By Tom Rhodes, April 11, 2011
The Republicans and Democrats agreed to $38 Billion dollars in spending cuts. Sounds big, the news and our elected leaders are all saying how grand these spending cuts are, and how draconian any bigger cuts would be. The fact is the cuts are less than the interest on the national debt for just one year, and are barely symbolic, so they continue to choose to continuing borrowing money we don’t have.
Let’s put it this way, assume you are spending $1500 more than your income by using a home equity line of credit. Every additional dollar you spend over your income adds to your mortgage. Part of what you are using that $1500 in excess of income is to make part of your mortgage payment (like using one credit card to pay another). You finally realize that you (republicans) and your spouse (democrats) can’t keep spending they way you have, because you are digging a financial hole you may not be able to climb out of. You both argue over what to cut, and it seems everything is essential. So after lots of loud arguments you and your spouse agree to cut your excess monthly spending by $38. The results are that you and your spouse are mad at each other you’ve reduced your excess spending from $1500 more than what you earn to a mere $1462 more than your paychecks. STUPID! Does any rational person think that when you are spending $1500 more than your income, reducing your spending by $38, is going to help your debt problem? When this kind of spending has maxed out your line of credit, would any reasonable person think that because you will now only spend $1462 more than your income that it’s acceptable to get yet another line of credit and borrow more money?
In the real world the only acceptable solution would for you and your spouse to make some serious cuts in your spending, and stop spending more than you take in. Deficit spending over a short period of time for a real crisis is understandable, and most people have had to do that, but to do that every day, week, month, and year without any plan to reduce spending to below your income so that you can pay off the huge debt is a surefire road to bankruptcy. What do we call nations that do this? - Greece and Iceland. Permanent deficit spending is not sustainable.
We already have the most progressive taxes in the world. Our rich (the people who hire others), already pay a disproportionate share of taxes compared to the rest of the population. Our top 20% pay over 80%, while our bottom 50% pay less than 3%. Our history has shown that regardless how we structure our taxes, we cannot collect much more than 20% of GDP in taxes. If we raise taxes people find ways to get out of the taxes by either moving to where they can keep more of their money (off shore), or hording their assets (stop investing and sit on your cash), or some other way to get out of taxes (look at GE for an example). The amount of money the government can get out of the people is maxed out. Sustained spending at 24% of GDP as Obama proposed with revenue at 20% of GDP won’t work. You cannot continue to spend 5% more than your income and not go bankrupt. To become financially stable we must reduce spending to below revenues using the difference to pay down the debt. Nothing else will put us on solid financial ground.
If we don’t institute significant cuts to spending, we will become another Greece or Iceland. We can reduce the size of necessary and painful spending cuts if we increase our revenue. Because our history has clearly shown that in our society it is unreasonable to expect revenue greater than 20% of GDP. To increase revenue we must increase GDP. The problem is our current government laws, regulations, and taxes all go towards reducing GDP and making business harder to do in the USA. Unless your GE or one of the very few other “Fortune 100” companies who have the law makers in their pockets. What congress has done over the past few decades is kill incentives to increase the GDP. From Obamacare, Cap-n-Tax, and hundreds of thousands of pages of new regulations and tax code, the Federal government appears to be systematically trying to kill expansion of the US economy.
The best way to look at it to consider a small business with 40 employees. At the end of the year this business earns for its owner about $200,000. Considering the assets invested, risk taken, and long hour a small business owner works (typical is 60/week) the earnings are modest. Our example business would like to expand because there is a market for more of its product than they currently produces. Any serious or reasonable expansion would put it over the magical 50 employee mark. Because of the additional work expanding the business would cause for the owner, the additional government mandates, and the increase in taxes, if the owner doubled the size of the business the owner would realize an significant increase in liability, responsibility and costs. These increases are not proportional to the benefits of expanding. The additional government burdens because of exceeding 50 employees are huge. A doubling of the size of the business it would only earn its owner about total of $225,000. The meager additional earnings (12.5%) for the small business owner compared to the significant increase (100%) in workload and costs, coupled with a huge increase in regulatory liability, don’t justify expansion. So rather than expand and hire more people the business, holds steady. Imagine turning down work because it would require expansion, and that expansion would put you over 50 people, so the increase in work would become unprofitable? That is what our government has done to our small businesses. Contrary to what the press would have you believe, small businesses are what generate expansion in our economy, and fuel expansion in big business.
