Free kibbles

TOTALITARIANISM:

Where does the federal government thinks it gets the authority to indefinitely imprison people it deems "sexually dangerous", and why haven't I hard of this before? On the general abuse of government power:

"In early September, Fox News host Andrew Napolitano asked Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), the third-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, precisely what part of the Constitution authorized Congress to enact health care legislation. "There's nothing in the Constitution that says that the federal government has anything to do with most of the stuff we do," Clyburn replied. "How about [you] show me where in the Constitution it prohibits the federal government from doing this?""

I hope Napolitano pointed out that tenth amendment prohibits the government from expanding its power.

ECONOMY:

Ben Bernanke has inflated the stock market to a 14 month high.

TAX AND SPEND:

Boortz delivers a great quote from Bastiat:

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that justifies it."

A public service announcement about the consequences of the welfare state.

"The modern state may use the illusionary rhetoric of "social justice," but the reality of political paternalism is a further loss of our individual liberty, a huge growth in political coercive power, a weakening of the independence and charactor of free men, and a massive expansion of government debt, taxes and likely inflation that threatens to stiffle the prosperity of Americans for decades to come."

That sums it up, but the long version is more informative. More character analysis of professional politicians:

"These political paternalists who are proposing to enlarge the agenda of the welfare state implicitly consider themselves superior to the rest of us. With arrogance and immeasurable hubris, they presume to know what is good for us, better than we know ourselves. They are nothing less than would-be tyrants and despots determined to make the world over in their own ideological image – and, of course, all for our own good, whether we want it or not.

In addition, they are willing to use force against their fellow human beings to attain their paternalistic ends. That is, they believe that it is morally right for the state to use its coercive powers to take the income and wealth of some to give to others."

Napoleon wannabes. This is why the same people who want to control our economy and the welfare state also loves wars. Anybody with the type of character to force their will on people of their own country, to steal the wealth of the people of their own country, will also force their will on and steal the wealth of people in other countries. It's just a matter of the capability of the military. That's why fascism, government planning of the economy, and communism, government ownership of the economy, are always associated with war.

I didn't realize somebody had to teach us the following. Nobody taught me. I thought it was obvious from observing human nature and the world around us.

"[A] number of economists, such as Nobel Laureate, James Buchanan, have taught us that the actual politics of government intervention and redistribution has little to do with high-minded notions concerning some hypothetical "public good" or "general interest." The reality of democratic politics is that politicians want campaign contributions and votes to be elected and reelected, and they offer in exchange other people's money. Those who supply those campaign contributions and votes want the money of those others, which they are not able to honestly earn through the free play of open competition in the market place."

Here I just spent an entire essay arguing everybody knows this. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so. Our inherited wisdom, let alone our personal observations, inform of us this. He goes on with a nice analysis of how this works.

I didn't need anybody to teach me this, which I just argued in the previous essay, either, but I'm glad people are teaching it.

"[As] another Nobel Prize-winning economist, Friedrich A. Hayek, persuasively argued, even if we assumed that the political paternalists has the most benevolent motives in mind, there is no real meaning to ideas such as "social justice" or politically enforced “fairness.” They are all "mirages," Hayek warned. The market does not reward some hypothetical notion of "merit" or "goodness." The market rewards "service," i.e., did an individual succeed in offering to others some specialized product in the market system of division of labor that was valued by those others who were willing to pay a particular price for it?"

The author also hits on one of my common themes, the US government has degenerated into feudalism.

"The interventionist-welfare state has been creating a new feudalism with political and special interest elites who serve as the “lords” who rule over and ruin the rest of us, the modern serfs who are expected to toil for their benefit under strangling regulations, burdensome taxes, and most likely worsening inflation as the years go by."

I know people who claim to be libertarians because of what they've read, but I didn't. I became a libertarian because of what I saw and logical analysis of it. I've enjoyed refining my arguments because of books I've read, and I've learned of specific events and policy from them, but I'm happy I came to my own conclusions about freedom, government and politics through personal observation and analysis before I started reading.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Don't you love this headline? Bernanke: Fed Will Keep Eye on Sliding Dollar. So what? According to the article, it will continue to force interest rates to zero. If you needed more evidence that Bernanke is nothing other than a standard, self-interested politician, this meaningless baloney should be enough.

