"The End of Liberty" Movie

This (slightly more than an) hour long video is excellent and well worth watching. It makes some excellent points and, fascinatingly to me, my home state of Indiana gets mentioned twice as being a place where laws are getting out of control. One mention regarded the requirement to show ID to buy alcohol no matter one's apparent age, the other mention was slightly more ominous.

Liberty Political Systems Announces the Advanced PAULBOT 2012!

Liberty Political Systems of America has announced it's latest amazing piece of engineering. The Paulbot 2012.

The "Paulbot" has an advanced operating system that replaces the old "Garbage In / Garbage Out" (GIGO) problem of information processing with an advanced "Knowledge In / Liberty Out" (KILO) software system. It is a much more advanced system as the 'Bot is specifically programmed to question and analyze all data fed into it rather than to just accept that data which leads to incorrect answer formulation. The 'Bot also seeks to maximize its operating environment with special Anti-Tyranny, Anti-Central Planning and Advanced Freedom sub-routines.

The Paulbot can have trouble interfacing with other company's products because the Paulbot has Advanced Foreign Policy Subroutines that require a very large database. This can cause buffer overflow and seg-fault in most other company's 'bots. Those 'bots can generally only database events back to 2001 or sometimes 1979 whereas the Paulbot has massive capacity allowing its special Middle East database tables to be indexed back to at least 1953 and in many cases the 1920s or earlier.

The Paulbot is economic too. Advanced cost reduction processes allow LPS to provide the Paulbot at a lower cost than any of the other, less advanced, political 'bots.

Supporting The Constitution and Pro-Liberty Candidates = Good For Business!

Tired of Being Told You "Blame America" ?

In a foreign policy discussion with some supposed Tea Party members where I engaged with lots of historical facts, information and philosophy I got one of those Hannity told them to say this responses like, "you just hate and want to blame America" and your only purpose is to "...tear down America."

I've written before on America's interventionist foreign policy missteps and ensuing blowback with "A Message For Pro-Interventionist Conservatives and Liberals" and at the beginning of "Ron Paul, CPAC and Loathing by the Ideologically Unprincipled and Intellectually Dishonest"

But, that "blame America" retort is just smarmy and usually thrown out by someone working their hardest to either be willfully ignorant of the facts or to ignore them in favor of endorsing the idea of being the world's bully. Of course, the people who argue these points will always be the first to tell you that government ruins nearly everything it touches (it does), can't do anything right, can't do anything cost effectively, etc. But, they somehow always exclude foreign policy or military activity from their laundry list. It is somehow, magically immune?

So, the next time this comes up with a so-called Conservative ... ask some simple questions. Maybe like this.

You suggest I blame (the) America(n government) for a lot of our trouble with overseas nations and people. So, let me ask you ...

Do you "blame America" for high taxes?

Do you "blame America" for high regulation?

Do you "blame America" for ignoring its own Constitution?

Do you "blame America" for our sour economy?

Do you "blame America" for our jobs going overseas?

Do you "blame America" for theft to bailout corporations like banks and auto companies?

Do you "blame America" for its $15 trillion debt?

Do you "blame America" for threatening your right to self-defense?

Do you "blame America" for crony capitalism?

Do you "blame America" for screwing up the healthcare system?

Do you "blame America" for dishonesty in government?

Do you "blame America" for electing idiots, socialists or worse?

Do you "blame America" for insecure borders?

Do you "blame America" for not drilling for oil?

Do you "blame America" for the welfare state?

Do you "blame America" for lots of other of things?

Do you "blame America" for Fannie and Freddie?

Do you "blame America" for ignoring state's rights?

So, let me get this right ... you are upset with me and call me anti-American because I "blame America" for just one more thing than you do?

The Root Of The Issue - Government Smoking Bans On Private Property

Every year this item rears its ugly head. Some lunatic, anti-property rights, nanny-state authoritarians come around trying to tell private business and property owners what they must or must not allow on their property when it comes to smoking. This is despite there already being a ban in place on most everything but bars, private clubs and casinos.