Now the problem, the old married couple we keep electing to run the country. The Democrats and Republicans, are not responsible, their entire goal is to maintain power for themselves. The are just like the example I started with explain our financial situation except, unlike couples living in the real world, they can tell the bank what to do. The Republicans newly elected based on promises to institute spending cuts, yada yada yada. They are no different than the Democrats, they promised fiscal responsibility, but when they had the power to force the government to become fiscally responsible they caved. The Republicans ignored their promises and look at the entire thing from how to maintain power not do what’s right, and admit it. In the national Review Online, on , April 9, 2011, Rich Lowry said, “I saw the whole confrontation through the prism of two major downside risks: 1) a shutdown that could go awry politically and badly hurt Republicans three months into their House majority; 2) a poisonous split in the caucus that would make it impossible for House Republicans to fight cohesively on the big items to come.”
Latest polls show that 62% of the people don’t want the government to raise the debt limit. That was and is a major point of what the TEA Party wants and demands. The taxpayers of the USA do not want the government to go further into debt, they understand we have a spending and debt problem. The Democrats hold the people of the US in total contempt. Over the weekend Sen. Charles Schumer may have come up with the most comically derogatory metaphor for the people of the US. He considers the people less than fleas. The people elected a new batch of Republicans to control the US finances, Schumer said they are a “flea, wagging a tail, wagging a dog.” He seems to think the government not the people is the dog, and that the government not the people is in charge.
The constitution makes the House in charge of taxing and revenue laws. The Senate cannot constitutionally initiate these laws; this is so that the law makers closest to the people, the House, are in charge. Constitutionally the government was instituted by the people for the purpose of protecting our rights. Chief Senate Democrat Schumer seems to think that Government, not the people is in charge. The wishes and desires of the people as expressed in our last election are just fleas( Majority of House), on the tail (Budget and Revenue Laws) wagging the Dog (Government).
Almost 80 percent of Americans feel today that the country is on the wrong track. Last November, voters fired one quarter of the sitting Democrats and a good number of the Republicans in Congress in the name of change. What is clear is that both Democrats and Republicans hold the financial health of this country and the wishes of a super majority of the people (62%) in total contempt. They want you to remain ignorant, and their desire is to maintain and keep power. There is a method to force the government to become financially solvent. Stop borrowing, the current GOP majority in congress has that power. Simply refuse to vote to expand the national debt limit. That would be the dog, as in We the US Taxpayer, being in control.
To quote Earl Pitts, “WAKE UP America!!”
Monday, April 11, 2011
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Truth - Liberals Don't Tolerate It.
The actions, thoughts and ideas that Democrats have about Obama are like parents at their kids' first piano recital, regardless of how their child actually plays the parents are convinced it's great and will lie to everybody including the child about how wonderful the child did. Every time Obama speaks, liberals think they're listening to a combination of the Gettysburg Address and the Dr. Kings “I have a Dream” speech. Just look at their name-calling and ad hominem attacks every time anybody criticizes Obama, while never addressing the reason, logic, and substance of the criticism. Objective truth about Obama is tolerated by liberals the same way helicopter parents tolerate bad grades; they attack the truth teller.
Obama called for an adult conversation about the budget and entitlements; Paul Ryan's release a budget for 2012 that addressed both in real substantive ways. Now that they have got their adult conversation, they can't handle it. Typically they are calling it and him, mean, radical, extreme, but have offered no alternative. Ryan's budget is well considered thought out carefully and restrained. It makes sure that no one who is vulnerable is hurt by the undeniably necessary changes proposed. This is a far more adult method of dealing with our problems than Obama's budget which is irresponsible and does not address any entitlement changes at all.
I’d like some liberal to explain to me how reducing the budget to below 2008 levels, restoring it to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout spending, is extreme. Ryan’s budget would decrease Federal spending to below 20% of GDP, similar to the long-run, postwar, historical level, by 2015. That is the same level of federal spending that prevailed on average for 60 years since World War II. What part of the government spending as a portion of GDP roughly the same as it did from Truman to Clinton, is radical, irresponsible, and extreme? Leaders and the press that are saying so are unprofessionally irresponsible and misleading.
If we adopt Ryan's budget we will see a reduction in the national debt by nearly $5 trillion relative to the President's budget in the first 10 years alone. This would result in the national debt being reduces as a percent of GDP every year, until the national debt is zero. In contrast O Obama's budget would double the national debt in his first term alone, and triple it by 2021. Which would you says is radical, irresponsible, and extreme?
