Freedom of Speech in the USA is Dead

By Tom Rhodes, 4/30/2014

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” regularly attributed to Voltaire, but first used by Evelyn Beatrice Hall, writing under the pseudonym of Stephen G Tallentyre. Talk to any Libertarian, and they will whole heartedly support that position. Outside of libertarians not only would others not say that, they would advocate taking away your fundamental property rights based on what you say in private. The sentiments concerning freedom of speech are dead in the USA.

In 1977 the ACLU came to the defense of National Socialist Party of America in the Skokie Affair. What the Illinois Nazi’s were saying and the reasons behind their assembly in Skokie were reprehensible, but in the USA the entire culture worked under the belief that Freedom of Speech was more important than sissified people having their feelings hurt. Where is the ACLU and what is its position concerning Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling?

His public actions and words concerning race relations are laudable enough that Sterling was about to be acknowledged and rewarded by none other than the NAACP. Now because of the criminal actions of his ex-mistress, Miss V. Stiviano, illegally recording a clearly private conversation, Sterling is being deprived of property rights. Other than in the court of public opinion, the tape recording of Sterling’s racist rant is clearly not admissible, and V. Stiviano’s actions are criminal. Why isn’t she being prosecuted for her crime?

It appears that in the USA “expressing unpopular views in private” is now justification to take away private property rights, be banned from exercising your rights to use your property, or even go to public facilities. It would be nice to see the clause in the NBA Constitution that says the owners can force an owner to sell his team based on illegally obtained recordings of private conversations expressing unpopular views.

Considering what the press, and NBA are doing when a private conversation expressing racist views is illegally recorded and then made public, what are they going to do about Larry Johnson publically calling for the formation of a segregated all negro basketball league? Will he too be banned? His comments were equally racist and unlike Sterling’s were very public. In reality this is probably a power play by big money corporatists to use Miss Stiviano was a honey trap, to sway public opinion in order to provide a politically correct excuse to allow the NBA to give a major media market to the Guggenheim Partners and Michael Milken, but the ramifications for our culture, freedoms, and rights are vast.

Sterling is an obscenely rich bastard, I hope he fights tooth and nail to keep his property, and takes down the entire NBA with him. His public actions and words, not the illegally recorded, inadmissible, private comments to his ex-mistress, should be the only thing the NBA or press or possibly the courts be allowed to consider. Have we really come to the point where property rights can legally be taken away for what you say in private? Do we really want a world where you must assume everything you say in one-on-one private conversations is being recorded and can and will be used against you?

If the NBA owners vote to force him to sell the Clippers and Sterling takes them to court, it would force public exposure of the NBA constitution, which, unlike his illegally recorded private comments, are not currently publically available. It would be interesting to see what contractual rationale there is to force the sale of private property. The NBA probably has a case for forcing him out because of poor moral character, his public affair as evidenced by the public suit his wife is bringing against Miss V. Stiviano, clearly demonstrates Sterling’s poor moral character. Unless being an adulterous lecher in breach of his legally binding marriage contract is now considered a positive moral trait. Unlike his illegally obtained private comments these may be substantial grounds for forcing the sale of the Clippers, but I’m pretty sure that isn’t a line of either inquiry or thinking the NBA wants to explore.

Make no doubt about it, Sterling’s private remarks were deplorable racism, but they were private. Have we really come to a place where we accept the contents of illegal surveillance, which only revealed, clearly protected, even if unpopular, racist opinion and no criminal act as the justification to deprive an individual private property rights? Especially when all his public deeds and words concerning race are so laudable that the NAACP would reward a white guy?

It appears that is no sports personality, no major press organization, and no elected official willing to say “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Why? Unless there is a huge outcry from the press, and elected officials for the prosecution V. Stiviano’s obvious crime we can safely assume that this silence in both calling for justice and support of free speech, is evidence that the First Amendment is dead in the USA, and that there is in fact no right to privacy. The actions of the government and the compliant main stream media make it clear that freedom in the USA today is more like Nazi Germany or Stalinist USSR than the country which back in 1976 declared that although the Illinois Nazi’s speech is deplorable, you cannot stop such speech nor deprive such speakers of life, liberty or property, for merely exercising their right to free speech. Today we routinely deprive people of property based on mere exercising their right to free speech.

Quiet Win for Individual Rights

By Tom Rhodes, 6/27/2013

Amidst all the hoopla over gay marriage and voting rights, a win for individual property rights by the SCOTUS went un-noticed. In what was probably the most important of this week's SCOTUS verdicts, was Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District, where they found that when municipalities attach fees and extraneous payment obligations to a permit, like finance road improvements or expansion of waste disposal sites or wetlands development, the burden is now on the government to justify those mandates.
The idea that to force a property owner to pay extra to expand or improve sites not owned by that property owner as a condition to build or develop that property, the burden is no longer on the property owner to prove his development won't have an impact but on the government to prove it will. Unless the government can prove that such mandates are in "rough proportionality" to the demonstrative effects of development, such mandates are in effect the taking of property by the government.
The case is simple, St. Johns River Water Management District denied an application by Coy A. Koontz Sr. to fill more than three acres of wetlands in order to build a small shopping center. The district put conditions on granting the permit that effectively took his property. They were requiring Mr. Koontz to reduce the size of the development or spend money on any of a variety of wetlands-restoration projects designed to offset the project's environmental effects. Because Mr. Koontz declined to pursue any of these options, the district denied the permit.

