My Beauty Best Teacher

There is one state in the United States that has continued to boom in spite of Democrat policies. Obama, Reid, Pelosi, and Peters high-tax, high-regulation policies haven't managed to take a dent out of this state's booming economy, even though they have deepened and lengthened the current US recession and damaged the economy of every state in the union except it. Truly, this state is the one state that has managed to prosper even through the mandates and controls and commissions and regulations and bureaucracy that has bogged down the rest of the United States and is destroying our economic drive.

The one state that is still booming, the one US state still growing, the one state in the United States that continues to have a booming economy: Texlahoma.

You see, Texlahoma has defied Democrats and avoided their snake-poison prescriptions for economic disaster, liberalizing their economy rather than socializing it, and championing human liberty in the face of increasing centralization, bureaucracy, and communism that marks the modern day Democratic Party.

Texlahoma cut taxes, at all levels, which led to increased revenue for the state, as predicted by the Laffer Curve. Texlahoma allows sensible energy exploration and development, letting the most environmentally friendly citizens in the world explore and develop natural resources rather than having its citizens importing them from other much-less environmentally friendly nations. Texlahoma has disbanded the public employee labor unions, since these unions are designed to correct for the corruption and abuse by private employers and are not needed when union employees work for a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Texlahoma has allowed private schools to compete for customers in their educational system, awarding each student a certain amount of dollars that will go to the school that they want to go to, and further awarding monetary bonus' for grades, sports, achievements, clubs, and many other merit-based reasons. Texlahoma does not play games with race, sex, religion, or sex, and treats everyone equally, and judges them based on their conservative character only. Texlahoma has toll roads competing with public roads, creating an efficient, vibrant, dynamic transportation grid in what were once known as 'Forgotten Counties.' Texlahoma does not have any business taxes, excise taxes, or sales taxes- only the income tax.

The people of Texlahoma are blessed with freedom and liberty. Defying the Supreme Court as much as possible, they have restricted the right to abortions and championed a lifestyle that looks to human life as the next hope of the world. They have relaxed gun control laws, everyone has a concealed weapon, and crime rates are non-existent. Cops don't harass citizens, real criminals are kept in prison, and it is a truly great place to live and work.

Sadly, Texlahoma isn't a real state. As designed by Oklahoman A. P. Sights in the early 1900's, forty-six counties in Texas and twenty-three in Oklahoma would join to form Texlahoma. People in rural places such as northern Texas and western Oklahoma were especially desperate for decent roads, but politicians in the faraway state capitals weren't listening, so the Texlahoma proposal was created. Legislators of the new state could focus on building better roadways and providing all the other services that these "forgotten" counties believed they weren't getting. "Cactus Jack" (John Nance Garner IV) championed the idea. Sadly, it never came to be, but sometimes, it is fun to imagine a state where the people still believe in the Founding Principles of our nation and practice life, liberty, and protection of property. It is a happy fantasy much different then the increasing tyranny of our current government as set up by liberal Democrats.

According to new research, exercise may have a beneficial effect on test scores. This is going to encourage more districts to re-implement their physical education programs, which were abandoned after the federal No Child Left Behind dictate. Since the school day remains the same and core academic subjects can't be touched, and research shows that foreign languages are needed and so they can't be touched, the question is, what will be cut next? School districts no longer offer extensive shop or wood-working programs. They don't offer many electives. How about music? I bet research shows that is good for test scores too. How about cutting business? It's evil anyways. I bet that is where the cut is- I'm putting my money on that right now.

The whole time, as districts re-shuffle curriculum, rebuild class schedules, move teachers around- the test scores are still the same as they were. That means a lot of effort, time, and money is going into nothing.

Okay, why am I running on like this? Once the federal government gets involved with things, life does not improve. Getting the federal government has resulted in increased costs, increased bureaucracy- but no increases in test scores. If government is not the solution to problems, perhaps it is the problem? What was the world like 100 years ago? Do any of my older readers know how schools were run then? Was it a vast bureaucracy, involving national, state, and local money? Was it funded by property taxes, sales taxes, and national income taxes?

How about 200 years ago? When our founding fathers were around, how were they schooled? Our education system is broken, and increasingly so, because the government gets more and more involved in it.

Keith Hart writing in Memory Bank:

When I graduated to the field of development studies, the picture of West Africa’s cities was just as distorted as one you might get from boorowing a Manchester school perspective. Here the emphasis of the economists was on the new states’ ability to pursue a neo-Keynesian development program. How could ‘we’ (the politicians, bureaucrats and their academic advisers) provide the jobs and other needs of the hordes flocking into the cities at the time? It was assumed that such provision had to come through the bureaucracy and conform to state-made laws. My paper on ‘informal income opportunities and urban employment’ pointed to the wide range of economic activities that were invisible to bureacracy. But even I saw them through a statist lens (“seeing like a state”), hence the term ‘informal’, not regulated by the bureaucracy. At that time I assumed that the bulk of economic progress must come though public and private sector enterprise of a corporate type.
The informal economy was never adequately described or defined, but these days it is commonplace to read assertions that African economies are 70-90% ‘informal’. Certainly the deregulation undertaken over the last three decades of neoliberal economic policies have led to a radical informalization of the world economy, not least in Africa. But to label these activities ‘informal’ is to avoid identifying what they are positively for or how they are organized, by which social principles.
I would say that the last half-century has seen a massive transfer of population to the cities, where most people have been left to generate their own forms of commerce. The informal economy in this sense has been a holding operation allowing many people to survive in the city and some to flourish. Whatever is coming up next will draw to some extent on this sprawling self-organized economic activity. Our task is to find out more about the promising sectors spawned by such a development.

More here

Juan Williams was on Sean Hannity today discussing President Obama's economic and domestic policies, and when push came to shove and facts and figures and data and evidence was cited, he fell back on the same argument that liberals and progressives always fall back on when the results of their policies prove to be harmful to poor people, minorities, and the groups in society that need the most help- he fell back on the argument that for all of the government's faults, at least it was taking wealth from rich people and redistributing it as charity to poor people.

