And, before Seth Grossman gets into anything, we
have a most important thing to ask him.
What really happened to the Irish pub on
Saint Patrick's Day, Seth? And and, of course,
I don't know until I read it in
the, newspaper. I had no idea they were
not open either. But that's,
so I I hate to let you down.
But I do not have inside information on
the Irish pub, you know,
other than I have a lot of fond
memories, you know, for more than fifty years.
Yes. Of going there. Yeah. Well well, it
was it's very strange. Saint Patrick's Day and
the Irish pub is closed.
Yeah. Yeah. And and in fact, I do
remember they organized the first Saint Patrick's Day
parade
back in the nineteen eighties. I remember marching
down with Kathy Burke, and she put that
whole thing together. And and this year, we
had the biggest one ever.
So it is sad and ironic that,
the person who started it wasn't there for
the, the best Saint Patrick's Day, parade Atlantic
City ever had.
But but, anyway, I'm gonna lead you to
some other topics here.
Libertyandprosperity.com,
of course. We're an organization of like minded
people. We meet for breakfast and talk about
the issues at 09:30 every Saturday morning,
at Sal's Coal Fired Pizza in Somers Point.
We have our libertyandprosperity.com
website. We have,
special events from time to time. We have
free email updates.
And, if you'd like to get them, you
know, just sign up, through the website
or,
email us at info@libertyandprosperity.com.
But what's interesting is we are a typical
private
association,
which America was famous for.
We're about a 180 people. We get together.
We pay dues. We raise funds,
and, we raise about $3,033,000
dollars a year,
to be on the radio, to to be
on the web, to have the newsletter, to
do all these things.
And it's discouraging and ironic,
when you find out that there are other
groups
that pursue agendas that we disagree with,
that we are paying for. So think of
all the fundraising events, all the dues, begging
for money every week, begging begging for money
on our website.
You have another group that's smaller than us
called the Atlantic County Queer Alliance.
And
on Saint Patrick's Day, last Tuesday no less,
the,
CRDA,
the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority,
gave the Atlanta County Queer Alliance
$96,453.23.
So without having to have any fundraisers,
without having to beg people for money, without
having to have dues,
This group smaller than ours pursuing an agenda,
and that that no. No one denies them
of the right to claim their agenda,
but they're gonna get three times the money
that we have to fight and work for
every week
just because some politicians wanna buy votes by
giving them $96,453.23.
And the interesting thing is probably nobody even
knows
that CRDA gives money to groups like that
with that much money. But if you got
our liberty and prosperity email update, we reported
that. Nobody else did.
Wow.
$96,000.
So I could start an organization
and call it whatever
and maybe pitch the CRDA, and maybe I
can get some money.
Right. And now then I'm sure the CRJ
said, well, you know, the lot of the
people who support l b,
what LGBTQ
plus, I guess it is.
Lesbian,
bisexual,
gay,
trans, queer, questioning,
plus. You know? So I'm sure what they
said is, you know, we have a nice
group, and we're gonna go, you know, to
the Atlanta City casinos and spend money. So
give us
$96,000
to promote our group. And I guarantee you,
if, the CRDA would give Liberty and Prosperity
$96,000,
we'd have all sorts of, events to invite
people to come to Atlantic City to enjoy
it. But it just shows how
once you open a door
and say the government has the power
to take money from people they don't like
and give it to money they do like,
it never ends, and it leads to nothing
but waste, corruption, abuse,
and here we are.
That that that that's true.
That's true. You know? Hey. Maybe maybe you
should pitch the CRDA to give you some
money.
Yeah.
It'd be interesting because, again, I think for
whatever reason that the LGBTQ
plus people have to get $96,000,
we can make that same argument. And I've
and maybe just for fun,
we should put together that grant application and
and see. Yeah. This is what this is
how government is being misused.
Alright. But but, go ahead. I I would
do it. I I would do it. Yeah.
Put that on your agenda.
Meanwhile, you were you were talking about the
the war in, Iran right now.
And as a boomer, you know, our generation
grew up. Our dads were in World War
two,
and their friends were in World War two.
And we heard all the stories.
And I remember being in junior high school
having a
a social studies teacher in Atlantic City called,
mister Worceshafter. I think it was Stanley Wirtschaftter.
And he told us he was in a
tank unit in Germany,
at the end of World War two.
And he talked about fighting the Hitler youth.
And he would tell us that these 13
and 14 year old kids
would run at them with grenades.
They'd hide. They'd shoot,
these bazookas that they called.
They wouldn't surrender,
and they had to kill every one of
them. And he talked about how awful it
was to look at these, you know, 13,
14, 12 year old kids that they had
to kill. And and these, kids were determined
to kill them.
And, I talked to veterans who were at
Okinawa
and we talked about being there where women
and children would shoot at them, would never
surrender.
That they they take,
many good friends of theirs were killed because
of this.
They would crash airplanes
into their ships.
And and what motivated them to do that?
