Dreams

Today, Doug Deaton stopped by the Des Moines Amplified studios and shot these pictures below. Max, Chad, Holly, and Ray are four of about 70 people using the studios that Duane and I built to help people pursue their dreams.

Our ambition is to put 10 of these in other major cities in the US by the end of the year. We own all of those domains - it's just a matter of finding partners in those cities who want to be part of helping dreams become reality and expand their own networking and potential.

1 Comment
by Brett Rogers, 6/15/2010 12:03:49 AM
Permalink

Lessons from the Primary

I emerge from the Republican primary with a few lessons learned. This is my first year in politics and I got to see it up front and personally. As many of you know, I was very much on the inside of Dave Funk's campaign. Dave is a very classy guy, and handled his defeat tonight with grace.

As a delegate to the Iowa Republican party, and as a guy trying to hawk my wares to the various Republican candidates, I made a lot of relationships. Additionally, I was key to the formation of the Tea Party here in Iowa and Patriot247 and the brainstorming group... I motored my way into politics. With that said, here's my summation of the 3rd District Congressional race, in which Dave (21%) lost a 7-way race, first to Iowa wrestling legend and well-moneyed candidate, Jim Gibbons (28%), and ultimately to State Senator and former mayor, Brad Zaun(43%):

1. Brad Zaun won the race for one reason and one reason only: strong and established relationships. Iowa is a place where personal friendships matter, and the long-time and experienced politician had the relationships necessary to win. Election success is all about getting bodies into the voting booth. Political relationships and an experienced team make that happen.
2. Jim Gibbons had more money than any candidate, but he hid from the debates and from the voters - in part, because he doesn't even live in this district. At the convention, the only people who cheered for him were the teenagers he brought with him. He managed a second-place showing tonight because he raised about a quarter million and spent endlessly on advertising.
3. Dave lost because he didn't raise enough money. Had he raised more money, he would have been able to get his message out to more people. Attracting money is a means of weighing a candidate's viability. It was a challenge for Dave.
4. On the other hand, Dave did as well as he did because he had strong and passionate supporters and he articulated the argument for freedom better than anyone. No one could beat Dave on the issues. He won the debates. For his first political race ever - and in a crowded field and with not much money - he did pretty good. Another candidate with more money, Mark Rees, only got 4%. And Rees got the nod from the state capital's paper, the Des Moines Register.
5. While the press tries to spin his loss as a reason to disregard the tea party crowd, they miss the point - whether it's intentional or just lazy thinking, I can't say. I mean, if Dave's loss with 21% of the vote means that the grassroots movement is worthy of dismissal, wouldn't that mean that we can similarly dismiss the Register's endorsements because Mark Rees' loss with only 4% of the vote? But here is the point: a bunch of political novices have just started establishing their lifelong political relationships with each other. If they continue, they'll grow their influence. I told the crowd of supporters this as I introduced Dave at the end of the night. They can't afford to buy into the media's denunciation of their involvement: their country and their children's futures are at stake.

1. Again, relationships played a factor, but less so than the 3rd District race. Bob has run for governor twice previously, so he had the relationships. So did Terry. A third candidate, Rod Roberts, couldn't crack double digits. It was his first run at governor, so he didn't have the relationships.
2. Vander Plaats is an amazingly gifted speaker. Far better than Branstad. He started his campaign last year. Branstad started much later. Vander Plaats had deeply passionate supporters. Branstad was well-known to have to have kept two sets of books while he was governor, hence his nickname of "Two-Book Terry." So why did Vander Plaats lose? Because he didn't raise quite as much money, and because he made social conservatism the centerpoint of his campaign. He openly said how he would issue an executive order regarding gay marriage once he became governor. He molded himself in the form of Huckabee, who surprisingly won the caucuses in Iowa in the last presidential election. Right down to the Chuck Norris endorsement, Vander Plaats emulated Huckabee in his third run for governor. And he lost. Though the devout will never admit it, social conservatism (aka making Christian government a priority) does make not a winning campaign. I would suggest that it's because social conservatism is not founded in the American principle of freedom of religion. It turns off a majority of voters, except for the devout. When only 41% of the Republican base in Iowa vote for the pronounced social conservative in the race, and he's a better speaker and has the solid base and has money, social conservatism can't be ignored as a factor in the loss. I have to say it: gay marriage is not the really big issue confronting Iowa today. Vander Plaats stubbornly missed that memo, to his harm.
3. Finally, Iowans don't like change much. Branstad is a known entity. Vander Plaats was less known. We tend to keep our Senators around (Harkin and Grassley) despite their various and frequent faux pas. Branstad was a four-term governor. Change? It's tough for Iowans. They tend to keep what they know.