Liberals and progressives, who have seized the old Democratic Party and are now running it as a communist organization, believe that one of the primary roles of the new United States of America is to use the power of the state to distribute charity to those who need it. But their actions and beliefs are in fact resulting in less money and wealth going to the people who need it in society because the government is THE SINGLE WORST charitable organization in the world, having considerable overhead, being motivated by politics and not need, and full of corruption and graft.

CATO, in a report that, although dated, still gets to the heart of the matter, said:

Private charities have been more successful than government welfare for several reasons. First, private charities are able to individualize their approach to the circumstances of poor people in ways that governments can never do. Government regulations must be designed to treat all similarly situated recipients alike. Glenn C. Loury of Boston University explains the difference between welfare and private charities on that point. "Because citizens have due process rights which cannot be fully abrogated . . . public judgments must be made in a manner that can be defended after the fact, sometimes even in court." The result is that most government programs rely on the simple provision of cash or other goods and services without any attempt to differentiate between the needs of recipients.

Take, for example, the case of a poor person who has a job offer. But she can't get to the job because her car battery is dead. A government welfare program can do nothing but tell her to wait two weeks until her welfare check arrives. Of course, by that time the job will be gone. A private charity can simply go out and buy a car battery (or even jump-start the dead battery).

The sheer size of government programs works against individualization. As one welfare case worker lamented, "With 125 cases it's hard to remember that they're all human beings. Sometimes they're just a number." Bureaucracy is a major factor in government welfare programs. For example, a report on welfare in Illinois found procedures requiring "nine forms to process an address change, at least six forms to add or delete a member of a household, and a minimum of six forms to report a change in earnings or employment." All that for just one program.

In her excellent book Tyranny of Kindness, Theresa Funiciello, a former welfare mother, describes the dehumanizing world of the government welfare system--a system in which regulations and bureaucracy rule all else. It is a system in which illiterate homeless people with mental illnesses are handed 17-page forms to fill out, women nine months pregnant are told to verify their pregnancies, a woman who was raped is told she is ineligible for benefits because she can't list the baby's father on the required form. It is a world totally unable to adjust to the slightest deviation from the bureaucratic norm.

In addition to being better able to target individual needs, private charities are much better able to target assistance to those who really need help. Because eligibility requirements for government welfare programs are arbitrary and cannot be changed to fit individual circumstances, many people in genuine need do not receive assistance, while benefits often go to people who do not really need them. More than 40 percent of all families living below the poverty level receive no government assistance. Yet more than half of the families receiving means-tested benefits are not poor. Thus, a student may receive food stamps, while a homeless man with no mailing address goes without. Private charities are not bound by such bureaucratic restrictions.

Private charity also has a better record of actually delivering aid to recipients. Surprisingly little of the money being spent on federal and state social welfare programs actually reaches recipients. In 1965, 70 cents of every dollar spent by the government to fight poverty went directly to poor people. Today, 70 cents of every dollar goes, not to poor people, but to government bureaucrats and others who serve the poor. Few private charities have the bureaucratic overhead and inefficiency of government programs.

Democratic policies are increasingly being defended on 'charitable' grounds, from healthcare policies to economic policies to environmental policies, but the truth of the matter is that government is a poor method of distributing charity. Instead of relying on government and its horrible charitable giving, all of these programs should be ended and the money spent on them should be returned to citizens. Even if a small percentage of this money was given in charity, then it would be more successful than government programs, and as long as there are a lot of conservative Republicans around, we can be sure that a good percentage of money will be donated and not a small percentage (according to studies, liberals don't donate to charity- they feel superior by taking money from you and giving that to charity).

Last month I wrote an important post called Global Climate Change is Caused by the Sun. That post has received a lot of comments and generated a lot of emails, most of them critical of the post because they didn't feel that I provided enough information to support my points or that I was not a reputable outlet to challenge their faith in climate change. But I want to hammer away at these people and continue to challenge their faith and make people feel more comfortable about the arguments that I made in that post, so I am going to all direct you to an article.

The article is published by the Financial Post and is called Science Getting Settled: New, convincing evidence indicates global warming is caused by cosmic rays and the sun — not humans:

The science is now all-but-settled on global warming, convincing new evidence demonstrates, but Al Gore, the IPCC and other global warming doomsayers won’t be celebrating. The new findings point to cosmic rays and the sun — not human activities — as the dominant controller of climate on Earth.

The research, published with little fanfare this week in the prestigious journal Nature, comes from über-prestigious CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, one of the world’s largest centres for scientific research involving 60 countries and 8,000 scientists at more than 600 universities and national laboratories. CERN is the organization that invented the World Wide Web, that built the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider, and that has now built a pristinely clean stainless steel chamber that precisely recreated the Earth’s atmosphere.

In this chamber, 63 CERN scientists from 17 European and American institutes have done what global warming doomsayers said could never be done — demonstrate that cosmic rays promote the formation of molecules that in Earth’s atmosphere can grow and seed clouds, the cloudier and thus cooler it will be. Because the sun’s magnetic field controls how many cosmic rays reach Earth’s atmosphere (the stronger the sun’s magnetic field, the more it shields Earth from incoming cosmic rays from space), the sun determines the temperature on Earth.

The hypothesis that cosmic rays and the sun hold the key to the global warming debate has been Enemy No. 1 to the global warming establishment ever since it was first proposed by two scientists from the Danish Space Research Institute, at a 1996 scientific conference in the U.K. Within one day, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Bert Bolin, denounced the theory, saying, “I find the move from this pair scientifically extremely naive and irresponsible.” He then set about discrediting the theory, any journalist that gave the theory credence, and most of all the Danes presenting the theory — they soon found themselves vilified, marginalized and starved of funding, despite their impeccable scientific credentials.