KooKoo Koontz claimed that the permit denial constituted a "taking" based on other Supreme Court precedents; specifically Nollan v. California Coastal Commission and Dolan v. City of Tigard. These cases established that conditions placed on the development of private property are an appropriation of private property unless the government could show a logical relationship and a "rough proportionality" between the conditions imposed and the projected effects of the development. The SCOTUS agreed.
SJWMD vs. Koontz dramatically shifts the burden of proof to
the government to justify mandates placed on private property owners; it follows the traditional idea that people are innocent until proven guilty, including the impact of private property development. This dovetails with other recent rulings against the EPA concerning "wetlands." And will have an impact on the EPA which will now have to prove development impinges on wetlands rather than the property owner proving it doesn't.

This was a both a symbolic and real win for private property rights. It may be used as a blow against "sustainable development." This SCOTUS ruling puts the onus where it belongs, on the government.

Obama, Out of Touch with America and its Values

By Tom Rhodes, 6/13/2012

There is a American Middle Class value that Obama and liberals don't understand. It is fundamental idea of the middle class which those on the left have total contempt. The lack of understanding, and total contempt for the financial foundation of the middle class explains exactly why Obama and his administration is completely out of touch with the vast majority of Americans, the middle class; This is a libertarian value can best be summed up in the simple advice every middle class kid received from our parents, grandparents, etc. "Don't spend more than you earn, and always try to save some of what you earn." This is the entire basis and totally sums up Dave Ramsey and the empire he's created by simply offering this sage old advice over and over again.

Dave Ramsey, is a modern day version of Ben Franklin, and a purveyor of traditional middle class values. Virtually all his advice can be found in the writings of Franklin. What advice he gives, and what he writes is a rehash of Ben Franklin's The Way To Wealth, and is still viable today.

Ben Franklin believed that success was a consequent of hard work, diligence, and study. A self-made man, his own beginnings were unassuming, but he advanced through entrepreneurship and lifelong learning. He was always honest about who he was and how he came by his success. Like Obama, Ben Franklin started with humble beginnings and rose to greatness in American Politics. Unlike Obama his wisdom as withstood the test of time. The American middle class, who mostly lives in the suburbs not cities, has seen the failure of urban communitarian thinking and is going back to this simple advice that can be dated back to Ben Franklin and before. Over the past few years while the debt of our government has been exponentially climbing, the total private debt of the people has been declining. In effect the people are ignoring Obama, and following the advice of Dave Ramsey which is the advice of Ben Franklin, or grandparents and parents.

Ben Franklin said all of the below; these quotes reflect the Values of most Americans, and specifically the middle class; Obama's actions and words do not reflect the Values of most Americans and clearly are contrary to the wisdom of Ben Franklin:

"The second vice is lying, the first is running in debt"

"He that lives upon hope will die fasting"

"A penny saved is a penny earned"

"If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher's stone"

"If you would know the value of money, go try to borrow some; for he that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing"

"An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest"

"Rather go to bed without dinner than to rise in debt"

"When you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty"

"Disdain the chain, preserve your freedom; and maintain your independency: be industrious and free; be frugal and free"

"Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise"

"Diligence is the mother of good luck"

"God helps them that help themselves"

"Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears, while the used key is always bright"

"Lost time is never found again"

"He that riseth late, must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night"

"Drive thy business, let not that drive thee"

"Industry need not wish"

"There are no gains, without pains"

"Plough deep, while sluggards sleep, and you shall have corn to sell and to keep"

"Have you somewhat to do tomorrow, do it today"

"Be ashamed to catch yourself idle"

"At the working man's house hunger looks in, but dares not enter"

"For industry pays debts, while despair encreaseth them"

"By diligence and patience the mouse ate in two the cable"

"Little strokes fell great oaks"

"Employ thy time well if thou meanest to gain leisure"

"A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. Do you imagine that sloth will afford you more comfort than labor?"

"Trouble springs from idleness, and grievous toil from needless ease."

"Industry gives comfort, and plenty, and respect: fly pleasures, and they'll follow you"

"Keep the shop, and thy shop will keep thee"

"He that by the plough would thrive, Himself must either hold or drive."

"Want of care does us more damage than want of knowledge"

"In the affairs of this world men are saved not by faith, but by the want of it"

"Learning is to the studious, and riches to the careful, as well as power to the bold, and Heaven to the virtuous"

"Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship"

"Buy what thou hast no need of, and before long thou shalt sell thy necessaries"

"Many estates are spent in the getting, Since women for tea forsook spinning and knitting, And men for punch forsook hewing and splitting."

"Think of saving as well as of getting: the Indies have not made Spain rich, because her outgoes are greater than her incomes"

"Women and wine, game and deceit, Make the wealth small, and the wants great."

