The First Shot in a New Rebellion?

The signs are becoming more clear that some of the states have had enough of the destruction of the US Constitution. There already have been a number of states who have sued the federal government to halt the implementation of certain provisions of Obama-care. A few more states have sued over various other policies concerning immigration and other issues. Several others have informally begun the practice of non-cooperation with the DEA regarding the laws prohibiting the use of certain substances, usually marijuana.

But yesterday one state, Virginia, formally made it state policy to refuse to cooperate in the enforcement of a new unconstitutional US law that essentially revokes the right of  Habeas Corpus.

In fact, as one news release, from the Young Americans for Liberty, has it,
 
"On Wednesday, the Virginia legislature overwhelmingly passed a law that forbids state agencies from cooperating with any federal attempt to exercise the indefinite detention without due process provisions written into sections 1021 and 1022 of the National Defense Authorization Act."


It could possibly be the start of something I have thought about for a long time. I have posed the question to myself by asking, "what might happen if some states essentially seceded from the union by ceasing dealings with the over-reaching and rights-violating federal government?"

No blood, no violence. Just a "Keep your money, enforce your own laws, collect your own taxes, and we'll take care of our own business" policy. End cooperation and maybe even formal communication. Would the President send troops? To do what? Shoot the Governors? Imprison all the people?

I think the Congress and the President would blink first. Passive resistance has worked in the past, so it's not as crazy as it first sounds. The USSR was defeated without a shot being fired. Gandhi and Martin Luther King had success using non-violent non-cooperation as well.

If even one state did this, might Congressmen and Senators finally understand what's going on? Might they start to seriously consider the overwhelming debt burden the country is starting to collapse under? Might they take the destruction of the value of the currency seriously then? Do you think this might be a huge issue on the front page of every newspaper in the country? The lead story on every network and cable news show?

So is this the first shot in a new non-military civil war? I for one hope so, even if I'm not predicting it will happen. I'm guessing that plenty of folks might think I'm crazy. Some already do.

But what's crazier, watching the end of our liberties without a whimper? Or lifting a finger, the middle one, to fight for our constitutionally guaranteed rights? Legislators in Virginia have taken the first step even if some of them don't realize it. I'd rather be thought crazy than know I did nothing as the whole thing degenerated into tyranny and chaos.

Feel free to comment about what you think we should do about the situation, if anything.

No Citizen Should be Left Behind on This Education Law

Rand Paul isn't running for President, but in my opinion he should be. We need some straight talk and some rational non-Washington thought before perpetuating this arrogant law. Common sense is becoming a lost art.

Politicians Beware, Little Brother is Watching You

By Grant Davies

People of my generation all remember who Big Brother was because of the wildly popular futuristic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. It became a classic and is still widely read today by those not totally fixated on the latest pop culture icon or the newest electronic gadget. 

One of the reasons it has remained so popular is that so many of the predictions it made have come true, not to mention the terms and ideas that became part of the vernacular of our more contemporary language. Among those terms are doublethink, thoughtcrime, Newspeak, and memory hole.

But the one image that seems to concern us most is the cameras that were everywhere in the novel and are virtually everywhere in our real society today.

Politicians are in love with them and have legislated and "executive ordered" them to be installed to watch us everywhere from traffic lights to traffic stops and to street corners where people are suspected of being engaged in the commerce of government non-approved substances. It's not all bad for sure, it has its good uses such as solving actual crimes, but it still gives many people the creeps, myself among them.

However, one of the very best uses of them, and the one that I would opine has become the most beneficial to society, is the use of them by private citizens to keep track of the antics of those in elected positions or those seeking those positions.

Gone are the days of candidates going from one town to the next telling a different story in each one even if they are the exact opposite of each other. It's harder for Presidents to claim they never said such a thing or took such a position. They still do it of course, but it must be a nuanced denial in order to give their useful idiots some wiggle room to support them anyway.

So now the tables have been turned on these elected elite and they don't like it one bit. In fact, they have begun to go far out of their way to attempt to keep the citizens from recording the happenings at these farcical "town hall meetings" they insist on pretending to have with the common folk.

The latest goof to pull this stunt is a Republican Congressman from Ohio named Steve Chabot. But this time the evidence of the overbearing and underinformed police intimidation has been caught on a different camera and is spreading across the internet.