1 Comment
by Brett Rogers, 6/9/2010 2:10:45 AM
Permalink

When Your World View Handicaps You

Given an economics quiz, here are the results:

• Conservatives got 22% wrong.
• Libertarians got 16% wrong.
• Progressives got 68% wrong.

9 Comments
by Brett Rogers, 6/8/2010 9:27:57 AM
Permalink

Keynes' "Full Employment" is Bullshit Theory

If I had to name one of the top imperatives of life, here's a great one:

Government must never be allowed to choose the "winners" and "losers" of life.

On the other hand, when the market - made up of We the People - chooses the products and services it likes best, freedom abounds. Competition thrives. Innovation blossoms. It has to, because it has to answer to every one of us, and not just to some greased palm of a bureaucrat in charge of an industry.

John Maynard Keynes, one of the ivory tower morons of the 20th century, loved the notion of "full employment." What is that? It's this: if you can work, you do. And if no one has a job for you, then the government will create a job for you, and if need be, it will create a deficit to pay you your wages.

That is such utter stupidity that it ignores a vital truth of life:

Many small businesses are started by the unemployed.

And you know what? Small businesses are the jobs engine of the nation. (Or at least they used to be - before the era of our resident Super Genius. Now it's the government... but I digress, while actually making my point...)

Keynes - swell thinker that he was - would take all of that away from us. The unemployed would never be unemployed. Heck no... some bureaucrat would instead give the unemployed some job that the market never demanded and that the unemployed would never have chosen for themselves. Genius! Bonus points go to the bureaucrat and politician for penalizing any initiative and self-starting nature of those who try to start businesses.

Ever heard of the saying, "Stay hungry, stay alive?" When a person is unemployed, they get real motivated real fast to change gears - unless of course the government gives them years of unemployment benefits. Then there's no reason for motivation at all.

If I had to pick the most over-inflated brain of the 20th century, FDR would be my first choice. But Keynes is an awfully close runner-up. Thanks to Keynes, we're soon to see our nation's deficit overtake our GDP.

I just had to call bullshit on him and his overhyped status in American culture.

When government artificially props up the market, it's picking the winners and losers and it stops any incentive for invention and creativity. If you believe that America should be governed by We the People, then you would stay true to your principles by rejecting Keynes at every turn.

5 Comments
by Brett Rogers, 6/7/2010 1:25:02 AM
Permalink

Keynes, Not So Keen (The Proof)

Last fall, I wrote a post asserting why Keynes was wrong. I didn't go to Harvard. I didn't even get my Bachelor's degree. I dropped out after two years.

The folks at Harvard Business School studied it and found out that Keynes, to their great surprise, was wrong.

Professors Lauren Cohen, Joshua Coval, and Christopher Malloy discovered to their surprise that companies experienced lower sales and retrenched by cutting payroll, R&D, and other expenses. Indeed, in the years that followed a congressman's ascendancy to the chairmanship of a powerful committee, the average firm in his state cut back capital expenditures by roughly 15 percent, according to their working paper, "Do Powerful Politicians Cause Corporate Downsizing?"

"It was an enormous surprise, at least to us, to learn that the average firm in the chairman's state did not benefit at all from the unanticipated increase in spending," Coval reports.