I wrote about this back in 2009 when some Republicans on the Indianapolis City Council were threatening to push through this kind nanny-state, anti-freedom garbage. And now, IMMEDIATELY after the elections where, as usual, Republicans spill rhetoric about the "free market", "property rights" and "small government" they turn right around and spit on those very ideals.

This time, the person spearheading this nonsense is council president Ryan Vaughn (R). This is the same guy who helped push through legislation against individuals selling their own extra or unneeded event tickets. The line of the day which highlighted either his willful ignorance of private businesses leveraging the machinery of government OR his own naivety (you pick) was when he said that the ticket brokerages (paraphrased), "...want to be regulated." Well, DUH, they want me and anyone else to be forced to sell them our excess tickets at their low-ball prices and to not have to compete with us when they sell them. Amazing that so-called small government Republicans (as if) would allow this kind of obvious interference in the free market.

Since people voluntarily work at places that allow or don't allow smoking and individual consumers patronize places, voluntarily, that do or not allow smoking than this is the smoking ban issue, in a nutshell and it is arrogant and selfish. It is one group of people trying to use the government to force THEIR OPINION on everyone else.

They are basically saying, "I may want to come to your establishment, despite there being smoke-free options already in the marketplace, so I demand that the government threaten you with violence if my personal opinion on such smoke is not adopted by you. I am either not informed about or too lazy to seek out smoke free alternatives. I don't care if it violates your property rights or the wishes of your existing clientele."

That's it. People do not care who owns the place or what clients that owner may or may not want to serve. As with so many liberal, nanny-state causes, they want YOU TO DO WHAT THEY WANT rather than just take their business elsewhere or themselves create alternatives in the market.

And, once again, it seems we have those that the typical Conservative elects to protect us from this kind of authoritarian, anti-rights garbage helping make it happen. Apparently, they're afraid they'll be embarrassed if out-of-towners come to Indy for the 2012 Superbowl and see anyone smoking. And, don't think for a minute, that ticket scalping legislation wasn't also about trying to polish up the city in advance of the Superbowl. And one even wonders about the panhandler ordinance of a couple of years ago that made it illegal to even hold a political sign on a street corner.

I shudder to think that the elected city overlords are really willing to trade away freedom, rights and free market principles in exchange for a football game. And people wonder why the Libertarian brand is increasingly popular. Of course, it is because of consistent principles and ideology.

The Conservative Intellectual Dilemma Over Who Has Rights

In an all too frequent political discussion on Facebook, this time with Brian Gaddie, one of my unashamed far left liberal friends, he kindly pointed out that he appreciated Congressman Ron Paul's opposition to torture. This prompted a quick thought I've had about rights. And, really, a lot of this discussion must ultimately rest on the nature of our rights as sentient, self-aware beings who value life with each of us being the legitimate owners of our own who take positive action to support or enhance that life.

There is an excellent write up at The Objective Standard regarding the nature of rights that I highly recommend reading, especially since it offers up a theory that does not depend on the existence of God. This is important, because if God cannot be proven than your rights cannot be proven if you solely rest the existence of them on its existence.

But, back to the point. Certainly, nobody in the United States would support kidnapping someone off the street, failing to give them due process, failing to find them guilty in any kind of trial but instead just sticking them in a secret room and torturing them just in case they might know something useful. This would be such a vast violation of rights and the character of who are SUPPOSED to be as a nation.

But, it did prompt me to post my comment from Brian's thread on a broader topic of the nature of our rights and why I think the typical Conservative has an intellectual dilemma that they either must resolve by becoming more authoritarian and deciding that we only have the rights our respective governments grant to us OR that all human beings have rights that come about by way of our existence as sentient, self-aware beings.

Brian - regarding torture. Conservatives have an intellectual dilemma that they must resolve.

Most Conservatives would argue that our rights come from our creator (God, the creative force of the universe or whatever mechanism by which we are sentient, self-aware beings). This is clearly stated in the Declaration of Independence as a founding principle of our country. That we have rights (life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness) that nobody, not even government - except as compensation for a harm done to another - can take away.

