Oil Spills & Solar Panels

The recent disastrous oil spill in the gulf is a reminder of the dangers of fossil fuel dependency and is doing exactly what it was supposed to; giving a kick start to the controversial Cap and Trade legislation. But the debate over clean energy has been going on as long as I have been alive. In my day, solar panels were the "green solution" to clean energy. Harnessing the power of the sun to heat and cool homes was very popular in the 70's. The technology has been around for a lot longer than you may think, its history spans from 7th Century BC to today. Due to the crude oil trade embargo of the 70's, homes were built with solar panels. These energy saving panels, didn't however make the huge monopolistic energy companies any money.

Lets take a realistic look at what happened to this green energy. The laws of supply and demand usually spur innovation and production. Even beanie babies can attest to that. So why would something that saves consumers money and is in demand go away? The moment a consumer sees a reduced heating bill, why would they ever have a home without solar panels? Yet you only occasionally see homes still fitted with them. Did consumers change their minds about saving money? Installation of solar panels in homes by a retailer can cost upwards of $20,000 dollars and that savings is seen after many years. But consumers have the ability to build their own for hundreds of dollars. This tells us that solar panels were over priced right out of the market. If a consumer can build something for a couple hundred dollars that would cost $20,000 retail, something isn't quite right.

And lets look further to another green mainstay, wind power. Wind turbines and wind technology is another green solution that has been around for as long as humans, and can be seen as early as 5,000 B.C. , yet the technology has only been popping up in last 20 years. All this cheap energy and why does it cost so much for every day consumers to utilize it?

If products are not available or affordable to consumers they will not be used. In the case of wind turbines, most cities tie up wind technology in zoning legislation. Yet wind technology could easily allow us to tell energy companies to pound salt.

Energy companies have a monopoly on American energy and are big enough and rich enough to pay off elected officials to ensure we have no choices in the marketplace. Contrary to our supposed Capitalistic society. The Cap & Trade legislation, according to Obama, is to allow these monopolies to retrofit their operations to green energy and that they will pass that cost on to consumers. But why would we give these corrupt dinosaurs first access to green energy? They have had the opportunity to retool for decades. They've enjoyed no competition and the ability to set their price with no intervention from government. They've made literally billions of dollars off the American people. If they, at this point have not seen the good sense to "Go Green" The Federal government should be telling them: too bad- so sad, you missed the boat.

Let that green opportunity go to new businesses that can offer consumers affordable solutions in the marketplace. Let these greedy energy giants die on the vine. This legislation is so misplaced. A move toward renewable energy does not require an enormous tax scheme. The American people are not responsible for big energy's costs for what they should have done years ago. Here's a clue; use the money you already made in profit to retrofit your operations. If the government offered business loans for new green energy companies and rewarded businesses for offering affordable green solutions, it would actually create jobs, ease our dependence on fossil fuels and move us in the direction of economic recovery. Instead the government wants to hand over this great opportunity to the tired old corrupt status qou monopolies so they can make even more money off of us while they get with the program.

If Obama truly cared about consumers, the environment and green energy he would not be touching Cap & Trade with a ten foot pole. Instead he clearly identifies who he's in bed with. The demand is great for green solutions. Consumers would be eating up affordable solar panels and affordable wind turbines if our government would just stop getting in the way. Ask yourself why we can't do this on our own? Ask yourself why there are no companies out there that can offer us green solutions so we can tell our utility providers to get lost? Why have no companies seen this opportunity to produce solar panels and wind turbines and been flooding the market with products?

It reminds of a story. Stanley Meyer invented something called a water fuel cell. It would allow consumers to fill up their cars using a common garden hose. Stanley died suddenly in March of 1998, but not before the Pentagon seized the technology. Of Course Meyer was portrayed as a fraud in the media and the technology died with him. What is the incentive to create low cost energy when after hundreds of years all we still do is hold on to fossil fuels. The mystery is why. But in all actuality the why is money. Energy companies run the show and they want a piece of this "green" pie and our government is handing that giant slice on a silver platter. It is in our hands, we have to put in end to the rapping of America.

PBS

I watched a PBS special about a couple who had an autistic child, they were modern hippie parents not to be confused with hippies of the 60's and 70's. The modern day hippies have taken a big giant dose of the Kool-aid. The hippies of the 60's didn't trust the government, were against war and were for personal freedom mainly in the venue of personal recreational drug use. The new hippies of today buy everything their government tells them including global warming and liberalism to an extreme. Little do they know that Autism is linked mainly to government forced vaccinations, and forced medicated fluoride in the water. The hippies of the past would never have accepted these developments but would have been hosting love ins and protests against government control. The current hippies or liberals haven't a clue because in stark contrast they believe EVERYTHING their government tells them. Watching it told me how incredibly powerful propaganda is in modern age society. Hitler after all, was voted in by 95% of the population due to a very effective propaganda campaign which tells us evil only has to utilize tried and true methods of control to disable a nation of thinkers to be drones. The liberals or hippies of our society use to question everything, now they back everything the government tells them too in the name of liberalism or Socialism. They have no idea their beliefs are powered by beliefs that will eventually prove to be the biggest anti-American sentiment America has ever known. Freedom is something the hippies of days gone by understood, those liberals we see now are just pawns in a critical intellectual battle. Hippies can choose to think or buy in, buying in means the end of freedom as we know it. We all pray, thinking becomes the norm again!

good stuff

Audit The Fed Bill Gutted!