These staged events are getting harder to control even with the different tactics they employ to keep the pesky questions from being asked. So a few of them are now using the police to confiscate any obvious cameras they find being used to record the events they appear at.

Public meetings in public buildings with elected officials being paid by the taxpayers are now off limits to recording devices in some places. And only politician approved private media are allowed to keep track of the events.

I  suggest we-the-people all become "Little Brothers" to keep these usurpations of our 1st amendment rights from becoming more commonplace than they already are.

Here are the aforementioned videos.

Still Going the Wrong Way on a One Way Street, Only Slower

By Grant Davies

Until this latest "deal" to raise the amount of money the government can borrow and print was agreed upon (by the people who caused the problem in the first place) our country was like a car going 70 mph the wrong way down a one way street. Now that the deal "fixed" the problem, we have slowed down to 60 mph. Whew! That was a close one!

Of course we haven't changed directions, we're still going the wrong way, but I feel like we have a few more historical milliseconds before we have a head on collision into a streetcar named Armageddon.

I guess buying time was the goal. Unfortunately, the time the politicians were buying is also being paid for with borrowed money.

While on vacation the last few weeks I had a chance to watch the tragi-comedy of Washington politics from a distance. At least the distance that my fishing boat was from the shore. Or the distance my rental cottage was from a town where a wi-fi signal could reconnect me to reality.

Actually, I tried not watch it at all. But like any other human being, I found it hard to avert my eyes from the slow motion car crash the country was heading toward.

I guess you can pretend not to care, at least for a few weeks, but in the end the problems won't go away just because you did.

So while on vacation I wasn't writing about things, but they were still occurring. And trying to wash them away with bratwurst and beer in the north woods just doesn't seem to work as well in reality as it does in theory. But at least I was in common company with the mopes who live in a fantasy world in Washington rather than Wisconsin.

Which reminds me of an old joke.

Man to congressman - "I saved $1 today"
Congressman - "How did you do that?"
Man - "Instead of riding the bus to work, I walked."
Congressman- "You could have saved $7 if you walked instead of taking a taxi."
Man - "Silly me! Heck, think of the money I could have saved by not taking a limo!"

It's not quite as funny when you understand that the US budget is determined that way. In the fantasy world of Washington, trimming your wild spending spree plans back a small amount while actually increasing spending significantly counts as "cutting."

But pretending in Washington doesn't work any better than it does in Wisconsin. The only difference is that the hangover from excessive beer consumption in a tiny fishing boat only lasts for a few hours while the consequences of living in a fantasy world on the ship of state will eventually cause it to sink.

And right now we are taking on water faster than we can make for shore.

I think I'll go back north, this reality stuff sucks.

The Political Septic Tank is Overflowing

By Grant Davies

When something goes wrong, even if it is an accident, the question is always the same. Whose fault is it?

There certainly is no dearth of contestants for the blame game. In fact, if it were an Olympic sport most of us could vie for a medal.

So where do we begin when we want to list the starting line-up for the finals of the contest called "whose fault is it that the country is disappearing into the political sewerage system?"

The obvious place would be with some of the all star players like the fat guy with the microphone or the comedian who pretends to be a news anchor. Those two might be appointed the captains of the opposing squads, but the teams wouldn't be hard to fill out from either the left or the right of the "entertainment" world.

Maybe a better place is the "news" world. MSNBC or FOX would be rich pools of talent from which to recruit. But that's no good, because they have melted in with the above group until there is very little distinction between them anymore.

Politicians would be the third place to look. They have taken the blame game from a sport to an art form. And the "new" media, blogs like this one, or those on the left or the right can't be overlooked either. I plead guilty as charged for my part in the crime.

Republicans blame Democrats, liberals blame conservatives, and Obama blames everybody.

TV pundits tell us that everyone, or at least most of us, want the politicians to be less partisan and "get things done." But even if that's sometimes true, it's only if it's what we want done.

The most overlooked group to scout from for the "blame team" is the same group who actually deserves the blame. Curiously, it's the same group who is to blame for all the incompetent dolts who have been elected to represent us, and by extension, all the problems we have. You might hazard a guess on who is in that group. A mirror might be helpful if you get stumped.

So whose side are you on? What team do you belong to?

