Libertarian vs. Conservative

I spend a lot of time at various public events manning what we call an OPH booth (Operation Politically Homeless). We ask people to take a short quiz and then use the results to place them on a chart that shows a political spectrum. Our point being that the simple left right line is totally inadequate to show most people. If interested, you can take the quiz online at www. self-gov.org.

I often hear the question-What is the difference between conservatives and libertarians? That question is getting harder and harder to answer because the definition of conservative is so fluid. It changed drastically during the administration of W.

Nevertheless, as a minimum we can say that Libertarians agree with conservatives on most economic issues and probably free speech and press. Beyond that, there is way to much variation among conservatives to make a definitive statement.

Do conservatives believe in due process. For the most part, sure but they were easily swayed to ignore that for alleged terrorists. Thus they gave a totally unacceptable power to government to name someone as a terrorist without the need to prove the facts. We still have hundreds of prisoners in GITMO and BAGRAM whose guilt is still unknown but whose time in prison is many years. Libertarians find this not just shameful but horribly dangerous.

How about gay marriage and all the other issues around homosexuality? Libertarians are true to the freedom philosophy here. Adults may make any living and/or loving arrangements they please without interference from the state. Conservatives apparently put their ideas of a proper society ahead of freedom on this issue.

The longest running debate is about the drug war. Libertarians have always advocated personal freedom. We recognize the massive damage done to people and society from attempting to prohibit the use of mind altering substances. We learned the lesson of alcohol prohibition all too well. Conservatives believe that they have a right to tell other people what they may use for enjoyment and apparently just refuse to learn from the alcohol prohibition disaster. Indeed, I am sure there are some that would want to try alcohol prohibition again, just with more police this time.

Right now, this looks like irreconcilable differences. One can only hope that people who are basically freedom lovers will realize that there is no compromise of freedom with tyranny possible.

If you would have freedom for yourself, you must grant similar freedom for all others!

Do you really think that your freedom to practice Christianity, for example, would survive if you allowed the government to ban some other religion that you found distasteful? Once such decisions are in the hands of the government, even a democratic one, the allowed religions become a matter for majority vote. That is definitely not commensurate with freedom.

Obama's Goal

In politics, things are rarely done in a straight forward manner. By that I mean the goals stated are usually not the whole story. There is almost always another motive that they don't dare state. You have to divine this from the details of the proposal as it relates to the stated goals.

So for example, we are told that we need health care reform because we have 47 million uninsured. No discussion how many of those have made an intentional choice to save the premium costs. For the purposes of this discussion, let's take that number as correct. That is roughly 15% of the population. That means that 85% of the population is insured and probably satisfied with their insurance coverage.

So now, is the new plan the best and cheapest way to get that 15% insured. Clearly not!! The dictum "First do no harm" should be kept in mind always. It seems pretty foolish to upend the whole system and mess around with the satisfied 85% when we need only subsidize the 15% and be done. To understand what I am saying, think how we help those who cannot buy enough food. The government did not take over the food industry. They gave money to poor people who met certain criteria, via the mechanism of food stamps. They buy their food like everyone else, in a free market with all the efficiency and innovation that comes with it.

The equivalent method for health insurance is "HEALTH STAMPS. Just set up a needs based requirement for getting a voucher which I like to call health stamps and the stated problem is solved and the 85% are not affected or disturbed.

So the stated reason is not the true reason for this massive 'reform'. What might the true reason be? I am assuming that there are two driving forces for this. We know that Obama has spent his whole life espousing big government intervention and the Marxian dictum, "From each according to his ability and to each according to his needs". Apparently he wants a monstrously expensive system that will justify raining taxes even further on the already most taxed group of high income earners. When experience shows this as still inadequate, let's go after those comfortable middle class folks. Let's share every one's poverty. Socialists do not understand incentives and disincentives very well.

Rationing is also inevitable in an always cash short system so this will give the leaders the power of life and death over the populace. I hope that is not a driving force but it cannot be discounted.

In any case, the plan is idiotic since the problem can be solved much more simply with "health stamps".