By Bob Ivry | Bloomberg

Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Representative Ron Paul, the Texas Republican who has called for an end to the Federal Reserve, said legislation he introduced to audit monetary policy has been “gutted” while moving toward a possible vote in the Democratic-controlled House.

The bill, with 308 co-sponsors, has been stripped of provisions that would remove Fed exemptions from audits of transactions with foreign central banks, monetary policy deliberations, transactions made under the direction of the Federal Open Market Committee and communications between the Board, the reserve banks and staff, Paul said today.

“There’s nothing left, it’s been gutted,” he said in a telephone interview. “This is not a partisan issue. People all over the country want to know what the Fed is up to, and this legislation was supposed to help them do that.”

The Fed, led by Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, has come under greater congressional scrutiny while attempting to end the financial crisis by bailing out financial firms and more than doubling its balance sheet to $2.16 trillion in the past year. The central bank is also buying $1.25 trillion of securities tied to home loans.

Paul, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, said Mel Watt, a Democrat from North Carolina, has eliminated “just about everything” while preparing the legislation for formal consideration. Watt is chairman of the panel’s domestic monetary policy and technology subcommittee.

Keith Kelly, a spokesman for Watt, declined to comment and said Watt wasn’t immediately available for an interview. Watt’s district includes Charlotte, headquarters of Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. lender.

Original Language

Paul said he intends to introduce an amendment to the bill when it comes to the House floor for a vote restoring the legislation’s original language.

Continue

Excerpted from pp. 44-46 of The Great Derangement

[W]hen you’re looking at the process by which any bill gets passed into law, on the House side at least there are only a few people who really matter. Those people are the majority leader, the chairman of the relevant “committee of jurisdiction” (i.e. Energy and Commerce for the oil industry, Financial Services for Wall Street firms, etc.), the chairman of the Rules Committee, the chairs of the House-Senate conference committee, the House Speaker and perhaps a few other members of the conference committee.

These people are important because this small group can essentially ram a bill into law all by themselves. If you control all of these seats, you control every space on the congressional Monopoly board within which the bill can be written or altered unilaterally.

There are four main way stations on the road to a bill’s passage. There’s the committee of jurisdiction, where the bill, after being introduced, goes through what is called a markup process. In a markup, the committee decides what goes in the bill and what does not. The markup process is supervised by the committee chairman. Theoretically the markup process is put to a general vote by the committee, but in this Congress the reality is that the chairman puts in what he wants and chucks what he doesn’t want out the window.

He then sends the bill to the Rules Committee, where other House members from outside the committee – usually freaked-out minority members desperate to stop this or that criminally insane provision cleverly hidden in the committee version – have a chance to submit amendments to the bill. The Rules chairman tries not to laugh, somberly nukes every meaningful amendment request with a pained, regretful expression, and then takes the bill behind closed doors, where it can be rewritten (usually in the middle of the night) to include all the shit the House leadership knew was way to evil to survive public discussion in the original committee of jurisdiction.

Rules then puts the finishing touches on the bill’s language and sends it to the floor the very next morning. The version that leaves the rules committee is now called not a bill, but a rule. The Rules Committee is supposed to give House members three days to read the rule before it goes to a vote, but the three-day period can be waived in case of emergency. The “emergency” has been in place for five consecutive years now; virtually every bill that has passed through the house in the Bush era has been voted on just hours after emerging from the hairy womb of the Rules Committee.

After the House passes the rule, which of course no one voting on it has read, the world then waits for the Senate to pass its own hideous version of the legislation. But alas, the bill cannot be sent to the president until the differences between the House and Senate versions – consisting generally of differing sets of campaign donor hand-jobs hidden in the two bills – can be ironed out. This ironing out is done in the conference committee.

The mechanism of conference committee is a special voodoo all unto itself, a monstrously complex bureaucratic maze whose diabolical scheme is known to a select few congressional practitioners. But for the moment, only two facts are important.

The first is that the bill can again be completely rewritten here, rewritten from top to bottom, rewritten even so that it has a completely opposite meaning from the bills that passed the two houses – in a word, re written in such a fashion as to render the whole process up to now meaningless.

The second is that a majority vote of conference committee members, called “conferees,” is not even required for passage. Again, the conference committee chairs are the key players here. Whatever the top dogs from the House and the Senate want generally occurs. They redo the bill according to whatever swinish commercial dynamic happens to govern this back-room deal (for the conference hearings are almost always conducted out of the public eye), then send the final version for a vote, again giving the members just a few hours’ notice before they make an essentially blind decision on the by-now completely revised legislation.

Somewhere along the line, campaign donors apparently figured out that by a careful stewarding of their contributions, they could – instead of spending gargantuan sums to buy the wide majority of House and Senate members necessary for an open vote on the floor – instead target those members who could simply rewrite the important parts of the bill in secret.

Funny Dogs!

Big Bird helping to promote the Birth Certificate issue

Mom, says Ron Paul the only Congressman representing the people in Washington

The Day the SWAT Team Came Crashing Through My Door

I remember thinking, as I kneeled at gunpoint with my hands bound on my living room floor, that there had been a terrible, terrible mistake.

An errant Prince George's County SWAT team had just forced its way into our home, shot dead our two black Labradors, Payton and Chase, and started ransacking our belongings as part of what would become a four-hour ordeal.

