Diversity is our Strength???

By Tom Rhodes, 4/27/2013

The historical and observable truth is that societies that suffer mass immigration will have a partition of the people, mass ethnic cleansing or some combination of the two. The mass immigration of Anglo-Saxons to North America is an accurate historic example. The native tribes here suffered both; they were massively destroyed and partitioned onto reservations. The nomadic tribal society that covered North America was forever destroyed by the mass immigration by people whose goal was to create a society of their own design.

You can trace the diminution of that society, America, to the mass immigration which started a century ago, the masses of Irish and Italians started the change, but the changes weren't as dramatic as those in the last half century because those societies were somewhat similar to existing American culture. Immigration was far more tightly controlled after WWI until 1965. Since then we have suffered a huge dramatic increase in immigrants from the third world. The result is rather than look like Europe and other first world nations, we are looking more and more like the third world. France and other European Countries are suffering similar societal evolution due to the massive numbers of middle eastern immigration that is fundamentally changing them. The riots and violence now routine in France are a clear demonstration of the effect mass immigration has to a society.

Here in the USA, since the 1965 immigration act roughly 85 percent of legal immigrants have come from the Third World, and virtually all of illegal immigrants come from the third world. It's not like we have a problem of illegal German, Anglo, Dutch, or Swede Immigrants. This massive invasion from the third world brings Third World attitudes and behaviors resulting in a corresponding reflection where their populations are concentrated in America. These regions now have third world levels of poverty, fertility, illegitimacy and domestic violence. Some anti-gun zealots try to compare US cities and their associated violent crime rates with other first world countries, this is unfair as the population demographics accurately reflects the third world mores from which massive amounts of the populations originated. When we look at large blocks of our society that have traditional American roots that can be traced to first world origins, they reflect similar attitudes, behavior, and crime rates. That is not racist, merely an anthropologic observation. What the press isn't noting while blaming guns for mass murders is that a disproportionate large number of recent mass murders are committed by immigrants, including 911 and the most recent bombing in Boston.

"Diversity" as an idea has and will continue to fail, for our society. Entire neighborhoods in LA have been transformed as African-Americans who have lived there for generations are violently chased out by third world Hispanic immigrants. Because that's brown on black crime, it is ignored by most of white American, and the press, but is a microcosm of what is happening to our country.

Women beheaded and other honor killings in the USA are not common but neither are they rare, and such barbarism was completely unheard of and a completely foreign concept to Americans until recently. It is the actions of third world immigrants legally allowed into the country, like those who committed the 911 terrorist destruction of the Twin Towers, that have pushed our society to considering abandoning our Bill of Rights. We are being forced to fundamentally abandon our roots and beliefs because of the changes to our society brought by invasion both legal and illegal. As George Washington and other forefathers famously noted our constitution is unsuitable for those who don't share a common belief system. We ignored that wisdom. We cannot expect our society to remain open, consistent to the rule of law, and to the protection of individual rights, when we allow massive numbers of people to immigrate into our society who don't share those beliefs, and especially when as a society we are expected to respect immigrant social mores rather than expect immigrants to adopt ours.

When we punish and prohibit students in public schools from wearing American Flag Based clothing on May 5th, because it may be offensive to immigrant populations, we are fueling the destruction of our society. We should not have offered government services in foreign languages; we should have expected immigrants to adopt US mores, customs, and language. Instead we've embraced ideas, values, and behaviors that are not American.

Ann Coulter lists a litinay of immigrant violence. Although America is tolerant, far more tolerant and generous to foreigners than any country in history, the violence and animosity against traditional American people and institutions will have consequences. If world history is any clue, we will soon see a rise in both separatists and ruthless nationalists in the USA. Their actions will not be conciliatory and may even be uncivilized. Foreigners have brought violence, as in the Boston Bombing, to America. Our traditional citizenry will not long stand without acting upon this invasion in ways our government cannot control. These are the consequences, and symptoms, of a society that has been invaded. It's not the left or right, Republicans or Democrats who are responsible, it is every individuals regardless of party, who bought into the myth of Ellis Island and welcomed tens of millions of alien invaders into the USA.

Embracing diversity is utopian thinking devoid of any historic relevance. No society that has ever suffered the invasion of mass numbers of people who don't share it's mores has ever survived. Consider two of our more famous car brands Cadillac and Pontiac; the society and culture where those names originated is gone, there is a mere vestigial shadow of the former greatness that was once the native Americans tribes. The willingly accepted foreigners trading land for trinkets, now they no longer exist except as small reservations at the grace of their invaders. Diversity is a failed idea, and like it or not we will suffer the consequences of embracing it.

Most Absurd Legislation Ever

By Tom Rhodes, 4/26/2013

It's no surprise that the most absurd legislation ever proposed is from California. Long referred to as the land of fruits and nuts, AB 460 proves the point. In total disregard to biological science, and any semblance of reality, the fruits and nuts of California have proposed forcing insurance companies to pay for fertility treatments for gay people. This is nuts, well . . . not if their lesbians.

Reality has no place in the gay agenda, the rundown on AB 460 says is that insurance companies are required to provide infertility coverage to a couple if the couple says that they have been engaging in sexual relations regularly for a period of one year and have not been able to become pregnant or bring a child to live birth, even if that couple is homosexual.

This isn't about approval or disapproval of homosexuals, this is about biology and reality. Gay people can't make babies, period. We are a bisexual species not a homosexual species. You must have a person who has testes and a penis mating with a person who has ovaries and a uterus to procreate. No law is going to change that fact. Call me extreme for pointing out the obvious.

Ignoring reality, California State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano claims that somehow when an insurance company denies to a male-male couple infertility coverage they are "discriminating" based on sexual orientation. I mean who'd a thunk that after a year of sex with each other two lesbian women trying to get pregnant, that they would fail? You'd think that by now fundamental biology would have changed to accept the fact that if two people are in "love" it doesn't matter that they don't have the necessary physical equipment to produce a child. Obviously the Assemblyman didn't go far enough, and should have proposed changes to biologic and physiologic laws.

Ammiano's legislature aims to stop these "discrimination" practices. So if an insurance company refuses to provide infertility treatments for a gay or lesbian couple, who cannot have a baby after a year of having sex and trying to get pregnant, that insurance company would be guilty of a crime. Holy Crap, this is such BS that only the complete disbelief of reality common to a Democrat could understand the rationale for such legislation.

