The Clueless Left

I am not going to say that Bill Maher is stupid. I believe he is far from it. I just believe that he is clueless. He is also full of guilt for being a white man.

I do not usually watch HBO, but since I am out of town on business and staying in a hotel room alone, I flip through the available channels and sometimes stop on things that I would not normally watch with the children around, or more than this, things that my wife normally overrides me on. Bill Maher fits into the former. The History Channel fits into the latter.

Last night, Bill Maher's first guest was Pat Buchannan. His discussion centered around Buchannan's revelation that President Bush should be impeached for his derilection of duty in securing our borders. While Mr. Buchannan made firm arguments concerning the usupation of our sovreignty to Mexican nationals and the economic impacts upon the United States, Maher could not get past the idea that the only reason why anyone would be against Mexicans coming to the United States is that the "1950's" white men wanted to keep the United States a lily-white nation. It was as if all he heard Buchannan say was "I want a temporary moratorium on immigration...". Maher's mind-blinders automatically went into "racism" mode, and ignored Buchannan saying "...until we can seal our borders and control the influx of immigrants."

He is clueless.

Maher then brought out a "panel" of guests to discuss "issues of the day." Of course the president of Iran and the president of Venezuela were mentioned, as was the Iraq War and torture. But the panel, which included such intellectual heavyweights as Gloria Steinem, Clark Kent Ervin, a former DHS official who seems a little bitter since he was not renominated, and Michael McKean, who is best known for his role as "Lenny" on the "Laverne and Shirley" television show. Each topic presented to the panel always was related to how stupid President Bush is and how he has blundered in every move that the makes. Unable to connect dots as children, each of the panelists treated the Iraq War as if it has nothing to do with Iran, when in fact they failed to see that Iraq may have been a strategic move to deal with Iran. But nevertheless, to the "panel" and the host, all is Bush's fault because he and people like him are stuck in the 50's, where white was the rule.

He also brought on Christiane Amanpour, that warriorette of unbiased journalism who is employed by CNN and contributes to NPR. Apparently, this brave journalist walked the steps of Bin Laden. But, of course, she never actually could get to "where he really was". And she let her unbiased veil down as she went on a mini-tirade of the failures of President Bush in the Iraq War.

Summary of the Bill Maher show last night: Religious people are irrational and illogical, Bush is stupid, and everyone who doesn't agree with Bill Maher are racist white male oppressors.

He is clueless.

Fisher Ames, who is an unsung Founding Father, once said, "The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness which the ambitious call, and the ignorant believe to be liberty." Unfortunately, people like Maher who are clueless as to what this means, believing that liberty includes such things as being able to say the "F" word on network television.

True torture would be sitting through another Bill Maher television show.

Two Steps Of Financial Advantage For Young People

Rugged individualism is a concept that is forgotten in today's society. We live in the age of irresponsibility, and that whatever the case, if I cannot pay for it, someone else should. What this leads to is the someone elses are paying, and paying heavily, whether in taxation or insurance premiums.

We all have our "if I could do it over" moments, and so here is one of mine. I have begun giving this advice to any young person who is between 18 and 21 years of age and who currently have no children. To attempt this after children could possibly put a strain on your financial resources. I believe this advice to be so important, that I am publishing it here for anyone who can access this website to have, free of charge.

This advice deals primarily to aversion to financial risks due to catastrophic occurrences. Most folks refer to this as insurance advice.

1. Get a life insurance policy.
Many young people do not think about death or dying very much. I know I did not. But the fact of the matter is that the younger that you are, the less expensive life insurance is. I recommend that you obtain a whole life policy with a term life rider. Ordinarily, rates are locked for 20 years, so if you are 18-20 years old, you will still be relatively young when you can lock in rates again when it is time to re-up. A whole life policy builds cash value, which may come in handy 20 years down the road when you are trying to put children through college or pay off a mortgage. The term life portion only is paid if you die, so the whole life portion should be decided in such a way that it does not impact significantly the rate of the policy. Beneficiaries can always be changed as time goes along.

2. Get a Health Savings Account.
Health insurance for young people is really not that beneficial. Most young people do not go to the doctor very often. Health insurance is socialism in practice, since the premiums that you pay are going to fund someone else's medical expenses. Once in this game, it is hard to get out. So do not get in to begin with. Open a Health Savings Account. You can fund tax-free dollars into an account that belongs to you that you can pay your medical bills from. You must obtain an approved health plan with a high deductible. Higher deductibles keep your premiums lower, and you can use your HSA to pay your deductible. Doing this while you are young keeps more money going toward the medical bills of you and your family rather than to other people. And with traditional health insurance, premiums normally go up and services go down.

These two steps will be positive financial moves that you can make easily and affordably at a young age that will help to insure your independence. Heed the advice. No one is responsible to take care of you but you.