Let's Not Kid Ourselves

Iran is no threat to America.

It's not apparent to our elected representatives in the Senate, however. Many of whom were elected with the sole purpose of ending the Iraq war, not starting a new one. Yet the Republicans and Democrats voted in a 97 to nothing vote to censure Iran for their alleged part in arms sales to sectarian groups in Iraq.

We're also positioning a new floating war fortress off Iran's coast and conducting secretive CIA missions of "non-lethal covert operations against Iran using propaganda, disinformation and the squeezing of Iran's international banking transactions."

Also we're holding Iranian diplomats hostage, apparently. Why?

I've said it before, but it seems more obvious now and it's worth repeating; We're already at war with Iran, they just haven't faught back yet.

Meanwhile Iran's economy is on the verge of collapse. President Ahmadinejads printing money like it's going out of fashion to pay for their dreaded nuclear program, and the inflation is beginning to take it's toll on prices. Early this month the government enacted rationing on it's gasoline after price controls caused shortages. (price fixing always cause shortages, btw) The result was mass protests by the Iranians.


Iran is no threat. They hardly have an army, no real navy or air force. They'll run out of money long before they'll be able to produce any WMD's. Yet we seem on a collision course for war with them with the Republican and "anti-war" Democrats leading the way.

Test Results

Well the scan results came back kinda good, kinda okay.

The good news is that Emily's neck is completely free of any cancer. This is great because the masses in her neck absorb a lot of the iodine before it has a chance to get into her lungs, so everything she is given from this point out will be concentrated in her lungs. This also means for sure that there will be no more surgeries in the foreseeable future.

The okay news is that Emily still has some thyroid cells left in her lungs. This is okay because there is actually less than there was 6 months a go, and even more less than there was a year a go. So we know the radiation treatments are working. However, she will have to receive another does of radiation, which is always dangerous and increases her risk of long term cancer re-occurrences.

The next step is to admit Emily Monday morning where she will drink a large does of radioactive iodine. Then she will sit in isolation for 3 days while we can only see her for a half hour per day. The hard part of that from the last two treatment has been that the doctor ordered a catheter and an IV for the three days. This time around he is going to go without those so Emily will be much much more comfortable. She doesn't mind alone time all that much because she's a bit of a loner like her old man. :)

Other than that it's another 6 month wait to do another scan and see what our progress is at that point.

Thanks to everyone for the kind comments on the last post!

Emily Update 7-11-07

On Monday we took our daughter Emily to Loyola to take a "tracer" dose of radiation which is absorbed by only thyroid cells. Since she had her thyroid removed last February any thyroid cells left in her body will be cancerous. Tomorrow morning we will take her back the hospital for a scan of her entire body looking for any of the radiation left in her from the tracer.

The hope is that this scan will come back negative and we need not endure another dose of radiation treatment. If there is any thing left in her lungs we will be heading back on Friday to admit her for three days of isolation and her third dose of radiation in the last year. Which will be followed by another 6 month wait while the radiation does it's work then we start the process again looking for more thyroid cells.

This is pretty much the course of treatment we're in right now until things come back different.

Crystal and I are honestly pretty tired from this entire situation. Since everything started 16 months a go we've lost a lot of sleep, a lot of energy, and as anyone who's dealt with week long hospital stays and radiation treatment knows, a lot of money.

We'd give anything to see a clean scan tomorrow so we can begin to put this chapter behind us. But if not, we'll continue with whatever course of action our radiologist recommends and be grateful for the fact we've been so fortunate as to have an amazing doctor help us through this whole thing.

Well I've been blog lazy again. Plus I've been listening to a couple of lectures on Mises which are 15 hours each, so you get the picture there. I'll try to post something substantial soon, but in the meantime I give you to evolution of Frank Black.

Small (*warning bad bad words*)


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Sweden's Heavy Metal Obsession

It seems that in Sweden, the country many people mistakenly title the "Highest Standard of Living in the World," you can't name your child Metallica though if you listen to enough of it they'll subsidize your paycheck.

Man gets sick benefits for heavy metal addiction

A Swedish heavy metal fan has had his musical preferences officially classified as a disability. The results of a psychological analysis enable the metal lover to supplement his income with state benefits.

Roger Tullgren, 42, from Hässleholm in southern Sweden has just started working part time as a dishwasher at a local restaurant.

Because heavy metal dominates so many aspects of his life, the Employment Service has agreed to pay part of Tullgren's salary. His new boss meanwhile has given him a special dispensation to play loud music at work.

