Electile Dysfunction.

Tomorrow is election day. I have already voted thanks to Colorado being an early voting state. My brother was telling me that last weeks South Park forced Stan to choose between a douche bag and a turd. That pretty well sums up this election season. The two major parties keep hammering on people that they live in a two party system and if you don't vote for the turd or the douche bag that you are throwing your vote away. Well, I threw my vote as far away from their stink-fest as I could get. It used to be that you could count on the Republicans hold up against socialist tendencies, well not with Dubyah in office. That turd thinks that his religion encourages people to be their brothers keeper. Blinded by his religion he will skip merrily down the path to socialism. Kerry on the other hand doesn’t want to hide any of his socialist tendencies and has wheeled out a medical care program guaranteed to trash our medical system and our economy. Two birds with one stone, the guy has ambition. How are we as Americans going to fight socialism if our two major parties have signed on with the bad guys. Fighting back needs to start with the idea that you don't have to vote for the douche bag or the turd just because people tell you that they are the only ones that can win. Even if a third party candidate cannot win, they can hurt a major party candidates election odds and will get the attention of the major candidates when they lose the election because their supporters have defected to a third party that supports their issues. Politicians may not have enough sense to see the dangers of socialism on their own but if they lose enough of their support they may be throttled back to reality.

When do YOU need to be punished?

Ayn Rand had it right. You hear people quote Tacitus saying "The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." Then they end things there. Rand took it further and hit the nail on the head. Yes corrupt states do have more laws. The why is where life gets spooky. The goverrnment has a monopoly on the use of force. The monopoly is codified in the rule of law. No one is supposed to use force on one another, if you do the government has the right and responsibility to use force to stop you. The insidious nature of this is shown when the laws extend beyond people using force against each other. If someone violates another persons rights but does not use force then the civil courts can help that person with their greivances. But the laws Tacitus speaks of give the government the ability to use force against more people that are classified as criminals. The state really only has power over criminals. So, if the government decides it needs more power, it creates laws that create more criminals. We now have traffic laws and drug laws, which is were most citizens will encounter the tyranny of our ever expanding government. They are not using force to harm someone else. There is merely a behavior that MAY lead to someone else being hurt. While some may say that the government needs to stop these individuals to keep people safe. The folly in this is that the government outlined in the constitution is only supposed to protect our rights not to provide for our safety. The reason why the government was not tasked with keeping us safe is because it is a never ending task that by definition will completely destroy our liberties because liberty includes the right to make bad decisions. You may hurt yourself through your actions and the Constitution is OK with that. You may hurt someone else through your actions, then the Constitution says that you will be held responsible for violating someone elses rights. There is nothing in the Constitution that says you need to be stopped before you violate someones rights, just that you will be held responsible.

Why can't we all just get along?

One word. Rules. In a world with such a large population it becomes increasingly difficult to keep everyone playing nice with one another. This is not to say that you need a new law for every thing you think someone may do to someone else. It does mean that everyone needs to play by the same rules. This is made simpler by keeping the rules simple. People instinctively adapt to whatever system they are placed in. If you create rules that promote fair-play, then you will get fair-play. If you create a system that benefits one group to the detriment of another, then the people benefiting will defend the system and the people oppressed by the system will first try to limit how much the other group benefits from the system and then try to dismantle the system entirely. Right now we have a system where the government has grown beyond its intended limits.

