The latest hubbub in Washington and the circle-jerk media is over a government shutdown if Republicans and Democrats can't agree on a 2011 budget. We've heard horror stories about welfare recipients not getting their checks, about regulators not getting paid to regulate, about forestry officials lacking funds to do forestry (whatever the hell that is), about highway projects coming to a halt, about stolen cash not making it by the billions to schools, etc.
To which I say, "My god, let's do a shutdown NOW. Hell, let's keep the government shut down!"
I have to say, I'm a bit embarrassed at having not thought of this whole shutdown thing before. Every year, the rat pack (that is, Congress) swarms around this time to figure out the right way to pick at the bones of the American cadaver.
"Who can we steal more from? Who can we give that loot to so that we can get more votes? How many pats on the back can I get for stealing from people in other states for boondoggles in my state?"
So, let's do a permanent shutdown, Americans. Nothing is better than something when criminals are in charge.
Showing posts with label government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label government. Show all posts
Sunday, March 06, 2011
They want me BACK
I filed for bankruptcy last year (2010) after two miserable years of trying to keep my booming real estate business from collapsing when the U.S. government sabotaged the economy with its altruistic housing welfare programs.
In 2009, I'd called all the mortgage companies for my 10 homes and all seven credit card companies for my personal and business credit cards in an attempt to stave off bankruptcy and to readjust the terms of the loan/credit payments, so that I could get the money back to the credit holders eventually.
At the time, the resounding unanimous answer from all of the above was "hit the road, Jack, and don't come back no mo', no mo', no mo'."
Well, they want me BACK.
Within one month of getting all my debt discharged in August 2010, my mailbox was sullied almost daily with entreaties from the same credit card companies. The message was uniformly similar: "Oh, David, you poor boy, you've been through some tough times, haven't you? Goodness gracious. Oh, um, hey! Would you like a new credit card with us now that you're making money again and all your debt is gone? Pretty please, with sugar on top? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze?!"
My answer over these last several months, today, tomorrow, and until the day I lie in a pine coffin is, "hit the road, Jack, and don't come back no mo', no mo', no mo'."
In 2009, I'd called all the mortgage companies for my 10 homes and all seven credit card companies for my personal and business credit cards in an attempt to stave off bankruptcy and to readjust the terms of the loan/credit payments, so that I could get the money back to the credit holders eventually.
At the time, the resounding unanimous answer from all of the above was "hit the road, Jack, and don't come back no mo', no mo', no mo'."
Well, they want me BACK.
Within one month of getting all my debt discharged in August 2010, my mailbox was sullied almost daily with entreaties from the same credit card companies. The message was uniformly similar: "Oh, David, you poor boy, you've been through some tough times, haven't you? Goodness gracious. Oh, um, hey! Would you like a new credit card with us now that you're making money again and all your debt is gone? Pretty please, with sugar on top? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze?!"
My answer over these last several months, today, tomorrow, and until the day I lie in a pine coffin is, "hit the road, Jack, and don't come back no mo', no mo', no mo'."
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
"To Serve and to Protect"
As a child who'd just learned to read, I looked over at the police car from the back seat of my mom and dad's lime-green Maverick.
The officer inside seemed dignified and imposing. The shiny black-and-white vehicle with its bar of lights atop seemed equally imposing. I'd seen many police shows on TV and had come to hold officers in fearful respect.
Then my eyes moved to a quote on the back quarter panel of the officer's car: "To Serve and to Protect."
It was an epiphany. To serve?! Officers had to serve us?! I never looked at officers the same after that moment. I realized in some youthful understanding that officers were not just our protectors, but also our servants, rightfully speaking -- that they got their right to protect from my parents and eventually from me.
In America, the motto was first used by the Los Angeles Police Department in 1955 after it ran a contest for the best motto for its police to use. It was adopted nationally by PDs soon afterward.
It should be the motto on the walls of Congress and the front door of the White House. It should be touched each day by legislators and the president. It should replace the ugly motto "in god we trust."
Officials are our servants, our protectors of individual rights. We are not the servants of police or government officials. It's high time the American public understands this fully and puts these jackals in their proper place.
The officer inside seemed dignified and imposing. The shiny black-and-white vehicle with its bar of lights atop seemed equally imposing. I'd seen many police shows on TV and had come to hold officers in fearful respect.
Then my eyes moved to a quote on the back quarter panel of the officer's car: "To Serve and to Protect."
