Reinke Faces Life

Cablevision and a seasonal shore house

A MATTER OF DEFINITION  June 16, 2006
By L. Neil Smith
For “L. Neil Smith At Random” on http://www.BigHeadPress.com
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A long time ago, in a Wichita far away, I met Robert LeFevre for the first time at a week-long seminar in the basement of the Ramada Inn. I learned a lot from him in that week, and over the years that followed. For example, as Americans, each of us has the right to vote as our individual conscience may dictate — for the socialist of our choice. LeFevre referred, as I have myself ever since, to so-called liberals as “left wing socialists” and to so-called conservatives as “right wing socialists”, pointing out that there isn’t any other option on the conventional political spectrum, or on the ballot at the polls.Vote for the socialist of your choice, but vote.
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You have to admire people who can spike the verbal volleyball! I'm going to steal this argument, with attribution of course. 

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2006/tle372-20060618-04.html

The Battle of Wakarusa
NLG and ACLU Fail to Defend Liberty
by Jim Davidson
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In early June 2006, the Wakarusa Music Festival took place around the USA Army Corps of Engineers Clinton Lake park facilities. About fifteen thousand people from around the country came for the festival, camped out, listened to live music, and brought millions of dollars in sales to area businesses.

But it wasn't all good news. With a USA feral "high intensity drug-trafficking area" grant, the State of Kansas and the Douglas County Sheriff's Department organized blockades of Kansas Highway 10, US Highway 59, and off ramps from Interstate 70, causing a three-day traffic snarl, violating individual liberties, and generally making a mess of the festival. The organizers who have brought the event to Lawrence, Kansas for three years in a row are considering not having it again, due to the oppressive police presence. 
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There goes the Fourth Amendment. The writer correctly asserts that the lawyers, a government granted monopoly, can't seem to get organized in time to defend our freedoms. But, they have no problem getting organized to take the benefits of a government monopoly. Sigh, what can one person do? 

Unemployment is an uninsurable risk!

The purpose of insurance is to take the risk from an individual and spread it among a large number of people and  / or organizations that are exposed to the same, or similar, risks.

So, rather than one person absorbing a million dollar loss, it's preferable to have a million people lose a dollar. In theory  and practice, this is done by an insurance company. But, Lloyds of London is a partnership. 

In order to transfer the risks, someone has to estimate the probability and cost of losses.  So, losses have to be estimable. Also there needs to be a large population to spread it over. Or, at least, some population who wants to pool their risks and minimize their losses. So this assumes that there are a class of people who all are exposed to the risk. 

I have full control over being employed or not being employed. All I have to do is tell my boss what I really think of him and I will soon be unemployed. On the other hand, I can almost always make sure that I will be employed if I am willing to take drastic wage cuts, for instance. If I were to work nearly for free, I would be employed.

So obviously this is not a risk that is insurable. It falls into the realm of individual responsibility.

It's a scam by gubamint to: confuse the issue, make people dependent upon gubamint as opposed to self-reliant / family -reliant, destabilize families, train people to taking welfare, eviscerate charities – unions – fraternal organizations – clubs, create make work jobs for gubamint "workers", and above all make the politicians look good.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north461.html

Textbooks as Ideological Weapons by Gary North

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For four decades, 1961–2001, R. J. Rushdoony was the best-known Protestant defender of Christian education and the de-funding of all tax-supported public education. There were other defenders of Christian education in the twentieth century, but none equally committed to the complete de-funding of public education. The others were defenders of Christian education as supplementary to public education. His position was hard-core: Take away the public schools' money.

His position was grounded on a concept of responsibility: Parents, not taxpayers, are responsible for their children's education. He accepted church-supported schools, but he thought they were generally a mistake. Parents do not pay for 100% of their children's education, so parents must share responsibility with church members. This leads to division in the churches over how the money should be spent. His ideal was either profit-seeking schools along the lines of Fairfax Christian School in Virginia, or home schooling.

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Even the good Brothers who taught me didn't understand that they were being fooled into indoctrinating me and their other charges.

I particularly like North's two prong test for indoctrination (1) the Federalist debate; and (2) the war of Northern Aggression aka the Civil war but what really should be called the end of the American Revolution. While the new nation state survived, it was set inexorable and inescapable down the path of empire.

It is a tremendous burden that Libertarians have to overcome. We have to reverse literally nearly a century of brainwashing. It makes the Communists look like amateurs. 