Some economists say that Ryan's budget if implemented would result in about 1 million private sector jobs created next year, a drop in the unemployment rate to 4% by 2015, and by the end of the decade, the economy would be creating 2.5 million jobs a year. We have seen the real results when Obama’s ideas are implemented, instead of not letting unemployment reach 8%, the news seems joyous when it’s dropped to 9%.
The truth is that the liberals do not want an adult conversation about the budget, they are willing to turn the US into Greece, and destroy our way of life, and any objectivity about the money available to the budget from the taxpayer, and the spending by the government will not be tolerated. And they wonder why the Tea Party exists, why they have such low approval ratings. Governors, congressmen, and all sorts of politicians were elected based on promises to return this country to solvency, reduce the size of government, and gut government spending. The liberals are completely intolerant of these newly elected officials actually doing what they promised. The liberals are intolerant of these newcomers not “understanding” how government works. They really can’t tolerate liberty, and will use any means they can legal, illegal, immoral, and even unconstitutional, to keep power, and force their failed utopian socialist agenda on the people of this country.
The government might get shut down (temporarily) in a couple days, I can’t think of a single person who pays more in taxes than he receives in government handouts that will be more than mildly affected. Email will still be delivered, Stores will be open, electricity will flow, my local police will catch criminals, my local schools will teach children, churches will marry couples, and hospitals will help the injured. The people crying and gnashing their teeth will be those who live off the taxpayer, and have their needs and wants met by the government rather than in fair trade with their fellow citizen. This truth will greatly upset liberals.
Obama called for an adult conversation about the budget and entitlements; Paul Ryan's release a budget for 2012 that addressed both in real substantive ways. Now that they have got their adult conversation, they can't handle it. Typically they are calling it and him, mean, radical, extreme, but have offered no alternative. Ryan's budget is well considered thought out carefully and restrained. It makes sure that no one who is vulnerable is hurt by the undeniably necessary changes proposed. This is a far more adult method of dealing with our problems than Obama's budget which is irresponsible and does not address any entitlement changes at all.
I’d like some liberal to explain to me how reducing the budget to below 2008 levels, restoring it to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout spending, is extreme. Ryan’s budget would decrease Federal spending to below 20% of GDP, similar to the long-run, postwar, historical level, by 2015. That is the same level of federal spending that prevailed on average for 60 years since World War II. What part of the government spending as a portion of GDP roughly the same as it did from Truman to Clinton, is radical, irresponsible, and extreme? Leaders and the press that are saying so are unprofessionally irresponsible and misleading.
If we adopt Ryan's budget we will see a reduction in the national debt by nearly $5 trillion relative to the President's budget in the first 10 years alone. This would result in the national debt being reduces as a percent of GDP every year, until the national debt is zero. In contrast O Obama's budget would double the national debt in his first term alone, and triple it by 2021. Which would you says is radical, irresponsible, and extreme?
Some economists say that Ryan's budget if implemented would result in about 1 million private sector jobs created next year, a drop in the unemployment rate to 4% by 2015, and by the end of the decade, the economy would be creating 2.5 million jobs a year. We have seen the real results when Obama’s ideas are implemented, instead of not letting unemployment reach 8%, the news seems joyous when it’s dropped to 9%.
The truth is that the liberals do not want an adult conversation about the budget, they are willing to turn the US into Greece, and destroy our way of life, and any objectivity about the money available to the budget from the taxpayer, and the spending by the government will not be tolerated. And they wonder why the Tea Party exists, why they have such low approval ratings. Governors, congressmen, and all sorts of politicians were elected based on promises to return this country to solvency, reduce the size of government, and gut government spending. The liberals are completely intolerant of these newly elected officials actually doing what they promised. The liberals are intolerant of these newcomers not “understanding” how government works. They really can’t tolerate liberty, and will use any means they can legal, illegal, immoral, and even unconstitutional, to keep power, and force their failed utopian socialist agenda on the people of this country.
The government might get shut down (temporarily) in a couple days, I can’t think of a single person who pays more in taxes than he receives in government handouts that will be more than mildly affected. Email will still be delivered, Stores will be open, electricity will flow, my local police will catch criminals, my local schools will teach children, churches will marry couples, and hospitals will help the injured. The people crying and gnashing their teeth will be those who live off the taxpayer, and have their needs and wants met by the government rather than in fair trade with their fellow citizen. This truth will greatly upset liberals.