The Dismal Science in action

I have always wondered why economics is called 'the dismal science'. I know that my beginning economics course in college was taught by a man who had all the charisma of a polyester leisure suit. When I took a macroeconomics course at a community college it was taught by a retired Marine officer and more often than not the lectures sounded like a hellfire and brimstone sermen. At that younger age I enjoyed the lectures but did not fully appreciate that the instructor was passionate about economics because of the overwhelming effect it has on everyones lives. I would liken it to any other science, just because you never learned about gravity in school does not give you the ability (a la Bugs Bunny) to walk off of a cliff with no ill effects. Likewise, just because 'the dismal science' bored you to tears in school (if you toook the course at all) does not give you the ability to ignore the market forces that economics study. I would especially like to point this out to anyone who thinks that companies are their just to employ people. Companies are there for just one reason, to make a profit. Your employment is a favorable side effect of your companies success, but it is NOT the reason for your companies existance. In Colorado we have a looming grocery workers strike. Why? Because the union workers in the big chain stores are demanding insurance benefits and the stores are not willing to put them on the bargaining table. Why are the stores not willing to provide their workers with company paid insurance. The reason is called Wal-Mart. This huge 'evil' non-union shop does not pay for insurance for their employees or even pay union wages to its workers. By doing this Wal-Mart is able to gain a significant competitive advantage over the chain stores. The thing that makes this possible is because the labor market will support Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart has no problem hiring workers with little or no skills and offering them jobs that do not provide insurance benefits. The chain stores are hiring out of the same labor pool and if they are required to provide their union employees with insurance benefits they will suffer another competitive disadvantage to Wal-Mart. The unions have adopted the idea that companies are their to provide workers with jobs and in pursuit of this idea they may destroy the companies that provide their union members with jobs because they are attempting to ignore a basic law of a market economy. The companies are there to make a profit and by taking on too many comparitive disadvantages the companies will not make a profit because their customers will have gone to Wal-Mart and the company will have to close up shop. There are some sectors of our economy where the unions can and do control the labor pool and can call their own shots but grocery stores workers are not one of those labor pools and the unions are dancing dangerously close to destroying the companies their workers depend on.

Free Stolen Money?

There is a guy out there who is pissing me off. This twerp is shouting in TV and radio ads about 'Free Government Money'! He rattles off a list of things that you can get government money for. I am going to do a little editing for all of you that may not understand the economic reality of this idiots raving. Here we go: "The government can help you steal other peoples' money so you can go back to school with legally stolen money, or start a coffee shop with legally stolen money, or work on your invention with LEGALLY STOLEN MONEY! Just buy my book where I will outline how you can get money that the overzealous government has stolen from hard working citizens. You just need my book and the right government forms to outline the hardships that you have had to endure in your miserable life that entitles you to get in line for the money that the government has stolen for you." This idea that people should just give you money because you mean to be better and all you need is a chance is ludicrous. You need to earn that money. If you don't earn that money you have no idea how hard it was to make it and you will piss it away. If you want proof, here is a piece of information for you, the ONLY successful income transfer program the government has ever hatched is the G.I. Bill. Why was it successful? Because the G.I.s that took advantage of it weren't exactly given the money, they had to sign up for military service and put their asses on the line. They had to go through what many like to call 'The School of Hard Knocks.' Then they were allowed to go to real schools on the governments dime with the full appreciation of what life is without an education. So before you go and send your money off to this con-man, just consider if you do manage to succeed in life after you get your PhD with money the government stole for you, how are you going to like the government stealing from you?

Walter E. Williams, the great American.

As Americans we should all seriously consider the implications of letting our politicians lead us all down the road to socialism that they currently have us on. Walter Williams has written several lucid columns on this subject that I will not try to duplicate but rather I would encourage everyone to read how Socialism is Evil. (and Part II)

Convenient child care has a price too.

