posted by Joe Polk at 1:38 AM /
Inauguration day was a sad time for Scott Rice.
Rice, who backed the McCain/Palin ticket, said he knew President Obama would try to change America into "a society based on socialist principles." So he walked outside his Mt. Lebanon house that chilly morning, lowered an American flag flying from a pole in his front yard, and raised a different flag — bearing a hammer and sickle.
"I always had the Stars and Stripes up," said Rice, 51, a rental property manager and Army veteran, at his Cochran Road home. "It hurt me to take that down."
Link: www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_640641.html
Rice, who backed the McCain/Palin ticket, said he knew President Obama would try to change America into "a society based on socialist principles." So he walked outside his Mt. Lebanon house that chilly morning, lowered an American flag flying from a pole in his front yard, and raised a different flag — bearing a hammer and sickle.
"I always had the Stars and Stripes up," said Rice, 51, a rental property manager and Army veteran, at his Cochran Road home. "It hurt me to take that down."
Link: www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_640641.html
Labels: ryan rice, scott rice
12 Comments:
Mt. Lebanon resident Nancy Tashman had a letter about this published on Monday at post-gazette.com. That may be why the Trib picked it up.
If you read their entire article, it's easy to see that Mr. Rice strains at a gnat but swallows a camel.
"He's already nationalized the banks and housing..
I guess "nationalizing" the banks under Bush was okay? I didn't notice him flying his hammer and sickle flag when Bush was in office.
Someone needs to tell Mr. Rice to do two things. First, turn off the FoxNews, Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, etc. Second, look up the definition of socialism. If anything, the banks and other big industries - pharma, health insurance, big coal, etc have control our government and our policies. That's not socialist, that's called a plutocracy, and each decade the equality scale shifts more and more away from middle class Americans towards the elite and big business. Now President Obama wants to let Bush's tax cuts expire for the top two tax brackets. The rate for the top tier will still be under 40%, and the folks making this much money typically pay an effective tax rate of around 20% - but somehow this is socialism? What were we when the top tier rate was 90%? 70%???
We're not socialist, and maybe we're not quite a plutocracy, but the more and more I hear the cries of "socialism" and "Hitler!" from the far right the more it seems like on the verge of becoming an Idiocracy.
I've often wondered why there was a Soviet flag flying there. I had figured that it was some Russian immigrant or something.
My point being is that without the further details provided in this article, this type of protest is fruitless. If you're going to protest, put up a big sign or something to accompany your flag.
Schultz, please send me the name of your accountant. I'd love to figure out how to pay an "effective rate of 20%." Good grief!!
Mike/Joe, please extend an invitation to Mr. Rice to join the banter here on Blog Lebo. While I certainly don't agree with everything he says, this Blog has increasingly become an alternative meeting place for Lebo's Democratic Ward Chairs and committee members. A different view or two would be refreshing.
Dave Franklin,
I find Your comment somewhat perplexing considering the number of MLRC members who comment, i.e. Dean Spahr, Joe Wertheim, Bill Lewis) etc. One can refer to the MTLDC webpage to see that there are only 2 current members of the MTLDC who seem to comment on this blog.
On another note- after watching Ted Kennedy's funeral this morning, I was glad to hear President Obama recall how Senator Kennedy came from a time when political adversaries respected each other as patriots. It seems that this has become lost. I would like to put a challenge out there to everyone (Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Independents, etc), not just in responding to this blog, but in their day to day interactions, to attempt to disagree without being disagreeable. I believe if we can do that, we may be able to listen to each other better and find that we have much more in common than different. We may not always agree but, perhaps we may learn to understand. With any luck, we may even learn to develop some respect for each other.
~Gina Niewodowski
Good for Mr. Rice! What many of you don't realize, but soon will, is that with the election of BO along with control of the House and Senate, the true silent majority has been "awoken". BO, like they all do, ran as a moderate but is trying to govern from the extreme left. And, if you've done any research at all and studied the folks he surrounded himself with in his "formative" years, you'd rightly be scared and wake up as well. But you won't.
Sad for you, though, the silent majority is comprised of the folks in America that actually work, pay their taxes, go to church and cherish their right to bear arms. (That's not to imply that some of you on the left don't, but since America is made up of 320 million folks we have to deal in generalities here.) And, coincidentally or not, many of them served or currently do serve in the military. So you can figure out who is going to win this internal "war".