So how do we take back "our revolution"?

We have to roll back the Socialist's victories. Their key wins: the "publk skoolz"; the fiat currency; the progressive income tax; and the militarization of the American empire.

Focusing on the schools, they are: immoral, ineffective, and inefficient. 

By definition, they are funded with stolen money (i.e., taxes). So using the principle of the "end can not justify the means", they are the result of an immoral theft.

They also teach from a common agenda. That can possibly match what the parents believe in, so that's an immoral brainwashing of children.

We have evidence today of their ineffectiveness. We're last in the world in so many categories that it's a joke. We hear the stories about dropouts and rigged tests. We know from personal interaction with children that bright inquisitive children go in and brain dead functional illiterates come out the other side. 

The famous Objectivist Branden compared education to shoes, arguing that private enterprise is more efficient at providing goods and services than the government. So we know that they are inefficient.

So how do we strike back. I'd advocate a three pronged approach: (1) Make fun of the whole idea. Big Gubamint doesn't like to be perceived as a fool. It's hard to oppress the people if they are are laughing at you. The recent roll back of the Spanish American War cell phone tax was imho primarily due to the late night monologues making it obvious to even the graduates of gubamint skoolz that they were being screwed. Make the whole subject of gubamint skoolz a laughing matter. (2) Parents want the best for their children. Educate them about what their children will turn into after 8, 12, 16, or 20 years of what passes for education in Amerika. (3) Have an agreed paln about how we get out of this mess. It took us 70 years to get to where we are. We can't fix it overnight. Let's have a forty year plan to get out of this mess. I blogged about 20 to switch to a free market school system and the second twenty to end the taxpayer funding. People need time to adapt. (4) Don't let up keep hammering the message: ridiculously funny, immoral by theft, immoral in what they teach, ineffective, and inefficient. And wrong, un-American, and anti-Liberty.

http://www.mises.org/story/2196

The Case of Government Retirement Programs
by Mark A. Pribonic
Posted on Thursday, June 15, 2006

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I call these programs misdeeds by the political caste because it has been obvious since their inception that there is not enough wealth created to ever sustain them but for a short period of time. The lessons of defined-benefit pensions, which Social Security is the largest example of, have been well documented in the recently revealed financial troubles of the domestic auto companies, airlines, and others. Ignorance of economic law is no excuse.

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Clearly Social Security Insurance is not insurance. Ponzi scheme would be a better description. Insurance company executives would be in jail if they did what the politicians have done. If we think about these benefits as a discounted cash flow, that anyone in an MBA or an undergraduate course knows, then there has to be an asset to balance the teeter totter. The ROI of social security insurance is negative. There is no asset to provide the needed balance. So that bill will come do. There is a reason that business has moved from defined benefit pensions akin to social security. But, the business had to create that pool of assets to pay off its pensioners. Otherwise, the government would send the executives to jail. Note that politicians and professional bureaucrats don't go to jail for the same behavior. What's different? The change from  defined benefit to defined contribution plans puts the onus on the employee, not the company.

Clearly, governemt employee pensions are not funded like a company's pension plan. Unfunded liabilities abound in the government. And, we get to make good on these when they come do.

Just as clearly, the chickens are going to come home to roost, and they are going to be big, dirty, and nasty.

Consider when all these unfunded liabilities come due, there are only a few choices to make good on them:

• Increase taxes to stunning levels;
• Decrease benefits to manageable levels;
• Sell off the national treasures;
• Inflate the currency;
• Or, do the unthinkable and renege on the promises.

My bet is for inflation. It's the "quietest tax" on accumulated savings, cash, and fixed incomes. The market will respond to the increased amount of money chasing the same amount of goods. It'll make Carter's 21% inflation look tame. It will be like the German hyperinflation in the 20s.

http://wcbstv.com/local/local_story_165172930.html

School Cell Phone Fight May Be Heading To Court
Mayor Does Not Appear Ready To Budge On Issue
Kerri Lyon Reporting

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Mayor Michael Bloomberg said they're a distraction in the classroom. Parents and students said cell phones are a necessary lifeline in case of an emergency.

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Silly people, Michael Bloomberg, by virtue of being elected mayor, knows what is right in eddykation. Those sentenced to gubamint reeducation camps, aka publik skoolz, should not the resemblance to Father State's prisons. Since they can't keep drugs, weapons, and cell phones out of prisons, they are going to try with an easier target the prison's traing grounds … the skoolz.