Please don't take this as an endorsement of a broadening of the welfare state. I merely point out that health stamps would solve the problem without creating a disaster. A still better but longer term solution is eliminating the state and federal laws and rules that make health care more expensive than it needs to be. Thus I offer as an alternative the HEALTH STAMPS PLAN as a short term fix with a deregulation move to follow. That will have a goal of lowering the costs so that nearly everyone will be able to afford good insurance and fewer will need health stamps.

Government Run Health Care Part 4

Today, let's talk about tactics. In the mid 1990s, when the Clinton clan decided to save the world from freedom, they presented their health care reform as a complete package. All the details were available with all the flow charts, payment methods and new crimes defined fully. They were so proud of their monstrosity, they published a book with all the details.

Obviously, this gave the opposition the opportunity to read, understand and explain the contents. A lot of people thought it was unstoppable, so they started making plans to live through it. Several entrepreneurs announced plans to build floating hospitals several miles offshore all around the US to treat people who could not or would not wait for the system to care for them. The main lesson that Obama took from this was to go lightly on the details. Sell it as a somewhat vague concept and maybe you will get it through. It is very difficult to fight a phantom plan that can change or redefine terms as the opposition attacks.

That is why I feel we need to battle the basic assumptions, not the details. Let us stress the basic idea that some bureaucrat will decide if we get a particular treatment based on our life expectancy is a horrible idea and no matter how they laugh, rationing is inherent in any government run system. It cannot be otherwise because all our money has been placed in one pot and it is not bottomless. It is suddenly of no consequence that we scrimped and saved all our working lives to have a comfortable retirement with good medical care. Our resources got thrown into that same pot with the person who was a spendthrift all his life and we will get the same care, for better or worse. We might point out that this puts us in the position of pets brought to a vet. The vet and the owner decide if the treatment is cost effective or if the patient should be put down. Is that how you would like to be treated-like a pet or farm animal?

Another important issue for us is to decide what alternate we propose. We could take the position that the Status Que is far better than this plan. This is true but the Status Que is not great. I have seen alternate plans from so-called conservatives that astound me. I have seen plans that include full price controls and mandated purchase of insurance actually suggested by these so called conservatives. I have seen a Republican plan that is mostly double talk, i.e. platitudes about taking care of yourself.

My favored solution is, of course, individual freedom. We know that the system currently suffers under reams of state and federal regulation that drastically increase the cost of medical care and medical insurance. The direction to go is to undo those regulations.

One other thought. Have you all noticed the logical contradiction that we hear all the time from the politicians pushing this? We have to pass this to control costs but we also have to raise taxes to pay for this cost saving improvement. Makes by cognitive dissonance (BS) alarm sound.

Government Run Health Care Part 3

It amazes me that this Health Care discussion has simply ignored the constitution. This is our founding document and creates the pact between the people, the state governments and the Federal government. In fact, this is what brought the federal government into existence. Its every word and phrase is designed to clearly limit the authority of the federal government to a short, explicit list of functions, leaving all else to the states or the people.

That short list, embodied in Article 1 Section 8 absolutely does NOT contain health care as a federal function. Of course, that has never stopped them from doing the myriad things they do under the "elastic" clause as they have misnamed the commerce clause. Most of the things they have done in this vein have been terrible for the nation and it is time we started demanding compliance with the founding charter of the government. A government that ignores its founding charter is not a legitimate government but just a gang of thieves writ large.

Are the following things appropriate for a nation that considers itself free?
1. Force, at gun point, all employers to buy health insurance for all employees or pay a large penalty fee based on payroll.
2. Force, at gun point, anyone not otherwise covered to buy a government approved health insurance policy or pay a penalty tax.
3. Take money from people, deemed to rich to complain, at gun point, extra taxes, over and above what everyone else pays to supply health insurance to others.
4. Prevent people, at gun point, from spending their own money to buy health care if refused by the government system. Refusal based on something called comparative effectiveness or, in effect, setting a maximum payout per year of extended life. (I think this is what Sarah Palin meant by death panels except there will be no panel to argue with. Just a bureaucrat with a calculator.)

Government Run Health Care Part 2

Now let us assume you are adamant that the government must DO SOMETHING about the 10 or 15% of the population that does not have health insurance. Shall we revamp the entire system and put it all under government control, even for the 85% that is happy with what they have?