I understood that with campaign finance reform there would be special interest groups lining up to support their candidates even without being directly associated with that candidate. What I did not expect is that these special interest groups would get to do all of the mudslinging for their chosen candidate. Now we have a commercial on the air that blasts Pete Coors for wanting to lower the drinking age and talks up the other candidate for the Colorado Senate seat (I won't mention his name here because he would want me to). The commercial states that by lowering the drinking age that Coors would be endangering our children. Come on people! If you would spend enough time raising your kid to be a responsible citizen, Coors raising the drinking age is not going to present a problem to you or your kid. Instead the Conservative Voters of Colorado would prefer to hide behind the government on the drinking age the same way they like to have the government out there telling kids that drugs are illegal because they are illegal. That's very convenient for the Conservatives, but since when did our government become the moral equivalent of 7-11? Remember that convenience comes at a price. 7-11 is on the corner, waiting for your urgent business at midnight, but that Twinkie you so desperately need (we won’t go into why you need it) is going to cost you significantly more than it would in the grocery store that closed at 8pm. The same thing goes for the moral convenience of letting the government help you avoid tough issues with your child. Instead of talking at great lengths with your child about what drugs are and what drugs are not (yes, alcohol is also a drug) so they can make well informed decisions, you get to conveniently tell your youngster that you just can't do something because that would be ILLEGAL. The cost may eventually make it back to you but the person that will really pay for your convenient decision will be your child. They will not have the benefit of growing up with wine at the dinner table and a couple of beers at the family gathering. They will not get to hear about harmless sleep overs where someone had too much to drink and passed out in the back yard because not only was no one allowed to leave because it was a parent sanctioned sleep over but because they were 13, so they couldn't even drive. If you want your child to learn how to be responsible you have to teach it to them at home just like you do with every other moral decision you expect them to make. You should send you children to school to learn math and writing, and science, and logic. Not to be taught morality! That needs to come from the home. I know that it is tough and you would rather have someone else burdened with this heavy responsibility, but whose child is this? The answer is not that the child belongs to society or the government, the child is yours. So when your child self-destructs at 21 when they are finally allowed legally drink I do not want you to be allowed to go on living with a clean conscience because you have bought the idea that the government or society failed your child, YOU DID. That is the final price you will pay for the buying a bill of goods from a moral 7-11.

The Office of Non-Descript Control Policy (ONDCP)

I heard another of those patronizing ONDCP (The Office of National Drug Control Policy) ads on the radio this morning. The ads are nothing but propaganda. The government has been given its marching orders by politicians that think they know how to live your life better than you do. Now they have extended their fight into your home. Not only do they want to make sure your kids know that "drugs are bad, m`kay" (think of South Park's Mr. Mackey here) but they want you to tell your kids that. Whether or not you have personally tried drugs is going to have a big impact on whether or not you have this little government sponsored talk with your kid. If you haven’t even tried drugs you are much more likely to have "the Talk" because you have probably already signed on with the "drug are bad, m`kay" crowd. For those of you that have tried drugs and it didn’t trash your life, the ONDCP has ads for you too that will tell you that even though you survived a brief encounter with the "evil world of drug use" and lived to tell the tale that drugs are still bad and that you REALLY need to have that talk with your kid. The talk they want you to have with your kid is not one that includes how to be responsible citizens and limit the drugs you take or how to be safe and use the proper paraphernalia or even how to identify drugs that could kill them because they are impure. No, the talk the government wants you to have with your child is to tell them that the government knows what is best for them and that they should only do what the government wants them to. Oh, and if they could rat out any of their friends that are "evil drug users" that would be great, yeah (Way to go Lumberg!). To tell you the truth, I want you to have "the Talk" with your kids too. Except my version would include you introducing your kid to your dealer and showing him what really good stuff looks like. Hell, light up a bowl with the ankle biter and for once relax and enjoy the kid you are trying so damn hard to raise right in this world. A world where you and your wife have to work full time jobs to pay for all of the taxes that help fund the moral crusaders at the ONDCP. No, drugs aren’t for everyone. I know that as an addictive personality I need to stay away from drugs, but I was able to make that choice for myself, and I needed more information than "drugs are bad, m`kay". There is still a huge black market out there in the US that is preying on our youth everyday because all the information our kids are getting is "drugs are bad, m`kay". If we want our kids to grow up to be productive citizens in this country, I think the adults need to do a bit of growing up themselves first and take this issue seriously enough to stop saying "drugs are bad, m`kay" and give the children of this nation the information they need to protect themselves from the "evil world of drug use."

