from me saying that unions comprised of government employees are ultimately economically unfeasible to interpreting that as a desire to destroy unions and stifle debate. Debate all you want. The writing is on the wall for all of our government employees. All the states are in trouble. I just picked California as an example. As far as that goes, I am glad you agree that they have made their system F.U.B.A.R. Unfortunately, they aren't the only ones.

Here is another example: the United States Postal Service. A package sent to me this last week by the USPS cost $8.40. I returned the exact same package to the same sender by UPS for $7.07. Yet UPS realized a 62% increase in profits last year while the Post Office went into the tank. Why did it tank? The US Postal Service would have shown a net profit of $76 million in April had it not been for the $458 million charge for future retiree health benefits (RHBTF) imposed by Congress. In other words, the USPS would have made money if it weren't for the fact that it is paying into a retirement fund that is so onerous that it is going to break the bank before it can pay many of those retirements. The post office is now discussing closing up to 3,700 branches. Those workers are going to be out of a job; real people, with real lives and real families. So it causes me to think: I wonder if they would rather have a job with retirement that looks similar to the rest of the country's private sector retirements, or be promised a larger retirement and end up with neither a job nor a retirement.

What is important is this: some of the unions made up of government employees are fighting to save a future comprised of an empty bag. The money they are fighting to set back for their members isn't going to be able to be paid. The discussion isn't whether or not we are for or against unions. Unions have done much good for the working conditions in the US. Right now that is beside the point. The discussion is this: how are we going to arrange ourselves together to make this whole unworkable system work. I'm beginning to believe that we don't have the capacity any longer to do so. >> ^Yogi:

>> ^silvercord:
Being an old hippie, I understand this. But I also understand that the state has made promises it cannot keep. Same thing is happening in California under Jerry Brown. He has proposed to cut state union pensions in order to rectify the matter. There is no magic wand to pay those pensions. The money is simply not there.

"Old Hippie"? With the Doctrine that you are espousing here, I'd call you anything but an old hippie. Just because California fucked up it's pensions doesn't mean there shouldn't be public sector unions.
If you don't agree just look at what QM posted and go by the sift rule that everything and anything he says is fucking the opposite.
You can't consider yourself on the left and disapprove of unions period. You can disagree with what the unions are fighting for or how much power they have but not that they exist.
If you want to destroy a union you're not on the left, you don't have the peoples best interest in mind and you wish to stifle debate.

Assuming hes completely correct in everything. It still doesn't have shit to do with where the USPS is at right now.

E-Mail killed snail mail.... This person is nutters. Like some Pension thing has influence in the fact that they do 20% of the mail they did about 20 years ago.... Seriously WTF. Hell if it wasn't for the government funding it would of gone under long ago.

Agree Budzons.>> ^budzos:

You sure it wasn't e-mail?

Seems similar to one I got a few years ago:

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the national weather service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time as regulated by the US congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issed by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to ny house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all it's valuables thanks to the local police department.

I then log on to the internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and post on freerepublic.com and fox news forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.

>> ^osama1234:

Except FedEx gets to pick and choose what they want to do. For example if you're in a rural area, you'll have more issues with companies like FedEx in their service and price. Whereas USPS always delivers. Next time, see the cost of delivery of a simple letter to middle of nowhere, USA (by FedEx compared to the few cents from USPS).


That's because the US Postal Service has a monopoly on first class mail.

... and this is why the US Postal Service is on the verge of complete collapse.

>> ^rougy:
Central planning is a great idea. It's how things actually get done.
Waiting around for some rich people to decide how they can best get richer is foolishness.
The free market is not the hand of God, and leaving the welfare of our future in its hands is pure madness.
The US Postal service isn't supposed to turn a profit, by the way, and to the best of my knowledge they deliver to more places in the US, more cheaply, than any private carrier extant.
And by the way, in theory at least, "we" are the government.

free market is you and me, it's consumers making decisions with their purchasing power, leave God out of this and don't presume it's invariably "controlled" by the selfish "rich". I'm OK with leaving our welfare in our own hands, it's the best incentive for people to care about it.

US POSTAL NOT SUPPOSED TO TURN A PROFIT? Stop criminalizing profit, it's a GOOD thing, wasting money and NOT turning a profit = bad, it means you're wasting other people's money (including taxpayer's money since it's a govt run service) to do a simple job that is delivering stuff. "more cheaply" you say? Did you take into account the "not being profitable" in your price calculation, the costs for society?

I don't get your "WE are the government". Unless you work for the government, you are a private citizen and you are paying for its crappy services. Unlike in a free market, you can't choose whether or not to pay and they don't have the incentive to do a good job because they don't care about profit.

>> ^gtjwkq:
Keep the government out of it, they can't even deliver the mail profitably. Treat it like damage to private property and let the courts punish offenders.
Government => central planning => bad idea
Private citizens => best ideas are rewarded => everyone wins


Central planning is a great idea. It's how things actually get done.

Waiting around for some rich people to decide how they can best get richer is foolishness.

The free market is not the hand of God, and leaving the welfare of our future in its hands is pure madness.

The US Postal service isn't supposed to turn a profit, by the way, and to the best of my knowledge they deliver to more places in the US, more cheaply, than any private carrier extant.

And by the way, in theory at least, "we" are the government.

Frankie Manning is still alive. He actually doesn't look a whole lot older. See for yourself[1]. The guy worked for the US Postal Service after swing died. He was rediscovered in the mid-90s, and begrudgingly taught the current wave of swing dancers.

Frankie Manning is over 90 years old. He STILL DANCES. At 90. I honestly don't have enough words to describe how much amazing this gentleman is.

[1] http://frankiemanning.com/