Reflections From a Murky Pond

We Pagans and Heathens know that our world is full of auguries, harbingers, portents, omens, and signs from the Gods foreshadowing what fates and dooms awaits us. Some of these portents are subtle and easy to miss, and others are glaringly obvious for all to see.

People just need to open their eyes, ears, and minds to the winds of fate if they would be better prepared to meet their futures.

One of those omens, and not a pleasant one for Obama or his followers, was recently seen:

PHILADELPHIA, July 4 (UPI) — The U.S. Secret Service said the magnetic presidential seal from the side of President Obama’s limousine fell off en route to the airport in Pennsylvania.

The Secret Service said the seal spent the night at the side of Interstate 76 when it fell from the side of Obama’s limo Thursday night and police and Secret Service agents were unable to locate it that night, CNN reported Monday.

Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said a Philadelphia police officer who was a part of the Thursday motorcade found the seal at the side of the road Friday.

Of course not everything that happens has some deeper meaning; many things are merely random events, having no more meaning than the observer grants them.

Yet, if one has been installed as the POTUS and one has promised to “fundamentally change” America, one should probably pay close heed to such things as the presidential seal falling off one’s limousine as one makes a 4th of July weekend campaign stop in Philadelphia, PA, the birthplace of America’s freedom and the cradle from which that nation that one wants to alter grew. 😉

In FY 2010 the wealthiest 1% of Americans earned 19% of the wealth and paid $335.6 billion (37% of federal income tax revenues) in federal income tax. The bottom 50% earned 13% of the wealth and paid $27.2 billion (3% of federal income tax revenues). This is without a doubt an extreme disparity in both income and taxation.

Federal Revenues As Current (In Billions)

$335.6 + $27.2 = 362.8

What if we let the Liberals have their Socialist way and redistributed the wealth somehow? What if we took just under half the wealth from the top 1%, keeping their effective tax rates the same, and gave it the bottom 50%, allowing their effective tax rates to double?

Thus the top 1% would only hold 10% of the wealth and would pay $159 billion to the federal government and the bottom 50% would hold 22% of the wealth and pay $81.4 billion to the federal government.

Federal Revenues Post-Redistribution (In Billions)

$159 + $81.4 = $240.4

The wealth redistribution, even with taxing the wealth-reduced top 1% at the same level and doubling the taxes upon the enriched lower 50%, results in a $122.4 billion reduction in federal income tax revenues which are 42% of the total federal receipts. That’s a 33.7% shortfall.

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

— Winston Churchill

But, Gods damn it, it’d just be so much more fair to redistribute that wealth! Isn’t that fairness and equality of outcome more important than mere federal revenues and the entitlement programs they’re spent upon?

One of the more ubiquitous, and certainly one of the most strident, rants of America’s domestics enemies is that the government should tax the “rich” more – much, much more. This is presented with two generalized rationalizations: the blatant, glaring, and glaringly stupid falsehood that the “rich” don’t pay their fair share and the somewhat less stupid idea that they can afford to pay more so it’s OK to take their wealth from them.

Presenting facts backed up by numbers and charts is, by and large, useless with the Statists and Socialists that call themselves Liberals and Progressives and it’s utterly useless with their minority tenants, who foolishly see themselves as beneficiaries of this agenda. Hence, I’ll leave that aside for now.

I will instead focus on the “They can afford it” rationalization since it is not based upon falsehoods, being instead based upon utilitarianism or consequentialism. I wonder how they would respond to a similar argument on a subject that Liberals have strong and visceral feelings about – abortion.

They Can Afford Them

Let America as a nation and society outlaw the abortion of White babies but continue to allow minorities, especially the Blacks, to engage in the unsavory practice. Let America as a people go so far as to guarantee these minorities access to abortion through subsidies and funding.

Due to the striations in household economies, including access to health insurance, Whites can, more often than not, afford to have these children. While an unplanned pregnancy might be an inconvenience to them, it is unlikely to drive Whites into true poverty. Statistics show this is not similarly true for minorities.

Furthermore, there is a long waiting list for White babies. There are far more prospective adoptive parents than there are White babies up for adoption. This is sadly not true for minority babies, especially Black babies who are seven times less likely to be adopted even after their prices – euphemistically called “adoption finalization costs” – are discounted up to 33% by the various agencies.

Finally, one also has to take the modern definition of racism into account. Since 64% of the women partaking of abortions are non-White, making it illegal for them to continue to do so would cause a disproportionate impact upon these minority women. Such disproportionate impact has been held by the courts to be racist and discriminatory even if the laws or practices in question have absolutely no racial component.

As can be seen from these facts there’s no reasons based upon consequences for continuing to allow Whites to abort their babies but many reasons to make sure that minorities, especially Blacks, are continued to be allowed to do so. The Whites can afford the children and the adoption system can handle those White babies that end up in it; neither is statistically the case for non-Whites.

~*~

The arguments above are all factual within the limits of polling accuracy and statistical analysis as applied to population groups. In point of fact, these arguments make up a large part of basis for the Liberals’ ongoing fight to keep abortion legal and have the government subsidize it. That doesn’t make this “modest proposal” any less abhorrent.

It’d be an interesting thought experiment to graph the outrage of who’s more bothered by criminalizing abortion for Whites and who’s more bothered by not doing so for minorities.

Yes, the rich can afford to pay more in taxes. That ability to pay more doesn’t mean that it’s right to tax them more just because others want their money, just as the facts of abortion demographics don’t make it right to base the abortion laws upon individuals’ and society’s ability to afford having and raising the children.

The argument that they can afford it so it’s OK to take from them is an example of the grievous flaws in utilitarianism or consequentialism.

I have posted before that America was going to have to deploy a large number of troops to the Sinai Peninsula in the wake of the “Arab Spring” which deposed the government of Egypt and emboldened the anti-Semite Islamist vermin in the region. That prediction is looking more and more likely to reach fulfillment.

For the third time since the revolt in Egypt Muslim terrorists have attacked and damaged the North Sinai pipeline in the Sinai Peninsula that supplies natural gas to Israel and Jordan.

The Islamists, or their Bedouin proxies / dupes,  previously sabotaged it on February 5 and April 27 of this year.

Egypt can’t or won’t defend the pipeline effectively, Israel isn’t “allowed” to defend it, and the Multinational Force & Observers (MFO) will need significant increase in personnel to undertake a counter-terrorism / counter-insurgency role.

This means that the US will have to send in more troops and equipment to occupy and patrol the Sinai, and that those troops must be in sufficient force to withstand betrayal and attack by the Egyptian military forces which have been allowed, despite the accords of the 1981 Protocol to the Treaty of Peace to enter the Sinai in force.

The Sinai War that is coming is going to be particularly nasty, as much from the domestic fall-out as from the actual fighting.

I have a simple question; has, in the recorded history of Mankind, an Atheist ever had an original moral thought?