Big Brother comes out of the closet

So now the Obama administration says all Internet based communication services must be capable of complying with federal wiretap orders.  Just like when they passed the Patriot Act, it is for our own good.  The only problem is that we might not agree with the federal government on what is good, and when that happens the government gets to decide in a very non-public way.

I am not naive enough to think our conversations are secure if the feds want to read/listen/see them.  The thing you have to ask yourself is, why do they need it to be a law?  I suspect that buried in this one is some other "for your own good" stuff that won't be talked about.  This is likely a piece intended to connect with some other "unrelated" item like fingers joining on a full Nelson against our liberty.

Paranoid?  Maybe, but that is no worse than being one of the useful idiots.

The fact is that our federal government is WAY over powered and our liberty is being crushed under it.  We already have the fed telling us what ideas are illegal, where does it end?  When do we wake up a realize that all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others?

Same old Sad Song

Read an article today on FoxNews.com titled "GOP Battle Plan: Draw 'Line In the Sand' On Dem Spending".  When I clicked the link to check it out the page title was "GOP Aims to Erode White House Agenda".

How typical.The war cry for the GOP hopes of defeating the Democrat majority and possibly taking it themselves is, their same old tune, "We are against the Democrats!"  Wow, that is really something I can be a part of...NOT!

In case you think the Democrats have the high ground, their war cry is no better, "Imagine the worst problems we have faced....that is what you get if you elect a Republican!  It will turn back the clock!"

This is why the Libertarians and Tea Party candidates are so viable, they stand for specific principals.  Who in their right mind can support the Republican or Democrat parties?  They stand for nothing other than their own political success.

There is definitely a line being drawn in the sand alright, just not where the GOP thinks.  You know, I can think of some times when lines were drawn in the sand, so to speak.

The first would have to be when God kicked us out of the garden of Eden.  Adam and Eve didn't follow the simplest of principles, and is it me, or do they sound just like our politicians?

"Don't blame me....the woman gave it to me."
"I couldn't help it, the serpent beguiled me."

Then God kicked them out and drew a line they could not cross.

Then there was the time when Moses went up the mountain to seek God...and the Israelites decided to make a golden calf and worship that...kinda like the liberal Democrats want to worship the idol of Socialism...must be a golden Jackass.  When Moses came down and saw what idiots they were he said, ""Whoever is for the LORD, come to me."  Then they strapped on a sword and killed the others.

I do have an example that is not from the Bible (but is thought to be a myth).  Supposedly, by Col. William Barrett Travis in 1836 at a little place in Texas called the Alamo.  This story is full of analogies I don't have time to explore, but the ending is something the GOP might want to...uh....remember.

Here is a principle for voters to remember, "You reap what you sow.", don't rally behind the idiots saying "We are for being against them!"

A Civil Rights Issue

Is there nothing the NAACP can't turn into a civil rights issue?

In this article California NAACP President Alice Huffman is Quoted as saying:

"If you look at the disproportionate number of arrests that happen in our community, the law is not being applied equitably across the board.  We're targeted, which makes this a civil rights issue."

This quote was related to legalizing marijuana, which I had never considered a civil rights issue before Ms. Huffman enlightened me.  She should look at the statistics for murder, because based on them it is another civil rights issue and should also be legalized.

The main problem with this logic (and I use that term VERY loosely) is that it assume that there are equal numbers of white and blacks breaking the law, and the inequality is in the disproportionate numbers of blacks arrested.  When I took my sociology class in college my professor taught us, "Correlation is not causation".  In other words, the statistic do not tell you the cause of what they show. 

Could there be a racist conspiracy in the police force or courts?  Sure, there is no way to prove there is not one.  Could there be a cultural difference that causes fewer whites to smoke pot than blacks?  Could there be a cultural difference that accounts for gang activity?  There are many possibilities for why more blacks are arrested for possession of marijuana, yet Ms. Huffman is sure it is a civil rights issue.

I am sure that Ms. Huffman would say that all those blacks that go to court over possession should be considered innocent until proven guilty.  I would say that goes for our police and courts too.  This statistic does not prove anything in and of itself.  When Martin Luther King Jr. fought inequalities in civil rights there was proof we could see.  What a shame his efforts to insure liberty to all with disregard for ethnicity has been turned into a scheme to secure power and profit for a few (Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Julian Bond, etc.)  These people foster as much racial tension as they can because the need it to move their personal agendas forward.  As obvious as this is, many are afraid to acknowledge it because of the PC stigma of racist projected on any who declare the emperor has no clothes.

A few closing points:

1. Racism should only be a legal issue when it is institutionalised in government.  One of the worst examples of this kind of racism is Affirmative action.
2. Personally I do not think that it makes sense for marijuana to be illegal.
3. NAACP is obviously a political organization whose agenda is the empowerment of it's leadership by encouraging blacks to feel like victims.

