A note to Ron Paul supporters....

It's over folks. Congressman Paul has once again been shunted aside by Republican insiders and the lamestream media.  Any further investment of your time or money will end up accomplishing nothing of lasting importance.  I am sorry to be so blunt, but the facts are the facts.

How then to keep the message of Liberty alive through the general election?  The only answer to that is Gary Johnson. With the money and breadth of volunteer help that RP has enjoyed, Governor Johnson would be able to participate in the Presidential Debates and have a real, and potentially long-lasting, effect on American politics.

You need to choose now whether the message you care so much about reaches the maximum number of people possible, at the time they will be paying the most attention to politics and America's future.  Unfortunately Ron Paul will not be in a position to deliver that message.  Governor Johnson will.

Please visit the Gary Johnson website today, and make a donation and pledge some of your time.  The future of Liberty depends on it.

Sandra Fluke, The Ninth Amendment, and the Definition of a Right

Item the first:  I seldom listen to Rush Limbaugh.  He can be funny at times, caustic at others, but is generally entertaining.  His remarks about Sandra Fluke however were tasteless at best, and wrong-headed for reasons I will try to make clear.  Now for my rant:

Both wings of America’s Big Government Party¹ have their undies in a wad over Sandra Fluke and the issue she has come to personify. Both are horrifically wrong. The Ninth Amendment, and a proper definition of “Rights”, hold the key.

The Puritanical Right views Ms Fluke’s whining about not being provided birth control as part of the Student Health Services where she attends law school as proof positive she, somehow overlooking the vast majority of Americans who have, are, or will use birth control as a tool of family planning, is emblematic of a moral decay inflicting our nation.  Birth control, the sanctimonious wail, enables the wed as well as the unwed to be promiscuous, having sex for sheer enjoyment rather than the God-given purpose of procreation within marriage.  Thus self-proclaimed “small-government conservatives” seem not to notice one whit the irony in claiming for government the power to control the personal sexual activities of more than two hundred million people.

The Always Outraged Left on the other hand is apoplectic over the fact that the university Ms Fluke attends demurs from providing the benefit in question because it is affiliated with a religious organization which considers birth control to be immoral.² The Left’s hypocrisy is shameless, as is generally the case, as its constituent parts appear oblivious to the principle that a government once given the power to command a benefit for some also has the power to command its denial to all.

The Ninth Amendment to the Constitution is central to this discussion, and ought to provide guidance to both sides.  It states, as I am sure you all remember: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”  What does this mean, and how does it apply to condom-gate?

The Bill of Rights enumerates a list of basic rights resident in all humans: Speech, press, assembly, trial by jury, and so on.  Most would recognize that those are not the only rights we possess however.  For example, most would agree we have the right to earn a living, marry, have children, and travel, to name but a few more.  The Ninth Amendment reminds us that just because these and others are not mentioned in the Constitution does not mean we do not enjoy them³. 

It does not require any leap at all to conclude that the private sexual activities of consenting adults is fully covered by the Ninth Amendment – particularly in light of the Declaration’s “…Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness…” clause – and is no business of a government, Federal or otherwise. Checkmate, Puritanical Right. 

Ms Fluke and her Leftist sympathizers are equally wrong, however.  Not to say Ms Fluke does not have the right to enjoy a hearty roll in the hay whenever she so wishes; she certainly does.  What she does not have however is a right to force someone else to finance her choice.  Natural (or Human) Rights are those inalienable civil and political entitlements we all enjoy as humans, and which require neither permission to exercise nor a diminution of another’s equal rights.  Any claim which infringes upon the rights of others by compelling them to provide a good or service for another person is by definition not a right, and thereupon is the important basic principle of Enlightenment thought on which Ms Fluke’s argument fails⁴.

1. Only someone who has been traveling beyond our planet can pretend that we still enjoy a two-party system.  Rather, we have one big-government party with two wings who disagree not on the size or scope of government power, but only on which part of our lives government should impose the most.      
2. One can but marvel at an organization which considers limiting family size a mortal sin, but the raping of children an occupation prerogative.   
3. I have always felt that SCOTUS erred and missed a great opportunity to strengthen individual liberty by deciding Roe v. Wade on the 4^th Amendment’s inferred privacy provision rather than the broader protections  proffered by the 9^th.
4. Examples may make this case a bit easier to understand:  No one could reasonably claim he/she cannot enjoy freedom of the press sans their ability to compel someone else to buy them a printing press, nor that we cannot enjoy our Second Amendment rights unless taxpayers provide us with ammunition. This is, by the way, why healthcare is not a right.