Are you one of those who blame "Dimocrats" because "they can't think logically and just want to take things from some people and give it to others in the name of fairness?" "And everyone knows that Democrats/liberals think that everyone else is too stupid to run their own lives." Right?

Or are you one of those who believes that anyone who is a Republican/conservative is a knuckle dragging moron who just wants to control your life with their version of morality while enriching the already rich with the labors of the poor and downtrodden? Oh, and they are racists too.

Liberals are "for the little guy", while conservatives are just for big businesses and rich people who don't pay their fair share of taxes. Right? "Obama is going to fix things that George W. Bush screwed up." "And he's a black guy (sorta) and I voted for him, so I must be an enlightened person who wants progress!"

Conservatives are for America while liberals hate our country and think we should be just like the enlightened Europeans. "Bush was fighting the bad guys and Obama is surrendering our exceptionalism and trying to make the USA into a socialist utopia." And anyone on any form of government assistance is a lazy slob who wants nothing more than the fruits of someone else's work.

Of course none of those attitudes apply to everyone on either team, nor does it describe what you or I think. After all, we are above all of that, it's only the other fellow who is so petty and ignorant. At some point, commonsense needs to prevail over the childish distractions all of us have fallen for at one time or the other.

One thing is certain however. The time for all that stuff is coming to a fairly rapid end, at least temporarily. It will be pushed aside at some point in the near future as our currency collapses under the weight of the state and national debt. When monetization causes everyone's money and savings to be worthless, all bets are off and the game is over. Both teams lose, and the other guy's attitudes don't matter much anymore.

A little math and a dose of commonsense will tell anyone (who abandons the above notions for a while) that even if we confiscated all the wealth of all the rich people we couldn't sustain the current system and its overwhelming costs. We need to spend less, a lot less. And we need to start right now (not in a few years or over a decade) before Greek style riots, or worse, begin.

If we don't, surely we will drown in the political sewerage we all have contributed to at one time or another.

I'm Too Busy to be Alarmed

I'm sure the guy in the video below must be exaggerating. I mean, it couldn't be true could it?  Obama and GWB and all those guys on MSNBC and CNN (etal) must be right that this is not a big issue.

Why else would they ignore it and quibble over bigger issues like gay marriage and the like? Why else would we be wringing our hands over whether the government is correct about our our dietary selections?

"Chicken Little" theories about whether the planet is getting warmer and whose fault that might be must be more important, right?

I dunno, I'm just a Teablogger passing around alarmist videos that readers send me. You figure it out. Or go ask ten of your friends what they think is the most important issue in the country right now. Or ask ten people on the street the same question.

I have to go find out why LeBron James and company lost the NBA championship if he is the best player who ever lived. After that I'm going to see if I can get one of those swell jobs with the NY Times sifting through Sarah Palin's emails looking for things that might embarrass her. Or maybe I'll see if I can find out if a NY congressman can keep his job (spending more borrowed dollars) after he wagged his wiener on twitter.

You figure it out, I have more important things to do.



Hat tip to Homer for another great video find.

The Only Real Hope for the Future, an America of Grownups

People who know us would be quite surprised to hear that my wife and I are childless. And we have been childless for quite some time now.

You see, our offspring have long ago become adults, in every sense of the word. And now we have grandchildren who are in the process of being raised to become adults. If they turn out like their parents (and we have every reason to believe they will) they will be quite different from a huge percentage of the population of this country right now.

In other words, they will not be "children grown large." They will understand things in an adult way. Unlike a huge number of voters in recent elections, they won't be fooled into believing the childish notions which are regularly foisted upon them by a childish media and the politicians they support.

At least that's my hope. A hope based on experiential evidence, not the slogans of image spinners trying to get ideological cronies elected to the highest offices of the land.

The supporters of huge spending government programs and giveaways are a lot like my toddler grandchildren in that they make no connection between what they want and how it is provided. At least the toddlers have an excuse.

I've never been very keen on the blame game, so I'm not sure precisely how so many adults stayed so childish in their thinking. I suspect that overly indulgent parents and an abundant society had something to do with it, but I forgot to get a sociology degree with cheap education loans and government grants so I'll leave that to someone who did.

