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| Monday, July 13th, 2009 | 11:56 am
[musicman474747]
 |
This is painful to read...so much money and for so little return.
U.S. budget deficit rises above $1 trillion
Outlays, receipts both rise in June; monthly deficit $94.3 billionBy Robert Schroeder, MarketWatch WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. recorded a federal budget deficit of $94.3 billion in June, pushing the cumulative deficit so far this year to a record $1.08 trillion, the Treasury Department reported Monday. Outlays rose in June to $309.6 billion, while receipts climbed to $215.3 billion in the month. Among the outlays for June is $11.3 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program funds, the bailout program for banks and U.S. automakers. At this time last year, the cumulative federal budget deficit was just $285.8 billion. The Obama administration expects a deficit of $1.84 trillion for the full fiscal year, which ends in September. However, that number is likely to be revised higher later this month, since the economy has been much weaker than when the original estimate was made. The budget deficit for June is down from the $189.7 billion figure in May but was still enough to push the fiscal year-to-date deficit past the $1 trillion mark. For fiscal year 2010, which begins in October, the administration is projecting a $1.26 trillion deficit. Robert Schroeder is a reporter for MarketWatch in Washington. | | Sunday, July 12th, 2009 | 4:05 am
[ravidiedtonight]
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The anti-troll bill
Let's say your ex decides to post an angry MySpace message on your profile. You respond with something along the lines of "shut up you crazy cunt." Maybe that was too harsh, but she/he is crazy and there is a reason why she's/he's your ex. In tears she/he drives out-of-state until she/he passes out behind the wheel, leading to her/his death. On her/his body is a suicide note. Are you responsible for your ex's death? If so, on a federal level? Should you be?( Obviously I say, No. ) | 1:20 am
[lucy_chronicles]
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Government warning labels ;-)
Yes, i'm ready to download and put em' all over various parts of Vegas. Heck, woulda' been good to do tonight after FF and the C4L group of Ron Paul folks but we've been too busy debating over British organic strawberry beer. ;-) | | Saturday, July 11th, 2009 | 2:16 am
[lucy_chronicles]
 |
Sharing from Freedom Fest
www.freedomfest.com is going on about the same time as the Campaign for Liberty here in Las Vegas. Over 800 people (self-counted) turned out to hear Ron Paul tonight on the main convention stage. what a huge contrast to the 100 people falling out of a banquet hall not even in the hotel 2 years ago. The energy was electric. All the ol' libs, local reformed repubs from AZ, CA, WY and NV turned out. the message was clear from End the Fed (now 263 co-sponsors in House, 8 in Senate) to never give up. We are so close to a 'reset' with the Fed just the beginning. Tomorrow, more training for the folks at C4L, lecture/seminars from Peter Schiff to Wayne Root handing out advance copies of his new book "The Conscience of a Libertarian" Tax haven, jury nullification, economic and marijuana policy project lectures to more FREE BEER and oh yes, the advance tasting of tequila by invitation of the vendor. Good times. ;-) | | Friday, July 10th, 2009 | 3:52 pm
[ubet_cha]
 |
What’s right with Libertarianism
Hey Gang, Earlier today an essay called “What’s right with Libertarianism” was published at caps.fool.com as a rebuttal to someone else’s criticism. While certain points may irritate the purists among you I thought most would enjoy reading both it and the following comments. I especially liked this. == Antagonist - Second, Marxism is a mirror image of Libertarianism.
The difference is that Marxism specifically limited the personal freedoms of individuals. You were forced to become part of the community and had no choice but to succumb to the ideals of your government and your society. Nowhere in Libertarianism will you find constraints to collectivism. Libertarianism only opens up the avenues to which you can obtain this collectivism. Individual freedom and being part of a larger community are not mutually exclusive. Marxism absolutely inhibits individual freedom.
Antagonist - Libertarians also assume that if people are not subject to prevailing cultural models or fashions, they will automatically end up adopting conventional bourgeois lifestyles.
When I read this, I knew that you fundamentally misunderstand the goals and values of Libertarians. We do not assume that people will make socially beneficial choices at all times or that people will always exercise self-restraint. What we do assume, is that it is well worth the risk of having the opportunity to make decisions for yourself. Secondly, the moral zeitgeist is constantly evolving. What is considered "morally acceptable" today, will be different tomorrow. Libertarians do not concern themselves with what is "morally acceptable", it is irrelevant.
=== The rest can be found at; http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/ViewPost.aspx?bpid=225903&t=01007876374296790938Let me know if referring to someone else’s work is against the community rules. Thanks. | | Thursday, July 9th, 2009 | 11:19 pm
[musicman474747]
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Local currencies
What do you guys think about local currencies? I've been reading up on them and they do sound like an interesting concept. I've heard it's good as a way of stimulating local economies and encouraging spending on smaller local businesses. Here's an older story from March I found on a local currency called BerkShares used in Great Barrington, MA: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,513877,00.html There are many others. Do you guys think it's good for smaller localities in terms of generating wealth and jobs and provides competition for a legally-recognized currency (in our case the US Dollar)? | 6:15 pm
[rotte_volf]
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An open letter to legal President of Honduras José Manuel Zelaya Rosales.
