Letters
Letters to the editor, Dec. 11
TBO.com
Published: December 10, 2011
Payroll tax holidayPublished: December 10, 2011
The recent warfare over the payroll tax holiday is being used as a hammer against the Republican Party. For those who don't understand what the payroll tax does, here is a short primer.
The payroll tax is the tax collected from you and your employer as your contribution to the Social Security Trust Fund. You must understand that every dollar that is lost to the payroll tax holiday is a dollar taken away from the Social Security Trust Fund. The very same fund that pays your Social Security check every month.
So for you who are on Social Security this is what is happening. President Barack Obama is taking money that should be going into the fund for you and giving it to people who are still working trying to build up the fund for their retirement. Except the money the worker is paying in is 3 percent less then it should be.
Isn't this guy great? Claims he is worried about you, the retired voter, and at the same time is taking money from your retirement fund. Claims that he is giving you, the worker, a tax break at the same time he is taking money away from your retirement fund. Yup, this guy is a real lawyer. If his mouth is moving he is lying.
That means that the same people who are, out of one side of their mouth, telling you that they will not allow touching the Social Security System are touching, out of the other side of their mouth, that system for $300-plus billion. Mr. Obama is on the TV every day chiding the Republican Party for their opposition to this stimulation plan.
Really! He wants to chide someone for protecting the Social Security Trust Fund. Does this man think that we are all blithering idiots? If you think the 3 percent reduction is worth further endangerment of the fund that takes care of some of your retirement, you are welcome to do so.
You must, however, at the same time, wonder why we haven't gotten an adjustment to our Social Security payments for the last two years under the leadership of the idiot in chief. This guy thinks you are stupid on both sides of the issue.
I guess if you voted for him he is probably right. You are too stupid to catch him at his community agitator, lawyer doubletalk. I really don't want anyone who voted for this guy to ever say to me anything about the Social Security Trust fund going broke. You will get an earful from me if you do.
Obamacare took $500 billion out of the Medicare system, counted it as a saving on the debt, then spent it on another part of the Obamacare bill. I know that kind of math will get me into jail if I try to do it. Where does it get him? It gets him more votes from his base.
You really have to hand it to this guy. He really knows that his base doesn't have a clue about what he is trying to do to them. I guess all they worry about, according to Chris Matthews of MSNBC, is the tingle that runs up their leg when he speaks.
Please, Mr. Obama, you should resign for the good of your country. You are, without a doubt, the worst president this country has ever, in a moment of insanity, elected to office.
Gerald Lesmeister
Weeki Wachee
What's ahead for America?
For almost three years we have seen President Barack Obama changing this nation with his own ideology and transforming it to become like another socialist state.
If that is so, why then aren't there more Americans opposing what he is doing to this country or worried that he may get another four years of dismantling our nation? Worse than that, why are there so many supporting Obama's ideologies and his reelection? Do we have a divided nation at a time we are at war on foreign lands and the threat of nuclear war from Iran is looming?
President Obama's transformation of our government is not intended to be just temporary. He wants to transform our free nation to become subservient to the government. If he gets his way it will become permanent and devastating to all freedom-loving Americans. It will flip-flop our republic where the people will be subservient to the government. If that happens we will have a dictator or king at the helm of our nation.
Our Founding Fathers formed our government with the constitutional provisions of not having a king ruling over its citizens. They even considered not allowing anyone in government from having a nobility title. The Federal Nobility Clause is a provision in Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution that forbids the United States from granting titles of nobility and restricts members of the government from receiving gifts from foreign states without the consent of the United States Congress.
Obama claims the middle class has been hampered by big business, when it is big business that provides the jobs. The government doesn't provide jobs that result in making money and yielding profits, profits that are used to reinvest or grow the business.
It is not the government's business to know what a CEO makes or what he does with his money, so long as it was done legally. If the lack of jobs is hurting this nation, it is because this government has done everything to impede business from being successful and competitive here and abroad.
Recently, Obama was promoting his progressive agenda by chiding the Republicans by saying that "their philosophy is simple, that people are better off when everyone is left to fend for themselves and play by the Republican rules."