"I have been trying for ten years to get this classified as a handicap," Tullgren told The Local.

"I spoke to three psychologists and they finally agreed that I needed this to avoid being discriminated against."

Roger Tullgren first developed an interest in heavy metal when his older brother came home with a Black Sabbath album in 1971.

Since then little else has mattered for the 42-year-old, who has long black hair, a collection of tattoos and wears skull and crossbones jewelry.

The ageing rocker claims to have attended almost three hundred shows last year, often skipping work in the process.

Eventually his last employer tired of his absences and Tullgren was left jobless and reliant on welfare handouts.

But his sessions with the occupational psychologists led to a solution of sorts: Tullgren signed a piece of paper on which his heavy metal lifestyle was classified as a disability, an assessment that entitles him to a wage supplement from the job centre.

"I signed a form saying: 'Roger feels compelled to show his heavy metal style. This puts him in a difficult situation on the labour market. Therefore he needs extra financial help'. So now I can turn up at a job interview dressed in my normal clothes and just hand the interviewers this piece of paper," he said.

The manager at his new workplace allows him to go to concerts as long as he makes up for lost time at a later point. He is also allowed to dress as he likes and listen to heavy metal while washing up.

"But not too loud when there are guests," he said.

The Local spoke to an occupational psychologist in Stockolm, who admitted to being baffled by the decision.

"I think it's extremely strange. Unless there is an underlying diagnosis it is absolutely unbelievable that the job centre would pay pay out.

"If somebody has a gambling addiction, we don't send them down to the racetrack. We try to cure the addiction, not encourage it," he said.

Henrietta Stein, deputy employment director for the Skåne region, is also puzzled by the move; "an interest in music" is not usually sufficient to qualify for wage benefits.

"Certain cases are confidential but in general there is always a medical reason that is well-documented," she said.

Tullgren currently plays bass and guitar in two rock bands and says that he tends to get a lot of positive reactions for daring to be himself.

"Some might say that I should grow up and learn to listen to other types of music but I can't. Heavy metal is my lifestyle," he said.

RON PAUL'D!

Not exactly a substantially informative video but it made me crack up laughing.

From 1988

The Gun Post, Part Two

You can view part one here.

Continuing on the notion of natural rights, the right to self-defense is perhaps the most basic of all. In fact, you cannot have any other rights without first having the right to protect your most basic of possessions, your body. Surely the right to life enumerated in the Declaration of Independence is inseparable from the right to self-defense.

The most obvious extension of the right to self-defense is not arming as many people as possible or restricting guns to private citizens, but rather allowing individuals to decide for themselves the best means of self-protection. There is no one size fits all solution to defense, and best person to decide for you how to protect your person is you, not a non-responsive overbearing government that can only pretend to know specific solutions to a broad number of individual situations.

The ignorance and arrogance towards the natural right of self-defense in the anti-conceal carry lobby is the most infuriating of all positions. They think not of society, but only of themselves. Because they are in a stable and most likely affluent environment they see no need for others to protect themselves. They think a quick call to 9-1-1 is the only defense a person should ever need. These are the Rosie O’Donnell types who are more than willing to trample on the rights of others as long as it doesn’t affect them.

Lastly, the misogynist position on guns is control or abolition. Why? Because males physically have advantages over the vast majority of women when it comes to strength. Most men, stronger than most women. In society, the only thing that can, when it comes to an attack, create 'equalization' is a firearm. White men have tried to keep guns out of the hands of all downtrodden and oppressed peoples, they tried to keep them out of the hands of the "negros" post-slavery, they tried to keep them out of the hands of the Jews during the Nazi reign of terror, and even today, they and the morons that support anti-firearms restrictions attempt to keep guns out of female hands. If we de-armed society tomorrow, we'd still have to worry about the worst of all arms control... the trained and fit arms of aggressive and idiotic males. Society would be at the mercy of the physically strong in all matters as the lack of equalization that firearms bring would then unleash the oppression of numbers (gangs) or strength (most males vs. most females).

So what of all the gun violence in American then? Surely the numbers tell us that we are more apt to kill with a gun than any other industrialized nation in the World.

If people were really interested in curtailing the use of guns to end the life of others they’d attack the source of that violence, not the symptom. Simply repealing our unnecessary and oppressive drug laws would eliminate, almost overnite, the vast majority of needless violence in this country.