"Wise men learn by others' harms, fools scarcely by their own"

"A ploughman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his knees"

"When the well's dry, they know the worth of water"

"Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy"

"But what madness must it be to run in debt for these superfluities!"

"The borrower is a slave to the lender, and the debtor to the creditor"

This one is worth repeating, as it describes the current occupier of the White House

"The second vice is lying, the first is running in debt"


Since our government and we as a nation quit following these values and advice; it now takes $80 to buy what a single dollar used to buy; we are being dictated what products and services we must purchase; we are being told that the government should determine if you've made enough money; and our children will not have a better life than we did. The people of this country are again recognizing that the sage old advice we choose to ignore had value, and is the path to wealth and/or happiness. In Wisconsin, despite the best efforts of the left, Scott Walker showed that following Franklin's advice can and will work. The people of Wisconsin no longer have a budget in debt, have more not less employment, and have shown that even in a Democrat stronghold, logic, reason, and the self-evident truth of what Franklin preached are what Americans want. It is also a clear indication that Obama is totally out of touch with America and its values.

Constitutional Questions

In a recent Editorial Judge Andrew Nepalitano asks a series of questions, starting with "What if the Constitution no longer applied?"

All Americans should look at our government and look at the questions the good judge asks. Then also ask ourselves, after answering these questions, is this the kind of government we want?

Here are all the questions he asks:

What if the whole purpose of the Constitution was to limit the government? What if Congress' enumerated powers in the Constitution no longer limited Congress, but were actually used as justification to extend Congress' authority over every realm of human life? What if the president, meant to be an equal to Congress, has become a democratically elected, term-limited monarch? What if the president assumed everything he did was legal, just because he's the president? What if he could interrupt your regularly scheduled radio and TV programming for a special message from him? What if he could declare war on his own? What if he could read your emails and texts without a search warrant? What if he could kill you without warning?

What if the rights and principles guaranteed in the Constitution have been so distorted in the past 200 years as to be unrecognizable by the founders? What if the states were mere provinces of a totally nationalized and fully centralized government? What if the Constitution was amended stealthily, not by constitutional amendments duly passed by the states, but by the constant and persistent expansion of the federal government's role in our lives? What if the federal government decided whether its own powers were proper and constitutional?

Don't miss the judge's latest Constitution-defending book, "It Is Dangerous to Be Right When the Government Is Wrong: The Case for Personal Freedom"

What if you needed a license from the government to speak, to assemble or to protest the government? What if the right to keep and bear arms only applied to the government? What if posse comitatus – the law that prohibits our military from our streets – were no longer in effect? What if the government considered the military an adequate dispenser of domestic law enforcement? What if cops looked and acted like troops and you couldn't distinguish the military from the police? What if federal agents could write their own search warrants in defiance of the Constitution? What if the government could decide when you weren't entitled to a jury trial?

What if the government could take your property whenever it wanted it? What if the government could continue prosecuting you until it got the verdict it wanted? What if the government could force you to testify against yourself simply by labeling you a domestic terrorist? What if the government could torture you until you said what the government wanted to hear? What if people running for president actually supported torture? What if the government tortured your children to get to you? What if the government could send you to your death and your innocence meant nothing so long as the government's procedures were followed? What if America's prison population, the largest in the world, was the result of a cruel and unusual way for a country to be free? What if half the prison population never harmed anyone but themselves?

What if the people had no rights except those the government chose to let them have? What if the states had no rights except to do as the federal government commanded? What if our elected officials didn't really live among us, but all instead had their hearts and their homes in Washington, D.C.? What if the government could strip you of your rights because of where your mother was when you were born? What if the income tax was unconstitutional? What if the states were convinced to give up their representation in Congress? What if the government tried to ban you from using a substance older than the government itself? What if voting didn't mean anything anymore because both political parties stand for Big Government?

What if the government could write any law, regulate any behavior and tax any event, the Constitution be damned? What if the government was the reason we don't have a Constitution anymore? What if you could love your country but hate what the government has done to it? What if sometimes to love your country, you had to alter or abolish the government? What if Jefferson was right? What if that government is best which governs least? What if I'm right? What if the government is wrong? What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong? What if it is better to perish fighting for freedom than to live as a slave? What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now?

Patent law and Constitutional Limits

By Tom Rhodes, 4/26/2011

To bad none of the GOP or newly elected TEA Party legislators actually cares about the constitution. The Senate has passed a bill (S.23) to take away the property rights of American inventors. They held a quick poorly publicized hearing that did not include a single inventor, a small-business person, a venture capital person or a constitutional authority. It’s sister bill in the house is now being pushed without any publicity, H.R. 1249.

This bill is clearly unconstitutional, as rather than acknowledge one of the most valuable individual rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution is the right of "inventors" to own "the exclusive right" to their "discoveries" for "limited times” (see Article I, Section 8 of the US constitution), these bills give the right to an invention to the person who first files. Get that, if a company files the paperwork, they have the right to an invention, not the actual inventor.