If we had followed that same plan when we were worrying about food security, we would have handed the entire food industry over to the government and then we would all get our food from government run warehouses. I am sure it would be delicious. Instead we gave money (via food stamps) to the poor and disabled so they could buy their food where everyone else does. We did not bother the self sufficient very much at all (except for the taxes) and did not interfere with normal market forces that create good quality and innovation.

The equivalent function in the health care realm already exists-Medicaid. It seems we should only be discussing changes to the qualifications to receive Medicaid.

Now I in no way endorse Medicaid, food stamps or any other aspect of the welfare state. I am just pointing out the total lack of necessity to revamp the whole system when small and comparatively cheap adjustments will meet the goal. The fact that the welfare state and the high taxes it causes is a self perpetuating disaster should be obvious to all. But that is how government grows. It messes things up with a foolish intervention and then uses the consequences of that intervention to justify the next. And so it goes on a spiral into fascist or socialist hell.

The political goons at the Town Hall meetings

The Democrats just seem to know that all the demonstrators and Town Hall Attendees who think the health plan is a bad idea are all hired goons. Must be how they normally handle a problem.

The truth is that the people who are against the health care plan are in fear for their lives, and justifiably so. No one has to pay me to demonstrate against this health care plan. We have all the notice we need that rationing for older people will be a feature. It is already in place for Medicare and there is no other way to limit the spending when everyone is covered.

I have a passion for and a self interest in stopping this plan. I don't mind if some group helps to get all us political amatuers organized. We need all the help we can get finding where our congress Critters are hiding.

It has occurred to me that this might be part of the plan to cure the Social Security bankruptcy in our future-just knock off the Baby Boomers early by denying them care. The plan includes bureaucrats that will make decisions on denying care to older folks if the cost of keeping them alive exceeds some unnamed standard for the additional years of life. I want to make that decision. Otherwise, we are no better than farm animals where the farmer decides how much it is worth to keep Bessy alive after she no longer gives milk.

My preferred alternative is not just do nothing but rather undo all the regulations that make health care and insurance far more expensive than they need to be.

Sound Money

Dr Ron Paul has been advocating a return to sound money. If you don't want to be paying a continuous inflation tax, you should want sound money as well. Historically, the only way to prevent inflation is to strictly limit the amount of money in circulation. How do you do that? Why you make the money warehouse receipts for some commodity. That way, there can be no money printed that is not matched by stocks of the monetary commodity available at all times for redemption of the paper money.

Again, history teaches us that gold or silver have been the best commodity to use as a medium of exchange. They each have intrinsic value because of their usefulness (jewelry, electronics, chemistry) and can easily be made into coins and subdivided endlessly. The key to sound money is the concept of a commodity that is interchangeable with the paper money. It is less important what the commodity is, so long as there is a limit on the issuance of paper money (or its electronic equivalent).

Today, the Federal Reserve Bank can create new money at whim to lower interest rates, bail out defaulting financial institutions, buy votes or finance wars. The result of this money creation is exactly the same as when Uncle Vinnie down the block prints up his really good counterfeit $50s. The money supply goes up and all the money becomes worth less. Did you get that? There is no difference to you whether the Fed issues the money or Uncle Vinnie issues the money. The effect on the economy is the same.

It only makes a difference to the guy who gets to spend the money the first time. Either Uncle Vinnie gets to buy his new car or the political cronies of the Fed get the money. Either way, after that first spend, it is just more money in circulation.

So now let's look at some evidence to back this up. Oil has gotten very expensive lately. It is running between $90 and $100 per barrel. But that is when you measure it in terms of dollars. If you measure it in terms of gold, it is still about 1/10 ounce of gold per barrel-mostly unchanged. So the price increase you see is really the lower value of the dollar caused by all that counterfeit money, mostly from Uncle Fed.

So next time you hear some media expert laughing at Dr Paul for advocating the gold standard, you give him a good laugh. He is the idiot!

Ron Paul vs the Establishment

We are seeing some interesting politics these days. It will be something to tell our grandchildren about. After decades of the two party system handing us a pair of really bad candidates, over and over again, so bad that sometimes we really could not discern who was the lesser evil, we finally have a potential candidate who actually knows the rules.

