City Permits

What an asinine joke!

I get this tiny two page newsletter with my monthly water bill that communicates information to me from my wonderful public servants, aka the mayor and the city council. There was a particularly interesting feature in last months issue entitled "Test Your City I.Q...."

It reads as follows:

"If you’re going to be 'dressing up' your back yard with a deck, storage building, concrete patio or a swimming pool, do you need to get a City permit first? Yes, Yes, No and Yes! You can add a concrete patio without a permit, but any of the other three require a permit first. Don't start building a feature that's going to have to be removed! And it’s easy. Contact the City's One Stop Center at 25*-**** for information on how the process works."

I could not believe my eyes, but at the same time I was not the least bit surprised. I had been recently contemplating two of the four things listed there, and was not at all thinking about going before the local magistrate and begging for permission to build a deck. I was especially taken by the part about not starting to build a feature that is going to have to be removed. I can just imagine agents of the city demanding that someone remove a small backyard deck, which is visible to no one but the property owner from his back yard. Where is the outrage?

Where is the anger at this insane behavior of our local law makers all across the United States?

Private property rights are one of the key ingredients for a free society to prosper. The ability for one to buy property and do with it as he sees fit was one of the main points of the vision of our Founding Fathers in 1776. It gives people something to work for. Private property can be used to either build a store on to earn a living or to build a home on in order raise a family. The vision of our current public leaders is to give you the illusion that you actually own the property, but to control every aspect of that property you supposedly "own."

So I ask you my fellow Americans, where is the outrage? When are we going to say to our power hungry politicians that enough is enough, they have taken too many of our rights and they will not take any more! How much longer will we let this nonsense go on?

Katrina

"Katrina came and went with far less damage than anyone expected. It was the failure of the public infrastructure and the response to it that brought down civilization," wrote Lew Rockwell yesterday on his great website.

My heart goes out to the people of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama who need our support during this time of hardship. Especially to those who were herded into the Superdome like cattle and stripped of their right to self defense, thereby resulting in murders, rapes, and the mass devastation that inevitably ensues on a defensless population. For those who do not follow, I'm talking about gun grabbing. Some of the murders were committed directly by the very government personnel sent to help out.

The government's ineptness in this situation should not have suprised anyone. Of-course the usual finger pointing partisan hackery has begun. It amazes me that most people do not see this for what it is, a full scale government failure to successfully perform its number one job, protect the citizenry from large scale threats.

Katrina should be viewed as a learning experience. Government is not only the worst possible option to handle crisis management, it is the worst choice for crisis prevention. The faulty levees that could not hold the flood waters back were maintained by none other than the Army Corps of Engineers. Now I can not say with 100% certainty that the levees would have held up against the waters had they been in private hands, but we do know that the government failed us. The government does not have to be accountable for massive breakdowns such as this. Private companies must answer and be accountable for this kind of scenario. If they do not follow through with the services that their customers are demanding, they will lose that economic incentive and be replaced with some other entity that will. For a much more intelligent and in depth article on this topic I suggest reading Walter Block's most recent article about hurricane Katrina on Lewrockwell.com.

I pray that the American people wise up in the years to come and realize that government in general is to blame for the bulk of the devastion that is still occuring down there in New Orleans. Both the Bush administration and the democrats are to blame for the devastation going on down there. Our only hope is in private enterprise, which is ironically our method of choice when it comes to handling almost every other aspect of our lives. The areas of our life that are in the worst condition have the most government involvment, i.e. government schooling and health care. That is no coincidence.

Let us learn from this tragedy that government, no matter who is running it, is not competent enough to handle this kind of situation.

"The Traveler" by John Twelve Hawkes

I bought this book in an airport on my vacation not quite knowing what to expect. Having heard nothing about it, and not being in to science fiction, I almost passed it up.

I'm certainly glad I did not. I thoroughly enjoyed just about every page of this book, which I consider to be a quasi-science fiction, quasi-realistic fiction story.