The police found nothing, of course, to connect my family and me to a box of drugs that they had been tracking and had delivered to our front door. The community -- of which I am mayor -- rallied to our side. A FedEx driver and accomplice were arrested in a drug trafficking scheme. Ultimately, we were cleared of any wrongdoing, but not before the incident drew international outrage.

This was 14 months ago. We have since filed suit, and I am confident that we will find justice more quickly than most.

Yet, I remain captured by the broader implications of the incident. Namely, that my initial take was wrong: It was no accident but rather business as usual that brought the police to -- and through -- our front door.

In the words of Prince George's County Sheriff Michael Jackson, whose deputies carried out the assault, "the guys did what they were supposed to do" -- acknowledging, almost as an afterthought, that terrorizing innocent citizens in Prince George's is standard fare. The only difference this time seems to be that the victim was a clean-cut white mayor with community support, resources and a story to tell the media.

What confounds me is the unmitigated refusal of county leaders to challenge law enforcement and to demand better -- as if civil rights are somehow rendered secondary by the war on drugs.

Let me give you three specific concerns underscored by our case.

First, the Prince George's Police Department's internal affairs function is broken. When the Justice Department released the county police from federal supervision in February, internal affairs was the one area that was not cleared. Internal affairs division (IAD) investigations were required to take no longer than 90 days. More than a year after our ordeal, my family awaits the IAD report on what happened at our home. The statute of limitations for officer misconduct is 12 months, which means that any wrongdoers are off the hook.

Next, there is significant evidence that the county is broadly violating the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure. After initially claiming that they had a "no-knock" warrant to forcibly enter our home, county police acknowledged that they did not have one. But they went on to contend that there is no such thing as a "no-knock" warrant in Maryland. But this isn't true. A statewide "no-knock" warrant statute was passed in 2005. Effectively, the county is denying the existence of state law. We can't get the county to say whether it has ever followed the law or, at a minimum, even acknowledges it.

Finally, and perhaps most disturbing of all, county police may be lying to cover up their civil rights violations. A county officer on the scene told Berwyn Heights police a fabricated tale to justify the warrantless entry into our home. The lie disappeared after police learned that I was the mayor. Charges of a police coverup are hardly unusual, but there is significant evidence that county law enforcement engaged in a conspiracy on our lawn to justify an illegal entry. Nothing strikes at the heart of police credibility like creative report writing and false testimony to cover up a lie or even put innocent people behind bars. Swift and serious consequences are the best deterrent.

In fairness, some good has come from the incident. State leaders have passed legislation that will provide statewide oversight of SWAT teams -- a first-in-the-nation law that will shine a light on the troubling trend of paramilitary policing.

Yet, the wagons have circled in Upper Marlboro. The response is textbook: Law enforcement stands its ground and concedes no wrongdoing -- and elected officials bury their heads in the sand.

As an imperfect elected official myself, I can understand a mistake -- even a terrible one. But a pattern and practice of police abuse treated with utter indifference rips at the fabric of our social compact and virtually guarantees more of the same.


Link

The Real Astroturf

click on each arm to see what hand they play in the whole net neutrality issue.

Freedom Watch

Anne Wortham

Fellow Americans,

Please know: I am Black; I grew up in the segregated South. I did not vote for Barack Obama; I wrote in Ron Paul's name as my choice for president. Most importantly, I am not race conscious. I do not require a Black president to know that I am a person of worth, and that life is worth living. I do not require a Black president to love the ideal of America.

I cannot join you in your celebration. I feel no elation. There is no smile on my face. I am not jumping with joy. There are no tears of triumph in my eyes. For such emotions and behavior to come from me, I would have to deny all that I know about the requirements of human flourishing and survival - all that I know about the history of the United States of America, all that I know about American race relations, and all that I know about Barack Obama as a politician.

I would have to deny the nature of the "change" that Obama asserts has come to America.

Most importantly, I would have to abnegate my certain understanding that you have chosen to sprint down the road to serfdom that we have been on for over a century. I would have to pretend that individual liberty has no value for the success of a human life. I would have to evade your rejection of the slender reed of capitalism on which your success and mine depend. I would have to think it somehow rational that 94 percent of the 12 million Blacks in this country voted for a man because he looks like them (that Blacks are permitted to play the race card), and that they were joined by self-declared "progressive" whites who voted for him because he doesn't look like them.

I would have to wipe my mind clean of all that I know about the kind of people who have advised and taught Barack Obama and will fill posts in his administration - political intellectuals like my former colleagues at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

I would have to believe that "fairness" is the equivalent of justice. I would have to believe that man who asks me to "go forward in a new spirit of service, in a new service of sacrifice" is speaking in my interest.. I would have to accept the premise of a man that economic prosperity comes from the "bottom up," and who arrogantly believes that he can will it into existence by the use of government force. I would have to admire a man who thinks the standard of living of the masses can be improved by destroying the most productive and the generators of wealth.

Finally, Americans, I would have to erase from my consciousness the scene of 125,000 screaming, crying, cheering people in Grant Park, Chicago irrationally chanting "Yes We Can!" Finally, I would have to wipe all memory of all the times I have heard politicians, pundits, journalists, editorialists, bloggers and intellectuals declare that capitalism is dead - and no one, including, and, especially Alan Greenspan, objected to their assumption that the particular version of the anti-capitalistic mentality that they want to replace with their own version of anti-capitalism is anything remotely equivalent to capitalism.

