The ADA in the SSRSF

ADA is the Americans with Disabilities Act and SSRSF stands for the Soviet Socialist Republic of San Francisco. Complying with the ADA in the SSRSF is like being stuck in a Kafkaesque nightmare running a gauntlet of perverse petty bureaucrats. Wheelchair ramp will cost $100,000 a foot:

Where else but San Francisco City Hall could a 10-foot-long wheelchair ramp wind up costing $1 million?

Thanks to a maze of bureaucratic indecision and historic restrictions, taxpayers may shell out $100,000 per foot to make the Board of Supervisors president's perch in the historic chambers accessible to the disabled.

What's more, the little remodel job that planners first thought would take three months has stretched into more than four years - and will probably mean the supervisors will have to move out of their hallowed hall for five months while the work is done.

13 years ago I bought an old gunshop which had gone out of business due to SF's anti-gun laws. I drew up plans to turn it into a restaurant and took them to an architect to draw up a formal blueprint for presentation to the building department.

One of the "challenges" I faced was that the space was divided into two levels. The front half was level with the sidewalk and the back half was a mezzanine floor five feet higher. There were steps with a very nice wrought-iron banister.

I studied the building codes and realized that I would have to put in a wheelchair ramp. The rule was that, if I did reconstruction costing more than $17,000, then I would have to comply with the ADA. The contractors had given me an estimate of $75,000.

I looked at the idea of installing a wheelchair elevator and asked disabled people what they thought of that. They unanimously were against the idea as it made them less independent and attracted a lot of attention when using it. So I designed a ramp and the architect drew up the blueprint.

Wheelchair accessible bathrooms also had to be built and the front door had to be wheelchair accessible. I didn't mind any of this because, at the time, I thought I might be running that business till the day I died and might need wheelchair accessibility myself before I kicked the bucket.

According to the code there were two ways in which to make the front door wheelchair accessible: double doors that swung inwards or a single 4 foot wide door that swung both ways. Double doors were not an option as that would have meant removing a weight-bearing wall at huge cost so I opted for the swinging door.

Finally the blueprint was ready and I took them to the building inspector, a Chinese guy. I approached his desk and said, "Good morning. How are you?" Not even looking up at me, he gestured rudely for me to sit.

As soon as I rolled open the blueprint, he pounced on the front door and said. "This is not up to code. You have to have double doors."

I said, "No, I don't. I can also put in a swinging door. I've studied the code. Go and get a copy of the code and I will show you exactly where it says that."

"Well, I'm telling you that it is not up to code. Come back when you get your architect to amend the blueprint for double doors."

"Look, Mr X," I said; "I don't know why you even bothered to come to America. I don't know about you but I came here to pursue happiness. How about you? You don't seem like a very happy man to me. In fact you're the most miserable person I've met in a long time. Why don't you go back to China? And while you're about it, learn to read because you obviously haven't read the code correctly."

I rolled up the blueprint and went to the architect to tell him what happened.

"Oh, boy, now you've done it. There's only two ways to deal with these folks. The Chinese control the department. If you're Chinese, you can bribe them but they won't take bribes from white people because they're scared of entrapment. White people have to kowtow. You'll be lucky if you ever get your plans approved. You better let me deal with them from now on."

To cut a long story short: I was blackballed for the next six months. Not one of the inspectors would accept my plans. Eventually a new chief inspector was hired, a Mexican guy whom the architect had known for years. Finally my plans were inspected.

What was supposed to be a six months construction job costing $75,000 turned into a 18 months job costing $150,000. I won't go into detail but it seemed like every other week the inspector would order another change. For instance: the handrail on the steps from the kitchen to the dining-room had to be lowered to 32 inches.

Why 32 inches? Because that was the standard height for all counter-tops and handrails. Why? Because they had to be accessible to people in wheelchairs! Every work-surface in the kitchen had to be lowered to 32 inches for the same reason.

If I live to be 100, I will always hate that 32 inches. Have you ever tried to work on a counter-top at that height? It is back-breaking. If you did not need a wheelchair before working in an ADA approved kitchen, you will soon need a wheelchair because you will be crippled.

PS The Mexican chief inspector was caught taking bribes (not from me) soon after and was fired and replaced by the Chinese guy.

Videos I've watched lately

I'm still ODed on politics so here's another non-political post.

Blades of Glory (2007)

When a scandal strips them of their gold medals, two world-class skaters (Will Ferrell and Jon Heder) skirt their way back onto the ice via a loophole that allows them to compete together as a pairs team. Will Arnett ("Arrested Development") and Amy Poehler ("Saturday Night Live") co-star as their competitive on-ice rivals who vow to use their triple axel to the fullest advantage.

Every now and then I enjoy a really good dumb comedy. This was dumb but it wasn't that good. Two stars.

Broken English (2007)

Writer-director Zoe R. Cassavetes' charming indie yarn follows 30ish New Yorker Nora Wilder (Parker Posey), a single woman in a dead-end job whose friends are all happily engaged romantically. But love seems to elude Nora -- until she meets an oddball Frenchman (played by Melvil Poupaud) who helps her discover life beyond her self-imposed boundaries. Gena Rowlands, Griffin Dunne and Drea de Matteo also star.

John Cassavetes' daughter directs her mother, Gena Rowlands, and the kooky Parker Posey in a "quirky" chick-flick. Three stars.

Meet the Robinsons (2007)

In this animated adventure, brilliant preteen inventor Lewis (voiced by Daniel Hansen) creates a memory scanner to retrieve his earliest recollections and find out why his mother gave him up for adoption. But when the villainous Bowler Hat Guy steals the machine, Lewis is ready to give up on his quest -- until the mysterious Wilbur Robinson (Wesley Singerman) shows up on the scene, whisking Lewis to the future to find the scanner ... and his mom.

I loved every minute of this movie. It has a clever story. It's funny and the art is beautiful, original and almost psychedelic in parts. Four stars.

Ratatouille (2007)

Brad Bird (The Incredibles) co-directs this Oscar-nominated Pixar offering, following the antics of a passionate rat named Remy (voiced by Patton Oswalt) who yearns for a sip of the good life. Growing up beneath a five-star Parisian restaurant owned by a famous chef (Brad Garrett), Remy inherits a taste for fine food. But his culinary ambitions only anger his practical father, who wishes his son could just eat garbage like everyone else.

I'm usually not all that enthusiastic about animated films and don't expect too much from them so it was a pleasant surprise to watch two great animated movies in a row. This one is brilliant. Four stars.