Even though the heroine, Maya, can have a rather cold personality at times, I found myself smitten with her. There is probably a character in this book that almost every reader will be able to identify or connect with.

The sci-fi element falls more in line with the ways of the travelers, while the realistic parts encompass the actual changes that have taken place in our post-911 world vis-à-vis the Patriot Act and the Total / "Terrorist" Information Awareness program.

The author writes with a clear understanding of the evils that accompany power and corruption that always fall hand in hand with the state or organizations which have a connection with the state. The underlying tone, that those who crave freedom will always triumph over those who wish to dominate, intimidate, and control, is one of hope for a world which desperately needs it.

I anxiously look forward to the next part in this trilogy.

Good News

I listen to some form of talk radio or news program everyday and I never seem to hear good news. Until today. I was listening to the new local guy on the drive home and was informed that a few of our Republican state senators are attempting to introduce a bill that would stop my state's local municipalities from abusing eminent domain. This comes after the Supreme Court's recent assault on private property rights which rendered most private property in this country vulnerable to seizure by city government's to be handed over someone else.

Only eight other states have a law that says city government can't use eminent domain to steal private property from someone and turn it over to a private developer. I was happy to hear that some members of an otherwise destructive Republican party are actually acting to put some limits on state power.

I can't remember the last time the republicans attempted to do something consistent with the vision our founding fathers had in mind when they drafted the Constitution. That is to do something that actually puts limits and constraints on the state and not on the private affairs of the people. We shall see if this bill gets anywhere after it has been tossed to the wolves in the state senate.

Fire Cracker City Shenanigans

I have recenlty written commentary on my home town's recent decision to allow the public the legal use of fire crackers this Independence Day so long as they obtain the proper city issued permit. I thought that they just wanted the extra cash since they knew that individuals all over the city would have engaged in the fire works tradition anyways. I hoped that this would go down on the books as yet another unenforced piece of useless code like so many other laws. I was wrong.

In the last several days I have spotted more police patrol units traveling down my quiet little neighborhood street than I have seen in the last ten months. Oh how I feel so much safer. The boys in blue will keep those sparkler wielding criminals at bay.

On the radio tonight I heard something new to me about the fireworks permit. Apparantly the permit expires at 11:00 pm, after which point violaters will be fined 300 dollars.

Have fun this year friends and make sure you have your permits on hand to present to the patrol officer when he commands, "citizen, your papers!"

Happy Independence Day to all those out there in the land of the free.

The End of Private Property Rights in America

The Supreme Court delt a lethal blow to private property rights in this country today. In a 5 to 4 decision they have come down on the side of local city governments to have the right to kick property owners off of their property in order for private developers to come in and take it. Many have fought imminent domain abuse in this country for years, but this decision delivers the knockout blow to the individual in this fight. No matter where you live in this country now your property is not safe. This is truly a sad day for liberty.

Typical Government

As Independence Day comes closer, a day most Americans have forgotten the true meaning of, people begin to think about fireworks. My home town government has done something I find extremeley laughable, yet holding true to typical government logic. Setting off fireworks within the city limits has been illegal up to this point. My local city government has decided that from now on, setting off fireworks will be legal. Of-course there is a catch to this change in the law. Whoever would like to participate in the American pastime of lighting black cats and roman candles must first go to the city and obtain a permit for a token fee of twenty dollars. That's right, a $20 permit makes an act which was previously deemed too dangerous to be legal now acceptable. I literally laughed out loud when I read this. A hand full of city council members and bureaucrats somewhere decided that if people are going to set off fireworks regardless of the law, they might as well legalize the acitivity and just make people pay them to do it. Visions of police officers patrolling the neighborhood demanding to see little Timmy's permit for his lit sparkler come to mind. It's disgusting. This is just another example of the abuse of power that comes with the state. They say jump and we say how high.