Protect Us

I just read an article (http://www.aolnews.com/health/article/your-kids-buy-e-cigs-do-you-know-whats-in-them/19633977?test=latestnews) on E-cigs.  I had never heard about them before, but apparently they are a new trend.

 

There is a lot of buzz about regulating them, like most things.  The more I read how this spokesman or that for various foundations and campaigns to protect us from ourselves wanted the government to step in and regulate these things, the more grumpy I got.

Why did I get grumpy you ask...because there are so many little campaigns trying to get us to beg the government to protect us from ourselves.  The worst ones are some that want to protect children from various things. 

I have three main problems with the "Protect us from Ourselves" crowd's push for government regulation.

1. Regulation doesn't work.  Whether it is cigarettes, R rated movies, alcohol, mortgages, prescription drugs, or anything else, it just doesn't have much impact.  Regulations are a bunch of legalistic words written on paper stored in some regulation library.  The average person wouldn't understand the meaning if they read them, and those that can understand (lawyers and politicians...pretty much one in the same these days) immediately set to work on figuring out where the loopholes are (usually put there by these same people).

2. Because regulations don't work, they become too broad in an effort to make them work.  The problem with this is it is self-defeating.  As the regulations over-reach in an attempt to be effective they interfere with activities that were not the target of the original regulation.  This can either cause certain unrelated liberties to be sacrificed (if the regulation is enforced) or further degrade it's effectiveness as people reject it (if it is not enforced).  Those who reject the regulation (gun laws are great examples) ignore them, leaving only those who would have likely exercised good sense to begin with obeying the regulation.  The net effect is usually null if not negative.

3. Regulation cost money.  The cost is hard to measure because it is not just the cost of the bureaucracy it creates (which is usually significant and endless), but also the cost on the free market and the burden of obedience.  Having worked for a top 10 mortgage company I can tell you that the cost to mortgage comapanies related to compliance with regulations is huge.  All that cost impact dividends to investors, inflates the cost of services to customers, and reduces the number of employees the company can afford to have.

So why do we have so many regulations if they are such a bad idea?  Fear and the desire to control others instead of convincing them to change behavior with reason.  Somewhere along the way the idea that our government was responsible for making life fair for all meant forcing certain behaviors on certain citizens.  It works something like this:

1. I think drinking alcohol is bad, so I don't drink it. 
2. I see a drunk and don't like how I feel when I see a drunk. 
3. I tell the drunk that drinking alcohol is a bad idea. 
4. The drunk ignores me and drinks anyway.
5. I work with other who are like minded to educate all on the evils of alcohol.
6. The drunk ignores me and drinks anyway.
7. We boycott store that sell alcohol.
8. Some stores stop selling alcohol.
9. The stores that do sell it have greater profits on alcohol because of less competition.
10. The drunk ignores me and drinks anyway.
11. We go to the government to have alcohol regulated (abolition in this case).
12. Politicians resist (the like a good drink every now and then).
13. We remind them that they will need to re-elected (and we vote, but the drunk won't).
14. Politicians protect their careers by passing a law regulating alcohol.
15. Gangsters bootleg alcohol and sell it on the black market making huge profits.
16. The drunk ignores me and drinks anyway.

 Whether it is alcohol, guns, cigarettes, R rated movies, prescription drugs, alternative medical treatment, or most anything else, regulation is not effective.  In the end regulation serves to increase the size and expense of our bloated government while needlessly reducing the liberties of people who would have acted responsible in the first place.

 

Now that regulation has turned into a revenue generating system for the government it will be hard to remove.  Take driving for instance.  The constitution says we have a right to free travel, but some thought to regulate that free travel in many ways.  Now the government has a revenue stream from the requirement to have a drivers license in order to drive and speed limit regulations.  This is how we have gotten so many layers of regulation.

 

The worst part is how it has changed the way we think.  Our founding fathers did not risk everything for the right to have the government regulate every aspect of our lives.  Just the opposite is true, they risked all to remove regulation and establish personal liberty.  It is true that for there to be civilization, there must be some sacrifice of absolute personal liberty, but if you read the writings of our founding fathers they warn of the certain doom of personal liberty by taking the very path we have chosen.  Regulation removes the larger part of personal responsibility and give it, along with the attached liberty, to the government.  This has gone on long enough that we expect the government to limit our choices for our own good.  Those who have no self-control or discipline may think this beneficial, but it is a theft of liberty, and nothing more, to those of us who would be responsible for ourselves. 

CONTENT WARNING

One of the reasons I have not posted often is that it takes time to write, edit, and spell check a post. In the past I have tried to offer links to sources and supporting info. I will not be doing this anymore, I will be posting "off the cuff", so be warned I am a terrible speller and if I get typing fast enough I can be pretty creative with sentence structure, tense, and pronouns.


Soooo....her we go.