Switzerland has MORE guns then the United States; they actually issue the same assault weapons that have suburban moms in America fretting day and nite over to their citizens. Yet the Swiss don’t even register on statistics measuring homicides using firearms. Gun control advocates who rattle off statistics need to explain these numbers before they can use their selective figures to 'prove' guns cause more violence.

The Europeans I work with tell me the solution to America’s societal ills is more government control. Stricter drugs laws, stricter drug laws, censorship of our media, even prohibitions on our right to petition government. This, to them, is a ‘conservative’ approach. The conversation usually starts off something like, “You know, America is the greatest country in the World, but….” Followed by some sort of logic in which we should change our laws to be more like Europe. Ignoring the obvious conclusion that being NOT like Europe is the very thing that apparently made us “the greatest country in the World.”

Less government intrusions in our personal matters is the forward and progressive course of action. It is the true liberal approach. When government intrusions like unconstitutional drug laws create more violence, the solution is eliminating the government intrusion, NOT adding more nanny state regulations turning us more and more into a 1984 style regulated state in which “Big Brother” tells us what to eat, drink, smoke, where to go, what to think, who to interact with, and ultimately when to die.

America was, at one time, the greatest nation on Earth. And while most people can name something from the other side of the aisle that has tarnished our status, few can see that it is the sum of government itself that is the problem. Until we stop attributing moral value inanimate objects like guns and drugs, and start recognizing the truths that were the foundation of our nation, we'll only regress not progress.

The Gun Post, Part One

It is sometimes said in Libertarian circles that if you could just get the anti-drug people to see that drugs are okay, and the gun control people to see that guns are okay, then the vast majority of people would be Libertarians. I’m not sure how true this is, but I suppose for the average American anyway those two issues are pretty paramount to their formation of left/right thinking, at least where moral issues are concerned. I’ve already delved into the issue of drugs here, and today I will give a go at my thoughts on firearms.

This was going to be one post, but as I wrote more and more I decided to post in two parts. This first part will have to do with the legal and philosophical issue of guns rights. The next part will have to do with the more practical aspects of firearms and violence.

It seems to me the first issue one must examine in dealing with firearms is rights. The standard line of reasoning for gun advocates is to appeal to the U.S. Constitution, and specifically the second amendment. However, to do so shows an incredible lack of understanding on what the constitution is and the philosophy of the founding fathers.

Our country was founded on the philosophy of Liberalism. We are not a country spawned from nationality, but rather one born from a philosophy. That philosophy was that all men are created equally and with the same natural rights. Rights that can neither be given, nor taken by a governing State. They are indeed unalienable; they cannot be taken away, they can only be infringed upon. They are dependant on no other person to obtain, as the only requisite for having them is human DNA.

Understand that any time something is needed to obtain a so-called “right”, such as a permit, license, or the express written consent of Major League Baseball it is no longer a right at all, it is a privilege.

After the country gained independence from Britain the Founders were so frightful of government they formed an extremely limited, loosely bound confederation of States rather than an overarching strong Federal government. The problem came when the States began to print too much money to pay off debts to France after the Revolution and in order to curb inflation some proposed instating a new Federal government that would have the power to coin money over the States. Thus, the U.S. Constitution was written and sent out to all the States for approval.

Immediately objections were raised, the Anti-Federalist claiming that the new government would have too much power. To answer these objections the Federalist Papers were written as a series of essays that are basically a comprehensive commentary on the entire constitution. One of the biggest objections to the constitution was that, while it did limit the powers of the government, it did not offer any written protection for the rights of the People.

Ultimately, the answer to this criticism was the Bill of Rights.

Alexander Hamilton, whom I am not much of a fan of, was astonishingly correct in his assessment of the faulty nature of such a listing of rights in the Federalist No. 84.:

“I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power.”

So to put that bolded piece in modern terms it might say, “Why for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of individuals to own whatever firearm they choose shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions on owning inanimate objects may be imposed.” And yet we’re currently living in an age where the constitution has been completely circumvented and those very restrictions HAVE been imposed.

Hamilton was afraid that the government could use the limited amount of rights listed in the Bill of Rights to make the claim that rights are, in fact, limited. That they were dependent on the government itself to be granted. To make sure this would never happen, the framers included the ninth and tenth amendments in the Bill of Rights to give any rights not specifically enumerated in the Constitution to the People or the States, NOT the Federal government. Ironically, these amendments have been discredited by modern day statist for being too ambiguous and giving too many rights to the people, the very thing they were designed to do.