The Servant (1963)

This BAFTA-winning drama stars Dirk Bogarde (awarded Best Actor) as Barrett, a seemingly dedicated manservant hired by dim-witted playboy Tony (played by James Fox). As Barrett earns his master's trust, he plots to take control of Tony's affairs, and soon, the servant becomes the master. Written by acclaimed playwright Harold Pinter, this landmark film was directed by Joseph Losey, in the first of three collaborations between the two.

When this was released on DVD, I thought "Great! How can you go wrong with a movie by Losey starring Bogarde and Fox?" I forgot to read the fine print - "written by Harold Pinter." I met Pinter through his nephew who was a friend of mine. He's an asshole - oh sorry - he's a nasty, communist asshole and his sour view of life marks everything that he writes. As good as Bogarde and Fox are, I can't recommend this movie - unless you need something to inspire yourself to commit suicide.

A Good Year (2006)

Oscar-winning director Ridley Scott directs this adaptation of Peter Mayle's best-selling novel, following the romantic misadventures of an Englishman in Provence, France. After inheriting a French vineyard from his uncle Henry (Albert Finney), failed banker Max Skinner (Russell Crowe) moves abroad, where he meets a beautiful American woman (Marion Cotillard) who claims to be his long-lost cousin -- and his uncle's true heir.

Netflix's description is wrong. Marion Cotillard plays a local French woman. She is gorgeous in this movie. She was nominated for an Oscar for her role as Edith Piaf in which she is decidedly not gorgeous. Yes, it's a chick-flick but everyone needs a little magic and romance once in a while and you can't have enough beauty ever. This movie sure is magical, romantic and beautiful. Four stars.

The Nanny Diaries (2007)

College-educated Annie Braddock (Scarlett Johansson) gets a crash course in child care when she plays nanny to the 4-year-old son of grossly dysfunctional parents (Laura Linney and Paul Giamatti). Directed by Shari Springer Berman (American Splendor), this all-star comedy was adapted from the best-selling novel by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, who based their book on their experiences working for Manhattan's wealthiest families.

Not another chick-flick! Yep. I enjoy them especially when they star Scarlett Johansson who is awfully easy on the eyes. Three stars.

The Prestige (2006)

At the dawn of the 20th century, rival magicians Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) are desperate to reveal each other's secrets. Obsessed by the escalating competition, the two illusionists begin to perform increasingly risky tricks -- which soon turn deadly. Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson and David Bowie also star in this taut psychological thriller from director Christopher Nolan.

The best movie that I've watched recently. It's tense, scary, clever and has a surprise twist in the end. Four and a half stars.

The Alice (2004)

In this engrossing made-for-TV drama, adventure, mystery and romance collide as Aussies from across the land Down Under -- drawn by inexplicable forces -- converge on the outback town of Alice Springs to observe a total solar eclipse. When they cross paths, the lives of washed-up rock star Jack Jaffers (Erik Thomson), jittery nurse Helen Gregory (Caitlin McDougall) and botanist Matt Marione (Patrick Brammall) will never be the same.

I've enjoyed oddball Aussie movies ever since I saw Priscilla in 1994 and Welcome to Woop Woop in 1997. This was fun and funny but not as brilliant as the aforementioned farces. Two and a half stars.

Hippies (2006)

In this comic tale, a quintet of contemporary hippies takes to the road in their Volkswagen bus -- dubbed "Kosmic Freedum"-- to attend Preservation Week, an event dedicated to saving the planet. But when they can't get into the festival, they find themselves on their own -- and facing off against loggers, sport utility vehicle owners and, of course, the fuzz. Matt Keating, Amy Renner, Kurt Richter, Kevin George and Michael Roberts star.

I got this because it was filmed in the nearby city of Eugene. It's hilarious. The actors all look like hippies but play their parts with such scathing satire that I wondered if they were really Young Republicans who hated hippies. It's fun but amateurishly produced. Two and a half stars.

Jericho: Season 1 (2006)

Another entry in the new serial genre, this CBS drama revolves around a small town in Kansas that finds itself cut off from the rest of the world after a mushroom cloud appears on the horizon and a TV and radio blackout ensue. Has there been a terrorist attack or a pre-emptive nuclear strike? Faced with terrifying uncertainty, the town -- including the mayor's (Gerald McRaney) prodigal son (Skeet Ulrich) -- begins to come apart at its seams.

This was cancelled by CBS but apparently there was an uproar so they brought it back. It's currently being rebroadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel but we missed recording the first episode so we got the DVD. I absolutely hated the first two episodes because of the hideous melodramatic music, the formulaic "disaster movie" cliches and Hollywood's perverse take on a small town. Maybe people whine and moan and fight each other on Hollywood Boulevard after a disaster but they sure wouldn't do so in my small town. It's basically a sci-fi/disaster soap-opera - but like all halfway decent soaps, it's addictive. You get hooked on the characters and the next thing they're "family." So, yes, I'll watch the rest of it. Two and a half stars.

The death tax is pure communism

In Marx's ten point plan for introducing communism the first three are:

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

What got me start thinking about this was that we were watching Jericho last night (which I got on DVD from Netflix and will review with the other DVDs that I rented in the past month later.) In one scene an IRS auditor tells a farmer, "You owe $180,000 in taxes."

I turned to Chas and Andy and said, "Boy, he must own a very profitable farm."

They turned to me and said, "Maybe he inherited the farm from his parents and it's death taxes that he owes."

Death taxes aka inheritance taxes aka estate taxes are one of the biggest reasons that family farms are becoming a thing of the past and agribusiness now owns most farms. Many times family farms have to be sold just to pay the taxes.

The socalled Estate Tax exempts all legacies left to one's spouse but not to one's children or business partners (like Chas and Andy) so they and my son would have to pay taxes on whatever I bequeath to them.

Currently the first $2,000,000 is exempted from tax but that exemption will drop to $1,000,000 in 2011 when the amount over one million will be taxed at a rate of 55%. Maybe I should hurry up and die before then.

If you think that's a huge amount of money and that you will never have to think about death taxes, think again. I know ordinary middle-class folk in San Francisco who bought houses ten years ago for $180,000. Those houses are now worth over a million.

I'm not rich. By that I mean I don't have lots of money to spend or drive fancy cars and go on expensive vacations. But I do own a farm and an RV park and rental apartments and houses. They provide me with enough money to live on but not enough to live a life of luxury and leisure. And I have to work to maintain my business because, if I sold everything, I would have to pay capital gains tax and that would leave me with too little interest on the capital to provide enough money for me to live on. I'm rich on paper but I'm working class in reality and I earn a lot less than when I worked in pharmacy.

