Reinke Faces Life

http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory121.html

The Drug War’s Immorality and Abject Failure
by Anthony Gregory

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If the idea is to create a drug-free America, then we can safely say that after hundreds of billions of dollars spent, millions of arrests, and decades of escalating police and military efforts, the war on drugs is a complete failure.

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When you consider all the costs of the drug war, imho one can’t possibly come to any conclusion that the actual direct and indirect costs far exceed the the benefits of that war.

If we could predict that drug abuse kills X people and the drug war kills Y people, then we could make a case that if Y is greater than X, should end the drug war?

The interesting part is that if you get a drug warrior on the record, they won’t admit that. “If saves just one person, it’s worth it.”

My gripe is that the whole drug paradigm, (i.e., that I have to go to a modern day medicine man / witch doctor, bribe them to give me a piece of state approved paper, then take that receipt has to be taken to a state approved building, where a bureaucrat checks with an state regulated insurance company to see how much I’ll pay, and then if I am lucky I’ll get what I need.

How about everyone buzzes off?

I’ll figure out what I need. And, I’ll go to Walmart and buy what I need. The State can just butt out. If I harm myself, then it’s my problem.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig4/peterson7.html

Economics In One Lesson: With Apologies To Henry Hazlitt
by William H. Peterson

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I close listing those five scarcity-coping tickers in my one lesson in economics as: 1. the law of self-interest, 2. the law of scarcity, 3. the law of opportunity cost, 4. the law of trade mutuality, and that miscoping 5. Gresham’s law on inflation.

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You have to love it. But what about the “broken window”? maybe that was number 6. And, it just didn’t fit.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff110.html

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We often say that gubamint is hypocritical. Here’s a classic example. I bet if internet gambling was kicking in 50% of its earnigns to the fed and state then there would be an exception carved out for them as well.

Under the heading of laughing at big gubamint, they cetainly provide enough material!

http://www.townhall.com/columnists
/ThomasSowell/2006/10/03/socialism_for_the_rich

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The rich have learned to adapt socialist policies to their own benefit. For example, the city of Riviera Beach, Florida, is planning to demolish a working class neighborhood under its power of eminent domain, in order to prepare the way for a marina for yachts, luxury condominiums and an upscale shopping district.

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Economist Sowell makes the interesting point that the gubamint’s decision to take property operates differently on the poor than on the rich. The rich can fight the “wrong” kind of eminent domain (i.e., that which takes what they want) and reward the politicians who propose “open space” (i.e., make my stuff worth more) or “redevelopment” (i.e., build me a marina or golf course at the expense of others). The poor have to just fold their tent and move along, unless they can interest a champion.

So much for the Fifth Amendment and its requirement for “just compensation” for “public use”.

Arghhh!

http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2006/10/liberty-and-habeas-corpus-i.html

A GREAT post on Habeas Corpus. A must read for every liberty lover!

http://freetalklive.com/wiki/index.php?title=Strategy_For_Smaller_Government

Strategy For Smaller Government

1. Political Party

Join the big L Libertarian party and work to get enough people elected. (Seen how well that has worked over the last 30 years!)

2. Issue Oriented Group

Join Advocates for Smaller Government and push an agenda. (Carla has had some modest success in MA.)

3. Free State Project

Move to NH and revolt. (Seems to be working. But, it’s definitely not easy. For me, probably won’t happen.)

4. Lauren C’s in their face activism

Just refuse to cooperate at all. Worked for Gandhi and MLK. (I’m not so sure I’m brave enough to pull that off!)

5. Dave’s individual silent signs

Seems to annoy them. Probably will wind up in arrests.

6. Get people to laugh at Big Gubamint foolishness.

Try to make fun of big gubamint. See Penn & Teller on HBO. See how fast the Spanish American War Telephone tax was repealed. (Big Gubamint can stand being laughed at!)

http://www.niagara-gazette.com/local/local_story_275204901.html

Published: October 02, 2006 08:49 pm

DAY 3: Stabilizing neighborhoods

Millions of public dollars will be spent in the next three years on Niagara Falls housing
By Denise Jewell
Niagara Gazette

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Public officials are also working on housing plans that would address the lack of private-sector investment into building new housing in Niagara Falls.