Without question, the myth that has been most debilitating to liberty in American history, is the myth that our Bill of Rights gives us our rights. This myth is why we have people dissecting the language of the second amendment trying to figure out it's true intent, whether it is meant to provide rights to individuals or to a collective mass. However, this is totally irrelevant, because the power to restrict gun ownership is not given to the Federal government in the Constitution.

Please limit comments on this post to the issue of gun rights. The next post will delve into the practical issues of guns and society; there we can talk all we want about violence and such.

Part two now posted here.

A Pretty Good Way to Spend a Weekend

Taking before pictures probably would ave given this a bit more of a dramatic effect, but since I didn't just imagine a lot of really tall weeds where the mulch is now.







And if anyone can help me and identify this ground covering I will offer them a very special ePrize.

They Want Us Out

They being the Iraqi government.

While most observers are focused on the U.S. Congress as it continues to issue new rubber stamps to legitimize Bush's permanent designs on Iraq, nationalists in the Iraqi parliament -- now representing a majority of the body -- continue to make progress toward bringing an end to their country's occupation.

The parliament today passed a binding resolution that will guarantee lawmakers an opportunity to block the extension of the U.N. mandate under which coalition troops now remain in Iraq when it comes up for renewal in December. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose cabinet is dominated by Iraqi separatists, may veto the measure.

The law requires the parliament's approval of any future extensions of the mandate, which have previously been made by Iraq's prime minister. It is an enormous development; lawmakers reached in Baghdad today said that they do in fact plan on blocking the extension of the coalition's mandate when it comes up for renewal six months from now.

Reached today by phone in Baghdad, Nassar al Rubaie, the head of Al-Sadr bloc in Iraq's Council of Representatives, said, "This new binding resolution will prevent the government from renewing the U.N. mandate without the parliament's permission. They'll need to come back to us by the end of the year, and we will definitely refuse to extend the U.N. mandate without conditions." Rubaie added: "There will be no such a thing as a blank check for renewing the U.N. mandate anymore, any renewal will be attached to a timetable for a complete withdrawal."

Without the cover of the U.N. mandate, the continued presence of coalition troops in Iraq would become, in law as in fact, an armed occupation, at which point it would no longer be politically tenable to support it. While polls show that most Iraqis consider U.S. forces to be occupiers rather than liberators or peacekeepers -- 92 percent of respondents said as much in a 2004 survey by the Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies -- the U.N. mandate confers an aura of legitimacy on the continuing presence of foreign troops on Iraq's streets, even four years after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Read the rest of the article.

President Bush said two weeks a go that if they wanted us out, he would leave. My guess is he won't, and the Democrats will continue to provide him the resources and authority he needs as long as they get their pork.

Ain't politics fun?

Video of the day

Lest We Believe the Myth....

.... that foreign policy some how changed in America when George Bush was elected or 9/11 occured, or the now popular stance that America was somehow at peace during the Clinton years. Or the ever prevaltant myth that Democrats and Republicans are, you know, different. A short, two minute John Stossel clip from the 90's (aka the Clinton years) showing quite the opposite. And who's that lone man speaking truth in the face of the mainstream tide?

Interview Meme

I volunteered to be interviewed by tshmom as part of this interview meme thing. Goes like this...

1) I've noticed, from your comments on my husband's blog, that you enjoy PC gaming. What's your favorite game?

I’m not too good at the all time favorite type questions. I usually can’t narrow it down to one game/movie/song, etc. I’m definitely a fan of PC gaming over the systems, though I have been enjoying my son’s Wii that was a gift from my wife’s sister and her husband. I think the game I’ve played more than any other in terms of hours is the John Madden football series, so I suppose that’s my favorite sport game. I like strategy games more than action games, stuff like SimCity, the Sims, or Civilization are always enjoyable. Though there have been some good times with a few action games like Half-Life or Mafia. So it’s really all over the place I guess. Like I said it’s hard to narrow it down.

2) What role do you fill, in the homeschooling of your children?

Beyond helping with homework I haven’t taken on any subjects yet. We’ve been focusing on the basics up to this point (reading, writing, math, basic science and history) but starting this summer I’m going to be doing more advanced history and philosophy. Plus I’m planning on doing a logic course of some type.

3) You seem to be a fellow history geek. What is your favorite period of history?

Nothing too ancient I suppose. I like the period around the American Revolution and shortly after, when Liberalism was somewhat at its peak. War times are of course always interesting, though its tough calling periods of mass death and famine that always accompany war as a “favorite”. The years leading up to World War 1 and 1919 are all very fascinating, just to see how much things were screwed up for the whole World by just a handful of men.