Christians. You love the state more than God, admit it.

I am constantly wondering how so many of my Christian conservative friends and family are so blindly loyal to the GOP. I don't understand how they can give so much support to a party that supports the welfare-warfare state. They have no objection to the omnipotent state that crushes Christian values to no end. It is that persuasion that has prompted many libertarian Christians to ask of their fellow Christians whether they have more love for the State or for God. I have been thinking about the concept of being saved by God's salvation and how it relates to who we vote for in political elections. Any devout christian will tell you that if you have had the chance to accept Christ in your heart and have not done so that you will not go to heaven. I contend that if my Christian friends have been exposed to the principles that would bring about a libertarian society and still insist on supporting Republicans, then they deserve exactly the type of anti-Christian society that they will get.

The GOP supports an overbloated government that believes stealing the wealth of one class and giving it to another is the proper way to help the needy. Now I'm no Bible scholar, but I think I would remember a passage in which Jesus proclaimes that theft is the way to help those in need.

My fellow Christians are often worried, and with good reason, about the anti-Christian values being espoused in the government schools. Libertarians and Christian libertarians have argued for years that the solution is to take the education of your child out of the hands of the government. As long as we keep sending our children off to the government for education, they will be subjected to the values and indoctrination of the anti-Christian, politically correct crowd. Of-course the best alternatives are either home-schooling or private schools where parents have ultimate control over the situation. Many have cited the expense of private schools and fear they could not afford to send their kids to one. The solution would be for the government to completely get out of the education business and hand it back to the free market. In such a society parents would not be forced to pay for a "one size fits all" type of education whether they chose to send their children their or not, as is the case today. If schooling were completely privatized there would be all kinds of choices with many price ranges of pruducts to choose from just as there are in a supermarket. Parents as customers could really hold schools accountable to the kind of teachings they aim for their children to have. If the school failed to deliver the kind of product the parent wanted, there would always be a competing school to switch to.

The state will never be accountable for the lousy education it delivers. When any government agency begins failing the government usually rewards it with more money. What kind of incentive is that? The free market would deliver much better results and would be much more accountable to the values and demands of parents.

The Rockwell Rule

When it comes to taxes, the Rockwell rule is the right approach: Does it reduce or eliminate an existing tax? That is the issue. Changing to a flat tax, a national sales tax, a value added tax, a consumed income tax, or, as was recently proposed in Chronicles magazine by David Hartman, the chairman of the board of directors of The Rockford Institute, a business transfer tax, is useless if it doesn't reduce or eliminate the taxes that feed the federal leviathan's multi-trillion dollar spending orgy.

(from misis.org)

The Fair Tax

I have been do much thinking on the fair tax lately. As someone who comes from an anti-statist point of view, naturally I am skeptical of anything called a "fair tax." I just don't see how this idea proposed by Rep. John Linder, R-Ga, would actually help to increase personal liberty. This idea merely changes the way in which the government is funded. If passed, the fair tax would still extract just as much money from the American people as the current progressive income tax does, albeit in a much different way.

The only good thing I can ascertain from this proposed idea of a national retail sales tax is that it would seem to reward savers and punish spendors. As I consider myself more of a saver than a spendor, I get a little bit excited about that idea. Those of us who don't spend as much may realize more personal prosperity. I like the idea of being able to have more control over the taxes that I pay to the imperial federal government of the United States.

So what is not to like about this grand plan that probably has a snow ball's chance of passing through congress? It does nothing to address the size and scope of the federal government. It will do nothing to shrink the overbloated, spending machine that enslaves us all.

In short, lobbying for this so-called "fair tax" is a waist of time and energy. Those who care about liberty in our lifetime should concentrate their efforts on fighting statism, not cozying up to it and making friends.

We should fight any form of tax that will take the property of the productive class to fund the federal government. If the federal government were operating on a truly constitutional basis, it would only require the funds provided by small tariffs and excise taxes. It would not need to seize monies from wages, sales transactions, or estates of recently deceased Americans.