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While the HOPE VI project has been hailed by advocates as a key to revitalizing public housing, local landlords have expressed concerned that the proposal will negatively impact private rental units by pulling tenants into newer public housing.

“We’re putting up units at $200,000 for poor people and you wonder what’s wrong?” asked Ken Hamilton, a Niagara Falls citizen who has spoken out against the project. “If there’s a glut, why extend the glut?”

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Ahh, why isn’t there any private sector investment?

For the same reason that there aren’t any parochial schools being built, you can’t compete with he gubamint “giving away” free or below cost stuff!

There is a reason why the free market allocates resources so efficiently and that mechanism is prices. High prices signal entrepreneurs that there is a potential profit. That signal communicates that there is an unmet need that someone is willing to pay to have satisfied.

Milton Freedman did a great exposition on the pencil. No one had to be told to make it. The marketplace energized a whole bunch of greedy people to get together and work cooperatively to satisfy his basic human need for a pencil. It was not a committee. It was not the gubamint. And, it wasn’t funded using “public money”.

So here we have the gubamint manipulating its citizens.

When it puts its “proverbial thumb” on the marketplace scale, it makes everything worse. By depressing the value of a rental property, it signals the marketplace to produce less housing in that area. To invest less money. That there are fewer human needs in that area. Perversely, it makes the problem worse.

And, the media and the intellectuals just don’t get it.

In a marketplace, all needs are addressed. In a gubmint solution, only some needs are met and it’s at a fantastic cost. I bet if we had a forensic accountant look into it, we’d find that the ~200k per unit would translate into ~600k being stolen from taxpayers. And, what about the silent cost of this “housing project” to those silent victims of gubamint taxation? maybe they were ready to buy their first house, but the gubamint taxes took it away from them and gave it to those “poor people” over there.

See that’s what gubamint does, it makes losers of us all!

Note: It’s interesting that the news site bans certain ips from commenting. Oh well, not that they’d listen much.

http://digg.com/politics/Homeland_Security_and_Petition_for_Redress_of_Grievances

Homeland Security goes after Keene man for demonstrating at IRS office
By SON HOANG Union Leader Correspondent
9 hours, 30 minutes ago

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Nashua – A Keene man had a run-in with the United States Department of Homeland Security in the parking lot of Building 19 yesterday morning.

Dave Ridley, 40, said he met with an official from the Department of Homeland Security in the parking lot, located at 420 Amherst St., who repeatedly tried to give him a $120 citation for handing out handbills at a federal office.

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Interesting about this is that the story is unavailable from the Union Leader (a traditional newspaper).

Now, if you’re a regular reader of NHFREE (http://www.nhfree.com/) or a regular listener of FTL (http://www.freetalklive.com), then you’ll already be aware of the revolution going on.

In this episode, the force of gubamint are made to look exceptionally stupid.

(It’s hard to be feared when you’re being laughed at!)

The story of Ridley’s protest, if you could call it that, as if standing silently with a sign in a federal office is much compared to the 60s civil rights demonstrations led by Martin Luther king, makes them look stupid.

And, what happened to the First Amendment? Certainly, this activity is well covered by that.

And, where did the news story go? Did DHS pressure the Union Leader to pull it?

It would seem that non-violent non-cooperation, in the tradition of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, is making waves.

Even over and above the value of protest, I think every time the gubamint is made to look stupid, stupid enough to make people laugh, that we become freer!

The Free State Project (http://www.freestateproject.org/) is making NH a very interesting place to be.

So those of us, who are “stuck” in the various Peeple’s Republiks around what used to be the United States of America, need to support our fellow revolutionaries in the battlefield that is NH.

So read the stories, digg the story up at the above link so others see it, blog about them, and send them to all the usual suspects!