It was an epiphany. To serve?! Officers had to serve us?! I never looked at officers the same after that moment. I realized in some youthful understanding that officers were not just our protectors, but also our servants, rightfully speaking -- that they got their right to protect from my parents and eventually from me.
In America, the motto was first used by the Los Angeles Police Department in 1955 after it ran a contest for the best motto for its police to use. It was adopted nationally by PDs soon afterward.
It should be the motto on the walls of Congress and the front door of the White House. It should be touched each day by legislators and the president. It should replace the ugly motto "in god we trust."
Officials are our servants, our protectors of individual rights. We are not the servants of police or government officials. It's high time the American public understands this fully and puts these jackals in their proper place.
Saturday, August 07, 2010
Daughter, not even 7 yet, learns about inflation and more
Livy and I had a full hour of conversation yesterday afternoon on our porch about government and money that started with her asking for the Xbox game "Halo 3" (she's an avid and terrific player of Xbox's "Gears of War").
I told her we might not be able to buy Halo because money was a bit tight. She understands this viscerally because two years ago, we lived in a bigger home, had nicer things and never really had to talk about money being tight.
She asked why money was tight. I said the government stole more than a quarter million dollars from me by regulating and taxing my previous real estate business out of business, as well as interfering with the U.S. economy and ruining it, and by printing too many dollars.
"Printing too many dollars?!" she exclaimed and then paused. "The government can print money? Does it make money?"
Yes, I said, whenever it wants to print more money to give to people besides us, it just makes its printers work longer and make more money. This causes inflation. I told her that milk, which now costs about $3.5 a gallon, used to cost just 10 cents a gallon, and I gave other examples.
She was aghast. "They can't do that, daddy! They can't just print money when they want it!"
I agreed, of course. But what astounded me was how many questions she voluntarily asked and how she drew her own conclusions from simply hearing facts from me. She said such things as, "We are the boss of ourselves; the government can't tell us what to do."
Along the way, she asked "Who is government?" "What is government?" "Why are people so stupid and choose people (politicians) to take our money?" etc.
Several times, she said, "I wish government would crash in a plane." I said, "Me, too, but then another government just like it would come along because people want it."
This completely exasperated her. "Why are adults so stupid?"
Ha, that was question of the hour and took some explaining. I told her that I and my friends that she knows aren't stupid. People like her mom, Kelly, and Julie and Jenn and Brendan and Aquinas and Aaron and many others. Then I explained about the god people and others like them and how it starts with bad parenting and that schooling was connected as well, and that it was caused by not being brave enough to look at facts and live in the real world and think about stuff and put it all together and then feel good about yourself because you do all those things.
I goofed up near the end and called the vast majority of people dumb. She corrected me. "No, daddy, they're stupid."
Touchez, my darling.
I told her we might not be able to buy Halo because money was a bit tight. She understands this viscerally because two years ago, we lived in a bigger home, had nicer things and never really had to talk about money being tight.
She asked why money was tight. I said the government stole more than a quarter million dollars from me by regulating and taxing my previous real estate business out of business, as well as interfering with the U.S. economy and ruining it, and by printing too many dollars.
"Printing too many dollars?!" she exclaimed and then paused. "The government can print money? Does it make money?"
Yes, I said, whenever it wants to print more money to give to people besides us, it just makes its printers work longer and make more money. This causes inflation. I told her that milk, which now costs about $3.5 a gallon, used to cost just 10 cents a gallon, and I gave other examples.
She was aghast. "They can't do that, daddy! They can't just print money when they want it!"
I agreed, of course. But what astounded me was how many questions she voluntarily asked and how she drew her own conclusions from simply hearing facts from me. She said such things as, "We are the boss of ourselves; the government can't tell us what to do."
Along the way, she asked "Who is government?" "What is government?" "Why are people so stupid and choose people (politicians) to take our money?" etc.
Several times, she said, "I wish government would crash in a plane." I said, "Me, too, but then another government just like it would come along because people want it."
This completely exasperated her. "Why are adults so stupid?"
Ha, that was question of the hour and took some explaining. I told her that I and my friends that she knows aren't stupid. People like her mom, Kelly, and Julie and Jenn and Brendan and Aquinas and Aaron and many others. Then I explained about the god people and others like them and how it starts with bad parenting and that schooling was connected as well, and that it was caused by not being brave enough to look at facts and live in the real world and think about stuff and put it all together and then feel good about yourself because you do all those things.
I goofed up near the end and called the vast majority of people dumb. She corrected me. "No, daddy, they're stupid."
Touchez, my darling.