The right to one’s own invention has been recognized and reinforced by our system of granting patents to inventors, U.S. patents are awarded to the "first-to-invent" a new and useful product. The U.S. patent system was unique when the Constitution was written and is still unique in the world today. It protects individual property rights, not government filing rights. This is one of, if not the primary, reason why the United States has produced most of the world's great inventions and dominates the world in innovation.

Every other country in the world award patents under a system called "first-to-file," i.e., the first person to file a paper with a government office. The rest of the world would prefer that we changed our system from first-to-invent to first-to-file. Harmonizing as it’s called, would take the system that has produced more innovation than any other and proven successful for centuries, and make it match the proven inferior system the rest of the world uses.

Even if harmonizing were a reasonable idea (it’s not) the bigger problem is that it is clearly unconstitutional. The Constitution, Federalist Papers, and centuries of court cases are very clear, and plainly state that the property right belongs to "inventors," not to someone handing a piece of paper to a government bureaucrat. Not a single scholarly law review article proves or claims otherwise, while many which have examined the issue have concluded that the “first-to-file” concept is unconstitutional.

Where are the TEA Party, and other so-called constitutional defenders on this issue? (I hear crickets chirping over the silence). An “inventor” through all of US history, and the writings of our forefathers has always meant the first-to-invent something, not the first to do paperwork. If you look at the “Patent Acts,” laws created in 1790, 1793, and 1836, you will see that historically we have always considered a patent to go to the first “original and true inventor.” First-to-invent, not first-to-file conforms with our tradition and history and over 200 years of court proceedings. First-to-invent is the standard we have used, and the standard that has proven to best protect innovation, and provide a foundation that has resulted in more innovation than the rest of the world combined. We have over 200 years of settled and successful law. Why are our leaders even considering the un-American notion that we should utilize treaties and foreign laws to reinterpret our Constitution and statutes concerning patent law?

Who benefits from first-to-file? This concept elevates paperwork over true inventions. First-to-file favors foreign inventors and big corporations that have the lawyers and resources to file quickly and redundantly, while taking rights away from independent inventors and small businesses.

First-to-file may make patents more efficient, and international agreements easier, but it destroys individual rights in favor of big business, and violates our Constitution. This is a truly perverse constitutional issue that YOU should be outraged over. Get out of your internet browser, fire up your word processing software (if you’re using word note that MS lost a patent case and is now at the US Supreme court trying to defend its theft of another’s invention) , and type out a letter, and sign it by hand and mail it to your US Representative, and urge him to vote against “harmonizing” US Patent Law.

Our inviolable right to self-defense

by Phil Elmore
March 10, 2011 © 2011

The state in which I live, New York, is contemplating a law that would register and tax every firearm in the state. Already ruling the state most hostile to gun owners, New York's Democrats wish to enact a precursor to confiscation that is not just transparent in its intensions, but onerous in its financial burdens. What is often lost in debates over laws of this type is what they truly say to the citizens they affect. A law that restricts the technology of self-defense is a law that criminalizes self-defense itself. It is a law that violates your civil rights. It is a direct affront to you as a human being.

The Founding Fathers of the United States indicated their acceptance of, and based the United States Constitution on, the concept of natural rights. For the purposes of this discussion, it doesn't matter if you believe in God or not. Most deists and theists believe rights are God-granted, while others believe natural rights come from nature. Natural rights exist regardless.

Because you are a discrete biological entity, you are an individual. Every group of people can be broken into individuals. No group of people can exist as a single living organism because they simply aren't one, any more than a parking lot full of cars can be a single automobile.

Because no human can be another human, no one can live another's life. By virtue of your nature as an individual, you are born with the inalienable property right to yourself as a person. This means that no human being has a claim on your time or your effort without your consent. Think about it. If you do not own you, who does? If you are anything but your own property, you belong to someone else, which makes you that someone's slave. Are you a slave?

Your property right to your person extends to a general right to possess legally acquired property, for no human can exist without property of some kind. This is an axiom of existence. You cannot exist in space unconnected to all other existents, the sole resident of an empty bubble of space-time. This does not mean you have an automatic claim to someone else's property by virtue of your need for it, however. This means that you necessarily have the right to possess property if you can indeed acquire it. Claims to the contrary made by Marxists, collectivists and Michael Moore are empty. If you have no right to possess property once you have obtained it, those making this assertion must be making it naked while floating in empty rooms from which even air has been evacuated.

Your property right to yourself and your effort can be used to obtain rights to real property (land). He who first "mingles his labor with the land" earns a property right to it. What of land (or other property, for that matter) whose acquisition is disputed as being illegitimate? The longer an illegitimate claim goes uncontested, the more the passage of time legitimizes it – because the passage of time increases the possibility that an attempt to correct the illegitimate acquisition would harm parties who themselves have acted in good faith and who have committed no immoral actions. When redress of wrongs creates more wrong than it cures, it is not credible.

What is a property right, anyway? A right to property is the right to its use. If property belongs to no one, we have none, which contradicts the necessity of property. If we say all property belongs to everyone, we have a problem, because we would then only be able to use property with the mutual consent of every member of society. Because this is impossible, some delegation of humans within society would have to make this determination – and it would then be those people, not all the people, who hold the property right.

