Reinke Faces Life

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/
news/editorial/16340275.htm

http://tinyurl.com/y2lmd9

Posted on Fri, Dec. 29, 2006
FEC fines could bring undemocratic silencing
Bradley A. Smith

served as chairman of the Federal Election Commission in 2004 and is a professor of law at Capital University Law School in Columbus, Ohio

***Begin Quote***

Two weeks ago, the Federal Election Commission fined MoveOn.org, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and two other groups a total of $629,500 for violating campaign-finance laws during the 2004 election. According to the FEC, these “527” organizations (so named for the tax-code provision governing their activities) should have registered as political action committees, which would have limited their ability to receive large donations and probably would have shut them out.

***End Quote***

Now the government will decide what speech is “approved”.

Remember this contribution to free speech when you see Mc Cain and Fiengold.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese330.html

Right and Simple
by Charley Reese

***Begin Quote***

The right thing to do, of course, is to legalize the stuff and conduct a public-education campaign against its use. It works with tobacco, and it would work with illegal drugs. Thousands of people are criminalized for no good reason except a bunch of stupid laws on the books and politicians too cowardly to change them.

***End Quote***

It’s immoral (to tell people what they can do with their own body), ineffective (does prevent the harm that people do to themselves and inflicts damage up to death on innocent people), and inefficient (inflicts massive costs on ourselves and inflicts tremendous collateral damage far in excess of the problem it is attempting to solve).

Start off the new year demanding an end!

http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?cde4e557-3773-42b1-a4a6-7229688f4b8f

http://tinyurl.com/tf4z2

Freedom to Report Real News
Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Right to Arms, Self-Defense Debate a Universal Issue
By Joseph P. Tartaro, 12/26/2006 11:31:16 PM

Joseph P. Tartaro is the Executive Editor of Gun Week magazine.
http://ww.gunweek.com

***Begin Quote***

There is universality to the firearms and self-defense debate that surfaces in almost every country of the world. The debates over public policy in each country sound very similar to those we experience in the United States.

Perhaps that is because the issues are universal: people everywhere can debate the moral and social arguments for arming the good people against the threat of the evil ones who seem to be everywhere.

The British have pretty much outlawed not only guns but self-defense and crime has skyrocketed.

*** and ***

“Zahid Mahmood says this is the third time he has been robbed while delivering pizzas for Super Crown Pizza. The first time in 2004, he says he was pistol-whipped by the robber. The second time he says he was ambushed in June 2006.

“The 44-year-old Mahmood has a state license that allows him to carry a handgun. He says he has had the gun for years, but says Sunday night was the first time he had ever used his weapon.

“He says he was walking back to his car after dropping off a pizza at an apartment, when three young men approached him, demanded his money and car keys, and ordered him to walk away.

“Mahmood says he did what they told him, but he says that wasn’t enough. He says one of them followed him, and insisted he hand over his cell phone. He says that at that point, he thought his life was on the line.

“ ‘He was posing under his jacket like a gun,’ Mahmood said. ‘He showed me and said that he would shoot me if won’t give him my cell phone. I said, “Okay, hold on, I’ll give you my cell phone.” And I grabbed my gun and instead of my cell phone, I pulled my gun out, and then I shot—just to hurt him, that he could get away from there.’ ”

“Mahmood says he fired a total of three shots, one of which hit and killed 14-year-old Kenyatta Calhoun. The other two young men at the scene got away, according to police.

“Police have referred the case to the Fulton County District Attorney’s office, so prosecutors can decide whether or not to file any charges against Mahmood, who insists he acted in self-defense,” the news reports concluded.

What will happen to Mahmood in the future remains to be seen. But the fact that the he had been robbed and beaten in the past and his life was threatened by three street thugs is more important than the fact that one of the thugs who was 14 years old had his criminal career cut short. The media’s focus on the fact that he was 14 is just another way of coloring the universal debate.

***End Quote***

I really really don’t understand the debate.