BUT THEN, in the same breath, they would suggest that immigrants, accused terrorists or other people not born here don't have the same rights.

This is intellectually inconsistent. Either our rights come from the creator OR they come from government by nature of which borders we are unlucky enough to be born between.

They must decide. And I appreciate Ron Paul consistently showing intellectual honesty in all matters, including torture as I very much appreciate you pointing out.

Two Down.

After Rick Perry's horrendous debate performance tonight, that should be about the last we hear from him. And I'm pretty sure Santorum and Bachmann can give it up now too.

One Down

Out of the top five Ames Straw Poll participants, distant third place Tim Pawlenty has already exited the race for the Republican presidential nomination. The top two, Michele Bachman who offered free Randy Travis concert tickets in exchange for support and Texas Congressman Ron Paul who has been seeing increasing support for his well-reasoned, pro-economy and pro-personal liberty positions basically were in a statistical tie with only 150 odd votes out of nearly 17,000 between them.

Rick Santorum having to devolve into name calling instead of being able to make legitimate foreign policy arguments in the last debate continues to cast doubt on his maturity to lead. This is in addition to his radical policy opinions that essentially involve using government to force his religious opinions and doctrine on all citizens. He managed less than 10%.

National Debt After Each Administration - 1976 to present

The national debt, per capita after each Presidential administration [election year] from Ford (1976) to Obama (Present):

(figures are approximate)

1976 After Gerald Ford - $2,844
1980 After Jimmy Carter - $4,352
1988 After Ronald Reagan - $12,000
1992 After George HW Bush - $15,875
2000 After Bill Clinton - $20,121
2008 After George W. Bush - $31,600
2011 After Barack Obama - 46,326 [and still counting]

The debt debate is nothing new. It is not an Obama problem. It is not a Democrat or Republican problem. The two major political cults (parties) have held hands in the spirit of "compromise" for decades to send us over this cliff.

And "compromise" is a code word that a lot of people like but it really means that both sides will "compromise" the principles of those that elect them in order to say they accomplished something.

Dave Ramsey was recently quoted in a snippet that went viral on Facebook, "‎"If the US Government was a family, they would be making $58,000 a year, they spend $75,000 a year & have $327,000 in credit card debt. They are currently proposing BIG spending cuts to reduce their spending to $72,000 a year. These are the actual proportions of the federal budget & debt, reduced to a level that we can understand."

I think it is important to point out that Dave left out the $2,000,000 mortgage that this family has (we get this by looking at the additional $90 trillion in "future obligations" that our government already calculates it has committed to).

Interest on the Debt Consumes Almost HALF of Personal Income Taxes

I attended Congressman Dan Burton's (R-IN 5th) town hall in Carmel this past evening and was pleased to hear him reference some cooperative efforts he has with Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) but he said something very early on in his talk about U.S. fiscal matters that caught my attention.

He made a statement basically saying that interest on the debt consumed 46 cents out of every tax dollar and that they then had only around 54 cents to spend on everything else like the military, social security, etc... Immediately this struck me as untrue but I knew he likely didn't pull that number out of thin air. But, it did get me to thinking and I worked out the math on the back of one of his political flyers.

We are quickly approaching the point where annual debt service is around $500 billion (one half trillion dollars).

The Federal government budget is around $3.6 to $3.7 trillion.

Federal tax receipts are in the $2.15 trillion area.

Of that $2.2 trillion, a little less than $1 trillion is Personal Income Taxes.

So, interest payment on the debt, will likely run well over $450 billion for the current fiscal year.

$450 billion is:

...about 12% of the total Federal budget.

...about 21% of all expected 2011 Federal tax receipts.

...about 46% of all expected 2011 Federal PERSONAL INCOME taxes.


So, there you have it. Out of every dollar in PERSONAL INCOME TAXES almost half of it now goes solely to pay interest on the national debt. So, the only error the Congressman made was in not being specific enough in his language. He was, basically, correct in his statement. Anybody with two brain cells to rub together still need a wake up call?

The Federal Government is too big and it costs too much. Repeat until it sinks in.