In Defense of the FairTax:

Chuck Moulton, whom I count as a friend, recently wrote to Governor Johnson regarding his support for the FairTax.  It seems to me that chuck either misunderstands or misstates a number of issues. For instance:

1) The prebate is definitively not an entitlement any more than a refund on your income taxes is an entitlement. It is a refund of taxes up to the poverty level, effectively untaxing the truly poor while at the same time building a modicum of progressivity into the tax;

2) First of all, seniors still pay income taxes on much of their retirement savings, and this expense will be a thing of the past. Additionally as to seniors, in as much as the compliance costs and taxes of the present system presently add on average a bit more than 22% to the price of everything that seniors (indeed everyone) purchase, and since we can expect to see substantive price reductions at least approaching that figure as the new regimen becomes entrenched, seniors cost of living will be dramatically reduced, amounting to a wash at worst for them;

3) The possibility of ending up with both an income tax and the FairTax is a red herring. Congress diddles with the tax code every year, increasing taxes, adding fees, eliminating deductions, etc. Of course there can be no guarantee that a future Congress will not attempt to reinstitute an income tax. Then again there is no guarantee that a future Congress will not institute a VAT on top of our present income taxes. To stick with an obviously broken and unfair system of taxation because of something that might happen down the road is myopic, at best;

4) The FairTax site adequately addresses Chuck’s 23% – 30% conundrum. In essence they are very forthcoming about the 30% figure, but use the 23% when comparing it to our present income tax rates. (If one pays an effective income tax rate of 22%, we don’t then back that out and then define it as a 28% rate on what he has left. Apples and apples Chuck;

5) The competitive issue is just the opposite of what chuck describes. The FairTax will make U.S. manufacturers more competitive when selling their goods overseas, and thus eliminate a large incentive to offshore American jobs. Further, the FairTax will encourage economic growth two ways: First by offering foreign manufacturers who wish to sell into the U.S. an incentive to locate factories on American soil, and Secondly by enabling the repatriation of up to $100 trillion of funds belonging to American citizens and companies that are now trapped overseas because of the adverse tax costs of bringing them home; finally

6) Frankly, we cannot allow a handful of radicals, or otherwise uninformed Libertarians, to block us from advocating and taking the bold steps necessary to turn around our economy and begin the process of restoring freedom to America. I can state without fear of contradiction that most LP radicals already oppose the governor because of his foreign policy positions, and a change in his advocacy for the FairTax will not swing a single vote nor produce another dollar in contributions.

If the FairTax achieved nothing but the abolition of the IRS, it would still count as the greatest single step forward for liberty since the Declaration of Independence. The opposition by some Libertarians is incredibly short-sighted and does nothing to advance the goals we all share.

Reflections on "Life at the Moment of Conception"

Recently, much as the Grinch, I have been puzzling so much that my puzzler is sore.  Folks like the Ricks Santorum and Perry, Michelle Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, and others have made a big deal out of the “life begins at conception” premise.   I must note that this hypothesis is a social conservative, Christian construct, quite often accompanied by a corresponding claim that it is also at this self-same moment of conception that a soul attaches to the new physical being, making them the property of the Christian god for eternity.  The two beliefs are inseparable.

Interesting, but puzzling.  For the time being let us accept as fact both claims, and examine the consequences of so doing.

As to the first premise, if life truly begins at conception, the Christian god becomes at once a prolific abortionist.  From the blastocyst through the early fetal stages, somewhere between forty and fifty percent of all pregnancies will spontaneously abort.  Is that new life not important to their god?  Is he somehow so utterly incompetent that he screws up fully half of his creations?  Or is it simply that he likes his mini-unborns scrambled for breakfast?  Tongue in cheek perhaps, but a question no “pro-life” warrior has ever bothered answer, nor even ponder I suspect.

Why do the believing families of spontaneously-aborted “children” not hold funeral services for their dearly-departed, with match-box sized coffins and burials in the family plot?  I am not being flippant here; merely inquisitive.

