I do not choose to be a common man.

It is my right to be uncommon.

I seek opportunity to develop whatever talents God gave me - not security.

I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me.

I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed.

I refuse to barter incentive for a dole.

I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia.

I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout.

I will never cower before any earthly master nor bend to any threat.

It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations and to face the world boldly and say - 'This, with God's help, I have done.'

 All this is what it means to be an American.

- Dean Alfange
 

Keep in mind the admonition of Calvin Coolidge in his great speech celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Declaration:

Copied entirely from Kim DuToit.

I've just about had it up to here with Lefties complaining that when we call them on their latest line of crap, we're "impugning their patriotism" or some such nonsense.

Here's the intrinsic problem, and it's why America is so divided as a nation: we conservative/Red Staters and you liberal/Blue Staters have diametrically-opposed visions of what constitutes the Patria.

Our patria is a representative republic, founded on pretty much immutable Constitutional principle; your patria is a popular democracy with a "living" Constitution.

Our patria is a capitalist society with low, limited and broad-based taxation; your patria is a neo-socialist society with embedded wealth redistribution policies (through onerous graduated tax rates, incremental taxes and inheritance taxes).

Our patria values private property ownership; your patria would prefer that most property belong to the State.

Our patria believes in a State welfare policy which offers a helping hand only to those in genuine need; your patria redefines "need" as "anyone who asks for it".

Our patria values private gun ownership; your patria would prefer that officers of the State be the only armed entity.

Our patria believes in self-reliance; your patria prefers to keep people as wards of the State.

Our patria believes in sovereign nationality; your patria insists that national boundaries are irrelevant.

Our patria believes in devolving political power downward as much as possible; your patria concentrates political power upwards.

Our patria believes in a robust, America-first foreign policy; your patria prefers accommodationism.

Our patria would prefer to fight evil decisively; your patria believes that we have brought most of the evil upon ourselves, and that "evil" is a relative term anyway.

Our patria has a legal system where judges uphold the law; your patria has judges who implement public policy by fiat.

Our patria is a colorblind society; your patria favors tokenism, separatism and affirmative action.

Our patria is a place where personal advancement depends on ability and desire; your patria is envious of the successful and is constantly trying for equality of outcome.

Our patria believes in a strong military; your patria thinks "militarism" is evil.

To make this as succinct as possible:

Our patria is America; your patria is Europe.

But most importantly:

Our patria is the longest-lasting political institution of its kind ever attempted by mankind; your patria has failed miserably in every place ever attempted.

With differences so radical, it's little wonder that the word "patriotism" has become essentially meaningless.

To put it another way, demand for change has too often become an encoded demand for negation of the basic economic, physical, and psychological laws of the universe so that people can have a different outcome without doing anything differently. That is not going to happen. That is not change, it's childishness.
-Robert Kocher

The paradox is that if you think of life as a series of duties… - and of happiness as an undeserved blessing, rather than a right - you are likely to be much happier than if you think happiness is yours by right.

Source 

Reposted from a slashdot.org thread I participated in. I was responding to the red text.

They served their purpose in prehistory (holding Egypt together for several millennia), but we just don’t need such social control systems any more.

I’m not so sure about that. Without God, you must explain moral codes in practical terms. The most basic (lie, cheat, steal)are easy enough. Some of the less obviously explained moral codes are both very important and not easy to explain the practicality thereof. (Envy, gluttony, etc.)

Humans are not fundamentally morally superior now as compared to 5,000 years ago. The only thing that has provably changed in that time is the societal indoctrination methods, and churches are the majority of those methods.

Churches, God, and Sin are ways of imposing codes of behavior that have been show to be successful over several millennia. The concepts of ’God’ and ’Sin’ are necessary to impose these codes of behavior, because you can’t argue with God and you better do what he tells you.

As a child or a teen, how often do you recall arguing with your parents over some matter? Do you recall that you were often unconvinced by their stance?

They had at least two decades more of life experience than you to learn life lessons, and perhaps you might remember they were correct much more often than they were wrong.

But you still argued with them, because you didn’t understand the value of their experience and you had to learn some of the same lessons the hard way, just as they did.

Well, assigning the most basic of these life lessons as commandments from God, with whom you may not argue, and who will punish you eternally for consistently failing to obey him, removes them from the ’negotiable’ list completely. Do not lie. Do not steal. Do not murder. Don’t try to screw your neighbors wife. Don’t make babies with someone you’re not committed to. Don’t be envious, etc.

Any one of these things, when broken, will gain the perpetrator a momentary advantage that is plain for anyone to see. In the long run all are detrimental to both the perpetrator and the society around him. Convincing everyone that God would burn you in hell for eternity for doing any of them made folks decide that the momentary gain wasn’t worth the fire.

Much less obvious is the long term benefit to society when everyone obeys these rules. Both explaining the full logic of why that is so, and getting the student to accept your and societie’s experience is a damn near impossible task with an empty slate of a child or a hormone-driven teenager.

Further, there are countless adults who fail to grasp the utility of the religious rules and traditions we live by. If they are religious, they may yet follow the rules and their lives will be satisfactory, and their impact on society a net positive.

If they are not religious, and do not accept that those traditions and rules exist for reasons they do not grasp, then they will behave as they see fit- leaving ruin in their wake, as lessons learned hundreds or thousands of years ago are tossed out as the baby with the bathwater.

So, allow me to try to summarize if you’ve made it this far:

Religion is a way of passing down millennia of hard-learned lessons in a way that leaves no room for argument.
I would go into the lessons besides ’don’t lie, cheat, murder or steal’, except you might argue with me about those topics, proving my point while convincing yourself I’m anachronistic.