Please explain how anyone would ever expect a female-female couple, or a male-male couple to ever get pregnant and conceive a child through sex. Homosexual marriage isn't the issue here, the queer life style isn't the issue here, the point is that some fundamental reality cannot be changed by legislation. Seriously can anybody explain how this topic isn't absolutely ridiculous and how it would serve any practical purpose?

A penis-penis relationship will never make a baby, any coupling that doesn't include one person with a penis and one without will never make a baby. Human physiology is not going to change to make things "fair" for homosexuals. Choosing to engage in homosexual behavior and expecting that behavior to have the same physical results as a heterosexual behavior is absurd. No amount of wanting a baby to come from the "love" Amanda and Eve (or Adam and Steve) have for each other will change the fact that it aint happenin. There is nothing discriminatory about it. The fact that this legislation was even considered is a testament to how insane political correctness has become.

Missouri v. McNeely: the 4th Isn't Dead

By Tom Rhodes, 4/25/2013

Last week the Supreme Court made a ruling every bit as important as Miranda; Missouri v. McNeely. It's a fundamental ruling that the government, it's supporting press, and many law enforcement agencies would rather you didn't know about. That's why it wasn't covered. The synopsis of the ruling is that law enforcement must get a warrant before taking your blood.

What happened is that while driving erratically in October 2010, Tyler McNeely was pulled over by a Missouri state highway patrolman and arrested him on suspicion of drunk driving. McNeely was taken to a hospital to undergo a blood test for alcohol content. McNeely refused to consent to a blood test, but the officer ignored him and had his blood taken forcibly. Based on the results of the blood test, McNeely was then charged with DUI.

D you see anything about this case in the media? The government wanted to ignore requirements for a warrant by claiming there are exigent circumstances in all DUI cases that allow law enforcement and prosecutors to ignore the Bill of Rights. The SCOTUS rightly rejected the arguments by state officials to establish a per se rule that all cases of drunk driving present 'exigent circumstances' allowing police to extract blood from a suspect without a warrant."

The media has been and still ignores the issue. It is sick state of affairs that that without judicial review (a warrant) the removal of blood from within the body of the accused by means of force in routine drunk-driving cases is common place.

Lucky for us the Supreme Court has upheld the Fourth Amendment protection of our privacy. On April 17, 2013, a majority of the Supreme Court of the United States ruling in Missouri v. McNeely, remembered a fundamental liberty we lost during the British occupation that helped ignite the American Revolution.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, wrote for the majority of the SCOTUS in upholding McNeely's refusal to consent. She described the forced extraction of a person's blood as "an invasion of bodily integrity that implicates an individual's most personal and deep-rooted expectations of privacy."

One of the most crucial points was the clear uncontested evidence that at no point did the arresting officer attempt to obtain a warrant authorizing the extraction of McNeely's blood. Sotomayor pointed out that there is "expeditious processing of warrant applications, particularly in contexts like drunk-driving investigations (to quickly get a warrant) where the evidence supporting probable cause is simple." Further noting that, "The law now allows a federal magistrate judge to consider 'information communicated by telephone or other reliable electronic means.'"

So by SCOTUS ruling it is now the law of the land that there must be that judge-issued warrant to the probable cause of the search before the extraction of blood - not just the police officer's suspicions. Americans' constitutional rights cannot be wholly discounted and conveniently discarded on the mere say so of a Law Enforcement Officer. The SCOTUS should be commended for recognizing that the bodily integrity of all persons in the United States will be in serious jeopardy if we allow the government agents broad powers to invade our bodies without consent or court order. This is a victory for the Fourth Amendment, which under Bush and Obama has taken a beating but is not yet dead.

Freedom of Choice – Really??

by Tom Rhodes, 4/23/2013

OK, so the pro-fetus-cide leftist feminists successfully used “Pro-Choice” arguments to legalize abortion. The basis being that a woman has the freedom to do with her body as she wants. Why don’t they want “Pro-Choice” for other actions like:

Freedom to choose how much to charge for your labor

Freedom to choose what animals you may eat

Freedom to choose what type of fats you want to cook with or voluntarily offer to others

Freedom to choose the size of soda you drink

Freedom to choose what chemicals you put in your body

Freedom to choose how much salt is in the processed foods you purchase

Freedom to choose what medical practices you and your doctor agree upon

Freedom to choose who can administer health advice or perform procedures on your body

Freedom to choose immunizations or not

Freedom to choose to eat genetically modified food or not

Freedom to choose to wear a helmet or not

Freedom to choose to wear steel toed shoes or not

Freedom to choose to wear ear plugs or not

Freedom to choose to exercise or not

If you believe that a woman has the right to do with her body as she wishes, and murder a unique human life, that only exists because of the voluntary actions of another, and in no manor initiated any force against her, but don’t believe everybody should have the freedom to choose those things listed above, you’re a liar and a hypocrite that has put little or no rational thought into your beliefs.

Call it whatever you want, but abortion is the legal premeditated murder a unique human life that is completely innocent. It’s not even a justifiable homicide. The fact that it is legal doesn’t change the fact, that it’s murder with planning and forethought. You can try to justify it however you want to make you feel good, but no amount of rationalization is going to change the fact that virtually every abortion is the murder of a totally innocent unique human being. Rationalizations like the person would be better off not born, than born into the custody of a drug addled single woman with no means of support who might be abusive, supposes that you or any individual has the right to determine which person’s lives are worth living and whose aren’t. You can rationalize that a mere fetus isn’t a person if you want, it’s a lie. The fact is from conception to death it is a unique human being, the only determining factor is the stage of development in that human’s life cycle. Rationalizing that killing a unique human at certain stages of development is acceptable has lead medical “ethicists” to conclude that infanticide should be legal, and have coined the term “post birth abortion” to attempt to lessen the emotional connotations attached to the more accurate term infanticide.

Unfortunately accidents, disease, and other medical conditions make survival from every malady for every person impossible. Medical science has advanced greatly in the past century, and doctors can now save many people who would formerly have died. Sometimes medical and physical conditions are such that doctors have to make the unenviable decision on which lives to save, because time, conditions, resources, etc. make saving everybody impossible. This is a decision process called triage. Triage is the process to determine medical priority in order to increase the number of survivors, in a situation where it is evident that not everyone can be saved. In some rare medical cases doctors must choose between saving the life of a mother or her unborn child. If physically impossible to save both lives, the decision on which life should be saved should be left to the doctor. The emotions of the mother, father, and family could only cloud a triage decision, which is scientific based on survivability. I don’t envy doctors who have to make such decisions, as they can and do weigh heavily on their souls. Triage decisions are not murder, but may result in the failure to save one person while increasing the survivability of another.