So you have made history, Americans. You and your children have elected a Black man to the office of the president of the United States , the wounded giant of the world. The battle between John Wayne and Jane Fonda is over - and that Fonda won. Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern must be very happy men. Jimmie Carter, too. And the Kennedys have at last gotten their Kennedy look-a-like. The self-righteous welfare statists in the suburbs can feel warm moments of satisfaction for having elected a Black person.

So, toast yourselves: 60s countercultural radicals, 80s yuppies and 90s bourgeois bohemians. Toast yourselves, Black America . Shout your glee Harvard, Princeton , Yale, Duke, Stanford, and Berkeley. You have elected, not an individual who is qualified to be president, but a Black man who, like the pragmatist Franklin Roosevelt, promises to - Do Something! You now have someone who has picked up the baton of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. But you have also foolishly traded your freedom and mine - what little there is left - for the chance to feel good.

There is nothing in me that can share your happy obliviousness.

Why Obama’s Address to Schoolchildren Is Objectionable

As I read the many editorial columns and articles in support of Obama’s speech, I can see that many writers are very upset and emotional over criticism of Obama’s action. They also are clueless concerning the reasons why his address is unwelcome. They are name-calling. They are not bothering to mention, much less rebut, the reasoned objections of people like me.

I can at least articulate my reasons for objecting.

Such a speech blurs or crosses several boundaries that I believe there are good reasons to have in place.

The President’s constitutional powers are explicit. They include the "executive Power." They include being "Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States" and a few more listed in the Constitution, including preserving and protecting the Constitution. They do not include addressing schoolchildren.

If the President were to live up to his oath to preserve and protect the Constitution, he would request that Congress repeal all its laws regarding education. Section 8 of Article I lists the powers of Congress. Education is not on that list. So when the President addresses schoolchildren, he breaks his oath in several ways. He does not have that power, and he affirms and solidifies a power assumed by Congress that Congress does not have. The President is failing in his sworn duty. Those who think that the President’s speech is helpfully teaching civics are mistaken. His speech is conveying and confirming anti-civics and anti-Constitutional lessons.

The President is a political leader. He is not in office to be an educator. His duties are clearly laid out, and they do not include educating children. By the same token, the President is not the parent of all these children. He is not their teacher. He is not their religious leader. The reason for these boundaries is so that political figures do not use their power and influence to dominate our social lives.

It is a special danger to liberty and society when national powers are developed. These are powers in which the national leadership directly controls or influences individual citizens, while bypassing or circumventing other local sources of governance and influence such as parents, families, churches, schools, and local governments.

An Obama address to schoolchildren is an instance of the further development of national power and influence. It breaks new ground in the influence of State over society. Public education already is under the influence of objectionable forces, but this establishes a new precedent that can be extended. If one political leader addresses youth, other leaders are more likely to address youth. The content of their speeches can be enlarged. Their influence can be enlarged. Government will be given more play and support than it already has. Such a speech is inescapably political. Such a precedent can eventually lead to further dangerous developments, such as a Presidential Youth or an Obama Youth.

The President is a politician. Any address he might make, no matter how nonpartisan it may seem, is bound to be political. It cannot be neutral. The very fact that he is President and making such a speech will be taken in by school children. He will be conveying his authority to these children, with the blessings of their parents and school teachers. They will be taught by the speech itself, regardless of its content, to look to the national government in matters relating to their lives. After all, is he not addressing them about very personal and civic matters? His speech is necessarily a political act.

The President is the leader of a particular political party, so that the very fact that he is a Democrat who is President and making such a speech influences his listeners. Children grow up to be voting adults.

In any speech, what the President says lies beyond the control of those who allow that speech to enter the classroom. The teachers have control over the subsequent discussion, if they choose to have it. But the President will already have made his impact. Children do not fully possess the capacities to judge political matters.

Will the opposition party demand equal time? Do we want politicians routinely competing with one another for the attention of and influence over children?

The President commands the airwaves. This is a dangerous and influential power when used with adults. Allowing this power to be extended to communication with every child in the country is even more dangerous.

School districts can opt out of the speech. In some districts, children may be allowed to opt out of the speech. These options are good ones. But they do not alter the reasons outlined above for objecting to a president making speeches in schools.

I’d like to add that I have seldom read stronger words in newspapers directed against those who object to Obama’s speechmaking to children. They are being called crackpots. They are being accused of demonizing the President. They are being accused of McCarthyism. They are being accused of being racist, completely insane, and members of the right-wing lunatic fringe.

These attacks are not called for. There are very good reasons to object to Obama’s speech. I’ll sum up the ones that bother me. There are no doubt others, but I have made no attempt to research them and find out what others are thinking on this matter.

1. The speech is beyond the President’s constitutional powers.
2. The President is supporting a national role in education, which also is unconstitutional.
3. The President is not supporting his oath of office, so he is conveying an anti-constitutional message to children.
4. The President is crossing a boundary between the political and social spheres. That boundary is in place in order to control government power and maintain a healthy free society.
5. The President is augmenting national power and influence.
6. The President is starting a new precedent that has dangerous implications.
7. The President’s speech cannot possibly be non-political. The very act itself is politically in furtherance of government and an enhanced government role.
8. The President also leads his party, and that fact may influence children.
9. The President may have an undue influence over children due to his position and power.
10. Will fairness considerations lead to equal time for opposition leaders?
11. Presidential access to communications is dangerous enough without extending it to youth.

