By Tom Rhodes
The ruling class, statists by nature, includes both Democrats and Republicans. The conventional thought is that back in 2010 the Democrats took a beating and the GOP made significant gains in both the House and Senate, in fact the Republicans took over the House. What the mainstream press tried to ignore the huge turnover in the GOP itself. There are about 100 so called “TEA Party Republicans” now in the House. The fact is the 2010 election scared the pants of both the Democrats and Republican’s. It was a loss not for one or the other political party, but a loss for statists, the ruling elite, and a win for small "L" libertarians.
Yesterday I told you about a Light Bulb Moment and described how the ruling elite in Washington treat the common man concerning something as simple as a light bulb clearly demonstrates the contempt the they have for you.
Let’s review; a statist is a person who believes in the principle or policy of concentrating extensive economic, political, and related controls in the state at the cost of individual liberty. Obama said this very clearly at his last press conference where he told you that you, the American People, that you’re too stupid to understand the national debt and deficit. This was a call to try and pressure the newly elected so called “TEA Party” representatives, to get in line and do as the ruling elite want.
Try as they might, the reality is you don’t have to have a PhD. in economics to understand that you cannot continue to increase your spending when you are buried in debt. When you have a debt problem, the solution is not more debt. Look at how fast both GM and Chrysler are trying to get from under the mountain of debt from their respective bailouts. Although they have had some modest plant expansions (mostly outside the US), they cut back severely on many areas, just look at the number of dealerships Chrysler eliminated. Look at what the EU is forcing on Greece to get its debt problem in order; massive cuts to government spending. We cannot just tax the rich to increase our revenue and keep on increasing our spending. Some very simple math will show you that even if you tax the rich at 100% it would not produce enough revenue to offset the massive spending increases.
A vast supermajority of Americans recognizes that big-government elites are driving us straight over the fiscal cliff. The tea party and its representatives in Congress realize this, and are willing to take a stand on expanding the debt. It doesn't take an advanced degree in economics to realize that as more and more money is borrowed and printed by the government, inflation and interest rates will increase. For every extra point in interest, we pay an additional $145 billion annually on our $14.5 trillion debt. You don’t have to be economist to realize that it’s a lie that without an increase in the debt ceiling the US will default on it’s debt. The current revenue is greater than total expenditures in 2005. The only reason the US government would default on its loans if the debt ceiling is not raised, is if it refused to cut other spending.
Statists just don’t have the courage to act in the nation's best interest. Both parties are beholden to interests that benefit from an increasingly powerful central government and its accompanying largess. The Democrats are indebted to the unions and special interests who receive government charity, the Republicans are indebted to big business who receives massive tax breaks. Both are indebted to Wall Street. To put it bluntly parties are bought and paid for. They are desperate to preserve this power. There's no real leadership in the structure of either party.
Just look at Obama’s stance on taxes. In 2009 he said that raising taxes in the time of a recession would hurt the economy. Because of his economic policies in the two years since then the economy has stagnated. Now he is saying that we must raise taxes. If he believed in 2009 that raising taxes would hurt the economy, and obviously the economy is not significantly improved now, they why is raising taxes now a good idea? Obama will say and do anything to further concentrate power in Washington, and specifically in the presidency. The Statists are upset, that the people got rid of both old Republicans and Democrats and elected some people who are not part of the ruling elite. The people have been Taxed Enough Already, thus formed the TEA Party.
The Statists in the GOP, are trying to lay claim to what is essentially a leaderless grass roots movement. Creating self proclaimed leaders of the TEA Party, while not actually having the support of the many local grass roots TEA Parties throughout the nation. The Democrats are demonizing the TEA Party in any whey they can. Both parties need to have the TEA Party movement neutralized because it is a threat to their power. The main stream press which has a vested interest in maintaining statists, is also helping to demonize and minimize the TEA Party. Since the rise of the TEA party there we see significant increases to attacking the Libertarian Party and libertarians in general. The reason is that the vision of the TEA Party, is essentially the same vision that our founding fathers had, and is in essence libertarian.
The ruling elite, statists both Democrat and Republican, don’t believe in the basic tenants of the American idea; liberty. Their actions and deeds show that they don not believe in the Rule of Law. They do not believe in equal treatment under the law. They do not believe in private property rights. They believe that you are just part of the masses and are to be controlled, socially engineered, and milked of your assets.
Statists want to change the very nature of this country. This country unlike any other in history, put real power in the hands of the people. Today depending on the poll you look at between 60% and 70% of the people do not want the debt limit of the USA to be raised. We know that spending is out of control, that taxes are too high, and that the so called stimulus by the government has failed, that we are in wars that are not in our best interest, and that the government now treats the people as an enemy. 235 years ago, the people of this country slapped the face of statists the world over. We declared that the people, not some ruling elite, are in charge and created a government structure designed to treat everybody equally and severely restrict statism. That first shot of the Revolutionary wars was heard around the world, because it declared that no elite had the right to tell any others how to live.
It’s taken a couple centuries, but once again we are divided into the nobles and serfs. The nobles believe that you a mere serf cannot take care of yourself, and if you can then you’ve must have cheated the nobles from their just due. What you earn is theirs first, and they allow you to keep that portion they think you deserve. They grant favors and privileges to those whom they favor and take from those they don’t. They not you know how best to use the fruits of your labor. Since they know what’s best for everybody, and that you are too stupid, inept, or lazy to take care of yourself, they have for your own good taken control. They see themselves as separate and above the people and treat “we the people” as serfs or enemies. As proof of this, we see the militarization of our police and the blatant attacks by the government on the Bill of Rights and Constitution. Think about it, the ruling elite and their lackeys in the main stream press, try to make anybody who would try and hold the government to the limits of the constitution as radicals to be feared.
The very idea that the people would not choose representatives who the statists have decided should win but instead chose representatives who now elected refuse to allow the ruling class to spend all that they want, borrow as much as they want, representatives who pledged not to raise taxes but to curtail Washington’s spending and are keep those pledges. This galls statists. How dare these “freshman” who don’t know how things work, obstruct the ruling elite. The elected representatives who are actually doing what a supermajority of the people want are not the problem. It’s the ruling class who doesn’t want to be held accountable, and wants to dictate to the people instead of work for the people, and who will protect their power over the will and good of the people that are the problem.
The people have spoken and continue to speak. The majority clearly want smaller government, big cuts in government spending. Not to say that the people want no government, but we do want the government downsized. Statists know that decreasing government spending decreases their power. The Republicans have proven that they will expand government as fast as the Democrats, the difference only between the two is who they want to buy off with government largess not whether they seek expansion in government. Think about who you vote for, does that person trust you or is that person a statist who believes that the power of the state is more important than your liberty. If a politician or candidate thinks that your too stupid to know and act in your own best interests, they are a statist, and considers themselves to be a noble entitled to rule over you a mere serf. Statists do not care about your liberty or well being, they care about their power.
You can always think of it another way. In government there have always been two camps, not left-right nor Republican-Democrat, but one that thinks government power should be used to further the ideals of those in government, and the other that thinks government should have as little power as possible, allowing the people to further their own ideals. The fight is not between Democrats and Republicans, it’s between statists wanting more and more power for government and the people who want freedom and liberty. What camp are you in?
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
A Light Bulb Moment
By Tom Rhodes, July 11, 2011
The difference between statists and libertarians, statists being the bulk of both Democrats and Republicans, is that the statists believe they know what’s best for you, and don’t think you should have the liberty to choose what you think is in your own best interest. This is called the Nanny State, or paternalism. The government wants to take away your choice. It doesn’t trust you to make your own choices. Do you get that? The government doesn’t trust you.
The best description between libertarians and statists can be represented by the lowly light bulb. Statists have decided that you are too stupid to pick the right light bulb; therefore they are taking away your freedom to choose how you want to light up your private living space. Libertarians on the other hand, don’t think that the choice of how to illuminate your private living space is any business of the government.
The reasoning for using one type of light bulb over another goes far beyond just energy usage, other factors include; quality of the light provided, the initial cost, the total cost of ownership, and even heat. Yes HEAT, the energy used by an incandescent light bulb that does not go to making light is heat, some say wasted heat. The fact is in a small well insulated house the heat produced from lighting is not wasted, and may provide enough warmth to negate the need for additional heating, and certainly supplements heating during the colder months. This heat when chilly, if it doesn’t come from a light bulb will have to come from some other source. Your thermostat doesn’t know where the heat it is measuring came from, furnace, space heater, or light bulb, it makes no difference.
Some of you don’t like the way the new bulbs come on slowly. Some of you don’t like the curlicue shape. Some of you don’t like not being able to attach your lamp shade to the bulb. Some of you just don’t like cold flickery fluorescent light. Some of you have noticed that CFL’s don’t in fact last longer than incandescent bulbs, and cost a lot more. Some of you are skeptical about promises of long-term savings. Some of you don’t want to spend more for a CFL now. Yet others of you hate having to shut down your furnace, air conditioner, and/or fans, evacuate all children and pets, and treat your home like a hazardous waste site if you happen to break a carcinogenic mercury filled CFL type light bulb.
It doesn’t matter what you need or what you prefer or what you think is in your own best interests. The government has decided that the only concern is watts per lumen, and you are too stupid to realize that. Your other wants and needs are not as relevant. Because the government thinks you’re too stupid to realize that your needs are subservient to the government desires, it doesn’t trust you to make the decision they want you to make, so has taken away your freedom to make that choice.
It doesn’t matter whether a statist calls themselves a Democrat or Republican, they believe in statism. Statism is the principle or policy of concentrating extensive economic, political, and related controls in the state at the cost of individual liberty. When the government decries what light bulb you must use, or what food you can eat, or how much you should save, they are saying to you that you are too ignorant, too weak-willed, and computationally too incompetent to satisfy your real or underlying preferences. You save too little for your retirement because you are overly impatient and cannot postpone spending. You eat too many calories because you ignore the costs of future illness due to obesity.
This is the difference between statists and libertarians in a nutshell. Statists don’t trust you and believe that they are better able to decide what’s best for your life than you can; so they take away your freedom (choice) for your own good. Libertarians believe that the state can’t possibly know what’s best for every individual so you and every individual should have the freedom to choose what you feel is in your own best interest. Statists simply put hate freedom.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
What do Libertarians Believe
By Tom Rhodes, 7/10/2011
About a week ago on the Liberty Underground radio show, the Florida Chair of the Libertarian Party called out anarchists to defend their position. He wisely noted that the acceptance of anarchist positions was hurting the acceptance of libertarian ideas. The Libertarian Party must shed its acceptance of anarchy as a legitimate form of government and distance itself from anarchists if it is ever to gain acceptance in the eyes of the American People.