Monday, March 21, 2011
“If the president does it it’s not illegal!”
US Government 101 – The constitution is clear only Congress, not the president, may declare war. Due to the actions of past presidents concerning the use of the US Military after WWII,the Korean Police Action and the undeclared Vietnam war, with a two thirds majority of both the house and Senate they passed the War Powers Act.
The War Powers Act of 1973 (50 U.S.C. 1541–1548) was a United States Congress joint resolution providing that the President can send U.S. armed forces into action abroad only by authorization of Congress or if the United States is already under attack or serious threat.
Nobody can reasonablly claim that Libya has attacked or poses a serious threat to the United States directly or to it’s National Security. What is Obama’s legal or constitutional justification to go to war and bomb a sovereign nation that has not attacked the US nor poses a serious threat, without a congressional declaration of war?
Libya, a despicable but sovereign nation, is using the full force of its government against some of its own citizens who are violently rejecting the government itself. As much as I want the citizens of Libya to have freedom and liberty, how does this action within a sovereign nation warrant the US bombing Libya? Does an uprising of people anywhere in the world against their oppressive government justify other sovereign nations bombing that government? If that is so then there would be more justification to bomb a government that attacks and shoots its citizens who have not attacked the government. This would mean that Mexico, Iran, or even Libya would have been justified in bombing the United States over the federal slaughter of 76 Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas.
Obama has unconstitutionally put the US Military at the control of the UN. On March 19, at meeting in Paris, attended by Hillary Clinton and representatives from other nations, as a group of "state actors” they issued guidance and control mechanisms that resulted in the bombing of a sovereign nation, using U.S. military assets without congressional approval. This action is global governance in action. Global governance must be rejected and national sovereignty reaffirmed as the only authority that governs the citizens of the United States. Obama's dictatorial like actions will lead us to tyranny.
During a Democratic Caucus conference call on Saturday, a group of House Democrats questioned the constitutionality of U.S. missile strikes against Libya, with one lawmaker raising the prospect of impeachment. It has been reported by two Democratic lawmakers who took part in that conference call that Reps. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), Donna Edwards (Md.), Mike Capuano (Mass.), Dennis Kucinich (Ohio), Maxine Waters (Calif.), Rob Andrews (N.J.), Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas), Barbara Lee (Calif.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D.C.) “all strongly raised objections to the constitutionality of the president’s actions.”
“Almost everybody who spoke was opposed to any unilateral actions or decisions being made by the president, and most of us expressed our constitutional concerns. There should be a resolution and there should be a debate so members of Congress can decide whether or not we enter in whatever this action is being called,” added another House Democrat opposed to the Libyan operation. One Democrat lawmaker said that the White House, “consulted the Arab League. They consulted the United Nations. They did not consult the United States Congress, They’re creating wreckage, and they can’t obviate that by saying there are no boots on the ground. … There aren’t boots on the ground; there are Tomahawks in the air.”
Democrat Rep. John Larson (Conn.), chairman of the Democratic Caucus and the fourth-highest ranking party leader called for Obama to seek congressional approval before committing the United States to any anti-Qadhafi military operation.
Unlike president Bush, who responding to a direct attack on US soil, not only consult ed Congress but won overwhelming congressional support for his actions in Iraq, Obama ignored both the law and the Constitution and dictated military action against Libya at the direction of the UN. Obama supports and wants global governance and dictatorial powers for the president. His actions clearly indicate that he does not believe in the concept that sovereign nations have the right to rule themselves, including the United States of America. His actions indicate that he believes that he and the UN not Congress have the power to determine if, when, and where the awesome violent power of the US Military is used.
Both Democrats and Republicans in congress know what Obama has done is not only unconstitutional but illegal. What Obama knows is that congress is made of wimps, whose only worry is how to keep themselves in power, and keep money flowing into their own coffers. As such Obama clearly has no fear of congress. He knows that even if congress did impeach him, which they won’t, the Democrat party controlled Senate, would not hold a trial and if it did would not convict him. The reason Obama didn’t consult congress is because he knows regardless of the constitution and the law he has the power to ignore congress. The reality is that the rule of law, equal protection under the law, and constitutionally limited government are dead.