The mobilization to rally the press against the Danes worked brilliantly, with one notable exception. Nigel Calder, a former editor of The New Scientist who attended that 1996 conference, would not be cowed. Himself a physicist, Mr. Calder became convinced of the merits of the argument and a year later, following a lecture he gave at a CERN conference, so too did Jasper Kirkby, a CERN scientist in attendance. Mr. Kirkby then convinced the CERN bureaucracy of the theory’s importance and developed a plan to create a cloud chamber — he called it CLOUD, for “Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets.”

But Mr. Kirkby made the same tactical error that the Danes had — not realizing how politicized the global warming issue was, he candidly shared his views with the scientific community.

“The theory will probably be able to account for somewhere between a half and the whole of the increase in the Earth’s temperature that we have seen in the last century,” Mr. Kirkby told the scientific press in 1998, explaining that global warming may be part of a natural cycle in the Earth’s temperature.

The global warming establishment sprang into action, pressured the Western governments that control CERN, and almost immediately succeeded in suspending CLOUD. It took Mr. Kirkby almost a decade of negotiation with his superiors, and who knows how many compromises and unspoken commitments, to convince the CERN bureaucracy to allow the project to proceed. And years more to create the cloud chamber and convincingly validate the Danes’ groundbreaking theory.

Yet this spectacular success will be largely unrecognized by the general public for years — this column will be the first that most readers have heard of it — because CERN remains too afraid of offending its government masters to admit its success. Weeks ago, CERN formerly decided to muzzle Mr. Kirby and other members of his team to avoid “the highly political arena of the climate change debate,” telling them “to present the results clearly but not interpret them” and to downplay the results by “mak[ing] clear that cosmic radiation is only one of many parameters.” The CERN study and press release is written in bureaucratese and the version of Mr. Kirkby’s study that appears in the print edition of Nature censored the most eye-popping graph — only those who know where to look in an online supplement will see the striking potency of cosmic rays in creating the conditions for seeding clouds.

CERN, and the Danes, have in all likelihood found the path to the Holy Grail of climate science. But the religion of climate science won’t yet permit a celebration of the find.

Hopefully this article has made you feel more comfortable about accepting the fact that I am right- global climate change is driven largely by the sun, not humans, and thus almost every attempt by the government to control our behaviors and energy and production in the name of 'climate change' is misguided and dangerous and wrong.

UPDATE:  Come on people- now I'm getting emails that 'the Financial Post' isn't reputable enough for you- well how about the Wall Street Journal, because it also came out with an article today talking about the role that cosmic rays play in affecting the climate. Read the article The Other Climate Theory for more.

Pivoting away from other issues like the environment ("Bombshell" Experiment: Global Climate Change Caused by Cloud Cover) or education (More Than 200 D.C. Teachers Fired! Progress?), let's return back to jobs and the role that the government plays in job creation.

In my post Coming To Grips With a Political Economy I wrote about a class that I took in college called 'Political Economy.' The class was an attempt to indoctrinate students with the idea that government could create jobs through its actions and could create wealth through proper regulation and control over free markets. I struggled through this class, mostly because I rejected entirely the idea that government can create wealth and jobs through its actions, and today I still believe that.

Government does not create jobs. It takes wealth from those who are productive and creating wealth, cycles it through many layers of bureaucracy and 'management', and then gives that wealth to those people who are favored by the government. Some of those who are favored by the government should be- the Constitution identified those who the government can give 'jobs' to and states further have identified those who the government should give 'jobs' to. But many others who the government gives 'jobs' today in America are simply those who benefit from the kind of crony capitalism and banana republic policies that are more common to two-bit dictatorships and tyrannies.

And the 'jobs' that are created by government are inefficiently created- much wealth and property is squandered and lost and burned by having government provide these jobs because of the many layers of 'management' and bureaucracy that mark the government. This is an acceptable price to pay for fire, police, and military jobs, but for most other 'jobs' the government creates the cost to create these jobs far exceeds the useful good that these jobs provide to society.

For example, many liberals claim that Obamacare will 'create jobs'- agencies and regulatory bodies that will hire overlords and masters who supervise a once-free and vibrant economic sector and regulate, tax, and control it. But the cost of these jobs was demonstrated graphically by the reaction that businesses had to it- after the passage of this law businesses dramatically dropped their hiring of workers. The Heritage report explained why this happened:

Businesses with fewer than 50 workers have a strong incentive to maintain this size, which allows them to avoid the mandate to provide government-approved health coverage or face a penalty; Businesses with more than 50 workers will see their costs for health coverage rise—they must purchase more expensive government-approved insurance or pay a penalty; and Employers face considerable uncertainty about what constitutes qualifying health coverage and what it will cost. They also do not know what the health care market or their health care costs will look like in four years. This makes planning for the future difficult.

Yet President Obama and the modern-day Democratic Party continues to think that regulations, spending, taxes, and control over free people can 'create jobs'. They take wealth from those who have it- either through taxes or fees or by simply sucking up savings by selling debt- and give it to those who they favor and try to pretend that they have made society better. But they haven't- they have killed legitimate jobs that millions of people through their free actions wanted and needed (the unseen hand of the market) and made society less because of their actions that took away freedom and property.

In Latest EPA Rules to Cost 1.4 Million Jobs and a 12% Increase in Utility Bills I wrote about how the Washington Post reported that the new EPA rules that were recently published will cause electric bills will jump 12 percent nationally by 2016 to comply with these new policies, with residents in areas such as Kentucky and Tennessee seeing a 24 percent increase in their utility bills. These policies are project to eliminate 1.4 million jobs- real jobs that will be destroyed by the actions of government, creating people who will no longer be paying taxes any more and will now be sucking down government benefits, all thanks to these policies pushed by Democratic bureaucrats employed by a Democratic President supervised by Democrats in the House and the Senate and supported by Democratic unions and a Democratic media.