Ron Paul has apparently read the constitution and knows what the federal government is not supposed to do. Unfortunately, if he wins, he will upset quite a few apple carts. There are many special interests that have made careers and fortunes from the idiotic and tyrannical (not to mention unconstitutional) actions of the government. This has been going on for so long that the average Joe cannot conceive of the nation operating without all these expensive and wasteful federal programs. I guess that multiple generations of public schooling is part of that problem.

Folks-When the government takes money from you in the form of taxes approaching 50% of your earnings and promises you benefits in exchange, do you really think this will be beneficial to you in total? Do you think that someone else will pay for your benefits and you will profit? You know that is not going to happen! The average Joe will surely lose on that deal. The majority will surely lose on that deal. You will lose control of how your money is spent.

Consider a single segment of socialism to see that is cannot be good on balance. Let us say that the government takes on the job of every one's health insurance company. They do not charge actual premiums but rather raise some tax to cover the cost. Now federal medical spending becomes a matter of congress passing budgets. Let us suppose that in some future year, they want to fight another pointless war to profit some contractor friends. They decide that the risk from the current demon is so great that we have to cut health spending to pay for it. They set up rationing such as waiting lists for expensive operations. Maybe they decide that folks over age XX have very little life left anyway, so why waste the government's money on them. Let them languish on the waiting list till they die. So now that older person, who paid plenty of taxes toward health care has no control over that money that he needs to save his life. It is now the government's money, not his.

Nevertheless, after a few years of that program, people will get used to it and be unable to conceive of medical care without the government as intermediary.

Most everything the government does for you could be better done for yourself if you had control of the tax money back.

If Ron Paul wins, we will start the long process of ending these programs, which are doomed in the long term in any case.

I have heard people say but what about medical care for the poor. Do you how many fewer poor there would be if there were no income tax? How much better every one's standard of living would be without the income tax and the inflation tax?

Support Ron Paul for president if you want:

• To get our freedom back from the rapidly expanding police state,
• To end the idiotic war in Iraq and prevent an even more idiotic war in Iran
• To stop the debasement of the dollar and return to a sound currency
• To stop imprisonment without trial
• To stop torture in our name
• To stop extraordinary rendition (outsourced torture)
• To stop wiretapping without warrant
• To stop the empire from bankrupting us
• To ensure a future of freedom rather than tyranny for our posterity
• To stop some horrible civil liberties violations just too numerous to list here.

We find ourselves at a key turning point in the history of our nation. For many decades, we allowed the government to grow in power and take much of our wealth to support welfare programs. It has been a continual loser for us but many of us know nothing else and cannot conceive of freedom. But we owe it to our posterity to preserve and restore freedom. Otherwise they will curse us for our apathy, for putting them in the position of having to physically fight for their freedom back. We can still get it back with a vote. Let's not pass this opportunity by. We won't have another in our lifetimes.

An Epidemic of Taser torture and death

In the last week, there have been two incidents of police brutality using a Taser in circumstances where it was completely unnecessary. In the two incidents in Florida and California, a peaceful person was arrested for questionable reasons and then tasered for insufficiently quick compliance with police orders.

I am particularly scared by this since in the past, police would be careful to have no witnesses when they used excessive force. In both instances, they did this in front of numerous witnesses and did not mind multiple people video taping close up. This means to me that they believe that the police state is so far advanced that they no longer have to worry about consequences.

I watched three separate videos of the incident in Gainesville FL from different angles. The victim was asking questions politely of John Kerry when, quite suddenly, he was pulled away forcibly by police. He was clearly astonished. I guess he thought that we still live in a free country where there was no penalty for asking a politician an embarrassing question. Well I guess he now knows better. The police state is upon us and torture is OK, not just for Muslims in GITMO but for US citizens as well.

The other astonishing item is that Kerry appeared totally unaware of what was happening. He was actually answering the student's question as he was being tasered in the back of the room. I don't think that he heard the answer.

I think that it is our responsibility right now to visit our respective city councils, county commissions, etc to be sure that they put rules in place to prevent this casual use of Tasers. Police have got this story that they are not lethal and can be used freely. Torture or pain compliance is OK with them. Well torture or pain compliance is not OK with me.