This is going to be very difficult. Prominent “libertarians” with no association with the Libertarian Party are consistently putting out libertine and anarchist positions as libertarian. Here it is important to note that libertarianism is not synonymous with libertinism. While some libertines (and some libertarians) find nothing at all morally wrong with prostitution, most libertarians believe that while it is morally wrong they understand that because it is a victimless crime the state has no legitimate role in enforcing it. Prostitution, like drug use and abuse, directly harms only the voluntary participant.
As Libertarians we often reference organizations such as The Ludwig von Mises Institute It is an online journal for libertarian scholarship. It has been and is a great source of scholarly work concerning libertarian philosophy. It is not associated with the Libertarian Party. The problem is that accepting and promoting articles from the Mises Institute we are left having to defend ideas that are clearly libertine not libertarian or acceptable to the general public. The vast majority of the work at the Mises Institute is great, but some articles, like Stateless in Somalia, and Loving It, hurt us.
The idea that the anarchy of Somalia is acceptable is absurd. With good reason Somalia is noted for its piracy, chaos, poverty and oppression not for its liberty. Clearly it is easy to see that in Somalia the reality is that the only rights individuals have are those that they can protect themselves. The kidnapping, murder, and lack of any protection for the rights of those not favored by the local war lord are clearly not the type of government the people of the USA want to even consider. The Utopian ideas of anarchists when actually implemented resulted in dystopic Somalia.Just as the utopian ideas of communism where implemented result in poverty and oppression and the murder of millions of citizens by their communist governments.
The idea that anarchy will ever function is a utopic ideology based on the same idea liberals use to promote socialism; the idea that people are basically good. It is contrary to the foundations of the USA, which was based on the idea that people are not basically good, and that even the people in government cannot be trusted, so power is limited, distributed, and dispersed. This country was founded on the idea that “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.”
The reality is that in an anarchy only those with the wealth, strength, or power to secure their own rights have any rights. In an anarchy the guy who is the strongest, or has the fastest gun, or most ruthless, has power over those who are not as strong, as fast, or ruthless. Freedom is not free, the cost is measured in many things not just money but also blood and acceptance of a certain amount of uncertainty. Our society which used to believe in liberty for all, was built with the understanding that the people instituted a government for the purpose of protecting the natural rights of everybody equally. As Libertarians we cannot accept or promote anarchist ideology. This ideology is contrary to the foundations of the USA, and contrary to the entire history of mankind. Like other utopian philosophies the reality of its implementation is not acceptable.
Libertarian Philosophy is being attacked right now from both the Left and the Right. We no longer have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The statists both left and right who want power and control are again in charge. It took time, a short time in the history of man, but once again the majority of people have property and wealth at the benevolence of the ruling elite. Self-rule and freedom is fleeting. Freedom is not the natural condition for man. History has shown that freedom has occasionally existed for short periods of time but has never lasted long. The natural condition is for a few powerful elite to live in relative ease with armies to back them up through force or threat of force to control the resources and people with the vast majority living in poverty. Today the government determines what portion of your labor (as measured by income) you are allowed to keep, they do allow the people to keep most of their wages, but there is nothing stopping them from taking it all. They carefully weight and measure what will maximize the peoples output, they know if they take too much the people will quit working, but the goal is never to see how little they can take but always how to maximize the power and wealth of government. This is a far cry from the form and type of government envisioned at our founding.
Our condition is rapidly deteriorating back to some form of feudalistic oligarchy. Libertarians recognize this but the Libertarian Party has historically presented not only the recognition that we no longer live in a free society, but we stupidly have allowed anarchist ideas into our midst. These ideas hurt not help the cause of liberty; they make libertarians look like either kooks, or cruel heartless robber barons. Check out this site Make Or Break Views Of Libertarianism. This site clearly states the image problem of the Libertarian Party. “Many libertarian statements take consistancy (sic)to such extreme positions, that it can make or break the acceptance of the ideas.” The site starts with an attack on the LP Platform, saying;
Now the critic does use huge laps in logic and equates wanting to end government welfare to baby selling, but the essence of what the critique says is that Libertarians are anarchist libertine kooks who want to allow big business to pollute your air, and take away your rights. Of course the 2010 party platform doesn’t advocate baby selling and is significantly different than the 2004 platform. Making this critique almost libelous.
The changes to our national platform over the years, removing the extremist anarchist positions are helping and a good thing. Compare the LP Florida platform to the national LP platform, and you will see differences which reflect libertarian vs libertine ideology. Libertarian philosophy, is understood and accepted by most Americans. The massive rise of the TEA Party is proof, the fact that the people are rising under the auspices of libertarian philosophy but not joining the Libertarian Party should cause the LP to reflect upon itself.
The LP needs to embrace completely the ideas which were the foundation of this country. Take to heart that we the people instituted a government to secure the natural rights of the people. We as a party need to denounce and distance ourselves from anarchist ideology. Adrian Wyllie, chairman of the Libertarian Party of Florida made a good start on Liberty Underground.
As Libertarians, we need to counter wherever we find it, and call out those who would lie about our objectives and ideas. Allowing anarchist ideology, or statist twisting of our objectives to put fear and doubt into the American people about what Libertarians are, is only hurting the LP. We in the LPF must work at getting the LP to recognize that it’s acceptance of anarchism as a legitimate libertarian viewpoint is hurting the party, and is not acceptable by the American people for good reason. Don’t let others tell you what Libertarians are, ask Libertarians. These are the Objectives of the Libertarian Party, You can see them for yourselves at www.lpf.org. The Objectives of the LPF are to:
Recognizing absolute freedom of speech, religion, and association
Demanding Constitutionally-limited government
Ensuring minimal taxation and balanced budgets
Defending property rights
Asserting sovereignty of the State from unconstitutional federal interference
Asserting sovereignty of the Republic from unconstitutional international interference
Upholding the Second Amendment and the absolute right to self defense
Promoting a true free market economy
Defending personal privacy and the Fourth Amendment
Promoting strong national defense through a Constitutional foreign policy
Ending government corruption
Ensuring no individual, corporation or government is above the rule of law
Ending prohibitions on all personal activities that do not infringe upon the rights of others
About a week ago on the Liberty Underground radio show, the Florida Chair of the Libertarian Party called out anarchists to defend their position. He wisely noted that the acceptance of anarchist positions was hurting the acceptance of libertarian ideas. The Libertarian Party must shed its acceptance of anarchy as a legitimate form of government and distance itself from anarchists if it is ever to gain acceptance in the eyes of the American People.
This is going to be very difficult. Prominent “libertarians” with no association with the Libertarian Party are consistently putting out libertine and anarchist positions as libertarian. Here it is important to note that libertarianism is not synonymous with libertinism. While some libertines (and some libertarians) find nothing at all morally wrong with prostitution, most libertarians believe that while it is morally wrong they understand that because it is a victimless crime the state has no legitimate role in enforcing it. Prostitution, like drug use and abuse, directly harms only the voluntary participant.
As Libertarians we often reference organizations such as The Ludwig von Mises Institute It is an online journal for libertarian scholarship. It has been and is a great source of scholarly work concerning libertarian philosophy. It is not associated with the Libertarian Party. The problem is that accepting and promoting articles from the Mises Institute we are left having to defend ideas that are clearly libertine not libertarian or acceptable to the general public. The vast majority of the work at the Mises Institute is great, but some articles, like Stateless in Somalia, and Loving It, hurt us.
The idea that the anarchy of Somalia is acceptable is absurd. With good reason Somalia is noted for its piracy, chaos, poverty and oppression not for its liberty. Clearly it is easy to see that in Somalia the reality is that the only rights individuals have are those that they can protect themselves. The kidnapping, murder, and lack of any protection for the rights of those not favored by the local war lord are clearly not the type of government the people of the USA want to even consider. The Utopian ideas of anarchists when actually implemented resulted in dystopic Somalia.Just as the utopian ideas of communism where implemented result in poverty and oppression and the murder of millions of citizens by their communist governments.
The idea that anarchy will ever function is a utopic ideology based on the same idea liberals use to promote socialism; the idea that people are basically good. It is contrary to the foundations of the USA, which was based on the idea that people are not basically good, and that even the people in government cannot be trusted, so power is limited, distributed, and dispersed. This country was founded on the idea that “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.”
The reality is that in an anarchy only those with the wealth, strength, or power to secure their own rights have any rights. In an anarchy the guy who is the strongest, or has the fastest gun, or most ruthless, has power over those who are not as strong, as fast, or ruthless. Freedom is not free, the cost is measured in many things not just money but also blood and acceptance of a certain amount of uncertainty. Our society which used to believe in liberty for all, was built with the understanding that the people instituted a government for the purpose of protecting the natural rights of everybody equally. As Libertarians we cannot accept or promote anarchist ideology. This ideology is contrary to the foundations of the USA, and contrary to the entire history of mankind. Like other utopian philosophies the reality of its implementation is not acceptable.
Libertarian Philosophy is being attacked right now from both the Left and the Right. We no longer have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The statists both left and right who want power and control are again in charge. It took time, a short time in the history of man, but once again the majority of people have property and wealth at the benevolence of the ruling elite. Self-rule and freedom is fleeting. Freedom is not the natural condition for man. History has shown that freedom has occasionally existed for short periods of time but has never lasted long. The natural condition is for a few powerful elite to live in relative ease with armies to back them up through force or threat of force to control the resources and people with the vast majority living in poverty. Today the government determines what portion of your labor (as measured by income) you are allowed to keep, they do allow the people to keep most of their wages, but there is nothing stopping them from taking it all. They carefully weight and measure what will maximize the peoples output, they know if they take too much the people will quit working, but the goal is never to see how little they can take but always how to maximize the power and wealth of government. This is a far cry from the form and type of government envisioned at our founding.
Our condition is rapidly deteriorating back to some form of feudalistic oligarchy. Libertarians recognize this but the Libertarian Party has historically presented not only the recognition that we no longer live in a free society, but we stupidly have allowed anarchist ideas into our midst. These ideas hurt not help the cause of liberty; they make libertarians look like either kooks, or cruel heartless robber barons. Check out this site Make Or Break Views Of Libertarianism. This site clearly states the image problem of the Libertarian Party. “Many libertarian statements take consistancy (sic)to such extreme positions, that it can make or break the acceptance of the ideas.” The site starts with an attack on the LP Platform, saying;
National Platform of the Libertarian Party
The 2004 platform is still as ridiculously extreme as its predecessors. It calls for legalization of baby selling, polygamy, secession, child prostitution, all drugs, insider trading, etc. It calls for abolition of public schools, medicaid, and Social Security, patents, and copyrights. And even privatization of air. All that and lots more, cloaked in vague statements of "liberty", and now carefully sanitized so that non-libertarians won't realize how truly extreme it is.
