I was really annoyed a few years ago when my aunt died. after a life of very modest earnings, leaving a small estate to her sister and paying the State of New Jersey 15% for the privilege of dying here. Well it happened again! Another relative had the poor judgement to die while a resident of New Jersey and will also pay 15% to the grave robbing gubamint. Where’s my pitchfork and torch?
RANT: NJ State is STILL a grave robber
Sunday, August 27, 2006
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Posted by reinkefj
LIBERTY: Getting back to the Constitution repeal the 17th (Direct election of Senators)
Sunday, August 27, 2006http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_bartlett/bartlett200405120748.asp
May 12, 2004, 7:48 a.m.
Repeal the 17th Amendment
It’s where big government begins.
***Begin Quote***
There is only one time when a U.S. senator is really free to speak the truth — when he’s announced his retirement. Since he no longer has to worry about raising money, pandering to voters, or retaliation from his colleagues, he can say what he really thinks about issues no other member of the Senate will discuss. For this reason, it is worth listening to Sen. Zell Miller, Democrat of Georgia, who recently spoke a truth that no senator except a retiring one would dare say.
On April 28, Sen. Miller, the last genuinely conservative Democrat we will likely ever see in the Senate, laid the blame for what ails that august body at the door of the 17th amendment to the Constitution. This is the provision that provides for the popular election of senators.
***End Quote***
Sounds like a good idea to me! Where do we start?
#####
LIBERTY: “Eminent Domain” … yet another … another gubamint crime!
Sunday, August 27, 2006http://www.njeminentdomain.com/state-of-new-jersey-eminent-domain-fines-eviction-and-videotape.html
***Begin Quote***
Under the threat of a $4,000 per day fine from Superiour Court Judge James Hurley, the Halpers vacated their 75-acre farm peacefully.
***End Quote***
Wave good bye to your Fifth Amendment!
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Posted by reinkefj
LIBERTY: “well-meaning” Congressman … asks … “problem with a federal program”? YES!
Sunday, August 27, 2006http://www.lifetrekcoaching.com/creativity/cy060827.htm
> My well-meaning Congressman sent his constituents a pamphlet announcing his upcoming Open
> Door Meetings. Upon opening it, I found the question “Do you have a problem with a federal
> program or agency?” in bold letters
OK! You hit my hot button!
Yes. The government steals our money in a variety of ways (i.e., inflation, direct taxes that we pay, indirect taxes that others pay for us, shoddy services, services that are imposed, unintended consequences) and then expects us to be grateful to them for “protecting” us. Please, stop! The litany could go on for pages, but, let’s hit three that might resonate here.
Taxes
I assert it IS everyone’s largest single unavoidable unknown variable expense. The Federal Reserve inflates the currency robbing us of (we can argue EXACTLY what the rate is) between 2.5 and 12% per year. Your dollars are rotting in front of your eyes. The direct taxes (sales, income, and estate) steal every time you buy something, earn something, or die. The indirect taxes (i.e., the gasoline tax) is factored into everything you buy hiding it from identification. No one knows for example what portion of that loaf of bread is tax. It’s not all profit for the baker. I have seen plausible estimates that the US tax bite is in the 80% range. You need some complex math to unwind all the hidden taxation. A good proxy is government spending (at all levels) since that has to come from somewhere. Guess where? Remember only people truly pay taxes. Businesses either pass them along or go broke!
Medicine
Medical care in the US, while “better” than the universal coverage schemes elsewhere, is screwed up by gubamint involvement. “My” government and my insurance company have more to say about my wife’s medical care than I do. Example, she has some problems. Testing in and of itself was risky. I “hear about” full body scan. The insurance doesn’t cover it. And, the gubamint barely approves of it. But for 2k$ and a half hour, I was able to eliminate a laundry list of things the docs wanted to test for with zero risk. (Now the docs are trying to think of new zebras to test for!) Those risky tests would have been just dandy with the gubamint and the insurance company would pay for them. See the problem. It’s the golden rule. (He who has the gold makes the rules!) I remember when my Mom had to pay $185 for my appendectomy when I was a kid. It was a LOT of money. (We weren’t rich. I think the family passed the hat.) But there were only a few forms. Insurance was after the fact between her and the insurance company. But it was the model of speed and efficiency. As a matter of fact, I know the family doc gave her choices of who and where with prices and recommendations! Now we are in a health care model that is one step from the Soviet Union. Take it or leave it. And, it costs!