Are horse rescues really for horses?

There are two items I think the horse welfare advocacy groups need to consider. The first item is the need for self-regulation of horse rescues. It is a wonderful thing that there are people in this world that understand that horses depend on humans for humane treatment. Unfortunately, good intentions with poor execution can land horses in conditions as bad and in some extreme cases, worse conditions than they would have faced had nothing been done. Just because someone has owned a horse before, or even several horses before, does not mean that that person can care for a dozen or several dozen horses at once. In the best interests of the horses and the good name of horse rescues that are doing things right, there are some rescues that need to be shut down. Who else understands the difficulty of running a horse rescue than other horse rescues? Additionally, horse rescues that are doing things right do not need the added burden of dealing with the bad publicity that is generated by inhumane horse rescues. It is in their best interests to be self-regulating and prevent the operation of inhumane rescues. This can be accomplished through a voluntary certification program that would provide operational audits and in some cases guidance towards substantial compliance. The public interest would be better served because they could easily identify humane rescues through the display of their voluntary certification. The certification group could also provide outreach to trouble groups and help them achieve certification or if necessary as identified through careful investigation help local authorities bring animal cruelty charges against inhumane rescues. Self-regulation of rescues now could help the horse rescue community avoid draconian measures that could result from legislative action in response to a severe neglect case.
The second action that would benefit horse welfare would be another voluntary program that breeders would be encouraged to participate in. The certification would require that the breeder institute a number of administrative controls. The first would be to clearly identify horses in their inventory that are their breeding stock. Any other horse kept or sold by the breeder would not be allowed into a breeding program. The males would be gelded and females would be sold with contracts specifying that the mare is not to be bred. The contract would reserve the right of the breeder of ownership of any offspring of the mare and that any unauthorized offspring will be destroyed after being weaned from the mare. Breeding controls of this nature would reduce the number of 'excess' horses in the country which would increase the value of horses at the margin and increase costs to the slaughterhouses. If costs are driven high enough overseas markets would be forced to look to local markets or abandon the practice altogether. Wouldn't that be nice?

Washington a Red Coat?

There are some people who will tell you that the founding fathers only meant the right to keep and bear arms to apply to an organized militia unit. Then they will tell you that the militia in its modern form is the Reserves or National Guard. That might even make sense. Now ask yourself, when was the last time you saw a portrait of George Washington, John Hancock, or Thomas Jefferson in the red coat of the British Army? Think real hard. The answer is: NEVER! None of our founding fathers were in any part of the British Military. George Washington was a farmer and an architect. John Hancock was a merchant and one of America's founding fathers of rum running. Thomas Jefferson was a tobacco farmer. When Americans rose up and formed militias to overthrow the British rule of the American colonies they were the farthest thing from being part of a military force organized by the government. Now ask yourself, what had the founding fathers had to do to be able to write the Constitution or the Bill of Rights? That's right, they had to take up arms (that’s military weaponry for all of you people from the Ivy League) and overthrow the government they had been under for over a century. Now do you think they meant that the right to keep and bear arms in order to maintain an organized militia meant the National Guard or the Reserves? I should hope not because the founding fathers themselves wrote long and hard about the need to keep arms (yes, still military weapons) in the hands of the people (please read: average citizens).

Be the Porcupine!

If you haven't viewed my home page lately I have added an ad for Mike Badnarik, the Libertarian candidate for President. He is also a fellow Porcupine (Free State Project).