This points to a critical issue concerning rights. Either you recognize that you have sole dominion over your person, as does each human, or you do not. If you do not, you are saying either that all of society – the Collective, the State, whomever – has first right to you as property, or that some other person does.

A right is, by definition, unquestionable, and not dependent on some responsibility on your part. Many times, those who support some infringement on your natural rights will appeal to the idea that "With rights come responsibilities." This is not true. A right carries with it no concomitant responsibility, because it is, by definition, inviolable. Responsibilities, by contrast, are accepted, not imposed.

You are born into society accepting, by virtue of your existence, exactly one clause of the "social contract" – the agreement not to infringe on the natural rights of your fellow human beings. Humans who operate according to this guideline obtain what they require from other humans through exchange to mutual benefit. They are traders, giving value for value received. No human being has a claim to your life or your assets simply because you are born into his society. Your property rights to your person remain intact and inalienable regardless of the circumstances of your birth.

Given these facts of existence, the only legitimate role of government in a free society is the protection of individuals' natural rights. That is why governments are instituted among human beings – or at least, that is why they should be.

When a government denies its citizens' rights or actively seeks to infringe on these rights, it subordinates the individual to the state and injures that individual in the name of the community. By what right is this done? By what right is this force initiated and this theft made? How dare New York's commie libs steal the right of self–defense through their burdensome taxes and their obvious schemes for future confiscation? They have no right to do this; there is no justification for it.

Self-defense is an individual right and, as such, is inviolable ... no matter what lies Democrats tell.

---

Phil Elmore is a freelance author, technical writer and publisher of the self-defense e-zine The Martialist. This article originally appeard at WND.com

Shrinking Middle Class?

The USA is a unique country, people can freely move from the upper economic classes to the lower and vice versa. In general those in the lower 20% economically in the USA don’t stay their very long and move up as to middle class. In general what are the things that effect where in the economic class structure of America people reside: There are two basic factors that determine success intelligence and drive. It is obvious that people like Bill Gates have both a large amount of intelligence and drive, his wealth and ability to keep it are proof. If we look at a pot head who quit school we find an individual with neither drive nor intelligence, and is most probably poor (or living in his mother’s basement).

Let’s compare boxers. Mike Tyson, who was highly driven and became rich, even though it is obvious that intellectually he’s no Einstein. His lack of smarts resulted in a relatively quick loss of most of his wealth. Mohammad Ali on the other hand is highly driven and is obviously smart. His drive and skills lead him to riches, and his intellect allowed him to keep it, and even expand on them (One might also note that Tyson was a thug of poor moral character and Ali is noted as being generous).

We can arbitrarily divide the economic classes in to 5 parts; poor; lower middle class, middle class, upper middle class, and rich. Of course there are exceptions to all generalities. If we compared drive and intelligence to economic class we’d most likely derive this type of graph:



How can the government affect economic classes? They cannot affect intelligence that is pretty much determined by genetics. Can the government affect people’s drive to succeed? Obviously it can. Right now we see a shrinking middle class. This is most likely because the government’s current policies are driving people to have less self drive. If we punish those people who are self motivated and reward those people who are not self motivated we will end up with more people who are less motivated. If you can be assured of shelter, food, and health care doing nothing, what is the incentive to do more? If you are punished by having more of what your efforts produce confiscated and given to those who exert little effort then where is the incentive to do more?

If your rich and motivate and have the means to move, and there are places where less of your profits are taxed and your cost of doing business is lower, what would you do? Move of course. Drive and Incentive are influenced by what the government does. Highly driven people find a way to keep what their labor produces. People with little drive don’t move or can’t move and are stuck. The rich provide jobs to those of us who are not as smart and as driven. Government actions which influence motivated driven people to move leave the less driven less smart of us with less opportunity.

Detroit is a prime example, what was once the Motor City is now a ghost town compare to what it once was. Michigan in general has seen an exodus for decades. Many of the car companies that were there disappeared of the three that remain 2 went bankrupt, the other moved to Kansas, Georgia, Canada, Mexico, and other places where it was allowed to keep more of its earnings. Why doesn’t any car company even consider building in the Midwest much less Detroit anymore? Because people who run rich car companies are smart and driven and don’t make stupid decisions.

Rush Limbaugh is another example, he is highly driven and arguably of above average intellect despite his often lapses in logic. Faced with ever increasing taxes in NYC he moved his EIB studio to Florida. Trump talked about this and noted that the producers are moving away and soon if things don’t change there will be no rich left to tax in NYC. This is also the general explanation for urban sprawl; if you’re smart and driven you probably have the means to move, so re-locate yourself to where taxes/regulations are less. Compare suburban taxes to urban taxes. A simple cost benefit comparison determines how far you’re willing to travel. The poor have no means to move so are stuck, the middle class have more means to move so are in the immediate suburbs, the rich have gated communities or multiple living locations. Government actions influence our drive as well as where we all live and work.