There is NOTHING that equalizes a fight like a gun. A physically stronger man confronting almost any woman can be stopped DEAD (either figuratively or literally) by a gun. A bunch of thugs threatening a single person can be similarly stopped. There’s no reason to tolerate the tyranny of the strong over the weak.

So why do we have this debate?

Politicians know why. It’s impossible to oppress an armed citizenry. Look at Switzerland. Look at the Warsaw Ghetto. Look at the veterans in Athens GA. You try to intimidate an armed populace and you could wind up dead.

It’s a racial issue. “Gun Control” laws arise out of the post civil war South, when the Klan was intimidating Blacks. While you can lynch an armed man, you can lose a few bigots in the process.

Even today, it’s a racial issue. Crime makes a bad neighborhood. So why do we deny the residents protection? They’re not getting it from the government. Let them protect themselves.

And, if you eliminate the drug laws, then even that “crime” will go away. You’d empty the prisons and stop the collateral damage of the “drug war”.

It a feminist issue; women have the right to be secure. So, don’t “handcuff” them with inadequate tools. I chuckle when I think of my now-deceased paternal grandmother describing her travel on the Oregon trail and asked “Granma did you kill any men?”, replied with a twinkle “No child, just varmits.” Tell her that she’d have to be afraid. I don’t think so. I think most women are more like her then even they imagine. I trust them to know when to shoot.

I never understood the joke that we call “police protection”. They are more like the sanitation department, cleaning up the mess long after the fact. Writing reports and taking statements. As a matter of fact, the Supreme Court says that the police have no obligation to protect anyone. So exactly who are the “protecting and serving”? Themselves. The Politicians. It’s an illusion. Your protection comes from your neighbors. Community standards of behavior, when violated, will get your neighbors to support you. Look at NOLA. When the good folks left, (some rich; some poor), all that was left was the victims and the thugs. Some of those criminals were uniformed.

In the end quote, we have a ne’er-do-well who was killed. The fact that he was 14 shouldn’t even enter the debate. Other than we should hold him, his parents, and his family accountable.

There is an illusion and a lesson here. The illusion is “TV Shoot Out”. Unlike what people see on the TV and in the movies, you can NOT shoot the bad guy and “just wing him”. You are trained that, when you shoot, you aim for the center of mass. And, you shoot until the threat is eliminated, or you’re empty. The lesson is “sheep dog”. When you have concealed carry, it’s hard for the criminals to tell the sheep from the sheep dogs. We need more sheep dogs and fewer sheep.

Self-defense, “gun control” aka victim disarmament, should NOT even be open for debate.

Every person, black or white, woman or man, has the RIGHT to defend themselves as they see fit.

And, if you fall afoul of any one of the numerous gubamint’s diktats (aka 20,000 gun laws), I hope I’m on your jury because you’ll walk. Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/184566,CST-NWS-unskul24.article

http://tinyurl.com/y583kv

‘You have to trust that the child will learn’
‘Unschooling’ movement leaves education choices up to kids
December 24, 2006
BY ROSALIND ROSSI Education Reporter

***Begin Quote***

Eighteen-year-old Abby Stewart got word this month that she won early admission to elite Princeton University, even though she has never set foot in a high school classroom.

She also wrapped up a huge challenge — dancing the Snow Queen role in “The Nutcracker Suite” at the Athenaeum Theatre — largely because she has never set foot in a high school classroom.

Five years ago, frustrated with the pace and depth of a Chicago Public School gifted program, Abby withdrew from eighth grade and entered uncharted territory — a branch of home schooling often called “unschooling.”

***End Quote***

And, I have to be robbed at gunpoint to pay for the state to run the equivalent of juvenile prisons, why?

http://www.mises.org/story/2406

Fallacies of the Negative Income Tax
By Henry Hazlitt
Posted on 12/27/2006

[This essay is from Hazlitt’s book Man vs. The Welfare State (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1969, pp 84–100; available in PDF). It is an early critique of a proposal made by Milton Friedman that later came to be proposed by Richard Nixon and a version enshrined into law as the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is now the largest cash transfer program for low-income people. See Friedman’s Mistake.]