So if the murder of an innocent human being is “pro-choice,” how can any “pro-choice” person argue that the government has the right and/or responsibility to dictate the food choices other have, or dictate what you can choose to purchase for food and drink, or a myriad of other choices? These things don’t even have an effect on others directly, while “Pro-Choice” has the effect of ending an innocent human’s life. If you believe in “pro-choice” but also believe the government should regulate, food, safety devices, wages, medicine, etc. you a hypocrite and should put some time into thinking about your conflicting views.

Throwaway Society

By Tom Rhodes, 4/18/2013

Environmentalists, leftists, and statists lament the fact that we live in a throwaway society. Where rather than fix or recycle something our society suffers from over-consumption. The source is almost always attributed to greedy capitalists. What if it isn’t greedy capitalists, but the natural reaction to the actual costs of having too much government? First we need to look at the costs of goods, not the price.

No they are not the same. The price is the dollar figure used to transact a trade of goods or services between people, not the cost. The cost includes intangibles such as time, effort, travel costs, etc. Gasoline costs $3.50 a gallon where I live in Citrus County, South of me in Hernando Co. I can purchase gas for $3.20 a gallon. I don’t drive 40 miles south to save 20 cents a gallon on the purchase price because the cost in wear and tear on my vehicle, miles driven, and my time mean paying 20 cents more locally is more cost effective even though the price is higher. That’s just using the easily visible intangible costs to that gallon of gas.

The true cost includes what I had to do to get that $3.50 to trade for the gallon of gas. I’m in a tax bracket that results in me receiving only 72% of my contracted salary, the Federal Government gets the rest. So for me have $3.50 in my pocket I have to do $4.86 of work. I’ll use easy numbers to explain this. If I earned $35/hr and was allowed to keep all the fruit of my labor, I exchange an hour of work for 10 gallons of gas, however, because the government makes prior claims to my labor, I either need to earn $49/hr or work 1.4 hours to get that same 10 gallons of gas.

Now if instead of gas it was a repair service. Say I have a washing machine that needs to be fixed. The repair man says he can fix it for $200 and I’m willing to fix it for $200. Problem solved, but….. the government gets involved and the repair man is taxed and pays both the employee and employer side of the taxes. So instead of him gaining $200 for that repair he only nets $120. His time and effort doing other things has value to him, so to make repairing that washing machine a viable transaction he has to charge me $333. Not so Fast, I’m willing to pay $200 to do the repair, but at $333, not so much. In fact rather than pay $333 to fix a 5 year old machine, I haul it to the metal scrapper and get $10 for scrap metal and purchase a new unit for $500. The unintended consequence of the taxes extracted by government is that many transactions just don’t happen because the costs make them nonviable. People can and do change their behavior based on taxes, so raising taxes has historically proven not to garner corresponding increases in revenue.

Rather than repair and recycle we routinely toss out and replace, because to repair and recycle is cost prohibitive, not necessarily just the price of the unit. Why have a computer printer repaired. A typical diagnosis and repair of a printer takes about 2 hours, to be profitable, pay the wages, insurance, and taxes required by government means that to do computer/printer repairs, a shop must charge $50 to $100/hr or more. So minimally without any parts a printer repair will be in the $100 range. Considering high quality printers can be purchased for as little as $50, who would repair one. Intangibles in computer repair include such things as regulations in dealing with disposing of old circuit boards etc. increasing costs disproportionate to the price the market will bear. Recycling them is equally cost prohibitive. Why take the parts from 3 or 4 broken printers and build 1 or 2 good working units and have spare parts, when it would take a skilled technician 3-4 hours to do that work. If the tax burden on skilled labor and other regulatory costs weren’t so high, repair of printers, and other small appliances, would be viable.

How about plastic blister packaging now used for just about everything? Believe it or not that can also be attributed to too much government. Retail stores used to have clerks who knew what they were selling, and more importantly could monitor the counter, small expensive items would be kept in a counter and the customer would be served. Because government taxes and minimum wage laws make hiring entry people more expensive, it is more cost (not price) effective to put them in plastic blister packs, too big to easily conceal to protect against theft, and have fewer clerks to service customers. Rather than have a clerk count 1 or 2 items from a box of 100 for the customer, small expensive items are in big blister packs, resulting in massive amounts of plastic waste in our landfills. There is no reason for a 4X6” packaging for a micro-SD memory card, but the alternative is having people control their sale, the result is less jobs and more waste because the cost of low skilled labor is artificially greater than income it generates. RFID chips, plastic blister packs, etc. are all created because the costs are lower than having people actually provide low skill services in retail. Minimum wage and income taxes helped create throwaway society.

People don’t just look at price they look at TCO, total cost of ownership. Because government interference has dramatically increased the costs to do business, we’ve become a throwaway society, where we accept goods from sources that don’t have our massive government burden. When I was young there were many small appliance repair shops across the country, where for a reasonable fee you could have your toaster fixed, new brushes put into the motor of your mixer, etc. Technology and automation killed that type of business, new products last longer and just don’t break as much, or can be sold so cheaply (because they are built by robots) that replacement costs less than repair. This is one of the unintended consequences of more and more government, regulations and taxes make fixing things too expensive.

Spending – Is Charity a Proper Use of Government Tax Dollars

Tax Day, a perfect day to review the well reasoned letter by Col Davy Crockett, explaining exactly why "entitlements" and other charity spending are not appropriate use of our tax dollars, not the job of our government, and why we pay way too much in taxes.

Enjoy

Not Yours To Give

by Col. Davy Crockett

---

One day in the House of Representatives, a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support. The Speaker was just about to put the question when Crockett arose:

"Mr. Speaker --- I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the suffering of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this house, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him."

"Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay to the object, and, if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks."

He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt it would but for that speech, it received but few votes and of course, was lost.

Later when asked by a friend why he had opposed the appropriation, Crockett gave this explanation:

"Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast we could. In spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made houseless, and besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them. The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business and rushed it through as soon as it could be done.

The next summer, when it began to be time to think about the election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there, but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up. When riding one day in part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that I should meet as he came to the fence. As he came up, I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but as I thought, rather coldly.

I began, 'Well, friend, I am one of those unfortunate beings called candidates, and-'

'Yes, I know you; you are Colonel Crockett, I have seen you once before and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering right now, but you had better not waste your time or mine. I shall not vote for you again.'

