Reason: Magazine: Matt Welch Interviewing Yaron Brook: Ayn Rand vs. Big Government

Posted on July 26, 2012 by Ederik Schneider
Yaron Brook

Yaron Brook

Source:FreeState Now

Even though Ayn Rand didn’t describe her own politics as libertarian, Libertarians love her because she was always talking about the importance and need for individual freedom. And we as individuals should be free to live our own lives and worry about ourselves. As well as the dangers of coercion, especially from government. That government shouldn’t be forcing people to do things. Just punish people when they hurt innocent people. As a Liberal I love the idea of individual freedom, as long as someone is not using that freedom to hurt innocent people.

That government shouldn’t be in the business of protecting free adults from living their own lives, as long as they don’t get in the way of other free adults in living their own lives. And they aren’t hurting innocent people along the way either. But as a society that we also have a responsibility not to take care of each other, but to help people who can’t take care of themselves. Empower those people to be able to have the freedom to take care of themselves and live their own lives. This is a big difference between me and Libertarians as well as Ayn Rand. Who would simply just say this is not the business of government, that private charity should be handling this themselves.

Freedom works best when as many people as possible have it and where we aren’t hurting innocent people with our freedom. And when we are empowering people who don’t have that freedom, because they don’t have the skills to take care of themselves, get those skills so they can take care of themselves. Freedom doesn’t work very well when we have a high concentrated population of poor people, compared with the rest of the country.

Take parts of Mexico to use as an example. Where some people there have so little freedom in their own country, that they feel the need to leave their homeland to live in a country where they can get freedom. Emigrating to America to use as an example, or in this country where our poverty hasn’t gotten that bad yet. But where some Americans become so desperate, that they do things that they wouldn’t otherwise do, just in order to survive. Because they don’t have enough money, or food to use as examples and end up going to jail.

So what we should be doing is building a liberal democracy where people have the individual freedom to live their own lives. As long as they aren’t hurting any innocent people with their freedom. Where government isn’t trying to protect people from themselves. But where everyone has the opportunity to freedom, because they can get themselves to not only live in a free country, but have the skills to be free in a free country.

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Associated Press: New York Debates Proposed Ban on Sugary Drinks

Posted on July 25, 2012 by Erik Schneider

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Source:FRS FreeState

Another example of blogging on a slow news day, I’m probably just a step away from bloggers block if there’s such a thing. And if there isn’t, I just invented it and I know I covered this back in June, but New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg apparently has had some vision that he knows how New Yorker’s and perhaps Americans in general, how they should live better than the people themselves. He has the classic one size fits all to governing, that if this works for him or other people, that it must work for everyone.

In 2008 the prospect of Mike Bloomberg running for President as an Independent, didn’t bother me. He seemed like a classical Northeastern Republican, “get big government out of our wallets and bedrooms” Republican. But now he seems not only believe that big government should be in our wallets, like calling for all the Bush tax cuts to expire on everyone, including the middle class, New Yorker’s even that can’t afford a tax hike right now, New Yorker’s even that can’t afford a new tax hike to go on top of high NYC taxes, to go on top of the high cost of living in New York, but Mayor Bloomberg also wants big government down our throats. Telling us what we can drink and how much we can drink, he’s becoming a hero in today’s so-called progressive politics.

What New York is attempting to do with soft drinks is another example of prohibition. If New Yorker’s can’t get large sodas in the city, then they go to Long Island, North Jersey or Connecticut, someplace where people have the freedom to decide how much they can drink and eat. Of course as long as they have the money to pay for it and then if that jurisdiction has a sales tax, they’ll end up paying taxes on those products that they buy. Which will go to help that jurisdiction pay for schools, roads, hospitals everything that communities need to be vibrant.

Tax money that could’ve otherwise been spent in New York helping them to pay for those services in New York. That’s what Progressives have never figured out about prohibition, that just because you tell people they can’t do something, doesn’t mean they stop doing it. It’s just done in other ways and in other areas. If you think people are living unhealthy and you believe that this unhealthy living is somehow negatively affects the rest of society as a whole and you want to correct that bad behavior, what you should do is incentivize people to correct that behavior. Have them pay a price for living unhealthy. Short of putting them in jail and have them pay a financial cost for living unhealthy. Like taxing soft drinks extra than what you would tax water or milk.

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JD Talley: ‘John Stossel’s Politically Incorrect Guide to Politics’

Posted on July 21, 2012 by Ederik Schneider

John & Cindy McCain

Source:J.D. Talley– U.S. Senator John McCain (Republican, Arizona) campaigning for President in 2008.

