Reinke Faces Life

http://www.lifetrekcoaching.com/creativity/cy060827.htm

> My well-meaning Congressman sent his constituents a pamphlet announcing his upcoming Open
> Door Meetings. Upon opening it, I found the question “Do you have a problem with a federal
> program or agency?” in bold letters

OK! You hit my hot button!

Yes. The government steals our money in a variety of ways (i.e., inflation, direct taxes that we pay, indirect taxes that others pay for us, shoddy services, services that are imposed, unintended consequences) and then expects us to be grateful to them for “protecting” us. Please, stop! The litany could go on for pages, but, let’s hit three that might resonate here.

Taxes

I assert it IS everyone’s largest single unavoidable unknown variable expense. The Federal Reserve inflates the currency robbing us of (we can argue EXACTLY what the rate is) between 2.5 and 12% per year. Your dollars are rotting in front of your eyes. The direct taxes (sales, income, and estate) steal every time you buy something, earn something, or die. The indirect taxes (i.e., the gasoline tax) is factored into everything you buy hiding it from identification. No one knows for example what portion of that loaf of bread is tax. It’s not all profit for the baker. I have seen plausible estimates that the US tax bite is in the 80% range. You need some complex math to unwind all the hidden taxation. A good proxy is government spending (at all levels) since that has to come from somewhere. Guess where? Remember only people truly pay taxes. Businesses either pass them along or go broke!

Medicine

Medical care in the US, while “better” than the universal coverage schemes elsewhere, is screwed up by gubamint involvement. “My” government and my insurance company have more to say about my wife’s medical care than I do. Example, she has some problems. Testing in and of itself was risky. I “hear about” full body scan. The insurance doesn’t cover it. And, the gubamint barely approves of it. But for 2k$ and a half hour, I was able to eliminate a laundry list of things the docs wanted to test for with zero risk. (Now the docs are trying to think of new zebras to test for!) Those risky tests would have been just dandy with the gubamint and the insurance company would pay for them. See the problem. It’s the golden rule. (He who has the gold makes the rules!) I remember when my Mom had to pay $185 for my appendectomy when I was a kid. It was a LOT of money. (We weren’t rich. I think the family passed the hat.) But there were only a few forms. Insurance was after the fact between her and the insurance company. But it was the model of speed and efficiency. As a matter of fact, I know the family doc gave her choices of who and where with prices and recommendations! Now we are in a health care model that is one step from the Soviet Union. Take it or leave it. And, it costs!

Drugs and the war on drugs

The FDA. Need I say more? It guarantees that people will die. It enforces a medical monopoly that is a tacit conspiracy between the gubamint, the politicians, the doctors, lawyers, and drug companies. Example, if a new drug cures cancer, then it won’t be available for decades of “testing”. Can some one explain to me if someone is dying of say terminal hangnail and I have essence of guano that cures it, then why do we need testing? At one time in this country, we didn’t look to gubamint for protection. Why ain’t people dying of faulty electronic appliances? Underwriters Laboratory. No government involvement. Yet, I can remember the last case of something happening. WalMart protects me by NOT selling anything without a UL label. Just in case I forget to check. Why do I have to go to the doc for a government permit (aka prescription), beg for an insurance company to cover it in their formulary, then find a licensed drug dealer to sell it to me?

The war on drugs is a joke. In the name of protecting us, they are killing and imprisoning us. No one can stop anyone from putting what they want in the body. It’s immoral. It’s ineffective. And, it’s inefficient. If we are free and have inalienable rights, then there is no moral basis for the drug war. People have to be free to make bad decisions and learn from their mistakes. It’s ineffective. They can’t keep drugs out of prisons. How can they keep them out of society? Didn’t we learn from Prohibition? Can’t be done. Even in the USSR, they still had black markets. Where there is a demand, there will be a supplier. It’s economics.  And, the gubamint goes to all sorts of excesses, in the name of “protecting” us. Yet children get killed in rival drug gang shoot outs. When was the last time you saw a shoot out between Bud and Miller? Yup, during Prohibition. Want to end the drug violence, eliminate street dealing, let WalMart do it. Legalize everything. The marketplace will figure out what to do. And no dumb gubamint age rules either. Have you seen how many kids smoke and drink? Eliminate the kool factor and you’ll eliminate they trying this stuff. And, even if they do, they would die from uncut drugs or drugs cut with rat poison. Finally, it’s inefficient. ALL these “controls” add to the cost and delay in the marketplace. It’s guesstimated by people far smarter than me that illegal drugs would be as cheap as aspirin. (Not sure that it would be THAT cheap, but certainly an addict wouldn’t have to rob and hurt people to feed a habit.) The money wasted on attempting to “control drugs” could be better served by “treating” it. And, we wouldn’t have the Drug War nonsense endanger us or our liberties.