This was a sockdolager, I begged him to tell me what was the matter.

'Well, Colonel, it is hardly worth while to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me. But I beg your pardon for expressing it in that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the constituent to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting or wounding you.

I intend by it only to say that your understanding of the Constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what, but for my rudeness, I should not have said that I believe you to be honest. But an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it, is the more dangerous the more honest he is.'

'I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake about it, for I do not remember that I gave any vote last winter upon any constitutional questions.'

'No, Colonel, there is no mistake. Though I live here in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings in Congress. My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers by a fire in Georgetown. Is that true?'

'Well, my friend, I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant amount of $20,000 to relive its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did.'

'It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of, it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing to do with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be intrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be and the poorer he is, the more he pays in proportion to his means.

What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000.

If you had the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all and as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity.

Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this country as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought to appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week's pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of men in and around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life.

The Congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports to be true, some of them spend not very credibly; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation and a violation of the Constitution.

So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger for the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned and you see that I cannot vote for you.'

'I tell you I felt streaked. I saw if I should have opposition, and this man should go talking, he would set others to talking and in that district I was a gone fawn-skin. I could not answer him and the fact is, I was so fully convinced that he was right, I did not want to. But I must satisfy him and I said to him:

Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. I intended to be guided by it and thought I had studied it fully. I have head many speeches in Congress about the powers of Congress, but what you have said here at your plow has got more hard, sound sense in it than all the fine speeches I ever heard. If I had ever taken the view of it that you have, I would have put my head into the fire before I would have given that vote; and if you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law, I wish I may be shot.'

He haughtingly replied: 'Yes, Colonel, you have sworn to that once before, but I will trust you again upon one condition. You say that you are convinced that your vote was wrong. Your acknowledgment of it will do more good than beating you for it. If, as you go around the district, you will tell people about this vote and that you are satisfied it was wrong, I will not only vote for you, but will do what I can to keep down opposition, and perhaps, I may exert some little influence in that way.'

'If I don't, I said, I wish I may be shot, and to convince you that I am in earnest in what I say, I will come back this way in a week or ten days, and if you will get up a gathering of the people, I will make a speech to them. Get up a barbeque and I will pay for it.'

No, Colonel, we are not rich people in this section, but we have plenty of provisions to contribute for a barbeque and some to spare for those who have none. The push of crops will be over in a few days and we can afford a day for a barbeque. This is Thursday. I will see to getting up on Saturday week. Come to my house on Friday and we will go together and I promise you a very respectable crowd to see and hear you.'

'Well, I will be there. But one thing more before I say good-bye. I must know your name.'

'My name is Bunce.'

'Not Horatio Bunce?'

'Yes.'

'Well, Mr. Bunce, I never saw you before though you say you have seen me, but I know you very well. I am glad I have met you and very proud that I may hope to have you for my friend.'

It was one of the luckiest hits of my life that I met him. He mingled but little with the public, but was widely known for his remarkable intelligence and incorruptible integrity and for a heart brimful and running over with kindness and benevolence, which showed themselves not only in words but in acts. He was the oracle of the whole country around him, and his fame had extended far beyond the circle of his immediate acquaintance. Though I had never met him before, I had heard much of him, and but for this meeting it is very likely I should have had opposition, and have been beaten. One thing is very certain, no man could now stand up in that district under such a vote.

At the appointed time I was at his house, having told our conversation to every crowd I had met, and to every man I stayed all night with, and I found that it gave the people an interest and a confidence in me stronger than I had ever seen manifested before. Though I was considerably fatigued when I reached his house, and under ordinary circumstances, should have gone early to bed, I kept up until midnight talking about the principles and affairs of government, and got more real, true knowledge of them than I had got all my life before.

I have known and seen much of him since, for I respect him - no, that is not the world - I reverence and love him more than any living man, and I go to see him two or three times every year; and I will tell you, sir, if every one who professes to be a Christian lived and acted and enjoyed as he does, the religion of Christ would take the world by storm.

But, to return to my story. The next morning I went to the barbeque and to my surprise, found about a thousand men there. I met a good many whom I had not known before, and they and my friend introduced me around until I had got pretty well acquainted - at least, they all knew me. In due time notice was given that I would speak to them. They gathered up around a stand that had been erected. I opened by speech by saying:

Fellow-citizens - I present myself before you today feeling like a new man. My eyes have lately been opened to truths which ignorance or prejudice, or both, had heretofore hidden from my view. I feel that I can today offer you the ability to render you more valuable service than I have ever been able to render before. I am here today more for the purpose of acknowledging my error than to see your votes. That I should make this acknowledgment is due to myself as well as to you. Whether you will vote for me is a matter for your consideration only.

I went on to tell them about the fire and my vote for the appropriation and then told them why I was satisfied it was wrong. I closed by saying:

And now, fellow citizens, it remains only for me to tell you that most of the speech you have listened to with so much interest was simply a repetition of the arguments by which your neighbor, Mr. Bunce, convinced me of my error. It is the best speech I ever made in my life, but he is entitled to the credit for it. And now I hope he is satisfied with his convert and that he will get up here and tell you so. He came upon the stand and said:

'Fellow citizens, it affords me great pleasure to comply with the request of Colonel Crockett. I have always considered him a thoroughly honest man, and I am satisfied that he will faithfully perform all that he has promised to you today.'

He went down, and there went up from that crowd such a shout for Davy Crockett as his name never called forth before. I am not much given to tears, but I was taken with a choking then and felt some big drops rolling down my cheeks. And I tell you now that the remembrance of those few words spoken by such a man, and the honest, hearty shout they produced, is worth more to me than all the reputation I have ever made, or ever shall make, as a member of Congress."

"Now, sir," concluded Crockett, "you know why I made that speech yesterday."

Nanny State Absurdity

By Tom Rhodes, 4/15/2013

If the Nanny state has its way, we'll all be sleeping on the ground on grass mats. No product is safe enough, perfect enough, or good enough. This week, the Consumer Product Safety Commission warned consumers to stop using 73,000 more - specifically, drop-side cribs made by a company called PT Domusindo Perdana These cribs aren't exploding, don't spontaneously roll over, and in fact have a perfect safety record. Repeat there has been none, nada, zilch, zip, nil, ZERO, not any injuries or deaths to infants or anybody else using them. Yet the government is warning everybody to stop using them and forcing the company to recall them.

