life liberty property decimation

STATES RIGHTS

The new slave masters, as opposed to their 19th century brethren, are opposed to states rights. The depths of these socialists thoughts are revealed in their actions. For universal single payer? Fine - do it on a state-by-state basis. Whats the hold up? Certainly many states are currently socialist run. Massachusetts, California and others have beginner health socialism plans, stunted only by reality. State budgets are lacking in the key ingredient for universal coverage to take off. States don't have a green tone printing press that can create small peaces of paper with dead white aristocrats and associated numbers on them. The U.S. congress does have one of these. And thus only ridiculous ponzi schemes can be inflationaly sustained at the federal level. The new slave masters know this, and if one is going to rob the rest of humanity of the ownership of their labor, best to do it incrementally, as has happened over the last century.

The next faze will be expanding S-Chip to cover the middle class. Then offering a government alternative to private health plans that will be subsidized by participants in private plans. Then after enough people join, government will set drug prices (in a process to be called negotiating). Why is their goal universal coverage rather than better health? For beginners in economic matters a brief aside: Only a committee of the smartest can completely ruin the life of the dumbest among us worse than they could have themselves. Humans are far from perfect but at least the individual directly experiences the results of their actions and can attempt to make corrections based on this feedback loop. The committee of the smartest is isolated from these feedback loops by the nature of their eliteness. So the same type of bureaucratic structures that underestimated Saddam's weapons programs in the first gulf war and then overestimated them in the second will be adept at making health decisions for all? The same mentality that started a pension scheme for the then 50:1 worker to retiree ratio should buckle in the near future 3:1. Evidently that's where that printing press comes in.

How about a states right to opt out of federal programs? How about making these things optional and give a lump sum of cash to residents of states that do not participate? If the heavenly benefits of socialism truly do accrue, would not people be free to move to that state to experience nirvana? The new slave masters know the answer and thus their national plan. Socialism is never free. Cubans defect from their free health care when their sports teams play in the free world. The new slave masters will not tolerate a free choice.

what is mine can be yours

TAXES

The personal income tax code is largely immoral. Properly put the IRS as an entity is not immoral itself, being inert, but rather the majority of congress that passed the laws and the president who signed the laws. It is immoral to take income and redistribute it to politically embraced majorities. That is what happens in this Nation. The middle class majority has instituted a progressive income tax that taxes the minority rich too much. These taxes are then spent on all kinds of benefits to the middle class and the poor. This is stealing and it is wrong. (For all the anti-war fanatics - think if the actual costs of war were passed to all equally not just the rich) If one held a gun to the head of a wealthy person, took their watch and gave it to some hobo under a bridge, that would also be wrong. The difference is that in the first instance it is the law and in the second it is against the law. Yes some populist / progressive "reformers" properly amended the constitution for the 16th time a ways back. That only permits the Federal government to collect income taxes - it does not force it to. Virtue is having the power to do wrong, even a popular defense for doing wrong, yet showing the fortitude to resist earthly temptation (aka being politicaly popular / PC). Mike Huckabee may be a smooth talking, Bible thumping, gadfly from Hope, but goddamnit - he is right about eliminating unequal tax on income and going to taxing consumption!

keep the amt

TAXATION

The fair tax has been getting a fair hearing as of late, at least within the GOP. Like most things, in theory it is all pristine - on the surface the premise appears good, but beyond the facade lies hidden dangers. The proposal: Repeal the 16th amendment, abolish the IRS, add a VAT or national sales tax of 30% on all goods and services. Simple enough, taxing consumption rather than income would be more benign to economic prosperity, but such a procedure would have to go through the U.S. Congress where the chances of passage unmolested are nil. Does any one really believe that 30% would be levied on all things? How would the tax code not become more complex with near certain additional exemptions and allowances. The outcry would be too great for most politicians to ignore, of the supposed negative effects on the poor - and before you knew it, it would mirror our present day progressive system. A better remedy would be to not abolish the alternative minimum tax in our present day income tax code - but rather use it as a backdoor way to achieve a defacto flat income tax. However the debate shapes out, one thing is certain that NYT propagandist Paul Krugman will so distort the issue that reason and logic will go on permanent sabbatical.

