Reinke Faces Life

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/
WalterEWilliams/2006/12/06/
passing_of_a_giant

http://tinyurl.com/y84d6o

Passing of a giant
By Walter E. Williams
Wednesday, December 6, 2006

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Nobel Laureate and Professor Milton Friedman, at age 94, succumbed to heart failure on Nov. 16. While the man is gone, those of us who hold personal liberty as society’s highest end will always remember his steadfast support of the principles of personal liberty.

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I don’t usually disagree with Professor Walter. And I’m an injineer, not an ekkynominist, and certainly can’t match my accomplishments with Williams or Friedman. But one has to note certain key items with respect to the Friedman legacy:

1. His involvement with instituting income tax withholding.
2. His involvement with the South America dictatorship.
3. His failure to hold Greenspan to his “gold bug” background.
4. His support of vouchers precluded him from objecting to government involvement in education in the first place.
5. His failure to keep the public’s eye on the growth of government.

From a pure economic viewpoint, he tacitly supported fiat currency, and the resultant inflation, that allowed the growth of government. Failure to limit the money supply, permitted the government to escape the reins of fiscal discipline. It allowed them to spend like drunken sailors with the taxpayer’s credit card. As Nobel Prize winning economist, he should have been able to foresee the logical conclusion of this one economic point.

With “honest money”, (i.e., money backed by gold), the government would not be able to avoid the bills for their many (failed) programs. During the years of “honest money”, government was forced to make hard choices. They’d have to go to the voters for approval and taxpayers for funding. During the honest money period, we had a period of declining prices and stability. With FDR’s gold theft and eventually Nixon’s unilateral abrogation, the dollar was disconnected from reality. The resultant inflation has eroded most, if not all, of the dollar’s value. It’s no surprise, or should be no surprise, that investors seek to convert dollars into anything that will hold its value or has value (e.g., equities, real estate, commodities, even current consumption). Holding dollars, or even delaying gratification, makes zero sense in the inflationary environment.

We are on an interesting amusement park like ride. However there is no view of when and where the ride ends. And, no guarantee that it is a safe place or that it will even end. And, certainly no one has “planned” this ride out. He put us on it. Perhaps tacitly, bit on nevertheless.

That’s why I don’t agree with “steadfast support of the principles” assessment. I’m not say I could have, would have, or did better. But, he’s not the exemplar to me that he is to Williams. Probably only Greenspan edges him out for the “bottom spot” of economists deserving scorn.

imho

http://www.freetalklive.com/

http://ripple.radiotail.com/357/FTL2006-12-04.mp3

The difference between “LAWS” and “laws’
An email sent to the Mark at Free Talk Live

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Perhaps, you guys could help redefine the language.

I see the “Law of Gravity” as having more gravitas than the Federal, State, and Local “Laws”.

Never mind all the other rules, regulations, and diktats that gubamint issues. Let’s just focus on “Laws” for a moment.

I like the “Law of Gravity” and its many cousins like the “Law of Supply and Demand” or the “Law of the Conservation of Momentum”. They are universally fair and non-discriminatory. So, I don’t refer to what the criminal gangs do in their various dens of iniquity do as “making laws”.

We need to recapture the high ground.

When they neuter our language they give themselves more power. Imagine considering anything done by politicians as a “law”! Absurd! If you must refer to their “laws”, (I’m thinking of that Crocodile Dundee line “that’s not a knife. this is a knife” by crikey), then “we” should always preface it with “Federal Law”, “State Law”, or even “Weenie Law”. Add some diminutive to differentiate it from the big hairy natural LAWS. Their weak lame efforts to make laws should be called something like “law-lettes”, “wannabe laws”, or “pathetic attempts at law”.

P.S.: Remember when we get people laughing at them, their influence and power shrinks. Look how fast the cellphone tax disappeared. Almost overnight. When the media picked up that the people were calling it “The Spanish American War tax”. Like the Wizard of Oz, they can’t let themselves be be laughed at because then we will see how pathetic they are!

Best wishes from behind the lines
in the Pepuls Repulik of Nu Jerzee

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He read it live last night at the beginning of the second hour and was kind enough to give me a heads up. I’ll try and snip it for my collection.

We just have to keep people laughing at them.

UPDATE: I clipped out their reading and discussion of my email. Here’s my effort for your enjoyment. Glad I could give them a chuckle. http://home.comcast.net/~reinkefj/FTL_READS_20061204.mp3 Laugh at the politicians; it’s the most demeaning thing that you can do to them.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Dec-03-Sun-2006/opinion/11015664.html

Hate to say I told you so, but keep those Kevlar jammies handy
Dec. 03, 2006
VIN SUPRYNOWICZ:

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If the courts will not defend the sanctity of our homes, Americans retain the right and duty to do so ourselves.