There were three reported incidents where the drop side rails didn't function properly, no report of how or what the malfunctions were and, let me repeat, zero injuries. Se we have a product with 3 complaints out of 73,000 sold, a perfect injury free record for over 20 years, and our government is telling us it's not "safe."

It is this type of oblivious government nannyism that is and will continue to erode the trust the people have in their government. Why should we trust any of their safety notices when they have proven to be demonstrably false. This is just another example of Too Much Government. The reason why a crib costs about $200 instead of $75 isn't when the cost to manufacture it is somewhere in the $30 range isn't because of greedy capitalists. The reason we pay 3 to 4 times what we should, and what people in other country spay for similar products is our government. When a company can be forced to recall products produced and sold over 20 years ago, that have a perfect safety record, those costs have to be incorporated into everything they sell.

Our laws protect big companies like GE, GM, and Monsanto small manufacturers can't afford big dollar lobbyists and huge donations to politicians, and actions like this one make manufacturing in the USA almost impossible. You'd have to be an idiot to keep your manufacturing in the USA, to protect your assets from absurd regulations and law suits by our government smart companies keep small shell companies to resell their product in the USA, but their assets overseas where the US government has minimal access.

This is government run amok. The Consumer Product Safety Commission, at one time existed for valid reasons, to protect people from products sold as safe but in actually where unsafe. Their job is to look for danger, but they have become ridiculous. Recalling a product that sold tens of thousands of units from 1991 to 2008 with a spotless safety record and a mere three complaints is not protecting the public. When a perfect safety record is not safe enough, what is safe enough?

Stoning - a Barbaric Demise

By Tom Rhodes, 3/13/2014

The current death sentence passed to the LPF by the GOP and Democrats is lapidation. The LP and LPF are becoming viable and a serious threat to the statist parties in charge. This is not something they can or will tolerate any longer. So with their complicit friends in the press, they are going to attempt to destroy the viability of the LP, using infamous GOP hitman Roger Stone to destroy the LPF. The actions and rhetoric of Roger Stone make it clear that he's neither an advocate or promoter of the LPF, nor a serious candidate. I believe he's a shill to damage the image and keep the LP from main stream acceptance. As LPF Director at Large Pete Bloom so eloquently put it the Libertarian Party does "not advocate the personal choice of drugs or prostitution, we advocate the natural right of people owning their own bodies, and the responsible government that comes from using the rule of law to stop the use of force or fraud." This is not the position of Roger Stone.

His actions and words make it fairly obvious that is goal is to marginalize our party and make it unpalatable political body by focusing on what most Floridians still see as prurient interests. His rhetoric is to advocate prostitution, drugs and hedonism, not liberty and natural rights. This is self evident by his campaign Slogan, "Florida must get Stoned." His campaign reminds us of his well earned and self-perpetuated reputation as a Republican Hit man. It is not consistent with a professional political party, rather is completely inconsistent with someone actually seeking to grow good libertarian government. He's cultivating the exact image for himself (thus the LPF) that as a political hatchetman he would try to force on his victims.

He made his fortune in life by devising dirty political tricks from the time of Nixon forward that were funded by the Republican Party. If he were serious about helping and being part of the Libertarian Party of Florida, he'd have been participating in building the party, he'd share and use his media access to help the party, and bring both people and money to the LPF. He instead garners press coverage that his infamy has brought him to project unpalatable ideas and positions from an extreme viewpoint to denigrate the party he professes to support.

There is nothing in Stone's history to indicate he's a convert to libertarianism. He is the quintessential Republican who wants to smoke dope. The track record of our national party with recent converts like Bob Bar, Wayne Allen Root, and Gary Johnson have not been successful, and make us look like holding tank for wayward republicans, not a serious party with serious ideas.

The LPF has no control over our image anymore, like it or not the press is going to make Roger Stone the image of the LPF; an oversexed crack pot hedonistic image of dope smoking republicans looking for whores. Not an image the more traditional aged population of our center right state will trust or elect to office. The sound bites Stone will provide the press will be the death of us, and any serious Libertarian candidates and the serious libertarian message will be destroyed in the extremism of the Republican Hit Man. The LPF is about to suffer a vile slow painful death by Stoning.

It's about Honesty

By Tom Rhodes, 4/12/2013

Barack Obama demanded a "national conversation" about gun control. What he didn't demand was an "honest" conversation about gun control. The reason he left off the word "honest" is because he has proven again and again to use lies to promote his irrational hatred for those who would be self reliant and not depend on the largess of government for protection.

Lets start with the Fast and Furious lie that 90% of the guns recovered in Mexico were from US gun dealers. In sworn testimony before congress, Bill McMahon, deputy assistant director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, swore that only eight percent of the arms recovered in Mexico were from licensed gun dealers, noting: Of the 100,000 weapons recovered by Mexican authorities, only 18,000 were determined to have been manufactured, sold, or imported from the United States, and of those 18,000, just 7,900 came from sales by licensed gun dealers. Considering 2500 were known to have been smuggled into Mexico by the Obama administration as part of Fast and Furious it's clear the 90% number was a known lie propagated by Obama and company.

Now the more recent 40% lie. Obama claimed that 40 percent of the gun purchases in the nation are conducted without a background check. It is another outright knowing lie. The Statistics he used were not only 20 years out of date but included all transfers not purchases. The survey he used was started before the Brady Bill became law and background checks were required. Even the generally supportive of Obama, Washington Post had to report on this lie, giving Obama three Pinocchio's .

There are two key problems with the president's use of this statistic: The numbers are about two decades old, yet he acts as if they are fresh, and he refers to "purchases" or "sales" when in fact the original report concerned "gun acquisitions" and "transactions." Those are much broader categories of data.

As we noted before, the White House said the figure comes from a 1997 Institute of Justice report, written by Philip Cook of Duke University and Jens Ludwig of the University of Chicago.

This study was based on data collected from a survey in 1994, the same year that the Brady Act requirements for background checks came into effect. In fact, the questions concerned purchases in 1993 and 1994, and the Brady Act went into effect in early 1994 - meaning that some, if not many, of the guns were bought in a pre-Brady environment.

Digging deeper, we found that the survey sample was just 251 people. (The survey was done by telephone, using a random-digit-dial method, with a response rate of 50 percent.) With this sample size, the 95 percent confidence interval will be plus or minus six percentage points.

. . . .