***Begin Quote***

Fight Poverty With Capitalism

“But would-be income guarantors ignore or despise the capitalistic system that makes their dreams dreamable…”

Capitalism brought the Industrial Revolution, and the enormous increase in productivity that this has made possible. Capitalism has enormously raised the economic level of the masses. It has wiped out whole areas of poverty, and continues to wipe out more. The so-called “pockets of poverty” constantly get smaller and fewer.

The condition of poverty, moreover, is relative rather than absolute. What we call poverty in the would be regarded as affluence in most parts of Africa, Asia, or Latin America. If an income sufficient to enable a man “to live with dignity” ought to be “guaranteed” as a matter of “absolute right,” why don’t the advocates of a guaranteed income insist that this right be enforced first of all in the poor countries, such as India and China, where the need is most widespread and glaring? The reason is simply that even the better-off groups in these nations have not produced enough wealth and income to be expropriated and distributed to others.

One of the guaranteed-income advocates, in a footnote, admits naively: “We must also recognize that we still have no strategy for the elimination of poverty in the underdeveloped countries.” Of course they haven’t. The “strategy” would be the introduction of free enterprise, and of incentives to work, to save, to accumulate capital, better tools and equipment, and to produce.

But would-be income guarantors ignore or despise the capitalistic system that makes their dreams dreamable and gives their redistribute-the-income proposals whatever plausibility they have. The capitalist system has made this country the most productive and richest in the world. It has continued to achieve its miracles even in the present generation, and to increase them year by year. It has raised the average weekly factory wage from less than $17 in 1933 to $130 in 1969. Even after the rise in prices is allowed for, it has nearly tripled our real per capita disposable income — from $893 in 1933 to $2,473 in 1968 (in 1968 prices).

Allowed to continue to operate with even the relative freedom that it has enjoyed in recent years, the capitalist system will continue to produce these miracles. It will continue to make progress against poverty by a general increase in income and wealth. But shortsighted and impatient efforts to wipe out poverty by severing the connection between effort and reward can only lead to the growth of a totalitarian state, and destroy the economic progress that this country has so dearly bought.

***End Quote***

Seems so elementally simple.

Allow people freedom and miracles happen.

Poverty in Africa seems to be directly related to dictators and government corruption. Not sure about Asia, but it seems logical to me. Just as it takes a government to commit genocide, it’s also need to really make the people poor.

America’s foreign policy should end at the water’s edge. Washington’s “trade with all; entangling alliances with none” is also a good rule of thumb. Trade between people; not gubamints.

I add another set of imperatives. If your country is poor, then you’re not welcome here. If you loot your country’s treasure, then don’t look for the protection of banks here. AND, if you kill your citizens, then don’t try hide here.

Capitalism is the road to peace and prosperity for everyone.

http://reinkefj.newsvine.com/_news/2006/12/24/
494600-reviewjournalcom-opinion-vin-suprynowicz
-a-mission-for-further-economic-ruin?threadId=63373

http://tinyurl.com/yk9mqm

VIN SUPRYNOWICZ: A mission for further economic ruin

***Begin Quote***

How do we know the dollar supply is going up at 10 percent a year? We can’t be positive — Mr. Bernanke’s gang decided last February that we peasants no longer need to see this number, known as the “M-3 monetary aggregate.” But 10 percent is a reasonable extrapolation from other numbers still reported, and from what the Fed was doing 10 months ago — with even more furious printing activity likely to follow, as the proud authors of the Washington Fiscal Death Spiral seek to inflate their way out of the actuarial bankruptcy of Medicare and Social Security.

***End Quote***

Of the three things we need — honest money, private schools, and ending the dole — this article address the dishonest money we are currently using. At 10% inflation, we can’t keep anything. No wonder that real estate, stocks, collectibles, and commodities are off the chart!

http://www.mises.org/story/2419

http://tinyurl.com/wl2cy

Is High School Football a Public Good?
By Jim Fedako
Posted on 12/21/2006

Jim Fedako, a former professional cyclist who lives in Lewis Center, OH, is a member of the Olentangy Local School District and maintains a blog.