Link

The Federal Reserve

Chickens & Cows

The House of Representatives recently passed funding for a new federal mandate that threatens to put thousands of small farmers and ranchers out of business. The National Animal Identification System, known as NAIS, is an expensive and unnecessary federal program that requires owners of livestock – cattle, dairy, poultry, and even horses – to tag animals with electronic tracking devices. The intrusive monitoring system amounts to nothing more than a tax on livestock owners, allowing the federal government access to detailed information about their private property.
In typical Washington-speak, NAIS is “voluntary” – provided USDA bureaucrats are satisfied with the level of cooperation. Trust me, NAIS will be mandatory within a few years. When was the last time a new federal program did not expand once implemented?
As usual, Congress is spending millions of dollars creating a complex non-solution to a very simple problem. NAIS will cost taxpayers at least $33 million for starters.
Agribusiness giants support NAIS, because they want the federal government to create a livestock database and provide free industry data. But small and independent livestock owners face a costly mandate if NAIS becomes law.
Larger livestock operations will be able to tag whole groups of animals with one ID device. Smaller ranchers and farmers, however, will be forced to tag each individual animal, at a cost of anywhere from $3 to $20 per head. And NAIS applies to anyone with a single horse, pig, chicken, or goat in the backyard – no exceptions. NAIS applies to children in 4-H or FFA. Once NAIS becomes mandatory, any failure to report and tag an animal subjects the owner to $1,000 per day fines.
NAIS also forces livestock owners to comply with new paperwork and monitoring regulations. These farmers and ranchers literally will be paying for an assault on their property and privacy rights, as NAIS empowers federal agents to enter and seize property without a warrant – a blatant violation of the 4th amendment.
NAIS is not about preventing mad cow or other diseases. States already have animal identification systems in place, and virtually all stockyards issue health certificates. Since most contamination happens after animals have been sold, tracing them back to the farm or ranch that sold them won’t help find the sources of disease.
More than anything, NAIS places our family farmers and ranchers at an economic disadvantage against agribusiness and overseas competition. As dairy farmer and rancher Bob Parker stated, NAIS is “too intrusive, too costly, and will be devastating to small farmers and ranchers.”
NAIS means more government, more regulations, more fees, more federal spending, less privacy, and diminished property rights. It’s exactly the kind of federal program every conservative, civil libertarian, animal lover, businessman, farmer, and rancher should oppose. The House has already acted, but there’s still time to tell the Senate to dump NAIS. Please call your Senators and tell them you oppose spending even one dime on the NAIS program in the 2007 agriculture appropriations bill.
May 30, 2006
Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas.

link
I’ll Give Up My Chicken When They Pry It From My Cold Dead Hands

Brush off your philosphy hat and ponder this

The Pathetic Argument for Prohibiting Drunk Driving
by Mark R. Crovelliby Mark R. CrovelliRecently by Mark R. Crovelli: What This Country Needs Is a 'Cash for Clunkers' Program for the Housing Sector