The Police Foundation report did not break out gun purchases, so in January we asked Ludwig to rerun the data, just looking at guns purchased in the secondary market. The result, depending on the definition, was 14 percent to 22 percent. That's at least half the percentage repeatedly cited by Obama. (In a recent article for National Review, Cook and Ludwig wrote "we don't know the current percentage - nor does anyone else." But they say if the percentage is lower it actually strengthens the case for expanding background checks because it would be less expensive to implement.) Since our initial report on this statistic appeared, The Washington Post in February included a question on background checks on a survey of Maryland residents, asking whether they went through a background check during a gun purchase in the past 10 years. The result? Twenty-one percent say they did not.

Coincidentally or not, 21 percent falls within the 14-to-22 percent range for gun purchases without background checks in the 1994 survey.

So Obama wants a national conversation, but his actions clearly dictate he wants the conversation not to be based on logic, reason, and practical solutions. His actions clearly demonstrate he wants the conversation to be one sided, based on lies and emotional rhetoric to the exclusion of truth and substantial debate.

When the President has deliberately chosen to distort facts, and lie to the people to promote and instill further restrictions on fundamental rights he has in fact destroyed the ability of "moderates" to effect any meaningful discussion much less change. The clear exposure even by liberal supportive media, of the lies and distortions by the government make any honest debate impossible. Obama's brief 5 years in office is so filled with clearly demonstrated lies and deceptions that no rational person could reasonably consider the arguments he or his representatives present on any topic as truthful or trustworthy. Not just on Gun Control but on oil, healthcare, immigration, spending, in fact virtually every major issue, the default position of the Obama and his Whitehouse is to lie, and distort the facts. The reason compromise is so difficult with Obama, is because he and the entire Democrat party have proven that they are not trustworthy.

Having been caught in multiple lies, especially concerning gun control, how can anybody reasonably work with the Democrats in an honest conversation?

Gun Control Realities

By Tom Rhodes, 4/8/13

The reality is the current gun control debate is about controlling the people, not guns, and the clear desire of statists in the Democrat party to the incremental disarmament of the American People. Although they try to say they believe in the Second Amendment, and "Nobody want to take away your guns," both their actions and words betray their intentions. Worse yet they don't even know what they are talking about.

Colorado Congress woman, Diana DeGette, showed the true intentions of Obama and the statists in the Democrat party when not once but three times demonstrated she's clueless about guns and accidentally let out their true desire. She is the lead sponsor of the cornerstone to proposed gun control legislation, the bill to ban high capacity magazines.

DeGette was soundly trashed and ridiculed across the internet (main stream media only reports statist approved stories) for her clear performance at the Denver Post forum on gun control. DeGette exposed the true intentions of gun controllers while simultaneously demonstrating she's totally ignorant of what she wants to legislate and restrict. She explained the genius behind banning high capacity magazines: "These are ammunition, they're bullets, so the people who have those now, they're going to shoot them, so if you ban them in the future, the number of these high-capacity magazines is going to decrease dramatically over time because the bullets will have been shot and there won't be any more available."

If you're reading this you probably know a magazine is a reloadable metal tube with a spring to feed bullets into a firearm, you'd think one of the primary sponsors of a bill legislating magazines would at least know the basics of what they are and how they are used. DeGette didn't, but once the firestorm on the net exploded over her "gaff" she quickly attempted damage control. Her spokesperson asserted the Representative meant to refer to "clips" not magazines. Now it's understandable for a non-gun person to confuse a clip and a magazine. A clip holds bullets for quick re-loading of magazines. But for a Congress woman who has "taken the lead on" this issue for years, this is arrogant ignorance at its finest. Not only are clips generally reusable like magazines, they are not the subject of DeGette's bill. Why on earth would she be referring to clips to correct her ignorance on magazines?

Now for strike three. At that same Denver Post Forum, when a senior citizen asked DeGette about having to rely on police response, rather than self defense, she reassured him noting that Denver police will be there within minutes, but "You'd probably be dead anyway." She made it clear that disarming or rendering the arms Americans have as useless because they don't have bullets is more important than the safety and well being of individual citizens.

Current law is clear, to prevent a backdoor gun registrations system, the law expressly prohibits the creation of "any system for the registration of firearms, firearm owners, or firearm transactions or dispositions." all it is supposed to do is verify that a purchaser is legally allowed to purchase a firearm, not track who has purchased what firearms, or even track if a person has purchased a firearm. The truth is the only loophole closed in the Leah-Schumer-Reid proposal for a "universal" background check, is the one that prohibits a national firearm registry. The loose language of the bill would allow the Department of Justice itself to keep centralized records of who received what guns and where, by sale or gift from one individual to another. It's gun registration no matter what they try to tell us.

Saying that the proposed universal back ground checks aren't a gun registration, is a lie. Without keeping track of the purchases, transfers, and components of hundreds of millions of guns and gun owners, they could never enforce their desires; they want and will keep permanent records of all firearm sales. This is a defacto gun registration system. What we are asked to believe is that our government can't keep track of its own borders or the 12 million people who live here illegally, but can keep track of the purchases, transfers, and components of hundreds of millions of guns and gun owners without registering all guns.

Why the fear of gun registration? Because not just in Europe but right here in the USA gun registration has led to gun confiscation. Not only could it happen here in the USA it has. In California after passing a law requiring registration of assault weapons, it then changed the law informed registered owners to turn them in. Letter from Calf. telling you to turn in your gun.

The statists have let it slip, the want total control of civilian gun ownership, the start is to identify where and who has the guns. Have no fear they won't send SWAT teams to your house to confiscate your gun, you'll just get a letter saying ". . . . our records indicate that you own a Bushmaster Model AR15 SN: 123456780, purchased 1/1/2013 from Joe's Gun Shop. Please turn this weapon in to your local Police dept. Should you fail to do so within 30 days an APB for your arrest will be issued, and the IRS will freeze all your bank accounts, and the Department of Transportation will revoke your driver's license. . . . "

Marriage - My Changed Position

By Tom Rhodes, 3/6/2013

I am a self proclaimed Christian Libertarian, and have defended the traditional definition of marriage and been against so called Gay-Marriage. My position has been that government shouldn't be in the marriage business, Period! Now I renounce my position and now support broader definitions of marriage. Not because I've changed my views or beliefs, but pragmatically it would be a wonderful method to hamstring government a little. The basis of legal homogamy is that if two people "love" each other they should be able to have long term committed relationship and legal rights as if they were "one" regardless of sex.