Source:Real Life Journal

“John Stossel’s Politically Incorrect Guide to Politics”

From JD Talley

We can blame American politicians all we want for our problems in government and society as a whole, but we should at least first know how our politicians get their jobs before we decide to blame them or not. And I’ll give you a few clues which will hopefully give you an idea where our politicians come from:

Our politicians don’t fall from trees.

Our politicians don’t go down to some central office and volunteer to serve in public office and then are just given the job like they’re applying for charity work or something.

Our politicians don’t wake up one morning and find themselves as U.S. Senator’s or Representative’s, Governor’s, etc or inherit the jobs that they now have.

If you really don’t know where our politicians come from, I’ll tell you anyway: they come from the communities that they are supposed to represent and decide to run for office and are elected by the people that they’re supposed to represent and then sent to that office.

The great political satirist George Carlin once had a comedy monologue called: “Maybe It’s Not The Politicians Who Suck” and his point was all the politicians are doing is what they were elected to do. Yes, you can blame politicians for being dishonest and crooked, incompetent even, but if they keep getting reelected, isn’t there someone else to blame for that?

Politics and government is just like just about everything else in life, because it gets down to personal responsibility. If you don’t like the politicians who are supposed to represent you, maybe you should look at your own too feet and see if you have any self-inflicted wounds there. Or perhaps run for office yourself or do what Ronald Reagan said and vote with your feet. But don’t complain about crooked politicians, if you keep voting for them or don’t bother to run for office yourself, or don’t even bother to vote.

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David Von Pein: WFAA-TV News: JFK Assassination First Coverage

Posted on July 21, 2012 by Erik Schneider

WFAA-TV

Source: The Daily Press

I saw a documentary about the JFK assassination about three years ago. I’ve seen several documentaries about the JFK assassination before. Most of them have been conspiracy theories relating to other people being involved in this 1963 assassination of a United States President. Ranging from the Italian Mafia being involved in it, because of U.S. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy’s involvement in trying to bring down organized crime in America.

As well as the CIA and U.S. Military being involved in the JFK assassination, because they didn’t like President Kennedy’s national security policy. The most warped conspiracy theory I’ve heard so far was that Vice President Lyndon Johnson ordered this assassination, because of how badly he wanted to be President. There’s no credible evidence to any of these conspiracy theories that I’ve seen, except for the organized crime connection. And in LBJ’s case, no evidence at all, but the documentary about the JFK assassination that I saw on the History Channel, wasn’t a conspiracy theory at all and was much different.

Because it was about the media coverage of the JFK assassination, with limited commercial interruptions and about three hours long, with no outside commentary. They just showed the media coverage of the JFK assassination from 1963, up till the JFK movie from 1991. What made this media coverage more interesting was that it was the first ever of a U.S. presidential assassination that was broadcasted live on TV. So all the TV news anchors and reporters who were reporting this story, were covering something for the very first time not only in their careers, but in American history.

With no precedent to fall back on. All they really had was their knowledge of how to cover big stories and what you saw were people who were doing a very good job. Under heavy pressure and having to do it live, with no retakes and you got to see some of these people as they were actually were. How they actually react on live TV. With CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite actually choking up during a CBS Special Report reporting that President Kennedy was dead. Which was made this JFK documentary even better because of how clever and unique it was.

I liked this documentary of the JFK assassination so much that I recorded on DVD the first time I saw it. Because the preview of it looked so good and with Jack Kennedy being a political hero of mine. I expected I would want to see it again and again which I have. You even get to see things like Jack Ruby killing Lee Oswald as it happen and coverage of the 1978 U.S. House hearing on the JFK assassination and is something that anyone whose interested in this story should check out.

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Reason Magazine: Bikini Banners and Freakin Cops Cracking Down on Curse Words! The Nanny of The Month For June 2012

Posted on July 8, 2012 by Ederik Schneider

Source:Real Life Journal

Here’s more evidence that we overpay our politicians and don’t give them enough work to do. That they would actually take time, taxpayers time that is to look for new ways to restrict how the people who pay their salaries in how they live their own lives. That they would look for new ways to protect people from themselves. That individual freedom is too risky and some people might not know what to do with it and since they can’t take all of our freedom way from us and turn America into an authoritarian state, they look for new ways.