Now the critic does use huge laps in logic and equates wanting to end government welfare to baby selling, but the essence of what the critique says is that Libertarians are anarchist libertine kooks who want to allow big business to pollute your air, and take away your rights. Of course the 2010 party platform doesn’t advocate baby selling and is significantly different than the 2004 platform. Making this critique almost libelous.
The changes to our national platform over the years, removing the extremist anarchist positions are helping and a good thing. Compare the LP Florida platform to the national LP platform, and you will see differences which reflect libertarian vs libertine ideology. Libertarian philosophy, is understood and accepted by most Americans. The massive rise of the TEA Party is proof, the fact that the people are rising under the auspices of libertarian philosophy but not joining the Libertarian Party should cause the LP to reflect upon itself.
The LP needs to embrace completely the ideas which were the foundation of this country. Take to heart that we the people instituted a government to secure the natural rights of the people. We as a party need to denounce and distance ourselves from anarchist ideology. Adrian Wyllie, chairman of the Libertarian Party of Florida made a good start on Liberty Underground.
As Libertarians, we need to counter wherever we find it, and call out those who would lie about our objectives and ideas. Allowing anarchist ideology, or statist twisting of our objectives to put fear and doubt into the American people about what Libertarians are, is only hurting the LP. We in the LPF must work at getting the LP to recognize that it’s acceptance of anarchism as a legitimate libertarian viewpoint is hurting the party, and is not acceptable by the American people for good reason. Don’t let others tell you what Libertarians are, ask Libertarians. These are the Objectives of the Libertarian Party, You can see them for yourselves at www.lpf.org. The Objectives of the LPF are to:
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Are We Free Men or Serfs?
by Tom Rhodes, 7/7/2011
Capitalism is nothing more than a subcategory of freedom – the freedom to trade one's goods and services with others without interference from government. When somebody talks about the "evils of capitalism" they are saying that freedom is evil. The idea that people should not be allowed to trade their property (goods) and labor (services) to others without the government interfering is not freedom.
The government’s sole responsibility concerning commerce in a free society should be to protect individual’s rights. This has traditionally been done by the government providing impartial judges and courts that allow individuals to sue other individuals when they believe that individual has not honored the contracted terms of their free exchange of property and/or labor.
Self-rule and freedom is fleeting. Freedom is not the natural condition for man. History has shown that freedom has occasionally existed for short periods of time but has never lasted long. The natural condition is for a few powerful elite to live in relative ease with armies to back them up through force or threat of force to control the resources and people with the vast majority living in poverty. The conditions today of the people living in Zimbabwe, Somalia or Afghanistan are more in line with historic norms for all of mankind than the conditions seen by the average man in the USA over the past two hundred years. The Idea of freedom and liberty for all is not easy to keep, or implement. Even the first 87 years of US history with legal slavery, is proof enough of that. As the saying goes “Freedom is not Free.” It has many costs.
One of the costs of freedom is uncertainty, as people are free to trade or not trade, hire or not hire, purchase or not purchase, work or not work. When people are free, they can compete, when there is competition then some people win and some lose. That means your business and hard work may or may not succeed, and if it fails you may lose your livelihood and cost those who work for you their livelihoods. This cost of freedom, uncertainty, is a high cost that some are not willing to pay. Many people will trade their freedom for certainty. They may not be as well off as they could be free, but the certainty of food, shelter, etc. is worth more to them than their freedom.
Some people with "vision" use this as a means to undermine freedom and make themselves the ruling elite. They promise that if you give me control, I will take away the uncertainty and you will be taken care of no matter what happens in life. These same people when in power, actively work to limit competition. Granting favors to companies and individual that help them keep their power, and making it harder for new people to enter into competing business.
Our country was made great by having a government that protected the natural rights, including property rights of all individuals equally. This did not result in equal outcomes as some through timing, hard work, competition, and natural ability do better than others. Overall by protecting freedom we did produce the most prosperous and generous society the world has ever seen. The very nature of our country was a slap in the face to the ruling elite across the world. Over the past century, those who would rule and control who is wealthy and who isn’t have slowly corrupted our country and the freedom we had is ebbing away. For our first 140 or so years, as a free country, although some people gained great wealth the difference between the top and bottom in the USA was not so great. As we gave away our freedom and embraced socialist ideas such as “from each according to his ability, to each according to their need” we have seen a greater disparity between rich and poor. By using the idea of certainty in our needs instead of freedom to pursue our needs and desires, we have allowed once again a few to concentrate power and wealth amongst themselves.
Once the idea that people have a right to the goods and services of another that they need, not just the right to trade for those goods and services freely, and that some ruling elite has the right to use force to make it so, we accepted the end of freedom and are once again on the path to subjugation. The idea that charity is not charity but a right is perverted. Nobody has the right to the labor or justly acquired property of another. Ideas such as the ruling elite have the authority to “spread the wealth” are anti-freedom. Once we accept the fact that a few elites have the right to the product of all risk and labor of the people (as measured by income) and use it as they see fit (providing for themselves and others in society) we are once again serfs, not free men. Although they allow people to keep a portion of their labor, the idea is that the government owns all your labor and determines what portion you may keep for yourself. This is no different than feudal serfdom or slavery.
This is not to say that free men don’t have a duty to pay taxes. For most if its life our Government survived on tariffs, user fees, postage, and other taxes. Direct taxation of labor was unconstitutional. There are problems collecting these kinds of taxes. One is the people see the tax directly so are conscious of what the government is taking. Another is that if the people feel a tax is unjust or usurious, not only do they change their vote, but find a means to avoid the tax, again adding a layer of uncertainty to government revenue. Another is that that if people choose to live frugally then the government revenue is decreased, and so revenue was uncertain. Demonstrating again a cost of freedom is uncertainty. By taxing labor (income), regardless of how a person chooses to live, or what government services he chooses to use, the government not the people is in charge and has control. The aristocracy finds this much easier to manage than being at the will and whim of the people.
Freedom in the USA is fleeting; the police no longer serve and protect the people, but are enforcers of arbitrary wishes of the ruling elite who pay them; no longer do judges serve as impartial arbiters of justice, both Actus Reus Versus Mens Rea are legal concepts our ruling elite no longer consider; Our government lays claim ownership of our real property and labor, you only rent your property and do not own it, and the government only allows you to keep that portion of your earnings they grant you. You are no longer free to trade your property and labor to others without government interference.
How are we now any different than feudal serfs, other than we vote for our aristocracy? A person no longer owns property, they rent it from the elected aristocracy, if the aristocracy thinks it can get more rent from somebody else, they will kick you out and give it to another. The aristocracy is your overseer and claims first right to your labor, they get your income first, and we serfs are allowed to keep that portion of our labor they allow. If they were truly taxing our income then you’d get a tax bill on a regular basis and pay your taxes. That doesn’t happen because the aristocracy doesn’t trust the people, as the people would revolt in mass if they had to actually pay taxes, so the aristocracy take our income before we ever see it and only allow us to keep a portion of it.
If the poor schlep making $24K working two jobs was forced to write a $1000 check every three months then file in April to get some of it back, we’d see a lot smaller government in a short time. If taxes weren’t reasonable the average citizen would non-violently revolt by simply not sending in his taxes. If a mere 5% of the people simply refused to pay taxes (that’s over 15 Million People) what could the government do? They couldn’t bring that many people up on charges, have a jury trial, and put them in jail. It would so overwhelm the government as to cripple it with both a loss of revenue and an overloaded court system. Knowing this the ruling elite slowly changed the system so that the average Joe only get’s what the government determines he should, and is none the wiser.
The aristocracy has declared that they have first right to all labor and by not taxing the least productive serfs they have purchased votes to maintain their aristocratic positions. They use the tried and true method of “Bread and Circuses” to keep a large part of the masses in compliance. Of course they keep rules in place that don’t allow for people without power to compete with those the aristocracy favors, and generously reward those whom support their power.
The normal condition for man is for a few ruling elite to wield power and force over the vast majority of people who live in poverty. The USA with its notions of freedom and self-rule will not last, freedom never has. The aristocracy will drive the country into financial ruin to gain power. Their goals are not prosperity, freedom, and independence for all, but the re-concentration of power into the hands of a few. We are seeing huge crushing attacks on freedom, like the patriot act and its renewal. I hope I’m wrong but if I’m right we will soon see more limits on free speech and assembly, watch for stricter controls of the internet, specifically YouTube, blogs, and who can report news. If I’m right we will see attacks on independent media, and attempts to control all news, and the exposure to the infringement of our freedoms. If I’m right we will see appeals to the UN or other International bodies to have greater authority than our Constitution. If I’m right we will see the aristocracy try to disarm the people as they have in Europe and other far less free societies. Project “Gunrunner” is just the tip if the iceberg for the aristocracy to try and find justification to disarm the serfs. Once disarmed the march back towards serfdom is inevitable. Already they have demonized weapons, and are trying to change the rationale behind the Second Amendment to exclude the idea that it was included not for hunting or self protection from criminals, but as a means for the people to be armed enough to stop a tyrannical government.
They have already convinced a significant portion of the population that they have a right to the goods and services of others without having to pay for them. In fact the aristocracy has convinced a significant portion of the population that their mere existence “entitles” them to the goods and services of others. Once the idea that individuals do not have rights to personal property and labor, and the idea that the aristocracy can take away the uncertainty that accompanies freedom and make everybody’s life secure by controlling the distributing all property and labor as they see fit, freedom is no longer valued. In fact freedom is considered selfish and evil, because if people are free and have individual rights, then the masses don’t have the right to property and services they haven’t earned.
Our founding fathers started with a Declaration of Independence, not the declaration to “spread the wealth.” They used words like Freedom, Independence and Liberty. Each of which refers to a dearth of undue restrictions and an opportunity to implement one's rights and powers. Freedom emphasizes the opportunity given for the implementation of one's rights, powers, desires, or the like: freedom of speech or conscience; freedom of movement. Independence implies not only lack of restrictions but also the ability to stand alone, unsustained by anything else: Independence of thought promotes invention and discovery. This of course carries the implication that others cannot be forced to sustain you should you fail. Capitalism is nothing more than a subcategory of freedom - the freedom to produce, trade, and consume any goods and services acquired without the use of force, fraud or theft. Freedom, Independence and Liberty are embodied in the rule of law, property rights and freedom of contract, and characterized by external and internal openness of the markets, the protection of property rights and freedom of economic initiative. The ruling elite in Washington are now compromising all that has embodied Freedom in the USA.