Obama was a professor of Constitutional Law, so there is no doubt he knows about the constitution and the limits on the presidency, and knows about the further restrictions that Congress has put on the President. The laws and Constitution of the United States are very clear, concerning the use of the US Military. The President can send U.S. armed forces into action abroad ONLY by authorization of Congress or if the United States is already under attack or serious threat. What Obama has demonstrated is that although he knows the law and the limits on the presidency, he doesn’t care about them and that to advance his agenda he holds the same beliefs that former president Richard M. Nixon expressed in his famous David Frost interview, “If the president does it it’s not illegal!”
The War Powers Act of 1973 (50 U.S.C. 1541–1548) was a United States Congress joint resolution providing that the President can send U.S. armed forces into action abroad only by authorization of Congress or if the United States is already under attack or serious threat.
Nobody can reasonablly claim that Libya has attacked or poses a serious threat to the United States directly or to it’s National Security. What is Obama’s legal or constitutional justification to go to war and bomb a sovereign nation that has not attacked the US nor poses a serious threat, without a congressional declaration of war?
Libya, a despicable but sovereign nation, is using the full force of its government against some of its own citizens who are violently rejecting the government itself. As much as I want the citizens of Libya to have freedom and liberty, how does this action within a sovereign nation warrant the US bombing Libya? Does an uprising of people anywhere in the world against their oppressive government justify other sovereign nations bombing that government? If that is so then there would be more justification to bomb a government that attacks and shoots its citizens who have not attacked the government. This would mean that Mexico, Iran, or even Libya would have been justified in bombing the United States over the federal slaughter of 76 Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas.
Obama has unconstitutionally put the US Military at the control of the UN. On March 19, at meeting in Paris, attended by Hillary Clinton and representatives from other nations, as a group of "state actors” they issued guidance and control mechanisms that resulted in the bombing of a sovereign nation, using U.S. military assets without congressional approval. This action is global governance in action. Global governance must be rejected and national sovereignty reaffirmed as the only authority that governs the citizens of the United States. Obama's dictatorial like actions will lead us to tyranny.
During a Democratic Caucus conference call on Saturday, a group of House Democrats questioned the constitutionality of U.S. missile strikes against Libya, with one lawmaker raising the prospect of impeachment. It has been reported by two Democratic lawmakers who took part in that conference call that Reps. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), Donna Edwards (Md.), Mike Capuano (Mass.), Dennis Kucinich (Ohio), Maxine Waters (Calif.), Rob Andrews (N.J.), Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas), Barbara Lee (Calif.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D.C.) “all strongly raised objections to the constitutionality of the president’s actions.”
“Almost everybody who spoke was opposed to any unilateral actions or decisions being made by the president, and most of us expressed our constitutional concerns. There should be a resolution and there should be a debate so members of Congress can decide whether or not we enter in whatever this action is being called,” added another House Democrat opposed to the Libyan operation. One Democrat lawmaker said that the White House, “consulted the Arab League. They consulted the United Nations. They did not consult the United States Congress, They’re creating wreckage, and they can’t obviate that by saying there are no boots on the ground. … There aren’t boots on the ground; there are Tomahawks in the air.”
Democrat Rep. John Larson (Conn.), chairman of the Democratic Caucus and the fourth-highest ranking party leader called for Obama to seek congressional approval before committing the United States to any anti-Qadhafi military operation.
Unlike president Bush, who responding to a direct attack on US soil, not only consult ed Congress but won overwhelming congressional support for his actions in Iraq, Obama ignored both the law and the Constitution and dictated military action against Libya at the direction of the UN. Obama supports and wants global governance and dictatorial powers for the president. His actions clearly indicate that he does not believe in the concept that sovereign nations have the right to rule themselves, including the United States of America. His actions indicate that he believes that he and the UN not Congress have the power to determine if, when, and where the awesome violent power of the US Military is used.
Both Democrats and Republicans in congress know what Obama has done is not only unconstitutional but illegal. What Obama knows is that congress is made of wimps, whose only worry is how to keep themselves in power, and keep money flowing into their own coffers. As such Obama clearly has no fear of congress. He knows that even if congress did impeach him, which they won’t, the Democrat party controlled Senate, would not hold a trial and if it did would not convict him. The reason Obama didn’t consult congress is because he knows regardless of the constitution and the law he has the power to ignore congress. The reality is that the rule of law, equal protection under the law, and constitutionally limited government are dead.