The equity in my real estate is currently worth over a million and will be worth more by 2011. And don't forget that not only equity but also mortgages are counted as part of the value of the estate just as they are for capital gains tax when they are known as "booty." (I thought pirates stole booty. Oh well, I guess the IRS is in the piracy business.)

Think of a farmer who bought a small 40 acre farm in my neck of the woods way back 30 years ago when he could get it for $2,000 an acre. Nowadays in this area farm land averages $35,000 an acre. That's $1,400,000. If the farmhouse is worth $100,000 that makes it one and a half million. Say the farmer's wife dies before him and he dies in 2011 and bequeaths his estate to his son. The son will have to pay 55% of $500,000 in death taxes. That's $275,000. That's the sort of tax bill that my heirs will have to face. Who's got that sort of money lying around? Now you know why the life insurance industry rakes in the shekels.

Oh and I forgot States also have their own death taxes.

Not only death taxes but corporate taxes, capital gains taxes and taxes on savings interest should be lowered (or preferably scrapped altogether.) These taxes are the biggest obstacles to investment and real economic growth - not the fake "growth" that is created by consumer spending.

Until these confiscatory taxes are dumped, our Founding Fathers are spinning in their graves and Karl Marx is clapping his hands with glee in the depths of hell.

"Ideology is mental disorder"

I'm old enough to remember when it was said that communism was an "-ology" or "-ism" and that the opposite of communism was not capitalism but simply freedom; that freedom was not an "-ology" or "-ism" but was the natural state of the human race; that Marxism, Fascism and Nazism were easy to defend and explain because they were man-made "-isms" but that it was impossible to defend or explain freedom because it was not an "-ism."

Well, guess what? Capitalism aka freedom did become an "-ism" called "conservatism." It became an ideology and I'm as much to blame as all the other conservatives because I too began to define it, defend it, proselytize and push it. I can remember how heady the days of the "Capitalist Revolution" were during the Reagan years. I defended capitalism and defined conservatism it till I was blue in the face but sadly, by defining freedom, we too have become ideologists.

Still, defenders of freedom and capitalism are not quite as nuts as defenders of Marxism and socialism mostly because what conservatives are defending does not need to be deceitfully disguised. Defenders of socialism have to disguise their product because they know that it means curtailing peoples' freedom. They have to be deceitful because they are telling a big lie when they say that it is the solution to what ails humans. 100 million dead people know that Marxism/communism/socialism is not the answer.

So, unlike the left, we haven't had to resort to pathological lying which is a real mental illness.We haven't gotten quite as insane as the left yet but some on the right are getting there with their insistence on ideological purity, calling ordinary everyday people RINOs because they are not "ideologically pure" and generally behaving like communist/fascist/nazi party enforcers.

So its nice to read about the left being even loonier than we are.

Top psychiatrist concludes liberals are clinically nuts!

Just when liberals thought it was safe to start identifying themselves as such, an acclaimed, veteran psychiatrist is making the case that the ideology motivating them is actually a mental disorder.

"Based on strikingly irrational beliefs and emotions, modern liberals relentlessly undermine the most important principles on which our freedoms were founded," says Dr. Lyle Rossiter, author of the new book, "The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness." "Like spoiled, angry children, they rebel against the normal responsibilities of adulthood and demand that a parental government meet their needs from cradle to grave."

Health-care rationing or worsening "crisis?"

U.S. split on "socialized medicine":

About 70 percent of Republicans said socialized medicine would be worse than the current system, while the same percentage of Democrats said it would be better.

Among independent voters, 43 percent say they believe socialized medicine would be better and 38 percent worse. The poll, conducted by Harris Interactive for Harvard, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

72 million (42.6 percent) Americans were registered Democrats, compared to 55 million (32.5 percent) Republicans and 42 million (24.8 percent) Independents for a total of 169 million registered voters.

50.4 million Dems want socialized health-care as do 16.5 million Repubs and 18 million Indies. 85 million of the 169 million registered voters want socialized health-care. So we are divided 50/50 on this issue (as we are on many other issues) and some sort of compromise will have to be reached.

I know why some people are scared and want a safety-net because I once faced a health crisis with no insurance. I had just spent every penny I had to open my restaurant and did not yet have enough money to buy insurance. I probably would have tightened my belt if I had had any serious illness in my past but I was nearly 50 years old at the time and had never had a serious illness before and seldom went to a doctor even though I had employer-paid insurance.

Then suddenly, out of the blue, I had to have emergency surgery followed up by a second surgery a few months later. The hospital bill came to $126,000 and the hospital threatened to place a lien on my house for that amount.

Because I had worked in hospitals for most of my 30 years in pharmacy, I knew how they priced their services: the wholesale cost of everything is multiplied by ten. I told them that I would pay them the cost price of everything, $12,600 and, if they did not accept that, then I would declare bankruptcy and they would be lucky to get a penny on the dollar.

I was also very lucky that the surgeon, cardiologist and the other doctors who attended me knew me because I had worked in that particular hospital for 12 years. They took pity on me and waived their fees.

So, yes, I understand peoples' fears. Even with the best insurance that I can currently buy today, only 80% is covered and, if I had to have the same surgeries again, I would still be stuck with a hospital bill of $25,000. A debt like that can be devastating to an ordinary working-class or middle-class person.

Why are health-care costs so high? Why do hospitals charge ten times the wholesale cost? Why do doctors charge a thousand dollars an hour? There are two reasons: 1) those who can pay are paying for those who cannot and 2) there is no financial accountability in our current employer-paid insurance system.

I spend about $6,000 a year on health insurance premiums, deductibles and co-pays. I haven't been to a doctor in 2 years and do not have to take expensive medicines. That's money down the drain.

I'm going to use today's figures for this exercise. Just say that I had saved $6,000 a year for the 30 years that I worked before my catastrophic illness. I would have had $180,000 in a health savings account (and that's not counting the interest earned.) I would have been able to pay my $126,000 hospital bill and still had some change left over.

And even better: just say that hospitals priced their goods and services the way other industries do and did a 50% mark-up on the wholesale costs. My hospital bill of $126,000 would have been about $19,000 and I would have had lots of money left over to pay for future health crises in my old age.

The health-care industry is sick because of the employer-paid health insurance system where no-one is accountable for cost control. When we think in terms of "the boss is paying" or "the insurance company is paying" there is no need for us to question the costs. One-third of the health insurance industries revenue is for administration. That's just bad business, on a par with bureaucratic financial incompetence.