For people who have grown accustomed to having the government monitor, regulate and enforce every facet of their miserable lives, it can be very difficult for them to conceive of the idea of legalizing drunk driving without at the same time picturing in their heads mangled cars, dead babies, and carnage generally. They have been told year after year by the government that created and enforces these laws, that drunk driving is one of the very worst crimes a man can commit, and that, were it not for the government’s ruthless pursuit of these dangerous criminals, there would indeed be unchecked slaughter in the streets.
Any arguments to the contrary, claiming that we could reduce both the incidence and danger of drunk driving by legalizing it, appear completely absurd to these people. They dismiss these arguments out of hand because they have adopted the government’s ridiculous conception of the drunk-driving issue, which looks something like this:
A) Drunk drivers are dangerous, and can kill other drivers
B) The government has outlawed drunk driving, and punishes drunk driving ruthlessly
Ergo, C) The government’s prohibition and punishments do actually reduce the incidence and danger of drunk driving
It does not take a professor of logic, however, to see that this type of argument is fallacious. The conclusion simply does not follow from the premises. We are not entitled to conclude that the government is successfully reducing either the incidence or the danger of drunk driving, just because they have prohibited it and are mercilessly punishing violators. It could be the case that the government’s prohibitions and punishments themselves are actually exacerbating the problem rather than ameliorating it.
The preceding point is exceedingly important, and is worth emphasizing with an analogous example from the so-called "War on Drugs." The federal government takes an analogous position with regard to drug trafficking and consumption, after all. The claim has always been that all the prohibitions and brutal punishments do reduce drug production and consumption (otherwise, what would be the point of the "war"?). Spokesmen for the drug warriors periodically appear in the news claiming that they have just busted a behemoth cocaine or marijuana smuggling ring, and that the bust will be a major blow to drug pushers and consumers. We all know what happens in the real world of drug production once the government cracks down on drugs in some way, however: the market participants adjust to the increased pressure by shifting their base of operation (e.g., from peaceful Caribbean beaches to the blood-drenched calles of Mexico), switching to more concentrated and dangerous drugs to produce and sell to avoid getting caught (e.g., switching from marijuana to cocaine and heroin), and the more vicious risk-takers among the drug producers take market share away from those who fear prison and God if they, say, cut off a police chief’s head.
Needless to say, the mere fact that the government has prohibited certain drugs, and has gone so far as to wage "war" against them, is insufficient to establish that the government is truly reducing drug consumption or production. If anything, the government’s prohibition of and "war" on drugs has itself caused drugs to become more potent, has created a drug gulag system in the United States (that is, ironically, itself rife with drugs) and a mafia state in Mexico – and yet has not reduced anyone’s ability to purchase coke, pot and meth in the slightest degree.
With regard to the drug "war," and all of its obvious failures and disasters, no one with half a brain would think of making an argument claiming that the government is actually reducing drug consumption, just because they have made them illegal and ruthlessly punish offenders. No one would offer an argument, like the one above, claiming:
A) Drug addicts are dangerous, and can kill or hurt themselves and others
B) The government has outlawed consuming or selling drugs, and punishes consumers and sellers ruthlessly
Ergo, C) The government’s prohibition and punishments do actually reduce the incidence and danger of drugs
No one would make such an argument because the conclusion obviously does not follow from the premises. Some sort of further argument or evidence is necessary to establish that the prohibition is working, or else the argument is question-begging. And, once one takes even the slightest peek at the evidence (i.e., the destruction, death and incarceration that the Drug War has delivered to this continent, and the ease with which anyone can buy virtually any drug in any city, school, or prison on this continent), the argument falls apart immediately.
The same ought to be true for what might be aptly called the "War on Drunk Driving." One ought not to simply assume that the government’s prohibitions and medieval punishments actually work to reduce drunk driving – unless there exist good arguments to that effect.
When one looks at the arguments about the efficacy of the government’s war on drunk driving, however, they all point to the opposite conclusion; namely, that the government’s prohibition and punishments are actually making things worse, rather than better. For example, the government’s prohibitions have created incentives for drunk drivers to drive much more dangerously than they otherwise would. They have resulted in a massive loss of income and freedom for hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of Americans who have been arrested, fined and imprisoned for drunk driving without ever hurting anyone. They have created an interlocking structure of incentives that actually encourage drunk driving. They have created a blatantly hypocritical standard for driving on the nation’s roads – with some dangerous drivers let off with a wag of the finger, while others are arrested, fined and incarcerated for doing exactly the same thing; namely, putting other people’s lives at risk. And they have created a police state on the nation’s roads and highways; with Israeli-like random checkpoints, a massive propaganda campaign to intimidate drivers, and mandatory removal of blood from people’s bodies.
The challenge, then, for people who believe in prohibiting drunk driving is to show that these laws do actually reduce drunk driving. Like proponents of drug prohibition, they must be able to show that all of the obvious suffering these laws inflict, billions of lost dollars spent in waging the "war," loss of individual liberties, and counterproductive incentives the laws create have actually reduced drunk driving.
For decades we have been waiting for the drug prohibitionists to give us some similar proof that their favored war has given us some tangible benefits besides millions of men in prison, ever-more potent and dangerous drugs, and a police state run amok. They have failed miserably. So, too, will the proponents of drunk-driving prohibition when we look back on decades of fighting a "war" against our own people, when they have never even hurt any other people.
September 2, 2009
Mark R. Crovelli [send him mail] writes from Denver, Colorado.

Link

Freedom is Always Against the Law

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3

In Honor of a Wise Man

Jim Traficant, Ohio lawmaker and Democrat will be released from Federal prison Wednesday. Here is a great speech he delivered on the House floor on March 17, 1993. He went up against the International bankers. Most get killed for this but he just went to Federal prison for his wise words. He was vilified in the media labeled a nut and sent to prison on some pretty ridiculous charges. He was ahead of his time!

"Mr. Speaker, we are here now in Chapter 11. Members of Congress are official trustees presiding over the greatest reorganization in world history, the U.S. Government.

We are setting forth hopefully, a blueprint for our future.

There are some who say it is a coroner's report that will lead to our demise.

It is an established fact that the United States Federal Government has been dissolved by the Emergency Banking Act, March 9, 1933, 48 Stat. 1, Public Law 89-719; declared by President Roosevelt, being bankrupt and insolvent. HJR 192, 73rd Congress in session June 5, 1933 - Joint Resolution to Suspend the Gold Standard and Abrogate the Gold Clause dissolved the Sovereign Authority of the United States and the official capacities of all United States Governmental Offices, Officers, and Departments, and is further evidence that the United States Federal Government exists today in name only.

The receivers of the United States Bankruptcy are the International Bankers, via the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.

All United States Offices, Officials, and Departments are now operating within a de facto status in name only under the Emergency War Powers.

With the Constitutional Republican form of Government now dissolved, the receivers of the Bankruptcy have adopted a new form of government FOR the United States. This new form of government is known as a Democracy, being an established Socialist/Communist order under a new governor for America.

This act was instituted and established by transferring and/or placing the Office of the Secretary of Treasury to that of the Governor of the International Monetary Fund. Public Law 94-564, page 8, Section H.R.13955 reads in part:

'The U.S. Secretary of Treasury receives no compensation for representing the United States.'

Gold and silver were such a powerful money during the founding of the united states of America that the founding fathers declared that only gold or silver coins can be 'money' in America. Since gold and silver coinage were heavy and inconvenient for a lot of transactions, they were stored in banks and a claim check was issued as a money substitute.

People traded their coupons as money, or 'currency.' Currency is not money, but a money substitute. Redeemable currency must promise to pay a dollar equivalent in gold or silver money. Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs) make no such promises and are not 'money.'