***Begin Quote***

The problem with the concept of public goods is that it misdirects the debate. In modern society, every action I take has a perceived positive or a perceived negative external effect on other members of society, and most of the time there are perceived positive and negative external effects occurring simultaneously. When I mow my lawn, one neighbor perceives the noise as a negative — reducing calm and tranquility — while another neighbor perceives my well-kept lawn as a benefit — invoking calm and tranquility.

I use the qualifier “perceive” because the whole public goods argument for coerced funding of football teams is based on the perception of the observer. The parents of the football player, the player himself, as well as local high school football fans, perceive the team and games as a positive for the community. Some say that it benefits the kids, while others say it strengthens the community. Both views see tax-funded sports, football in particular, as a winner for the community.

Yet the parent struggling to make ends meet each month, the retiree living on an inflation-robbed pension, the lover of freedom, etc., see their ever-increasing tax bill as a negative. For the parent, a child’s dental appointment goes wanting for the sake of the football team; for the retiree, the higher tax bill comes at the cost of a colder house in the winter; for lovers of freedom, additional money lifted from their wallets is another slap in the face by collectivists.

***End Quote***

This is (imho) an excellent indictment of “public skools” and their “teams”.

When everyone is forced by threat of violence, and that’s what taxes are, people have to scrimp on things they would rather do. The fact that they get the short end of the stick doesn’t make it any less painful. Like Basat’s “broken glass” fallacy, where everyone can see the beneficial economic activity in repairing a broken window, few if any see the thing that were precluded.

High School Football also creates a peer pressure. Don’t dare gripe about having to pay for it because those who want it will dump on you.

The essence of a free marketplace is that two people can make an exchange because they each perceive that they are better off after the exchange.

In the example of High School Football, where I am forced to exchange my money for the “benefit” of the team, is of little comfort if I don’t have enough food for my children to eat. It doesn’t matter if it is pennies. Let the High School Football team “tin cup” around the community and beg for funds. The alternative is there are armed thugs (the tax collectors, as bad as in the movie Robin Hood) will rob you a gun point for them. Suppose that the High School Football tax is what I need to send my child to art class, pay my magazine subscription, or contribute to my favorite charity. It really does NOT matter what I choose to do with what I would pay in the High School Football tax, it’s MY choice. Not yours!

Here in NuJerzee, we are driving people out of the state with socialism and its taxes. I’m sure that when I become a senior citizen I’ll be leaving as well. And it won’t be the weather that drives me away, it’ll will be socialism, its taxes, and its rules.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1975161,00.html

All-time high for homegrown as pot becomes top cash crop in US
Dan Glaister in Los Angeles
Tuesday December 19, 2006
The Guardian

*** begin quote ***

Marijuana is now the biggest cash crop grown in the US, exceeding traditional harvests such as wheat, corn and soy beans, says a new report.

The study shows that 10,000 tonnes of marijuana worth $35.8bn (£18.4bn) is grown each year; the street value would be even higher. This dwarfs the $23bn-worth of corn grown, $17.6bn-worth of soybeans and $12.2bn-worth of hay. Marijuana is the biggest cash crop in 12 states, with the value of pot grown outstripping peanuts in Georgia and tobacco in North and South Carolina. In California, the biggest producer, it is worth $13.8bn.

*** end quote ***

Only in America could we figure out how to make a weed the most important crop. What a joke! Yup, that “war” on drugs is really working.

Perhaps, if we really want the nation to be drug free, then we should direct Governments at all levels to try to require us to be drug addicts. In a decade, we’d be drug free. All thanks to, what I will call, “The Gooferment can’t do anything right” Law. Rule of thumb. Safe bet.