And now Wyoming Republican Senator John Barrasso has put together a report that showed that the executive actions of the Democrat President have put in place in July alone an additional $9.5 billion in new regulatory costs by proposing 229 new rules and finalizing 379 rules. Among those rules that are going to add to the cost of doing business, kill jobs, and make our society less productive and wealthy are rules regarding the fake issues of global warming, healthcare reform, and financial regulatory reform rules.

IN JULY ALONE A DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT PUT IN PLACE $9.5 BILLION IN NEW COSTS! I don't care how many times Obama 'pivots' to talk about jobs, the heart of the matter is that he is wrong about the government being able to create jobs and wealth through its actions- government is best that governs least because when people are free and free to live their lives and free to make their own decisions and free to do with their wealth and labor as they see fit, then jobs are created and wealth is created.

Make the choice in 2012 to turn America away from tyranny and 'government-created jobs' and to freedom and 'people-created jobs'.

For more reading, try Productivity versus OSHA and EPA regulations (Research for business decisions).

When government runs healthcare, politics starts intruding in and good healthcare starts going out. According to the Times Online, the British department in charge of healthcare, the National Health Service, recently published a pamphlet that it then distributed to schools around the nation. This government-issued document informs students that they have a right to an enjoyable sex life, and that regular intercourse can be good for their cardiovascular health.

These are the sort of arguments that I might make in my own household, but they are not the sort of views that I think should be ordered by the government. It is kind of creepy to think that once Big Brother nationalizes our healthcare system, some bureaucrat will write a booklet similar to this one, in which young children are informed about the benefits of sexual pleasure.

According to the government, society has been stupidly pretending that there is a need for safe sex and that you should be in a loving committed relationship prior to having sex- the government bureaucrat who ordered this document sent to all schools feels that the main reason for sex is mindless enjoyment, and if more kids are brainwashed that way, this pervert might get lucky more often.

Not to sugarcoat it, in my mind, this government employee is either a dirty old man who likes to hit on younger girls or some sort of new-age feminist who is lacking in real happiness.

The document is called Pleasure, and has a nice slogan in it- “an orgasm a day keeps the doctor away” it says. Then it goes on to ask "what about sex or masturbation twice a week?”, suggesting that this type of physical activity is healthy. Let me stress yet again that this is a government bureaucracy, the one that runs the healthcare system, doing this, in England.

This is not too far off here in America if Obama and the liberals running our nation have their way.

In a post last month called States Have Demonstrated That ObamaCare will Fail I wrote about how one benefit of having a federal system is that the states can experiment with public policies and find out whether they make society better or worse. Another benefit of the federal system that I teach about in my classes is that federal systems of government spread political power out and prevent one national government from having too much power and being tempted into tyranny. Well, tyranny is knocking at the door in this state, and today via the Washington Post comes this story about how the Obama administration is making yet another power grab and trying to take over powers that formerly belonged to the states.

Federal oversight of subways proposed details the latest attempts by the Obama administration to seize control of the nation's subway and light-rail systems in every state. What bothers Obama is that he is not controlling these systems and that they are being controlled at the local or state level- what they call "haphazard and ineffective" control.

Under the proposal, the U.S. Department of Transportation would do for transit what it does for airlines and Amtrak, which means run a vast inefficient bureaucracy with a poor safety record at the cost of many millions. If you thought public transportation was bad now, wait until the Democrats get their hands on it!

"We were all sitting around here scratching our heads, saying, 'Hey, we've got to do something about this,' " Obama Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in an interview. "And we discovered that there's not much we could do, because the law wouldn't allow us to do it." And so, they went about changing the law, because power is only good if you can wield it. Checks and balances, federalism, separation of powers- relics of an older age when those things mattered. Now the administration is all about the exact opposite of those fundamental values of our society- centralization of power, control over everything, and doing it because they want to do it, whether or not they have the authority or not.

Kitty Higgins, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, said "I applaud the secretary and his team for recognizing the gap in oversight in the current law. I hope that Congress will act on it swiftly." Estimates are that millions in federal funding will flow to the NTSB and other safety boards as a result of this federal power grab, further enriching the government officials who live off the sweat of taxpayers brows.

Every day that Democrats are in power, they grab for more and more control over your life, snatching up powers once reserved for states and localities and private businesses, claiming that their legitimate and just reach of power goes into every aspect of your life. Tyranny, thy name is Democrat.

The good news about the budget for fiscal year of 2011 is that it did not set a record for the largest deficit ever. No, that record was set in 2009 at $1.412 trillion, when the Democrats who controlled Congress from 2006 passed a budget that lame-duck moderate Republican President Bush then signed into law- a budget that included the bank bailouts of a trillion dollars. 2011 was better than that awful year for governance- but only by a little bit, as the final deficit for fiscal year 2011 came in as the second highest deficit in the history of our nation, $1.299 trillion.

The Republicans are not blameless in this deficit- they have been in control of at least half of Congress since January of 2011, so they own most of this budget that resulted in the second highest single year deficit in the history of the United States- at a time when we're not fighting any new wars, not building any sort of major monuments, not engaged in any sort of national race for space or atomic bombs, and no longer passing massive stimulus bills and bank bailouts at the height of a major crisis. Nope, this 2011 deficit is just outright bad- just a lot of blown money and spending way beyond what is sustainable, and the GOP was party and parcel to this budget.

Oh, I know that they only control half of Congress and don't control the Presidency or the bureaucracy and walked into this mess- but if the GOP wants to blame Obama for the mess he has caused than it is only fair that they take a good share of the blame for the 2011 fiscal deficit. The 'budget deals' they signed into law were bad deals, and any GOP Congressman who stood to vote for those or who urged new spending programs should be held accountable.

Tea Party people, this doesn't mean that the GOP is just as bad as the Democrats or that there needs to be a third party- no, it means that the GOP must be held accountable in their primary elections by facing true conservative challenges and must be made to answer questions regarding their votes.