The hardest thing in the world is to see things as they really are. Not that this study and its findings will slow down bankrupters like Obama and Pelosi and all of the other big spenders. But for those who read my site, now you know. Are you going to let the politicians bankrupt your children? Or will you do what it takes to protect their future?

0 Comments
by Brett Rogers, 5/27/2010 11:12:22 AM
Permalink

Today's Beauty

2 Comments
by Brett Rogers, 5/26/2010 9:01:07 AM
Permalink

Apathy for the Clueless

I could have named this post, "In Pursuit of My Own Self-Interest..."

As readers of the site know, I created 247Toolset a couple of years ago. I envisioned it as a tool for libertarians / conservatives to become smarter in the coordination of their volunteers and base. After all, the Ron Paul campaign and the tea parties saw all kinds of professional people come out in service of a philosophy they believed. Smaller government? Sweet!

So I exclusively marketed my technology to those on the right side of the political spectrum. I explicitly told my sales force that I had no interest whatsoever in marketing to the Left. I lost tens of thousands of dollars in revenue for standing on principle. I said "No" to a lot of sales because I cared.

So I demo'd to the GOP. Eric Johansen of the Iowa GOP has seen the demo not once but twice. His comment to me was that campaign volunteers are "generally 70 years or older and they won't use a tool like this." Matt Strawn, head of the Iowa GOP, has seen it once. Chuck Grassley's people, Terry Branstad's people, Bob Vander Plaats personally... they've all seen it. And not just in Iowa... my salesfolks and I have shown it to people in Michigan, Georgia, and Wisconsin.

The reluctant conclusion to which I've come is this: the Right is clueless.

I say this because my salespeople begged me to let them show this to Democrats. I consistently said "No," to the point where the immediate follow-up question they would ask a prospect is "What political party are you?"

But the market of right-leaning campaigns kept telling me "No," so I finally I said okay and had a meeting last week with a well-placed Lefty guru. He saw 247Toolset, my calendar of events, and my previous work on email newsletter functionality. Blend the three of those together, and it's one hell of a volunteer engagement tool, he told me. "Love it!" he kept saying. Now, I have a trip to Arkansas in my near-future. He loves it, believes in it, and tells me I'm stupid to have waited for the Right to get it.

"Republicans weren't the first to discover blogs. They weren't the first to Facebook. They weren't the first to use Twitter. Why would you think they would see the potential in this?"

Fair enough. The guru had a point. So much for any "strategic advantage" I was offering to the Republicans...

Joe, the guy who connected me to the guru, reminded me that politicians don't care about anybody but themselves. "They're all after their self-interest. I don't understand why you care so much... those same politicians and activists don't care about you and yours, so shouldn't you take up for yourself? For your family? If a guy on the Left buys it, good for you. And if his opponent in the race eventually buys it, well good for you again."

He's right. So I've stopped caring about who buys it. Viva the free market. The only group I care about going forward is my customer base, and if it's the Democrats, then I'll take care of them with the same fervor I provide every customer of mine.

3 Comments
by Brett Rogers, 5/24/2010 2:11:21 PM
Permalink

Defining Achievement

My childhood friend, Jim Popp, told me in junior high school that jokes are always based upon the pain of others. He'd noticed this and commented about it while we walked home one day as we crossed Grandview Park in Sioux City. Later, as an adult, I learned that Plato, in his dialogue "Philebus," believed comedy to have been borne from pain. Someone once said that comedy is "pain with a happy ending."

It's easy to make humor at the expense of others. I could laugh at someone's awkwardness in a situation, a la Don Rickles. Their bad fashion, a la Joan Rivers. Clumsiness, a la Chevy Chase. The way someone talks, a la Tina Fey's portrayal of Sarah Palin. Much of humor stems from tragedy, mockery, and human error.