Capitalism is nothing more than a subcategory of freedom – the freedom to trade one's goods and services with others without interference from government. When somebody talks about the "evils of capitalism" they are saying that freedom is evil. The idea that people should not be allowed to trade their property (goods) and labor (services) to others without the government interfering is not freedom.
The government’s sole responsibility concerning commerce in a free society should be to protect individual’s rights. This has traditionally been done by the government providing impartial judges and courts that allow individuals to sue other individuals when they believe that individual has not honored the contracted terms of their free exchange of property and/or labor.
Self-rule and freedom is fleeting. Freedom is not the natural condition for man. History has shown that freedom has occasionally existed for short periods of time but has never lasted long. The natural condition is for a few powerful elite to live in relative ease with armies to back them up through force or threat of force to control the resources and people with the vast majority living in poverty. The conditions today of the people living in Zimbabwe, Somalia or Afghanistan are more in line with historic norms for all of mankind than the conditions seen by the average man in the USA over the past two hundred years. The Idea of freedom and liberty for all is not easy to keep, or implement. Even the first 87 years of US history with legal slavery, is proof enough of that. As the saying goes “Freedom is not Free.” It has many costs.
One of the costs of freedom is uncertainty, as people are free to trade or not trade, hire or not hire, purchase or not purchase, work or not work. When people are free, they can compete, when there is competition then some people win and some lose. That means your business and hard work may or may not succeed, and if it fails you may lose your livelihood and cost those who work for you their livelihoods. This cost of freedom, uncertainty, is a high cost that some are not willing to pay. Many people will trade their freedom for certainty. They may not be as well off as they could be free, but the certainty of food, shelter, etc. is worth more to them than their freedom.
Some people with "vision" use this as a means to undermine freedom and make themselves the ruling elite. They promise that if you give me control, I will take away the uncertainty and you will be taken care of no matter what happens in life. These same people when in power, actively work to limit competition. Granting favors to companies and individual that help them keep their power, and making it harder for new people to enter into competing business.
Our country was made great by having a government that protected the natural rights, including property rights of all individuals equally. This did not result in equal outcomes as some through timing, hard work, competition, and natural ability do better than others. Overall by protecting freedom we did produce the most prosperous and generous society the world has ever seen. The very nature of our country was a slap in the face to the ruling elite across the world. Over the past century, those who would rule and control who is wealthy and who isn’t have slowly corrupted our country and the freedom we had is ebbing away. For our first 140 or so years, as a free country, although some people gained great wealth the difference between the top and bottom in the USA was not so great. As we gave away our freedom and embraced socialist ideas such as “from each according to his ability, to each according to their need” we have seen a greater disparity between rich and poor. By using the idea of certainty in our needs instead of freedom to pursue our needs and desires, we have allowed once again a few to concentrate power and wealth amongst themselves.
Once the idea that people have a right to the goods and services of another that they need, not just the right to trade for those goods and services freely, and that some ruling elite has the right to use force to make it so, we accepted the end of freedom and are once again on the path to subjugation. The idea that charity is not charity but a right is perverted. Nobody has the right to the labor or justly acquired property of another. Ideas such as the ruling elite have the authority to “spread the wealth” are anti-freedom. Once we accept the fact that a few elites have the right to the product of all risk and labor of the people (as measured by income) and use it as they see fit (providing for themselves and others in society) we are once again serfs, not free men. Although they allow people to keep a portion of their labor, the idea is that the government owns all your labor and determines what portion you may keep for yourself. This is no different than feudal serfdom or slavery.
This is not to say that free men don’t have a duty to pay taxes. For most if its life our Government survived on tariffs, user fees, postage, and other taxes. Direct taxation of labor was unconstitutional. There are problems collecting these kinds of taxes. One is the people see the tax directly so are conscious of what the government is taking. Another is that if the people feel a tax is unjust or usurious, not only do they change their vote, but find a means to avoid the tax, again adding a layer of uncertainty to government revenue. Another is that that if people choose to live frugally then the government revenue is decreased, and so revenue was uncertain. Demonstrating again a cost of freedom is uncertainty. By taxing labor (income), regardless of how a person chooses to live, or what government services he chooses to use, the government not the people is in charge and has control. The aristocracy finds this much easier to manage than being at the will and whim of the people.
Freedom in the USA is fleeting; the police no longer serve and protect the people, but are enforcers of arbitrary wishes of the ruling elite who pay them; no longer do judges serve as impartial arbiters of justice, both Actus Reus Versus Mens Rea are legal concepts our ruling elite no longer consider; Our government lays claim ownership of our real property and labor, you only rent your property and do not own it, and the government only allows you to keep that portion of your earnings they grant you. You are no longer free to trade your property and labor to others without government interference.
How are we now any different than feudal serfs, other than we vote for our aristocracy? A person no longer owns property, they rent it from the elected aristocracy, if the aristocracy thinks it can get more rent from somebody else, they will kick you out and give it to another. The aristocracy is your overseer and claims first right to your labor, they get your income first, and we serfs are allowed to keep that portion of our labor they allow. If they were truly taxing our income then you’d get a tax bill on a regular basis and pay your taxes. That doesn’t happen because the aristocracy doesn’t trust the people, as the people would revolt in mass if they had to actually pay taxes, so the aristocracy take our income before we ever see it and only allow us to keep a portion of it.
If the poor schlep making $24K working two jobs was forced to write a $1000 check every three months then file in April to get some of it back, we’d see a lot smaller government in a short time. If taxes weren’t reasonable the average citizen would non-violently revolt by simply not sending in his taxes. If a mere 5% of the people simply refused to pay taxes (that’s over 15 Million People) what could the government do? They couldn’t bring that many people up on charges, have a jury trial, and put them in jail. It would so overwhelm the government as to cripple it with both a loss of revenue and an overloaded court system. Knowing this the ruling elite slowly changed the system so that the average Joe only get’s what the government determines he should, and is none the wiser.
The aristocracy has declared that they have first right to all labor and by not taxing the least productive serfs they have purchased votes to maintain their aristocratic positions. They use the tried and true method of “Bread and Circuses” to keep a large part of the masses in compliance. Of course they keep rules in place that don’t allow for people without power to compete with those the aristocracy favors, and generously reward those whom support their power.
The normal condition for man is for a few ruling elite to wield power and force over the vast majority of people who live in poverty. The USA with its notions of freedom and self-rule will not last, freedom never has. The aristocracy will drive the country into financial ruin to gain power. Their goals are not prosperity, freedom, and independence for all, but the re-concentration of power into the hands of a few. We are seeing huge crushing attacks on freedom, like the patriot act and its renewal. I hope I’m wrong but if I’m right we will soon see more limits on free speech and assembly, watch for stricter controls of the internet, specifically YouTube, blogs, and who can report news. If I’m right we will see attacks on independent media, and attempts to control all news, and the exposure to the infringement of our freedoms. If I’m right we will see appeals to the UN or other International bodies to have greater authority than our Constitution. If I’m right we will see the aristocracy try to disarm the people as they have in Europe and other far less free societies. Project “Gunrunner” is just the tip if the iceberg for the aristocracy to try and find justification to disarm the serfs. Once disarmed the march back towards serfdom is inevitable. Already they have demonized weapons, and are trying to change the rationale behind the Second Amendment to exclude the idea that it was included not for hunting or self protection from criminals, but as a means for the people to be armed enough to stop a tyrannical government.
They have already convinced a significant portion of the population that they have a right to the goods and services of others without having to pay for them. In fact the aristocracy has convinced a significant portion of the population that their mere existence “entitles” them to the goods and services of others. Once the idea that individuals do not have rights to personal property and labor, and the idea that the aristocracy can take away the uncertainty that accompanies freedom and make everybody’s life secure by controlling the distributing all property and labor as they see fit, freedom is no longer valued. In fact freedom is considered selfish and evil, because if people are free and have individual rights, then the masses don’t have the right to property and services they haven’t earned.
Our founding fathers started with a Declaration of Independence, not the declaration to “spread the wealth.” They used words like Freedom, Independence and Liberty. Each of which refers to a dearth of undue restrictions and an opportunity to implement one's rights and powers. Freedom emphasizes the opportunity given for the implementation of one's rights, powers, desires, or the like: freedom of speech or conscience; freedom of movement. Independence implies not only lack of restrictions but also the ability to stand alone, unsustained by anything else: Independence of thought promotes invention and discovery. This of course carries the implication that others cannot be forced to sustain you should you fail. Capitalism is nothing more than a subcategory of freedom - the freedom to produce, trade, and consume any goods and services acquired without the use of force, fraud or theft. Freedom, Independence and Liberty are embodied in the rule of law, property rights and freedom of contract, and characterized by external and internal openness of the markets, the protection of property rights and freedom of economic initiative. The ruling elite in Washington are now compromising all that has embodied Freedom in the USA.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Time Magazine Promotes Tyranny
by Tom Rhodes, 6/28/2011
This Year’s cover for Time Magazine has a picture of the constitution not a famous American as is traditional for the July 4th Issue. In its editorial, Time Magazine’s managing editor Richard Stengel, Asks a question about our Constitution: "Does it still matter?" He concludes that the constitution is irrelevant saying, "If the Constitution was intended to limit the federal government, it certainly doesn't say so."
Either purposefully or of ignorance, Stengel completely misrepresents the plain language of the Constitution. "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." Those words make it quite clear that the federal government is limited to only the powers specifically granted to it by the people as clearly stated in the Constitution.
Stengel’s editorial makes the same tired claims that have been used to try and justify taking power from the people and giving it back to the elite for well over a century: “When the Constitution was framed there were no Railroads….” or “When the Constitution was framed there were no Telegraphs….” or “When the Constitution was framed there were no Radios….” “When the Constitution was framed there was no Internet….” The constitution was a framework designed to restrain government, and unlike any other government before it, and very few since, gave most of the power to the people not the ruling elite. No technological advances justify taking self-rule away from the people.
It doesn’t take very much reading on Facebook Groups, chat-rooms, or other internet forums, before you will hear some statist claiming the American people are idiots. When somebody loving freedom uses a poll or other data which clearly shows that a vast majority of Americans are in agreement on a topic but that agreement doesn’t meet with statists ideas or desires, then the people aren’t smart enough to know what’s good for them, or have been mis-lead.