4) Do you cook? If so, what is the best meal you prepare?

I do cook, though not all that often. My best recipe is a slow cooked chili that I make with steak and NO beans. Beans are the worst thing you can do to good chili.

5) What's your idea of the "perfect" vacation?

lol vacation

Really we’ve never been able to afford much of a vacation. Even our honeymoon was a two day trip to Iowa. Yeah, Iowa. The only thing we’ve ever done really is take a trip to Washington D.C., which really was quite enjoyable. I guess I like road trips with the family. Not all that exciting, I know, but we have a good time. I’d like to drive to California with the family, that’d be fun. Anything is better than the way I’ve spent all my vacation time this year and last; in a hospital room with my daughter.


Well that wasn’t too difficult. A nice break from all the politics and what not. I think I’m supposed to offer to interview anyone else, so if you want 5 questions of your own say so in the comments and I will supply them.

Later.

Little stuff

A few things to chew on while I do tshmom's interview questions.

First, for Zombieslayer, it turns out fully automatic weapons do come in handy during a zombie invasion. Also we saw 28 Weeks Later last nite and it's really pretty intense. Not exactly a "zombie" movie I guess, since it involves a virus not the undead, but still pretty good.

Second, for Rudy Giuliani, if you ever do take Ron Paul up on his offer to debate foreign policy, it might help if you read this first. Facts are fun!

And lastly, regarding this article. I'm fine with the silly little photoshoped picture of Ron Paul and Micheal Moore. I don't really care if someone wants to call Ron Paul nutty. I don't expect much more from left/right political "thinkers", but this quote really got me upset:

Strict constructionism and original intent are fine things, but shoving every problem and every issue through the Founder’s Intent meat-grinder is lunacy. Besides, this rigid orthodoxy brings him down on what both Andrew and I consider to be the wrong side of the gay marriage question.

Heck yeah, if the NeoCons want to kill a few thousand innocent Iraqi's and Iranians we, as good Christians, can live with that. Just so long as they say some nice things about gay marriage being bad.

When did Christians sell their souls to the Federal government in exchange for the privilege of ruling over a minority of gays? It makes me rather ill. We sure as heck can't support a guy who doesn't think the federal government shouldn't be the enforcer of God's Will. No, what we need is a man who will kill us some Muslims and hate us some gays. That's the kind of leader we need. That's conservatism.

Anything else is just nutty.

Non-Intervention 101

Watch it.



Giuliani is a fool.

Hearing that made my blood boil. Ignoring his absurd assertion that his proximity to the event somehow makes his opinion more valuable, his statement and demand for a recant from Paul is totally baseless.

We don’t have to guess why we were attacked on September 11th, we’ve been told by the very person who planned it. In Bin Laden’s manifesto he stated the exact reason why he declared war on the United States a full 5 years before the 9/11 attacks.

The latest and the greatest of these aggressions, incurred by the Muslims since the death of the Prophet (ALLAH'S BLESSING AND SALUTATIONS ON HIM) is the occupation of the land of the two Holy Places -the foundation of the house of Islam, the place of the revelation, the source of the message and the place of the noble Ka'ba, the Qiblah of all Muslims- by the armies of the American Crusaders and their allies. (We bemoan this and can only say: "No power and power acquiring except through Allah").

In fact, Bin Laden wanted to make the point that our intervention was one of the main reasons he declared was so clear that he entitled the declaration “Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places.”

I’m not at all justifying their actions so don’t even bother getting all worked up about that. That’s not even the issue. Read again what Dr. Paul said (Paraphrased):

I believe the CIA is correct when it warns us about blowback. We overthrew the Iranian government in 1953 and their taking the hostages was the reaction. This dynamic persists and we ignore it at our own risk. If we think we can do what WE want around the World and not incite hatred, then we have a problem. They’re not attacking us because we’re rich and free, they’re attacking us because we’re over there.

Why is Ron Paul the only one suggesting we don’t have to take part in building and running other countries? Why is he considered a “fringe” candidate anyway just because he’s anti-war? The vast majority of the country wants to end Iraq TODAY and there are only three anti-war candidates from both parties. (Paul, Kucinich, and Gravel) All of whom are considered long shots.