We also have to stress that deaths have occurred and they are not entirely non-lethal. There is risk based on the health of the victim. The officer will likely not know the health of his victim at the time so using a Taser should be considered the use of lethal force. It should not be used except where lethal force would be clearly justified.

One more important point. The neo-con talk radio and TV contingent: Hannitty, O'Reilly and Glen Beck are all laughing at "Taser Boy". They are all down with the police state.

An American History Teachers asks

A comment from a teacher of American History

As a teacher of American history I never cease to be impressed with how little the American people understand their history, particularly the relationship between government and society. Many citizens equate "freedom" with the unfettered right to "do their own thing", and that government regulation constitutes an abuse of personal liberty. To me, this is not "liberty", but "license"; excessive undisciplined freedom, constituting an abuse of liberty. Our freedom as a people has always been tempered by the government's "power to provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States." (U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8.) I would submit that regulating where smoking is permitted falls within the province of protecting the "general welfare" of society. We would all do well to heed the whole of the U.S. Constitution's provisions, rather than employing a selective "buffet table." Instead of picking and choosing of those liberties which emphasize individual rights we should not subordinate the best interests and general welfare of the whole society.


That a teacher of American History has these opinions is not surprizing. It is also not surprizing that our freedoms are melting away like a snowball in the Florida sun when our kids are taught this.

In so far as the powers of the federal government, they are strictly limited by Article 1 Section 8. It was the intent of the founders to ensure that ordinary citizens would have little contact with the federal government or its laws and that most areas of daily life would be regulated by the states. This desire was reinforced in the Tenth Amendment.

It is certainly true that the government has been able, through disengenuous arguments, to slip the leash of the constitution and we suffer as a result. I remember, even lo these many years later, when I was in the sixth grade, reading an American history book that extolled the virtues of the "elastic clause". They were refering to the commerce clause of Article 1 Section 8 and how just about everything could be turned into commerce and thus regulated. The courts ran with that and concurred that congress could even regulate what a farmer planted on his land for his own use and call it commerce.

The intention of the founders and the definition of freedom is that the default position is that people did what they wanted and it was not the business of government, at any level, to interfere unless others rights were being violated in the process. This left some grey areas, but they were to be resolved at the state or lower lever. Certainly not at the federal level.

They also set up a system with checks and balances. Every power had a check, and no law which contradicted the constitution had any effect. Those laws would provide no protection and impose no penalties.

So what was the check they had in mind for silly laws passed by the legislature? It was the twice repeated right to trial by jury for ALL CRIMINAL TRIALS (no deminimus) and ALL CIVIL TRIALS (where more than $20 was at stake). Is that in effect today? Do juries know that they are supposed to judge the law as well as the facts? Of course not! They have never been educated in the basics of what our freedom means and how we are to maintain it. Most don't even know that it needs maintenance.

Now. moving on to the states and their sub divisions, we again have some limits imposed by the Federal constitution and some limits imposed by the state constittuion. We also have the same checks and balances between the Governor, the legislature, the courts and the people through the ballot box and the jury box.

Now to the specific matter of smoking limitations: We have specific protections for our property rights. In both the 5th and 14th amendment. We were promised that we would never be deprived of our property without due process. When the city or county government tells the owner of a bar, restaurant, or such how he may use his property, they diminish its value and deprive him of property without his having committed any prior crime. The proposed statute and that in other cities in the area impose fines for violating this law that will be adjucated in municipal court without benefit of trial by jury.

Yes, I am saying that every single charge needs to be adjudicated by a jury so that the people will have their check on what I consider an unjust law. Will it be very hard to get a conviction? You bet! That is because there is a significant minority that will defend the rights to property and hung juries will be the order of the day. Prosecutors will stop bringing charges and the law will melt away. That is what is supposed to happen to unjust laws. That is how minorities can protect themselves from overbearing, politically driven, majorities. It is a key ingredient to keeping a government in check and governments must be kept in check.

History shows us that, with the passage of time, power leaves the people and goes to government. Government must protect us from all manner of evil. This is why we must always have some demon to fear. In my lifetime it was communists, terrorists, Kadaffi, Saddam, Osama, Islamofascists, druggies, homosexuals, foreigners in general and on without end. Government makes new laws to violate our rights in order to protect us from the demon of the day and the people cheer. "Thus is freedom lost, to wild applause."