The current crop of leaders in Washington, understand that their actions will affect how and where people live and work. They just get it all wrong. They think that rewarding less driven people will help them become more driven. They think punishing the more highly driven people will result in more highly driven people. They think that smart people won’t change their behavior to maximize the retention of their efforts. Smart people will either move physically or move the distribution of their earnings so that the government confiscates less.

The question most people ask themselves in light of the government’s current actions is: Why work harder if the government is just going to take what I earn? Why take a financial risk when if it succeeds the government gets the profit? Why get more of an education and work when I’ll get fed, free health care, shelter, and everything if I just have a baby (or more by having another baby)?

We need less government, more government only discourages people from becoming more driven and rewards those who are less driven, thus we see it in a shrinking middle class.

Between 1776 and 1976 the world saw a huge explosion in wealth. In 1776 there were very few wealth, and very few “middle class” and the vast majority of the world including the colonies was poor. In that 200 year time frame the world saw a huge increase in the wealth of a huge number of people, and advances in technology and living conditions, roughly equivalent to 5000 years worth of previous advancement. The reason, Liberty! Which is the basic belief that all men should have equal rights, including property rights, and thus the ruling elite should not have unlimited access to the efforts of others. There’s a great book on the subject called The 5000 Year Leap you should read it.

We are currently seeing a significant loss of liberty in the name of security and social justice, from the GOP and the right over war mongering, and from the Democrats and left with increased social welfare. The results of this is that we are seeing more poor, greater concentration of wealth in fewer people as it was before liberty took hold, and slower advances. Compare 1900 to 1960 advances to those from 1960 to 2010. In 1900 the time to travel by mass transit (train) across the country was measured in days, in 1960 it was down to around 5 hours. Today it’s still around 5 hours, government regulations effectively killed commercial supersonic transport. Obviously there are many advances in the past 50 years, but but they are not happening anywhere near the rate of advances from the previous 50 years. In 1955 we happily envisioned an affordable flying car in everyone's garage; with today's nanny state it is obvious that that dream is dead, the government for our own good would never allow it. As we watch our liberty erode, we watch civilization slow down and return to rule by elite, and subjugation of the rest. The shrinking middle class is just a sign of the loss of liberty.

Fundamental Questions

Here are some fundamental philosophical questions that I'm curious as to other peoples opinions.

1) Are rights "unalienable" or are they privileges granted by the government?

2) Should laws and rights insure equal treatment or equal outcome?

3) Do groups have rights that supercede individual rights?

4) Do individuals have the right to the labor or property of other individuals by means of force?

5) At what point does an individual have the right to use force against another individual?

6) Should the "rule of law" be applied to everybody equally, or does "might make right"?

7) Does society have the right to force individuals to be charitable?

8) Is there a right for individuals to use force to protect themselves, their family and their property?

9) Obedience to the Government

Should all laws be obeyed?

Is civil disobedience justifiable?

Should jury's be allowed to acquit the accused if they believe the Law is unjust?

10) Knowing that you could lose your life, be injured, or imprisoned:

Would you fight to protect your basic rights and liberty?

Would you send your child to fight for basic rights and liberty?

What rights would you fight for?

What rights would you abandon before fighting for?

Is it a Right?

In virtually every other country in the world the Government rules the people and grants the people certain privileges which at the government’s discretion may be suppressed or dismissed. Even the UN charter says individuals have a duty to the state that supersedes their individual rights. Read the UN charter on human rights one day, it’s a very scary document.

The USA is the most prosperous and powerful country in the world. Unlike virtually every other country the USA was instituted by the people with very different and unique ideas. Our country and the documents we hold almost Sacred, the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights were created towards the end of a period of time called The Age of Enlightenment.

Historian Peter Gay in his book The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, asserts the Enlightenment broke through "the sacred circle," whose dogma had circumscribed thinking. The Enlightenment is held to be the source of critical ideas, such as the centrality of freedom, democracy, and reason as primary values of society. This view argues that the establishment of a contractual basis of rights would lead to the market mechanism and capitalism, the scientific method, religious tolerance, and the organization of states into self-governing republics through democratic means. In this view, the tendency of the philosophies in particular to apply rationality to every problem is considered the essential change.

Read these famous words from the Declaration of Independence, they hold the essence of "rights" and what makes the USA different from every other country in the world.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Because of forefathers where learned “Enlightened” men, they realized that history had proven the principle that power corrupts, thus they instituted a government designed to limit corruption. A government instituted not to rule, but to protect the people. Maybe this is why it is the most prosperous and powerful nation in the world.

Rather than put power in the hands of a man, or group of men, our forefathers put the authority in the Law, and the constitution which limited what laws could be instituted. Because men can and are corrupted by power, our forefathers instituted a government in which no man, even the president, is above the law. They specifically delegated only certain powers to the government, added to the constitution specific rights the government was forbidden from abridging, and reserving all powers not specifically granted to the government to the people or to the states. They divided the powers and gave us a system of checks and balances that further limited the government not the people. They assumed that if one branch of government tried to take more power than granted to it by the constitution one of the other branches would stop it. President B. Obama noted in a recent townhall meeting about healthcare, that our constitution was the problem, it makes large wholesale changes to society very difficult.

