LIBERTY: Time to end “government education”?

Saturday, November 15, 2008

>The book is called “Raising the
>Grade: How High School Reform Can
>Save Our Youth and Our Nation.”

Maybe as a society, we are finally going to escape the “government education” paradigm. We can’t ‘afford’ it from both the input side (i.e., taxes) and the output (i.e., quality of what it produces). Socialists have used it to undermine our national commitment to individual achievement and rugged individualism that made America great. And, put them in control of everyone’s lives.

The purposes of the education system we imported from Prussia was to make cannon fodder soldiers and malleable factory workers. All that could be easily let by a powerful “elite”. Seems to have worked.

Unfortunately, cannon fodder soldiers are not how wars are fought today. Factory workers don’t exist any more in the USA. And that “smart elite” isn’t very ‘smart’ and have clay feet.

Time for a paradigm shift? Not just more meaningless diplomas.

imho!

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LIBERTY: DRINKING AGE?

Friday, November 14, 2008

http://www.wdel.com/story.php?id=636617775922

Autopsy performed on UD freshman By John Lewis

*** begin quote ***

Authorities were looking into the possibility of an alcohol overdose in the death of the freshman from Kendall Park, New Jersey.

*** end quote ***

Does any politician who has voted for “drinking age restriction” feel any shame about the death of this young man?

Of course not!

No one holds them accountable!

If there was no “drinking age” — an absurd concept since you can’t keep people from putting stuff in their bodies; you can make it difficult or more expensive, but you can’t stop it with a law!! Suppose “children” were allowed to drink anything, anytime, anywhere. Would they drink? Sure. They do NOW! Only an “ostrich” would think differently.

So, make the drinking age ZERO and let people learn in much safer circumstances. We don’t hear of European kids binge drinking themselves to death. Do we?

I remember as a sixteen year old going to Nevada where I could drive as fast as I wanted on the open high way, drink, and gamble. They even had no age on the “chicken ranches”, but my Mom wouldn’t have approved.

A much “free-er”, and safer time!

Victimless crimes have terrible consequences!

Argh!

I pray for this poor lad and his parents. A casualty of gooferment!

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LIBERTY: Progress in NH

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

http://www.freestateproject.org/intro/2008_election

Libertarian Free State Project elects four of its members to the New Hampshire State House of Representatives — Ridley Report

Low tax activists amend Rochester, New Hampshire charter to cap all spending increases to the rate of inflation — Union Leader

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The Free State Project is showing some results in New Hampshire!

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LIBERTY: I think this about says it all

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

chesty

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LIBERTY: Computerized Voting

Thursday, November 6, 2008

http://www.wxpnews.com/archives/wxpnews-352-20081104.htm

>Computerized Voting: Is It Trustworthy Yet?


No!
As IT types, we KNOW how lame the system is.
Personally, I think, imho, we need PAPER.
We have to have a machine that collects the vote and produces a printed receipt. That receipt can be visually verified by the voter. Then that receipt should be deposited into the “ballot box”. The machine can be the quick fast collection tool. If there are disputes, then the printed receipts can be counted.
We SHOULD use the Iraqi low tech system to prevent fraud (i.e., the thumb dipped in indelible ink)! We SHOULD require photo identification to vote. We SHOULD have photos in the registration records that election officials use to very who is voting.
If long lines bother you, we really should go to a more representative system. All this “voting” makes no sense. Vote for your local politician and have them represent you.
!:-)fjohn

LIBERTY: Stossel on “politics”

Saturday, November 1, 2008

http://vimeo.com/2052724?pg=embed&sec=2052724

Stossel’s Politically Incorrect Guide to Politics

*** begin quote ***

The brilliant John Stossel takes some powerful pro-liberty ideas and delivers them effectively to a wide audience. Here’s his latest 1 hour special, the “Politically Incorrect Guide to Politics”. This is a great video to show anyone still “in the system” and new to liberty. Stossel makes it crystal clear that government doesn’t work and that it creates devastating unintended consequences:

*** end quote ***

I saw it live and, if you missed it, it’s an excellent way to spend forty minutes.

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LIBERTY: Marriage? Gooferment MYOB!

Monday, October 27, 2008

Op-Ed Contributor
Taking Marriage Private
By STEPHANIE COONTZ
Published: November 26, 2007

*** begin quote ***

WHY do people — gay or straight — need the state’s permission to marry? For most of Western history, they didn’t, because marriage was a private contract between two families. The parents’ agreement to the match, not the approval of church or state, was what confirmed its validity.

*** end quote ***

Why indeed do WE, the free sovereign individuals, need the Gooferment’s permission, pay them, and give them allegiance to their interference?

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LIBERTY: Morality v Moralism or MYOB!

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

http://ncc-1776.org/tle2008/tle487-20081005-06.html

Morality v Moralism
by A.X. Perez
perez180ehs -+at+- hotmail.com
Attribute to The Libertarian Enterprise

*** begin quote ***

Morals come in two flavors, morality and moralism.

Morality is that which some people practices in their own life to achieve freedom. Moralism is what some people try to impose on others to enslave them.