Western civilization lies atop a massive carefully-built structure of unnatural behaviors that enable the tremendous intellectual and material wealth we enjoy today.

That behavioral structure is so carefully crafted and re-enforced that we forget that it is unnatural, and in forgetting that, we disparage the tools with which it was carefully built and must be maintained.

We are not naturally better than folks 5,000 years ago. We are only better because of the methods our ancestors derived to make us internalize their hard-learned lessons early in life.

Incidentally I do believe in God, but that doesn’t prevent me from seeing the anthropology.

We might think of dollars as being "certificates of performance." The better I serve my fellow man, and the higher the value he places on that service, the more certificates of performance he gives me. The more certificates I earn, the greater my claim on the goods my fellow man produces. That’s the morality of the market. In order for one to have a claim on what his fellow man produces, he must first serve him. -- Walter Williams

Today Mary and I took a little road trip.

First we went to Bethel, Me. If you haven't heard, it's where they built a 120' Tall snowman.

It looks like this:

That's Mary and I at the bottom.

Then we proceeded to Lincoln, NH, to check out Pollard Brook, a timeshare resort owned by InnSeason Resorts.

For two hours of our time, they gave us 10x $10 gas mail-in rebate coupons, a $20 gift certificate usable at local eateries, and 4 round trip Airline vouchers that come with enough requirements & restrictions to make a lawyer proud.

Essentially, these gifts are worthless. We knew that going in and figured it would be a fun way to blow an afternoon.

Now the facility itself is fantastic. They have 1-3 bedroom apartments, fully furnished, jacuzzi in the master bedroom, and overall ready to use. There are two pools, a hot tub, a nice gym, an arcade and a few other amenities covered by snow. It's a great facility and I'd pay good money to stay there.

The downside? The 'Vacation Club' package. You purchase a fraction of that facility. They apparently give you a deed and everything. In return, you get some mass of points that can be used for two weeks there or can be exchanged for any number of different locals.

I won't go into the details, but the 'point cost' was directly proportional to the demand/availability of the week you wanted to use, and the popularity of the destination.

Incidentally those two factors affect the price in dollars you pay to stay anywhere that makes a business out of selling lodging. You probably knew that.

So what did they want for two weeks every year at their very nice facility?

$40,000 purchase price and $1,200 per year 'club dues'. Of course they would happily lend us 80% of that purchase price at a maximum rate of 17.9%.

Does anyone see the flaw in this plan?

Before I discuss my particular problem, let us establish that it's a bad idea to borrow money for vacations you might take in the future. I'm not sure I can explain why in great detail. I'm hoping that simply considering it strikes an ill note with you.

Many of you know that Mary and I aren't borrowing money for anything ever again (with the possible exception of a house.)

So for us, the equation would be thus: We have $40,000 that we can put towards some vacation or leisure purpose. (We don't, but we will at some point.)

Now, we could give that $40,000 to InnSeason (along with $1,200 each year thereafter) and spend two weeks at their very nice facility, or some other facility each year. (We could also make various exchanges for other goods or services if we wished. Interestingly enough, we can exchange money for goods and services as well.)

Alternatively, we could put that $40,000 in an investment account. The annual average return of the stock market is 12-13%. After taxes and normal volatility, you could use 8-10% of that $40,000 each year without ever dipping into the $40,000 principal fund.

Adding it all up, this means that the opportunity cost of giving InnSeason $40,000 is $3,200 to $4,000 in income each year. The cost of giving InnSeason $1,200 each year is of course just that.

So, purchasers of this InnSeason 'Vacation Club' plan essentially pay $4,400 to $5,200 each year for two week's vacation lodging only.

When I brought this point up near the end of the 2-hour sales pitch and tour, the entire affair was over within 5 minutes. Our salesman had no good answer for us, and neither did his manager. They gave us our worthless gifts and sent us out the door.

What kind of accomadations do you think you could get for $371 a night?

It turns out that Pollard Brook also accepts plain old cash from people who wish to stay there. In fact, the front desk has a rate card.

A two bedroom deluxe unit (Sleeps 6 comfortably, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, kitchen, living room, jacuzzi and usage of the rest of the facility) ranges from $159 to $349 a night. Only 8 weeks a year cost $349 a night. The remainder of the year costs $199 or $159 a night for a very nice apartment.

This means that if you came off the street and stayed two weeks at the most expensive time of the year, you would come out ahead by roughly $308 per year over people who joined the vacation club.

If you managed to take your vacation in the other 44 non-peak weeks, you would come out over $2,400 ahead each year.

Let me put this quite plainly:

Any John Doe off the street gets a better deal than someone who joins their vacation club, at the very same facility.

By buying into their timeshare/vacation club, you tie yourself into using their or their partner's facilities, you get points that act suspiciously like dollars when it comes time to book (point value is determined by seasonal demand at the requested location, just like the outright dollar cost is) and you get substantially less value for your points than the dollars they cost you.

But wait! There's more!

Because not everyone has the flexibility to use their two weeks every year, many customers list weeks for rent on sites like Vacation Timeshares and Rentals .

A quick perusal shows many weeks available at Pollard Brook for $850, or roughly $121 a night. The low price for booking at the front desk was $159 a night + 8% tax.

Bottom line: A saavy consumer can stay at a very nice facility for as little as a third of what the Timeshare owners are effectively paying.

Pollard Brook in Lincoln, NH is a very nice facility well worth the front desk rates. We may stay there some year. Buying the timeshare, however, is an incredibly stupid idea.

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."

Calvin Coolidge