Make Europe eat their own

Here is a question I think most horse advocates don't like to answer: Why not eat horses? I work at a horse rescue and have heard a lot of arguments against horses being slaughtered for human consumption. Some of the arguments are the same as why we don't eat dog in this country, because they are our pets. There are also arguments because the way horses are killed for human consumption is inhuman or just disgusting to anyone that loves these beautiful creatures. The other side of the argument could be that we eat cows in this country and if we are so concerned about animal rights why aren’t we listening to the Indians who worship cows and not eat them. What about the people in Korea and China that raise dogs for food? Why don't you see American dog shelters killing dogs to be exported to Asia as food? I would like to address all of those arguments. The reason why people eat horses is because their culture accepts it. Why do we eat cattle with no issues, because our culture accepts it. The argument that Indians worship cattle, so we shouldn't eat them is not equivalent because we don't wait for Indians to raise cattle and treat them like pets until they have no use for them and then buy those cattle for meat. We raise our own herds for our own consumption. Why don’t animal shelters in America kill dogs for human consumption in Asia, because dogs are small and it would not be economic to do so. So why do we allow horses to be bred in America for use as companion animals and pets and then when some of these animals lose their usefulness they are sold at auction and purchased for slaughter and consumption in oversees markets? Why, because they are large animals with a significant amount of meat that has an economic market price. That's it, there is your answer. The market is allowed to function regardless of moral objections by individuals in the horse community. I understand that placing a restriction on the market through the use of the government goes against the core of my beliefs that restricting government is the best thing for a free society. That said, I would argue that horses in this country are not bred for food and that raising them as companion animals constitutes a contract between the people in this countries equine community and the horses raised here, that are expected to work with humans and humans are expected to treat them humanely. If other countries want to eat horses, they need to breed them for their own food. The horses in this country should be protected from inhuman treatment because the citizens of the US that are part of the equine community have a commitment to the horses they breed as companion animals.

The government wants you to be a criminal

For a long time I have attributed many different motivations to our government and the people who affect its policies. I have called them self-interested, moral busybodies, money-grubbers, and just plain ignorant. Recently I have read and seen some things that have changed this perception of government. Ask yourself something, how does government have control over someone? The answer is, when that person has violated a law and become a criminal. Now, all of the laws that I had previously attributed innocent motivations to look different to me. They are not that innocent. The people who write laws understand all too well what it takes to give government power over its people. It has to make them into criminals. These people have to find ways to make their fellow citizens into criminals and still assign seemingly innocent reasons to them so it will be palatable to those very citizens. We need to open our eyes to this and stop allowing ourselves to be fooled into thinking that these people are innocently expanding the reach of government or that they are naive to implications of their laws. Look at every law that is passed through the filter that asks, 'who will this make into a criminal?' That should change how you look at our ever expanding government.

Frog Cooking

I first read it in John Stossel's book Give Me A Break, then yesterday I heard it on the radio when Walter E. Williams (what a great American!) was guest hosting the Rush Limbaugh show. What was it? It's how to cook a frog. If you take a pot of boiling water and try to toss a frog in it, the frog knows to get out of that water as fast as it can. However, if you take a pot of cool water and place the frog in it, the frog is just fine. Then you can turn on the burner and gradually boil it. This way the frog doesn't realize that it will be dead by the time the water is boiling. America please pay attention because this is important. This is also how WE are LOSING our RIGHTS. If a brutal dictator were to emerge and try to take away all of our rights at once, Americans would not stand it and would fight back with everything they have. The politicians know that and have taken up frog cooking. Ask yourself, do you feel like you have as much freedom as when you were a kid? Sure, you still have a lot of freedom but the frog cooking has begun and the politicians will reach their goal eventually. Look around, why are libertarian movements becoming more popular? Because unlike frogs, Americans can feel the water heating up and do not want to be around when the water boils.

The Government is Evil

Government really is a necessary evil but I think there are people who have forgotten, or in some cases never taught, that government is an evil. You'll hear people that think guns are evil, or that cars are evil or that drugs are evil. The reality is that they are just objects and are not capable of actual malice on their own. It takes people to create malice. The government is nothing but people who have a monopoly on the use of force. Is it possible to comprehend that if evil were anywhere that it would accumulate in government? Evil takes on many guises. Lack of informed thought gives evil a doorway into this world. The government we have now will promise many things that may sound like they mean well but instead they give reality to the phrase that the road to hell is paved in good intentions. What will it take to correct this abuse of power? It will take knowledge and it has been said that while suffering is unfortunate, fools will learn from nothing less. With so many people living off of the government rolls it may be impossible to create change merely through elections.