The United States citizens did not invite 9/11, its government did. 9/11 was the culmination of one hundred years of US politicians playing a game of chess with the World as its board and our money as its pawns. While THEY (politicians) experimented with regime changes, foreign aid, and alliances WE (citizens) did nothing to piss off the rest of the World. Just a handful of men have decided for the rest of us who around the World should be pushed around and for what reason, doing it all in the name of the United States and democracy.

On September 11th a few thousand innocent civilian lives were ended as a result of that game.

Anti-War.com needs help

Please keep going on the King for a Day post, but I wanted to bring up the fact that AntiWar.com is having a fund raising drive. They are on the verge of bankruptcy and need help. If you were frustrated with the mainstream media's lack of information leading up to the Iraq war, then you should know that not only did AntiWar columnists like Ron Paul write and predict the chaos that is now Iraq, others called the lies the government was telling. And just in case you think they're simply anti-Bush, or anti-Republican, they actually started the site to speak out against Clinton's actions in the Balkans and Iraq.
You can read about their history here and their mission here.
If you have a few bucks, consider helping. If not, carry on with your day. Later.

Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.~Joseph Goebbels

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.~James Madison

King for a Day

Towards the end of next year we’ll all be able to run to the polls and use our immense power of voting to influence our World leaders. But imagine for a moment that YOU were the one elected King of America. Suspend reality long enough to think about how you’d run things.

What three things would you do first to change the country?

You have complete dictorial power here. Forget about that pesky Constitution thing, it has no binding power anyway. A little piece of paper has never stood in the way of any of OUR greatest leaders. Want to bomb Iran? Go ahead! Heck, bomb Canada while you’re at it, what good have they ever done us? Nothing is off limits. Want to raise taxes to pay for your brilliant health care plan? Want to seal the borders with a 20-foot wall and armed military guards? This isn’t some utopian fantasy, whatever you say should be what you REALLY would do, it should make economic sense, and it should make sense for the country and it’s citizenry, not just for you it’s benevolent King.

Crazy foreigners can play too, even though all us Americans know you’re crazy. Either rule over your own country, or you can even rule over ours. After all, we’ve already disregarded the Constitution.

I’ll start:

1) I would abolish the Federal Reserve. The Federal Government would lose the ability to print money from nothing and to regulate interest rates. We’d go back to a commodity-backed dollar. No more inflation.

2) I would dramatically alter foreign policy to make it neutral to all nations. In accordance with this all military bases in foreign lands would be shut down and sold to those countries and all military personal would be brought home day one. This would also entail immediate withdrawal from the United Nations and elimination of financial aid to other governments. Private citizens would still be free to trade with other countries.

3) An immediate end to the War on Drugs and the de-criminalization of all narcotics, including a presidential pardon for all current inmates who are convicted for nothing other than use or possession. This would not only put thousands of violent drug dealers out of business, it would cut funding to criminals and terrorist regimes around the World. Not only that, it would change drugs from a legal issue, to a health issue. Making it a issue to treat with medicine instead of jail time.

Comment on my list or post a list of your own. Or both.

Post

I’m struggling with what to blog about. On the one hand I know this blog didn’t start out as all that political and has evolved to being maybe overly political, and that may bother some people. On the other hand, politics really interest me so I like to write about it. I’m really not sure why anyone reads this blog other than the people who I know personally, but the tracker seems to suggest that the readership numbers are increasing for whatever reason. (Which, by the way, I really appreciate)

I think for this post at least I’ll just share a few stories I’ve had my eye on. First, the guy who wrote the story I posted in my last post, the man who was leaving the Republican Party, is back and wrote about where he is heading since he left. Here’s the link and I’ll just post a few lines here (read the whole article if it interests you, it really is well done)

The country has devolved so much into a two-party system that many folks believe that if you abandon one party, you must necessarily take up common cause with the other one. Yet if a restaurant gives you a choice between eating food laced with rat poison or with arsenic, you might want to eat somewhere else, even if it's a long drive until the next rest stop and even if the new restaurant hasn't gotten great reviews.

Indeed. This gets back into the discussion at the end of the last post. The choice between murder and suicide is no choice at all. I’ll take the path to escape, no matter how unlikely the chances of surviving.

I'm convinced that if many Dems had their way, there would be virtually no area of life beyond their prying eyes, no source of income beyond their prying hands (hence their hostility to property rights), no place where we could retreat to get away from their unceasing desire to regulate us, tax us, prod us, improve us, instruct us, educate us and control us. And, of course, there's nothing Dems love more than a good moral crusade (i.e., global warming) to bludgeon the rest of us into giving them more money and power.

