LIBERTY: Cops, our servents, don’t like their pix taken!

Thursday, July 27, 2006

http://www.lp.org/yourturn/archives/000396.shtml

***Begin Quote***

Snap a picture and get arrested? It just happened to Philadelphia’s Neffy Cruz.

***End Quote***

We need IMMEDIATE legislation at all levels of gubamint to reinforce that the police have no expectation of “privacy”. If our servants, our employees, and our politicians are immune to supervision, then we are on the road to serfdom!


LIBERTY: College prof can’t see the value of the Electoral College

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/07/24/MNGIHK4CSQ1.DTL

SACRAMENTO
Stanford professor stumps for electoral alternative
— Matthew Yi, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau
— Monday, July 24, 2006
***Begin Quote***

(07-24) 04:00 PDT Sacramento — A Stanford University computer science professor has come up with an idea to circumvent the more than 200-year-old Electoral College system and institute a national popular vote to elect the president of the United States.

The proposal by John Koza, who also invented the scratch-off lottery ticket, is receiving serious consideration by lawmakers in several states. Legislators in California, New York, Colorado, Illinois and Missouri have sponsored bills to enact such a plan.

Koza’s scheme calls for an interstate compact that would require states to throw all of their electoral votes behind the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of which candidate wins in each state. The plan doesn’t require all 50 states to join, but a combination of states that represent a majority (at least 270) of the electoral votes. If the largest states join in the agreement, only 11 would be needed.

***AND***

Proponents say Koza’s proposal is ingenious because it would avoid the immensely difficult task of trying to get rid of the Electoral College system by amending the U.S. Constitution.

***End Quote***

Oh, of course, they don’t like that the current Electoral College system does NOT give the socialists on the East and West Coasts the answer that they wanted to hear. (Personally, I can’t see much difference between the Democan and the Republicrat.) SO they want to change the system.

Never mind, that the Electoral College was specifically DESIGNED to prevent the large states from dominating the small states. Never mind that the system eliminates the need for a precise accurate count in most state. (I’m not sure the dead old white guys thought of that problem.) Never mind that they want to do this without the muss and fuss of amending that old Constitution thing — a back room deal between the politicians of 11 states — oligarchy? — is all that is really needed.

And, that is just off the top of my head.

By the way, the invention of the scratch off lottery ticket probably has done more to impoverish the bottom half of the population than any other invention other than sales tax. Single-handedly he has allow the gubamint to steal more money that any bookie. So, if that is his credential, then I am singularly unimpressed. If the Intelligent Designer needed my advice, then I’d suggest he has to do extra penance for that invention. And, clean up all those darn scrapings at every 7-11 cash register.


LIBERTY: “The Death Penalty” … … a gubamint crime!

Monday, July 24, 2006

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200607/NAT20060724b.html

Death Penalty Needs Fixing, Say Critics
By Monisha Bansal
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
July 24, 2006

***Begin Quote***

(CNSNews.com) – The death penalty should be changed or abolished because it is corrupting the U.S. system of justice at all levels, critics alleged on Friday.
“It corrupts all of us. It is corrupting our courts, it’s corrupting prosecutors, it’s corrupting defense attorneys, it’s corrupting juries, it’s corrupting our society,” said Bryan Stevenson, a defense attorney and professor of clinical law at New York University’s School of Law. He was among those participating in a National Press Club discussion on the future of the death penalty.
***End Quote***

I would argue against the death penalty on many points –authority, efficiency, effectiveness, and fairness.
Where does the government get its authorization to kill a citizen? As a principled pro-life little L libertarian I challenge anyone to cite from whence the gubamint gets permission to kill anyone. To prevent the use of force on a citizen, it is justified in stopping an aggression. That’s in a “hot” situation. It’s a logical principal. Once they have stopped the aggression, their right to use force ends. Further, if I can’t morally do something, then just counting more noses can’t make it more right! And, when we allow the gubamint to kill any citizen, they get the idea that they are authorized or permitted to do it. Soon they will think it’s a good idea for any “troublemaker”. Mount Carmel, Ruby Ridge, and the Japanese Internment come to mind.

Does the gubamint do “capital punishment” efficiently? Nah, mistakes abound. That stat of DNA clearing the convicted on death row illustrates the efficiency of the process. We don’t know the size of the problem. There is an old canard about shaking a haystack and having needles fall out means that there are more needles in that stack and why are they there in the first place. So if there are some mistakes we find where there are supposed to be zero, we can be assured that there are many more mistakes we haven’t found.

Is capital punishment effective? So few murders are solved, it’s ineffective by definition. If it’s purpose of is justice, surely that has to left in the hands of the Intelligent Designer. If it’s purpose is retribution, I guess it does that. If it’s purpose is prevention or dissuasion. it does very little. Restitution is not even on the gubamint’s value radar. So I think we can say it’s NOT effective.
Fair? You have to be kidding. Just look at the racial component of the stats. Prima facie, this should stop it on just this basis alone.

Convinced? If not, you do it. Don’t delegate it to a state worker! Pick a citizen out of the jury pool and ask them to do it.