Government...Unions?

The expansion of government has produced a side affect. Government workers convinced the public and the Congress that government workers should not be subject to the political ebb and flow that surrounds new government officials being voted in and turning over entire administrations. They used the excuse that political lackeys would be used to fill valuable public servant positions and that by removing the political favoritism the government would better serve the needs of the public by retaining the best employees. The problem with that logic is that government positions are filled only when there is funding to that given department. These government workers organized into unions that use their considerable clout to forward the interests of the government union employees that they represented. Now instead of cutting departments that do not benefit the taxpayers the government employees influence elections and their agenda is to make sure that government always expands so they have job security. In the private sector thee only way employees exert that kind of pressure on a corporation is to own a majority of the shares and vote as a single voice in stockholder meetings. Must be nice to not have to buy into your voice and only have to convince other voters that your candidate has their interests in mind.

Calling General Pershing!

It has happened again. An American living abroad has been killed by Islamic militants attempting to forward their agenda. Along with the rest of America, and I should hope, the rest of the world, I extend my deepest sympathies to Paul Johnson's family and friends. The militants of Al Qaeda have taken the life of an innocent because their demands were not met. That does not mean that this should end here. Al Qaeda needs to be properly paid their due. I would call on the Saudi royal family to separate out half of their Al Qaeda prisoners, cover them in pig blood and organs and once they are guaranteed a one way ticket to Islamic hell then kill them by beheading them as is fitting for infidels. I would also call on the US government to track down the closest male relatives of each militant that contributed to Johnson's murder and castrate him so he can be a slave for eternity in the Islamic afterlife and then kill him. These ideas are not my own, the first closely resembles the way General Pershing dispatched Islamic militants in the Philippines, and the second is how the Russians dealt with the Iranians that kidnapped and killed Russian diplomats at the same time as the US hostage crisis in Iran. The fact that these ideas are not my own does not subtract from my enthusiastic endorsement of that brand of diplomacy. The left has one thing right, we really do need to understand the Islamic culture in order to deal with them. Pershing understood militant Islamists and so did the Russians. I think it is time to show the fundamental Islamists that we understand them and that we demand that they respect us.

American Confidence Games

Yesterday I was looking at the Gallup Polls. They had a headline stating that the military has the highest confidence rating of the institutions that they poll for. I like the military so I kept reading. What I found was less than inspiring. Other top rated institutions included the presidency and the Supreme Court. Well down their list of fifteen institutions at number ten was Congress. In the bottom two institutions as rated in the peoples confidence are American Corporations. Let me get this straight. Have we become so indoctrinated in this country that we now trust our government that is by its very nature an organization that uses compulsion to extract wealth from the citizens, rather than corporations that embody the spirit of capitalism, who depend on voluntary cooperation to achieve their profits. The only time corporations can force anyone to do something that is not voluntary is when they can get the government to compel that person to do it. This country needs a serious wake up call. Government is not our friend. The government needs to be held as accountable or even more so, than our corporations do simply because of its use of compulsion to achieve its goals. Yes we have seen corporate scandals throughout American history but really people are corporations a bigger problem than our government in all its bureaucratic befuddlement? I don't think so.

Dubyah's Head

I hope that more people have captured the irony of Dubyah's eulogy of Ronald Reagan. In his remarks Bush the Younger implied that he admired Ron Reagan for his belief that government is the enemy. That takes some serious chutzpah! This is a man that let Ted "what happened to the effin girl?" Kennedy write the education bill, passed the Patriot Act, gave birth to the Department of Homeland Insecurity, and drove the prescription drug benefit through congress like a drunken trucker! Someone needs to call Bush's proctologist, because I am pretty sure he has found his head by now.

A new start

As there always is in the world, there must be a start. This is it.