But I did pick up some common sense notions of my own from my parents and adult mentors so I will opine freely about some of the childish notions that I think must be discarded soon if we hope to save this country (and by extension the world) from imminent financial and moral collapse. Many may be insulted by this piece but I'm insulted by having government treat me like a child so let's call it even.

So all you adult children out there, here are a few things you will resent being told, but it's clear that you just don't "get."

 1. The notion that government has money of its own is childish. An adult knows that government has to take money from people in order to do anything it does. If you get something from government, it had to be taken by force from some other person. Shame on you for not remembering that, even for a frivolous second.

2. The notion that companies pay taxes is childish. Adults know that businesses aren't people. They are accounting creations. They exist only to make money. Any taxes the businesses pay are passed along to actual people. Some are employees, some are business owners, some are customers.

3. "Rich people don't pay enough in taxes" is another childish notion. Adults know that the so called "rich" pay so much more of the total income taxes on a percentage basis than the rest of us do that only a child could buy in to that notion. Many dozens of studies which childish people ignore clearly show that. Closing your eyes and covering your ears won't change that. Neither will watching only certain TV news shows that ignore it.

4. Another childish idea is that people who have succeeded in making lots of money somehow "owe" a debt to people who haven't. (for whatever reason) Or that if taxes are raised on "rich" people, the budget can be balanced without actually cutting what government spends. Simple math shows that even if the government confiscated 100% of the earnings of the millionaires and billionaires the gap cannot be closed. If you don't believe that just watch the video on the sidebar of this blog. (Title:  Dear President Obama, please watch this video) Don't worry, it's presented in a way that even a child can understand it.

5. Only a child would believe that the US Constitution is old and irrelevant. It mattered then and it matters now. It's the rule book for government. You couldn't play any sport without a rule book. What makes you think you could live in a country without one?

If you don't like the rules, there is a way to change them. But it's not by ignoring them or appointing judges to pretend they say what some people want them to say instead of what they were written to mean. And you don't need to be a lawyer to know what that was, only an adult.

There are many more childish notions that people have, but those five are a good start on the path from adolescence to adulthood. Children aren't stupid, they are just living in a childish world of wanting things but being in denial about where they come from.

The good news of the bad times we are living in is that we are now faced with only adult choices and the abundance of the past is no longer a hiding place in a child's game.

An election is coming. It's past time to graduate from school and become a grownup. We cannot afford to live in a tooth fairy world anymore. Time is running out and it's our only real hope.

A Great Retirement at Thirty Years Old - Happy Anniversary!

I'm not talking about anyone retiring at thirty even though I tried to hook you in with that headline. Instead I'm talking about the thirtieth anniversary of a social security system that actually works and (unlike the one we suffer with in the USA) will never go bankrupt.

I'm talking about a successful government system which is not a Ponzi scheme but a retirement savings plan that the people actually own and which has a rate of return which makes the US Social Insecurity system's (merely theoretical) return look pitiful by comparison.

This year, on May 1st, Chile celebrated the birth of it's privatized Social Security System. They were the first of some thirty other rational countries to "just say no" to government Ponzi schemes which were headed for default and say yes to a privately held, government regulated retirement system that has not only out-performed all expectations but befuddled the leftist naysayers who cannot stand the idea that any system that isn't administered by elite government central planners can succeed in aiding ordinary people in providing a great retirement for themselves.

According to an article in the Investors Business Daily on April 29th;
"In 2005, New York Times reporter John Tierney worked out his own Social Security contributions on the Chilean model and found that his privatized pension would have been $53,000 a year plus a one-time payout of $223,000. The same contributions paid into Social Security would have paid him $18,000."

The return on investment since inception for the Chilean system; "Over the last three decades these accounts have averaged annual returns of 9.23% above inflation. By contrast, U.S. Social Security pays a 1% to 2% (theoretical) return, and even less for new workers."

Of course as any even semi-informed citizen of this country knows, there is no Social Security Fund with any real assets in it for American people. The money has already been spent buying votes from the people who put the money in in the first place. The "Fund" is just an accounting device "account" full of government IOUs promising to print enough paper dollars to satisfy the claims of those who have paid in all their lives. (Until 2037 anyway, when even those Tooth Fairy promises also run dry.)

As part of the law the people in Chile actually own their own accounts as private property, just like your 401k or IRA accounts in this country. 