— end rant —

Let me just throw in that the gubamint is a study in “unintended consequences”:

=> Federal Reserve  institutionalizes inflation destroying the saving ethic
=> Income Tax makes everyone a slave to the government
=> Prohibition leads to explosion in organized crime
=> Social Security ponzi scheme setups intergeneration & racial sex funds transfer
=> Social Security destroys the multi generational family support structure and puts kids in day care
=> WW2 Wage & Price controls destroy the direct connection between payer and medical provider
=> Medicare inserts the gubamint in every senior citizen’s medical care at a huge cost
=> “minimum wage” interferes in the peaceful exchange of labor for value; impacts the poor worst!
=> “War on Poverty” destroys the Black family and Black Churches
=> “Urban Renewal” destroys stable neighborhoods to create “vertical slums”
=> “War on Drugs” imprisons minorities and destroys our rights
=> “War on Terror” further destroys our liberty

My challenge is “Name ANY government program that works?”

SO the “well meaning” Congressman should be met not with “appreciative inquiry” but citizens with pitchforks, torches, tar, and feathers! No politician is anything but a (most charitable) dupe, con artist, or (least charitable) stupid.

My suggestions (I don’t just talk about it!):

(1) Get and stay mad. Vote against every incumbent. Demand lower taxes (axiomatic improvement) and ending programs.

(2) Investigate and support the Free State Project (Liberty lovers move to NH for freedom!)

(3) Muck up the system. Don’t cooperate. Remember Gandhi. Non-violent non-cooperation.

(4) Go enthusiastically to jury duty. Vote “not guilty” on bad laws.

(5) Support voluntary true grass roots efforts to solve problems. Avoid “big” charity, like the United Way.

(6) Engage others in discussions of free market solutions. Effective compassion. And, do something, not kvetch!

If you have to use force to get someone to do something, it’s – by definition – a bad idea.

IMHO,
Fjohn

I commented at:

http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2006/08/israel-lebanon-and-south-brunswick.html#comments

Specifically to the cease fire concept.

As with most hard questions, the truth is somewhere hard to find. A cease fire, while laudible in saving lives, settles nothing. A pause allows BOTH side time to regroup, reorg, and resupply. There is something to be said for knock down drag out fight that ends when one says “uncle”. At least something gets settled.

Perhaps, as the Egypt Israeli Six Day showed the way, it can lead to “peace”. As we see from WW1, the “armistice” (a glorified cease fire), setup WW2 and it’s abuses. Whereas McArthur’s unconditional surrender, led to Japan being our “buddy”.

For my own policy, I say the US policy should be MYOB. Stay out of other people’s fights. A lot of the problems there are due in a large part to America’s almost-random interventionist policy. First we like Sadam, then we topple him. Taliban good to oppose the USSR, bad when we don’t need them.

Free trade with everyone; troops stay at the water’s edge.

And, it’s “your paper” run it as you see fit. Anyone who doesn’t like it should set up a competing effor and see how easy it is. In this country, we seem to have a lot of Monday Morning Quarterbacks. To them I say “quit griping and do something about it”! When I have had enough, I won’t subscribe any more. That’s the American way. The free marketplace. Where everyone gets to vote with their pocketbook!

P.S. I still have a gripe with the use of the word “democracy” as anb ideal. Democracy is two wolves and lamb voting on what’s for dinner. A republic means that everyone has INALIENABLE RIGHTS! Let’s be worthy of what those dead old white guys created for us. “A repulic if you can keep it!” We haven’t done so well since 1860. And it’s really gone down hill since 1913. And lately, it been dropping like rock in a well.

http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1099030

Congressional redistricting
How to rig an election
Apr 25th 2002 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition

***Begin Quote***

In a normal democracy, voters choose their representatives. In America, it is rapidly becoming the other way around

***End Quote***

The article says don’t look at the voting machines for fraud. Look at gerrymandering.