Do you teach about the function of juries in your American History class? WHY NOT?

Freedom vs Tyranny

Maybe the title seems too self important for a discussion of a smoking ordinance but that is how I see it. Every violation of property rights makes the next violation easier. Pretty soon, it seems perfectly normal and if you think that I am making a big deal over a smoking ordinance, then you have already fallen into that trap.

Now, let me start out by saying that I do not smoke and do not own a bar or restaurant whose business will be affected by the ordinance. What I am is a citizen of the United States and Kansas and I know that property rights are the underlying rights for all others. Without safe property rights, the other rights become theoretical constructs. They can no longer be reliably enforced. If you are always a tenant, then the government controlled landlord is truly your master. You really need your own property to assert many of your rights.

At its July 3rd meeting, the Lenexa, KS City council passed an ordinance that would make it illegal to smoke inside any building that was not a private residence. There was a small exception for a business that was entirely a tobacco seller. The vote was 7 to 1 and the one guy who dissented had no problem with the concept of the government controlling private property. He only wanted to carve out one more exception for his favored special interest.

There was little advance notice to the public about the action so only myself and one bar owner from across the street were there to speak against it. We both had heard about it accidentally at the last moment. There were plenty of representatives from the special interests that like to run our lives (for our own good, of course) who apparently had plenty of notice.

A further insult was to take this vote on the eve of the Independence Day celebration. This shows us the disdain that our leaders have for our tradition of freedom. We need to fight to get our freedom back. We have lost a major share and we cannot let any more violations occur, no matter how trivial this individual item seems and even if you don't smoke or own an affected business. Today it is restaurant owners, tomorrow it might be your business or your political interests that are savaged.

To have freedom for yourself and your posterity, you must grant it to others; even if you don't exactly like what they do with it.

Twenty Questions

What follows is a list of questions to be asked of our current Federal representatives and Senators and any future candidates. I see it as kind of a litmus test. If they can't answer these questions in a satisfactory manner, they are clearly unfit for office in a constitutional republic.

For the record, this is not entirely original. I took the idea from a posting on a Yahoo group, where it was 17 questions and edited it to include some of my personal hot buttons.

1. Do you still support our United States Constitution, as written, and all of the Amendments to our Constitution, as you swore (or will swear, if you are a candidate) to do in your Oath of Office?
2. Do you believe that American citizens have a right to expect that every elected official obey and support our United States Constitution in its entirety?
3. What recourse do you believe American citizens should have when a public official acts, or proposes a law, contrary to the American Rule of Law, as set down in our United States Constitution? Please explain!
4. Do you believe that all branches of government, including regulatory and tax collection agencies, should support and obey our United States Constitution?
5. Please explain under what authority you may feel that government agency could be immune from the rules set down for government by our Constitution.
6. Do you support the right of an American citizen to protect life, family and home against all intruders, with the exception of officials who have a duly sworn warrant and have given proper notice of that warrant as required by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution?
7. If not, please describe any situations where you believe the Fourth Amendment no longer applies, and why.
8. Do you support the right of an American citizen to move around and function in society as they please, unimpeded by any government agent, so long as they do not interfere with other citizens with their activities?
9. What restrictions to personal liberty do you support, and why?
10. Do you support the right of American citizens to acquire, keep and if necessary to defend, real and personal property free from restriction by the federal government?
11. If not, please explain under what Constitutional authority the federal government may restrict the use of personal and private property.
12. What exceptions do you support to the Bill of Rights, and how may these exceptions be justified under the law without amending the Constitution?
13. Are there any areas of human behavior or activities that cannot be regulated by the federal Government? If so, please list any ten that come to mind.
14. Will you certify that you will reject any bill coming before you that does not conform, strictly, to the United States Constitution as written?
15. Furthermore, will you work to repeal all laws, rules, regulations and executive orders not conforming to the written words and intent of the Constitution?
16. Can you name any situation where it is appropriate for the executive branch to imprison any person on US soil and hold him without charge or trial and deny Habeus Corpus process to that person?
17. Is there any situation where you would advocate torture of prisoners?
18. Is there an upper limit to how much of a person’s earnings can be taken by the
government in taxation? Is 50% the upper limit? Is 75% OK? Is it permissible to take it all?
19. If a person is ill, is it within the power of government to deny him the right, under
threat of prison, to use any substance, process or equipment to deal with his illness, even if the government thinks that it will not work?
20. Is it permissible for government to prevent private individuals, spending their own money, from advocating for or against any candidate for office?