Can you answer the best question I ever heard from the boys over at Free Talk Live —- name a government program that works?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0%2C%2C2089-2508262%2C00.html

http://tinyurl.com/y97scb

The Sunday Times December 17, 2006
Tsunami survivors given the lash
Michael Sheridan and Dewi Loveard, Banda Aceh
Disaster donations help Islamic vigilante force impose punishments on women

***Begin Quote***

International aid workers and Indonesian women’s organisations are now expressing dismay that the flow of foreign cash for reconstruction has allowed the government to spend scarce money on a new bureaucracy and religious police to enforce puritan laws, such as the compulsory wearing of headscarves.

***End Quote***

So here we have donations for the victims of a natural disaster perverted into oppressing the people.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese328.html

http://tinyurl.com/v3eyj

Put No Faith in the United Nations
by Charley Reese

***Begin Quote***

My first choice is and always has been to abrogate the treaty and withdraw from the U.N. completely. If it were merely a worthless organization, that wouldn’t be so bad, but it is a very expensive organization, which has great capacity to cause trouble.

***End Quote***

An excellent opinion, The UN is ineffective, inefficient, expensive, permits leaders to misbehave, and screws up NYC. Nuke ’em.

You have to wonder about any organization that allows murderers to be in charge of “human rights”.

Withdraw now. Stop paying. Boot ’em out.

It’s a “club” we shouldn’t be in!

http://www.steve-olson.com/how-the-public-school-system-crushes-souls/

http://tinyurl.com/yxfj6f

How the Public School System Crushes Souls
December 12th, 2006 by Steve

***Begin Quote***

When you read about the problems with American education, you usually read a bunch statistics about literacy and dropout rates. But those statistics don’t do the subject justice because the problem with American education is a human story. Every dropout is a human being, every illiterate teenager is an individual, every teen that commits suicide was somebody’s baby, and every kid that’s doing 20 to life is a real breathing person – full of potential.

***End Quote***

This is a terrible story. At the root of it, one has to recognize that the country has made a terrible mistake. Education is too important to be left to this governmental abuse.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/
2006/12/13/the_fairtax_book

http://tinyurl.com/ylnrks

The FairTax Book
By Walter E. Williams
Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Dr. Williams serves on the faculty of George Mason University as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and is the author of More Liberty Means Less Government: Our Founders Knew This Well.

***Begin Quote***

You say, “What’s Williams’ solution?” My solution is an amendment limiting federal spending to a fixed percentage, say, 10 percent of the gross domestic product. You say, “Why 10 percent?” If 10 percent is good enough for the Baptist Church, it certainly ought to be good enough for Congress.

***End Quote***

Well, I have to disagree with Professor Williams again.

Why should anyone accept being a ten percent slave?

At least, he was quick enough to detect that this abomination would give us BOTH a “Fair Tax” and eventually an income tax.

The government is force. And force is anathema to libertarians. There’s no rationale that would allow me to agree to make me and my fellow citizens slaves by any percentage.

If the government, which more rightly should be called gubamint or gooferment, has worthwhile services to offer than it should offer them in a free market.

The free market is the ultimate expression of the will of the people. All buyers and sellers freely exchange based on their own internal assessment of value. Unlike an election where there are winners and losers, the marketplace allows everyone to “win”.

Other significant objections to the Fair Tax that Professor Williams didn’t cite was:

* the prebate of zero bracket amount (i.e, the refund to poor people of taxes paid) makes everyone into a “welfare queen” and trains them to get a month check (or eft) from the government. In the marketplace, it is only by satisfying the needs of another that we “get a check”.

* the States and businesses become tax collectors for the Federal government. True the get paid to do it, but States are sovereign. And, business shouldn’t be placed in the position of robbing their customers.

* while it eliminates he social security / medicare tax, it doesn’t kill the programs or even restructure them.

* it does nothing to limit the size or growth of the Federal Government.

* we don’t have honest money so all economic calculations are using a flawed yardstick.

* It doesn’t do anything about State income taxes. (Although one could assume that repealing the 16th would make the state income taxes unconstitutional. Since the 10th is a dead letter after the 14th, the States would have to conform. Maybe?)

* The 20 -23 – 30 percent rate is dubious at best.

* It just renames the IRS.