But let me take one step back. In order for hospitals to be able to charge me $19,000 instead of $126,000, they would not be able to treat non-paying patients. Hospitals are not allowed to turn away anyone. The Federal government and states and cities provide them with some money to cover the costs of treating indigent patients but not enough to cover all the costs so insured patients are subsidizing the uninsured.

In order to keep costs in line with actual reality and generally accepted economic principles, everyone must have mandatory insurance and that insurance should be paid by the customer not a third party as it is with employer-paid insurance.

And in fact most Americans back mandatory health coverage:

As health care generates debate in this year's presidential campaign, about 68 percent of Americans say individuals should be required to have medical insurance, with government help for those who cannot afford it, a survey released on Tuesday found.

The way I think about it is that car insurance is mandatory so I'm not that bothered by the coerciveness of mandatory health insurance. The problem is getting the government involved in paying for those who cannot afford it. Bureaucratic inefficiency and rising expectations of more and better "entitlements" will lead us into the hell-holes of the British and Canadian "National Health Services."

When I lived in South Africa everyone had to buy government supplied liability insurance before you could get a driver's license. It was called "third party insurance." I don't know if that is still the case in modern South Africa. It was cheap and covered all damage or injury to a third party. If you wanted more insurance because you had a fancy car, then you paid for it out of your own pocket.

There was also basic health insurance coverage which was paid for out of your taxes. This insurance covered everyone and provided free emergency health-care in government hospitals. It was limited to basic life-saving first aid treatment. If you wanted fancier treatment (like for cosmetic surgery or heart transplants) then you paid for it yourself or bought private insurance.

In order to stop the current practice of padding paying patients' bills to pay for those who cannot pay, we have to have some sort of basic free health-care but it must be kept to a minimum - only life-saving first aid treatment. If you can't afford to pay for face transplants, silicone tits or plastic hearts, oops, life is cruel.

I would prefer that this basic health-care not be run by the government but, because we are split 50/50 on the issue of socialized health-care, I know that some sort of compromise will have to be hammered out and it will probably be that basic health-care is covered by taxes in government hospitals.

We already have quite a lot of government provided health-care and of course it is run very inefficiently. For instance senior benefit costs up 24%:

Health care crisis leads to 8-year rise.

The cost of government benefits for seniors soared to a record $27,289 per senior in 2007, according to a USA TODAY analysis.

That's a 24% increase above the inflation rate since 2000. Medical costs are the biggest reason. Last year, for the first time, health care and nursing homes cost the government more than Social Security payments for seniors age 65 and older. The average Social Security benefit per senior in 2007 was $13,184.

"We have a health care crisis. We don't have an entitlement crisis," says David Certner, legislative policy director of the AARP, which represents seniors.

He says seniors shouldn't be blamed for the growing cost of government retirement programs.

The federal government spent $952 billion in 2007 on elderly benefits, up from $601 billion in 2000. It's the biggest function of the federal government. States chipped in $27 billion more in 2007, mostly for nursing homes.

All three major senior programs - Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid - experienced dramatically escalating costs that outstripped inflation and the growth in the senior population.

Sorry, Mr "policy director of the AARP" but it is an entitlement crisis. Thirty years ago, when I first came to the USA, Americans were taking an average of 3.5 medications per day. Now it is 11.5. You know: like Viagra for seniors on Medicare. Those "escalating costs that outstripped inflation and the growth in the senior population" are due to the costs of some pretty outlandish "medicines" and often totally unnecessary "tests."

We have to face the fact that the health-care industry will continue to be in state of "crisis" until people only get what they pay for. But that won't happen because no-one likes the idea of saying no to a child who needs a liver transplant but whose parents can't afford it. To me that's when an appeal for charity should be the solution but, however it happens, we have to pay for what we want.

Until we face the fact that health-care is a business just like any other and the rich can afford face transplants, silicone tits or plastic hearts while the poor cannot, we'll be stuck in a permanent and worsening health-care "crisis."

The only solution is health-care rationing. You get what you pay for. Yes, I know it sounds cold and cruel but life is often cold and cruel.

Happy birthday Emperor Norton

I am just fed up with the air of doom and gloom among my fellow Republican political bloggers right now and was thinking of something light-hearted to post. Then I remembered this post that I did two years ago.

One of San Francisco's most famous citizens was Emperor Norton. When I first heard about Emperor Norton, soon after arriving in San Francisco nearly 30 years ago, I did not know that he was a fellow South African.

Joshua Abraham Norton was born on February 14th, 1819. He lived in Algoa Bay in South Africa where his father was a prosperous merchant. When he was 30 he decided to come to California during the Gold Rush and arrived in San Francisco aboard the Dutch schooner, Franzika, in 1849. Norton did not go searching for gold but instead decided to follow in his father's footsteps and go into business as a merchant. He had come to America with a nest egg of thirty thousand dollars, with which he opened a business selling supplies to gold miners. He prospered and started buying up the land that would eventually become San Francisco’s Cow Hollow district.

By 1855, Norton was one of the most respected businessmen in San Francisco. Because of his large real estate holdings, his friends started referring to him as “Emperor.” It was at this time that he hit on idea of cornering San Francisco’s rice market. The city’s large Chinese population were a ready market. In those days the only way rice (or almost anything else) arrived was aboard cargo steamships. Investors were quick to sign on. But this venture failed when two ships full of rice arrived in San Francisco and undercut his market.

Norton spent the next three years in court, and emerged penniless in 1858. Then he disappeared for about nine months. There is no record of where he went. He returned suddenly in the late summer of 1859, proudly walking the streets in a beaver hat and navel regalia. His behaviour was so eccentric that people began to say that he had gone mad. That September, he walked into the offices of the San Francisco Bulletin and presented them with this single sentence, which they ran on the next edition’s front page:

At the peremtory request of a large majority of the citizens of these United States, I, Joshua Norton, formerly of Algoa Bay, Cape of Good Hope, and now for the past nine years and ten months of San Francisco, California, declare and proclaim myself Emperor of these United States, and in virtue of the authority thereby in me vested do hereby order and direct the representatives of the different States of the Union to assemble in Musical Hall of this city, on the 1st day of February next, then and there to make such alterations in the existing laws of the Union as may ameliorate the evils under which the country is laboring, and thereby cause confidence to exist, both at home and abroad, in our stability and integrity.

Norton I
Emperor of the United States
September 17th, 1859

That day people on the streets of San Francisco began greeting Norton with deep bows and curtsies.