In a world where American "progressives" are constantly comparing the US to other countries to see if they can find a way to denigrate our way of life, they forgot to compare us to the thirty-ish other countries who have come to their senses and left America in the dust on this one.

 It's enough to make you wonder what the climate is like in Chile.

I Feel So Much Safer Now

TSA finally addresses the terrorism threat posed by short people.

Ryan vs Obama - Charting the Budget Battle

In One Chart, Everything You Wanted to Know about Ryan vs. Obama
April 5, 2011 by Dan Mitchell

Forget all this talk about giant “spending cuts” of $6.2 trillion in Congressman Ryan’s budget plan. That’s music to my ears, but it’s also based on Washington’s bizarre budget math – i.e., the screwy system where politicians can increase spending but say they’re cutting spending because the budget could have grown even faster.

What really matters is how much money government is spending this year compared to how much money will be spent in subsequent years. Using this common-sense benchmark, let’s look at two competing proposals.

According to the new numbers released today, Congressman Ryan’s budget plan will result in government growing, on average, by almost 2.8 percent annually over the next 10 years.

President Obama’s budget plan, by contrast, would increase the burden of government spending by an average of nearly 4.7 percent each year.

This chart compares the two budget plans. Because Chairman Ryan does not let spending grow as rapidly, cumulative spending over that period will be $6.2 billion less than it would be based on the President’s plan. That’s an impressive amount of money that taxpayers will save if Ryan is successful, but it’s not a spending cut.

Not surprisingly, the big spenders in Washington are claiming that the “spending cuts” in Representative Ryan’s budget are “harsh” and “extreme.” But Ryan’s proposal would allow the budget to grow faster than inflation, which is projected to average less than 2.1 percent annually over the 10-year period.

Good fiscal policy is very simple. Restrain the size and scope of government so that outlays grow slower than the private sector. If that happens, the burden of federal spending will shrink as a share of economic output.

That’s exactly what happens with Ryan’s plan. By 2018, the federal budget will drop to less than 20 percent of GDP. That still doesn’t bring us back to where we were at the end of the fiscally responsible Clinton years, when federal spending consumed only 18.2 percent of GDP. But after a 10-year spending binge under Bush and Obama, Congressman Ryan’s plan would move America back toward fiscal responsibility.

This article is reprinted with the permission of the author.
Dan Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, blogs at International Liberty

It's Ten Thirty On Thursday Morning, Do You Know Where Your Teacher Is?

Younger readers may not remember the TV ad of the 50's and 60's which asked a similar question to encourage parents to keep track of their kids. The ad was a reminder that 10:30 pm was the curfew time on a school night.

If you are a parent in Wisconsin, perhaps you think the ad should be revived with the above question instead. Particularly if you were wondering why your children's school was closed. It seems there was an illness that was widespread among teachers in Milwaukee, Madison and Janesville. So many called in sick that the schools were locked up. The epidemic was confined to those cities and thankfully the children didn't seem to have the same malady.

All kidding aside, there is a serious problem afoot in America's dairy land and many other states as well. And I have been asked to write about it, so I will.  I try to avoid pontificating on these well covered stories in favor of letting the more well informed and more talented writers and commentators do it because... well because... Ok, I'll admit it, because I stink by comparison. But I promised, so I will make two quick points instead of pontificating at length.

I'll leave the issues that others are covering to them and only address that which I have not seen elsewhere. No matter what your opinion is on this issue or which "side" you are on politically, there are points worth making in my opinion.

First, the lawmakers who have fled their state and are hiding like common criminals to avoid doing the job they were elected to do are cowards. They should be impeached, arrested (what they are doing may be a crime) or just plain unelected next time up no matter where people stand on the budget arguments. They were sent to represent their fellow citizens and they have abdicated. It is shameful behavior.

Second, the education employees who called in sick are acting cowardly as well. They have a job to do. They promised to educate the kids but they broke that promise so they could flex their political muscle at the expense of the kids and in violation of their legal and moral commitment.

Even if you agree with them on the budget issues, you should be mad as hell. They should be sued for breach of contract, disciplined or simply not rehired next time up, the same way as any employee of any private company should be. It doesn't take courage to do what they did. If it's possible to be ashamed of people you have never met, I'm ashamed of them.

