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I’m reading Atlas Shrugged and thought this modern-day parable was apropos when I stumbled upon it. This has floated around the ‘Net for years with no solid authorship and has even been quoted by the late William F. Buckley.

Our Tax System Explained: “Bar Stool Economics”

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go
something like this:

The first four men (The poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7.

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18.

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.” Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free.

But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’ They
realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up
being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).

The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).

The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).

The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).

The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).

The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare
their savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20,”declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,” but he got $10!” “Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth
man. “I only saved a dollar, too It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I!” “That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back
when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!” “Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The
system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most
benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start
drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

The other night, a friend of mine who is a perpetually angry liberal, was bemoaning the fact that others that share his faith often align themselves on the opposite end of the political spectrum. In doing so, he pejoratively used the phrase right-wing to describe those that don't share his political views.

Today I watched a video clip from CNN in which a reporter was on the scene and interviewing a participant in one of the many tea parties held yesterday. Not unlike some of the other on-camera and animated breaches in pretense of objectivity I've seen on CNN or other networks, this woman literally scolded a man for daring to protest the Federal government's recent and obscene spending, rather than allowing him to answer the question of, "why are you here?". She was quickly shouted down by the crowd before being permitted to complete her absurd defense of Obama's stimulus bill to this man. With that, she sent it back to the studio and cast the crowd as having been influenced by the "right-wing" Fox News Channel.

In the past, I've proudly accepted the term right-winger, or belonging to the right-wing, or even being part of the "vast, right-wing conspiracy." But lately, I've come to somewhat resent the term. Don't get me wrong - I am not at all ashamed of holding a conservative view. Far from it. It's what's implied by the term that's beginning to bug me.

The terms left-wing and right-wing have long been accepted ways to describe the political views of politicians and politically outspoken people. I think the mental image that one might conjure is linear in nature. The left side represents the views of bigger government and higher taxes. The right side represents smaller government and lower taxes. The further out on each side logically represents the more entrenched, pure, or "extreme" views of each side. The center, or mainstream then, is naturally the least extreme and most compromising view one could hold.

This is BS. The origin of these terms is from the seating arrangements in the French legislative assemblies of the 1700s. While the meanings of the terms have evolved, even within the scope of French and European use, they adequately represent the political spectrum in the French Revolutionary era. But we're not French politicians in parliament. This is the United States of America. Our forefathers, through unthinkable sacrifice and in recognition of the unalienable rights bestowed upon every man by his Creator, established this country on the very principles that are routinely cast as right-wing and extreme today. Our government and rule of law was brilliantly conceived to provide the best chance at preservation of these principles and unalienable rights. This is what has made the United States of America the greatest and most successful nation on the planet.

I'm not interested in squelching the voices of those who believe a permanent or even a temporary departure from those original, conservative principles are in order. You can't do that and be a true conservative. But conservatives should no longer accept that a desire for smaller government, lower taxes, and free market capitalism is anything but exactly what this country was intended to be. Conservatism is not to the right of the mainstream. It IS the mainstream!

Big government liberalism has strongholds in academia and media and is succeeding at redefining what is considered mainstream. Power-hungry statists are succeeding at not only governing apart from the constitution and it's founding principles, they are engineering the very tyranny from which our forefathers escaped - high taxes, income redistribution, and the current state religions of multiculturalism, environmentalism, and globalism. It's time for Americans to wake up and defend the only true rights that exist - the ones God gave us.

There have have been times where I thought Rush Limbaugh was too much of an apologist for the Republican Party. I will support the GOP for as long as it is represented by true conservatives. For the last few years, my enthusiasm for civics and Rush's radio show has eroded with the growth of government and the departure from conservative principles, all while the GOP was at the helm. I've understood Rush's reluctance to go after an increasingly centrist GOP with the same kind of rhetoric he goes after the Left, as the GOP is still the best chance at reviving the conservative movement. But I didn't like it.

The Republican Party has simply done a miserable job of representing conservatism over the last decade. Any civic-minded, college-aged adult who has formed an opinion on notable conservatives and conservatism during this time has undoubtedly done so on the basis of complete lies and misinformation. To say that there is a liberal bias in their sources of information or discourse is a gross understatement. What's worse, there has been no consistent, foundational message of conservatism as the necessary contrast for thinking people to reason out a position. Over the weekend, that message seems to have shown signs of life with the help of Rush Limbaugh.

Barack Obama has poured greasy fat on the already slippery slope politicians have created over the last decade. Even France thinks Obama's recently passed economic 'stimulus' bill is too socialist. France!! It looks like the smackdown the GOP received last November coupled with the nearly unbelievable government spending in only the first six weeks of unchecked, liberal policy-making might have been what the GOP needed to recover from it's own drunken stupor. Conservatives have hopefully recognized the true threat to our country now. The Left has and will continue to portray Rush as a hate-filled, cartoon character to try and discredit the messenger of a great message. Don't believe it. If you've got the time, check out his address to CPAC 2009. It's the kind of message that's been missing, and frankly what people need to hear to make rational choices for our leaders going forward.

Here are the links in case the facebook feed drops the embedded video:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10

aaalllrighty then… Thank you Chris Matthews of MSNBC for at least unambiguously stating what has otherwise been obvious to anyone who hasn't yet subscribed to the Obama cult of personality - that there has been no objective journalism of this guy throughout the campaign and election.

Chris Matthews on Joe Scarborough's show

It's his job to ensure a successful presidency? How the hell are you supposed to do that as a journalist? That's like saying your job as court stenographer is to ensure that a court case is adjudicated successfully. You're either reporting and commentating on the facts, or distorting them intentionally. Of course, there exists a degree of bias in journalism as honest people view facts and events through the filter of perception, experience, etc. But to say, independent of any particular story that your job is to ensure a successful presidency is at best an admission of a willingness to distort or obscure the facts; and at worst, that he has already done so.

It is not just Chris Matthews by a long shot. He's just one of the ones so far removed from objectivity as to not even realize how appalling that statement was. It wasn't enough to get the hook along with Keith Olbermann from MSNBC's election coverage. One would think it a wake-up call when that network thinks you're too biased. Apparently not.

Where does that leave us? The notion that ideas such as creation of a civilian security force of equal power as the US military, or a government-mandated community service program, or raising taxes in the middle of a recession, are casually being tossed around by Barack Obama before he has even been sworn in is scary enough. But to think that the mainstream media is going to look the other way and give this guy the same free pass as during the campaign is frightening.

Have you seen the video of the schoolkids singing that song for Obama? Although the official version seems to have already been pulled from youtube, you can still see dozens of copies that creatively represent what many were thinking after seeing or hearing it; that the zeal for Barack Obama is approaching something disturbing. Here are just a couple:

I'm not much for the use of scare tactics in politics. But if you're a supporter of Barack Obama, does this give you pause? Do you look back at the way the mainstream press has all but adored Barack Obama and given him a pass on an otherwise poor resume? Can you imagine being openly supportive of McCain (or anyone else) on a college campus? I think a Yankee fan wearing an A-Rod jersey in Fenway Park would feel more love.

Do I think Barack Obama is comparable to Hitler? Of course not. But given our experience on this planet, we've learned the hard way that men (and woman) make for horrible substitutes for God and should not be adored this way. I do think win or lose in November, there is going to be a huge letdown for those folks who were hoping for their Messiah to be inaugurated in January. No man can live up to the expectations in this creepy song - especially if all he does is raise taxes and never mention the word "change" again.