As Walter Williams has said, "taxation is a slightly less offensive form of slavery." We need to abolish the federal income tax and the IRS, and replace them with NOTHING if we are to achieve true liberty.

The Constitution Draws Breath?

Many law professors, and others who hold contempt for our Constitution, preach that the Constitution is a living document. Saying that the Constitution is a living document is the same as saying we don't have a Constitution. For rules to mean anything, they must be fixed. How many people would like to play me poker and have the rules be "living"? Depending on "evolving standards," maybe my two pair could beat your flush.

Walter Williams

(from Townhall)

Err on the Side of Life?

Let me begin by saying that I feel for the Schindler and Schiavo families for the loss that they have suffered and I pay them my full respects.

During these past two weeks I have heard President Bush say that since there are so many disputed facts of the Schiavo case, that if we are going to err, that we should err on the side of life. Every time I hear that speech replayed in the news, or when someone of the media quotes that statement, I can't help but think back to the President's decision to take us to war with Iraq based on U.S. intelligence reports that Iraq had stock piles of WMDs. The reason I am thinking of this is because the second biggest news item of today, ironically happens to be a new report claiming that U.S. intelligence information about Iraq's WMDs were DEAD WRONG. I wonder if Mr. Bush is lying in bed tonight wondering why he did not err on the side of life, and give the weapons inspectors more time to search for Iraq's alleged WMDs before he took our nation to war resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians?

Time to Draw the Line

I think it is time for libertarians to draw the line between what we stand for and what the conservative movement in this country now stands for. As far as I am concerned the GOP has lost all credibility with any ties to limited government and individual liberty. They are now completely and devotedly attached in a romantic love affair with the welfare-warfare state. They have made their peace with big government central planning, whether through faith based initiatives at home or central planning abroad via the military industrial complex. This generation of conservatives a.k.a. the Bushites see government as tantamount to God, incapable of any feat, no rock immovable, and no mission too impossible. The limited government conservatives of the nineties have checked out, not in the physical, but in the mental. They are suffering from Bushitis. Our great leader, Saint George who is capable of doing no wrong, has cast some sort of spell that has blanketed the red states of the country. Well probably not a spell, but more of a satisfaction of carpe diem. Many conservatives were so elated to see Clinton leave the Whitehouse and one of "their guys" enter that they would have cheered no matter what policies he set forth. Bush has seized both the post 9-11 attitudes of the public at large, and the conservative, it's our turn now, mob in order to whip the masses into warfare fervor. As Lew Rockwell has put it:

Behind the rhetoric you find the iron fist of the state, forcing conformism and regimentation. Bush-style fascism has created a kind of cult of personality too, in which the public is led to believe through hints and nudges that the president has a direct line to God. More than any president in my living memory, he peppers his speeches with personal pronouns: "I will defend America."

It is time for libertarians to declare our differences with the conservative movement. We oppose the massive central state, and more importantly we oppose the welfare-warfare state. We favor personal liberty, private property, unrestricted commercial trade, and peace. Do not forget that last element. To be for peace is to be opposed to war. The GOP is the war party when war is the means to their desired ends. These days the conservative movement has myriad excuses to continue dragging this country though more wars. They speak of spreading democracy throughout the world and fighting Islamic-terrorism. They don't speak of the reality, which is spreading democracy at the point of a gun. No. Not just at the point of a gun, but at the firing of a gun towards other fellow human beings who have nothing to do with Islamic terrorism. The snuffing out of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilian lives, none of whom had anything to do with 9-11 is the obvious example. They further instilled a dangerous precedent with preemptive war. The precedent which many would argue had already been set. The late, great Murray Rothbard often spoke of the concept of perpetual war for perpetual peace.