Unlike every other government in the world, our government was created to protect the rights of individual citizens not to make it easy for the government to rule. It was created as a Republic not a Democracy so that mob rule couldn’t take away the rights of individuals. Note what our fore fathers considered to be rights; “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”. You don’t have a right to be happy only the liberty to pursue happiness. The rights protected in the Bill of Rights, are not granted by the government are considered to pre-date the government and to be “unalienable”, sometimes called “Natural Rights”. It is the government infringement upon the natural rights of individuals that our constitution forbids.

If you consider the rights protected by the bill of rights they all fall into the more general rights of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”:

Freedom from the government imposing a state religion Pursuit of Happiness

Freedom from the government restricting the Press <Liberty

Freedom from the government stopping the people from assembling peaceably <Liberty

Freedom from the government restricting citizens from bringing grievance to the government. <Liberty

Freedom from the government infringing Speech <Liberty

Freedom from the government controlling who can Keep and Bear Arms <Life and Liberty

Freedom from the government using your property to house/feed/support the military <Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

Freedom to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures from the government. <Liberty

Freedom from the government forcing you to talk (the right to remain silent). <Liberty

Freedom to be tried by a Jury of your peers, not Government Officials <Liberty

Freedom to a speedy and public trial <Liberty

Freedom from excessive bail, excessive, and from cruel and unusual punishments. <Liberty

Freedom to other rights not listed. Pursuit of Happiness

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

You don't have to pay for your rights. You only need to be left alone. Rights are not dependent upon the actions of some other person. We limit the government from infringing on unalienable rights, offering liberty and equal protection for every person, to pursue happiness, and live without interference by the government. No place do we guarantee or insure that people are happy only that they have the liberty to gain happiness for themselves.

Nobody has a right to the life of another. You own yourself; hence nobody has the right to your labor and the property you have acquired through your labor. You don’t pay for your rights. You have liberty to purchase whatever health services you choose to pay for, and should not be denied those services based on your age, sex, color, religion, etc. What you don’t have a right to is to use the labor and property of others to pay for you to receive those services.

Because of fascists and socialist ideas creeping into our government, many in government are trying to make or consider healthcare to be a right. All versions of healthcare bills currently in congress require everybody to purchase health insurance. Those who choose not to exercise their right to healthcare (actually those who choose to self insure and pay as they go) will be forced to purchase health insurance. Does this mean that everybody who chooses not to keep and bear arms is to be forced to purchase a firearm, and if they refuse, the government will issue them a firearm and the cost of that firearm added to their taxes?

What Reform Could Look Like

Question: What country's health care system has the highest percentage of users who are happy with it, and consistently produces the greatest number of innovations and improvements?

Answer: The USA, 85% of us are happy with our Health care, and no other nation on earth produces as many new drugs, procedures, advances in medicine as the USA.


Question: What type of insurance has the largest choices in policies, providers, and benefits; Is required by virtually everybody, and offers the lowest price per dollar covered?

Answer: Automotive insurance; everybody who owns an automobile must have minimum auto insurance, but the type of coverage, what's covered, deductibles, and prices are all governed by the free market.


Question: What organization when it runs something traditionally add layers of bureaucracy, inefficiency, and ends up providing less service for more money?

Answer: The US Government. Education is a great example as it can be clearly shown that the more the federal government has gotten into education the higher the cost and lower the quality. Can anybody argue that students are better educated in public schools today than 50 years ago?


Question: What model has been shown to decrease health care costs, increase availability, and offer more choice?

Answer: Free Enterprise, In the USA if we look at elective procedures which are not normally covered under typical insurance we find that prices keep coming down. Facelifts, Breast Enhancements, hair grafts, Lasik, and the like have all gotten easier to get, less expensive, and more choice in who, when, where, and how the procedures are performed.

We have two proven models in the US that lower costs and improve service. Auto insurance and elective medical procedures. If we applied these to all of health care we'd probably see the same kind of results.

Terry Paulson discussed it in his TownHall article Health Care Reform that Puts You In Control

Imagine a system where doctors and hospitals have to compete on price, reputation, and quality for your business, and insurance companies have to compete based on price, reputation and quality for your business. Rather than them telling you what you can/can't have you will be able to establish what you need and can afford. Imagine a system where the government doesn't control your choices, benefits, costs.

Sounds like real reform to me.

4th Amendment Still Under Attack

Ok these guys are "Freedom Activists", meaning they know their rights and don't comprimise them. Not a bad position to take and a position every American should take.

3 young guys going from NewOrleans to Nashville, stopped in Jones County MS because the deputy doesn't like their temporary tag from New Hampshire.

They do nothing illegal except refuse to give police any more information than they are legally required to give. They are arrested for failing to obey an officer. Funny thing you are only required to obey legal orders from an officer. You do not have to obey any unconstitutional orders. The order the passengers didn't obey was providing identification papers. Since one of our protected constitutional freedoms is travel across the country without having to have government papers, permission, or identification, this was an unlawful order.



I hope the Jones County Sheriff and deputies get sued and held accountable for trashing the constitutional rights of US citizens. You can read more about it at Motor Home Diaries.