As must though as the GOP is not blameless for this utter disaster in governance, the Democrats are to be held in full blame for passing on these massive debts to our children and doing such a utter rotten job of managing money.

Democrats controlled the House of Representations from 2006 to 2010 (and apparently the fiscal year goes Oct-Oct, so they are to blame for the 2011 deficit from Oct-Jan), and controlled the Senate from 2006 to today so are to blame in full for the deficit of 2011. And US President Barack Obama is a Democrat and has been President since 2010, so shares blame for this as well.

The deficit in 2011 was $1.299 trillion.

The deficit in 2010 was $1.293 trillion.

The deficit in 2009 was $1.412 trillion.

The wrath of voters should fall on anyone part of this horrible mismanagement's in the ship of state, and since Bush and many of the Republicans from 2009 and prior are not on the ballot and it appears that their mistakes and bad policies have been continued and deepened and made normal by the Democrats, the wrath of voters should fall in full on the Democratic President, the Democrats in the Senate, and the big-spending GOPers and Democrats in the House who oversaw this travesty.

For years, the United States has been a leader in the world in economic freedom. Economic freedom is defined as having property rights protected by impartial rule of law, free trade, a sound currency, and a small limited government relative to the size of the economy. My blog supports economic freedom, and the political party that I support also pushes for policies that make economic freedom a reality- no bailouts, no government take-overs, bond holder rights that are respected, low and fair taxes, consistent regulations and rules, a restrained bureaucracy, free trade agreements with Columbia or other nations, no inflating the currency through QE or other Fed schemes, a return to the gold standard, and a limited and small government that does take valuable resources away from the private sector.

Many people oppose these policies- they seek to make the United States less free. The problem with this is that those countries that are less free also are less prosperous. By pushing for stimulus bills, czars, subsidies for green energy, deficit spending, higher taxes, inflating of the currency, or other liberal Democrat policies, our nation becomes less economically free, and the result is higher unemployment, lower income, less happiness, lower life expectancy, less clean environment, and more corruption.

I know, I know- you care about the poor people, you see Bush as a bogeyman, you hate the war in Iraq, you are passionate about the environment- it does not matter why you vote Democrat and why you are a liberal, the result is that you support policies that make our nation less economically free, and thus a lesser nation in so many ways.

This video will help illustrate it for you and you'll see what nations are economically free and which ones aren't- and hopefully this will help you to understand what sort of policies to support in our society and which political party to vote for and which ones not to.

H/T to Orlin for passing this video on to me. Thanks!

Via theblogprof, there is this interesting article From World Net Daily today:

A newly unclassified Department of Homeland Security report warns against the possibility of violence by unnamed "right-wing extremists" concerned about illegal immigration, increasing federal power, restrictions on firearms, abortion and the loss of U.S. sovereignty and singles out returning war veterans as particular threats.

The report from DHS' Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines right-wing extremism in the U.S. as "divided into those groups, movements and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups) and those that are mainly anti-government, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration."

Those of you attending the Tea Parties, here is what you stand for: America, federalism, 2nd amendment, pro-life, and the military. Here is who opposes your views: the US government, particularly bureaucrats.

This is getting weird- it is almost as if these tea parties were being held back in the pre-revolutionary days, when King George and his bureaucrats and their anti-freedom, anti-liberty, pro-bureaucracy policies were the norm. King George wanted you to stay home and sit out the pro-freedom events like this one- he didn't support federalism, gun ownership, and America. King George is the bad guy.

Today, it is King Obama- to be honest, it's not just Obama and it's not just the Democrats- it's also the big government Republicans and liberal RINO's who collaborate with those who would take our freedom. It is those out there who do not believe that I was given by God the right to own property (as much property as I want and it's a good thing!), that I was given by God the right to liberty, and that God gave me and others the right to live. Liberals and those who oppose these tea parties do not believe that governments were created by men to protect those rights, and that whenever they no longer protect those rights, they are no longer moral, they are no longer good, and they deserve to be changed.

Those of you who are going to Tea Parties this Wednesday- and here is the information you need for that- you are the good guys, you are the freedom fights, you are the right in this world. You are the ancestors of those who fought in our Revolution, you are the sons and daughters of the Revolution, and cheer with pride in knowing that by attending these Tea Parties, forget what the Department of Homeland Security says, you are doing the right thing.

UPDATE: Hot Air has a good story about the DHS report and other issues. Check it out, but don't be too worried- remember, aim to misbehave.

Just got back from the "National Tea Party Express III, Just Vote Them Out! Tour" stop in Clinton Twp, MI. Clinton Twp is a little north of Detroit in southeastern Michigan. It was a pretty good event- I'm not good at estimating crowds, but people just kept coming, and I guess there was anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 people there.

Although the Tea Party doesn't endorse any particular party, there were no candidates there from the Democratic Party, and not a single Democratic candidate for any office was out there talking about liberty, freedom, or limited government.

I did see four of the five Republican candidates for Governor of Michigan there- Mike Cox, Pete Hoekstra, Mike Bouchard, and Tom George- and they all gave a speech to get the crowd fired up. Mike Cox gave the best speech and still remains a guy I like for our Governor. I'll also point out that the one candidate for Governor who was not there was Rick Synder- apparently he doesn't support the things that Tea Party people believe in, like limited government, constitutional government, human freedom and liberty, less regulation of society, less bureaucracy and red tape, and lower taxes.

There were other candidates there as well, all Republicans running for various state offices here in Michigan- Judge Mikael Warren was there promoting his book America's Survival Guide, Mike Bishop was there just hanging out with his family (he is also running for Michigan Attorney General but really wasn't campaigning today), and I also saw my good friend and chairman of the The Michigan Taxpayers Alliance Leon Drolet there enjoying the crowd and talking to friends (he also is running for State Senate but wasn't really campaigning today).