So if I lived in Wisconsin I would have one question for each of them at the next town hall meeting or teacher conference. Where were you at 10:30 am on Thursday Feb. 17, 2011?

Shovel Ready Projects From The Stimulus Program



Hat tip to Leah

 This financial crisis is forcing State and local agencies to make some tough decisions. If things continue for much longer, there's a real risk that we may have to lay off Jose.

Getting Numb To The Dumb

Recently, as the inanity of government policies has increased exponentially, our capacity to get used to the nuttiness has also increased.
Seemingly, we barely notice anymore. I guess you can get used to anything after a while. We get numb to the dumb.

Like some half hour TV sitcom, silly things happen all the time but within a few minutes of its ending, we forget what happened and move on to the next show. Lately, it's kind of like that with current events. But for me it's hard to shrug off some things, even when I'm in that mindset.

If you live in Illinois and you didn't get a little cross-eyed last week when newly elected Governor Pat Quinn announced that his plan for dealing with the impossibly huge debt the state is collapsing under is to borrow another 15 billion dollars, you have a better pair of glasses than I do.

But I haven't heard a peep from the "peeps." They must be numb from hearing that kind of stuff. It's so preposterous that it stretches the imagination, even in a state that sets the standard for preposterous schemes. It's your government at work.

Then there is the dumb notion that feeling up or taking nude pictures of granny at the airport will somehow make it harder for the "underpants bomber" to burn his crotch off if he ever gets out of prison. Your government at work.

Or take the case of the two airline pilots who are suing the government because they are forced to go through the full body scans and/or pat downs themselves, even though they are going to be the ones actually flying the plane. If they are themselves federal air marshals who carry guns into the cockpit (as many are), doesn't it seem just a tad dumb to be searching them first to look for weapons? And all the while the cleaning crews merely have to swipe a card to gain unsupervised access to the planes. It's your government at work.

Or how about the two guys who were rescuing a drowning deer with their own equipment when the local Natural Resources Police officers (who declined to help) decided to fine them each $90 for not wearing their life jackets while performing the dastardly deed? It's your government at work.

Or the decision of the know-it-all nannies in the St. Paul Minnesota School District who have declared a "sweet free" zone to deal with the obesity problem there. While the health implications on obese children are a problem worthy of attention, TV, video games, the Internet and poor parenting leading to sedentary kids are much larger causes of  that problem. The idea that childhood obesity can be solved in this manner without taking it to its logical police state conclusion is dumb. It's your government at work.

Next up is the "gang" that was disciplined at Battlefield High School in Virginia for handing out tiny candy canes in their Christmas sweaters. The ten had to do detention because, as one school administrator explained, "not everyone wants Christmas cheer." It's your government at work. *

And the list can go on and on. What is even dumber, but cannot go on much longer, is the idea that the debt disaster which looms can be solved without any plan except more borrowing and spending. And while the above examples are actually somewhat humorous in their stupidity, the last problem is deadly serious.

According to Lewis M. Andrews of The Yankee Institute for Public Policy, three large dumb states, California, New York and Illinois are already "delaying payments" to vendors. In other words, they are currently unable to pay their bills. And with Illinois spending in 2011 projected to be 140 billion dollars more than expected revenues, anyone who thinks that Governor Quinn's plan to fix the problem by floating a 15 billion dollar bond issue will work, is truly dumb enough to buy the bonds.

The national debt has gone from 13 trillion dollars to 14 trillion dollars in just the last year and the costs of Obamacare have yet to be added to the nightmare scenario of default on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid obligations. We are nearing a point where the whole house of cards can come crashing down at any moment. A crash that will make the housing crisis look like a smallish blip on the economic radar screen.

So the question is, can this stupidity continue on much longer just because we are getting numb to the dumb? You don't have to be smart to know that that's dumb.

* Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute recently wrote a blog essay which I featured at The Humble Libertarian highlighting the dumb things that some agents of government have been doing lately. So a tip of the hat to him for inspiring this piece and the links that go with it.

A Question for my Generation

Did our parents defeat these foreign threats to our freedom, 

So we could surrender it to these domestic threats?