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Rights don't obligate you to DO anything
Ayn Rand once noted that a definition of individual rights can often effectively be put in the negative: to be free from coercion (the initiation of force) by other men (including the men of government).
That means other people must always keep their hands off of you, your money and your property, as long as you do the same. It is a big "don't." Don't interfere with someone else's right to be let alone, to fully govern their own lives and well-being.
Conversely, a right does not obligate you to DO anything. You do not have to be productive, you do not have to be moral, you do not have to help others. You are free to run your life toward happiness or run your life into the ground.
But if you decide upon the latter (or former, for that matter), you cannot demand that others take care of you. They have the same right to "don't": to do nothing for you, to stand by as you self-destruct or fall into abject poverty or poor health. They don't have any obligations to you that they haven't signed in a contract to do for you. Your immorality does not obligate them to surrender their rights to self-determination. They can morally say, "I have a life to live. I care more about me, my friends and my family than I do you. So, good luck and get lost."
Rand gave a perfect definition to rights:
A “right” is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man’s right to his own life. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action—which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. (Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.)
With all of the above in mind, the American welfare state is an immoral travesty. It assumes that individuals have an obligation to DO something for other Americans -- be it for housing, food, medicine, old age, health, etc. -- to surrender their individual rights.
The modern politician and 99% of Americans have bought into this philosophy of altruism -- and its stepson: political altruism -- instead of the philosophy of rational self-interest that recognizes each human's fundamental right to pursue his values for his own happiness and sustenance.
Once the sacrificial philosophy of altruism is embedded in the human mind, that mind then demands that humans sacrifice their self to other selves, that they must surrender their goals for others' goals, that they DO something for others, whether they like it or not. (What irony is it that these altruists think it is OK for us to make others happy but not ourselves?)
This is, fundamentally, the philosophy of skepticism: the belief that humans are not fully rational, not efficacious, not capable of being fully happy by themselves, not nice. Once this belief in the "fallen" human (usually via religion or neo-Marxism) is swallowed and ingrained, the mental house of cards falls, and the landscape of liberty is littered with the wreckage of coercive altruists, who seek some redemption for their mental confusion by pretending to overly care about others. It's the Jesus syndrome. "I've come here to save you." It's the heady "savior" mentality to compensate for their own lost identity.
The fix is singular: Recognize that reality is real (not supernatural). Recognize that humans are rational and capable of understanding reality. Recognize that humans can guide their own lives and develop a rational morality to be that guide. Recognize that governments have only one job to do: to protect rational beings from being interfered with on their free paths to wherever they wish to go.
In other words, the fix is the philosophy of Ayn Rand. You don't have to read and study Rand. You don't have to DO it. But if you don't, I'll never be free of you and your demand that I DO something for you or those you allegedly care about.
Study Rand. Hold your head high. Let's shake hands as happy equals and make a toast to liberty.
That means other people must always keep their hands off of you, your money and your property, as long as you do the same. It is a big "don't." Don't interfere with someone else's right to be let alone, to fully govern their own lives and well-being.
Conversely, a right does not obligate you to DO anything. You do not have to be productive, you do not have to be moral, you do not have to help others. You are free to run your life toward happiness or run your life into the ground.
But if you decide upon the latter (or former, for that matter), you cannot demand that others take care of you. They have the same right to "don't": to do nothing for you, to stand by as you self-destruct or fall into abject poverty or poor health. They don't have any obligations to you that they haven't signed in a contract to do for you. Your immorality does not obligate them to surrender their rights to self-determination. They can morally say, "I have a life to live. I care more about me, my friends and my family than I do you. So, good luck and get lost."
Rand gave a perfect definition to rights:
A “right” is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man’s right to his own life. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action—which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. (Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.)
With all of the above in mind, the American welfare state is an immoral travesty. It assumes that individuals have an obligation to DO something for other Americans -- be it for housing, food, medicine, old age, health, etc. -- to surrender their individual rights.
The modern politician and 99% of Americans have bought into this philosophy of altruism -- and its stepson: political altruism -- instead of the philosophy of rational self-interest that recognizes each human's fundamental right to pursue his values for his own happiness and sustenance.
Once the sacrificial philosophy of altruism is embedded in the human mind, that mind then demands that humans sacrifice their self to other selves, that they must surrender their goals for others' goals, that they DO something for others, whether they like it or not. (What irony is it that these altruists think it is OK for us to make others happy but not ourselves?)