Norton I ruled by proclamation, and it didn’t seem to upset him if not all his edicts were carried out. If taxes or water rates were too high, he commanded that they be lowered. If there were inadequacies in the city services, he ordered improvements. On the eve of the Civil War he temporarily dissolved the Union. After the Prussian victory in 1872, he ordered a week of continuous celebration and thanksgiving. Bay Area newspapers competed for the honor of posting his proclamations, and more than once they devised fakes to generate sales and interest, a practice against which the Emperor railed angrily.

Few monarchs ever had Norton’s common touch; he abjured seclusion and luxury. He attended every public function or meeting, always arriving by foot or bicycle rather than coach, and performed daily rounds of his capitol’s streets, making sure the police were on their beats, and that cleanliness, harmony and order prevailed. If he noticed someone performing some kind act or other, he might spontaneously ennoble them, from which practice the expression “Queen for a day” was obtained. (Of course that title has come to mean something entirely different in San Francisco nowadays.) The titles were especially popular with children, who would follow him in groups, looking everywhere for litter to pick up or old ladies to help across the street.

Norton’s personal expenses were few. He ate free of charge at whatever restaurant suited him. After he visited an establishment, the owners were permitted to post a sign: "By Appointment to His Majesty Emperor, Joshua Norton I." Invariably, these "appointments" brought great business to the saloon or restaurant so graced. He had three seats reserved for him at every opera and theater performance (one for himself and one each for his famously well-behaved dogs, Bummer and Lazarus.)

The city itself actually paid for his uniforms and the local Masonic Lodge paid for his small apartment. Nonetheless, whenever necessary, Norton had his own currency printed, which was accepted everywhere without question which was surprising because, at that time, U.S. paper money was still regarded with distrust in California. He also had the option of levying taxes, for which his normal procedure was to walk into the offices of an old business friend and politely announce an imperial assessment of ten million or so dollars, but he could usually be talked down to two or three dollars, or perhaps a cigar.

Still though, this wasn’t really legal, and feelings towards Norton I amongst the police were rather mixed. In January of 1867, in fact, he was arrested by an overzealous policeman “to be confined for treatment of a mental disorder,” and held at the police station pending a hearing. The public outrage was immediate. Every newspaper editorial denounced the action and there was the real possibility of a riot. Chief of Police, Patrick Crowley, himself opened the cell doors and issued a lengthy public apology to the Emperor. Norton himself was magnanimous about the whole affair and from then on his relations with the police became much more congenial. He led their annual parades and inspected the new cadets; members of what he now called his Imperial Constabulary saluted him when he passed.

Norton I was a great believer in progress and innovation, and many of his ideas, for which he was sometimes regarded as mad, have become realities. He issued numerous proclamations proposing and then finally commanding the construction of a suspension bridge linking San Francisco and Oakland, complete with his own design sketches. His planned San Francisco terminus is within a block of where the Bay Bridge abuts now, and a plaque on it bears testimony to his foresight. He was also convinced that travel by air would one day become common and commissioned panels of researchers and designers to create plans for airships.

The Emperor called for a world of leisure and creativity, a country of the mind without borders, in which all were engaged in their most creative work. Waiters and busboys would present lectures and philosophers would clean tables. ("I could argue all day about the significance of facing east in religious rituals, but a clean table is a clean table.") He inspired scientists and engineers to draw up plans for great civic projects, mile-high buildings, gigantic ocean-going balloons propelled by bicyclists, a network of tubes beneath the city to speed postal deliveries. The plans themselves were considered to be great works of art, and exhibitions drew great throngs. Alas, all records of these plans were lost in the great fire after the earthquake of 1906.

Perhaps the most unusual contribution of Emperor Norton to the city's history was the Modern Aires orchestra; an orchestra composed entirely of recently-invented instruments, such as the bailerophone, the saxophone, and the onmiphone. Although performances were almost painfully cacophonous, San Francisco's citizens flocked to them, laughing and holding their hands over their ears as necessary. Since many of these instruments were so new no one knew how they should sound, the orchestra was different for almost every performance; it was not an uncommon sight for musicians and audience to change places during the course of a program.

Emperor Norton wore a blue military uniform with tarnished gold-plated epaulets, which had been given him by the officers at the Presidio United States Army post, and a beaver hat decorated with a peacock feather and a rosette, and he always carried both a cane and an umbrella. When his uniform began to look shabby, the Board of Supervisors, with a great deal of ceremony, appropriated enough money to buy him another, for which the Emperor sent them a gracious note of thanks and a patent of nobility in perpetuity for each Supervisor.

He sent frequent cables to fellow rulers, offering surprisingly well-informed advice or reflecting on the complex responsibilities of rulership. Many of the responses he got were in fact forgeries, created by his friends to make him happy, but many were not. King Kamehameha of Hawaii (known then as the Sandwich Isles) was so taken with the Emperor’s insight and understanding that towards the end of his life he refused to recognize the U.S. State Department, saying he would deal only with representatives of the Emperor.

Norton I died quite suddenly of "apoplexy," on January 8th, 1880, at the corner of California and Grant, on his way to a scientific conference. He left no heir. He left an estate comprising a two-and-a-half dollar gold piece, three dollars in silver, a franc piece of 1828, and 1,098,235 shares of stock in a worthless gold mine.

San Francisco went into a period of deep mourning for three days. Ten thousand people from every walk of life lined up to view his mortal remains and his funeral cortege was two miles long. At 2:39 p.m. that day, during his funeral, San Francisco experienced a total eclipse of the sun. Fifty-four years later, Norton’s coffin was re-interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in Colma (a small town south of San Francisco known as the City of the Dead because of all the cemeteries.) Once again, flags throughout the city were lowered and businesses closed their doors. About sixty thousand people attended the ceremony, which was accompanied by full military honors and taps.

Pic one: Norton at the age of 35 when he was at the height of his financial success.

Pic two: Norton, when he first returned after disappearing for nine months.

Pic three: a formal portrait of the Emperor.

Pic four: a cartoon of Norton helping himself to dinner watched by his devoted dogs, Bummer and Lazarus.

"How can you support McCain?"

I've been busy with email all morning - not my regular email but stuff like this from fellow bloggers and readers of my blog:

"How can you even think about voting for McCain let alone actively promoting him on your blog?"

"I was amazed at how easily you switched from supporting Fred to supporting Romney but I am shocked at how easily you switched to McCain. You're no better than those politicians who badmouthed McCain last month and are endorsing him now. I'm not sure I can trust your opinions anymore."

"I'm not surprised that people are no longer reading your blog. Maybe you don't realize how much conservatives hate McCain. I thought you were passionate about Fred and what he stands for but now I begin to doubt your sincerity."