* It hides the tax that we pay.

* It’s progressive. (That’s socialism!)

and on, and on, and on …

FROM MY LUDDITE FRIEND WHO CAN’T COMMENT:

***Begin Quote***

Hmmm….

—– Forwarded by JF/CHarrlotte on 12/11/2006 11:01 AM —–

Subject: Taxes

What Happened?

Be sure to read all the way to the end!

Tax his land,
Tax his bed,
Tax the table
At which he’s fed.

Tax his tractor,
Tax his mule,
Teach him taxes
Are the rule.

Tax his cow,
Tax his goat,
Tax his pants,
Tax his coat.

Tax his ties,
Tax his shirt,
Tax his work,
Tax his dirt.

Tax his tobacco,
Tax his drink,
Tax him if he
Tries to think.

Tax his cigars,
Tax his beers,
If he cries, then
Tax his tears.

Tax his car,
Tax his gas,
Find other ways
To tax his ass

Tax all he has
Then let him know
That you won’t be done
Till he has no dough.

When he screams and hollers,
Then tax him some more,
Tax him till
He’s good and sore.

Then tax his coffin,
Tax his grave,
Tax the sod in
Which he’s laid.

Put these words
Upon his tomb,
“Taxes drove me
To my doom…”

When he’s gone,
Do not relax,Its time to apply
The inheritance tax.

Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax,
Fuel permit tax
Gasoline Tax (42 cents per gallon)
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Interest expense
Inventory tax
IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax) Liquor Tax Luxury Taxes Marriage License Tax Medicare Tax Property Tax Real Estate Tax Service charge taxes Social Security Tax Road usage taxes Sales Tax Recreational Vehicle Tax School Tax State Income Tax State Unemployment Tax (SUTA) Telephone federal excise tax Telephone federal universal service fee tax Telephone federal, state and local surcharge taxes Telephone minimum usage surcharge tax Telephone recurring and non-recurring charges tax Telephone state and local tax Telephone usage charge tax Utility Taxes Vehicle License Registration Tax Vehicle Sales Tax Watercraft registration Tax Well Permit Tax Workers Compensation Tax

COMMENTS: Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, And our nation was the most prosperous in the world.
We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.
What happened?

And I still have to “press 1” for English!

***End Quote***

Hey don’t gripe at me! I’m a libertarian. I’ve been telling you for eons that taxes are theft.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/molyneux/molyneux29.html

http://tinyurl.com/ylo93e

The Gun in the Room
by Stefan Molyneux

***Begin Quote***

I was recently involved in a debate with a woman about public schools. Naturally, she came up with reason after reason as to why public schools were beneficial, how wonderful they were for underprivileged children, how essential they were for social stability etc etc. Each of these points – and many more – could have consumed hour upon hour of back and forth, and would have required extensive research and complicated philosophical reasoning. But there was really no need for any of that – all I had to do was keep saying:

“The issue is not whether public schools are good or bad, but rather whether I am allowed to disagree with you without getting shot.”

Most political debates really are that simple. People don’t get into violent debates about which restaurant is best because the state doesn’t impose one restaurant on everyone – and shoot those trying to set up competing restaurants. The truth is that I couldn’t care less about this woman’s views on education – just as she couldn’t care less about my views – but we are forced to debate because we are not allowed to hold opposing views without one of us getting shot. That was the essence of our debate, and as long as it remained unacknowledged, we weren’t going to get anywhere.

***End Quote***

Libertarian have to keep pushing the concept that “governments are force; free markets are the ultimate expression of liberty”.

If I disagree with you about something in the government paradigm, one of us gets punished — financially, physically, or killed. In the case of financially, if the gubamint takes a portion of my past (i.e., my savings), my current (i.e., my time, my money, my earnings), or my future (i.e., prevents me from pursuing my dreams; makes me dependent upon the dole; restricts my thinking like the baby elephant so I can’t conceive of freedom), then I’m a slave to a greater or lesser degree. All we are discussing is degree. If the gubmaint doesn’t like my “side” of our disagreement, then it can send me to prison, or worse impoverish me. And, like David Koresh found out, being an enemy of the gubamint can get you very dead.