Take Obamacare for instance, most Americans do want some kind of health care reform, but the reality of Obamacare and what it will do, is not what a super majority of Americans want. The statists in our country seem to believe that they know what’s best, and the people should accept what they have determined is best.
This Time Magizine editorial demonstrates clearly that we are not divided by left-right views but by the idea that there are elite who should rule and dole out the countries resources, and plebs who accept it. The statists appear to want to have enough people dependent upon the government that they can once again put the genie back into the bottle and determine who is a success and who isn’t. The constitution and insistence by the people that our government uphold the rule of law stands in the way of statists. Statists hate the idea, and that the people expect and consider it necessary that no person, company, and especially politician, is above the same laws the people must follow. Obama during his campaign lamented that constitution made it hard to “get things done.” Even the liberal St. Petersburg Times, notes that just like Bush, “Obama's refusal to follow the strictures of the War Powers Act says that he, too, is willing to manipulate language to ignore inconvenient limits on his power.”
The destruction of what was an experiment in the people taking for themselves the right to self-rule is over. One by one our natural rights are being stripped from us and we are again regressing to rule by the elite. The government now says no warrant is needed to search a person’s home, that you can be forced to purchase services whether you want them or not, that the government can determine what you are allowed to eat, that employment and work laws that apply to people and businesses don’t apply to the government, that accounting and bookkeeping laws that apply to the people and their businesses don’t apply to the government, the list continues to grow daily.
Setup by Bush and completed by Obama, was the destruction of the rule of law. The primary example being when the government was able to force without legislation, judiciary rulings contrary to existing bankruptcy law to reward political favors to unions over secured creditors and take over both GM and Chrysler as a result of their bankruptcies. The breakup of these companies like AMC, Hudson, Studebaker, Stutz, and others before, would not have seen the demise or end of the US auto industry. Consider Jeep, near bankruptcy it was taken over by AMC, it made and still does make a product people want. AMC made bad business decisions and it too folded, but the Jeep name and assets were purchased by Chrysler, and it remained. If Chrysler folded, another company or new investors would have purchased the Jeep brand physical assets and it would have continued. Jeeps are the best selling products Chrysler has.
Statists claim that you can’t run a post modern country the same way and with the same rules as we did when we were an agriculture based country of the early 1800’s. This is only true if you throw out the reasoning for the institution of the USA and accept the premise that the government has a duty and is responsible for the needs of all its citizens. Only if you throw away the idea of self-rule and limited government, can you justify granting the government the unlimited authority to do whatever the elite feel is necessary for the greater good. It is not based on liberal or conservative ideology but on the idea of statism.
Statism is the concentration of economic controls and planning in the hands of a highly centralized government often but not necessarily extending to government ownership of industry. The concept of statism, which is seen as synonymous with the concept of nation, and corporatism repudiates individualism and exalts the nation as an organic body headed by the elites and nurtured by unity and force. The militarization of our police forces is prima facie evidence that statists are willing to and will use force to gain compliance by the people; even the Dept. of Education has its own SWAT team(s).
This is tyranny, the goals may be noble, but the implementation of the nanny state is tyrannical. Only with tortured logic can one justify the constitutionality of the federal government having the enumerated power to require people to purchase insurance. That and most other powers are restricted to the States or the People. Statists are doing everything they can to get rid of the pesky notion that the Constitution limits the federal government. Even the editor of Time Magazine, a statist, is willing to lie in order to try and convince the people that that the Constitution wasn’t intended to limit the federal government.
Contrary to what Mr. Stengel says, our founding fathers were quite clear, saying “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.” The notion that our forefathers didn’t believe in or want or attempt to limit the government is a lie. Our founding fathers created a framework that granted the government enough power to govern, but severely restricted it powers, knowing that men are not inherently good, that power corrupts, and that a limited government with enumerated powers, would protect future generations from the tyranny of an all powerful government.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.” ~ C.S. Lewis
This Year’s cover for Time Magazine has a picture of the constitution not a famous American as is traditional for the July 4th Issue. In its editorial, Time Magazine’s managing editor Richard Stengel, Asks a question about our Constitution: "Does it still matter?" He concludes that the constitution is irrelevant saying, "If the Constitution was intended to limit the federal government, it certainly doesn't say so."
Either purposefully or of ignorance, Stengel completely misrepresents the plain language of the Constitution. "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." Those words make it quite clear that the federal government is limited to only the powers specifically granted to it by the people as clearly stated in the Constitution.
Stengel’s editorial makes the same tired claims that have been used to try and justify taking power from the people and giving it back to the elite for well over a century: “When the Constitution was framed there were no Railroads….” or “When the Constitution was framed there were no Telegraphs….” or “When the Constitution was framed there were no Radios….” “When the Constitution was framed there was no Internet….” The constitution was a framework designed to restrain government, and unlike any other government before it, and very few since, gave most of the power to the people not the ruling elite. No technological advances justify taking self-rule away from the people.
It doesn’t take very much reading on Facebook Groups, chat-rooms, or other internet forums, before you will hear some statist claiming the American people are idiots. When somebody loving freedom uses a poll or other data which clearly shows that a vast majority of Americans are in agreement on a topic but that agreement doesn’t meet with statists ideas or desires, then the people aren’t smart enough to know what’s good for them, or have been mis-lead.
Take Obamacare for instance, most Americans do want some kind of health care reform, but the reality of Obamacare and what it will do, is not what a super majority of Americans want. The statists in our country seem to believe that they know what’s best, and the people should accept what they have determined is best.
This Time Magizine editorial demonstrates clearly that we are not divided by left-right views but by the idea that there are elite who should rule and dole out the countries resources, and plebs who accept it. The statists appear to want to have enough people dependent upon the government that they can once again put the genie back into the bottle and determine who is a success and who isn’t. The constitution and insistence by the people that our government uphold the rule of law stands in the way of statists. Statists hate the idea, and that the people expect and consider it necessary that no person, company, and especially politician, is above the same laws the people must follow. Obama during his campaign lamented that constitution made it hard to “get things done.” Even the liberal St. Petersburg Times, notes that just like Bush, “Obama's refusal to follow the strictures of the War Powers Act says that he, too, is willing to manipulate language to ignore inconvenient limits on his power.”
The destruction of what was an experiment in the people taking for themselves the right to self-rule is over. One by one our natural rights are being stripped from us and we are again regressing to rule by the elite. The government now says no warrant is needed to search a person’s home, that you can be forced to purchase services whether you want them or not, that the government can determine what you are allowed to eat, that employment and work laws that apply to people and businesses don’t apply to the government, that accounting and bookkeeping laws that apply to the people and their businesses don’t apply to the government, the list continues to grow daily.
Setup by Bush and completed by Obama, was the destruction of the rule of law. The primary example being when the government was able to force without legislation, judiciary rulings contrary to existing bankruptcy law to reward political favors to unions over secured creditors and take over both GM and Chrysler as a result of their bankruptcies. The breakup of these companies like AMC, Hudson, Studebaker, Stutz, and others before, would not have seen the demise or end of the US auto industry. Consider Jeep, near bankruptcy it was taken over by AMC, it made and still does make a product people want. AMC made bad business decisions and it too folded, but the Jeep name and assets were purchased by Chrysler, and it remained. If Chrysler folded, another company or new investors would have purchased the Jeep brand physical assets and it would have continued. Jeeps are the best selling products Chrysler has.
Statists claim that you can’t run a post modern country the same way and with the same rules as we did when we were an agriculture based country of the early 1800’s. This is only true if you throw out the reasoning for the institution of the USA and accept the premise that the government has a duty and is responsible for the needs of all its citizens. Only if you throw away the idea of self-rule and limited government, can you justify granting the government the unlimited authority to do whatever the elite feel is necessary for the greater good. It is not based on liberal or conservative ideology but on the idea of statism.
Statism is the concentration of economic controls and planning in the hands of a highly centralized government often but not necessarily extending to government ownership of industry. The concept of statism, which is seen as synonymous with the concept of nation, and corporatism repudiates individualism and exalts the nation as an organic body headed by the elites and nurtured by unity and force. The militarization of our police forces is prima facie evidence that statists are willing to and will use force to gain compliance by the people; even the Dept. of Education has its own SWAT team(s).
This is tyranny, the goals may be noble, but the implementation of the nanny state is tyrannical. Only with tortured logic can one justify the constitutionality of the federal government having the enumerated power to require people to purchase insurance. That and most other powers are restricted to the States or the People. Statists are doing everything they can to get rid of the pesky notion that the Constitution limits the federal government. Even the editor of Time Magazine, a statist, is willing to lie in order to try and convince the people that that the Constitution wasn’t intended to limit the federal government.
Contrary to what Mr. Stengel says, our founding fathers were quite clear, saying “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.” The notion that our forefathers didn’t believe in or want or attempt to limit the government is a lie. Our founding fathers created a framework that granted the government enough power to govern, but severely restricted it powers, knowing that men are not inherently good, that power corrupts, and that a limited government with enumerated powers, would protect future generations from the tyranny of an all powerful government.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.” ~ C.S. Lewis
Thursday, June 23, 2011
University of Indoctrination
By Tom Rhodes, 6/23/2011
I spent a lovely Sunday riding my motorcycle, and ended up having a late lunch at a chain casual eatery noted for somewhat skimpy costumed waitresses, and good food. It was a slow summer afternoon, hot outside, cool inside, the beer, food and view were excellent. Chatting with the waitress I learned that she was a recent University of Florida graduate, with a degree in economics.
In her early 20’s, and having the attributes for this particular establishment, she chose to continue her college job after graduation because it paid significantly more than the jobs available with her degree. If the few other tables tipped the way my table did she was probably making $25 or more per hour during a slow day.
Finding out she was an economics major, and liking to stir the pot, I just had to ask her which major theories of economics were taught at UF and which one did she believe.
I was dumbfounded at her response, she said “What?” to which I replied, “You know, what was the predominant economic theory taught, Chicago School, Keynesian, Austrian, or what?
She didn’t have any idea what I was talking about, I asked if they discussed the various theories on economics, and how they differ in describing how the government actions influence the economy. She then said "Oh, We're not allowed to discuss any politics in class.”
“No debate on any difference economic theories at all?”
“No that would lead to politics which wasn’t allowed, we just learned what the book, and took the tests." They didn’t allow any theoretical discussion in the classes and they didn’t want the classes to have any conflict.