That nanny statists have to be clever and look for new ways to do this, without officially at least taking all of our freedom from us. Even risk violating the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution to do so. Which is what they are doing in Massachusetts by putting new limits on what people can say in public, the target of course of this being curse words. New Jersey trying to install crackdowns on what women can wear in public, meaning certain bikinis at their beaches. All they are doing there is just giving more men reason not to vacation in New Jersey. But they would be welcomed along with their women to come down to nearby Delaware and Maryland, where they wouldn’t have those restrictions.

These are just examples of what a nanny state looks like. Where the state takes it upon themselves to protect people from themselves. It ranges from speech, to what people can wear and say in public, to what they can eat, drink and smoke, to what they watch on TV, or listen to on the radio. All in an effort of course to protect people from themselves and to prevent us the people from doing things that they either don’t like, like cursing and certain forms of entertainment, which of course Neoconservatives of course hate and see these things as a threat to our national morality and even national security.

When I hear those arguments, I think they must be high on something they believe should be illegal for everyone else. Or hate speech that today’s so-called Progressives hate, because they are worried that it may offend people they care about who are too sensitive to deal with it by themselves in an adult way and need the State to protect them. But my Nanny of the Month for June, 2012 is New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is now the Mayor of the Nanny City. Thanks to his efforts to protect New Yorker’s from themselves, as it relates to junk food, soft drinks, marijuana and even pornography. And represents why the term nanny is even involved in American politics and why we have the term nanny state. Government’s that want to protect their people from themselves.

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Associated Press: Four Arrested in Florida Child Prostitution Ring

Posted on June 26, 2012 by Erik Schneider

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Source:FRS FreeState

Hopefully this goes without saying and if it doesn’t, you are really ignorant about me or just some type of jerk something. But I’m against juvenile prostitution and I don’t see how any good person could be in favor of it, or even believe it should be legal, whether they are for it or not. But I don’t see how it’s any more of a problem than underage drinking of alcohol or smoking tobacco.

And assuming these guys are guilty of running this child prostitution ring and again at risk of stating the obvious, I don’t know if they are, they’ve only been arrested from what I’ve seen, they should and will probably get what’s coming to them. Florida doesn’t mess around with people who take advantage of juveniles or young adults, this is the State that executed serial murderer/rapist Ted Bundy in 1989.

What I would have a problem with, if these guys were arrested for running an adult prostitution ring, whether its made up of female or male prostitutes or pimps. We already have too many people in prison in America, who aren’t actual threats to society, in many cases. Especially thanks to the War on Drugs, a lot of our inmates are in there for using or possessing illegal narcotics. Prohibiting prostitution just adds to this problem.

Like alcohol, tobacco and yes marijuana, prostitution if its regulated properly, is something we can live with as a country. That is prostitution for adults, juveniles shouldn’t be involved with this at all. Nevada and perhaps other states as well as countries, have figured out how to live with prostitution. Through taxation and regulation and so can we, instead of sending people to prison and having them live at Tax Payer expense.

We should allow healthy prostitutes and pimps who follow the regulations and pay their taxes from this business. Stay in business and have them contribute to society with their taxes and arguably entertainment to their customers. Rather than sending them to prison and wasting their lives and devoting more tax dollars to pay for people who are more than capable of supporting themselves.

There’s of course the argument from both the Right and Left, who support big government and will say how dangerous this would be and so-forth. But these dangers can be handled through regulation. Child prostitution of course should remain illegal, but adult prostitution is not something we should support or subsidize.

But like alcohol, tobacco, gambling and hopefully someday soon marijuana, is something we can live with, if we regulate it and tax it properly. And if people in this business violate these laws, then of course they should be arrested, tried and convicted if found guilty.

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Reason Magazine: Nick Gillespie Interviewing Joseph Campbell: Walter Cronkite Wasn’t the Most Trusted Man in America

Posted on June 26, 2012 by Ederik Schneider

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Source:FreeState Now

Whether Walter Cronkite was the most trusted man in America or not, who knows, Walter Cronkite was the most trusted news anchor in America. Which was more important and easier to judge. He had this saying at the end of the CBS Evening News, “and that’s he way it is”. And people believed that, we don’t have that today where a lot of our media is determined by which side of the aisle controls that organization.

The three national network newscasts, on NBC, ABC and CBS, as well as PBS, which people tend to forget or not even be aware of, still report the news based on what they report. “This is what we found and these are the facts in the story, as best we can determine”. And I believe they still carry out the Cronkite legacy as I would call it that way. Where most of the rest of the news operations, except for C-SPAN and CNN as well, cover the news from a slant from either the right or left.