The Republican rule is simple: Keep the government off your back so that you as an individual are free to fend for yourself and seek opportunities in order to pursue your inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. On the other hand, Obama's philosophy is simple but very un-American: "more big government — less freedoms."
What Obama overlooks is that America has been the land of opportunities and free people who need to be responsible for their own actions, and take pride on what they do that is good. When the government provides everything to individuals they become indebted to the government and ultimately become as slaves. There is nothing the government does that doesn't have "strings" attached.
Problems are better solved by individual efforts than through government programs. The real point of progressivism is not to solve problems at all, but to create chaos. Obama's ideology is not looking out for the freedoms of the people; he is looking out for big government and the subjugation of the people it rules.
Electing a new president may not be enough to save the United States from socialism. Our prosperity doesn't deserve this kind of ideology or inheriting a $15 trillion national debt. The people cannot depend on the Congress to fix things alone; they are part of the problems. It is going to take the people to become informed and involved, follow the Constitution and its provisions and take back the government that has been hijacked by progressives and Marxists.
So what is the point on all this? If Obama wins the presidential election in 2012, America will fall from within like the Roman Empire. If elected, he will continue to push for socialism and more government control over our lives. In doing so he must ultimately trash the U.S. Constitution and our Bill of Rights, since that is where the government is supposed to get its powers and the people get their rights and liberties.
Can this really happen to America? Yes!
The fall of America may come, not because of only one man's ideology, but because God and His absolute moral values are being removed from our everyday existence and being replaced with human values such as greed and humanism. Remember, our national motto reads: "In God We Trust."
Our Declaration of Independence reminds us that our Founding Fathers did acknowledge that God's providence did have a hand in creating this nation:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness."
Do we need a Declaration of Independence from our own Obama-styled government? We must stand our ground and fight for our rights and our American heritage. If we don't, who will? Our pledge of allegiance to the American flag says it best:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Vinny Martinez
Brooksville
Stronger interrogation methods needed
The terrorists of al-Qaida are on a crusade to kill us and destroy America. They are smart and secretive and work in small groups, and they are difficult to locate. These terrorists are supported financially by Muslim extremists throughout the world and especially by Iran.
These terrorists know all of our weak spots, and what they do not know, they learn by watching our television news.
The object of interrogation is to learn what they are or were plotting and who the plotters are, in order to prevent the killings of our citizens and the destruction of our property. This interrogation will not be easy because al-Qaida members have been taught to say nothing to our interrogators in the event they are caught.
The problem is how to force them to reveal their plot. They are not going to cooperate with our interrogators, as they have sworn to die first, if necessary; and if they die, they have been promised by the al-Qaida officials that they will go to heaven and have sex with 62 virgins. Al-Qaida is well-financed and motivated to carry out its plans of death to Americans.
The only way we are going to be able to force them to reveal their plots against us is by using stronger methods of interrogation than just asking them questions.
We are not in a conventional war with al-Qaida, but in a war dealing with hundreds of small groups spread throughout the country that can have access to explosives, entering our country legally or illegally and by sleepers already in our country.
If we are not able to obtain information of their plot through stronger methods of interrogation, then Americans will die.
The liberals and the American Civil Liberties Union complain against using stronger methods of interrogation, in that we are damaging our image to the world. What is more important — our image or protecting our people from being killed?
Our enemies do not care about our image, as their methods of interrogation are deadly and their object is to kill Americans. Presently, our enemies are al-Qaida, Iran, North Korea, Syria, the Muslim brotherhood in North Africa, China and Russia.
The rest of the civilized world understands our problem and the importance of protecting the lives of our citizens.
The reason that you have not heard of any recent attacks by al-Qaida is because they have been caught early by using stronger methods of interrogation, which the liberals have been complaining about.
Stop listening to the propaganda put out by these liberals against using stronger methods of interrogation. Liberals are always complaining about our security — but who care less about the danger we are facing from a formidable adversary who wants to destroy us.
It is important that you write your congressman and tell him we need stronger methods of interrogation.
Norman Pallot
Weeki Wachee