Okay, enough name dropping, because the real fun of being at a Tea Party event to me is not the speakers and comedians and music- which the Tea Party Express had going- but talking to real people. There were discussions that I overheard about the Constitution, about our Founding Principles, and about how we should never compromise in our fight for liberty. There were more specific discussions that touched on economics and history. People talked about how they don't like all the bailouts for companies, about how the alliance between big business and big government and the big unions is bad for America, about how the nationalized healthcare plan that Obama is setting up is going to be bad for our country, about how cap and tax will destroy our economy, and about how our energy policies are holding back American industry. People talked about drilling, lower taxes, less regulation, less red tape, and less control over our lives will lead to greater freedom and prosperity. Average every day people talked about this stuff- I talked to a retired janitor for a good bit who said that government isn't the solution to our problems, it is the problem, and he was right on.

It was a good day- there were the smells of hot dogs cooking on the grill, people selling flags and shirts that talked about freedom and liberty, petitions circling, and lots of good people. Here are some sights and sounds from the event- pictures that I took on my cell phone- enjoy, and try to get to one of these events yourself in the future!


UPDATE: For another report, check out theblogprof's REPORT (with pics and video): More than 3,000 show up at Tea Party Express in Clinton Twp, MI.

If you've been following the blogs, this information has been out for several months- I believe the Boston Globe broke it months ago, and last week the Times of London picked up on it. But the AP is reporting today that Obama's aunt from Kenya, referred to as "Aunti Zeituni" in Obama's memoir, is currently living illegally in US. Read the story here.

Some things that the AP story does not go into but are relevant. Obama knew about her illegal status and has done nothing. This suggests that he has no respect for our immigration laws and thinks that he is above the law of the United States.

Two, the fact that he has not helped his aunt shows that he no love for his own family members, as he coldly has done nothing to help his aunt, who is illegally living here in abject poverty while Obama has been living a wealthy lifestyle as an influential legislator for several years. He could have given her some welfare and spread his wealth around, or he could have pulled some strings to help her navigate the evils of government bureaucracy- both things that he preaches that he will do as President.

Lack of respect for law and utter cruelty to his own family- that's Obama.

It seems that President Obama has appointed a group called the Ocean Policy Task Force. The original idea was to plan Federal policy related to ocean fishing- innocent enough. But because our rivers and streams are in a 'crisis', Obama ordered that within 90 days this OPTF come up with a comprehensive plan on how to gain control over and manage a whole range of new areas, including recreational fishing and boating.

The idea is that Obama will create a new Federal bureaucracy through decree that would attempt to coordinate and manage all existing state, regional and local planning agencies that deal with fishing, boating, cruise ships, marine wildlife refuges, marine mining, ports and harbors, hunting, and any "Other Recreation- e.g., boating, beach access, swimming, nature and whale watching, and diving" that may be on or near a river, lake, stream, or body of water.

Under the pretense of ‘protecting’ these areas, Obama has ordered that Task Force to develop zoning laws and regulations which will permanently close vast areas of fishing waters nationwide. The Task Force intends for this to be done December 9, 2009, after which the national government will close lakes, streams, rivers, and harbors to fishing, boating, hunting, or swimming, in order to 'protect' those habitats.

The federal government will take control of these areas regardless of the state, local, or regional laws that may affect them- this is intended to be a yet another power grab by the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress.

Dave Pfeiffer, President of Shimano American Corporation explained how the Obama Task Force worked:

"In spite of extensive submissions from the recreational fishing community to the Task Force in person and in writing, they failed to include any mention of the over one million jobs or the 6o million anglers which may be affected by the new policies coast to coast. Input from the environmental groups who want to put us off the water was adopted into the report verbatim – the key points we submitted as an industry were ignored.”

This is the Obama government and this is what happens when you elect Democrats- Task Forces are created by Presidential decree to take over areas of our lives and come up with rules and regulations, and business leaders are not invited to participate in these secret and closed processes but environmental wacko's are.

The original White House memo and (not surprisingly) the Task Force report also contains multiple references to the managing these lands in a manner “consistent with international law, including customary international law as reflected in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea”. The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was never ratified by the United States and even today there is no way that even liberal Democrats in the Senate would sign on to it, but apparently that isn't going to stop Obama from making the United States follow that treaty anyway.

Here comes the Fishing Czar!

For additional information and sources for this story, see the following two stories- Feds to 60 Million American Anglers: We don't need you or Federal takeover of our coastal fishing and marine resources?

Via Lucianne.

Although I am no expert in this, I have always felt that the 1930's were an interesting time period in our nation. The Victorian age had come to a bloody conclusion with World War One, and a whole generation of people were now being raised in a society that saw their parents as failures- their attempts to repress their sexual urges, their attempts to stick to the old ways, their attempts to put in place world peace, their attempts to build multinational nations- all had led to one of the most bloody and brutal and worthless wars of all time. Technology was changing fast- cars and telephones and radio and motion picture- and the children of the 1910's and 1920's thought that they had everything figured out- they thought that where other generations had failed due to their reliance on religion, traditional values, free markets, republicanism, and limited government, they would succeed by figuring out a third way of doing things, a practical way of doing things, a way of doing things that used the power of government to make society a better place to live. This new generation, horrified by WWI and mocking their parents lack of technology skills, had it all figured out, and ushered in an era of fascism and communism and World War Two.

In my post 1930's Are Root of All That is Wrong I cataloged all of the laws that were passed in the 1930's in America that are with us today- such as the Unemployment Compensation Tax (MI, 1936), Oil and Gas Severance Tax (MI, 1929), Social Security Act (USA, 1935), Fair Labor Standards Act (USA, 1938), Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (USA, 1930), Hoover Tax Hike (USA, 1932), National Labor Relations Act (USA, 1935), Private Schools, Act 302 of 1921 (MI, 1921), Roosevelt moves traditional Thanksgiving Day (1939), Regulating Firearms, Act 373 (MI, 1927), US moves off gold standard (1933), Reapportionment Act (USA, 1929), etc. Looking through that list and thinking of how much America was changed by one generation, by one President, by one party, by one decade (mostly), I was always stunned, and wondered how people had let that come to pass.