 Your Excellency,We, the group of people from around the world, mostly creative persons and artists (but also common people) express our outraged by unlawful actions of putschists. We believe and hope that the fairness will be fully restored and government in exile under your leadership can return to the motherland. We hope that the lawlessness will be stopped and your glorious country can be able to go forward on the way of progress and democracy still more confidently. We will do our best to support your fair struggle and contribute to the progressive development of Honduras republic. We are all united by the participation in a project that was named Sunland. Its main idea consists in the following: we want to establish a sort of art-colony and, at the same time, a self-sustaining ecological village. For this purpose we want to create on one of the uninhabited islands a settlement for creative people from around the world. | | Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 | 3:46 pm
[musicman474747]
 |
Anti-bullying laws and talk of a second stimulus package
State House passes anti-bullying bill
By Paul Woolverton
Staff writer
RALEIGH - The N.C. House by a one-vote margin on Tuesday approved a controversial bill to make public schools draft new rules to protect children from being bullied.The bill, called the School Violence Protection Act, now moves to Gov. Bev Perdue's office; an aide said she expects Perdue to sign it into law. But for a bit of chance, the bill could have failed on Tuesday. Two lawmakers who opposed the bill were absent during the vote. Rep. William Brisson, a Bladen County Democrat whose district includes parts of Fayetteville and Hope Mills, was out sick, his office said. Rep. Ron Sutton, a Robeson County Democrat, was outside of the House chamber during the vote. If either had been present and voted "no," the bill would have failed. Schools statewide already have anti-bullying policies. This has been required since 2004 by the State Board of Education. This law differs from the existing policy in that it would make the state's 115 school systems specify groups who have typically been targeted by bullies, such as groups targeted because of race, gender, national origin, poverty and handicap. Controversy boiled up because two of the listed groups are gay and transgender people. Socially conservative Christians said gay rights activists could use the law in court to overturn North Carolina's ban on gay marriage. Republican lawmakers tried over the past several months to substitute a bill that doesn't list any victim categories. Rep. Rick Glazier, a Fayetteville Democrat, said those opponents are wrong, and that victim categories must be listed to ensure that the schools protect those children. Glazier has been trying since 2007 to get this law passed. He recounted stories of children from around the country who committed suicide, were severely injured and otherwise harassed and attacked by bullies in school. He said a school paid $450,000 in a lawsuit for failing to protect a child, and 15 others recently lost other lawsuits. "So don't sit on this floor and talk about how the generic policy works to protect children, and how if we all just told teachers to do their job, everything would be OK," Glazier said. "None of you should be able to look in the mirror with that fable and say that it's true." Rest of story: http://www.fayobserver.com/Articles/2009/06/24/912279
What do you guys think of anti-bullying laws? They seem a bit ridiculous to me. My Dad personally taught me to fight back physically in self-defense if I had no chance of walking away or escaping an attack from a bully. He taught me self-defense tactics and said that if I ever did get into a fight at school and it was in self-defense, he would defend my position to the administrators (who nowadays tend to do broad-based punishments, regardless of who actually initiated the violence). There's seems to be no attempt by parents to get their kids to stand up for themselves...or they just tell govt to do something after their kid commits suicide. ------ ( Read more... ) | 1:56 pm
[slawson01]
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I was reading something on mises.org
I was reading a piece on libertarian anarchism by Roderick Long and I happened to think about ways things could be better. One idea I had was in the constitution where the government is allowed to go into debt in the case of emergencies, this could be made to read that all those in seats of power who vote in favor of such a measure may not run again and the executive who signs it must resign on the day it goes into effect. That combined with a sound money restriction would certainly help. Certainly not an anarchist idea, libertarian or otherwise, but I found it interesting. Thoughts? | | Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 | 5:34 pm
[archangel__7]
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Can Libertarians and Conservatives Unite?