You have to be willing to do your own dirty work.


LIBERTY: Money is no longer, and hasn’t been for a while, a store of value!

Sunday, July 16, 2006

http://www.freemarketnews.com/Analysis/110/5618/texas.asp?wid=110&nid=5618

FEDERAL RESERVE POLICY DESTROYS THE VALUE OF YOUR SAVINGS
Tuesday, July 11, 2006

***Begin Quote***

The Treasury department parrots the Fed line that consumer prices, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI), are under control. But even many mainstream economists now admit that CPI grossly understates true inflation. The most glaring problem is that CPI excludes housing prices, instead tracking rents. Everyone knows the cost of purchasing a home has increased dramatically in the last ten years; in many regions housing prices have more than doubled in just five years. So price inflation certainly is alive and well when to comes to the largest purchase most Americans make.

When the Federal Reserve increases the supply of dollars in circulation, both paper and electronic, prices must rise eventually. What other result it possible? The supply of dollars has risen much faster than the supply of goods and services being chased by those dollars. Fed policy makers have more than doubled the money supply in less than ten years. While Treasury printing presses can print unlimited dollars, there are natural limits to economic growth. This flood of newly minted US currency can only increase consumer prices in the long term.

***End Quote***

When most people think of gubamint, they think of it’s “benefits”. Or, perhaps what they would like it to do for them.

Nice people, who would not think of pickpocketing your wallet, have no reluctance to authorize gubamint to do it for them.

Just as it is wrong for YOU to steal my wallet, it is just as wrong for YOUR gubamint to do YOUR dirty work for you stealing my wallet.

Now when we think of government theft, we might think of TAXES. But that, while bad, is just the tip of the iceberg. The gubamint has other tools that are worse. So, you pay your unconstitutional income tax and your immoral sales tax and your unbelievable property tax and you’re smugly happy. Let’s see how the gubamint sticks it to  you!

Inflation, a tax upon your savings, is the bottom of that iceberg. That iceberg will sink the USA. If you think as you were taught by classical economics, then money is a store of value. But, it hasn’t been since Roosevelt took gold out of the money! The gubamint can finance all the guns and butter they want by just printing more money and you are none the wiser. Except your dollar buys a lot less year after year. This tax is FAR more devastating than those income, sales, and property taxes combined.

Unavoidable fees are taxes in dusguise that give the policticians and bureacrats slush funds.

Laws that the gubamint passes are taxes since they increase our costs directly and indirectly.

Regulations from the unelected bureaucrats are taxes since they increase our cost directly and indirectly.

The taxes, laws, and regulations imposed by the gubamint on corporations just get passed along to us people disguised in the price.

Don’t forget this is AFTER you paid income, sales, and property!

And, then you die, and then you get to pay a DEATH tax.


LIBERTY: Welfare, in all it’s guises, is about gubamint control!

Saturday, July 15, 2006

http://www.mises.org/story/2218

The Welfare State’s Attack on the Family
by Vedran Vuk
Posted on Wednesday, July 12, 2006

***Begin Quote***

The agenda of the state is to break up the family. The more you depend on the state, the more you justify its existence, and the larger it grows. The idea that people can provide things for themselves either individually or through the family frightens the state. It delegitimizes its role. The role of the family is dangerous to its survival.

***End Quote***

The Communists attacked the family unit as part of their strategy to completely control everything. The Socialists do the same for the same objective. Welfare is that Trojan Horse into people’s minds. They don’t see the hidden agenda. Power!


LIBERTY: Forget free speech!

Friday, July 14, 2006

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nevada/2006/jul/13/071310623.html

July 13, 2006
Valedictorian sues Nevada school for cutting off Christian speech
By RYAN NAKASHIMA
ASSOCIATED PRESS
***Begin Quote***

LAS VEGAS (AP) – A high school valedictorian who had the plug pulled on her microphone as she gave an address referring to Jesus Christ sued school officials Thursday, saying her rights to religious freedom and free speech were trampled on.
***End Quote***

That’s the problem with gubamint skoolz. First Amendment says the gubamint has NO right to prevent free speech. Any time one is placed in a situation where you have conflict, then you have to go back and study the rules. In this case, her free speech rights trump the gubamint. If it was a private institution, then the administration could enforce whatever rules it chose. See those administrators don’t see themselves as part of an oppressive gubamint. But they are. To the students of that skool, I’d say “learn what’s in store for you”. You’ll see the boot of the gubamint soon when you get your first job, your first car, or take your first trip. Remember that when the revolution starts.


LIBERTY: NJ Sales Tax increase was unneeded!

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

How about recognizing that government is the only entity that can “provide a service” that an individual doesn’t want and then force everyone to pay for it? The logical extension is that if you have to FORCE people to pay for something then that probably is NOT a good idea. The next realization is that people should be allowed to CHOOSE peacefully and without coercion those services that they want and those that they don’t. They can then pay for those used.

If MickyD’s said “everyone has to buy soda”, then my wife who doesn’t like their soda, wouldn’t shop there and they’d suffer. But, if it was the government, she had to pay for that soda even when she wouldn’t drink it.