This same silent majority, by the way, is all for the government taking care of individuals who TRULY need to be taken care of. Those that are physically or mentally disabled, the elderly, the veteran, the children who - through no fault of their own - were born into a family that doesn't or can't care for them, etc. etc. It is the folks who CAN work and SHOULD work and SHOULD stop begging the almighty government to care for them that need to learn why America was founded. Or they can simply move to a country that tries to take care of its citizens, but fails, from cradle to grave. (Read anything about how well things are going in France these days?)
You'll recall that Bill Clinton worked hard in this area with welfare and entitlement reform when he partnered with Newt. Unfortunately he didn't go far enough.(Remember Bill? If it weren't for the lack of control of his unit he might have gone down as a Republican's favorite Democratic President. He sure looks like Barry Goldwater compared to BHO.)
So, do what you can to enjoy the remaining three years of BO and the remaining one year of control of the House and/or Senate. Because the jig is up. And, for the record, the Republicans in office are bums, too. They had their chance for a LONG time during Bush II to prove that they were the party of fiscal control. Instead they tried to appease and befriend their buddies on the left and spent, spent and spent. We know where that got 'em.
Why you guys allow or want your govt. (local or national) to be run the exact opposite of the way you run your household is beyond me. You have to balance your checkbook each month. Why shouldn't they?
See you in DC on 9/12! Wake up America!
Bob- I disagree with much of what you said but I did enjoy your humor. Thanks for sharing your thoughts (yes- honestly, thank you).
~ Gina Niewodowski
I like to believe that the majority of Americans cherish all of the Bill of Rights, not just the second amendment, and that those who support the President as well as those who disagree with him value work, paying the taxes that pay for government services, and the right to choose whether, when, and where to pray to the god(s) favored by Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, other faiths and no faiths.
Dave Franklin,
Here is the first table I came across that showed the effective tax rates for all income quintiles as well as the top %'s of incomes. Notice that the effective tax rate for the top 1% of incomes under the column "Individual Income Taxes" is just under 20 percent. Time to fire your accountant.
Gina, you should get your "facts" straight. Bill Lewis is not a member of the MLRC. I do not know about Dean Spahr. I am, though I think they may want to disown me.
Nancy Tishman says "Fox is not a creditable news source" and that we should read the Post-Gazette. What a great sense of humor. I suppose that she gets her "facts" from MSNBC, or NBC, or CBS, or CNN, all of which, or course, are completely unbiased.
Joe Wertheim
I think all the people on this blog are pretty decent compared to some other places I have been, and that's one of the reasons I will even be here. When people stick to facts and don't refer to their own ideology as a given, I am willing to discuss anything and everything because we are starting from a common point of reference. If you find where you agree first, there is a chance of finding an answer instead of just yelling past each other. That's no way to live.
Still, it would be nice if all of us had a get together so we could put faces to names. That could only improve the situation. Then we could have conversations like the one I had a couple of weeks ago about health care. Him: “I’m a conservative and I believe we should work hard and save our money and take care of our families.” Me: “I’m a liberal and I believe we should work hard and save our money and take care of our families.” I really think he had been trained to think I would say “I’m a liberal and I want the government to solve all of my problems.” We should get together and just list all the things that we agree on..
I personally believe that the people with whom I disagree here at Blog Lebo are at least starting from a position of truth and I try to find that before I reply. They might just happen to extrapolate it too far and so turn their argument into a cartoon, which of course then rapidly departs from the truth. But often this is unintentional, and merely a byproduct of stating one's position firmly enough to isolate a Specific Truth from the pack of ideas so as to highlight it. That's fine as long as we all remember that the Whole Truth is never as cut and dried or one-dimensional as one would like.
All of which means that when we are uncivil or discourteous or dismissive we only do ourselves a disfavor by cutting ourselves away from the portion of the Whole Truth that our opponent represents.
Mr. Reich,
Regarding paying taxes, I know of one Mt. Lebanon resident, a staunch conservative, who brags of paying no taxes at all using some scheme involving corporations and the Cayman Islands. He justifies it with his anti-government ideology, but I think it's just selfish and very unpatriotic.
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