Know Your Rights - what you can do when talking to the government

The 2010 census is coming up, and if your even the slightest bit cantankerous you might not fill out form they mail you. You might not fill out the second form they mail you. They will then send somebody to your door to ask you the questions.

Now that's not so bad but by law you are required to answer the census. Now the good news, the law also states that agents of the government can be required to provide you with information if requested, before you can be required to answer their questions.

The amount of info you can require, and ask about is extensive. You not only can use this form for agents like the Census takers, but any other government agent who is questioning you. Kind of cool, put them through what they put you through.

Some bright people have compiled an nice questionnaire you can have the government agent fill out. (at the bottom are links to several versions)

Search the net using:

THE PUBLIC SERVANT QUESTIONNAIRE

Key Points:

• An American does not have to speak with a government agent unless the citizen has been arrested.


• Americans have a right to privacy, to be left alone.


• The PRIVACY ACT OF 1974 (Public Law 93-579), empowers citizens to require full, written disclosure from a government official who seeks information.


• You may insist on complete disclosure as a precondition to speaking with any government official.

The Limits On Federal Power:

• Law-abiding citizens are sometimes visited by agents of the Federal government for no apparent reason. It is helpful, at the time of these visits, to recall that unless a citizen has been placed under arrest (either because a law enforcement officer has probable cause to believe the citizen has committed a crime or because the officer has in his possession an arrest warrant issued by a judge who believes there is probable cause the citizen has committed a crime, a citizen does not have to entertain the company of government agents.


• Citizens also have the right, guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, not to testify against themselves. Thus, when "the government" comes knocking on one¹s door, you have the right to simply say, "Please go away." Unless the government officer places you under arrest (there must be probable cause, or an arrest warrant based on probable cause), the officer must obey your wishes.

Be Helpful.... On Your Terms

• Of course, citizens also have a vested interest in assisting "the government" in its role of crime-solver. Most of us understand the need to help "the government" to apprehend criminals. But it is also helpful, when "the government" arrives at your place of employment or at your home, to know how to find out why government agents have appeared on YOUR doorstep.


• A handy little questionnaire that I came across years ago will do the trick. It¹s called the "Public Servant Questionnaire." A version following the link. The "PSQ" was developed by Lynn Johnston, author of Who's Afraid of the IRS? (Libertarian Review Foundation: 1983, ISBN 0-930073-03-7).


• The PSQ is based on the requirements placed upon the government by the Privacy Act of 1974 (Public Law 93-579), an amending law to Title 5, United States Code, Section 552, and is included as Section 552a.


• If a citizen chooses to cooperate with government officials who are seeking information, BEFORE questioning begins, the citizen should politely inform the government agent or agents that a prerequisite for the citizen's cooperation with "the government" is the agent¹s cooperation with the citizen.

Do It Right, The First Time

• The questions should then be put to each agent, and the citizen should enter the answers onto the questionnaire. Copies should be provided to each agent, either at the time of the questioning or by mail to the agent after the visit. The questionnaire informs the government agent that the citizen knows his rights and knows which limited powers the government agent has been granted by the people.


• Most probably some government agents will not want to fill out or sign the PSQ. That’s fine. They can then be sent on their merry way. They may need to explain to their superiors, and a court of law, and a jury, on another day, why they refused to cooperate with the reasonable questions of the highest officeholder in the land, a citizen.

Click Here for PSQ version 1

Click Here for PSQ version 2

Supreme Court makes decision for individual liberty

Today in Arizona vs. Grant the SCOTUS ruled that the Fourth Amendment does not permit police to conduct a warrantless search of a car unless the search is immediately necessary to safeguard the arresting officer's safety or to prevent the concealment or destruction of evidence.

The decision means that police cannot rely on a mere traffic violation to authorize a general search for guns, drugs, or other contraband. Such searches created "a serious and recurring threat to the privacy of countless individuals," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in the majority opinion.

"The character of that threat implicates the central concern underlying the Fourth Amendment – the concern about giving police officers unbridled discretion to rummage at will among a person's private effects."

So once you’re out of your car for a traffic violation, they have no reason to search your car as you can’t reach anything in it that could hurt them, and they have no probable cause to look for any other crime. The smart thing to do would be to exit your car with your registration and proof of insurance when stopped, and lock the car. If all they stopped you for is a traffic violation then anything they find in your car if searched it is not admissible in court.

Some may say this makes it harder on police. It may, but then the constitution limits the government not the people, it should be harder for them. The government shouldn’t be able to rummage through the private effects of a person without a warrant.

If it Walks Like a Duck

Patrice Lewis has an excellent article on the United States march to Socialism. http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=90946 “According to Dictionary.com, socialism is "Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy." She talks about many the Obama administration’s actions that are not only “extra constitutional” but classically socialistic. Socialists believe; in the use of force to gain their personal ends, the state owns the output of individuals, you have no right to self defense, etc. If it quacks like socialism, if it looks like socialism, if walks like socialism then it’s Socialism. This is an outstanding article that every liberty loving person should study.