Opinion news mix in lets call them targeted facts, they’ll give you half the story if that and the rest of it will be commentary. And most of the people they interview share their view of the news and what that means and they’ll interview them to back up their perspective. And when they interview someone from the other side, they do it to contradict that person. With Walter Cronkite and with the PBS NewsHour, you get, “these are the facts”, their reporters are reporters whose job it is to find out what’s going on in the country and around the World.

The network news divisions will interview analysts, a lot of times people without political slants who are there to explain what the facts mean. Which is much different from Fox News that’s in the business to give right-wingers a voice in the country and be the spokespeople for the Republican Party. Except for Shepard Smith and Chris Wallace, where you get real reporting and real interviews. And with MSNBC, especially in the prime time, but you can go back to 3PM with Martin Bashir, what you get from them is voices of the so-called progressive movement. They go after Republicans, as well as Democrats when they believe they aren’t progressive enough.

One of the problems with today’s news and why someone like Walter Cronkite wouldn’t be nearly as relevant, if even successful, is that today news is not only mixed in with commentary, but with also entertainment. People much rather know what Kim Kardashian wore at the last event she went to. Or about Paris Hilton’s latest run in with the law, and not how well the economy grew in the third quarter or April’s jobs numbers. So hard news is a lot harder to sell today with news organizations under the pressure to report everything, not just what’s important.

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Uncommon Knowledge: Peter Robinson & Charles Moore: The Legacy of Margaret Thatcher

Posted on June 22, 2012 by Rik Schneider

Uncommon Knowledge

Source:The FreeState

The situation that Margaret Thatcher inherited from Socialist Labor Party in Britain in 1979, is not much different from the situation that Ronald Reagan inherited from the Democratic Party in America economically in 1981. There were some differences politically, but both economies were in bad shape. High unemployment, low economic and job growth, both Thatcher and Reagan inheriting economic messes in 1979 and 81 respectively.

There were political differences, back in the 1970s. The UK Labor Party, was more of a Marxist Socialist Party, that believed in state ownership of the economy. At least to certain extents and there were British industries, that were owned by the U.K. Government. The U.S. Democratic Party, is made up of Liberal and Progressives and have Democratic Socialists. Progressive Democrats in the Party that believe in democratic socialism. Which is different from Marxism, but both parties have their big government supporters as it relates to economics and they were both in charge back then. But both countries were down and weren’t doing very well and were both looking for a change politically and both got it, with Thatcher and Reagan.

So in Britain, what Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher did and what the new Labor Party under Tony Blair continued in the late 1990s, but added their own touch to it, was bring more economic freedom to Britain. Privatized more British industries, cut taxes and cut spending and freed a lot of Brits to live their own lives. One thing I respect about the British Conservative Party, that unlike the Republican Party, is that they are a real Conservative Party. Not a Neoconservative Party. They truly believe in conserving individual freedom, not subtracting from it, or trying to tell people how to live their lives. The British Conservatives, didn’t bring in conservative economics, with authoritarian policies on Social Issues. They wanted to expand British freedom and give more Brits the ability to chart their own course in life, and not being dependent on the state for their lively hood.

That Thatcher Revolution, worked so well in Britain, that when Tony Blair was running and eventually elected Prime Minster in 1997 with the Labor Party, he did not run on Marxism. He didn’t try to convince Brits that capitalism doesn’t work and they need to go back to nationalizing British industries and return to the 1970s. What he did was to run on a different type of capitalism, that would expect Brits who were physically and mentally capable of working full-time, would be expected to be self-sufficient in life. And that even if you were unemployed and uneducated, that you would still be expected to work and be self-sufficient. And that the state will help you get the skills you need to be self-sufficient if you need it. Thats the legacy of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

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Talking Points Memo: Richard Murdock Accidentally Releases Response to ACA Supreme Court Decision

Posted on June 21, 2012 by Ederik Schneider

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Source:FreeState Now

Without Maine and Indiana, as a Democrat I would be worried about Senate Democrats chances of retaining control of the U.S. Senate. Just because of the numbers, 23-33 Senators that are up for reelection are Democrats, tight presidential election mostly likely either way. But thanks to the Tea Party and the GOP nominating Tea Party candidates to replace safe Republican Senators, as far as them being able to get reelected in Maine and Indiana, Senator Olympia Snowe not bothering to run for reelection in Maine, because of fears of a Tea Party challenger in the primary. Thanks Tea Party! A lifetime of Christmas cards are in the mail for you.