As it turns out, the Republican Party of 1936 had put together a platform to oppose a lot of these fascist ideas, but people loved their hope and change and returned FDR to the White House instead, and so the Great Depression dragged on for another decade. Via Conservative Hideout, let's take a walk back in history and see just exactly what the GOP was offering as an alternative back then to the high taxes, high regulation, crony capitalism, fascist third way system that FDR was pushing our nation into. Here is a good chunk of the 1936 Republican Party Platform:

1936 Republican Party PlatformAmerica is in peril. The welfare of American men and women and the future of our youth are at stake. We dedicate ourselves to the preservation of their political liberty, their individual opportunity and their character as free citizens, which today for the first time are threatened by Government itself.

For three long years the New Deal Administration has dishonored American traditions and flagrantly betrayed the pledges upon which the Democratic Party sought and received public support. The powers of Congress have been usurped by the President... the rights and liberties of American citizens have been violated... regulated monopoly has displaced free enterprise.... it has intimidated witnesses and interfered with the right of petition... it has been guilty of frightful waste and extravagance, using public funds for partisan political purposes... it has promoted investigations to harass and intimidate American citizens, at the same time denying investigations into its own improper expenditures... it has created a vast multitude of new offices, filled them with its favorites, set up a centralized bureaucracy, and sent out swarms of inspectors to harass our people.... it has bred fear and hesitation in commerce and industry, thus discouraging new enterprises, preventing employment and prolonging the depression.... appeals to passion and class prejudice have replaced reason and tolerance.

To a free people, these actions are insufferable. This campaign cannot be waged on the traditional differences between the Republican and Democratic parties. The responsibility of this election transcends all previous political divisions. We invite all Americans, irrespective of party, to join us in defense of American institutions. We pledge ourselves:

...To preserve the American system of free enterprise, private competition, and equality of opportunity, and to seek its constant betterment in the interests of all.

The only permanent solution of the unemployment problem is the absorption of the unemployed by industry and agriculture. To that end, we advocate: Removal of restrictions on production. Abandonment of all New Deal policies that raise production costs, increase the cost of living, and thereby restrict buying, reduce volume and prevent reemployment. Encouragement instead of hindrance to legitimate business. Withdrawal of government from competition with private payrolls. Elimination of unnecessary and hampering regulations. Adoption of such other policies as will furnish a chance for individual enterprise, industrial expansion, and the restoration of jobs.

Society has an obligation to promote the security of the people, by affording some measure of protection against involuntary unemployment and dependency in old age. The New Deal policies, while purporting to provide social security, have, in fact, endangered it. We propose a system of old age security, based upon the following principles: 1. We approve a pay-as-you-go policy, which requires of each generation the support of the aged and the determination of what is just and adequate, 2. Every American citizen over sixty-five should receive the supplementary payment necessary to provide a minimum income sufficient to protect him or her from want. 3. Each state and territory, upon complying with simple and general minimum standards, should receive from the federal government a graduated contribution in proportion to its own, up to a fixed maximum....

...Nearly sixty percent of all imports into the United States are now free of duty. The other forty percent of imports compete directly with the product of our industry. We would keep on the free list all products not grown or produced in the United States in commercial quantities. As to all commodities that commercially compete with our farms, our forests, our mines, our fisheries, our oil wells, our labor and our industries, sufficient protection should be maintained at all times to defend the American farmer and the American wage earner from the destructive competition emanating from the subsidies of foreign governments and the imports from low-wage and depreciated-currency countries....

...We recognize the existence of a field within which governmental regulation is desirable and salutary. The authority to regulate should be vested in an independent tribunal acting under clear and specific laws establishing definite standards. Their determinations on law and facts should be subject to review by the Courts. We favor Federal regulation, within the Constitution, of the marketing of securities to protect investors. We favor also Federal regulation of the interstate activities of public utilities...

...We pledge ourselves to the merit system, virtually destroyed by New Deal spoilsmen. It should be restored, improved and extended. We will provide such conditions as offer an attractive permanent career in government service to young men and women of ability, irrespective of party affiliations.

The New Deal Administration has been characterized by shameful waste, and general financial irresponsibility. It has piled deficit upon deficit. It threatens national bankruptcy and the destruction through inflation of insurance policies and savings bank deposits. We pledge ourselves to: Stop the folly of uncontrolled spending. Balance the budget—not by increasing taxes but by cutting expenditures, drastically and immediately. Revise the federal tax system and coordinate it with state and local tax systems. Use the taxing power for raising revenue and not for punitive or political purposes.

We advocate a sound currency to be preserved at all hazards. The first requisite to a sound and stable currency is a balanced budget. We oppose further devaluation of the dollar. We will restore to the Congress the authority lodged with it by the Constitution to coin money and regulate the value thereof by repealing all the laws delegating this authority to the Executive....

...We assume the obligations and duties imposed upon Government by modern conditions. We affirm our unalterable conviction that, in the future as in the past, the fate of the nation will depend, not so much on the wisdom and power of government, as on the character and virtue, self-reliance, industry and thrift of the people and on their willingness to meet the responsibilities essential to the preservation of a free society.

The United Nations wants to be the one who aliens get taken too. Mazlan Othman, the head of the U.N.'s little-known Office for Outer Space Affairs (Unoosa) was recently named  "Chief Alien Ambassador". In this role, she will lobby for funding and assistants and office space so that if aliens ever do land on our planet and ask to see our leader, the UN can claim that it has in place the bureaucracy to handle the negotiations. She will set out the details of her proposed new role at a Royal Society conference in Buckinghamshire next week.