I was floored, not only did an economics major graduate from a major university with no political discussion of various economic theories, but she didn’t even have knowledge that there were multiple theories associated with economics. It sounded more like indoctrination than education.
Maybe I’ve just been out of college for too long, but I find it hard to believe that nowhere in the following required UF Economics Major Courses: ECO 2013 Principles of Macroeconomics; ECO 2023 Principles of Microeconomics; ECO 3101 Intermediate Microeconomics; ECO 3203 Intermediate Macroeconomics, that there are no competing ideas on economic theory addressed.
Sadly looking at the syllabi of those courses on-line, it is evident that an economic theory is taught, but not identified. From even a short chat with a graduate of the UF Economics program, it is evident that the economic theory taught is treated as if there were no other or competing economic theories. The young lady in question was definitely smart, but was totally ignorant not only of competing ideas but even that competing ideas existed.
It is no wonder a significant part of our population cannot logically debate ideas. While in college they aren’t allowed to debate ideas, and conflict is not allowed. Our young people are being taught that competitive ideas are not good, and that ideas other than those of their professors, are just political and not to be considered. I confirmed that within four years of courses at UF, the young lady in question never witnessed a debate on anything she was taught. This is a far cry from the way Dr. Michael Sandel teaches his course on Justice at Harvard. You can watch it at HERE, where debate and both sides of controversy are discussed, obviously without any fear that disagreeing with the professor will get you in trouble.
Any university program that discourages debate of competing ideas because of “politics” should be rethought. The idea that avoiding conflict in ideas at the college level is preferable to vibrant debate seems to me to be absurd. Yes students must be expected to provide the answers to exams that their professor want, whether they agree with those answers or not, but not even allowing the discussion of alternative ideas is not education but indoctrination.
I spent a lovely Sunday riding my motorcycle, and ended up having a late lunch at a chain casual eatery noted for somewhat skimpy costumed waitresses, and good food. It was a slow summer afternoon, hot outside, cool inside, the beer, food and view were excellent. Chatting with the waitress I learned that she was a recent University of Florida graduate, with a degree in economics.
In her early 20’s, and having the attributes for this particular establishment, she chose to continue her college job after graduation because it paid significantly more than the jobs available with her degree. If the few other tables tipped the way my table did she was probably making $25 or more per hour during a slow day.
Finding out she was an economics major, and liking to stir the pot, I just had to ask her which major theories of economics were taught at UF and which one did she believe.
I was dumbfounded at her response, she said “What?” to which I replied, “You know, what was the predominant economic theory taught, Chicago School, Keynesian, Austrian, or what?
She didn’t have any idea what I was talking about, I asked if they discussed the various theories on economics, and how they differ in describing how the government actions influence the economy. She then said "Oh, We're not allowed to discuss any politics in class.”
“No debate on any difference economic theories at all?”
“No that would lead to politics which wasn’t allowed, we just learned what the book, and took the tests." They didn’t allow any theoretical discussion in the classes and they didn’t want the classes to have any conflict.
I was floored, not only did an economics major graduate from a major university with no political discussion of various economic theories, but she didn’t even have knowledge that there were multiple theories associated with economics. It sounded more like indoctrination than education.
Maybe I’ve just been out of college for too long, but I find it hard to believe that nowhere in the following required UF Economics Major Courses: ECO 2013 Principles of Macroeconomics; ECO 2023 Principles of Microeconomics; ECO 3101 Intermediate Microeconomics; ECO 3203 Intermediate Macroeconomics, that there are no competing ideas on economic theory addressed.
Sadly looking at the syllabi of those courses on-line, it is evident that an economic theory is taught, but not identified. From even a short chat with a graduate of the UF Economics program, it is evident that the economic theory taught is treated as if there were no other or competing economic theories. The young lady in question was definitely smart, but was totally ignorant not only of competing ideas but even that competing ideas existed.
It is no wonder a significant part of our population cannot logically debate ideas. While in college they aren’t allowed to debate ideas, and conflict is not allowed. Our young people are being taught that competitive ideas are not good, and that ideas other than those of their professors, are just political and not to be considered. I confirmed that within four years of courses at UF, the young lady in question never witnessed a debate on anything she was taught. This is a far cry from the way Dr. Michael Sandel teaches his course on Justice at Harvard. You can watch it at HERE, where debate and both sides of controversy are discussed, obviously without any fear that disagreeing with the professor will get you in trouble.
Any university program that discourages debate of competing ideas because of “politics” should be rethought. The idea that avoiding conflict in ideas at the college level is preferable to vibrant debate seems to me to be absurd. Yes students must be expected to provide the answers to exams that their professor want, whether they agree with those answers or not, but not even allowing the discussion of alternative ideas is not education but indoctrination.
Monday, June 13, 2011
The Trouble with Libertarians
By Tom Rhodes
Vice-Chair Libertarian Party of Citrus County
Chairman LPF Platform Committee
6/13/2011
Today’s editorial by WND editor has the same title as my blog entry, The Trouble with Libertarians. Economically, philosophically, and morally, libertarian ideas have been proven to be what is best for the vast majority of people, but the implementation of libertarian ideas by Libertarians have made the Libertarian Party unpalatable for the majority of Americans.
There is a paradigm shift in this country happening, it’s not Republican/Democrat or Left/Right, or Conservative/Liberal. The people are realizing that there is now a war between those who love liberty and all it entails and statists who want to control everything. The Libertarian Party should take advantage of this paradigm shift, but as our 40 year history has shown, we once again we shoot ourselves in the foot. We have again furthered our image of Amoral Atheistic Anarchists. This unfortunately accurate combination of descriptors will insure that the American people will only rarely elect Libertarian candidates. Ron Paul, arguably the most successful candidate wearing the libertarian moniker, is not a member of the Libertarian Party. Because he has realized that to win elections and have a positive affect for liberty for all Americans, he had to abandon the LP. Americans will not elect Amoral Atheistic Anarchists.
Last week’s press release by LP Chairman, Mark Hinkle, unnecessarily alienated over half the US population and hypocritically compromised libertarian principles. By saying that, "Permitting couples to marry when they are of the same gender is a step in the direction of equality before the law” he said the LP is willing to compromise its principles, and willing to alienate the majority of the population which hold the more than 5000 year old belief that marriage is between a man and a woman; thus supporting the idea that a small minority can use the force of government to change the very definition accepted for thousands of years, and force not only tolerance but acceptance of their beliefs and silence the majority. This at its core is contrary the Principles of Liberty.
Hinkle was quite right when he said that "the idea that someone's legal rights should depend on whether they've entered a government-approved relationship ought to be repugnant to all of us." The Christian principle of Equality under the Law, properly adopted by both our founding fathers and the Libertarian Party, should make the idea of providing any special privileges or punishments to anybody repugnant. Saying that expanding the special privileges of some to include a few more only strengthens the idea that unequal treatment under the law is acceptable, and undermines Libertarians calling themselves “The Party of Principle.”
Most Americans firmly believe that all people should be free to do as they wish so long as they don’t infringe upon the rights of others. That means that most Americans tolerate but do not condone, approve, or even accept the amoral behavior of others, only that they accept that with liberty and freedom one must tolerate socially abhorrent behavior if it doesn’t infringe upon the rights of another. Thus to protect the free speech of everybody, we tolerate the racist bigoted hateful speech of both the KKK and Black Panthers. Toleration of such speech does not mean Americans condone it.
The LP could have taken a far more principled stand, and opened the LP up to both the LBGT community, and the majority of Americans who tolerate but don’t condone homosexuality. People are free to voluntarily enter into binding contracts, and the government’s duty is to justly honor and protect those contracts through the judicial system, but in no way should any person be given any special privileges or punishments based upon the voluntary private contracts that they enter. The LP’s sole position on marriage should be that it is not the job of the government to sanction marriage, the government’s purpose is to protect the rights of all people equally. To further that end our judicial system was created to justly administer criminal law and civil contracts.
From a moral or philosophical perspective how can justifying or supporting unequal treatment of singles or couples who choose not to enter legal contracts, over those who choose to be in contractual partnerships, be construed as a libertarian principle? The very idea, that expanding unequal treatment to include another sub-group is acceptable, is hypocritical pandering that makes the LP look no better or different than the Democrats or Republicans, and further hurts the reputation and image of the LP in the eyes of Americans. What Libertarian Principle justifies laws that treat some people different than others?
Today’s WND editorial, will reach more people than all the Libertarian press releases, blogs, and other stories combined. WND has more libertarian commentators than almost any other source, and regularly supports libertarian principles. At WND you can regularly find the writings of Wayne Allen Root, Walter E. Williams, John Stossel, Thomas Sowell, VoxDay, Lew Rockwell, and virtually every other credible libertarian of note. WND reflects the position of most Americans, who support libertarian ideology but reject the Libertarian Party.
Other libertarian organizations quite purposefully do not associate themselves with the LP. The reason they don’t is because they realize that their credibility with the American public is suspect if they do. The biggest ground swell in American politics in the last have century is the TEA Party movement. It’s a true grass roots movement made of many small organizations with no central control or authority. Any attempt by some to claim leadership is quite obviously a lie, as the many grass root TEA Parties throughout the country get very upset at some distant person they didn’t choose and not affiliated to their group claiming to be their leader. The TEA Party clearly embraces the Philosophy of Liberty and more than half the country associated itself with the TEA Party movement. The reason the American people have gravitated to it and not the LP, which should be their natural home, is because of the LP image.
Columnist Dick Morris, wrote in the National Review about libertarianism and the TEA party, "The libertarian strain in the American electorate has long been neglected by the mainstream media. But, through the tea party, it has gained ascendancy on the right. Those who want the government to stay out of both boardrooms and bedrooms have come to dominate the [Republican] party and its nominating process." He totally ignored the LP, because he believes it is irrelevant.
The Libertarian Party (LP) has remained virtually the same small portion of the electorate for decades. We can open ourselves up to a far larger segment of the population not only small special interest groups like the LBGT community, but also the far larger majority of the US population which still holds to Christian principles. Libertarian ideology is rooted in the same principles that were used to form our constitution. Whether we want to admit it or not those are Judeo-Christian principles. Christ’s example was to tolerate, help, and pray for sinners, he never condoned sinful behavior, but did recognize the free will God gave all men, and never advocated force to gain acceptance. If we continue to alienate over half the population by compromising our principles in order to trash Judeo-Christian beliefs, we will continue to have the same results, and remain a very small group, and virtually powerless except as a foil or joke for political pundits. Libertarian principles and values are main stream but Libertarians aren’t.