Libertarians are lately finding themselves in odd agreement with the most unlikely of adversaries when it comes to the issues of peace. We should not shy away from this, but cheer on those who will stand with us in opposition to Bush fascism. I for one never thought I would support Michael Moore on any issue he might bring up, but I found myself last year cheering his expose of congress's passage of the Patriot Act without even reading it in his documentary Fahrenheit 911. Conservative friends of mine were surprised that I even went to see one of his movies. I of-course told them that although I almost always disagree with Moore's positions, he was right to question the government's motives during this post 9-11 power grab of our rights and liberties.

This is a call to arms among my fellow libertarians to distinguish your positions from those of conservatives. Continue to speak out against government atrocities at home and abroad. Don't give in to statist schemes that sound like steps in the right direction, but in reality would do virtually nothing to increase liberty and decrease statism. The so-called "Fair Tax" is still exactly that, a tax. The mere shuffling around of how the property is seized does nothing to legitimize the high levels taxation in any way. And a tax, to paraphrase revered columnists and economist Walter Williams, is nothing more than legalized theft. To quote Lew Rockwell again:

Libertarians have traditionally provided the side dishes that call for petty deregulatory measures and tax cuts. This really must stop.

The goal of libertarians should be to fight statism on all levels and on all fronts with no compromises. The hard work and dedication will one day pay off.

What is Socialism?

Dadahead has posed a question to libertarians.

The GOP has made it clear: they stand against the right to privacy, to reproductive choice, to sexual autonomy. Is it really worth the tax cuts, libertarians? Is it really worth the rolling-back of regulations on big business? How long will libertarians continue to say to themselves, paraphrasing Krusty the Clown:

Well, the GOP is dedicated to eradicating civil liberties, destroying a 200+ year tradition of secular government, and imposing biblical law, but man ... I'm aching for that upper-class tax cut!

The dialogue has now shifted to a debate on socialism. My thoughts below are from my last comment on dada's blog and reflect my thoughts on socialism and who owns the means of production in this country:

I understand there are many different view points as to what is and is not socialism. But with the amount of government intervention taking place on the market today, I ask who does own the means of production. Who owns the water supply in most cities and towns? Who owned the steel mills in the U.S. during the Korean War? Answer: the U.S. government. Thankfully the Supreme Court rightfully put the brakes on that madness and returned them to private hands soon after. But that is neither here nor there. The time honored common law idea of ownership is defined by what an individual or entity can or can not do with his or her property. With that in mind, who issues you the deed to your home or business? If you stop paying your property taxes (read: rent) to the government (read: landlord) what happens? You will be asked to pay or to leave. If you choose neither, men with guns will come remove you from your property. Who owns the means of production in this country?

As for Social Security

As for Social Security, the crisis is not that the government can't continue to fix it, i.e. raise the age of eligibility, lower benefits, increase the social security tax, etc. The crisis is that Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme. A system that would be illegal if any private company attempted to set up and administer the way the government administers social security. Don't get me wrong. I am no Bush apologist, but something must be done to give people better returns on their investment. Something must be done to allow people to pass their wealth on to their own families when they die. Something must be done to relieve the burden on all the young black men who will pay into the scheme all their lives and then sadly not reach the age of eligibility, thus not being able to realize any return for their selves or their families, since statistically a majority of black males die before the age of elligibility. Social Security is nothing more than 15 cents out of every dollar you earn being stolen from you and given to someone else. Social Security does not need to be fixed it needs to be abolished if there is to be any hope for real liberty and prosperity in the future.

Terri Schiavo

protestors 

Everyone is talking about Terri Schiavo today so I suppose I will weigh in my two cents here. The most important thing I think we all can take from this situation is what we would want our significant other to do with us, should we find ourselves in a persistent vegetative state. I have told mine that I would want to pass on from this life and on to the next stage with as little stalling and unnecessary pain and suffering as possible. It is probably important that this decision be in writing so as to avoid the current predicament the Schiavo's find them selves in today. Michael Schiavo claims his wife told him that she would not want to be left in such a state.