Government Ownership/Control of Healthcare

Government Ownership/Control of Auto Manufacturers

Government Ownership/Control of Banks

Government Ownership/Control of Insurance Companies (AIG)

Government Devaluation of our Currency

Government Control over Compensation

Government Backed home loans which cannot be repaid

Government Paying people to buy homes

Government Buying cars only to crush them

Trillions upon Trillions in Debt which cannot be repaid except with worthless dollars

Two Political Parties which are really just different branchs of the same one

Osama bin Laden could only dream of doing to us what we are doing to ourselves.

What will our grandchildren say about us if we let this happen?

Can Anything You Get For Free, be Worth Having?

Since nothing in our worldly existence is actually free, the question is moot.
Today, the common understanding of "free" is getting something someone else actually paid for.
The government constantly promises free things, and advertisers for companies are always offering free stuff. "Buy one, get one free" sales and free appetizers at restaurants are popular ways to rephrase the obvious truth, that the price is temporarily being lowered to stimulate demand.

But today, I'm here to offer you something for free. (actually a few things) And they certainly are worth having.  

If you have followed the essays on this blog or read the names of people I have linked to on the side bar, you know the name of Professor Walter E Williams. And if you have ever heard me, during discussions about government policy over Ben Franklin's favorite beverage, parrot his question: "What is the legitimate role of government in a free society?" you will recognize his trademark opening.

The answer will vary depending upon your particular philosophical leanings. A popular one in recent decades was summarized by former President George W Bush when, during a campaign speech in 2004, he uttered  "I think that's a proper role for the federal government, to help people". A statement, which in my view, sums up his misguided and sometimes preposterous presidency. The current President and most, if not all of those in my time on earth have been similarly incorrect or purposefully deceptive.
By contrast, the header of this blog-site reveals the thinking of Thomas Jefferson. It is elegant in its brevity and concise in its transmittal of  his message, which is why it remains my favorite quotation concerning governance and graces the top of this page.

A quaint old document, the contents of which have been largely forgotten (even as many pretend to venerate that declaration) has it this way:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men"

The highlighting is mine of course, to make it read as a sentence. The attending words are more often quoted, and usually with good reason, but the object of the sentence has been been given short shrift, to our lasting detriment.

There still remain some of us silly old fools who took those words the way they were intended, that is to say, literally.

Now, back to my favorite economist. Walter Williams has a doctorate degree in economics and  teaches at George Mason University, but that isn't the only place he teaches. In an article adapted from a lecture he delivered in August for Hillsdale College (while aboard a cruise ship in the Mediterranean)  he taught the people in attendance, and now, through the beneficence of those who contribute to the publication of Imprimus, he will teach right here on this humble blog.

 He is also the author of many important books, a syndicated column and is a frequent speaker at gatherings of smart people and those who are attempting to become smart. Over the years, I have read most of his books and columns and have personally heard him speak on different occasions and the only thing I have to show for it thus far is that I am less ignorant. But I guess it's semi smart to trim back my ignorance whenever possible.

The reason I chose this particular article, Future Prospects for Economic Liberty, to feature on this page is that he seems to have rather concisely put together the most important points of dozens of those lectures and books and folded them into this one. If this is the only article of his you ever read, you will get the "Cliffs Notes" version of his work and save yourself a lot of time and money. Which is not something I recommend, but I don't think it would trouble him a whit to have someone "get it for free". After all, he has already been paid, but in my opinion, the most important thing to him is to educate the largest number of people about the blessings of freedom. It is his passion and his life's work.

And I'm delighted to introduce you to it, for free. I can also offer you a free subscription to Imprimus, a publication which has a circulation of 1,800,000 readers monthly. I am one of those readers, and through my association with Hillsdale and Dr. Williams I am authorized to..........Okay, I fibbed. You don't need me for that and I have no special relationship to either of them except my long time admiration for both and a few donations to the college.

Anyone can get it for free, and it proves that, sometimes many things worth having, are indeed, Free.

The Best Place to be Poor

Have you ever been approached by a "poor" person on the street begging for help because of their desperate condition, only to notice the $125 Air Jordans they were wearing? To be fair, most beggars aren't dressed that way, but it's certainly not rare in downtown Chicago to see that sight.
That kind of story provides anecdotal evidence, a type that's extremely popular with politicians and other power seekers because it can be reliably used to mislead many people. And although the tales usually have an element of truth, you can't draw broad conclusions based on them because it might be like looking at the Mona Lisa as a profile picture.
Without the other half of her face, she would be about as compelling as the notion that most beggars prefer Nikes to Mad Dog 20/20.