It is true that visits to my blog have dropped from an average of 300 a day down to about 230 since I started promoting McCain and nearly half of the visits that I had yesterday were from the link at Michelle Malkin. I really do understand conservatives' distaste for McCain - especially my fellow bloggers who are a pretty passionate bunch.

I may be passionate about politics but I'm not passionate about politicians. Sure I got fired up over Fred but it looks like even he was playing political games. The last time that I was passionate about a politician was also the first time.

I first got involved in politics when I was 18 and very idealistic. I was working on the campaign of an anti-apartheid activist in South Africa. I was really fired up until I got to know the candidate. I hated him from day one. He was arrogant and patronizing towards the black people for whom he was supposedly working and in it only for his own self-aggrandizement. But I held my nose because he was working for a good cause and it's been like that for me ever since.

I'm not cynical but I am worldly-wise. Working in the corporate world for three decades before going into business on my own, made me very cautious about getting my passions involved in power struggles or politics. Corporate culture is almost dirtier than politics and it's just as cold and calculating.

Like the politicians "who badmouthed McCain last month and are endorsing him now," I've made a very cold and calculating decision to back Mac because I think the alternative is worse. And, when I decide to back someone, I stop looking at the negatives and accentuate the positive. That's politics.

The GOP is not the "Conservative Party"

The GOP started off as a pretty radical "progressive party." You can't get much more radical or progressive than to want to abolish the status quo i.e. slavery. But it soon evolved into a rather stodgy, safe, middle-of-the-road common-sense centrist/moderate movement and was so for a century.

By the time the modern "conservative movement" came about in the late 1950s/early 1960s, the Democratic Party had been taken over by socialists and could obviously not be home to the conservative movement so it was "join the GOP or create a third party." Conservatives knew which side of their bread was buttered.

Reagan may have talked some pretty radical-sounding Goldwaterite rhetoric but he compromised politically and was a centrist not a radical or reactionary. Quite a few of today's socalled conservatives are radical reactionaries, not common-sense centrists.

Listening to Rush ranting about not compromising with Democrats but destroying them, makes me want to phone him and ask him how he's going to do that. Kill them all? I sometimes feel like doing that especially when Berkeley bans the Marines or whenever Reid or Pelosi open their mouths but I know it's not practical. We simply have to live with them and compromise up to a point but not kowtow to them.

Maybe a lot of the purist "all or nothing" types would be happier in the Constitution Party rather than the GOP and then they can wear tee shirts like this:

A riff on "redefining conservatism"

[A "riff" is a loose, free-form essay but it's not a "rant" which is also free-form but it's angry.]

I was listening to Rush in the car on the way into the office this morning. He was talking about how certain people (specifically McCain and Huckabee) are trying to "redefine conservatism." If you think of Rush as one of those who have defined modern conservatism over the past 20 odd years, then yes, he is entitled to accuse Mack and Huck of redefining it. But he is not the only definer of conservatism.

The definers of "conservatism" have written hundreds of books about it. My favorite is Barry Goldwater's 1960 The Conscience of a Conservative but I doubt many self-proclaimed conservatives nowadays would regard Goldwater a conservative. I have a hunch that some of those who voted for Huckabee would not even regard Reagan as a conservative if they simply considered his record without knowing who it referred to.

Fred Thompson made it very clear from the start of his campaign that he was a Goldwater conservative. He told how he had read The Conscience of a Conservative in college and how valuable that had been for him. Maybe that's why modern conservatives rejected Thompson in favor of Huckabee. The unintellectual populist Huckabites probably don't even know who Goldwater was and those who do know also know that Goldwater was a vocal opponent of the religious right on issues such as abortion and gay rights.

When I Googled The Conscience of a Conservative to confirm what year it was published, I found that Goldwater had given a speech at the 1960 GOP convention when party conservatives rebelled against Nixon, accusing him of being a liberal on too many issues. Goldwater told the GOP: “Let’s grow up, conservatives! If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work.” Of course he had to wait for 20 years before Reagan won.

I think he'd say the same thing today but, sadly, the small government/federalist "conservatism" that Goldwater was talking about is now out of fashion. Conservatism nowadays seems to be more about trying to turn back the clock to an imaginary Reagan Utopia.

I agree that McCain is not a conservative as defined by Rush Limbaugh. But McCain is no Goldwater either. He's an older kind of Republican - in the style of Eisenhower and Nixon. Neither is Huckabee a Goldwater conservative and yet more modern conservatives voted for Huckabee than for Thompson, the only Goldwaterite in the race. So were conservatives in the early primaries not listening to Rush when he said Huck was not a true conservative? Maybe.

Supposedly there are about 25 million Republicans and I've heard people say that half of them are conservatives because 12 to 13 million tune into Rush every day but maybe not all of them are Dittoheads. I listen occassionally but I'm not a big Rush fan. I also know liberals who listen to him in order to get their adrenaline rush. So maybe not all Republicans are true-blue Limbaughite conservatives.

I've known quite a lot of different kinds of Republicans - liberal, moderate, conservative and reactionary. I have no idea what the proportions are. All I know is that there are a lot of people who are Republicans because of what they do not want more than what they do want. They do not like the unpatriotic "blame America" Democratic Party or its racial identity politics or its class-warfare rhetoric or its sabotage of self-reliance and personal responsibility through wealth distribution and entitlements.

The thing that all Republicans have in common is a desire to conserve/preserve the traditional American way of life and resist the progressives' headlong rush into European-style statism/socialism. We can never turn the clock back. All we can do is slow it down slightly. So we are agreed on what we don't want but we're not in complete agreement about what we do want.

Some of us would like to see a nation united under Christian principles. Others prefer a secular society - not a free-for-all anarchy but a classical liberal republic as envisaged by the Founders. Some want to be isolationist and not get entangled in unholy alliances. Others believe in realpolitik. Some want to see government limited and curtailed as much as possible. Others, like the neocons, believe that we need a large, strong central government in keeping with our "national greatness." Some want to legislate morality. Others want to be left alone.

I can live with all these different factions within the GOP as long as we all agree on what we don't want: higher taxes, socialism, Big Brother, a politically correct but racially divided "multiculti" society, moral and cultural relativism and weakness in the face of threats from the barbarians at the gate.

Blogrolls

HEADLESS THOMPSON GUNNER BLOGROLL










---


JOIN THE THOMPSON GUNNERS TODAY!!!!!

in the
Hillbilly Ecosystem

Run, Fred, Run! Blogroll

Terrorists for Liberals Blogroll

Wictory Wednesday Blogroll

Join Fair Tax Fans

The Alliance

Glenn Reynolds Says:

"If I had to chose between having Born Again Redneck as a neighbor or a vegetarian hippie peacenik, I'd pick the gun-totin' Redneck anyday even if he is a bit queer."