Personally, I hope that everyone fights a lot and ridicules the skoolz. It seems that when we can attach a derogatory label on something, it morphs or get repealed. The gubbamint doesn't like to look stupid! And, it certainly doesn't want ot wake the sleeping people, the sheeple, the sheep people, who are being shorn of their rights.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/suprynowicz/suprynowicz43.html

Why I Am Not a 'Conservative'
by Vin Suprynowicz
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who in Washington today are more conservative than the so-called liberal Democrats, yapping like protective bitches, should anyone approach their overgrown brood of social welfare programs? 

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But after the Republicans came surging back 20-odd years ago, vowing to close down the wasteful and counterproductive federal Departments of Energy and Education (it would have been a good start) – they did none of it. Never even tried. In 22 years they have repealed no significant infringement of the Second Amendment, closed no significant federal agency or program.

They smile like Br'er Rabbit in the briar patch as the leftist press dances their stylized political Kabuki, decrying Republican "budget cuts" that are really nothing but modest reductions in the rate of bureaucratic growth.
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And neither am I. Like the Classical Libertarian of the pre-French Revolution, I am taking the logical high ground for freedom. Downsize DC, Down with Conservatives, Liberals, Red States, Blue States, Democan, and Republicrat. 

I vote for small government every time, no exceptions.

Hopefully others will get the idea and make the Second American Revolution a bloodless one! 

As I sit and think of the mess that we are in, both here in Amerika and the People's Republic of New Jersey, perhaps it is time to propose a "solution". Now the dead old white guys were fond of what I call a "gum up the works" strategy. Maybe we need to adopt their thinking. A representative republic is a good alternative to democracy!

I never cared much for gerrymandering. 
For New Jersey, I would propose that we leave the State Assembly popularly elected for a while (more on that later). But we make the State Senator, nominated by the County Freeholders, and elected by the Township Councils in that County. Then we can hold our local governing body accountable for what goes on in and comes down from Trenton. Smart the dead old white guys they are. Take a local hostage! If one man one vote comes in play, then the state senators vote would be multiplied by the citizens in their respective counties. In NJ, then there would only be 21 State Senators, and they would be very visible. No more pass the buck and point the finger. The local guy blames the county and trenton and says there is nothing that can be done. Trenton and the county blame the local guys. Let's put the local guy in the driver's seat! Hmmm. I like that idea.

So, again, I would align the State Assembly districts to the boundaries of the various Townships. Since the State Assembly should give people a voice, I'd make it census population based. Since the population of New Jersey is 84 Million. I'd set one State Assembly seat for every million people. Unless the Township committee decides differently, the State Assembly seats would be Township based. The Township Committee could decide to apportion those by some sub-community as proposed by the Township Committee and approved by the voters.

Now I don't see much use in electing County Government. So I would replace that election with a County Committee of representatives appointed by the Township Councils. Get the idea. Representative government up the line, all focusing on the local politicians, who you can get your hands on!

Now to have some uniformity, we should stagger all of this. Just to make change a little slower. So Township Committees should be say 5 people elected annually for a staggered five year term. County Committee people should say get a 5 year term. State Senators get a 10 year term. And we elect assembly people every year.

Of course, we should allow recall of any representative on say a 80% vote.

That should suitably (1) slow down legislative change; (2) put the local politicians clearly on the hot seat.

Oh, and let's end the farce of school board elections. The socialist government school system is merely supporting an incestuous relationship of: School administrators, teachers, their support staff, their unions, their contractors, and the corrupt politicians. All sucking the local taxpayer dry for a second rate result. Again, make the local Township council responsible.

That should sum up the works and save us a few bucks. AND, when we are getting screwed we don't have to go far to find the people responsible!

Warm up the tar, pluck the chickens, get out the pitchforks, here comes the voters!

http://tinyurl.com/hnjzk

A modern touch for the pension system
By Kerry Healey  |  June 13, 2006

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The state pension system has $13 billion in unfunded liability that acts like an anchor on the budget and mortgages the state's future. Next year , taxpayers are set to pay more than $1 billion just to chip away at the pension debt. Those annual payments will rise to $2.3 billion by 2023.

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This is all about Taxachusetts. But, why do gubamint employees have pensions? Federal, government, local, skoolz, yada yada yada. In today's economy, employers don't give pensions. So why does the gubamint drones get them?