Drugs and the war on drugs
The FDA. Need I say more? It guarantees that people will die. It enforces a medical monopoly that is a tacit conspiracy between the gubamint, the politicians, the doctors, lawyers, and drug companies. Example, if a new drug cures cancer, then it won’t be available for decades of “testing”. Can some one explain to me if someone is dying of say terminal hangnail and I have essence of guano that cures it, then why do we need testing? At one time in this country, we didn’t look to gubamint for protection. Why ain’t people dying of faulty electronic appliances? Underwriters Laboratory. No government involvement. Yet, I can remember the last case of something happening. WalMart protects me by NOT selling anything without a UL label. Just in case I forget to check. Why do I have to go to the doc for a government permit (aka prescription), beg for an insurance company to cover it in their formulary, then find a licensed drug dealer to sell it to me?
The war on drugs is a joke. In the name of protecting us, they are killing and imprisoning us. No one can stop anyone from putting what they want in the body. It’s immoral. It’s ineffective. And, it’s inefficient. If we are free and have inalienable rights, then there is no moral basis for the drug war. People have to be free to make bad decisions and learn from their mistakes. It’s ineffective. They can’t keep drugs out of prisons. How can they keep them out of society? Didn’t we learn from Prohibition? Can’t be done. Even in the USSR, they still had black markets. Where there is a demand, there will be a supplier. It’s economics. And, the gubamint goes to all sorts of excesses, in the name of “protecting” us. Yet children get killed in rival drug gang shoot outs. When was the last time you saw a shoot out between Bud and Miller? Yup, during Prohibition. Want to end the drug violence, eliminate street dealing, let WalMart do it. Legalize everything. The marketplace will figure out what to do. And no dumb gubamint age rules either. Have you seen how many kids smoke and drink? Eliminate the kool factor and you’ll eliminate they trying this stuff. And, even if they do, they would die from uncut drugs or drugs cut with rat poison. Finally, it’s inefficient. ALL these “controls” add to the cost and delay in the marketplace. It’s guesstimated by people far smarter than me that illegal drugs would be as cheap as aspirin. (Not sure that it would be THAT cheap, but certainly an addict wouldn’t have to rob and hurt people to feed a habit.) The money wasted on attempting to “control drugs” could be better served by “treating” it. And, we wouldn’t have the Drug War nonsense endanger us or our liberties.
— end rant —
Let me just throw in that the gubamint is a study in “unintended consequences”:
=> Federal Reserve institutionalizes inflation destroying the saving ethic
=> Income Tax makes everyone a slave to the government
=> Prohibition leads to explosion in organized crime
=> Social Security ponzi scheme setups intergeneration & racial sex funds transfer
=> Social Security destroys the multi generational family support structure and puts kids in day care
=> WW2 Wage & Price controls destroy the direct connection between payer and medical provider
=> Medicare inserts the gubamint in every senior citizen’s medical care at a huge cost
=> “minimum wage” interferes in the peaceful exchange of labor for value; impacts the poor worst!
=> “War on Poverty” destroys the Black family and Black Churches
=> “Urban Renewal” destroys stable neighborhoods to create “vertical slums”
=> “War on Drugs” imprisons minorities and destroys our rights
=> “War on Terror” further destroys our liberty
My challenge is “Name ANY government program that works?”
SO the “well meaning” Congressman should be met not with “appreciative inquiry” but citizens with pitchforks, torches, tar, and feathers! No politician is anything but a (most charitable) dupe, con artist, or (least charitable) stupid.