I think we have to look at both.

imho we have to become more like a republic and less like an oligarchy.

I think we need to only vote for our local politicians and hold them accountable to everyone else. So in NJ, the municipality should elect the county, the county should elect the state. If you’re interested in proportions, then just throw the census number in for weighting. The State Assembly can be elected by the municipalities on a one for one basis and the State Senate can be elected by the counties.

Then we would only have to gripe at our local politicians.

So to for taxing. Only the local municipality can tax. And, only fees. No taxes.

Gubamint would be forced to offer competitive services that people would want. What a novel idea!

This morning on Jim Gearhart’s show on 101.5, he reported on the results of his airing of a listener’s trouble getting a utility pole repaired. Jim recounted the man’s ordeal trying to get help from JCPL, followed by attempt to get the BPU, who “regualtes” it, to do something. Ten months of frustration get fixed in one day due to Jim’s recitation. Everyone was falling all over themselves to get out of the limelight.

Lessons Learned: (1) Involve Jim sooner in your plight. Maybe eventually he’ll run for guv! (2) Recognize that the cozy relationship between the regulator and the regulated has NOTHING to do with satisfying you the taxpaying consumer. (3) There is no free market in regulated services. Just as we identify a tax by whether or not you can avoid it (i.e., tax unavoidable / fee avoidable), so to we can identify a free market as one in which you have a choice (i.e., any choice no matter how absurd or unpallitable is at least a choice). The interesting question is: If the gubamint madates that I have no choice, is that not in effect a tax? Sure seems that way to me.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8058189042056883618&q=free+to+choose

Now hte internet is really demonstrating it’s power. Here’s a snapshot of Milton Freedman and in 1980 discussion predicts pretty accurately the expansion of government into all sectors and the loss of freedom we would suffer. True true.

I especially liked his description of the fate of minorities in elections. Everyone is force to conform to the majority. Where in the marketplace everyone is uniquely satisfied. He correctly finds that gubamint “takes over” corporations and politicians then “milk” them for contributions.

http://tinyurl.com/2ufb8

NYTimes.com > New York Region
For Benjamin Miles, 4, in Brooklyn, pushing for a green light is fun. But does it work? That’s another story.
For Exercise in New York Futility, Push Button
By MICHAEL LUO
Published: February 27, 2004

***Begin Quote***

For years, at thousands of New York City intersections, well-worn push buttons have offered harried walkers a rare promise of control over their pedestrian lives. The signs mounted above explained their purpose:

To Cross Street
Push Button
Wait for Walk Signal
Dept. of Transportation

Millions of dutiful city residents and tourists have pushed them over the years, thinking it would help speed them in their journeys. Many trusting souls might have believed they actually worked. Others, more cynical, might have suspected they were broken but pushed anyway, out of habit, or in the off chance they might bring a walk sign more quickly.

As it turns out, the cynics were right.

***End Quote***

It’s a small thing, but at the same time, a  huge example.

Push the button, citizen! And we in the government will respond. Fooled you again sucker.

Can you ever envision WalMart doing that? No, they have phones around the store. Ever call one? An associate or a manager comes pretty promptly. Even KMart, has such a system.

Ever call teh gubamint? Yeah, that’s a snooze. Most people would rather go for root canal than endure that.

Small fib these sings? Yup.

BUT, part of the big lie!

http://www.mises.org/story/2216

Enterprising Education: Doing Away with the Public School System
by Walter Block and Andrew Young
[Posted on Saturday, August 19, 2006]
***Begin Quote***

All the arguments in favor of a public provision of primary education prove to be unfounded and/or incorrect. The failure of the state to provide a high quality service to all (its explicit goal) has rendered public primary education illegitimate; and the immeasurable waste of resources and rejection of consumer desires has left public education borderline immoral. As well, if an educated citizenry is to be considered necessary for the operation of the republican government, then it is an inexcusable conflict of interest when elected officials are the ones in charge of providing that education. Furthermore, the argument of externalities and nonexcludability fails to buttress the case for socialist education. The only ethical, reasonable system for the provision of primary education is the free market.