And Richard Murdock a Tea Party candidate knocking out Senator Richard Lugar in Indiana, instead of Senate Republicans having to pick up 3-4 seats to take the majority depending on the presidential election, its more like 5-6. Because they will lose Maine to either a Democrat or a Democratic leaning Independent. And Indiana which is a swing state to begin with, will now have a Tea Party candidate, going up against a Centrist Democrat. Far-Right or Far Left candidates don’t get elected statewide in Indiana. This is not Mississippi where its common for people to believe that gays are responsible for 9/11. Or Barack Obama is a Socialist-Muslim illegal immigrant from Kenya. Hoosiers tend to be Independent and Centrist and sound mind.

Just to cover this video, lets call him Dick Murdock. Because I like how that sounds, instead of Richard Murdock. It makes him sound like a TV private detective or a pornographer. Which could cost him votes in today’s neoconservative GOP that’s been sleeping in a cave since 1955. And hasn’t figured out yet that it’s actually 2012. But not only will Indiana have a Far-Right Republican to consider, that believes Americans aren’t qualified to determine who represents them in the US Senate.

Dr. Dick supports a Constitutional Amendment that would take our vote for Senate away from us. And give that vote to State Legislatures, while speaking about the importance of the US Constitution. A Constitution that he wants to amend for U.S. Senate. But a Far-Right Senate candidate that’s also a physic and just had a vision that the Supreme Court will rule that part of the Affordable Care Act is constitutional and only throw out parts of it.

I’ve never had the opportunity to vote for or against a physic before. To tell you the truth a physic would have more than a leg up on his or her colleagues that they would serve with. They could say, “look we shouldn’t do that, I had a vision that wouldn’t work. And it would be horrible for the country. Or you should vote for this because I had a vision that this bill would be great for the country.” And the physic would be correct, because they can see into the future. But the truth is the Supreme Court won’t officially rule on the Affordable Care Act until next week.

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Associated Press: Mitt Romney to Small Business’s: ‘Add More Jobs’

Posted on June 19, 2012 by Erik Schneider

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Source:FRS FreeState

Telling someone to hire people, won’t create jobs. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama says its time to hire new employees. “Well just because of that alone, we are going to start hiring more people right way, because they know with their vast experience in running small business’s on how best to run our business’s. Then we the people who are keeping these Business’s, well in business”. It doesn’t work that way, what creates jobs in either small or big business, is the need to hire new employees. It’s as simple as that.

Mitt Romney and Barack Obama waving their magic economic wands, won’t get small business’s to hire more people right now if profits are down or flat or you are worried about just staying in business. Perhaps trying to figure out how to obtain a loan, just to stay in business. You aren’t going to look for way to increase your payroll, if anything you are going to look for ways to cut payroll, to save money. Small business’s aren’t hiring right now, because economic growth is low, job growth is also low because of weak economic Growth. Now three years into the economic recovery from the Great Recession of 2008-09. Economic growth is low because consumer demand is low. Consumer demand is low, because people simply aren’t spending money right now.

If reading any of this makes you dizzy, I completely understand. I’m dizzy just from writing it. Americans are spending just to meet their basic needs and are struggling just to do that. One reason why its a bad time to pass tax hikes. Sorry Socialists, tax hikes and tax increases are not always a good thing a cure to any disease, economic or otherwise. But all these in the economy are linked together and are holding our economy down. So the way to create jobs and get small business’s to start hiring again, is by giving them more customers. Give them more demand so they need more employees to meet the new consumer demand.

Not making their jobs tougher by taking more of their money from them to feed Uncle Sam, who needs a diet anyway. The way you create more jobs, is to create more demand and need for new workers. That is how we get the economy going again. Sounds simple, now we need policies to encourage that. So first lets not pass Tax Hikes right now, the Payroll Tax or anything else, consumers need that money in their pockets and for jobs to be created, they need to spend that money.

One way to do that is to create jobs for small business. Like with infrastructure investment, passing an infrastructure bill out of Congress in the hundreds of billions of dollars over two years. By giving construction companies more work to do, they’ll end up needing new employees to do that work, which will create more and new jobs, hiring unemployed Construction Workers. Economics 101, to create new jobs, you first need to work and business to do. These people will now have some money to spend with their new jobs and would add to our consumer spending, which will lead to new consumer demand, which will lead to new economic growth, which will lead to more job growth.

All of these things are linked together and when they are all doing well, like just as little as 5-6 years ago or in the 1990s. Economic and job growth are high, but when they are down, our whole economy as far as consumer demand, consumer spending, economic and job growth are all down. Which is the situation right now, so to fix these problems we need to encourage people to spend money again. You don’t fix the economy with politician’s saying, “now its time to hire for the good of the country!” Business’s need good reasons to hire that will help their business’s first.

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