The Mercy Rule

I heard what could be one of the most ridiculous things ever on the radio this evening. The host on my local talk radio station, 1210 WPHT, was detailing a recent story about a Peewee football game in Georgia. Why does a Philly radio station care about a kid's football game in Georgia? Allow me to explain...

Apparently, the league for these kids has a "mercy rule," which states that no team can score more than 33 points against another team. Not kidding.

Well, recently a team accidentally broke that rule when an 8-year-old boy returned an interception for his first ever touchdown, thus causing his team to exceed the 33-point limit. The team was fined - yes, fined - $500 as penalty for breaking the mercy rule.

But wait, that's not all. The coach was suspended for a week for running up the score. Nope, not kidding about that one, either.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely what's wrong with this nation. Self-esteem is an awesome thing - when it's earned. As with all things, however, when it's just handed to you, it essentially means next to nothing.

The drive to compete is being exterminated from our society, and it's not by accident. All one need do is look to how badly our children are doing in worldwide education rankings over the last 40 years or so.

Liberals believe that fairness and equality mean that everyone, everywhere is equal, and if they're not then the government should make them so. What they don't understand - the equality is in the opportunity, not the results. Nobody on this planet is equal to any other in terms of talent, drive, etc., nor will they ever be equal. There's always someone out there better than you, better than me. That's just a fact of life.

We need to get back to teaching our kids that not only is life not fair, but success is OK. It's not something to be punished, but encouraged. Teaching them how to deal with failure is just as important, however, as people tend to learn more from failing than succeeding.

It's beyond time to bring back good, old-fashioned competition, and with it, American exceptionalism.

Let's have a mercy rule on the "mercy rule" before it's too late. ~ Hunter

The Smoke And Mirrors Of the Clinton Surplus

I am sick unto death hearing about the “Clinton surplus.” It was a *M*Y*T*H* - created by smoke and mirrors, accounting tricks that would get you and me thrown in prison with lengthy sentences, and out-and-out LIES by the MSM, which have persisted to this day. It's time to expose those lies. ~ Hunter

Clinton ran deficits through both of his terms, and one can go to the US Treasury Department and looking through the history of the total outstanding debt through Clinton's presidency.

Every year Clinton was in office, the total national debt continued to climb.

Clinton managed to claim a surplus even as the general operating budgets ran deficits, Clinton borrowed from numerous “trust funds” to cover said deficits.

For example, in 2000, Clinton claimed a $230B surplus, but Clinton borrowed
$152.3B from Social Security
$30.9B from Civil Service Retirement Fund
$18.5B from Federal Supplementary Medical insurance Trust Fund
$15.0B from Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund
$9.0B from the Federal Unemployment Trust Fund
$8.2B from Military Retirement Fund
$3.8B from Transportation Trust Funds
$1.8B from Employee Life Insurance & Retirement fund
$7.0B from others

A true surplus will decrease the national debt, which only INCREASED during the Clinton administration.
http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/16
http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/30
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

Evil Done In The Name Of Good

I just watched a review on FNC of the new Dracula movie being released in a couple weeks.

The review included interviews with the actors, who said the story focuses on why Vlad makes evil choices for good reasons, and the first thing that popped into my mind was - Evil done in the name of Good doesn't make it any less evil.

My second thought - Gee, that sounds like liberalism/progressivism (yes, my sarcasm circuit is one of the first to start functioning in the morning). For liberals, it's their intentions that matter, not the actual results. And that's why their programs are invariably huge failures. War on poverty, social engineering instead of education, tax everything that moves and spend all the money in the world, all liberal foreign policy, Obama's presidency, climate "change" (also known as weather), etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

Intentions mean less than nothing. The results are what matter. Just to clarify - throwing even more money at a problem that your "intentions" failed to provide a solution for isn't an answer for said problem. I know, I know - this is shocking to you liberals, and extremely antithetical to your very existence, but facts are facts whether you believe them or not. ~ Hunter

Seattle School Board Loses Its Collective Mind

Seattle school board votes to replace Columbus Day with "Indigenous Peoples Day." Their stated reason is to promote understanding and tolerance for the "indigenous" people of the nation, as well as standing up against the country's racism inherent in the holiday (paraphrased, but essentially what was said.)

I am BEYOND disgusted with the continual attacks upon the traditions of the United States. Regardless of whether Columbus ACTUALLY discovered America for Europe, we celebrate a federal holiday as if he did. Let's just leave out the fact that there ARE NO INDIGENOUS PEOPLE in America (human beings are NOT native to the Americas.)

This is no longer the nation in which I grew up. That saddens and frightens me.

It frightens me because this is the last bastion of freedom and opportunity for ALL people, regardless of accident of birth.

It saddens me because future generations won't even realize that they missed out. ~ Hunter