***End Quote***

Education is too important to have the gubamint involved at all. Just look at what we have: Immoral (based on theft from taxpayers), Inefficient (e.g.: corruption, vested interests, cronyism, political decisions, agendas galore, dropouts, and private & parochial parents pay for services they don’t want), AND Ineffective (e.g.: poor results, high costs, one size fits all, slows the brightest, too fast for the slowest, discriminates against males, and political control of content).

http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2006/08/kean-on-social-security.html#comments

Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Kean on Social Security
*** BEGIN QUOTE ***

So, here is the fullest explanation that young Kean has offered on Social Security to date, a rather long-winded yet empty response full of campaign soundbites, a response that manages to sound thoughtful but that lacks any meaningful policy prescriptions.

*** AND ***

Menendez, also turns to the political cudgel, but his response ultimately is pretty straightforward. He opposes privatization and does not believe the system is in crisis

*** END QUOTE ***

To which, I respond:

http://www.hallnj.org/virtualdebate/flynn_response3.jsp

How about, instead of tweedle dum TOM KEAN’s privatization of something not specific, and tweedle dumber ROBERT MENENDEZ’s “what problem? there’s a problem? where?”, perhaps we could consider a libertarian solution?

LEN FLYNN, in the “other condidate’s section”, like sitting in the back of the election bus, (everyone not a D or an R has no chance, and everyone knows they’re just nut jobs anyway), is the Libertarian candidate for Senate. His answer recognizes that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. He’ll tackle it head on.

It has long been recognized that Social Security is (a) not insurance, but a fraud on the working class; (b) a federal slush fund to hide the true costs; (d) a socialist’s dream that puts everyone on the welfare dole; and (d) a political football to scare voters with.

Chile, guided by a American educated free-market economist, “unwound” their social security system from a government joke into a free market engine of savings and investment. And, at the time, Chile was largely illiterate. That’s doesn’t make them stupid; by “social security” standards, they were a heck of lot smarter than we are.

So, in sum, Flynn offers a real choice to solve social security. End the theft of a lifetime’s work. Allow the poor not to pay a 100% death tax. Stop the wealth transfer from from poor minority men to rich white women! And, make us as smart as the average Chilean — get the gubamint out of the retirement business.

Or, you can flip a coin and pick a big gubamint republicrat or the big government democan. Don’t kid yourself, there’s NO difference between the empty suits.

I’m voting for small government. Every time. No excuses.

http://www.informationliberation.com/index.php?id=14398

Town shuts down 13-year-old’s $5-a-month worm-selling business because the small cardboard sign on his lawn violated zoning laws
By SARAH MISHKIN, Courant Staff Writer

***Begin Quote***

CROMWELL — Local worm salesmen, beware. As 13-year-old Joe Cadieux learned recently, Cromwell can be a hostile environment for those looking to break into night crawler vending – particularly if they advertise with a yard sign.
***End Quote***

A variation of the “lemonade stand” flaw of gubamint, where gubamint expresses it’s inability to differentiate significant from insignificant AND it’s general disregard for business AND it basic contempt for its residents.

Personally, I like when they do this because they show the true colors of gubamint — stupidity and brutality! The only thing missing was them shooting someone, imprisioning them, or seizing the home!

Home

==============================================================
HOW YOU CAN KNOW WHAT CANDIDATES WILL REALLY DO IF ELECTED
By Carla Howell
==============================================================

***Begin Quote***

… browse candidates’ web sites. The more you do it, the faster it gets. Once you get the hang of it, it’s easy to be an expert on who is and isn’t working for small government. Do you want small government? Do you want to virtually guarantee you’re voting small government when you go to the polls? Do you want to avoid aiding and abetting a weasel in sheep’s clothing – a small government impostor who will vote Big Government?

***End Quote***

Carla,

You’re a gem and a hero of the Small Government movement …

… but …

… I think you left out “Look At What Has Been Done”. That’s how I decide. Like the old joke, how do you know when a politician is lying, I look at what they have done. In prior elective office, did they raise taxes? You can be assured that NO matter what they CLAIM, they’ll do it again. It might be “because of the budget shortfall”, “for the children”, or “for a worthwhile goal”. But bet you last buck, there will be SOME reason. If they have no track record, then you can look at what they SAY. But bear in mind they are LYING!
From the peanut gallery, but still trying for Liberty,
Fjohn