Contrast that to a free market:

If you and I disagree, they we can each “buy” our own custom solution. Peacefully and, in no way, infringing upon your choices. The marketplace uses that incredible complex calculus to compute what resources are applied to satisfy which needs. Eventually all markets clear supply and demand. (Rather quickly imho!) Everyone is satisfied at a price they are will to pay. The best use of scarce resources are “fairly” allocated to the most “urgent” use of them. So we get money by satisfying the needs of others and then we use that money to satisfy our own needs. The marketplace makes us free and harnesses our energy to the “right” problem. No one can drive us better than “greed”.

In some ways, one can blame poverty on gubamint, because it’s taxes and intrusions makes us “poorer”! Look at the countries in Africa for true government induced poverty.

So, in the cited example of “public education”, some are forced pay for what other’s want. With a goodly handling fee for the gubamint and all the squealing pigs involved. And, it delivers a terrible product. If public education was a car maker, no one would buy it.

If I was a poor inner-city minority, then I’d call this like Walter Williams said. “If the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan set out to destroy black academic excellence in Philadelphia, I doubt whether he could achieve as much damage.”

Why do we tolerate this non-sense?

Government forces us to!

http://www.lewrockwell.com/nicholas/nicholas21.html

The Peasant Who Stood Up to Hitler
by Justine Nicholas

***Begin Quote***

When a leader allows himself to break the rules of humanity, it is the duty of every citizen to break the leader’s rules.

So wrote Franz Jagerstatter.

***End Quote***

Never heard this story. If true, it’s powerful heady stuff. It adds a new silver bullet to my arsenal … the “Jagerstatter Principle”.

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

***Begin Quote***

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.

***End Quote***

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

***Begin Quote***

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

***End Quote***

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:

***Begin Quote***

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.

***End Quote***

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

***Begin Quote***

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.

***End Quote***

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.

***Begin Quote***

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.

***End Quote***

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.

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2006/
tle395-20061126-07.html

http://tinyurl.com/y42nzo

Back to Basics
by L. Neil Smith

***Begin Quote***

The key to a libertarian future is the libertarian future itself. Forget the Hollow Woman standing on what used to be Bedloe’s Island offering false promises of liberty and welcome. Let us adopt the future itself—some unmistakable aspect of the future—as our logo.

***End Quote***

How about the Gasden flag?

http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2006/
11/tonic-from-left.html

http://tinyurl.com/yxaaul

Monday, November 27, 2006
Tonic from the left

***Begin Quote***

Milton Friedman was, no doubt, a great thinker. But his approach to economics has wrought serious damage to our economy and the classes of Americans who fail in his winner-take-all world. Leave it to William Greider to remind us of this when much of the press in the wake of Friedman’s death has been so laudatory.

***End Quote***

Milton Friedman deserves scorn for inventing withholding. He deserves praise for challenging the gubamint reeducation propaganda camps, mistakenly called “publik skool”, with a voucher system. He was wrong, because it didn’t strike at the root of the evil. The gubamint shouldn’t be teaching citizen’s children anything. And, people who have the children should be responsible for educating them. Taxes are theft! He deserved scorn for failing to debunk Greenspan, who was a gold bug hard money guy but turned to the “dark side” of fiat currency, when he got the cushy job. So, he was human and made mistakes.

P.S.: That article you cited requires a subscription.

Interesting that the liberal media never takes a pro-freedom pro-liberty pro-people stance. Whine, whine, and whine. More gubamint. More taxes. More rules.

Arghhh!

http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/
fairenough/nyt638.html

http://tinyurl.com/y3ml6j

November 14, 2006
Health Disparities Persist for Men, and Doctors Ask Why
By RONI RABIN

***Begin Quote***

Still, by just about any measure, men’s health is abysmal. American men have an average life expectancy of 75.2 years, and even less — 69.8 years — for black men, compared with 80.4 years for women over all.