We recognize that many conservatives as well as libertarians often find themselves as uneasy bedfellows in the fight against a number of policies. Despite various threads of agreement, there remains a degree of mistrust of one another, because the reasons why they find themselves on the same side can differ sharply. But how many self-described social conservatives might actually be more inclined to becoming libertarian? Consider the 1954 "Johnson Amendment" of the IRS tax code. This is the now often-cited requirement that religious ministers at tax-exempt churches not speak for/against candidates or legislation. It's worth noting that this law didn't grant churches tax exemption, but recognized an existing one; what's worse is that the Johnson Amendment appears to be a law written by politicians for the purpose of protecting politicians from criticism. To any libertarian, this should, ultimately, seem as a long-tolerated case of government encroachment on the basic free-exercise rights of religious citizens. Why should this be important to the socially-liberal inclined libertarian? Because if this really is just one among a number of similarly-tolerated (ab)uses of government power, then--over time--this becomes for the right-wing the perceived way of handling disagreements on social issues: through government means, and on a national scale. What results from that? The empowerment of neo-conservatism in 2004, as "values voters" elected Bush to four more years in office. The libertarian may have a chance to draw the socially conservative to their side by applying libertarian principles to issues which have been of great importance to conservatives. In addition to the above example, consider what widespread success of the school voucher endeavor would accomplish; by providing relief to conservative parents from having to send their children to government-run/politically correct schools, parents would feel more at ease to supporting a party that has no opinion on, say, same sex unions or GLBT issues; because their own sovereign liberty over their family is no longer threatened by government-mandated value-judgments coming from "the other side." I suspect that the more self-described conservatives have a taste of what real liberty can do for them, they may want to abandon "conservatism," as such, and adopt a more libertarian view of government. Perennially, the great concern of the libertarian movement has always seemed to be more about the economy and defense policy over social issues. Both are important, but again, libertarians have an opportunity to demonstrate that--rather than greater government regulation--liberty can actually expand the number of ways by which conservatives can influence their communities without having to use the coercive means of the far Left. This, of course, calls for a change of perspective: one from practical indifference about the "conservative issues," to a real tolerance and principled advocacy for the more fundamental importance of "liberty for all." But why not ask the conservative to take the first step and have her focus on economic issues? Taking the above example again, to ask the conservative to acquiesce the marriage debate to the libertarian viewpoint at this time in history is to ask her to tolerate yet one more consequence of her (unfairly?) reduced means of legitimately influencing culture through private association. The disagreements between libertarians and conservatives on the concrete matters are predictable, but they need not reflect at the ballot box when it comes to the role of government. Apply libertarian ideas to long-standing barriers in ways that that allow conservative advocates to breathe openly, and I suspect a decisive number of them will become staunch advocates for liberty. | 1:57 pm
[lucy_chronicles]
 |
LP Platform; economy
The Economy "A free and competitive market allocates resources in the most efficient manner. Each person has the right to offer goods and services to others on the free market. The only proper role of government in the economic realm is to protect property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a legal framework in which voluntary trade is protected. All efforts by government to redistribute wealth, or to control or manage trade, are improper in a free society." - Libertarian Party Platform, Section 2.0 (adopted: May 2008) Have fun while i'm on planet Socal for awhile kids... there's plenty more here: http://www.lp.org/issues/current-issues (taken on my very own camera in Ely, NV on main street) | 2:33 pm
[fandantium]
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Dominick’s, Chicago and Crony Capitalism
Dominick’s, Chicago and Crony Capitalism Recently a large number of Dominick’s food stores closed in Chicago. It seems a “crisis” has developed because many Chicago residents, allegedly, have very limited access to other food stores. In the opinions of some involved Chicago politicians, people are going hungry because their supermarket closed down. The Solution… Chicago will help fund somebody else turning those former Dominick’s grocery stores into new grocery stores. I have it on good authority that these new store owners are nicely connected to Chicago machine politics. So, how much time and money to turn a grocery store into a grocery store to get those starving people the groceries they need? 6 months and 3 million tax payer dollars. Why? Because it’s not going to be another supermarket.. It’s going to be a “green supermarket”. It seems all those hungry people are just going to have to wait because the real priority here is the mayor’s pursuit of international accolades. Makes me wonder if there are really hungry people at all, of if that was just a rationalization. Anyhow, this little rant is about more than another government waste of money… It’s about opportunity costs for the communities. With Dominick’s gone, a huge opportunity opened up for residents to live the American dream and start their own small businesses. Instead, government has swept in and sucked all the air out of the room. With a government subsidized grocery store, how on earth can a mom and pop businesses ever hope to compete. The left often complains about how Wal-Mart makes small local business crash and burn. Imagine the imposable task potential small businesses have when their competition has tax payers buy their building for them. Had the city of Chicago stayed out of it. I bet at least two small grocery shops could have been opened by local families for each Dominick’s that closed. Chicago would have been 3 million dollars better off and more lower middle class folks could have taken a bite at the apple. Instead another connected Chicago developer gets a pay off in public money for his political support. | 6:15 pm
[lindsay40k]
 |
Whilst this community has a fair few discussions about torture, surveillance and same-sex unions, the bulk of the posts do seem to focus on matters of 'economic liberty'. Do you personally feel your government is predominantly infringing on your economic or civil liberty? Do you expect these issues to get better or worse under the present administration? Do you regard the two as separate issues, or fundamentally linked? And do you think the ideological perspective that increasing economic liberty by deregulating private enterprise sows the seeds for movements that demand greater civil liberty holds true, or is it merely part of the faux free market rhetoric of transnational corporations who enlist government help in their drive to set up shop in areas where wages are low due to workers being denied civil liberties - and then actively prop up such regimes?