A hellish day: McCain, trailer trash and chicken hawks

I should have known that it was going to be tough day because I woke up (after a deep night of sleeping like a baby) feeling strong enough to conquer the world. I whistled while I shit, shaved and shampooed (as Shakespeare said.) "Oh, what a beautiful morning. Oh what a beautiful day. Oh what a wonderful feeling. Everything's going my way." Oh really?

When I calmed my mind in order to say my morning prayers, for some strange reason some terrible memories came into my mind. I remembered when Chas spilled wine over the snobby restaurant critic soon after we opened the restaurant. I remembered when my boss at the hospital called me in to her office and told me that my co-workers thought I stank. I got that same sinking feeling in my stomach that I had at those times. I dismissed these thoughts as nonsense and set off for work.

Yesterday the county spread new gravel on the dirt road from the farm down to the village. At the time I wondered why they had used such coarse gravel. About a mile down the road, I heard a sound that I did not like and the car pulled sideways. I stopped and saw that I had a flat tire. And the spare tire was missing. (That's a whole 'nother story. Grrr!) I phoned Andy on the cell and sat waiting for him to bring the truck so I could get to the office on time. As I waited, I thought about what else faced me today.

Two of my tenants in my RV park were late with their rent and last week I had given another tenant a notice of eviction. I gave him until today to leave. I wondered if I could get the rent from the delinquents (I did) and if the bum I had evicted would leave or would I have to resort to "drastic measures." "Drastic measures" consists of confronting the bum in the hopes that he can be intimidated to leave voluntarily or hitching the RV up to the truck and towing the bum out - usually under threat of my dismemberment or death.

(RV/trailer parks come in two sizes: fancy vacation RV parks full of rich rambunctious RVers drinking and partying at all hours and destroying hookups and driving the nice folks away or residential RV parks full of old folks and poor white trash. When I bought the RV park I crunched the numbers and made a decision to go for a residential park. Vacation parks only make money in summer and you have to pay someone to be on duty 24 hours a day. The labor costs eat up all profit. Residential parks can be run like apartments with less labor costs.)

I specialize in old folks and 99% of my tenants are angels (almost) but I have a few younger tenants who "turn bad." Yep, drugs.

I evicted that particular tenant because he started getting traffic day and night - a sure sign of drug-dealing - and told him that I would get the cops to check him out . He thought I was bluffing but, sure enough, the cops turned up yesterday just as I was leaving. I got to work this morning wondering if the cops had found drugs and if he had been arrested. He had. So I towed his RV out - thanking God that I didn't have to face the threat of violence.

Next on the agenda was the disappointment of hearing Romney "step aside." What a great speech. Why the hell didn't Mitt have that fire in his eyes earlier? Then, with that same sinking feeling in my stomach, I watched McCain address the CPAC. Yes, lots of people have said he is a lying politician. Guess what? The word "lying" is redundant. I haven't yet met a politician who doesn't lie to some extent. Some fib in order to make something complicated seem simple to us stupid dumb-head peasants; some fib to "save face" out of vanity and others lie through their teeth either because they're plain evil, nuts or so egotistical that they think their shit doesn't stink. Even if McCain is a liar, the Clintons and Obama are worse liars. They are telling the Big Lie: socialism.

Then Chas phoned to say that my favorite hen, the talkative Miss Orky Porky, had been killed by our resident chicken hawk. I said, "Shoot the damn thing. I don't care if it's a protected species!" He tried but failed because he was using the wrong shot. Now the 12-gauge is loaded with pheasant shot ready to kill.

Talking about chicken hawks: McCain's youngest son, Jimmy, is an active Marine and, even if McCain has been a "lying politician" for the past 40 years as his opponents claim, I don't mind giving him a final reward in his old age; a final thank you for what he lived through in Viet Nam; being caught with broken bones only to be further beaten and tortured and imprisoned for five and a half years. I've spent time in jail in apartheid South Africa - days not years. I would have gone insane in five and a half years.

I can forgive him for that alone and give him his final reward. And I'm not alone. A lot of us old coots think like that.

A riff on politics and religion

The real story of this election is how religion has become such a big deal. I used to think that politics and government were there to co-ordinate public projects and national endeavors. At least that's what I gathered from what our Founders intended but it seems that not only the European-style socialist nosy-parking, busy-body Democrats decided that social engineering was the purview of government but, somewhere along the line, so did interfering, moralistic Republicans.

Morality cannot be legislated. No adult appreciates having someone else nagging and wagging fingers at them. All those holier-than-thou Republican moralists screaming about hellfire and brimstone are just as annoying as the sanctimonious socialists banning smoking, carbon pollution and transfats.

The whole point of the American Revolution was: leave me alone and mind your own business. If that goes, we might as well change out name from the USA to Americastan because the PC thought police will soon be telling us exactly how to think and live - and we'll be kowtowing to whiny feminists and angry ragheads before you can say "kismet."

Let me end this by repeating that government is not meant to legislate morality. Oh, I know all the counter-arguments to that. The biggest one is that slavery would not have been ended without Christian abolitionist intervention. Did abolition solve all the problems? No. Would a gradual cultural rejection of slavery have been more effective than having a bunch of self-righteous Christians poking their noses into it? Maybe. Even the Founders were ambivalent about slavery but left it to the conscience of the individual.

Did the Civil Rights movement (enforced by armed government agents) solve all race problems? No. Would it have been more natural if there had been a gradual cultural rejection of segregation. I don't know but I am inclined to think so. Did the end of apartheid bring peace and prosperity to the blacks of South Africa? No.

I'm not a libertarian and don't believe that anything goes and do believe that society is entitled to enforce certain mores but there's a balance and there's a way to go about it. It's by bringing about gradual cultural evolution by changing hearts and minds not by moralistic demagoguery and political thuggery.

Middle America: moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats

Lemuel over at Hillbilly White Trash writes:

What I am seeing is that the McCain supporters are crowing about how they are finally going to be able to purge the conservatives out of the Republican party.

Jason Lewis mentioned this when he was subbing for Rush on Friday; that there is a coup going on in the Republican Party where the "moderate" wing of the Republican Party (moderates are liberals who are ashamed to call themselves liberals) is working with the actual Republican liberals to take back the party from the Reaganites.

Rush has hit on this point as well when he talks about how what he calls the "country club blue blood wing" of the party (also called "chamber of commerce Republicans") has always felt embarrassed by the genuine conservatives and sees McCain as their opportunity to get rid of them once and for all.