Having said that, consistent observation by interested parties can turn the anecdotes into actual evidence, if not proof. And the evidence shows that a different type of begging is becoming a real problem in our current American situation.

In order to attain the objective of placing more and more of our private institutions under government control, (and even ownership) we are being bombarded by a nonsensical caricature of people without private health insurance. Many of whom, we are told, live in such frightful conditions that they cannot afford food much less healthcare.

A step back from the edge of that rhetorical cliff reveals a different tale, one that most people know intuitively. The actual story reports on the spending behavior of the very people who we are supposed to be saving from calamity by irreversibly changing our entire healthcare system and squashing the attendant rights we currently enjoy. So first, let's have a look at the "poor" people, sans the emotional response the "changers" hope we will have.

In 2007 Robert Rector updated his work on poverty using the most up to date government figures available, (many from the 2005 US census) and what it shows is that to be "poor" in America is the aspiration of the truly poor in the rest of the world. Here are a few facts he gleaned as he admired Mona's whole face:
(I paraphrase his work)

•A little less than half of all poor households actu­ally own their own homes, and that average home has three bedrooms, one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.
•The vast majority, 80%,  of poor households have air conditioning. He notes that "by contrast, in 1970, only 36 % of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning."
•Only 6% of poor households are over­crowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
•"Poor" Americans have more living space than average individuals living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens,  to mention just a few cities. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
•Almost 75% of poor households own a car while 31% own two or more..
•97% of poor households have color television; over 50% own two or more.
•78% have a VCR or DVD player; 62 % have cable or satellite TV reception.
•89% own microwave ovens, more than 50%  have a stereo, and more than a third have an automatic dishwasher.
His findings and their presentation, "How Poor Are America's Poor?" can be found here and are worthy of your time.

So as it turns out, the poor aren't as destitute as we have been led to believe, but more importantly, they not only have access to healthcare, and even health insurance (as provided by various failing state insurance plans for the needy), but they, like the rest of us, would rather spend the money they have on other things. And it seems they do just that according to Dr. Linda Halderman, who wrote an article concerning it for the Web magazine American Thinker.  Which brings me to the second thing we should have a look at, courtesy of her commentary.

Her article reveals much about human behavior while giving us a peek at what is in store for us if we allow "progressives" to jam socialized health insurance down our throats to help those who would rather spend their own money on Body tattoos, Botox injections, Boats, BlackBerrys and every other "B" necessity they perceive, while leaving the rest of us to pay for their true essentials.
I strongly urge you to read her first hand account of ABUSE OF SUBSIDIZED HEALTH CARE: THE VIEW FROM ONE EXAM ROOM as published in the Investors Business Daily on Oct. 5th.

As I pointed out in my earlier essay, the problem with health insurance in this country is that we want more from it than we are willing to pay for with our own money. And the "poor", with plenty of money for the above "B"s, are no different, except when being used as anecdotal evidence.

President Obama, who has confessed his preference for, and plan to get to a single payer system, says we need socialized medicine in this country to address the problems of the "anecdotal people", but with all due respect Mr. President, I BEG to differ.

A Pro-Choice President?

Recently I was reading an article that described the President as “pro choice”. Now, of course I understood the reference was to his support for abortion on demand, but it strikes me as more than odd that an entire political ideology, not just this President, describes itself by that terminology even though its adherents are probably among the least pro-choice group in this country.
By my observations, on almost any other topic, they are opposed to individual choice.

Let’s contemplate just a few major philosophic issues of the day;

Government directed health care, which will prohibit individual care providers and consumers from exercising their right to make their own arrangements between themselves is one of the highest priorities of these “pro-choice” advocates. No choice on that one.

Government mandated retirement system, aka “Social Security”. Sorry, no way to opt out. No choice on that one.

Agreement between two parties concerning compensation for services rendered. Sorry, government will decide what is too much or too little, not the people involved. No choice on that one.

I bet you can think of hundreds of other things upon which these same folks advocate either no choice or restricted choice. The next time someone tells you they are Pro-choice, you might ask them, on what issue?

That’s my opinion on the Pro-Choice description. Maybe we should just call things what they are, in this case, Pro-abortion on demand.