Uncategorized

I was out of the country for over a week, and I voted by absentee ballot. Upon my return, we had a new President-elect. A few thoughts on the election:

1 Sure, we elected our first black President. This does not prove that we have overcome racism. Voting for a man because he is black while ignoring his stance on the issues is just as racist as NOT voting for a man because he is black while igoring his stance on the issues, yet 95% of blacks in this country did just that.

2 Anyone under the age of 30 who is complaining about Bush being the worst President ever likely has no idea what they are talking about. After all, if you are under 30, you only know 2 Presidents. (You were only 14 when Clinton entered office. What is your frame of reference?)

3 Have you read that Obama wants to have compulsory community service for all junior high, high school, and college students. On his official page (change.gov) he spells out plans for mandatory community service- 50 hours a year for junior high and high school, and 100 hours a year for college students. Since I found it, he has changed the page, but the original can be found on Google cache here.

How long until they get spiffy new uniforms, and are encouraged to inform on their parents?

crazy lesbian Liberals with screwdrivers kill people, and then commit suicide. At least, that is the way things appear to have gone down, according to Palm Beach police. It seems that Carol Anne Burger, a writer for the Liberal Huffington Post, stabbed her estranged wife 22 times before taking her own life by pressing a pistol under her chin, thus proving the Liberal axiom that guns kill.

Perhaps that is why Liberals are for gun control- they project their own violent leanings upon others. Of course, their being dead will not cost Obama any votes- Acorn always finds a way for dead people to vote for Obama. Wouldn’t want to infringe on the rights of the dead, don’tcha know.

There is an old saying that Americans have one thing in common: They all believe they are better than average drivers. There is one other trait that many Americans share- they each think they understand the law, even when they do not. Nowhere is this more true than with tax protesters.

There are numerous fallacies that are held by them that simply drive me crazy. For example:

– Arguments that tax laws only apply to corporate officers and government employees. This belief stems from the following definition from the tax code:

“For purposes of this chapter, the term ‘employee’ includes an officer, employee, or elected official of the United States, a State, or any political subdivision thereof, or the District of Columbia, or any agency or instrumentality of any one or more of the foregoing. The term ‘employee’ also includes an officer of a corporation.” I.R.C. section 3401(c).

This erroneous belief stems from a misunderstanding of the word “includes.” To illustrate, if I said, “My gun collection includes a Colt Combat Commander and a Mossberg 500,” would that mean that my collection did not contain a Kimber Ultra Carry? Of course it wouldn’t. Using the word “includes” does not mean “only includes.”

Similarly, many protesters claim that when section 7701(a)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code states that:

“The term ‘person’ shall be construed to mean and include an individual, a trust, estate, partnership, association, company or corporation.”

That there are no people in the country EXCEPT corporations and trusts. Of course that is ridiculous.

There are tons of tax arguments, and the reasons they are wrong, that can be found here. Read them, and we can discuss them after you have an understanding of the principles involved.

I agree that progressive income taxes are wrong. I agree that taking my money to give to someone else in a socialistic redistribution of wealth is the equivalent of armed robbery. I disagree that the tax code has such ludicrous loopholes.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Those are the words that are enshrined in the Bill of Rights, more specifically the Fourth Amendment. I have been looking really hard, and I cannot seem to find the part where the Government is allowed to use radar to see what you look like naked, that the Government can refuse your entry to trains and subways if you refuse to be searched. (Not just in New York)

Do some homework: Ask yourself where the Bill of Rights has been violated. I think we have hit all ten. The Republic is dead. The fun part is going to be where I get to point out to my Republican friends that the powers being abused by Obama are the same ones they gleefully gave W.

This article refers to Obama as “Robin Hood,” stating that he will be “confiscating money from the rich to give to the poor.” This is in reference to his statement that he will take the profits of small-business owners and “spread the wealth around” to those with lesser incomes.

That does not mean that he is Robin Hood, because Robin Hood stole from the GOVERNMENT and gave the money back to the taxpayers. See, the reason the people in the Robin Hood tales were in the state they were in was because the Sheriff of Nottingham was confiscating the wealth of the citizens to make himself rich.

I believe that anyone who advocates taxing successful people to give to the poor underclass is rather more like another historical figure- Karl Marx.

In conjunction with McCain’s claims that he wishes to take oil company profits and redistribute them, the differences in this election are of degree only.

Many have been claiming that the bailout is needed to keep the economy from melting down. The problem here is that we are giving money to the investment banks to keep them from failing. This ignores the fact that the money that was “lost” was not lost, but merely changed hands. This money is still circulating in the economy, having been acquired and spent by the people who sold their homes to the now defaulting borrowers.

The amount of cash that will be injected into the US economy is staggering. By some estimates, over $1 trillion dollars will be placed into circulation to bail out the banking industry. That is in addition to the $400 billion that has already been spent since Feb 5. The entire country only produces $14 trillion a year in goods and services, so this amount represents 10% of our annual productivity.

A currency becomes worth less when there is an increase in the amount of money which is not supported by growth in the output of goods and services. This devaluation is called inflation. The amount of goods and services being produced in this country is falling, therefore we should be needing LESS money in circulation, not more. As the demand for cash falls and the supply rises, the law of supply and demand dictates that the value of the cash will fall.

The Federal Reserve’s normal response to inflation is to raise interest rates to constrict the money supply, thus forcing the supply and demand balance to increase the value of the money. This is not happening because it is an election year, and because increasing interest rates will only increase the default rates on the loans already out there. What does this mean for us as citizens? It means that everything you buy just got more expensive. Oil, gas, food, clothing.