It’s all about FORCE. The government will kill you if you don’t go along with it. Try not paying your taxes or not showing up for a speeding ticket.

We DO NOT have to pay taxes. We can pay for the services we use and NOT pay for the one’s we don’t want.

We DON’T have to give up local control. I can choose Burger King, McDonalds, or Theo’s to get a hamburger. Is there duplication? Yes. But, I am not FORCED to subsidize the joint that I don’t like.

If this was a private enterprise supplying a valuable service, the employees could take the service “private”. It happens on Wall Street, Information Technology, Drugs, and the Internet all the time. They may lose a job and find a career!

Pensions. Guess the judges and politicans will not be able to rip off the future taxpayers by working “multiple full time jobs”, “many part time jobs”, or packing the pensions with sick time and OT. We’ve been getting ripped off for a long time. It’s time that it stopped!

Campaign finance reform! Please, let’s stop kidding ourselves. It’s about free speech. If there wasn’t Big Government, then there’d be NO NEED for campaign finance reform.

IMHO, you’re shifting all so slowly to the realization that the taxes are not needed. The market place can be used to peacefully supply all our needs. The voluntary free exchange is the way to freedom.


LIBERTY: Ignore the gubamint cheer about the deficit is only 300b$ not 450b$

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

{Stolen from an email I wrote}

This is all fluff. They can count the beans anyway they want. It’s all a sham. In my mind, the key is “monetary inflation” and the Total Federal Spend. They can josh us all they want about this measure of that.

Did the Federal Total Spend go up? Don’t forget to include the unfunded mandates levied on the states. Don’t forget the “benefits” that have been promised. Don’t forget the off budget monsters like the misnamed Social Security Insurance ponzi scheme that you and I are going to try to collect on. Don’t forget the various wars that the politicians are waging and we have to pay for (i.e., poverty, drugs, terror, Iraq, Afghanawhere). Don’t forget the off budget commitments that are made to the UN, the various treaty organizations, and the myriad of NGOs that have their hands in our pocket.

It is just amazing to me that the economy can continue to produce even under the staggering load of tax, regulation, inflation, “laws”, and “mandates”. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be in an environment without all of this force. Imagine keeping all you earn? There’d be immediate pay increases for the 10% employer SSI match. There’d be price decreases as the costs that businesses pass along disappear. And, we wouldn’t have people trying to force their views via laws on us.

Sigh. Time to move to New Hampshire.

Fjohn

—–Original Message—–
From:
Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2006 8:43 AM
Subject: Taxes Cut, Deficit–not Sky–Falls

Liberals wrung their hands when President Bush first proposed tax cuts
back in 2001. It would ruin the economy and balloon the deficit, they
wailed. Now, we are seeing the deficit falling rapidly. This year’s
deficit of $296 billion is 30 percent lower than projected just last
February. That’s a $127 billion decline from that February forecast.
Revenues have increased, accounting for 90 percent of the deficit
reduction. This is an historic moment and President Bush is right to
call attention to the success of his pro-growth economic policies.


LIBERTY: “Eminent Domain” … … another gubamint crime!

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

http://www.c-n.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060711/NEWS/607110324

Halpers defy eviction order
After battle, family says it won’t leave Piscataway farm
By GENE RACZ
Gannett New Jersey

***Begin Quote***

PISCATAWAY — The Halpers remained on their farm Monday night, defying an eviction notice after indicating earlier in the day they had planned to leave.

***End Quote***

Do you really EVER own your property?

Now that the Supreme Court has effectively eviscerated the Fifth Amendment, you really have no protection from the gubamint gang at any level from stealing your land.

While there may be times that there is no alternative other than a land seizure, I haven’t heard of one that was justified.

It’s all about the raw naked abuse of power. You just have to hope that they never desire your land. Because if they do, you’re just out of luck.

AND, they don’t want to pay a fair price for it. AND, they legislate, regulate, and zone what you can do with what is allegedly YOUR property.

It’s a crime!

Time for the pitchforks and torches!


LIBERTY: You’re asking the wrong question! Why does the gubamint have ANY role in marriage?

Monday, July 10, 2006

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/07/09/a_mockery_of_the_rules/

JEFF JACOBY
A mockery of the rules
By Jeff Jacoby  |  July 9, 2006
***Begin Quote***

WHEN THE Massachusetts Legislature meets in joint session as a constitutional convention this week, the most notable item on its agenda will be a proposed amendment to ban same-sex marriage. A record-breaking 170,000 registered voters have signed petitions to put such an amendment on the state ballot. But the Massachusetts Constitution mandates a detour: The measure must first win the support of at least 50 lawmakers in two consecutive legislative terms. Only then can it be submitted to the people. If the amendment gets past every hurdle, it will reach the ballot in November 2008.

***End Quote***

I usually like Jeff. BUT, in htis case, he is asking the wrong question!

Why does the gubamint have any role in marriage? Gay, straight, or anything else. Could it be to keep black men from marrying white women? Could it be so that they can “track” us? Could it be so that they can train us to accept intrusion into every facet of our life?