The second claim is even more mind-numbing. 

I will ignore the obvious – that “souls” have neither biblical basis, nor any scientific evidence for their existence – and confine myself to the rather confusing logistics of soulhood itself.

The claim is that at conception a soul appears; from whence is unclear.  Is a new soul created from thin air at the time the sperm penetrates the ovum?  Is there a (heavenly?) pool of souls waiting to swoop in, much as a spouse in a cell-phone lot at a busy airport?  Are they assigned to particular blastocysts based on some set criteria, or is it first come, first served?

Are souls provided to the spawn of Hindus, Muslims, non-believers and the like, or is the supply limited only to Christians?

As to the aforementioned rate of spontaneously-aborted conceptions, what becomes of those souls?  Do they head back to the waiting area and get in line to be reassigned, do they evaporate into thin air, or are they immediately ushered into heaven to spend eternity praising the cantankerous Yahweh without ever having the opportunity to spend at least a short time enjoying normal existence?

Those who bother to think about these things can in all likelihood offer additional questions, consequences, and inconsistencies to my lists.  Those who believe in these things, having never bothered to question them before, cannot in all honesty be expected to begin now.

If believers in and advocates for such theses wish to enshrine them in law however, shouldn’t they be forced to confront these and similar questions and offer plausible answers before the entire nation is forced to worship at their alter?

Just asking.  Now I need to go rub my puzzler with some dry ice.

How the Government Stole Christmas

Forget the Grinch -- it's the government that's stealing Christmas.

So reports Americans for Tax Reform, a non-profit group that works for lower taxes and smaller government.

The holidays are supposed to be a season for giving and spending time with loved ones. However, Uncle Sam has forced taxpayers to add him and his greedy local and state relatives to their gift list. Of an identified $10.72 billion of holiday spending, an incredible 43.36 percent is due to government taxes, fees, and other costs.

If you are one of the 93 percent of holiday revelers traveling this season, you will pay $69.65 in gas taxes for the average $152.47 round-trip excursion -- 45.68 percent of the cost of the trip. Taking a rental is another convenient option, but 38.77 percent of your car's rental cost is due to taxation, particularly from state and local governments.

Choose to fly to visit friends and family and 42.47 percent of your trip is made up of government costs. If you retreat from your in-laws to a hotel, remember that 39.39 percent of the cost of your stay is funneled back to the government. For Christmas 2011, the government will stuff its stocking with $3.79 billion in traveling taxes.

Holiday revelers enjoy an estimated $992 million in alcoholic beverages to celebrate the season. Savor your next mug of eggnog, because 56.31 percent of the price is taxes. Government guzzles 44.33 percent of your seasonal beer and drives up the price of your glass of wine at Christmas dinner by 32.77 percent. Sipping a soft drink won't let you escape frosty government fees -- 27.98 percent, or $61 million in taxes, is attached to the cost of soda.

When Santa comes down the chimney this year, he'll have to save room in his sack for Uncle Sam's gifts. Government gets $21 billion of a cumulative $69.1 billion spent on presents, consuming nearly a third of Christmas gift-giving.

All told, the government collects $25.9 billion in new revenues over the holiday season.

And still more is ahead. Not even Christmas trees are safe. The government has proposed a new 15 cent tax on each Christmas tree sold -- which would mean government would make up 31.19 percent of the price of an average 40 dollar Christmas tree. Public outcry led to the tax being delayed -- for the moment. But look for that little Christmas present in your stocking in the near future.

* * * * * * * *
by Liberator Online editor James W. Harris.

In Which I Explain Who Really Screwed Okie State and Stanford...

Fans of Okie State and Stanford are upset because Alabama and LSU, both from the SEC, will play for the National Championship, even though they have the same record as 'Bama.

Three years ago the commissioner of the SEC proposed a "Plus Two" playoff for the National Championship. If that format were in effect this year, Stanford would be playing LSU, and Okie State would be playing 'Bama, for a crack at the Championship game. Unfortunately the (now) PAC 12, (then)Big 12, and (still, inexplicably) Big 10 combined to block the proposal.

Stanford is from the PAC 12, while Okie State plays in what is left of the Big 12. Uh oh!

A "Stimulus" Primer

It's a slow day in the small town of Pumphandle and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody is living on credit.