As the discussion in the Supreme Court has indicated, once homogamy is legal, the rationale for limiting polygamy will be non-existent. In fact a wide variety of "marriage" types would be viable. Read Robert Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" for an in depth discussion on various types of marriages including two men and one women called a "troika," as well as "polyandries, clans, groups, lines, and less common patterns considered vulgar by conservative people."

Here is why I now support legal homogamy: It will save the family farm. Every year family farms are broken up and sold (usually to big conglomerates) because of the death of the farmer, the inheritance taxes are so great to pay them the farm must be sold. Once marriage has been redefined to be a joining of people who love each other not just a man and one or more women, the family farm will be saved. Legal homogamy will lead to the end of all inheritance taxes. As Jeremy Irons correctly identified, a father could marry his son to avoid inheritance taxes.

The homosexual mantra is that if two individuals love each other they should be able to marry each other and receive the legal benefits of marriage. This will be a boon to partnerships of all kinds, two, or even three, four, or a dozen, who are partners in a business and want to avoid taxes and other legal intrusion of the government in their business could just get married. This would pretty much end any type of inheritance tax and insure the orderly transition of property from generation to generation without it being gobbled up by the government.

Like virtually all government regulation, there are unintended consequences. If we accept the idea that homosexuality is no longer immoral, what grounds do we have for not similarly declaring incest, polygamy, or any type of "love" to be morally acceptable as well? The homosexual lobby has not offered logical reasoning to this question. If traditional marriage, accepted by virtually all societies for thousands of years is no longer valid, why can't any variation of marriage be valid?

The objective truth is that two men or two women cannot ever marry because marriage is a particular relationship between a man and one or more women. Marriage and its definition predate every government on earth. Government didn't create marriage so should define it either. What is clear is that if the government doesn't get out of the marriage business, marriage will be meaningless and just another means of avoiding government taxes, and not a foundational institute of society.

In as much as the government generally perverts and corrupts most things it touches, marriage is no exception. Let's go ahead and allow any type of "marriage" to be legal, it will be the best method to insure pass down our property to our progeny and other loved ones. Widow or Widower near death yourself, don't want all your property to get gobbled up in taxes the solution is easy, marry your grandkid, that way when you die all your wealth is passed down without the government getting its greedy paws on it. Legalizing homogamy makes "marriage" meaningless, as long as we are going to do that, let's take advantage of it and screw the government out of inheritance taxes all together.

It's about Honesty

By Tom Rhodes, 4/12/2013

Barack Obama demanded a "national conversation" about gun control. What he didn't demand was an "honest" conversation about gun control. The reason he left off the word "honest" is because he has proven again and again to use lies to promote his irrational hatred for those who would be self reliant and not depend on the largess of government for protection.

Lets start with the Fast and Furious lie that 90% of the guns recovered in Mexico were from US gun dealers. In sworn testimony before congress, Bill McMahon, deputy assistant director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, swore that only eight percent of the arms recovered in Mexico were from licensed gun dealers, noting: Of the 100,000 weapons recovered by Mexican authorities, only 18,000 were determined to have been manufactured, sold, or imported from the United States, and of those 18,000, just 7,900 came from sales by licensed gun dealers. Considering 2500 were known to have been smuggled into Mexico by the Obama administration as part of Fast and Furious it's clear the 90% number was a known lie propagated by Obama and company.

Now the more recent 40% lie. Obama claimed that 40 percent of the gun purchases in the nation are conducted without a background check. It is another outright knowing lie. The Statistics he used were not only 20 years out of date but included all transfers not purchases. The survey he used was started before the Brady Bill became law and background checks were required. Even the generally supportive of Obama, Washington Post had to report on this lie, giving Obama three Pinocchio's .

There are two key problems with the president's use of this statistic: The numbers are about two decades old, yet he acts as if they are fresh, and he refers to "purchases" or "sales" when in fact the original report concerned "gun acquisitions" and "transactions." Those are much broader categories of data.

As we noted before, the White House said the figure comes from a 1997 Institute of Justice report, written by Philip Cook of Duke University and Jens Ludwig of the University of Chicago.

This study was based on data collected from a survey in 1994, the same year that the Brady Act requirements for background checks came into effect. In fact, the questions concerned purchases in 1993 and 1994, and the Brady Act went into effect in early 1994 - meaning that some, if not many, of the guns were bought in a pre-Brady environment.

Digging deeper, we found that the survey sample was just 251 people. (The survey was done by telephone, using a random-digit-dial method, with a response rate of 50 percent.) With this sample size, the 95 percent confidence interval will be plus or minus six percentage points.

. . . .

The Police Foundation report did not break out gun purchases, so in January we asked Ludwig to rerun the data, just looking at guns purchased in the secondary market. The result, depending on the definition, was 14 percent to 22 percent. That's at least half the percentage repeatedly cited by Obama. (In a recent article for National Review, Cook and Ludwig wrote "we don't know the current percentage - nor does anyone else." But they say if the percentage is lower it actually strengthens the case for expanding background checks because it would be less expensive to implement.) Since our initial report on this statistic appeared, The Washington Post in February included a question on background checks on a survey of Maryland residents, asking whether they went through a background check during a gun purchase in the past 10 years. The result? Twenty-one percent say they did not.

Coincidentally or not, 21 percent falls within the 14-to-22 percent range for gun purchases without background checks in the 1994 survey.

So Obama wants a national conversation, but his actions clearly dictate he wants the conversation not to be based on logic, reason, and practical solutions. His actions clearly demonstrate he wants the conversation to be one sided, based on lies and emotional rhetoric to the exclusion of truth and substantial debate.

When the President has deliberately chosen to distort facts, and lie to the people to promote and instill further restrictions on fundamental rights he has in fact destroyed the ability of "moderates" to effect any meaningful discussion much less change. The clear exposure even by liberal supportive media, of the lies and distortions by the government make any honest debate impossible. Obama's brief 5 years in office is so filled with clearly demonstrated lies and deceptions that no rational person could reasonably consider the arguments he or his representatives present on any topic as truthful or trustworthy. Not just on Gun Control but on oil, healthcare, immigration, spending, in fact virtually every major issue, the default position of the Obama and his Whitehouse is to lie, and distort the facts. The reason compromise is so difficult with Obama, is because he and the entire Democrat party have proven that they are not trustworthy.

Having been caught in multiple lies, especially concerning gun control, how can anybody reasonably work with the Democrats in an honest conversation?