Obama was a professor of Constitutional Law, so there is no doubt he knows about the constitution and the limits on the presidency, and knows about the further restrictions that Congress has put on the President. The laws and Constitution of the United States are very clear, concerning the use of the US Military. The President can send U.S. armed forces into action abroad ONLY by authorization of Congress or if the United States is already under attack or serious threat. What Obama has demonstrated is that although he knows the law and the limits on the presidency, he doesn’t care about them and that to advance his agenda he holds the same beliefs that former president Richard M. Nixon expressed in his famous David Frost interview, “If the president does it it’s not illegal!”
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
The Government Owns You!
Wow, that’s a sensational title for this article. How dare I make such an outlandish claim? Simple, it’s true. You no longer own yourself, but are the property of the government. True the government doesn’t choose to exercise total control over you, its property, but it does lay claim to you as property.
The government is slowly but surely doing away with private property rights, including the most precious property right, the right to yourself. The very idea that you can secure property and use it as you see fit, so long as you don’t use it to infringe upon the rights of another, is the heart of the beliefs that formed this nation. If you want to purchase a motorcycle, and ride it around your land, your free to do so, you can fuel it with alcohol or gasoline, you can take care of it or store it under a tree, you can even ride it up a ramp do a back flip and crash it into your own pond (thus destroying or damaging your motorcycle). That motorcycle is your property, you can crush it, throw it away, do whatever you want with it so long as you don’t infringe upon somebody else’s rights. Nobody would argue that, as you own it.
Now you don’t own your body, the government has laid claim to it, and for the protection of their property not only determines what you can and can’t do with it, what you can and can’t voluntarily feed it, but even what you can and can’t know about your own body. Because they have claimed ownership of you, they claim the right to protect their property (your body) from you.
In the words of Alabama Rep. Parker Griffiths, "It's very difficult to protect the public from itself and its desire to be healthy." It seems the position of the Federal Government through the Food and Drug Administration is that your own genetic code is a controlled substance. Because of that the FDA has the controlling authority and as such determined that you must be prevented from receiving any information without first going through an FDA-approved authority. At least that’s what Alabama Rep. Parker Griffiths said in the 2010 congressional hearing into the direct-to-consumer genetic testing industry. The government says it has authority over what information about yourself, you may be permitted to acquire.
Consider laws that infringe upon you right to yourself. The FDA now claims the authority to not just require that the information be available so that you know what is in what you are eating, but actually control the contents of what you choose to purchase just because you may not choose to eat what the FDA has determined is in your own best interest. The government now accepts the idea that the FDA’s job is to "protect the public from itself."
Does the idea that the of government as controller of what kind of light bulb you must purchase to illuminate your living space, what you are allowed to eat, right down to what you know about yourself, disturb you at all?
What moral or political basis is there to justify the government determining what information about your own body that you should be permitted to acquire? The only moral or political reasoning that could justify such a position is based on the assumption that the government has a greater right to you than you do yourself. In essence this assumes that the government owns you and can determine, what it thinks you should and shouldn’t know.
Assume you’ve amassed some wealth, paid every dime of taxes the government wants, and you decide that you want to leave the country with a million dollars in gold coins, can you? The answer is No you can’t. Since you can’t, is it truly your property? Do you own your house, or is it the government’s property, and they allow you a “title” in exchange for annual rent (property taxes)? If it’s truly your property, not the governments, then why do you have to pay for it every year?
Slave owners determine what their slaves are taught, what they can be exposed to, what they eat, what they can wear, etc. To keep a slave happy and productive, certain freedoms are allowed but controlled. According to the World Dictionary a slave is a person legally owned by another and having no freedom of action or right to property. According to the U.S. Government, you don’t even have the right to knowledge about your own body, or the right to choose what food you want to use to fuel your own body. If you don’t have the right to yourself, self-ownership, and although we are allowed some freedoms to keep us happy and productive, are we actually slaves of the Federal Government, our masters.
Maybe it’s a bit extreme to say slaves; serfs may be a more apt description, but liberty, freedom, and self ownership are not words that can be used in a description of a people that must get their masters permission to learn what’s in their own DNA.