third party foul

COERCION

Evidence points to inequality of decision making. Some people routinely make good choices as judged by society while others routinely shoot themselves in the foot. The scientific management model of modern liberals assumes rough genetic equality with observed differences explained mostly by environment. Using a diminishing marginal utility model, they can explain lazy unmotivated peoples behavior. How some people actually accomplish things like having transportation to and from this thing called a job to pay for their food and shelter is explained away as benefiting from past wealth/opportunistic chance. Problems of society are posited as though a solution exists rather than an eternal plague of humanity. Wealth redistribution (theft) is a favored solution of the modern liberal progressives. With a little articulate moral gymnastics they don't see this as stealing nor coercive. Classical liberals on the other hand assume genetic inequality (some are dumb) but have the hubris to know that third parties (even the elite minds) make even stupider decisions than stupid people would have made for their own lives. This is because third parties are often isolated from any negative feedback loops that the individual more directly experiences and use to adjust their behaviour. Human evolution since the dawn of civilization has only been 10 thousand years - only a blink of the eye in evolutionary time. Humans ultimately only have hunter/gatherer brain power. Classical liberals often appear looking foolish by acknowledging societal problems often have no government solution, but modern liberals throw out answers and remove all doubt.

the great roundup begins

IMMIGRATION

The elites brave debate has been silenced by the benighted masses. Even with the ad hoc endorsement of amnesty by the old media and polls confirming their stewardship of the issue, immigration reform has been stopped. Kennedy's shouting to opponents about the evil of their plan to roundup and send 20 million illegals home summed up the debate: since option one (the roundup) is inoperable then only option two is reasonable (amnesty). Now all the illegals will have to go back into the shadows - receiving free handouts to survive (the darkness that surrounds their existence) - court mandated taxpayer provided k-12 education, eligibility for welfare, non-discrimination (of the citizenshiply challenged) in housing and drivers licenses. Not to mention that most are uninsured and can't get preventive care before they end up in the insurance-payer/tax-payer subsidised free emergency room. Its almost enough to make some of them want to pack it up and head for home, withdrawing money from their no-proof-of-citizenship-required bank accounts. With families being exploited like this we will need to increase tuition assistance for illegals because all they get now is the in-state tuition rate. America is an uncompassionate place (why does everyone want to come here?) The way things are going, illegals will loose the right to vote too, if the courts let citizens demands for proof of eligibility requirements to stand.

corporate welfare as we know it

WEALTH

Not all robber barons are the same. The so-called gilded age of the late 1800's and supposedly re-emerging today is full of popular populist myths. The original robber barons extracted tolls along the Rhine river by force in the middle ages - but Rockefeller and Gates competed in a competitive marketplace to gain their commanding advantage and did not rely on the fiat power of government. If anything they wanted government to leave them alone. The same is not true of Sun Microsystems and Netscape that tried to use government power to un-enrich Microsoft. John Edwards thinks there is two Americas - and he is correct - but not along lines of class defined by wealth as he fantasizes. The two Americas are those that make it on their own and pay taxes and those who rely on transfer payments from government politicians for their very own survival (and vise versa). The investment banker making many millions a year is in the same class as the specialty bakery owner making a more modest income. The millionaire sports team owner who blackmails his city for a new taxpayer funded stadium is in the same class as the welfare queen with half a dozen illegitimate children. Now standard oil (ExonMobil) is truly becoming a robber baron with their acceptance of human CO2 caused global warming and their eventual demand for tax writeoffs and subsidies to reduce greenhouse gasses. This is an important distinction.

removed from accountability

FEDERALISM

Sitting at the bar, hat with sunglasses on the bill - cell phone plopped down on the table (to be spun occasionally), Joey contemplated all the injustices in the nation. You see, the states are cash strapped - their peoples don't tolerate large tax increases, and state government is often limited in open ended borrowing. Inbetween cell phone calls at the top of his lungs to Friends, Joey decided that the true culprit was the U.S. concept of federalism. He agreed that the federal government already ran roughshod over the states, but he thought the whole concept should be thrown out completely. The federal government should just open up its pocket book and shovel cash to the states - that way local politicians could talk about all the new programs they have proposed and enacted without having to show the price tag. Headstart, medicaid, cops-on-the-street, homeland (pork) security, job training, and college tuition should all be lavished with more federal funding, Joey thought. With the direct election of senators the pork flows pretty good, but certain concepts of federalism still stood in the way. For instance, schools are funded mostly at the state level, and even though education dollar per pupil is tops in the world, no child left behind remains an unfunded mandate. He also lamented the Gingrich revolution taking away the federally mandated speed limit of 55. After stating his whole agenda for the day to the waitress - and describing his car and official job title in exacting detail, Joey left determined to undermine limited government and peoples natural rights - he despised the tenth amendment. He totally disagreed with the statement that "a government powerful enough to promise everything to everybody is powerful enough to take it away", because he knew that with a little slight-of-hand, the only thing being taken away was wealth from the rich.