Yep. The thing is, at least the Democrats come out and SAY they are the party of big government and social control programs. The Republicans still are trying to promote themselves as the party of personal liberty, despite doing quite the opposite since it’s inception. I believe most people who vote Republican, like Greenhut are not and never were Republicans, they are just anti-Democrat and their desire to run people’s lives. Hence, they vote and pledge allegiance to the “other” party. Correct me if I’m wrong, please.

Now, for the answer to the question that most people have asked me: What party am I joining? Nothing wrong with registering as "Decline to State" and avoiding any new entangling alliances. But I'll hang around the GOP long enough to vote in the Republican primary for Rep. Ron Paul, the only consistent defender of freedom in Congress. Then I'll probably re-register as a big "L" Libertarian, if they don't mind having me. I've got some issues with the Libertarian Party – i.e., I wish it were more serious about fielding winnable candidates in local races, and it has sported some weird candidates on the ballot at times. But it's filled with good, albeit cantankerous folks who love freedom. So I should fit in pretty well.

The second story is one involving our hate-hate relationship with the RIAA.

Record shops: Used CDs? Ihre papieren, bitte!

New "pawn shop" laws are springing up across the United States that will make selling your used CDs at the local record shop something akin to getting arrested. No, you won't spend any time in jail, but you'll certainly feel like a criminal once the local record shop makes copies of all of your identifying information and even collects your fingerprints. Such is the state of affairs in Florida, which now has the dubious distinction of being so anal about the sale of used music CDs that record shops there are starting to get out of the business of dealing with used content because they don't want to pay a $10,000 bond for the "right" to treat their customers like criminals.

Even more attempts to stop piracy by making buying legal music even harder than it already is. Will they never learn?

It's sometimes lonely promoting the virtues of individual rights. Nothing can be more clear to me than the fact that we live in a post-liberal world. The idea of live and let be is gone and the new age of happiness manufactured through good governance is upon us. So, one might ask, why bother really? What is the point of railing against the inevitable?

Well the answer to that is that there really was something to what the Founders envisioned. The thought that the sum of individuals, operating in their own self interest, can manage themselves and that Government's only task was to preserve the rights of those individuals. That these wars, these national debts, these shortages of resources, they are all nothing more than symptoms. Symptoms of big government, not our leaders, but the only possible result of bureaucratic rule. It's the system, not the officials that are corrupt.

There are also occasional moments when you find a person who agrees and puts those ideas into words better than I can. My only disagreement with the man is that the Republican party never WAS the party of limited government and maximum personal liberties. From the word go it was the party of Internal Improvements through Federal corporate welfare and fighting any wars necessary to meet those ends.

The biggest scam in American history may be the Republicans claiming to be the party of the Individual.

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/opinion/columns/article_1673189.php

Breaking up with the GOP

Is the battle of individual liberty against big government over? A lot of Republicans seem to have declared 'mission accomplished'
By STEVEN GREENHUT

Senior editorial writer and columnist for the Register

Have you ever been in one of those destructive long-term relationships that, at some point, you really just needed to end?

I'm not referring to my marriage to my lovely wife of 23 years, but to my 25-year relationship with the Republican Party. In recent years especially, I have found fewer things in common with the party. I feel used and abused. We've obviously grown in different and incompatible directions.

It's a groan-inducing cliché, I know, but it applies here: I didn't leave the party; the party left me.

I grew up in one of those East Coast Democratic households, where FDR, JFK and even LBJ were lionized, and where the GOP wasn't so much loathed as ignored. I never met an actual Republican – at least anyone who admitted as much – until I went away to college. I became a Republican during Ronald Reagan's first term, having been inspired by his appeals to liberty, to his recognition of the freedom-stifling aspects of big government, to his unabashed embrace of the traditions of America's founders.

Reagan never actually rolled back government, but I can forgive a failure to achieve lofty aims. I cannot forgive abandonment of those aims. And it has been obvious for years, especially under the leadership of our current Republican president and our previously Republican-controlled Congress, that the "pro-liberty" stance has become nothing more than an applause line at those syrupy Flag Day dinners.

Under Republican leadership, the federal government has expanded – without even including war-related spending – far more quickly than it expanded under Bill Clinton. And when it comes to security matters, Republicans have been zealous in giving the feds additional powers to trample our privacy and liberties. Republicans have been unwavering in their support for embarking on nation-building experiments of the sort that traditional conservatives would abhor. The presidential candidates most committed to a muscular central government – Rudy Giuliani and John McCain – are leading the pack.