That the Republican Party cannot win national elections without its conservative base is of no concern to these people. They were quite happy in the pre-Reagan era when Republicans controlled 140-170 House seats (out of a 435 total).

Maybe - but I see it somewhat differently. The GOP has been the "Chamber of Commerce" party for a long time. Reagan was an anomaly and he was hated by the GOP establishment. Just look at the Republican Presidents in my lifetime: Eisenhower at one time was courted by the Democratic Party and considered the offer; Nixon was definitely not a conservative; Ford even less so and the Bushes are by no means Reaganites.

The GOP only caved in and let Reagan have the nomination because they saw that they didn't have the numbers to win without the Southern conservative Democrats who had voted for Goldwater in 1964. And, yes, the GOP cannot win elections without them - not since the 1960's Civil Rights era when blacks started voting Democrat. The Democrats have the numbers on their side so, to win, the GOP must court conservative Democrats and independent swing voters.

Most of the formerly Democratic Southern religious conservatives have become Republicans but not all of the Northeastern (mostly Catholic) conservative Democrats have. They helped elect Bush Jr but are still swing voters especially at the local level. They are not yet reliable Republicans. We need them to win also. We also need the conservative Democrats in the West - people like my rural neighbors in this county where 70% of the voters are registered Democrats but who voted for Bush Jr both times.

It's an uneasy alliance but not less uneasy than the Democratic coalition where the different groups often loathe each other. Blacks hate gays and hispanics who, in turn, hate blacks and gays and the gays hate everybody.

Anyway, to get back to the moderate Republican "coup." To me it's more like there was a conservative "coup" after Reagan and conservatives dominated the GOP in the 80s and 90s but are now having to take a seat around the sides of the table while the Chamber of Commerce types take the seat at the head of the table once again.

No conservative came to the front in this election unless you count Fred Thompson (and he may have been play-acting.) Tancredo and Hunter failed to get sufficient support. McCain, Romney and Huckabee are all moderates. There is very little policy difference between them. They are all in the middle of the left to right spectrum and, in the end, I made my choice by whom I liked more and whose character seemed better. Romney seems like a gentleman to me. McCain is not a nice man and Huckabee may appear to be a nice man but is actually a nasty devious piece of work.

Us Fredheads were called "far right extremists" by quite a few fellow Republican bloggers and I will admit that I can be a bit of an absolutist when it comes to sticking to Constitutional guidelines and my detestation of communism, socialism, collectivism and statism but I'm pretty comfortable with moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats which is what my much less political neighbors are - and I think most middle-class Americans are.

I just hope that us ordinary Americans pick the right moderate Republican for president. McCain is just as aggressive, confrontational and divisive as the Clintons. I would prefer to have a cool, calm and collected gentleman like Romney in the WH.

Now, I must go about being a good "Chamber of Commerce Republican." Yesterday I got all the financial data from the seller of the motel and have to spend today crunching numbers to see if it makes sense to buy it. It's a really nice property with a second lot of land behind it which is also zoned commercial and on which I intend to build in the future.

The GOP: what's good for business is good for America

Yes, I'm a single-issue voter. I believe that the business of America is business. To me business means free enterprise, private property and individual sovereignty - the most important elements of the American Revolution. That's why I'm a Republican.

I've been reading the comments on this blog and posts and comments on other blogs for and against McCain.

First: (let's get this out of the way) McCain is not the nominee yet; I'm still betting on Romney.

Second: even if McCain is the nominee, there's no assurance that he will be elected President.

Third: even if he is elected, there's no telling exactly how things will go. Voting for a Republican is a crap-shoot just like business - and life in general. You pick your cards and roll the dice and hope for the best - but you've made the effort to remember which cards have already been dealt and you make an educated guess.

Voting for a Democrat is not a crap-shoot. You know for sure that you're going to get more commie crap. So my educated guesses have nearly always led me to vote for Republicans. Yes, deep down inside, I have ideals and wish for politicians who understood the wisdom of the Founders' limited government Constitution but we've strayed so far off course over the centuries that just a modicum of Americanism satisfies me nowadays.

Fred Thompson was a breath of fresh air but how much of his campaign was just an act? Almost too perfect? He is after all a friend of McCain and supposedly was only making an appearance in order to have a go at the Veep-stakes.

So, I picked Mitt Romney next. He has a good record as a businessman but an iffy record as a politician but I'm sticking with him until he quits.

As for whether I'll vote for McCain or not:

If he picks Huckabee (whom I loathe) as VP, it will be hard.

If he picks Thompson (whom I like a lot) as VP, it will be easier but, no matter who he picks for VP, it will never be more than voting for the lesser of two evils and never has been ever since I became an American citizen.

I just know that four years for a businessman is a long time. A lot can happen in four years that will affect my business for decades to come. Yes, I am ideological to a point but, when push comes to shove, I know that Republicans are better for business (private property and individual sovereignty) than Democrats.

A Democrat in the WH and a Democrat majority in Congress will:

Raise income taxes.

Raise capital gains taxes.

Raise corporate taxes.

Raise the minimum wage.

Cause interest rates to be raised to 13 or 14% as they were under Carter.

Appoint judges who have no respect for private property, self defense and individual liberty.

Introduce politically correct legislation that cripples a businessman's ability to decide what's best for his own business. (In Democrat-controlled San Francisco I had to rebuild stairs in my restaurant because the handrails were higher than 30 inches. When I asked why, I was told that was the height approved for wheelchairs. When I pointed out that wheelchairs don't use stairs and it was ridiculous, I was told that I would be not be issued a business license if I did not comply. That's just one example but I know all about Democratic politically correct nonsense first-hand.)

I could go on but you get the gist. Four years of politically correct government could mean that we will be four years closer to not only tolerating sharia but enthusiastically welcoming it in our schools and bureaucracies. Can you spell European-style dhimmitude anyone. Can you smile when you address Big Brother?

Yep, both Romney and McCain could go along with Democratic socialist crap like that but they may not. It's a crap-shoot voting for Republicans but not for Democrats. You just know for sure that Democrats will increase taxes, expand government and introduce more feel-good appeasement baloney. Billary and Obama will not only certainly go along with a Democratic Congress' socialistic nonsense but will actively encourage it.

So, why would I bet on something that I know will definitely be bad for business (and my private life) when I can bet on something that has a 50/50 chance of being good for business?

I will be voting Republican in November no matter who the nominee is. Ideology is for people with philosophical and religious agendas or people who do not have to do payroll taxes, pay health-care and workers' compensation insurance and generally foot the bill out of their own pockets.