Governments often hide true inflation, as I believe the United States is doing now. The methods for hiding inflation are:

• Outright lying in official statistics such as money supply, inflation or reserves. They have been telling us that inflation is lower than it is. What did gas, milk, and clothes cost last year? Gold is $900 an ounce and gasoline is $3.67 at the corner store as I write this. A year ago, an ounce of gold was $734 and a gallon of gasoline was $3.01, two years ago gold was $589. If those numbers are representative, inflation is really hovering around 20%.
• Suppression of publication of money supply statistics, or inflation indices. Maybe this is why the M3 money supply statistics are no longer published, and haven’t been since 2006.
• Price and wage controls. This can be accomplished by Federalizing industries like oil, banking, or health care. This idea is being suggested already. One only has to look at the TSA to see what will happen there- costs will dramatically increase because of government inefficiency. These increased costs will inject even more cash into the system, and will create a black market where the real prices will drive sales.
• Forced savings schemes, designed to suck up excess liquidity. These savings schemes may be described as pensions schemes, emergency funds, war funds, or something similar.
• Adjusting the components of the Consumer price index, to remove those items whose prices are rising the fastest. Like publishing the “core inflation” rate- excluding food and energy from the calculation and trying to convince us that the core rate is more accurate.

Look next for the government to begin price and wage controls.

The cure of a bail out may well be worse than the disease it is supposed to fix.

A court this week blocked a group of hackers from releasing their findings on how to circumvent the payment system used by Boston’s subway system, saying that “It is extremely important to maintain the security and integrity of the Fare Media systems, with an insecure, compromised system, even basic revenue controls, to name one example, become significantly challenging.”

Meaning, of course, that we do not want to interrupt the government’s revenue stream.

Meanwhile, Amazon continues to sell books that are instructions on how to commit pedophilia. Now, I understand that this is a free speech issue, and I agree that the pedophiles have a right under our constitution to say what they want, as long as they do not actually carry through and commit the acts that are talked about.

However, don’t the hackers deserve to have their free speech rights protected as well?

This time the insanity comes from a court in Quebec. It seems the courts in the great white north are deciding what punishments are appropriate when a parent grounds a child.

The Canadian court has lifted a 12-year-old girl’s grounding, overturning her father’s punishment for disobeying his orders to stay off the Internet. The girl used a free, court appointed attorney to appeal the punishment- the father had grounded her from participating in a school trip- the judge in the case ruled that the punishment was too harsh.

The girl had chatted on websites he tried to block, and then posted “inappropriate” pictures of herself online using a friend’s computer. Couple this with the article discussed here, where a thirteen year old girl has been lying about her age in order to have sex with men, who are then thrown into jail when they find out the girl’s true age and contact her parents, and we see that the children of today are learning how to play the system.

This is a “Lord of the Flies,” or even a “Children of the Corn” system where parents are unable to control their children or teach them right from wrong, but are still legally responsible for what they do. What we wind up teaching them is that right is what you can get away with, and wrong merely means you got caught and couldn’t wriggle free on a legal technicality.

Shame on all of us for allowing our legal systems to become so twisted.

You keep hearing from the Republicans that we should vote for McCain because he is better than Obama. Yet, here he is saying that oil companies should “return” their profits to the American people.

In the past McCain has indicated he would consider a tax on oil companies, saying he didn’t want to see companies making “obscene profits” that distort the market.

The Democrats are ready to nationalize the oil industry.

Both want to Nationalize the health care industry.

I have been searching my copy of the Constitution, and I cannot seem to find the section that grants this power to the executive.

Tell me again how it matters which dictator I vote for.

“No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.”—Amendment III, Bill of Rights

This amendment was considered important enough to be the third listed protection in the bill of rights, right after the freedom to associate with other citizens, speak out against abuse, and to keep arms to resist tyranny. One has to wonder if there was a large problem with soldiers over staying their welcome while staying in people’s homes.

It is a fairly effective form of intimidation: putting an agent of the State inside the houses of people whom the State considers “troublesome.” Having an agent of the State live with the troublemakers has an absolutely chilling effect, and most especially when the agents start abusing the power—”pushing the envelope,” as such agents so often do. This would have been known to the authors of the Bill of Rights. The Third Amendment was put there to prevent just this sort of thing.

It was impossible for the founders to foresee the advent of electronics, video cameras, microphone “bugs” and the like, but the fact remains the same: the presence of agents of the State present in people’s homes, intimidating them by their very presence, and by their presence also enforcing the State’s policies, as well as reporting (to a superior rank or office) any opposition towards the State. Whether the actual person is present, or the person is “virtually” present, the effect is the same: a chilling of the rights of the people to oppose the policies of their Government.

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”—Amendment IV, Bill of Rights

“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” —Amendment V, Bill of Rights

Why am I mentioning these particular parts of the Bill of Rights this morning? Because I woke to find that the police in our Nation’s Capitol are searching people, demanding their papers, and wanting to know what their business is. Even scarier, some citizens are cheering them on, demanding that the Government keep them “safe,” whatever that is.

We are searched to enter aircraft. We submit to random searches at work, school, and in our cars. We outlaw guns, “hate speech,” legislate morality, and agree to allow our email and telephone calls filtered and monitored. We submit to “random drug screens” and allow our tax rates to climb to pay for it all. Still crime increases, and the government tells us that things would only get better, and we would all be safer, if they had just a little more power.

This is how the Republic dies. Not by invasion, nor by enemy action- but to be destroyed by our own demands, sheep bleating demands for our own safety.