To be successful the LP must quit shooting ourselves in the foot. LP Chairman, Mark Hinkle’s last press release did nothing to help the LP, and only confirmed the image most Americans have of the LP, an image the people have consistently said with their vote is not compatible who they want to lead our country. Our party is insane to think that we can continue to embrace our Amoral Atheistic Anarchist image, and have any different acceptance by the American people. The LP is almost powerless because not only do we have to deal with all the inherent inequalities that being a third party entails, we have embraced an image the American people have rejected. The LP must stand by its principles; but to be effective in American politics we must also shed our Amoral Atheistic Anarchist image. I believe we can do both, but our leadership must recognize that we have an image problem and address it.
Vice-Chair Libertarian Party of Citrus County
Chairman LPF Platform Committee
6/13/2011
Today’s editorial by WND editor has the same title as my blog entry, The Trouble with Libertarians. Economically, philosophically, and morally, libertarian ideas have been proven to be what is best for the vast majority of people, but the implementation of libertarian ideas by Libertarians have made the Libertarian Party unpalatable for the majority of Americans.
There is a paradigm shift in this country happening, it’s not Republican/Democrat or Left/Right, or Conservative/Liberal. The people are realizing that there is now a war between those who love liberty and all it entails and statists who want to control everything. The Libertarian Party should take advantage of this paradigm shift, but as our 40 year history has shown, we once again we shoot ourselves in the foot. We have again furthered our image of Amoral Atheistic Anarchists. This unfortunately accurate combination of descriptors will insure that the American people will only rarely elect Libertarian candidates. Ron Paul, arguably the most successful candidate wearing the libertarian moniker, is not a member of the Libertarian Party. Because he has realized that to win elections and have a positive affect for liberty for all Americans, he had to abandon the LP. Americans will not elect Amoral Atheistic Anarchists.
Last week’s press release by LP Chairman, Mark Hinkle, unnecessarily alienated over half the US population and hypocritically compromised libertarian principles. By saying that, "Permitting couples to marry when they are of the same gender is a step in the direction of equality before the law” he said the LP is willing to compromise its principles, and willing to alienate the majority of the population which hold the more than 5000 year old belief that marriage is between a man and a woman; thus supporting the idea that a small minority can use the force of government to change the very definition accepted for thousands of years, and force not only tolerance but acceptance of their beliefs and silence the majority. This at its core is contrary the Principles of Liberty.
Hinkle was quite right when he said that "the idea that someone's legal rights should depend on whether they've entered a government-approved relationship ought to be repugnant to all of us." The Christian principle of Equality under the Law, properly adopted by both our founding fathers and the Libertarian Party, should make the idea of providing any special privileges or punishments to anybody repugnant. Saying that expanding the special privileges of some to include a few more only strengthens the idea that unequal treatment under the law is acceptable, and undermines Libertarians calling themselves “The Party of Principle.”
Most Americans firmly believe that all people should be free to do as they wish so long as they don’t infringe upon the rights of others. That means that most Americans tolerate but do not condone, approve, or even accept the amoral behavior of others, only that they accept that with liberty and freedom one must tolerate socially abhorrent behavior if it doesn’t infringe upon the rights of another. Thus to protect the free speech of everybody, we tolerate the racist bigoted hateful speech of both the KKK and Black Panthers. Toleration of such speech does not mean Americans condone it.
The LP could have taken a far more principled stand, and opened the LP up to both the LBGT community, and the majority of Americans who tolerate but don’t condone homosexuality. People are free to voluntarily enter into binding contracts, and the government’s duty is to justly honor and protect those contracts through the judicial system, but in no way should any person be given any special privileges or punishments based upon the voluntary private contracts that they enter. The LP’s sole position on marriage should be that it is not the job of the government to sanction marriage, the government’s purpose is to protect the rights of all people equally. To further that end our judicial system was created to justly administer criminal law and civil contracts.
From a moral or philosophical perspective how can justifying or supporting unequal treatment of singles or couples who choose not to enter legal contracts, over those who choose to be in contractual partnerships, be construed as a libertarian principle? The very idea, that expanding unequal treatment to include another sub-group is acceptable, is hypocritical pandering that makes the LP look no better or different than the Democrats or Republicans, and further hurts the reputation and image of the LP in the eyes of Americans. What Libertarian Principle justifies laws that treat some people different than others?
Today’s WND editorial, will reach more people than all the Libertarian press releases, blogs, and other stories combined. WND has more libertarian commentators than almost any other source, and regularly supports libertarian principles. At WND you can regularly find the writings of Wayne Allen Root, Walter E. Williams, John Stossel, Thomas Sowell, VoxDay, Lew Rockwell, and virtually every other credible libertarian of note. WND reflects the position of most Americans, who support libertarian ideology but reject the Libertarian Party.
Other libertarian organizations quite purposefully do not associate themselves with the LP. The reason they don’t is because they realize that their credibility with the American public is suspect if they do. The biggest ground swell in American politics in the last have century is the TEA Party movement. It’s a true grass roots movement made of many small organizations with no central control or authority. Any attempt by some to claim leadership is quite obviously a lie, as the many grass root TEA Parties throughout the country get very upset at some distant person they didn’t choose and not affiliated to their group claiming to be their leader. The TEA Party clearly embraces the Philosophy of Liberty and more than half the country associated itself with the TEA Party movement. The reason the American people have gravitated to it and not the LP, which should be their natural home, is because of the LP image.
Columnist Dick Morris, wrote in the National Review about libertarianism and the TEA party, "The libertarian strain in the American electorate has long been neglected by the mainstream media. But, through the tea party, it has gained ascendancy on the right. Those who want the government to stay out of both boardrooms and bedrooms have come to dominate the [Republican] party and its nominating process." He totally ignored the LP, because he believes it is irrelevant.
The Libertarian Party (LP) has remained virtually the same small portion of the electorate for decades. We can open ourselves up to a far larger segment of the population not only small special interest groups like the LBGT community, but also the far larger majority of the US population which still holds to Christian principles. Libertarian ideology is rooted in the same principles that were used to form our constitution. Whether we want to admit it or not those are Judeo-Christian principles. Christ’s example was to tolerate, help, and pray for sinners, he never condoned sinful behavior, but did recognize the free will God gave all men, and never advocated force to gain acceptance. If we continue to alienate over half the population by compromising our principles in order to trash Judeo-Christian beliefs, we will continue to have the same results, and remain a very small group, and virtually powerless except as a foil or joke for political pundits. Libertarian principles and values are main stream but Libertarians aren’t.
To be successful the LP must quit shooting ourselves in the foot. LP Chairman, Mark Hinkle’s last press release did nothing to help the LP, and only confirmed the image most Americans have of the LP, an image the people have consistently said with their vote is not compatible who they want to lead our country. Our party is insane to think that we can continue to embrace our Amoral Atheistic Anarchist image, and have any different acceptance by the American people. The LP is almost powerless because not only do we have to deal with all the inherent inequalities that being a third party entails, we have embraced an image the American people have rejected. The LP must stand by its principles; but to be effective in American politics we must also shed our Amoral Atheistic Anarchist image. I believe we can do both, but our leadership must recognize that we have an image problem and address it.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Economic History
by Tom Rhodes, 6/12/11
Arguably the greatest government stimulus package we ever saw was World War II. What followed was the post WWII recovery, arguably the greatest economic boom we have ever seen. What did the government do to create such a boom?
Quite simply it rolled back to a small portion of what it was in WWII: Within one year government spending went from $84B to $30B; 10 million soldiers were released from service; economic controls and rationing were lifted; in short it was a shock-and-awe type of de-stimulus.
Keynesian economists of the day predicted that the abrupt withdrawal of government spending would plunge the economy into another depression. They predicted 14% unemployment.
The reality was that unemployment rates remained under 4.5%; employment grew, household consumption grew, business investment grew, and exports boomed, as government spending decreased.
Our postwar experience shows that growth is not generated by massive government action, but by the exact opposite. We do far better when the government will get out of our way and not to choke us with trillions of dollars in new debt.
A recent Harvard study showed that when a region has their congressman head a important committee, rather than do better they usually do worse economically.
Why are we unwilling to learn from our past. It is painfully obvious that massive government spending has not done as predicted; history has shown repeatedly that more government will not lead to more growth. Why don't we look at history, and repeat our post WWII success, with a massive de-stimulus and contraction of the government?
Arguably the greatest government stimulus package we ever saw was World War II. What followed was the post WWII recovery, arguably the greatest economic boom we have ever seen. What did the government do to create such a boom?
Quite simply it rolled back to a small portion of what it was in WWII: Within one year government spending went from $84B to $30B; 10 million soldiers were released from service; economic controls and rationing were lifted; in short it was a shock-and-awe type of de-stimulus.
Keynesian economists of the day predicted that the abrupt withdrawal of government spending would plunge the economy into another depression. They predicted 14% unemployment.
The reality was that unemployment rates remained under 4.5%; employment grew, household consumption grew, business investment grew, and exports boomed, as government spending decreased.
Our postwar experience shows that growth is not generated by massive government action, but by the exact opposite. We do far better when the government will get out of our way and not to choke us with trillions of dollars in new debt.
A recent Harvard study showed that when a region has their congressman head a important committee, rather than do better they usually do worse economically.
Why are we unwilling to learn from our past. It is painfully obvious that massive government spending has not done as predicted; history has shown repeatedly that more government will not lead to more growth. Why don't we look at history, and repeat our post WWII success, with a massive de-stimulus and contraction of the government?
Monday, June 6, 2011
Government Red Tape Can and Does KILL.
By Tom Rhodes 6/6/11
Here is the Fact - while trained personnel watched, a 53 year old man stood neck deep in the northern California surf until he got hypothermia and drowned. The government fire and police had training in the past, knew what to do, but because of their department policies, stood on shore and watched the man die rather than rescue him.
If you wondering what prevented the government fire and police personnel from rescuing Raymond Zack last week, the answer is easy. Since the government is worried about being open to liability if the attempt failed, the police is to do nothing. It turns out police and firefighters in Alameda, an island city, are no longer certified to government requirements in land-based water rescues. It seems budget constraints prevented recertification. Official policy is that without that paperwork government police and fire are not allowed to help.
The good people of Alameda, who assume that the tax dollars they spend on police, fire fighters and other emergency workers would mean that they are trained to handle this type of situation (they were but certification were allowed to expire) are now left knowing that the government is not there to serve and protect. This is a prime example of more government, more regulation, more bureaucracy, and less self-reliance spelling disaster for society. This is not what ruling elite promise us when they tell us that they must take away our liberties in exchange for being more secure.