pirates of our being

PROPERTY RIGHTS

Stealing is taking property from someone without permission. Civilized society recognizes property as belonging to an individual, not communal nor for barbarians to plunder. People can lay claim to something and there may be disagreements about property rights, damages and defaults on loans, however a wise chief does not decide such disputes on a case by case basis, rather, civilized society has developed the rule of law. The legislature passes laws, the executive enforces them, and courts following judicial procedure, make rulings regarding the intent of the lawmakers. Natural law is humankind's claim to ownership of all rights as long as no one elses rights are infringed upon. There are two glaring abominations of this ethos that are in complete violation of evolved civilized philosophy. Kelo and progressive (as opposed to flat) income taxes. Barbarians have been evolving too and are now experts at gaming the legal system to pirate things they envy. The masses shop lift transfer payments and the elite ransom hot real estate. Just because these robin hoods are getting reelected (except the five who dont face reelection), their pillaging and rapping of our natural rights doesn't mean their final judgement will be kind, nor those who willingly receive the blood money.

club of dictators

UNITED NATIONS

The League of Nations was an idealistic foreign policy dream to end conflict, now called the United Nations, and its still a fantasy. True legitimacy of foreign action is not granted nor denied by a gang of nations who's objectives may or may not be to advance the lofty U.N. charter that they signed to get into the club. Natural law is the architecture that is the true governor and judge of humankind. The individual has a right to self defense, and when people came out of a state of nature to form a nation, one of the powers granted from the individual to the nation was protection from other nations. The people within a nation provide laws that govern themselves, but governments powers come from the people and governments cannot set up a structure that supersedes their granted powers from the people. International law is lacking in legitimacy if comprising more than a treaty between nations that is limited in scope to protecting their peoples natural rights.

The U.N. is the last best hope for the progressives. It meets all their requirements. Centralized top down design. Appointed technocrats and bureaucratic committees. A one size fits all vision. Scientific management by elites over individuals. A forum where the less successful can pass resolutions demeaning their supposed oppressors. No accountability and immune from failed policies. (Why can't our government be more like this they lament) When the U.N. gets its own revenue stream, other than nations contributions, the death star will be indestructible.

bring back debtors prison

GENERAL WELFARE

As a thought experiment: there should be a re-institution of debtors prison. People who default on debts to the public, could be thrown into jail with the rest of free society responsible for the expense. If the cost was fairly distributed among free society, i.e. a flat rate, then through the elective process, it could be determined what the appropriate debtors prison rate would be (penalties, taxes, number of prisoners.) That way productive society can move along reforming socialised welfare programs, that could be eliminated and replaced where applicable, by a more individualized system. A way to pay for fire department protection of property would be billing the people who use actual fire department services to fund the entire fire department. For most (risk averse) people this would involve buying an insurance policy that would cover fire department costs. This would more accurately and efficiently assign costs where benefits are received, providing better feedback loops for people to adjust their behavior. Police, health care, retirement, could all be handled this way. In all instances insurance/savings would not be mandatory but one could be thrown into jail for not paying for incurred benefits (theft from the rest of society.) A lot of people could potentially be thrown into jail - but this can be mitigated by the fact that 'enlightened' society would not want to see some 85 year old grandmother thrown into jail for not paying the fire department for getting her cat out of a tree, and the cost of too many in jail would be expensive for productive society to pay for. So people in need (not people in want), whom society deems as worthy, should receive a stipend/voucher to pay insurance/annuity costs for governments former economic redistribution benefits, the rate to be determined by economic and social trade-offs. One way or another, modern liberal democracy demands that the one third of people with an income, subsidize the other two thirds without money, both voluntarily(supporting family) and by coercion(government). This method would be more benign on individuals natural rights. Debtors prison would penalize the proper people (thieves) 'in debt to society' unlike the present tax code.

relativity

SOCIALISM

What a hard thing to understand - or so it seems. If something is at its current position and a change is proposed, what is the best way to quantify the change? The relativists like to smear reasonable differences so they make G91(relative) comparisons. Absolutists would prefer a comparison based on an G90(absolute) scale not some flimsy qualitative emotional one. So if (hypothetically) the current tax rate is 90% on the rich and the proposed change is to lower it to 35%, the relativists declare that as unjust if the working poor only get a tax cut from 25% to 15%. In their glass half empty world view, they see the bulk of the cut going to the rich irregardless of the fact that the tax rates were absolutely not fair initially (see the 1980's and 2000's tax cut debate). Progressives are dogmatic relativists. A perpetual election machine worked for them for a wide middle portion of the last century. Progressive pop history reads that the new deal solved the depression when it actually made it worse. The great society battled poverty but in reality it remained at the same rate. Now they like to cite stagnant wages to argue for increased government health care and tax credits, even though the calculation they use to calculate wages does not take into account the very things they are advocating for, and therefore could not increase wages. That way, conveniently for them, we will need more socialism that definitionally can't fix societies supposed problems. Its a turn left - turn right - mentality that gets one lost when north, south, east west directions are needed. How is one to know if humanity is making progress if its all relative?