Men die of just about every one of the leading causes of death at younger ages than women, from lung cancer to influenza and pneumonia, chronic liver disease, diabetes and AIDS. One notable exception is Alzheimer’s disease: more women than men die of it.

Topping the list for both sexes is heart disease.

***End Quote***

Ahh, this is an easy one to knock out of the park!

It’s the gubamint’s fault. It’s OUR fault.

No, seriously.

We have allowed the politicians to wrest control by high taxes and charitable contribution rules to control the debate. AND, they add their own huge handling fee to everything medical.

Now, imagine you get to keep ALL your hard earned money.

(A staggering thought. Overwhelming. Uncomprehendable!)

Now you can donate your money to the charities that you see fit. Imagine how the charities will compete for research dollars? Touting their accomplishments. When was the last time you heard of us wiping out a disease? Polio in the Fifties? And, the March of Dimes moved on to “birth defects”, while an admirable cause, will never be cured.

Large organizations want to stay in business.

So who will lead the fight for cures?

Why it’s our old “friends” the money grubbing insurance companies!

They have a distinct motive that you live just as long as you can, paying premiums of course.

Yup, leave it to the insurance company. Get the gubbamint out of health care, drugs, and R&D.

The average life span will be 200 before you know it!

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/
article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53078

http://tinyurl.com/vzd37

Black firefighter a disgrace
Posted: November 23, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern

***Begin Quote***

Days before I read about the firefighter’s award, my 91-year-old dad and I watched a movie called “Proud.” Narrated by the late, great Ossie Davis, the movie dramatized the experience of black sailors aboard the USS Mason during World War II. The ship became the only black-manned ship that actually saw combat. As a destroyer escort, it shepherded Allied convoys through German sub-filled waters, taking risks even the vaunted English Navy refused, deeming the mission too treacherous. Indeed, black sailors welcomed the assignment to the ship because, during this military-segregated era, they wished to prove themselves by seeing actual combat rather than engaging in “menial” labor.

***End Quote***

I’d like to see that movie. It’s amazing how despite “Black History Month”, Veteran’s Day, and Memorial Day that we hear so little of the truly great achievements of ordinary people.

http://www.givemeliberty.org/wtp-tv/4MinLinks.htm

3-18-04
Four Minutes of Video Every American
Should Watch Before April 15th

***Begin Quote***

At an IRS press conference on September 16, 2003 concerning tax “scams” and tax “evasion”, the lead tax reporter for The New York Times, David Cay Johnston (in reference to the WTP Petitions for Redress) directly, and specifically, questioned IRS Commissioner Mark Everson about what law requires Americans to pay income taxes.

***End Quote***

If you watch the video, then you’ll be confused.

It seems like a real straight forward question. Doesn’t it?

I would think that they would answer “The XYZ law, section 123, paragraph 1776, line 44-40, obligates every person to pay an income tax.” Followed by “now can we get to serious questions?”

But, no. They dance around the issue.

Why?

Perhaps there is no law and this is all a big hoax!

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/
WalterEWilliams/2006/11/22/
should_we_copy_europe

http://tinyurl.com/y86x6j

Should we copy Europe?
By Walter E. Williams
Wednesday, November 22, 2006

***Begin Quote***

The OECD has a blacklist for countries they’ve identified as “tax havens.” The blacklisted countries include Hong Kong, Macao, Malaysia (Labuan) and Singapore. Also targeted are Andorra, Brunei, Costa Rica, Dubai, Guatemala, Liberia, Liechtenstein, the Marshall Islands, Monaco, the Philippines and Uruguay. The blacklisted jurisdictions have strong financial privacy laws and low or zero rates of tax.

The OECD member countries want the so-called tax havens to change their laws to help them identify the earnings of their citizens. Most of all, OECD wants these countries to legislate higher taxes so as to reduce their appeal. A suggestion that we should be more like Europe is the same as one suggesting that we should be poorer.

***End Quote***

No! What we should be doing is what made America the land of opportunity.

Honest money! Private schools! Stop the dole!