My suggestions (I don’t just talk about it!):
(1) Get and stay mad. Vote against every incumbent. Demand lower taxes (axiomatic improvement) and ending programs.
(2) Investigate and support the Free State Project (Liberty lovers move to NH for freedom!)
(3) Muck up the system. Don’t cooperate. Remember Gandhi. Non-violent non-cooperation.
(4) Go enthusiastically to jury duty. Vote “not guilty” on bad laws.
(5) Support voluntary true grass roots efforts to solve problems. Avoid “big” charity, like the United Way.
(6) Engage others in discussions of free market solutions. Effective compassion. And, do something, not kvetch!
If you have to use force to get someone to do something, it’s – by definition – a bad idea.
IMHO,
Fjohn
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Posted by reinkefj
TECH: PRINTERANYWHERE feedback given to the author on a minor flaw.
Sunday, August 27, 2006I use printeranywhere successfully. However, at night, when I hibernate my note book, the next morning it doesn’t “reconnect” printeranywhere. If I stop it and restart it, then it picks up like a champ. If I just do my usual morning routine and flip it open, it doesn’t relogon. If I go to the “show” and then to “relogon”, it doesn’t’ seem to remember my userid or password despite the remember me setting. Since it is in it’s own little world, I have to look up the userid and password. (Who remembers these things?) Then everything is hunky dory. Please fix this little dementia that the program has.
—
They said they would.
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Posted by reinkefj
TURKEY: ATTENTION KMART SHOPPERS the rules have changed! (There. Now you’ve all been told.)
Sunday, August 27, 2006http://www.escapefromcubiclenation.com/get_a_life_blog/2006/08/requesting_quic.html
***Begin Quote***
Chapter Two: Why corporations today cannot provide job security, no matter how hard they try
Anyone who thinks that taking a job as a corporate employee today is more stable than generating their own income is in for a rude awakening. Corporate jobs can be tremendous training grounds for learning about business and management, as well as providing temporary income streams. But if you look for a long-term, till-retirement-do-us-part work relationship, you are in for intense heartbreak. This chapter describes what has made corporations constitutionally unstable (such as radically changing marketing conditions, outsourcing, mergers and acquisitions, frequent top management changes and pressure from globalization). I will include tips for getting the most from your corporate experience while you are still there (some from my “Open Letter to Employees”).
***End Quote***
As I have ranted before, the “rules” have changed on us. We’ve gone thru several iterations of them. But the 50’s illusion of going to work for a big company, like AT&T as I did in the late sixties, working for fifty years and getting lifetime security (the rules were spelled out: don’t be drunk, don’t dip you pen in company ink, and don’t steal) with a pension and financial security at the end of the yellow brick road, are OVER! That worked for my Mom; it will NOT work for us!
ATTENTION KMART SHOPPERS the rules have changed! (There. Now you’ve all been told.)
New rules:
(1) You’re only as secure as the last paycheck that cleared!
(2) You’re only value is what you are PERCEIVED to produce! (Note: Not what you actually produce; that’s irrelevant.)
(3) You better save your pennies because at the end of the road that’s all you’ll have. (IRA, 401k, tbills, etfs)
(4) The rules, even these rules, are subject to change without notice, without logic, and on a whim. (Pay careful attention to deduce these new rules!)
(5) Old and gray, although smart and wise, is not respected, valued, or employable.
(6) Having multiple revenue streams, (i.e., a white collar job, a blue collar skill, rental properties, an ebay business, an investment portfolio, and some “mad” money), means that the loss of one stream will not materially effect your happiness. (Or your marriage, which is in case you haven’t realized it, your most important asset!)
[Feel free to add your own. I’d be interested to learn what you add! Please tell me I can be a little dense sometimes.]
FJohn
The Big Turkey
looking for “rules” in all the wrong places
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Posted by reinkefj
Reinke Faces Life 