A tourist visiting the area drives through town, stops at the motel, and lays a $100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs to pick one for the night.

As soon as he walks upstairs, the motel owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

(Stay with this..... and pay attention)

The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer.

The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill to his supplier, the Co-op.

The guy at the Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her "services" on credit.

The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel Owner.

The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the traveler will not suspect anything.

At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, picks up the $100 bill and leaves.

No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole town now thinks that they are out of debt and there is a false atmosphere of optimism and glee.

And that, my friends, is how a "stimulus package" works! Makes you kinda feel warm and fuzzy all over huh??

This and That...

Twice in the last three days I have received a phone call from “Newt 2012”.  I answered both determined to give whoever was at the other end a hard time, but neither time was anyone or anything there.  Which is, actually, consistent with both Newt and his campaign.

Fast fact:  If we taxed the top 1% at a rate of 100% - that is, if we took every penny they earned year in and year out – the revenue provided would cover only ten percent of the deficit.  Not the debt, mind you, but just ten percent of the annual deficit.  It’s high time some folks began occupying reality.

I don’t care what anyone says, JoePa was thrown under the bus.  He received, according to his grand jury testimony, a report that did not graphically describe the incident involved, and yet reported it to his superior, who was ultimately responsible (Sandusky had not worked for Joe for a number of years).  After firing Joe, the Board of Trustees announced they would conduct an investigation.  Wouldn’t it have been better to conduct the investigation first, and then act on the findings?

Why is everyone surprised and upset by the failure of the “Super Committee”.  It was an extra-constitutional copout from the beginning, just as are the automatic cuts that its failure sets in motion.  As for the major drivers of our budget woes: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and the Prescription Drug panderthon, all remain untouched and, in all likelihood, untouchable.

The Euro and its unfathomable derivative, the European Union, never had a snowball’s chance, and without radical change will not survive.  Imagine a union of the U.S., Mexico, and Honduras, with a common currency.  Greece, Portugal, and southern Italy are reasonable equivalents to Honduras and Mexico, and Germany is no U.S. economically.

Finally – I have been reading Arguably, a massive collection of Christopher Hitchens’ essays, and I feel miserably inferior.  I’ve read the Greek philosophers, Romantic poets, Enlightenment thinkers, Classical authors, and more.  But Hitchens has obviously not only read at least ten times more than I, he has clearly memorized every damned word of everything he ever read, then somehow developed the ability to express his knowledge and opinions in a way and with such force that no other mortal can. He is simply the greatest essayist writing today, and we cannot afford to lose him.

Does America need more Steve Jobs, or more Goverment?

In 1989, merely 22 years ago, Apple introduced its Macintosh Portable.  It came with a 16Mhz CPU, 1 Meg of RAM, and a 10 inch black and white active matrix LCD.  The price, $7,300, was affordable by only the best off of Americans.

Today, even though the dollar is worth only about half of what it was then, you can buy a laptop 1000 time more powerful, for a price 10% of that of that old Mac, making reliable, high speed computing available to almost everyone.

How is this possible?  It wasn’t achieved by government edict, nor through the wisdom of some central planning board.  Rather it happened because of the type of competition found only in free markets.

Think about that for a moment.   Then think how much cheaper, better, and more available healthcare, or perhaps education, might be if government had kept its hands off of them.  

The Crux of the Problem...

The brouhaha de jour this week apparently will be the upcoming vote in the United Nations (official motto: We don't do a damned thing other than squander your money and throw lavish parties) on the resolution out of Durban III to admit Palestine as a full member of that body.

I believe Palestinians have every bit as much right to have a home state as Israelis or anyone else, but this resolution is wrought with worms.  The principle problem is that it sets the border between the new state and Israel as the pre-1967 border, and compounds the mistake by naming east Jerusalem as the new nation's capital.

Now there are certainly reasonable arguments on both sides of the issue, but to me the overriding question is: Shouldn't borders be settled through negotiation between the disputing parties?  Hasn't the age of fiat in settling international disagreements gone the way of the buggy whip and, say, colonialism?

Unfortunately, the settlement of any Israeli-Palestinian question is not about politics, nor ever the right of each to be secure within their agreed-upon borders.  No, that would be way too easy.