Here is what Alameda fire chief Ricci Zombeck said about the situation, "Well, if I was off duty I would know what to do, but I think you're asking me my on-duty response, and I would have to stay within our policies and procedures because that's what's required by our department to do."
The policy is Alameda is to let people die. This is the caring we can expect from government bureaucracy. Police and firefighters risk their lives daily, but when they are told that if they help beyond their “certifications” they will be fired and are forced to allow people whom they may have been able to save die, we have a serious societal problem. There is some twisted notion that the government is there to solve and take care of every problem, and that only the government can be trusted to protect us and safeguard our welfare. Why didn’t any of the 75 civilian onlookers attempt to do something? Worse yet this is a case where individuals knew what to do to save a dying man, but official procedures prohibited them from acting.
Imagine your local firefighter, EMT, or sheriff deputy, who has the training and will, but must choose between keeping their job, or saving your loved one, because some bureaucrat has determined that heroic effort is against policy.
After Raymond Zack died, the government didn’t even retrieve the body, a 20 year old civilian girl did.
Explain to me again how much better off we are when the government takes care of us? This is a clear sign of a sick society.
Here is the Fact - while trained personnel watched, a 53 year old man stood neck deep in the northern California surf until he got hypothermia and drowned. The government fire and police had training in the past, knew what to do, but because of their department policies, stood on shore and watched the man die rather than rescue him.
If you wondering what prevented the government fire and police personnel from rescuing Raymond Zack last week, the answer is easy. Since the government is worried about being open to liability if the attempt failed, the police is to do nothing. It turns out police and firefighters in Alameda, an island city, are no longer certified to government requirements in land-based water rescues. It seems budget constraints prevented recertification. Official policy is that without that paperwork government police and fire are not allowed to help.
The good people of Alameda, who assume that the tax dollars they spend on police, fire fighters and other emergency workers would mean that they are trained to handle this type of situation (they were but certification were allowed to expire) are now left knowing that the government is not there to serve and protect. This is a prime example of more government, more regulation, more bureaucracy, and less self-reliance spelling disaster for society. This is not what ruling elite promise us when they tell us that they must take away our liberties in exchange for being more secure.
Here is what Alameda fire chief Ricci Zombeck said about the situation, "Well, if I was off duty I would know what to do, but I think you're asking me my on-duty response, and I would have to stay within our policies and procedures because that's what's required by our department to do."
The policy is Alameda is to let people die. This is the caring we can expect from government bureaucracy. Police and firefighters risk their lives daily, but when they are told that if they help beyond their “certifications” they will be fired and are forced to allow people whom they may have been able to save die, we have a serious societal problem. There is some twisted notion that the government is there to solve and take care of every problem, and that only the government can be trusted to protect us and safeguard our welfare. Why didn’t any of the 75 civilian onlookers attempt to do something? Worse yet this is a case where individuals knew what to do to save a dying man, but official procedures prohibited them from acting.
Imagine your local firefighter, EMT, or sheriff deputy, who has the training and will, but must choose between keeping their job, or saving your loved one, because some bureaucrat has determined that heroic effort is against policy.
After Raymond Zack died, the government didn’t even retrieve the body, a 20 year old civilian girl did.
Explain to me again how much better off we are when the government takes care of us? This is a clear sign of a sick society.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
A Failed Hypothesis
by Tom Rhodes, 6/1/2011
The hypothesis in question is that of the Federal Department of Education (DoED). Based on its mission statement that hypothesis is that “Centralized federal education programs will promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.”
Virtually every high school science book has a section, sometimes a whole chapter on problem solving and the scientific method. For a short time (3 years) I was a high school chemistry teacher. Having come from the industrial world, not the teaching world, and realizing that very little of the chemistry I thought would be remembered past graduation, I stressed one thing over and over, problem solving and critical thinking. I believe that these skills would be far more valuable and germane for my students than remembering the atomic number and mass of Germanium. If you google “4 steps to problem solving,” you will find a veritable tsunami of information. The basic 4 steps are Analyze, Plan, Execute, and Evaluate. These four steps may have different terms to describe them but in essence they are the basis of logical rational problem solving. Kids ask a lot of hard questions, often not about the subject you are teaching. As a teacher I often responded with “You are smart enough to figure that one out. Use your problem solving skills and think for yourself, what was tried before, what worked, what didn’t.”
The first step to solving any is always analyzing the problem. This involves correctly defining the problem. This should include what you know in as much detail as possible, historical information of similar or identical problems, previous solutions that worked and those that didn’t work, and what the expected or desired results to any actions you will plan for solving the problem. Most problems that keep getting worse not better are caused by three things; 1) incorrectly identifying the problem, and 2) failure to correctly evaluate the results of the plan executed to solve the problem, 3) failure to analyze the hypothesis and conclude that is is wrong because the results are not as desired.
Consider the Department of Education, it’s mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.
The Department carries out its mission in two major ways. First, the Secretary and the Department play a leadership role in the ongoing national dialogue over how to improve the results of our education system for all students. This involves such activities as raising national and community awareness of the education challenges confronting the Nation, disseminating the latest discoveries on what works in teaching and learning, and helping communities work out solutions to difficult educational issues.
Second, the Department pursues its twin goals of access and excellence through the administration of programs that cover every area of education and range from preschool education through postdoctoral research.
The DoED has been in existence for over 30 years, any critical analysis of its mission and measureable results of implementing the plans created by the DoED conclusively indicate that both the DoED mission and execution of its plans have failed. Nobody can rationally argue that plans to improve US education by the US Government have, on the whole, been of much measurable success. Although a few of the DoED programs have had limited success, it can be reasonably concluded that as education as a whole, with an increase in centralized government influence, has cost more money and has produced no better, and usually worse outcomes.
We have a problem in our education system. Congress created a plan and the DoED to implement that plan to effect change. The DoED programs (plans) and have revised over and over again for the past 30 years, thus an attempt to follow basic scientific methods. The outcomes were not as desired, very expensive, and not successful. Rationally we should abandon the entire notion that with a country as large and varied as the USA founded on a system of strong States rights, that the federal government can centrally plan an education system that will meet the stated mission. Arguably the education of our students was as good or better before it was directed from Washington, and vast sums of wealth were not confiscated and redistributed in the name of education.
We have failed to correctly evaluate the results of the plans executed to solve the problem and failed to analyze the hypothesis created to fix the problem and consider that it may be in error. Rather than use emotion to attempt to keep promoting a failed hypothesis because we desperately want education to get better, we should use basic scientific thinking, and actually analyze the effects of centralized education programs.
The hypothesis, “Centralized federal education programs will promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access” through years of planning, execution and revision, has been completely disproven. Based on rational scientific evaluation of the results of 30 years of DoED programs, we should end the Department of Education. Diversity brings about innovation and change, not central control, we should let the 50 states all develop their own methods of education, the competition between different practices and ideas will provide a much better variety of education programs that will better serve our diverse nation.
The hypothesis in question is that of the Federal Department of Education (DoED). Based on its mission statement that hypothesis is that “Centralized federal education programs will promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.”
Virtually every high school science book has a section, sometimes a whole chapter on problem solving and the scientific method. For a short time (3 years) I was a high school chemistry teacher. Having come from the industrial world, not the teaching world, and realizing that very little of the chemistry I thought would be remembered past graduation, I stressed one thing over and over, problem solving and critical thinking. I believe that these skills would be far more valuable and germane for my students than remembering the atomic number and mass of Germanium. If you google “4 steps to problem solving,” you will find a veritable tsunami of information. The basic 4 steps are Analyze, Plan, Execute, and Evaluate. These four steps may have different terms to describe them but in essence they are the basis of logical rational problem solving. Kids ask a lot of hard questions, often not about the subject you are teaching. As a teacher I often responded with “You are smart enough to figure that one out. Use your problem solving skills and think for yourself, what was tried before, what worked, what didn’t.”
The first step to solving any is always analyzing the problem. This involves correctly defining the problem. This should include what you know in as much detail as possible, historical information of similar or identical problems, previous solutions that worked and those that didn’t work, and what the expected or desired results to any actions you will plan for solving the problem. Most problems that keep getting worse not better are caused by three things; 1) incorrectly identifying the problem, and 2) failure to correctly evaluate the results of the plan executed to solve the problem, 3) failure to analyze the hypothesis and conclude that is is wrong because the results are not as desired.
Consider the Department of Education, it’s mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.
The Department carries out its mission in two major ways. First, the Secretary and the Department play a leadership role in the ongoing national dialogue over how to improve the results of our education system for all students. This involves such activities as raising national and community awareness of the education challenges confronting the Nation, disseminating the latest discoveries on what works in teaching and learning, and helping communities work out solutions to difficult educational issues.
Second, the Department pursues its twin goals of access and excellence through the administration of programs that cover every area of education and range from preschool education through postdoctoral research.
The DoED has been in existence for over 30 years, any critical analysis of its mission and measureable results of implementing the plans created by the DoED conclusively indicate that both the DoED mission and execution of its plans have failed. Nobody can rationally argue that plans to improve US education by the US Government have, on the whole, been of much measurable success. Although a few of the DoED programs have had limited success, it can be reasonably concluded that as education as a whole, with an increase in centralized government influence, has cost more money and has produced no better, and usually worse outcomes.
We have a problem in our education system. Congress created a plan and the DoED to implement that plan to effect change. The DoED programs (plans) and have revised over and over again for the past 30 years, thus an attempt to follow basic scientific methods. The outcomes were not as desired, very expensive, and not successful. Rationally we should abandon the entire notion that with a country as large and varied as the USA founded on a system of strong States rights, that the federal government can centrally plan an education system that will meet the stated mission. Arguably the education of our students was as good or better before it was directed from Washington, and vast sums of wealth were not confiscated and redistributed in the name of education.
We have failed to correctly evaluate the results of the plans executed to solve the problem and failed to analyze the hypothesis created to fix the problem and consider that it may be in error. Rather than use emotion to attempt to keep promoting a failed hypothesis because we desperately want education to get better, we should use basic scientific thinking, and actually analyze the effects of centralized education programs.
The hypothesis, “Centralized federal education programs will promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access” through years of planning, execution and revision, has been completely disproven. Based on rational scientific evaluation of the results of 30 years of DoED programs, we should end the Department of Education. Diversity brings about innovation and change, not central control, we should let the 50 states all develop their own methods of education, the competition between different practices and ideas will provide a much better variety of education programs that will better serve our diverse nation.
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