declaration from dependence

CONSTITUTION

"...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, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it..." Well that was a good thought - too bad very few practice it. FICA social security and medicare taxes are forcibly stolen from me every week. I didn't sign up for these ponzi schemes, I don't want to assume their unfunded liabilities - why can't I opt out? (the fact that these programs still exist is due to ignorance among the voters and cowardice among the politicians - mutually embracing economic doom) Oh, I'm taking the Constitution literally. See I thought that when it said "the enumeration in the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." that it meant, well just that. People have a natural right to opt out of this mammoth social insurance program. It will be hard because this mammoth social insurance program has an army.

syntheses theory vs practice

INEQUALITY

Hegel's thesis, anti-theses, syntheses is being challenged today by modern liberal democracy. Witness the current domination of marxist dogma over any current economic debate. It would seem to the rational mind that capitalism has won the war of ideas over the last three decades, but the current state of synthesis is skewed horribly in favor of the marxists. Tax cuts, even when defended by the capitalists, are defended on the grounds that they help the poor, not that they are fair for the rich. The correct approach of being equally fair to all seems to lack legitimacy if it leads to increased wealth disparity. The fact that the progressive income tax and property value tax, are completely entrenched as fair in society at large is a marxist victory. If ones house is valued at a million dollars or 50k does one not receive the same police and fire protection; the same road and school neighborhood effects. Does not the person who makes six figures receive the same national defense as the person making 20 grand? And with the estate tax, the government gets to double dip, and this is justified by the fact that it only effects the supper rich. Again the basic fairness of these policies is not even debatable in the 'national dialog'. It is always stated that "cannot the richest nation on earth afford to increase government spending on such and such anti-wealth gap program" Its never asked how long we will remain the richest nation on earth with such policies. Nor is it ever pointed out that maybe we are the richest nation on earth because we didn't go down the socialist road as far as some other nations. It raises the possibility of collusion among the worlds political class in the o.e.c.d., to not let a direct comparison available. Marxism lost on paper but is winning in practice.

soul asylum

FUSION PROJECT

Virtue does not count if it was not by choice. A good deed only counts as good if one had opportunity to do other vise. If government tries to enforce morality it does not make its subjects more virtuous, just more depraved of the very feedback loops that give humanity information to make their own decisions. Only government has fiat power to forcibly coerce the individual through taxes and regulations. The only legitimate use of this police power and tax power should be to protect the rights of the people and to provide a common defense against enemies. Somehow government has evolved into an evil nanny dictating social and economic behavior. Even if the net result in a few instances could be judged as good, it would not be virtue. When all self directed opportunity to strive toward virtue has been effectively removed by government, humans will have surrendered their souls.

equality democracy justice

TAX THE RICH

Why do some insist on using these words interchangeably? Well its a good way to ignore the first principles of our Nation. One can use the word equality or democracy to yield justice and that clearly trumps all, heads always nod. See in the world there is an unequal distribution of wealth. Some people are rich others are poor. It is known by the moral elites of the progressive church that the poor do not choose to be poor - that it is the result of circumstances beyond their control. And then we have all theses show-offs. The over achievers. The RICH. They don't deserve anything they have because its not earned. Ideally to make things equal ( remember in a democratic society equality trumps all) you would give the bad luck poor folk some money so they would be as rich as the undeserving rich folk. This is a brilliant strategy! Its just so awful that this money has to come from somewhere. Wait a minute, the rich people have money (the rich bastards) we can take it from them and give it to the poor to preserve democratic justice. Yes that's it! A majority of poor can exploit the minority of rich. That's democracy, majority rule as long as it doesn't violate equality (if majority rule violates equality then that's not justice). Ah-ha, we'll suppress the rich, restrain them by any means, for making such an embarrassment out of the poor folk, making them look unproductive, lazy, and chronically disabled. We must hate the successful. Give them no credit (in fact most of them have benefited from a illegitimate system devised by dead white males!! Gasp!!). Our egalitarian values demand we must make everyone equally poor...

disaster averted

JUDICIAL NOMINATIONS

The Constitution is in shreds, burnt by the very people who swore an oath to protect it. What a mess this highway robbery has turned out to be. It could be worse, pragmatically the U.S. is still in better shape than the rest of the industrialized world - our Constitution occasionally stops a government power grab here or there. The progressives have so effectively re-written much of it that limited government is in a century old remission. How can a Nation get back on track once the damage has been done? How can the two thirds of the federal budget - that is unconstitutional - be eliminated in a legitimate smooth transition? The rejection of potential justices on the grounds that they will not enforce the Constitution as it was written is a good start. People who wish to amend the constitution should use the amendment process not judicial fiat.