Now even the rhetoric of freedom is mostly gone. Most "mainstream" Republicans don't talk about liberty anymore. The advocates for this emerging New Republican Party are becoming surprisingly outspoken. A good example is New York Times "conservative" columnist David Brooks, a former editor at the Weekly Standard, the neoconservative journal that shilled vociferously for war in Iraq. (Hint: The results of that policy might offer some warning to Republicans before they jump too quickly on his latest advice.)

In a column reprinted today (beginning on Page 1 of Commentary), Brooks rebutted those of us who argue that "in order to win again, the GOP has to reconnect with the truths of its Goldwater-Reagan glory days. It has to once again be the minimal-government party, the maximal-freedom party, the party of rugged individualism, and states' rights. This is folly."

Obviously unaware of the ever-growing Leviathan around him, Brooks claims that the old days of oppressive government are over. The idea of limited government – that silly, fuddy-duddy notion advanced by our Constitution, and ensconced in the Bill of Rights – is so 18th century. Time for something more appropriate for our time!

He's got a new idea (actually, the oldest of ideas, the one that says that government and power are what matters, and that freedom and individualism are outdated). And he's even got a catchy slogan for it. He calls it, Security leads to freedom.

Forgive me a Dave Barry moment, but I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. Doesn't this sound like something out of an Orwell novel? War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Security is freedom. Brooks argues that the "liberty vs. power paradigm" is passé. Government doesn't necessarily mean less personal liberty, he writes. Modern voters aren't worried about an overweening state. Instead, the public wants to be protected from the complex modern threats to their existence: "Islamic extremism, failed states, global competition, global warming, nuclear proliferation, a skills-based economy, economic and social segmentation."

Maybe a large segment of the public wants those things, but it's the job of statesmen to lead the People, to frame the relevant issues, to set a course that is at times bigger and more noble than the current small-scale debates – not just to slavishly follow the People's basest desires. By the way, I'm not picking on Brooks per se, but using him as an articulate example of a form of thinking common today among many in the GOP.

Has the world been turned on its head? I see no signs that the classical liberal thinkers were wrong, that government is no longer wasteful, abusive and corrupt. Government continues to grab a larger share of our resources, even as it becomes less capable of doing its legitimate jobs with any degree of competence. Yet Brooks and others like him believe that the government can save us from all our neurotic worries, even ones as nebulous as "economic and social segmentation" – whatever that means.

When people are secure, Brooks wrote, they are "more free to take risks and explore the possibilities of their world. ... People with secure health care can switch jobs more easily. People who feel free from terror can live their lives more loosely. People who come from stable homes and pass through engaged schools are free to choose from a wider range of opportunities."

At this point I want to tell the People to grow up already. Brooks' point in the paragraph is true enough. But – here I go again with an arcane notion – in a free society, individuals need to take care of these matters mostly themselves, rather than to plead for bureaucrats and politicians to take care of things for them.

Our government is based on the radical idea that government should be limited to a handful of tasks, most of which revolve around protecting our natural rights. These are negative rights. They implore the government to leave us alone to pursue our own dreams and desires. Positive rights demand a positive response. If I have a "right" to education, then you must be forced to pay for it or provide it for me.

Traditionally, Republicans believed in negative rights. Yet Brooks thinks that's a mistake. He writes that the GOP needs to be "oriented less toward negative liberty (How can I get the government off my back?) and more toward positive liberty (Can I choose how to lead my life?)."

Instead of worrying about government spending, and regulating and snooping and launching foreign wars and eroding our civil liberties and imposing crushing tax burdens, and all those silly old fixations, Brooks argues that Republicans have to compete with Democrats in appealing to every soccer mom's desire for more social programs, more regulations, more protections from hobgoblins. He argues, in a refreshingly albeit frighteningly direct manner, for the final, total rejection of the American founding experiment.

Sure, the Republicans will focus more on terrorism and security issues, and the Democrats will focus more on health care and domestic regulation, but in this Brave New Paradigm, no major party will echo the words of that outdated crank, Thomas Jefferson, who argued that "the sum of good government" is one "which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned."

Perhaps that world already is here. Which is why I'm divorcing myself from the Republican Party, and keeping my distance from any group that doesn't place the defense of liberty as the prime goal of the political system.

Wilco

A Ghost is Born sucked. Here's to hoping their new album is a major rebound for them.



See, they're not all that country. :)