Back in June, the justices who told us armed goons breaking in our doors in the dark of night were just hunky-dory said we were not without remedies. Why, Justice Anthony Kennedy said our legislatures can intervene if police officers do not “act competently and lawfully.”

Oh, sure. Think a single cop will go to jail for lying on this search warrant affidavit — already a crime in every state?

Not only that (Justice Kennedy explained from his marble palace), people whose homes are wrongly searched can always file a civil rights lawsuit.

Oh, fine. Just tell that to Kathryn Johnston.

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In the new Amrka, the inmates have no rights.

War on Drugs?

What a joke. Like the War on Poverty, there is no opposing state. It’s just a war on the Bill of Rights. With us as the victims.

We’re victimized in so many ways: we pay for the “justice” system; we pay to keep a whole lot of people in jail; we pay for gobs of people to watch them; we pay for a literal “army” of drug enforcers; we pay for the gubamint to dole drugs to us on prescriptions; we pay for a slew of drug regulations; and on and on and on.

Even the drug dealers like this current nonsensical system. They use the police to minimize the competition. Where else could they get an armed gang to take out the competition for “free”? No, it’s all cozy. The police get bribed. The politicians can have a straw dog to rail against. And, these drug dealers get rich.

I suggest we sick WalMart on them. Let’s legalize all drugs. Pardon all non-violent “drug offenders”. Shut down the DEA, FDA, and all their ilk. As anyone who has had to compete with WalMart can tell you, drug addicts will be able to buy their drugs for pennies. Young adults, dying from poisons in the illegal drugs or from varying potency, will be saved by WalMart’s insistence on quality. Can’t you just see the opportunities?

We need to end this supposed “war” on drugs. Disempower the gang in Washington from any role in “drugs”. Allow the invisible hand of the marketplace to “nuke” the violent drug gangs. Free the drug companies from any restriction, legislation, regulation, or inspection by anyone. And, terminate any regulation of “health care practitioners”. Certainly, the industry will figure out how to certify its members. Think Underwriters’ Laboratory.

It’ll be easier, cheaper, and a lot safer.

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=local&id=4818233

Peaceful remembrance and angry protest mark farewell to man killed in police shooting

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Members of the New Black Panther Party and other angry demonstrators used the word “pigs” to describe police. It was clear from the start this group had no permit for their protest, but given the escalating racial tension here in Queens the NYPD wasn’t going to stop them. And some of the extremists in this crowd would have kept right on going had police tried.

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On both the TV and radio stations, they are continually pointing out that there was no permit for the demonstration.

Permit?!?

What happened to America as a “free speech zone”?

This is just the media trying to propagandize us into to believing that we need the massa’s permission to speak out.

Argh!

May I suggest that we all email the Newsroom at eyewitness.news@abc.com and point out their ignorance of the First Amendment.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/
oped/articles/2006/12/01/reforming_education_across_
new_england/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+–+Op-ed+columns

http://tinyurl.com/vwbjr

Reforming education across New England
By Evan Dobelle | December 1, 2006
Evan Dobelle is president and CEO of the New England Board of Higher Education.

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Addressing higher education access and success should be a top regional priority for New England’s governors. Problems and solutions will vary somewhat from state to state, but here are some regional strategies for the six chief executives to consider:

Hold a summit meeting on how public education is financed. New England is failing its urban, rural, low-income and first-generation students from the Berkshires to Boston. All the best intentions about making these underserved students “college-ready” and closing the “education gap” are empty as long as tax-poor cities are dependent on local property taxes to finance their schools.

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Isn’t interesting how when, on the rare occasion when they will admit the system is a failure, no one ever says “let’s try something else”. It’s always more big gubamint solutions, more taxes, more programs, more funding, and ad nausum.

Look at technical education in the marketplace for an exemplar of how it COULD work.

You can be “certified” in Cisco, Microsoft, and bunch of other stuff.

For example, if you invest ~30k in your education and get a Cisco certification, then you can expect to make ~75k per year. That’s a ROI!

In the technical education field, there is tremendous competition. So costs are low and benefits are high.

Now compare that to “public education”?

Mandatory attendance. Drug problems. Performance problems. Graduating functional illiterates. Any entrenched unionized bunch of “public employees” with big pensions, lifetime employment, and guaranteed employment.

Can you imagine a bigger disaster?

So let’s close the gubamint propaganda reeducation camps and let people figure out the “education problem” free from government interference.

Then stand back and watch what freedom can deliver.