The real issue is perfectly demonstrated by a full page ad that appeared in this morning's Dallas Morning News, and, I assume, a dozen or more other major papers across the country.  That ad was sponsored by an organization revealingly named "The Jerusalem Prayer Team" (JPT), and lists among its arguments for opposing Durban III (remember, I've already provided a compelling argument against it as it stands), Genesis 12.3:  "I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you."

Wow!  How do you argue with logic like that?  It is so convincing it takes your breath away, not to mention your mind.  It does though serve to point out the real problem in the Muddled East, namely Religion.

Christopher Hitchens famously said the "Religion poisons everything", and in both the conflict at hand and the mindless ad referenced above that statement is indisputable. What we have, if you peel the onion to its digestible core, is two pre-rational, animal-sacrificing desert tribes locked in mortal combat over whose god promised them what and when.

These claims originate from peoples who didn't know the earth was an orb, nor what caused lightening or disease.  Yet today they hold much of the world poised on the edge of war, perhaps even nuclear war, over what can only be logically considered bat-shit crazy foundational dreams.

Hopefully the JPT will stick to prayer as opposed to any real effort to interfere, thus nullifying their expenditures and historical revisionism. And hopefully too the two parties to the dispute at hand will learn that the only way to achieve peace and a real future for their peoples is to conscientiously strive for a fair and permanent settlement of a conflict that has already endured far too long, and one arrived at without further reference to invisible friends and their non-existent promises.

IS IT JUST ME, OR…

“Irene claims 40 lives”,  and “Hurricane responsible for 40 deaths” are just two of the headlines I’ve seen in the past twenty-four hours.  Wow, one thinks, that must have been a real killer storm.

But it wasn’t, really.  It was nowhere near Katrina’s blow to New Orleans  nor Andrew’s destruction of South Florida.  Andrew struck the area south of Miami with 165 mph winds, Irene never reached 90 mph except for a few gusts.

Irene was a bit more than your average thunder storm to be sure, but a killer hurricane?  Let’s review a few of the deaths blamed on the unfortunate lady, and you tell me if the storm was at fault or if it was merely a case of the shallow end of the gene pool being culled: 

• In Bristol, CT 46-year-old Shane Seaver died after he and another man went canoeing down a flooded street and the canoe capsized. Seaver's body washed ashore late Sunday in Plainville. 
•  In Hockessin, DE  police found the bodies of two men who had sent a text message to a friend saying they were running through Irene during the height of the storm.
• In Volusia County, FL  55-year-old Frederick Fernandez died Saturday off New Smyrna Beach after he was tossed off his (surf) board by massive waves caused by Irene.
• In Flagler County, 55-year-old tourist James Palmer of New Jersey died Saturday in rough surf. 
• 68-year-old Joseph Rocco of East Islip drowned while windsurfing in Bellport Bay.  (Really?  Windsurfing in a freaking hurricane?) 
• A man died after his inflatable boat capsized on the Croton River. 
• Katherine Morales Cruz, 15, of Manassas Park, Va., died Saturday in a two-car collision at an intersection where Hurricane Irene had knocked out power to the traffic lights. (Is stop, look, yield suspended during a hurricane?) 
• Jose Manuel Farabia Corona, 21, of Dover died in a Pitt County traffic accident after his SUV went off a road and twice slammed into trees Saturday as Irene's began to make landfall. (I wonder if they bothered to do a blood alcohol level.) 
• Deputies recovered the body of Melton Robinson Jr., who had been missing since jumping into the Cape Fear River as storms reached North Carolina. (Ditto Mr. Corona above.) 
• A 58-year-old Harrisburg man was killed Sunday when a tree toppled onto his tent.  (Is camping in a hurricane that much different from sleeping on a railroad track?) 
• A body recovered from the Deerfield River is believed to be that of a woman who fell in while watching flooding in Wilmington. 
• 57-year-old William P. Washington of King William County was killed when a tree fell on him as he was cutting another tree Saturday night. (Just had to give that new chainsaw a tryout, huh?)

So there you have it folks. I do not mean to poke fun at anyone’s early demise, but to claim that any of these idiots was killed by a hurricane is comparable to blaming gravity for the death of someone jumping off the roof of a twenty story building.  

My name is John Shuey and I approve this message.

Reagan at his best...