Gun Control? Are you crazy?

Mike Hendrick's of the Kansas City Star wrote an op-ed on 4/18/07 suggesting that the solution to mass shootings is more gun control. This is the most perverse logic.

Can you imagine a world where someone is free to shoot and kill 32 people with probably hundreds of witnesses, all of whom would have had an easy shot to put a stop to the killing after his first or second shot. But not one of them had the tool needed to end the killing and the killing went on till the maniac was satiated.

Virginia is a must issue concealed carry state but the university campus is under special laws. The state legislature, in its idiocy, made the campus (and every campus in Virginia) a gun free zone. Thus, the crazies that will always be among us can shoot up a school without opposition till the police arrive. Even if they show up in 5 or 10 minutes, many will die because no one on the scene can stop the insanity.

Isn't it obvious that it was gun control that killed all but the first few fictims? Isn't it obvious that more of the same poison is not the solution?

The results are in. Where people can defend themselves, mass shootings do not happen! It is an unspeakable crime to force people into a defenseless position.

Those Dirty, Rotten Taxes. The Burden on Civilization.

Liberals worry about the regressive nature of the Social Security tax (FICA) and the sales tax is somewhat regressive as well. We are also burdened with a very progressive (in the sense that the rate goes up the more you make) income tax. Conservatives used to worry about that a lot. The combined result of both of these taxes is a full fledged caste system. It prevents new upstart families from having a fair shot at getting rich. It locks the already rich families into positions of wealth and power.

In a lightly taxed (free) nation, the path to wealth is to get an education, learn a useful skill and use that knowledge to earn some money via salary. By working for someone else, you get the advantage of his capital investment and you can accumulate savings until you have enough to invest in your own business and start making more money. At this point, savings becomes capital.

Our current tax system impedes your progress in two ways. When you are young and still learning, you are heavily taxed by the regressive taxes. This is a burden but not a full fledged stopper on your path to wealth. But when you start earning a good salary, the income tax comes in to suck up your surplus and prevent that critical capital accumulation phase. This hurts you terribly and it also hurts society. Society at large should have its standard of living improved by the capital accumulation of individuals as overall productivity increases. We have that down to a trickle thanks to the progressive income tax.

The leaders of our current, very unfree, nation care more for their wealth and relative privilege than they do your standard of living. This is not any different than the Kings, Sultans, Pharoahs, etc of the past. They lived well at the long and short term expense of their subjects. In our nation, we do have the power to stop this if we could just got over the two party paradigm and start thinking as free people again. I prefer that to being a subject.

I consider the income tax as fractional slavery. If they are taking 40% of your earnings, how is that different from requiring the surfs of the Middle Ages to work 40% of their time on their master's crops before they could work on their own?

One more impeachable offense

To add to the already impressive list of impeachable offenses by our current president, we have one more insult to our constitutional order and the rule of law.

It seems that, just before Christmas, the president signed a bill related to the post office. That bill reaffirmed existing law that clearly states that mail can be opened by the government only with a search warrant. The Fourth Amendment allows no other option.

Our lawless president took the opportunity to add a signing statement http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/12/20061220-6.html to assert that the law did not apply when he, the decider, thought it was an emergency national security situation. As usual with such assertions, there is no definition or limits on this asserted power.

So, to sum up, the decider can decide to:

• Lock people up indefinitely without charge or trial
• Listen in on phone calls
• Record all the phone numbers you call or that call you
• Investigate what books you read, what movies you see
• Track all your monetary transactions
• Monitor your e-mail activity
• Read your paper mail

All this without the concurrence of any judge or needing to state any prima facia reason to do so. How is this functionally different from the actions of the KGB in the old USSR? You know, the country of the Godless Communists. Oh Yeah! That is the difference. We have God on our side.