The truth of the matter is that your tax money is going to the United Nations who have people working diligently on how they can take power and voice and authority from you and your elected Representatives and rule over you. Don't forget, the UN is in reality a collection of despots and tyrants with only a few truly elected and limited executives scattered in, and one has to be very careful about ceding to that body future negotiations with alien races. The UN gave Iran the chair of the Council on Human Rights- they'd probably select North Korea to negotiate with the aliens because Kim Jung Il is a moonbat.

The good thing is that in all likelihood this plan will just siphon money from hard working people and give it to appointed academics who will sit around living nicely on your income. I highly doubt it will be the blunder that will end the entire human race. Rest safely- if aliens do land and plan on destroying us, the Lightmaker will part the seas and save humanity with the musical sounds of himself.

UPDATE: If movies are accurate, it is unlikely that aliens will land somewhere where residents recognize the United Nations as any sort of authority on anything- they tend to like trailer parks (see The Last Starfighter) and stuff.

The Economic Commission for Africa reports "...The private sector only gets a brief mention in the Millennium Development Goals. Yet it is business – entrepreneurs, employers, investors and workers – who are best positioned to help Africa achieve the Goals...One area where private sector intervention could really make a difference is boosting the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) as proposed in Goal 8...ICTs are crucial for developing countries. They help reduce costs, improve productivity and increase access to domestic and international markets, thus contributing to economic growth and competition in the global economy...It’s indisputable that the private sector has played a major role in the evolution of ICTs, particularly in the mushrooming mobile phone networks. Nigeria has the world’s fastest growing mobile market, increasing by about 143 percent in 2003. That’s the kind of growth that will bring the MDGs within reach...So why is Africa finding it hard to achieve the necessary growth rates? Tariff barriers and border restrictions, heavy and indiscriminate taxation, complex, time-consuming regulations and bureaucracy have all played a part.Vigorous entrepreneurship can be seen in the informal sector all over the continent but these constraints, as well as disincentives discouraging investors, prevent small operators from thriving and expanding their businesses to become energetic - small and medium-sized enterprises and the engine of African growth.Africa does not just need growth per-se, but specifically growth in labour-intensive sectors that leads to job creation and wage improvement. This link is vital because the fastest exit from poverty is through employment and higher salaries..."

Walter Russell Mead gives some great advice to students going back to school. The whole article is filled with advice and suggestions, but for the sake of brevity, here are some of the best parts:

The real world does not work like school. Life in school is life in bureaucracy. You follow the rules, do what you are told, and rewards follow. That’s the old system; the new one won’t work that way. Creativity, integrity and entrepreneurial initiative will pay off; following the old rules and hoping for the old rewards is a road to frustration. You have to fight the tendency of the educational system to turn you into a timeserving baby bureaucrat, following the rules and waiting for the inevitable promotion.

Most of your elders know very little about the world into which you are headed. Most faculty members, especially the tenured ones, have worked and lived in a world that is passing away. In many cases it’s hard for them to imagine the kind of lives you will live, and you need to keep this in mind.

You are going to have to work much, much harder than you probably expect. Your competition is working hard, damned hard, and is deadly serious about learning. There’s nothing written in the stars that guarantees Americans a higher standard of living than other people. Those of you who spend your college years goofing off in the traditional American way are going to pay a much higher price for this than you think.

Choosing the right courses is more important than choosing the right college. Your generation can’t afford to throw these four years away; choose your courses carefully and seriously.

Get a traditional liberal education; it is the only thing that will do you any good. However, in times of rapid change, it is paradoxically more useful to immerse yourself in the basics and the classics than to try to keep up with the latest developments and hottest trends.
 
Character counts; so do good habits. Character and spiritual grounding are going to count much more in the tumultuous, uncertain environment that is approaching than in the more stable and bureaucratic world of the past. But in a world in which employment is less secure, competition tougher, and your reputation for integrity and productivity are the most important assets you have, character is going to count.

The one piece of advice I would add is that students, whether they be in high school or college, need to read on their own. They can't cede their mind to the institution- if only the government is putting information and thoughts and theories in your head, than that is a very bad thing. Students should always be reading a book they choose on their own, and should be rotating fiction with non-fiction or biographies. Don't let someone else have total control over your education- educate yourself on your own on your own time too.

Akin expands on the "Why Poor Countries Are Poor" theme covered earlier:

Corruption is exacerbated by the layers and hoops of unnecessary bureaucratic requirements that simply keep pen-pushers and deadwood in their positions of unwarranted privilege as enemies of change – people need to get things done and the only way to smooth out any activity is to grease grubby palms...The best thing any government of a developing country can do is reduce layers of bureaucracy, bureaucratic irrelevance and the people who feed that system – time to register companies, accumulation of unnecessary information, provide access to relevant economic data without strictures and nip all sources of patronage in the bud.

Looking forward to Nigeria's elections Charles Soludo contends that:

....we need answers to is how the candidates hope to reconstruct our public finance and put it back on the path of sustainability. How can they rein-in the obtuse and rapacious federal bureaucracy in particular, and the state bureaucracies, balance our budget during this period of oil boom, and yet spend at least 40% of the budget on capital expenditure as required by the Fiscal Responsibility Act? Personally, I am not convinced that we need more than 10 ministries and 10 ministers at the Federal level. They should explain to us their contingency plans in case oil price crashes tomorrow. Candidates should also let us know their views on, and framework for, borrowing (when to borrow, for what, and how it will be paid back?). Without clarity on these issues, much of the talk about government providing power/electricity and infrastructure on a sustainable basis will remain a joke as funding will always remain a binding constraint. In other words, candidates should tell us their plans to shrink the domain of the public sector to free resources to enlarge the domain of the private sector— to truly have a private sector-led, market economy. For example, I have always believed that company profit tax rate should not be more than 10% (down from the current 30% plus education tax of another 2%) especially at a period of oil price boom, and where the businesses provide their own infrastructure. For businesses to expand and create jobs, the tax rate needs to go down significantly. We need to debate this.

More here