This is, fundamentally, the philosophy of skepticism: the belief that humans are not fully rational, not efficacious, not capable of being fully happy by themselves, not nice. Once this belief in the "fallen" human (usually via religion or neo-Marxism) is swallowed and ingrained, the mental house of cards falls, and the landscape of liberty is littered with the wreckage of coercive altruists, who seek some redemption for their mental confusion by pretending to overly care about others. It's the Jesus syndrome. "I've come here to save you." It's the heady "savior" mentality to compensate for their own lost identity.
The fix is singular: Recognize that reality is real (not supernatural). Recognize that humans are rational and capable of understanding reality. Recognize that humans can guide their own lives and develop a rational morality to be that guide. Recognize that governments have only one job to do: to protect rational beings from being interfered with on their free paths to wherever they wish to go.
In other words, the fix is the philosophy of Ayn Rand. You don't have to read and study Rand. You don't have to DO it. But if you don't, I'll never be free of you and your demand that I DO something for you or those you allegedly care about.
Study Rand. Hold your head high. Let's shake hands as happy equals and make a toast to liberty.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
If it was the "mafia," would you fight?
"A rose by any other name is still a rose."
The mafia by any other name is still the mafia.
If mafia took 50% of your money at the point of a gun and the mafia had the police force and military on its side, would you fight?
If that were all it did, you might hesitate. But what if it also told you that you can or cannot (with or without its permission) drive your car, get important medicine, fly on airplanes, take down your mailbox, fish, hunt, buy a gun, take down trees in "your" yard, make changes to "your" house, obtain milk straight from the cow, bury your loved ones in "your" yard, grow marijuana, kill yourself, buy liquor on Sundays, be naked in "your" yard, have sex in your car, put signs in "your" yard, drive a boat, take $6,000 in cash from your bank account, buy racy music or videos, go to a foreign country, drive fast, start your own business, hire whichever workers you desire, pay your workers what you and they agree on, text while driving, etc.?
What if the mafia demanded that you be branded with a number -- a 9-digit number -- so that it could track you now and your past movements anytime it wished?
Would you fight the mafia? Be honest. Would you fight the mafia if it took half your money and monitored or forbade all of the above in your daily life?
Yes, if you've got any cajones (pardon me, ladies), you would fight!
Government in America is now the mafia. It doesn't get its power from La Cosa Nostra. It gets its power from gullible and/or corrupt citizens, who demand that it commit these transgressions against you by fiat every day of your life.
So, how do you fight?
First, prepare your mind -- the body will follow. Read Ayn Rand. Read all of Ayn Rand. Integrate her ideas. Become a rational force of nature. Acquire a brilliant, clear mind that demands liberty, that joins me and others in our demands for liberty. Do it now. The sooner you become rational, the sooner you, I, our friends, and all our brothers and sisters in liberty are free in our pursuit of happiness.
Let's bury this wretched mafia once and for all -- and let's party on their graves!
The mafia by any other name is still the mafia.
If mafia took 50% of your money at the point of a gun and the mafia had the police force and military on its side, would you fight?
If that were all it did, you might hesitate. But what if it also told you that you can or cannot (with or without its permission) drive your car, get important medicine, fly on airplanes, take down your mailbox, fish, hunt, buy a gun, take down trees in "your" yard, make changes to "your" house, obtain milk straight from the cow, bury your loved ones in "your" yard, grow marijuana, kill yourself, buy liquor on Sundays, be naked in "your" yard, have sex in your car, put signs in "your" yard, drive a boat, take $6,000 in cash from your bank account, buy racy music or videos, go to a foreign country, drive fast, start your own business, hire whichever workers you desire, pay your workers what you and they agree on, text while driving, etc.?
What if the mafia demanded that you be branded with a number -- a 9-digit number -- so that it could track you now and your past movements anytime it wished?
Would you fight the mafia? Be honest. Would you fight the mafia if it took half your money and monitored or forbade all of the above in your daily life?
Yes, if you've got any cajones (pardon me, ladies), you would fight!
Government in America is now the mafia. It doesn't get its power from La Cosa Nostra. It gets its power from gullible and/or corrupt citizens, who demand that it commit these transgressions against you by fiat every day of your life.
So, how do you fight?
First, prepare your mind -- the body will follow. Read Ayn Rand. Read all of Ayn Rand. Integrate her ideas. Become a rational force of nature. Acquire a brilliant, clear mind that demands liberty, that joins me and others in our demands for liberty. Do it now. The sooner you become rational, the sooner you, I, our friends, and all our brothers and sisters in liberty are free in our pursuit of happiness.
Let's bury this wretched mafia once and for all -- and let's party on their graves!
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