A Federal Reserve Note is a debt obligation of the federal United States Government, not 'money.' The federal United States Government and the U.S. Congress were not and have never been authorized by the Constitution for the united states of America to issue currency of any kind, but only lawful money - gold and silver coin.

It is essential that we comprehend the distinction between real money and paper money substitute. One cannot get rich by accumulating money substitutes, one can only get deeper into debt. We the People no longer have any 'money.'

Most Americans have not been paid any 'money' for a very long time, perhaps not in their entire life. Now do you comprehend why you feel broke? Now do you understand why you are 'bankrupt,' along with the rest of the country?

Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs) are unsigned checks written on a closed account. FRNs are an inflatable paper system designed to create debt through inflation (devaluation of currency). Whenever there is an increase of the supply of a money substitute in the economy without a corresponding increase in the gold and silver backing, inflation occurs.

Inflation is an invisible form of taxation that irresponsible governments inflict on their citizens. The Federal Reserve Bank who controls the supply and movement of FRNs has everybody fooled. They have access to an unlimited supply of FRNs, paying only for the printing costs of what they need. FRNs are nothing more than promissory notes for U.S. Treasury securities (T-bills) - a promise to pay the debt to the Federal Reserve Bank.

There is a fundamental difference between 'paying' and 'discharging' a debt. To pay a debt, you must pay with value or substance (i.e. gold, silver, barter or a commodity). With FRNs, you can only discharge a debt. You cannot pay a debt with a debt currency system. You cannot service a debt with a currency that has no backing in value or substance. No contract in Common Law is valid unless it involves an exchange of 'good and valuable consideration."

Unpayable debt transfers power and control to the sovereign power structure that has no interest in money, law, equity, or justice because they have so much wealth already.

Their lust is for power and control.

Since the inception of central banking, they have controlled the fates of nations.

The Federal Reserve System is based on the Canon law and the principles of sovereignty protected in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. In fact, the international bankers used a 'Canon Law Trust' as their model, adding stock and naming it a 'Joint Stock Trust' in 1873. The Federal Reserve Act was legislated post facto (to 1870), although post-facto laws are strictly forbidden by the Constitution (Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 3).

The Federal Reserve System is a sovereign power structure separate and distinct from the federal United States government. The Federal Reserve is a maritime lender, and/or maritime insurance underwriter to the federal United States operating exclusively under Admiralty/Maritime law. The lender or underwriter bears the risks, and the Maritime law compelling specific performance in paying the interest, or premiums, are the same.

Assets of the debtor can also be hypothecated (to pledge something as a security without taking possession of it) as security by the lender or underwriter. The Federal Reserve Act stipulated that the interest on the debt was to be paid in Gold. There was no stipulation in the Federal Reserve Act for ever paying the principal.

Prior to 1913, most Americans owned clear, allodial title to property, free and clear of any liens or mortgages until the Federal Reserve Act (1913) 'hypothecated' all property within the federal United States to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, in which the Trustees (stockholders) held legal title. The U.S. citizen (tenant, franchisee) was registered as a 'beneficiary' of the trust via his/her birth certificate.

In 1933, the federal United States hypothecated all of the present and future properties, assets, and labor of their 'subjects,' the 14th Amendment U.S. citizen, to the Federal Reserve System.

In return, the Federal Reserve System agreed to extend the federal United States corporation all the credit 'money substitute' it needed. Like any other debtor, the federal United States government had to assign collateral and security to their creditors as a condition of the loan.

Since the federal United States didn't have any assets, they assigned the private property of their 'economic slaves,' the U.S. citizens as collateral against the unpayable federal debt. They also pledged the unincorporated federal territories, national park forests, birth certificates, and non-profit organizations as collateral against the federal debt.

All has already been transferred as payment to the international bankers.

Unwittingly, America has returned to its pre-American Revolution, feudal roots whereby all land is held by a Sovereign, and the common people had no rights to hold allodial title to property.

Once again, We the People are the tenants and sharecroppers renting our own property from a Sovereign in the guise of the Federal Reserve Bank.

We the People have exchanged one master for another.

This has been going on for over eighty years without the 'informed knowledge' of the American people, without a voice protesting loud enough.

Now it is easy to grasp why America is fundamentally bankrupt.

Why don't more people own their properties outright?

Why are 90% of Americans mortgaged to the hilt and have little or no assets after all debts and liabilities have been paid?

Why does it feel like you are working harder and harder and getting less and less?

We are reaping what has been sown, and the results of our harvest is a painful bankruptcy, and a foreclosure on American property, precious liberties, and a way of life.

Few of our elected representatives in Washington, D.C. have dared to tell the truth. The federal United States is bankrupt. Our children will inherit this unpayable debt, and the tyranny to enforce paying it.

America has become completely bankrupt in world leadership, financial credit, and its reputation for courage, vision, and human rights.

This is an undeclared economic war, bankruptcy, and economic slavery of the most corrupt order.

Wake up, America! Take back your country."--James Traficant

link
Congressional record

never go up against the bankers...

CIA hired Blackwater to infiltrate Ron Paul & Mike Gravel Campaign

Contrary to what Pelosi says, Americans are not for Obamacare

• Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., was confronted by self-described Democrats who accused their representative of lying about health reform and protested, "Why would you try to stuff a health-care plan down our throats in a couple days when the president took six months to pick a dog for his kids?"
  