HEALTH CARE:

Yet another analysis shows that Democrats' health care oppression bill will increase health care costs.

I bet Medicare payed out more than $47 billion in questionable payments.

Harry Reid considers expanding Medicare tax to all income to pay for health care oppression.

POLITICS:

Obama pretending he wants to cut spending just to get a 2010 political ploy. Anybody who believes Obama wants to cut spending is dangerously blind.

Newt Gingrich, the guy who thought Obama was a moderate, might be preparing Contract with American II. If John Boehner lets Gingrich beat him to something like this and become the champion of the Republican agenda, he's even dumber than I think he is. The other problem is Republicans aren't willing to agree on anything yet. They aren't desperate enough. This isn't 1992. They've tasted power, and they're just like Democrats.

WAR:

Al Qaeda salivating over the intelligence they will obtain from Khalid Sheikh Mohammad's trial.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Republican Sen. DeMint forces Obama administration to support the rule of law in Honduras by holding up State Dept. nominees. Nice job. Democracy is not consistent with the rule of law. Democracy knows no limits. The United States ostensibly, according the Constitution, is a republic ruled by laws, not a democracy, and we should never support democracy.

MEDIA:

This article reports that Iran recently revealed a previously kept secret nuclear facility, but it fails to mention that it only did so because the US, Britain and France had informed Iran they were going to blow the whistle on it. It also mentions concern that Iran might have other plants, but doesn't elaborate. If somebody has evidence of other secret Iranian nuclear facilities, then tell us. What is the point of these half-truths and vague comments? How can that serve anybody's agenda?

MISC:

Havard and other professors claiming copyright to the ideas they express in the classroom. In other words, Ivy League professors will teach you (or brainwash you, depending on the subject), but you can't use what you learn there without permission. I wonder if they confiscate the notes of their students because of copyright infringement. You can't help but laugh at the absurdity of the world we created with our government worship. This suggestion for professors from the University of Texas:

"My lectures are protected by state common law and federal copyright law. They are my own original expression and I record them at the same time that I deliver them in order to secure protection. Whereas you are authorized to take notes in class thereby creating a derivative work from my lecture, the authorization extends only to making one set of notes for your own personal use and no other use. You are not authorized to record my lectures, to provide your notes to anyone else or to make any commercial use of them without express prior permission from me."

If this were to be accepted, it would end the transmission of knowledge as we've known it since our ancestors developed language. By reempowering the same two failed parties for well over a century, we turned America into a bad joke. We did this to ourselves, and we're continuing to make it worse.

Mises.org's ten must haves are all on ebook.

Obama bows to another supreme leader. Other leaders don't. I don't see him bowing to anybody but supreme leaders. Not only is Obama a government worshiper and tyrant wannabe, he's a tyrant worshiper.

Apparently Carrie Prejean's other seven sex tapes weren't as big a mistake as her eighth. Liberals and their media attack dogs tried to destroy this woman, but she's been exploiting the controversy all along. This is like watching a battle between vampires and werewolves. I hope they both disappear. After I check out the pictures anyway. The ones I saw are ridiculously tame.

Is it possible that Obama's narcissism is growing? Of course. As bad as anything is, it can always be worse. There's probably nothing more dangerous than a man whose too narcissistic to understand that nobody is ever ready to wield the awesome power of the presidency. The problem isn't that people aren't ready. The problem is that awesome power in the hands of one man is absurdly dangerous. Bush was the decider, and that was a mistake. The important decisions about the lives of Americans and the direction of the country are supposed to be made freely by Americans working in a system of voluntary exchange, not by politicians wielding the threat of violence against citizens who do not submit.

Pharaoh Obama wants to seize power over all US subways.

Netherlands to tax drivers based on how far they drive. To pay for government roads, this makes more sense than licensing cars, but a gasoline tax is by far the most fair way to pay for roads. It takes into account miles and the size of vehicle, which is proportional to how much damage a driver does to roads.