Michael Schiavo 

IN RELATED NEWS

I happened to catch an MSNBC news story this morning which showcased a woman who had been taking care of her daughter in a similar condition for I think about 30 years now. When the reporter asked this woman if she thought it was okay for the government to intervene, as has been the case for Terry Schiavo, she said of-course not. She proclaimed something about freedom and a free country and that no one has the right to tell her what to do. She went on to say that this should be a family decision. Of-course she is right. It is a sad truth that the "family" as we know it has been little by little replaced by the state. As has we have seen in this case with the Republicans trying to politicize this issue in attempting to subpoena Terry Schiavo to testify befor congress in order to keep her alive.

Only In America

Only in America.....do we use the word 'politics' to describe the process so
well: 'Poli' in Latin meaning 'many' and 'tics' meaning 'bloodsucking
creatures'.

Caller roasts Sean Hannity

I was listening to the Sean Hannity show the other night on my way home from work and was quite pleased at the dialogue for once. I believe it was during the final hour that Sean was allowing only callers who wanted to criticize him on the air. One caller had just finished making his second point when Sean told the caller to give him the final blow. My ears perked up when the caller mentioned Abraham Lincoln. The man on the phone reminded Sean that he always speaks of the Republican party as being the party of Lincoln. He went on to say that he read Lincoln's presidential debate and pointed out that Lincoln was in no way concerned with freeing the slaves. That he only cared about putting economic strains on the South so as to stop them from seceding from the union. Sean mumbled a few things in response about some book that has information about Lincoln that may or may not be true. The caller reiterated to Sean that Lincoln himself proclaimed in his presidential debate that he cared not about freeing the slaves. Sean of-course dumped the call shortly after that last statement and took the next caller.

I wish that an ensuing dialoge over the great King Lincoln would have or even could have followed. But I was happy in the sense that at least for a few seconds Sean's 10 million listeners were exposed to some truth about honest Abe and his wreckless, destructive presidency. I was also happy that one of the biggest Republican party establishment apologists was made to look bad for statements about his party. It is nice to see that for the first time in history many of the misconceptions about Lincoln are being unraveled and that the public might know the truth.

As Charley Reese has put it, "Washington and Jefferson created the Republic; Lincoln destroyed it." Let us never forget that. Lincoln played a prominent role in crushing the capitalist experiment and we must not let a so-called great American such as Sean Hannity do any more damage.

The Sorters

...But, when all is said and done, the truth about race and IQ means a lot more to liberals and to neocons than it does to paleos. For the liberals and neocons, being statist to the core, are obliged to seize control of resources and to alloocate them somehow among the various groups of the population. Liberals-neocons are "sorters," they aim to sort people out, to subsidize here, to control and restrict there. So, to the neocon or liberal power elite, ethnic or racial science is a big thing because it tells these sorters who exactly they should control, who they should restrict and limit. Should they use taxpayer funds to subsidize the "disadvantaged" or geniuses? Which is more socially productive, which dysgenic?...

(from The Irrepressible Rothbard)

Until You Host Again

Jay Severan, I salute you! I don't have anything particularly important to comment on tonight, save for the end of Jay Severan's guest hosting of the Neal Boortz radio show this week. I will miss hearing what I have come to think of as a breath of fresh air on the radio. It simply does not happen enough that another libertarian voice has the attention of an audience of a few million strong. I was especially thrilled today when I heard him espousing his view of being opposed to the U.S. military occupation of Iraq. I love it when the large population of mostly right wing talk radio listeners are made aware of rational arguments against the President's dangerous and destructive occupation of Iraq. It is especially nice when the opposition view comes from someone who they feel is on their side, and not someone coming from a pure leftist point of view. This way many right conservatives might actually think about thier own postions and analyze the merits of those postions. Rock on Jay. Until you host again.