• Also in Maryland, Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., admitted to receiving nearly 1,600 RSVP's for a town hall meeting at a concert hall that only seated only 500. When an estimated 1,500 showed up for the meeting, protesters lined the streets outside with signs and shouts.


• In Mehlville, Mo., protesters lined up around the block of the Bernard Middle School gym where Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-Mo., had planned a public forum. When hundreds were left standing on the street, they remained outside into the evening. Eventually, a union representative reportedly assaulted one of the protesters, Kenneth Gladney, which lead to six arrests, including a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter. Gladney later appeared in an interview on the Fox News Channel explaining the attack, which drew national attention.


• A video posted on YouTube, one of many from around the country, reportedly shows several hundreds standing outside in a stunningly long line, waiting to get into a packed town hall meeting on health care with Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga.


• Rep. Tim Bishop, D-N.Y., has called off further events after a June 22 event he held in Setauket, N.Y., in which protesters dominated the meeting by shouting criticisms at the congressman for his positions on energy policy, health care and the bailout of the auto industry.


• Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., got an earful, too – especially on the health-care issue.


• Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., heard from a very well-informed veteran – to the enthusiastic applause of those gathered.


• Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., also heard from the crowd when he made a gaffe by saying the work needs to be done "fast."


• The Pittsburgh Tribune review captured video of a town hall with Specter in Kittanning, Pa., reporting that 1,500 showed up to voice their concerns over health care. "I've never seen anything like this," Specter told reporters afterward.


• U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., tried to explain at a town hall that people "don't know" how much they're already paying to cover the uninsured, but his reasoning was drowned out by protesters.


• WND reported the story of Mike Sola, a Michigan father who confronted Dingell in a separate meeting over what he feared Obamacare would do to his handicapped adult son. Sola later reported he was threatened at his home, at night, by supporters of the government health-care plan.


• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., visited a Denver, Colo., clinic for the homeless to raise support for Obama's health-care plan, only to be met by streets lined with protesters opposed to the measure.


• Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-TX, went out to meet constituents, only to be met with protesters shouting in opposition to the health-care bill, "Just say no!"


• At a health-care town hall event in Syracuse, N.Y., in July, police were called in to restore order, and at least one heckler was taken away by local police.


• Close to 100 sign-carrying protesters greeted Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Fla., at a late June community college small-business development forum in Panama City, Fla.


• Danville, Va., anti-tax tea party activists claimed they were "refused an opportunity" to ask Rep. Thomas Perriello, D-Va., a question at a town hall event and instructed by a plainclothes police officer to leave the property after they attempted to hold up protest signs.


• Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., was chased by a crowd saying the Pledge of Allegiance.


• In the wake of vocal town hall protests covered by the press, Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., attempted to ban news cameras from his public forum on health care reform, but eventually relented and allowed the coverage.


• A handful of New York's congressmen, including Democrats Brian Higgins and Louise Slaughter and Republican Chris Lee, have shunned the town hall meetings altogether, opting instead for telephone meetings or no meetings at all.


• Rep. Mark Schauer, D-Mich., also sought to dodge boisterous health-care reform critics by holding a teleconference forum, rather than a public town hall meeting. The decision didn't stop protesters on both sides of the debate rallying outside the lawmaker's office.


• The constituents of Rep. John Tanner, D-Tenn., unable to access their representative through a town hall meeting, created a video charging that Tanner has met with Michael Moore and Fidel Castro, "But he won't meet his constituents in the 8th District to talk about health care."


• Meanwhile, pre-written questions from participants with track records of campaigning and organizing for Obama have led some to believe the president has been stacking his own town halls with "plants." The practice, some allege, may also be in use at other, purportedly open public forums.

• In Lorain County, Representative Sutton, turned a voter away because she did not support the huge health care spending bill. Then to avoid protest she staged a call with 9 constituents, six of which were against the bill. She also claimed she read the over 1,000 page bill. She may be the only Representative who has read it. I'm going to guess she skimmed it at best.
  

• In a Town hall meeting in Tampa Florida, Kathy Castor was drowned out by screams of "you work for us" and "hear our voice". She had a voters beaten upa nd didn't take any questions, but left the meeting.

• 
  

History in America

The Socialist Party candidate for President of the US, Norman Thomas, said this in a 1944 speech: "The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of "liberalism," they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened." He went on to say: "I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democrat Party has adopted our platform.

They didn't resonate in the 1940s when Franklin Roosevelt, in the name of ending the Depression, exceeded all constitutional authority by approving new federal assistance programs.

They seemed a bit far-fetched to most of us in the 1960s when Lyndon Johnson vastly expanded the welfare state in his failed bid to end poverty in America.

They still didn't connect in the 1970s when Richard Nixon, in a bid to ingratiate himself with Democrats in Congress and stave off an impeachment, greatly increased spending on wealth-redistribution schemes.

And by the 1980s, with Ronald Reagan in power, it seemed this 40-year trend had finally been reversed.

Now comes an even grander proposal by Barack Obama. It's called the Global Poverty Act that would, in the next decade, transfer at least $845 billion of U.S. taxpayer money overseas. Think of Johnson's failed war on poverty going international – directed not by Americans but by the United Nations.

How we could even be debating ideas like this in the 21st century, after all of the climactic failures of socialism around the world, is amazing to me. But we're not really debating them. It seems we're not even capable as a people of debating them, reasoning over them, using our brains to consider them.