The government is slowly but surely doing away with private property rights, including the most precious property right, the right to yourself. The very idea that you can secure property and use it as you see fit, so long as you don’t use it to infringe upon the rights of another, is the heart of the beliefs that formed this nation. If you want to purchase a motorcycle, and ride it around your land, your free to do so, you can fuel it with alcohol or gasoline, you can take care of it or store it under a tree, you can even ride it up a ramp do a back flip and crash it into your own pond (thus destroying or damaging your motorcycle). That motorcycle is your property, you can crush it, throw it away, do whatever you want with it so long as you don’t infringe upon somebody else’s rights. Nobody would argue that, as you own it.
Now you don’t own your body, the government has laid claim to it, and for the protection of their property not only determines what you can and can’t do with it, what you can and can’t voluntarily feed it, but even what you can and can’t know about your own body. Because they have claimed ownership of you, they claim the right to protect their property (your body) from you.
In the words of Alabama Rep. Parker Griffiths, "It's very difficult to protect the public from itself and its desire to be healthy." It seems the position of the Federal Government through the Food and Drug Administration is that your own genetic code is a controlled substance. Because of that the FDA has the controlling authority and as such determined that you must be prevented from receiving any information without first going through an FDA-approved authority. At least that’s what Alabama Rep. Parker Griffiths said in the 2010 congressional hearing into the direct-to-consumer genetic testing industry. The government says it has authority over what information about yourself, you may be permitted to acquire.
Consider laws that infringe upon you right to yourself. The FDA now claims the authority to not just require that the information be available so that you know what is in what you are eating, but actually control the contents of what you choose to purchase just because you may not choose to eat what the FDA has determined is in your own best interest. The government now accepts the idea that the FDA’s job is to "protect the public from itself."
Does the idea that the of government as controller of what kind of light bulb you must purchase to illuminate your living space, what you are allowed to eat, right down to what you know about yourself, disturb you at all?
What moral or political basis is there to justify the government determining what information about your own body that you should be permitted to acquire? The only moral or political reasoning that could justify such a position is based on the assumption that the government has a greater right to you than you do yourself. In essence this assumes that the government owns you and can determine, what it thinks you should and shouldn’t know.
Assume you’ve amassed some wealth, paid every dime of taxes the government wants, and you decide that you want to leave the country with a million dollars in gold coins, can you? The answer is No you can’t. Since you can’t, is it truly your property? Do you own your house, or is it the government’s property, and they allow you a “title” in exchange for annual rent (property taxes)? If it’s truly your property, not the governments, then why do you have to pay for it every year?
Slave owners determine what their slaves are taught, what they can be exposed to, what they eat, what they can wear, etc. To keep a slave happy and productive, certain freedoms are allowed but controlled. According to the World Dictionary a slave is a person legally owned by another and having no freedom of action or right to property. According to the U.S. Government, you don’t even have the right to knowledge about your own body, or the right to choose what food you want to use to fuel your own body. If you don’t have the right to yourself, self-ownership, and although we are allowed some freedoms to keep us happy and productive, are we actually slaves of the Federal Government, our masters.
Maybe it’s a bit extreme to say slaves; serfs may be a more apt description, but liberty, freedom, and self ownership are not words that can be used in a description of a people that must get their masters permission to learn what’s in their own DNA.
Friday, March 11, 2011
The Truth will Set You Free
On August 21, 2010 Obama said the following, "The only people who don't want to disclose the truth are the people with something to hide."
The following is a list of some of the records that President Obama has refused to release to the public see:
educational records from kindergarten at Noelani Elementary through the swanky private Punahou School;
his SAT scores;
records from Occidental College that would reveal whether he attended as a foreign student;
the transcript of courses and grades he took at Occidental College, or Columbia University, or Harvard Law school.
his thesis written at Columbia on "Soviet Nuclear Disarmament," on which he reportedly spent a year of research;
his LSAT scores;
Harvard Law Review articles during the time he served as the first black president of the institution;
University of Chicago scholarly articles;
medical and health records;
files and schedules during his years as an Illinois state senator from 1997 through 2004;
If what Obama said is true, "The only people who don't want to disclose the truth are the people with something to hide," what is he trying to hide by not releasing those records?
The following is a list of some of the records that President Obama has refused to release to the public see:
If what Obama said is true, "The only people who don't want to disclose the truth are the people with something to hide," what is he trying to hide by not releasing those records?
Thursday, March 10, 2011
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
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
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Politifact Loses All Credibility.
Without using even a single outside source it is clear that Politifact has lot's it's credibility.
In claiming that the statement health care reform law a "government takeover" is a lie they clearly have to stretch the meaning of a lie and government takeover.