It was because those German kids
believed the most important thing they could do
in their life
was to die for Germany, to die for
Hitler. And the same thing that Japanese,
the most noble thing, the greatest achievement would
be to die,
fighting for the emperor.
And,
and and how do we deal with this?
Do we go to war with them by
choice?
And and the answer is in World War
two, we did not go to war against
them by choice.
We watched Germany,
form an army against the treaty. We saw
Germany marched that army to the French border,
and we did nothing.
We saw Germany take over Austria, and we
did nothing.
We saw Germany
invade Poland, and we did nothing.
And then suddenly on 12/11/1941,
Germany declared war on us.
And the same thing with Japan.
We didn't get into a war of choice
against Japan.
We let Japan take over Korea, and we
did nothing. We let them invade China, and
we did nothing.
We let them murder about 700,000
people in Nanking in 1937,
and we did nothing.
And then suddenly on 12/07/1941,
they attacked us.
So when you talk about a war of
choice,
sometimes the war of choice means they're going
to come after you
at some point. And do you fight them
when they're weaker or do you fight them
when they're stronger? Do you fight them when
they have a nuclear weapon?
And and my,
concern about Trump may not be because he's
doing what he's doing,
but he should have been explaining
all along
what we're up against,
and and the fact that,
nobody is explaining what we're up against. And
it's almost like these,
you know, some of these, you know, newscasters
or military experts are looking like they're watching
video games. Well, look what we did this.
Look. We we we did that,
and and we forget
that you remember during during Iraq war, the
shock and awe that that we're supposed to
drop all these bombs and they were gonna
surrender? Yep. They never surrendered. Yeah. You know?
When we kill these, leaders,
we're actually giving them
what they want because what is motivating,
these guys?
According to, you know, their view of Islam,
the the most important
concept in Islam is what's called the,
the day of judgment. They call it the,
the Yam Al
Kiama.
And and on that day of judgment, everybody
dies, and you're either gonna go to paradise,
which is Jannah, or they're gonna go to
eternal hell files
hell fires. You know, Jahanim,
I think they call them. Him. And and
so how do you get to heaven? Well,
you're supposed to do or paradise is supposed
to do all these wonderful things, but most
people don't. Most people have sinned. They've done
things wrong. They didn't follow the teachings of
Muhammad.
So what's a sure way to get into
heaven anyway or to paradise? And the answer
is if you die while doing jihad,
all your sins are instantly forgiven,
and you instantly spend eternity in paradise complete
with your 72 virgins.
So what you have is all these people
we're we're killing, we're doing everything they want.
You know, they they're we're fulfilling their dreams.
And they're, you know, for everyone we kill,
we have 20
that are eager to take their place because
they want the same thing. And we're laughing
and joking like we're achieving something.
But,
you know, it you're you're either gonna defeat
them completely
or they're gonna wear down wear us down.
And it's just like with Germany and Japan.
You know, suppose we do nothing. Well, we
let them take over let them destroy Israel.
Let them destroy
all these countries in the Middle East. Let
them kill all the Christians in Nigeria. Let
them take over Africa. At some
point, they're gonna be here.
And, we're not preparing our kids, and we're
not preparing anybody,
as to how dangerous these people are. Well,
I said it. They have no value for
life, and you just proved it with what
you were talking about.
Yeah. They really don't value
like, there's glory in death.
And by the way, what I just told
you is exactly I know I bring this
up over and over again, but that young
man,
that came and I'm I can't think of
his name right right now. The one who
grew up in Margate,
graduated Atlantic City High School in 2010
and then joined and became a leader of
the Islamic State. He made a video
addressed to all, you know, Muslim kids in
America saying that same thing. You know, how
to avoid hellfire?
Easy. Get yourself killed, killing, infidels in the
jihad, and you don't have to worry about
sin. You don't have to worry about being
a failure. Suddenly, you're you're you're an instant
success.
Anyway, be let before I get too depressed,
let me talk about
what's going on now. Of course, in our,
we talked about last week the Egg Harbor
Public Schools, they're going $36,000,000
into debt
to do routine maintenance for their schools. And,
of course, they engineered it with that referendum.
They could the school board could have put
this on the ballot last November
when you had 18,000
people voting,
But they knew that most taxpayers at Carver
Township would vote against borrowing the money,
and so they hold a special election on
March 10 when only 2,400
people turned out. And, of course, they got
1,400 votes like a tiny percentage, but that's
enough to borrow the $36,000,000.
But let's look at the big picture.
Why is it that schools are so unaffordable?
When we boomers were young,
everybody had lots of kids. There were lots
of schools. You only had one parent working.
You know, one parent could could afford a
good house. One one parent could afford the,
property taxes. There was no sales tax. There
was no,
state income tax,
and and everything was fine.
Today, it now costs $25,000
each year
to educate one child in our public schools.
So you're looking at one classroom with 20
kids in it, and that's costing a half
$1,000,000
a year.
So look at the arithmetic. You you have
a 300,000
house.