For example,let us consider alcohol. A person may choose to refrain from (or at least limit) consuming whiskey and beer to maintain his judgement and to avoid addiction. This is a moral decision to maintain control of his own life. He may be guided by religious precepts but it is ultimately an exercise in determining his own destiny.

Others decide that no one should be allowed to drink. they seek to use the power of the state to stop others from enjoying wine and rum even if they do so responsibly. They may seek to bolster their arguments by pointing to the role of drunk drivers in fatal accidents (like the bitch who ran over my old man, and yeah I’m not setting an example of Christian forgiveness. Deal.) and alcohol in general on homicide and other acts of violence. However, their goal is not to solve these problems but rather to prevent anyone from drinking, even the vast majority who use alcoholic beverages responsibly.

*** end quote ***

Interesting. I never made that distinction. I am well familiar with the “different sets of rules” for what I do and what you do. It’s annoying when you get preached at; it’s slavery when the guns of gooferment are used on you.

Argh!

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LIBERTY: Don’t privitize Social Security. It’s too risky!

Thursday, October 2, 2008

http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2008/10/market-meltdown-is-best-argument.html

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Market meltdown is best argument against privatizing Social Security

*** begin quote ***

It has always been pretty clear to me that the notion that we could fix our retirement system by handing it over to Wall Street was, well, nuts.

*** and ***

American workers shouldn’t have to face this kind of uncertainty. The cautionary tale is before us — listen to this NPR Morning Edition report on soon-to-be retirees who thought they would live off their savings and investments, but whom the experts now council to “keep on working.”

Posted by Hank Kalet at 3:00 PM

*** end quote ***

Of course, I was enraged and commented:

fjohn said…

Arghhh!

So let me understand this.

It’s OK to rob poor black men to pay off rich white women? (Who designed this one out, the KKK?)

It’s OK to rob the future generations in an intergenerational transfer of wealth. (Like eating your young?)

It’s OK to have a forced savings plan that has an implied interest rate of negative 2 percent. (OK, you may not have enough left from your job, but nanny gooferment will save you some dog food for your retirement.)

It’s OK for a poor person’s largest asset (i.e, “their” social security accrued benefits) to “evaporate” when they die. Absorbed back into the gooferment till for a $225 ‘death benefit’. (Even a passbook savings account can be inherited.)

Argh!

Yes, save us from the Stock Market that earns an average of 8% a year over LONG periods of time.

Save us mommy gooferment from the big bad real world. The fact the the gooferment — specifically the congress critters took payoff from the monsters they created — caused the problem and you seek to save us by MORE gooferment.

Really explain it to me again. Use littler words. Cause I’m getting screwed by all you socialists and I can’t stand it any more.

Explain to me how Chile privitized their social security in 1970 with a population so illiterate they had to use pictures for the investment companies because people could NOT read the names. (Haven’t heard about dying old folks in Chile lately. Maybe everyone died of privitazation there and we have NOT had it reported yet?)

Argh!

It must by the fault of those Liberty loving dead old white guys.

I’m sure they must have mentioned Social Security in the enumerated powers.

Please give me a break with this circular logic on an un-Constitutional un-Liberty disabling disempowering Socialist program.

Karl Marx must be laughing in his beer at us! Him and his cousin Groucho. They couldn’t have made a funnier skit.

4:39 PM

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In summation, don’t fix a failed program because of stock market volatility. What caused the volatility, criminal negligence by the ploiltical class.

OK. Lets kill the porgram completely.

Even if one stipulates that a bunch of dead old white guys 200 years ago can bind me to an obligation, let’s see where it says that you Socialists can steal my money “for my own good” of course.

Argh!

Leave me alone. Take your Socialism and keep it to yourself.

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LIBERTY: Who does own the gas station? Or, anything else for that matter.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/bilger2.html

Government Gouging by Aaron Bilger

*** begin quote ***

Unfortunately, the free market price system is currently being forbidden in Georgia and several other states. Politicians have enacted anti-“gouging” laws to punish sellers of gasoline who request too high a price. Whether such politicians are well-meaning but economically ignorant, or know the consequences but are cynically manipulating public distaste for higher prices despite this is up for debate, but the results are the same. Ethically, the results are detestable. Gas station operators are told in effect that they are not free; they must sell their product as an altruistic service to others rather than serving their own individual interests. Legislating an exact price ceiling (a maximum price at which gas could be sold) would be bad enough, but to compound the issue, an exact price is not given in anti-gouging laws. A supplier cannot even know if they may be violating the law, and must be constantly fearful of someone accusing them of charging “too much.” In Atlanta for now, the de facto result is gas station operators being afraid to price gasoline above $4–4.29/gallon. Asking a half-dozen local operators who ran out of gas as to why they do not raise prices resulted in the same general response; as one put it, “I cannot raise my price. It would be a crime.”

*** and ***

The culprit behind the gas shortages this time is individual state governments rather than federal government, but the solution is the same now as it was then – for politicians to stop their harmful efforts to control prices. End anti-gouging laws, end the shortage.

*** end quote ***

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