Here's what they said:
To Politifact if the government doesn't own hospitals, clinics, and medical practices they haven't taken them over. They even admit that the Obamacare has the "same effect" as a government takeover, but because they don't actually "own" the physical property they haven't taken over health care.
Since when has taking over something equated to owning something. Lots of bullies have taken over a playground without owning the property. Nobody would argue that TSA hasn't taken over control of airport security without actually owning the airports.
Obviously the credibility of Politifact as a source to determine if a politician in telling the truth or not has been dramatically compromised. Politifact has lost its credibility, and cannot be trusted, especially if the subject in question concerns Obama and his policies.
In claiming that the statement health care reform law a "government takeover" is a lie they clearly have to stretch the meaning of a lie and government takeover.
Here's what they said:
When government determines the limits of insurance coverage and medical fees and patient treatment through price controls, that's not a government takeover of health care. It may feel like one, it may have the same effect as one, but the federal government doesn't actually own the hospitals, clinics and medical practices. It just controls their prices and policies by controlling health insurance. Ergo, any talk of a government takeover of health care is not just wrong but a lie. Indeed, the biggest lie of the year.
To Politifact if the government doesn't own hospitals, clinics, and medical practices they haven't taken them over. They even admit that the Obamacare has the "same effect" as a government takeover, but because they don't actually "own" the physical property they haven't taken over health care.
Since when has taking over something equated to owning something. Lots of bullies have taken over a playground without owning the property. Nobody would argue that TSA hasn't taken over control of airport security without actually owning the airports.
Obviously the credibility of Politifact as a source to determine if a politician in telling the truth or not has been dramatically compromised. Politifact has lost its credibility, and cannot be trusted, especially if the subject in question concerns Obama and his policies.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
The Left is Very Confused
The left, mostly democrats and collectivists of all kinds, is presenting the country with a schism that is difficult to comprehend.
On one hand for decades the continually bombard us with the doctrine that the government is the solution to all our problems; that only the government can save us from ourselves.
On the other hand, they are supporting and promoting the unions and unionization of all government workers. This unionization implies that the workers need to be protected from the abuse of the government, who if not for the union’s power and collective bargaining would trample the rights and abuse government workers.
It appears as the very workers who deliver and are mechanism for the service the government provides is presenting themselves of victims of that same government.
Which is it, is the government the solution to our problems and protector of the people, or is it an evil monstrosity that the workers and people must be protected against?
On one hand for decades the continually bombard us with the doctrine that the government is the solution to all our problems; that only the government can save us from ourselves.
On the other hand, they are supporting and promoting the unions and unionization of all government workers. This unionization implies that the workers need to be protected from the abuse of the government, who if not for the union’s power and collective bargaining would trample the rights and abuse government workers.
It appears as the very workers who deliver and are mechanism for the service the government provides is presenting themselves of victims of that same government.
Which is it, is the government the solution to our problems and protector of the people, or is it an evil monstrosity that the workers and people must be protected against?
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
It’s not all Bad News
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday against government suppression of free speech. The Court ruled that Illinois students have the right to wear anti-gay shirt. The shirt in question said “Be Happy Not Gay.”
Justice took a long time. A teen sued in 2006 after school officials blacked out the words "Not Gay" on her T-shirt. The incident happened the day after a "Day of Silence," which was held to draw attention to the harassment of gay students.
The court rightly said a school that "permits advocacy of the rights of homosexual students cannot be allowed to stifle criticism of homosexuality."
This is clearly an action where the US courts correctly protected free speech. There is Hope for America as this is a clear indication that we live in a country of laws, where all laws apply equally to everybody. It’s easy to stand up for the rights of those we agree with but the true test of liberty is when we protect the rights of those whose opinions we don’t agree.
Justice took a long time. A teen sued in 2006 after school officials blacked out the words "Not Gay" on her T-shirt. The incident happened the day after a "Day of Silence," which was held to draw attention to the harassment of gay students.
The court rightly said a school that "permits advocacy of the rights of homosexual students cannot be allowed to stifle criticism of homosexuality."
This is clearly an action where the US courts correctly protected free speech. There is Hope for America as this is a clear indication that we live in a country of laws, where all laws apply equally to everybody. It’s easy to stand up for the rights of those we agree with but the true test of liberty is when we protect the rights of those whose opinions we don’t agree.
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