So a $300,000
house in typical suburb would pay maybe $89,000
a year in property taxes.
But suppose that family has two kids.
Those two kids are costing the the town
$50,000
a year just for the schools, not for
anything else.
So right away, every time you have a
house with two kids in it, the town
is losing $42,000
a year on that family.
So that's why every
it's every town, every politician, it's the, the
children of the enemy. We have to have
zoning laws to keep our children, you know,
just have senior citizen only places.
And, to keep the property taxes down,
look what we've been doing for the past
fifty years.
To pay for these schools, first, we had
a sales tax. That wasn't enough. Then we
had a state income tax, and that wasn't
enough.
Then we had Jimmy Carter, you know, promise
to set up a federal department of education
to give us federal money, and that's not
enough.
And now, Egg Harbor Township has to borrow
$36,000,000
just to sort of, you know, fix the
leaks in the roof and and and and
replace the equipment that's gone. I mean, this
is not sustainable.
But will anybody, any Republican or Democrat say,
we can't do this anymore. We have to
do something that's different.
And that's what we talk about at libertyandprosperity.com.
That's why I invite we invite people to
join us and come to our meetings and
propose solutions
and get the word out.
You know, 25,000
a year, that is a lot of money.
There are private high schools and private schools
in this country that that charge that, but
they're they're giving a top notch education.
How come it costs so much? That that
that's my question.
Well, I mean, we could go into a
whole whole take up a whole three hour
program on that. Yeah. And it's because it's
not just the the union
salaries. It's it's,
you know, one of the main problems is
the idea that if a kid is not
getting an education,
it's the school's fault. We're not spending enough
money. We don't have a program to reach
that kid.
So if you have one kid who's disrupting
a class,
we now have to get a special tutor
for that kid, and we're spending $80,000
for one kid,
to get his special education. And so what
the administrator says, well, we can't afford to
have that kid, get $80,000.
So just leave him in the classroom. You
leave him in the classroom, he disrupts the
whole class, and then now nobody's learning. So,
we have to look at what we did
as boomers
and maybe,
get back to to that.
Meanwhile, there's one other point I wanted to,
compare,
and that is what's going on in Ocean
City
with the, you know, the hotel where Wonderland
Pier used to be
and Baterfield in Atlantic City.
Because in a way, they're both totally related.
Baterfield has been empty for thirty years. Why?
Because, it used to be an airport. We
don't need it for an airport anymore.
And the town and the the local government,
the state's been spending thirty years looking for
the perfect use for the property.
And be by looking for the perfect use,
they found no use, and it's been empty.
And look at all the money we we
lost.
So it used to be we had a
very simple rule
with,
property owned by the government. We said, is
it used for public use
or not used for public use?
Now it used to be used for public
use as an airport.
The minute they decided they didn't need it
for an airport anymore in 1996,
thirty years ago,
all the city had to do was we
say, we declare it's not needed for public
use,
sell it to the highest bidder.
And what should it be used for? It's
none of our business. It should be whoever
is willing to spend all that money for
that land, let them decide what to do.
Now you can make rules as what you
don't want it to be,
but if they would have sold that building
for, that if they would have sold Baderfield
for $50
thirty years ago,
they would have collected more taxes
in thirty years than they're gonna get from
all these grandiose plans they have now.
And it's the same thing with what's going
on in,
in Wonderland Pier. You know, what's the perfect
use for the property?
Well, if you ask anyone in Ocean City,
you said, well, it should be an amusement
park. But it can't be an amusement park
because it lost money for everybody who tried
to do it. It has to be something
else.
Well, what else could it be?
Well, why not let the person who's willing
to spend the money to buy it
and invest it and spend their, you know,
years of their life,
making something work, let them decide.
But once you let the so called public
decide,
people who call themselves stakeholders,
even though they they didn't put a dime
into the property
and let them decide what, I don't like
this. No. I don't like that. I don't
like this. By time you get, you know,
ten thousand people to agree on something, another
you know, you'd all have thirty years go
by just like Atlantic City with Baderfield.
So, anyway, we have to think about, why
we have private
property.
Because only the owners of of property, own
only the people who invest
and have something to either gain or lose
if the project succeeds or fail,
they should make the decision,
not people who have nothing to do with
it, who don't know anything about it.
That's what made our free enterprise system work
in America,
and that's why socialism has been a disaster
everywhere else in the world when it's been
tried. Anyway, we'll be talking about that, again,
if you're listening on a Saturday, every Saturday
morning, 09:30
at Sal's Coal Fired Pizza,
in Somers Point. There's no admission. Just pay
for your own breakfast, and tip your server,
They'll order off the menu.
And if you wanna learn more about us,
go to libertyandprosperity.com
and subscribe to our free weekly email updates.
Thank you. Thanks, Seth. As always, good stuff.
Seth Grossman, Liberty and Prosperity.
The meeting starts at 09:30. Sal's Coal Fired
Pizza in Somers Point. And the website, libertyandprosperity.com.