Make them aware. Make people laugh. Make them mad!

http://www.freetalklive.com

Mark,

Here’s my notes from the FTL youngster’s rendition of my email:

“poddie” is my affectionate term for podcast listener.

“womyn” is how the women’s liberation movement wanted the word spelled; not a sexual joke.

“kill alternative” should have been better written “to kill all competing alternatives”.

“gubamint” is what the militia movement calls that gang in DC who has grown outside of its Constitutional bounds. The gubamint at Waco, Ruby Ridge, and the Japanese Internment camps are frequent uses of the word in militia literature. I think they are correct to assigned it a special name. Government is what the Constitution provides for; gubamint is what we have now.

We have to guard our words carefully. Orwell’s double speak is upon us. Let’s take back our language.

For example, the gubamint does NOT “invest”. So any time I read a news story where the write refers to “government investment”, I fire off an email or a letter. I don’t know if it makes a difference, but, I know, for example, none of my friends mention “government investing” around me. ;-)

affirmative action = initially applied to gubamint and all the contracted with or WERE REGULATED by gubamint AT ANY LEVEL! (In effect, de facto regulation of the entire economy. Note the Hooter’s sex discrimination case as a classic. The fellow actually got some Hooter’s boy “waitresses” just to make the EEOC look foolish. The EEOC caved.

Let’s go back a little further in history, the tyranny (English and French) Kings were counterbalanced by the Catholic Church. Run it forward to 60s America, the Churches were a counter weight to the tyranny of the Central Government. Note that the opposition to racism originated in the black Churches. MLK was minister before he became a Gandhi-like leader. Note that opposition to the undeclared VietNam war was originated in the convents and churches of the Catholic Church following its doctrine of “a just war”. Clearly, for gubamint to grow in power and influence it must destroy, marginalize, or it some way oppress competition for the spotlight. I think that the Churches were very powerful and influential. AND, they were the voluntary associations. (Tell Ian not let his personal atheism block the view that a church is a good alternative to a gubamint.) So, the gubamint, like their can only be one queen bee in hive, must NUKE the churches.

So to, it must NUKE the family so it can assume the role of child care provider. Remember the communists want the children so that they can mold them to worship the gubamint, see it as the solution to all their problems, and warp them to the needs of the state as cannon fodder, good little voters who select on of the two meaningless choices, and pay their taxes without question.

The family farm is a great metaphor for the American family. (We didn’t have farm, but the nuclear family I grew up in all lived in the same tenement.) Social Security Insurance gave the old folks the cash flow to leave the family, which they did. Leaving the gubamint to fill their shoes. The motivation might have been warmth but the SSI make it possible. The motivation might have been warmth, but the SSI make it possible. It put a check in their hands, with their name on it, and made it possible for them to kid themselves into thinking it would be OK! It may have started in the 30’s but I saw it happen in the late 50’s.

Don’t forget that insurance (i.e., life, accident, and disability) for the poor folks ORIGINATED with the Knights of Columbus (Catholic Church). It spread like wildfire to the Masons, the Italian clubs, the Unions, and all manner of fraternal organizations.
Here’s another threat to the power of the gubamint. Social Security was government’s response to another powerful (voluntary) force in people’s lives. I don’t need the gubamint to insure my life when I can get a better deal from my Local Order of Hibernians.

Catholic schools, Catholic Hospitals, Catholic Charities all led the way. And good for them, the Baptists didn’t want medical care from those vial Papists so they created their own like Baylor, the various things with Baptist in their name, and so on and so on.

Credit Unions also have to die.

Basically anything that obviates the need for gubamint has to be killed.

It does it through regulation! And offering a competing alternative or free!

Parochial schools killed by “free” gubamint skools! Sectarian hospitals by Medicare.
Fraternal Insurance by regulation. And, if there is any hint of wrong doing, they get right on that. Pedophile priests were (rightly) excoriated; pedophile politicians or any misconduct by a politician gets a free pass.