Climbing on top of the misfortunes and differences of others to elevate oneself is not unusual. It happens all of the time, in some form or another. But some people take it further and make it a goal to ruin someone else. It becomes their desired achievement.

You can destroy in minutes and days what took years and decades to build. Just ask South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. Once whispered as a potential candidate for President in 2012, after very publicly cheating on his wife, it will never happen. Or Tiger Woods... the guy had a golden reputation in so many ways.

You can also ruin the lives of others in the same way - it doesn't have to be personal suicide. Gossip seeks this sort of thing... Michael Jackson is a great example of this. Rumored for years to be a pedophile, his audience left him, even though the charges were never unquestionably proven. Was he?

Some people will work to frame others, or to exaggerate their "sins." A woman who claims her husband hit her, only to find that he did nothing of the sort. But it's an easy charge. We find it easy to believe the negative. Like with those who believe that Bush was responsible for 9/11 - Truthers, as they're called. Amazing how devoted those folks are to proving that the murder of 3,000 Americans was not due to two planes flying into the Trade Towers but was instead an "inside job." That's their desired achievement, and you just won't dissuade them from it, no matter what facts you bring to the table.

What is an achievement?

When two teams meet on the football field, there are two ways of approaching the game. You either aim to win, or you aim to make the other team lose.

If you aim to win, you play your best game. You practice to perfection and strategize with your assets and then on game day, you execute your plan. If you win, you've achieved your goal. By default, the other team lost, but that wasn't the goal.

If you aim to make the other team lose, it's not hard to make the leap that you'll do so at any cost. You might try to hurt the quarterback, crush their spirit with insults, and even cheat. If the other team loses, while you were successful in your goal, is this achievement? By default, you won, but that wasn't the goal.

From Dictionary.com:

something accomplished, esp. by superior ability, special effort, great courage, etc.; a great or heroic deed. Achievement connotes final accomplishment of something noteworthy, after much effort and often in spite of obstacles and discouragements.

Building and creation require talent. They imply that you're able to make something where nothing existed before.

You can't destroy what isn't there already, which means that those who spend their time working for the destruction of others are leeches. They're parasites, who need what others build in order for them to have anything to even tear down. They do it because they don't know how to build.

Anybody can show up with a sledgehammer or a rock. Toddlers are well-renowned for their ability to break things. It takes no skill to destroy.

Every once in a while, it's important to take stock of our ambitions. The only time that we have the right to hurt someone else is in protection of our own achievements. Anyone who seeks to hurt someone else just for the fun of it, who takes pleasure in others' pain - well, we become who we hang around. Be careful of the company you keep. You'll likely waste your time achieving nothing.

2 Comments
by Brett Rogers, 5/16/2010 12:50:40 PM
Permalink

Supergenius, cont'd

Via Instapundit, a report about our nation's debt:

This graphic tells the story. Note what happened after the Democrats took control of Congress in 2007:

[T]he US, according to the IMF's projections, has more to do than any other country in the developed world (apart from Japan) when it comes to bringing its debt back towards sustainable levels.

Susie: "I thought you took math in school."
Dad: "But they told us it would be fine."
Susie: "Yeah, right... thanks a lot, Dad."

0 Comments
by Brett Rogers, 5/15/2010 10:04:34 AM
Permalink

The Farcical

Early last year, I wrote about Fannie's and Freddie's impossible business model. At that time, I said this:

I ask you: what non-governmental entity competes against Fannie?

Answer: None.

Why is that? Because Fannie's impossible "business" model operates at a loss to give the power to Washington, creating a monopoly that is uncompetitive.

AIG is in insurance. That's the next industry. And Washington's acquisition will yield similar catastrophic results.

Fannie Mae has again asked taxpayers for more money after reporting a first-quarter loss of more than $13 billion.

The mortgage finance company, which was rescued by the government in September 2008, said it needs an additional $8.4 billion from the government to help cover mounting losses.

0 Comments
by Brett Rogers, 5/10/2010 1:23:43 PM
Permalink