I am so glad that I live in a free country under the rule of law where the government exists to protect my rights, not to take them away.

Rights of the first and second kind

People use the word 'rights' in a sloppy manner. They talk about one kind of right such as the right to free speech, or right to remain silent but then they confuse themselves by talking about another, very different type of right, such as the right to health care or the right to a living wage. When you use the same word you place these quite different concepts in apparent equality. They are not equal.

The first type of right is known as negative rights. Negative rights are the rights that allow you to be left alone, to make your own decisions, to be free from interference in living your life. The key is-No other person has to give up any of their rights for you to have yours. They just have to mind their own business. Examples: freedom of speech , press, religion, property, due process, bear arms, etc.

Positive rights are quite a different animal. When someone asserts a right to medical care, he asserts a right to make a doctor into a slave (or to make a taxpayer into a slave to pay the doctor). When you talk about the right to a living wage, you assert the right to force an employer, at the point of a government gun, to pay some particular wage rate that you arbitrarily determined. These are not rights, they are assertions of arbitrary power similar to the assertion of power made by an armed robber. "Your money or your life". They are moral obscenities. They do not deserve any consideration in a nation that claims its primary principle is freedom.

The concept stems from the old socialist saying-From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. The evil content of this saying has been written on for generations. I recommend Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand for a detailed exposition.

A Modern Enabling Act

This week, both houses of congress violated their oaths of office and passed a bill that will allow agents of the federal government to torture human beings. Not just known terrorists but alleged terrorists or anyone the president says is an "unlawful combatant". This includes US citizens that have never left the US and never held a gun.

The bill lets the president define what is and what is not a violation of the Geneva conventions. Isn't that clear enough? He can define anything as 'not torture' and still say we are obeying the convention.

Congress has given the president a blank check to torture anyone. Guilt is not relevant. An innocent person picked up by mistake or for political revenge has no course of action left. The 800 year old protection against wrongful imprisonment, Habeas Corpus, does not apply when the president does not want it to apply. Due process, what is that? Good bye, Magna Carta. Goodbye fourth, sixth and eighth amendments.

Kansas Senators Roberts and Brownback and Congressman Dennis Moore voted FOR this horror. The courts have been told they have no roll.

It is time to remember Pastor Niemoller's famous quote, updated.

• When they came for the terrorist suspects, I did not speak out since I was not a terrorist.
• When they came for the Democrats, I did not speak out since I was not a Democrat.
• When they came for the Libertarians, I did not speak out since I was not a Libertarian.
• When they came for the anti-war activists, I did not speak out since I was not an anti-war activist.
• When they came for the atheists, I did not speak out since I was not an atheist.
• When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.

For those who got their history from public schools, the Enabling Acts were a series of laws passed by the German Reichstag (parliment) in 1933-34 that, quite simply, gave the Chancellor, Adolf Hitler, the power to do all the horrible things he did during the Holocaust. The name was given to them in retrospect, of course. The immediate reason was to stop those terrible communists that had burned down the Reichstag building. The Fatherland needed to be protected, you see.

Illegal Searches

Once, a long time ago (1914) the Supreme Court made a decision. They wanted to enforce the 4th amendment prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure and they needed a remedy that would dissuade police from engaging in this illegal activity. The choices were to make police criminally liable for missteps or, in the alternative, ban the use of any evidence gathered with the illegal search in any criminal trial.

The chose to exclude the evidence rather than see policemen go to jail. They reasoned that it would dissuade the illegal activity since the evidence resulting would be useless. This was a reasonable bargain that held till this week.

The Supreme Court of today seems to have forgotten the well thought out compromise of yesteryear and has just said that under some circumstances, that evidence might still be admissible. After all, some bad people might get away with something.

Now, what is dissuading police from violating the rules? Absolutely nothing!

Score one more point for the police state folks. They are making rapid progress. At the rate that our rights are melting away, we might not have any freedom left at all in less than 5 years. This is happening because the public seems blissfully unaware of the degradation.

I guess that we are frogs in warm water and do not notice the increasing temperature. Only a few of us freedom loving curmudgeons seem to care.