GOP Stands for Nothing

By Tom Rhodes, 3/5/2013

The Republicans are attacking their roots, trying to “rebrand” themselves, and figure out why they lost and are not in power. The answer is simple, they don’t stand for anything, are inconsistent. “Big Government Lite” is not a solution to the leftist, statist, positions of the Democrats. The Democrats have credibility the Republicans don’t because they at least honest and unapologetic about standing for bigger government, more government control, and increased statism.

Consider the GOP position on gasoline taxes. As mark Hendrickson noted in his Forbes article, GOP legislators are against higher gasoline taxes to pay for infrastructure repairs to roads and bridges, actually complaining that motorists would end up bearing the cost of the tax hike. Duh! Motorists use the roads why shouldn’t they pay for their maintenance. The GOP position is that those who use the roads shouldn’t bear the cost of the roads? Taxes like fuel taxes expressly used to build and maintain roads are fair, just, and voluntary. Don’t want to pay the tax, ride a bike, live in a city and walk, etc. Want to pay less tax, drive less, get a more fuel efficient vehicle, etc.

Crying Social Security is insolvent and voting to reduce soc security revenue by 2% in 2010 is another example of inconsistent, non-policy. Does the GOP believe that government should be involved in citizens retirement funding? If so vote to fund it, if not get the government out of it, but take a consistent stand. The GOP claim of fiscal responsibility isn’t followed with voting or actions that support their claim. How is voting to reduce revenues for specific projects without voting to cut those projects spending fiscally responsible. The GOP claims they want to limit government spending, but then consistently claim that decreasing part of planed increases to spending is cutting spending. At least the Democrats are honest about not caring about deficits, and wanting to ever increase the size and power of government, they are honest statists.

Every time a Republican votes for some unfunded or underfunded government spending, they are loudly proclaiming their hypocrisy. Voting to try and improve the welfare state, rather than getting rid of it, is in direct conflict with the ideas they espouse. No rational voter can be assured of what the GOP will do, Obama won in 2012 with less total votes than he had in 2008, yet a higher percentage of the vote. The reason is clear, the GOP offered a statist, Romney, whose promise wasn’t to make government smaller, but protect big business. GOP voters didn’t bother, as the author of Romney care, the foundation of Obamacare, clearly didn’t represent the ideas the GOP claim to espouse.

As I’ve been claiming for years, the reality in voting patterns and protection of individual liberty the GOP is not functionally different than the Democrats. The reality is with Democrats promising food, clothing, and shelter to all at the expense of tax payers, and more Big Brother to take care of you, and the GOP promising smaller government but consistently delivering more power to Big Brother, why vote GOP, they are liars?

Last Night on John Stossel’s show arch conservative and Republican cheer leader Glen Beck boldly proclaimed that he was a Libertarian, renounced many of his past positions as wrong. Welcome aboard Mr. Beck, your newfound conversion to limited government is welcome. You have learned and now agree that voting for the GOP isn’t going to make you freer, reduce the size of government or even, as promised, reduce your actual tax burden. Voting for Democrats you will get what they promise, bigger government and more taxes. There is a clear different choice, but . . . . . that choice actually attempts to do what it says, reduce the size and scope of government. The Libertarian Party where elected won’t give you anarchy, but will wherever it can actually reduce the size of government and work to limit the power and authority of the state. That means it will let you keep more of what you earn but it won’t take care of you. Having the freedom to keep what you earn assumes you are responsible to provide for yourself.

As Libertarians, we need to welcome those abandoning the GOP with open arms. They don’t have perfect libertarian philosophy, but only accepting perfect libertarians hasn’t worked out so well for us. We are better off with and can make a bigger difference with libertarian leaning conservatives joining us than kicking them out because they are still learning and don’t quite get the minutia of this libertarian thought.

Women Don’t Want Equality

by Tom Rhodes, 4/1/13

There is a Facebook image going around of a young woman, decrying the fact that now that she is back from military duty overseas and the courts have not returned her kid to her. You see her child is now in the legal custody of the father, who was granted custody because her mother could not take care of the child while stationed at the far corners of the earth. She is making an emotional appeal on Facebook decrying how unfair it is that she hasn’t been given her child back. This is not evidence of any wrong doing by either the government or the child’s father, just evidence that women want special privileges and rights based on their emotions, and to never suffer consequences of their life choices.



This is evidence that women don’t want equality under the law but instead want preferential treatment. There is no evidence that the father is not providing a good home for his child. The only rationale is to forget a stable environment for the child and grant the woman her way, regardless of the choices she made, regardless of the father’s rights, and regardless of what’s in the best interest of the child. The military is completely volunteer, she wasn’t drafted, thus her status in the military is completely her choice. She claims she joined to make a better life for her son but obviously she didn’t think that decision through; how can making a career choice as a single parent that in all probability will result in long term separation from your child, rationally be considered to make things better for that child. Being in the military and sent overseas will put a big crimp in one’s ability to be a single parent. You cannot join the military, either active or reserves or national guard, and not know that you will in all likelihood be deployed overseas at some point. Thus she knew her ability to be a good single parent is questionable with the other legal commitments she chose to make. Her choice clearly show that she has put herself as a priority over her child or didn’t understand the ramifications of her choice in either case the courts determined the best interest of the boy was to be with his dad. How does the fact that she’s no longer in the military negate that decision by the courts?

The question is: Why should her desire to be her son’s custodial parent take precedence over the court’s decision and fathers ability and willingness to be his son’s custodial parent? Unlike other careers, a military career has the instability of being stationed in unsafe environments to raise children. Women who have children and choose to join the military are clearly making choices that put their career ahead of being a parent. What basis do the courts have for taking a child away from a father who currently provides a stable home for his son and returning him to a mother whose previous choices have proven to create an unstable living conditions?

Why should this woman not have to suffer the consequences of her choices? Women demand equality under the law, equality in the work place, yet when they are treated the way a man would be treated in a similar circumstance they decry the fact. How is it fair to the father and son, to have their stable home torn apart, because the woman is back from overseas? This woman no longer has custodial rights and care of her child because of her choices, this father and son should not be forced to uproot and put their lives in turmoil because of this woman’s changing, poorly reasoned, career choices. There is no evidence that her emotional desire to be mommy, will provide any better life for her son than being with his father. Without any evidence other than her desperate emotional attempt to generate support, this is appears to be a case where the courts rightly dismissed the female emotional response, and rationally concluded that the boy is better off with his dad.