Reinke Faces Life

http://www.embracingmomminess.com/2007/01/the_sexualizati.html

http://tinyurl.com/yeux8v

January 02, 2007
The Sexualization of Little Girls

***Begin Quote***

Here’s another argument for homeschooling. This is by Lawrence Downes, from of all places, the New York Times. In his article, Mr. Downes refers to this frightening trend as the eroticism of adolescence, but it’s really the eroticism of little girls for the rest of society’s sick enjoyment:

***End Quote***

Yup, I can’t see any reason for keeping the current system of “education” where the government aka the gubamint aka the gofferment takes custody of children and reeducates them to love the state more than anything else. It’s a religion!

And, I has I often rant — it’s immoral, ineffective, and inefficient!

http://www.lewrockwell.com/suprynowicz/suprynowicz57.html

http://tinyurl.com/yzthjw

The Gummint Skools
by Vin Suprynowicz

***Begin Quote***

Gatto urges us to consider the possibility that “School may be a brilliantly conceived social engine that works exactly as it was designed to work and produces exactly the human products it was designed to produce” – fragmented adults who can’t imagine how to survive without the state.

***End Quote***

There’s no question that “public education”, which is neither public, nor education, has some social objectives. Unfortunately those objectives were hidden from the public. Like most bait ‘n’ switch operations, we are now stuck with the results — the dumbing down of the American youth, out of control costs, and dividing the American public into conflicting groups — that are truly disastrous. The tsunami was ONLY a natural disaster that killed people and destroyed property. This unnatural disaster robs us in many dimensions. Killing would be kinder. And, it may very well, kill the American republic. It’s immoral to rob people of their children, their and their children’s dreams, and literally pillage the American taxpayer’s pocketbook.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/04/pf/taxes/
amt_legislation_introduced/index.htm?
postversion=2007010418

http://tinyurl.com/yf8pdm

Baucus, Grassley introduce bill to repeal AMT

***Begin Quote***

The AMT hits more and more taxpayers every year.

***End Quote***

There are many things that the government does that have unintended consequences. This was a bad form of theft to start with and the government policy of inflation makes me wonder if the consequence was unintended!

http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/GeorgeWill/2007/01/04/
raising_the_minimum_wage_is_still_a_bad_idea

http://tinyurl.com/yx3fv2

Raising the minimum wage is still a bad idea
By George Will
Thursday, January 4, 2007

***Begin Quote***

The problem is that demand for almost everything is elastic: When the price of something goes up, demand for it goes down. Obviously were the minimum wage to jump to, say, $15 an hour, that would cause significant unemployment among persons just reaching for the bottom rung of the ladder of upward mobility. But suppose those scholars are correct who say that when the minimum wage is low and is increased slowly — proposed legislation would take it to $7.25 in three steps — the negative impact on employment is negligible. Still, because there are large differences among states’ costs of living, and the nature of their economies, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., sensibly suggests that each state should be allowed to set a lower minimum.

But the minimum wage should be the same everywhere: $0. Labor is a commodity; governments make messes when they decree commodities’ prices. Washington, which has its hands full delivering the mail and defending the shores, should let the market do well what Washington does poorly. But that is a good idea whose time will never come again.

***End Quote***

It’s a dumb idea. It’s immoral, ineffective, and inefficient. (I should have a template or macro for those three words. They apply to EVERY government program I have ever seen.)

On a personal level, I will cite my cousin, the very “bad” elevator operator, (bad in the sense how does one “lose” your elevator; basically a very nice person), who thanks to the FIRST federal minimum wage hike I remember in the late 60’s, lost “her” job. NYC buildings found it economical to change to automatic controls. And, gobs of people lost “their” jobs. In my cousin’s case, that was the last time she worked outside the home. Today, she’s still paying for that political diktat.

It is immoral for the government to tell a potential employer and potential employee that they can not enter into a exchange that they both find desirable. Further, in the case of the person, they are being denied a chance to be earn anything. The choice is being made in Washington DC that they get nothing but welfare. It’s like pulling up the bottom rung of the ladder to economic prosperity. The person doesn’t get to learn while they earn.

It is ineffective. Work that can not be profitably done at below the minimum wage just doesn’t gets automated like the elevator, off-shored to overseas, or just doesn’t get done. People will figure out a “black market” in its place. As with any time the government sets a price floor, or ceiling, they ensure shortages, dislocations, and sub-optimum results.

It is inefficient. There is a cost of doing this and then checking to see if it is done. There will have to be checkers and prosecutions. ALSO, look for increase in costs. Politicians, Government Workers, and Union Employees will all now have to get a raise because the minimum wage has gone up and everything is tied to it. So, the general level of prices will go up, because only people pay “taxes”. Make no mistake this is a tax you can’t avoid.

All one has to do is look for the silent losers in this scheme. The poor, who can’t find work, take an extra hit as prices rise. The seniors on fixed incomes get hit with higher prices and higher taxes. And, society in general is poorer because of the same hit.

George Will hit it right on the head. The correct minimum wage is ZERO!

http://www.pledgebank.com/First1000/info

First One Thousand

***Begin Quote***

“I will move to New Hampshire by 12/31/2008 where I will work to bring about a society in which government’s maximum role is protecting life, liberty, and property but only if 999 other liberty minded individuals will too.”

— Ian Bernard, Free State Project participant

***End Quote***

According to the pledge site, it was completed successfully.

Congrats to all who signed. Kudos to Ian over at http://freetalklive.com for making it happen.

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.