The leftist big-government media, which depends upon the gubamint, led the cheer leading.

You did correctly chastise me for not providing solutions. (In my defense, I was focused on defending the caller on his point that the gubamint needs to be the queen bee.)

I think that Free State Project is an idea. (I’m tied down by familial obligations, but I’d be there in a heartbeat if things were different.)

Here are the things I’m doing:

* prepare for the revolution.

Save your “money” (not those trashy worthless furbies aka FRBNs) Be debt free, so when the furbie goes to zero like all fiat currencies do, me and mine will be ok.

* educate

Make sure that everyone “knows” that gubamint isn’t the answer. For example, my nephews in law know that a dollar isn’t the same as an ounce of gold. But then they were easily impressed with a sleeve of american eagle bullion coins. Or is that medallions!

* laugh

Try to make the gubamint look silly. People can’t respect or be in awe when they are laughing at stupidity. The cell phone tax was repealed when everyone started talking about the Spanish American Was Phone Tax. The gubamint can afford to be laughed at!

* personalize

Find out what each person’s hot button is and point out how the government is screwing them on that point.

* sand in the machinery

Muck it up. Send in forms. Make calls. Bury the call centers. For example, when I get junk mail. I stuff it all in the business reply envelope, with the envelope they sent it in, and return it to them. I get a lot less junk mail. Some people send the empty envelope back. That’s too easy.

That’s my plan. A lot of jokes about jumbo shrimp and honest politicians. If we can get people laughing at the clown car we call gubamint, then we can shrink them down to size. Perception is reality! Let’s have more TSA horror stories — put more old nuns on the no fly list — molest more pregger moms dragging infants — make business men wait in the longest lines you have ever seen — and longer lines, much longer. Maybe I’ll go stand in one and move real slow. Nah, I have given up flying and tell everyone I know they should too. More people are beginning to agree with me on that one!

Thanks for reading my email,
REINKE

p.s., I’m impressed. You even pronounce my name right. How did you do that?

http://www.rightwingnews.com/archives/week_2006_09_24.PHP

Bloggers Select The Greatest Figures In American History (Version 2)

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Out of all the titans in American history — Presidents and generals, inventors and entrepreneurs, reformers and revolutionaries — have you ever wondered who the best of the best were? Well, RWN decided, for the first time in more than 3 years, to email more than 225 right-of-center bloggers to get their opinions. Representatives from the following 41 blogs responded…

Honorable Mentions:
(HM) John F. Kennedy (4)
(HM) Lewis And Clark (4)
(HM) William Tecumseh Sherman (5)
(HM) Jonas Salk (5)
(HM) John Marshall (5)
(HM) Milton Friedman (5)
(HM) George Washington Carver (5)
(HM) Susan B. Anthony (5)
(HM) Audie Murphy (6)
(HM) Douglas MacArthur (6)
(HM) Patrick Henry (6)
(HM) Andrew Carnegie (6)
(25) Alexander Graham Bell (7)
(23) Thomas Paine (8)
(23) Frederick Douglass (8)
(22) George W. Bush (9)
(18) Wright Brothers (10)
(18) Mark Twain (10)
(18) Harry Truman (10)
(18) Bill Gates (10)
(17) Dwight D. Eisenhower (12)
(15) George Patton (13)
(15) Albert Einstein (13)
(12) Teddy Roosevelt (14)
(12) Franklin D. Roosevelt (14)
(12) Ulysses S. Grant (14)
(11) Alexander Hamilton (15)
(10) Henry Ford (16)
(09) John Adams (17)
(08) Thomas Edison (21)
(07) James Madison (22)
(06) Thomas Jefferson (29)
(05) Martin Luther King Jr. (30)
(04) Ben Franklin (32)
(03) George Washington (35)
(02) Abraham Lincoln (37)
(01) Ronald Reagan (39)

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At first blush, I disagree. Washington clearly has to be #1. I wish I had a pair wise comparison tool to use.