(Four years ago I'd have got called a troll for that last one, but if the Bush administration has achieved anything, it has certainly driven home the point that some of the people who talk about liberty and free markets are about as representative of y'all as Stalin is of me.) | 3:20 pm
[rotte_volf]
|
Tack and keep the way forward!
 On June 21, as a location for Sunland we’ve proposed Oeno from Pitcairn Islands group in Southern Pacific. Many people, who are interested in this project, expressed their doubts about such place for dislocation. Their main argument is that in this case Sunland location will be situated very far from continental land, inhabited islands and any transport communications. According to the skeptics, this would mean that all Sunland's strength have to spend to provide minimum survival conditions to a small group of volunteers. Even if these concerns are not well-grounded (because of a number of important counter arguments), they deserve to take them into account. Moreover, it turned out that due to seasonal conditions of sailing navigation in this part of the ocean (storms, currents and wind directions) it is almost impossible to get to Oeno Island by yacht this year. So, without giving up the idea to establish Sunland on Oeno Island, we must consider the alternatives. At the moment, there is a variant to arrange Sunland on one of the islands near the coastline | | Monday, July 6th, 2009 | 11:21 am
[lucy_chronicles]
 |
And in more news of our eroding financial liberties...
www.sovereignsociety.com reports this morning on blogs of the pending 'revocation' of tax free status of US municipal bonds along w/ the Swiss finally standing up to the US IRS/Banksters ala' 'compliance'/fishing expeditions. there is such a money grab going on from the top down it just amazes me and is almost impossible to keep up. not amazing that the swiss just cut us off hoping we'll get around to having enough hutzpah to tell our own government to shove it. sad that we don't have the balls or numbers enough to do it yet. here's a snippet: ------------------- Two Bad Apples Spoil the Bunch for 5 Million Expats It is difficult to say how many people are affected, but more than 5 million Americans live abroad, including about 30,000 in Switzerland. Specifically, the U.S. government’s unreasonable demands have prompted the two largest and most Americanized of Swiss banks – UBS and Credit Suisse – to shuffle their American clients into specially-created, SEC-registered banking units that are registered or located in the US. Failing that, the banks simply closed the accounts…with UBS cutting off some 52,000 American clients. Many smaller private banks, such as the respected Geneva-based Mirabaud & Cie, are also shutting down U.S. accounts. Compounding the nervousness of notoriously conservative Swiss bankers, the IRS is threatening to sue other Swiss banks to obtain their U.S. client records. Apparently the IRS assumes any American with an offshore bank account is a tax evader.  | 11:46 am
[ikilled007]
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Slavery
There's a libertarian argument which has turned into a talking point against the American Civil War which posits that slavery in the South would have ended naturally of its own accord as it was an economically non-viable practice; thus, the deaths of nearly 600,000 Americans were wasted in this regard. Putting aside the point that libertarians are attempting to have it both ways on the Civil War -- that it wasn't really about slavery (I agree with this, by the way -- it was about money), yet it took a war to end the practice -- I think the evidence is indisuptable that slavery is indeed economically viable, even controlling for fugitive slave laws and the like. In other words, even if the state did not legislate to the benefit of slaveowners, the practice would still have been viable. Now, it may well be that in the theoretical Ancapistan/Libertopia, social norms and conventions would make owning slaves unendurable, but this doesn't have to be the case. It could well be that someone made his fortune and built a self-sustaining compound (food, water, energy, etc.) and then engaged in slaveowning such that shunning and ostracization would have little to no negative effect from his point of view. Depending of course, on the demographics of the slaves, it's conceivable that he'd actually be seen favorably by racists or bigots and such. But the empirical evidence is all against the libertarian argument about the economic viability of slavery. Firstly, we have the fact that slavery was widely practiced throughout history, and still is in practice in some places today. It's as though libertarians mean to say to plantation owners of the Old South, "Hey, you guys were terrible businessmen!" Really? So those family fortunes were built despite slavery, not with the help of slavery? Secondly, slavery has had to be outlawed even in places which did not fight wars which resulted in the end of the practice. What's the point of legislating against an activity which is economically non-viable? It would be like saying that the prohibition against drugs is just a theoretical exercise because no one would use them anyway. This is demonstrably false. Forced labor of varying stripes always appears to require legislation to end: child labor, indetured servitude, slavery, etc. In short, libertarians should not promote economic arguments against slavery. They should stick to the moral arguments against slavery. | | Sunday, July 5th, 2009 | 1:04 pm
[thejunk] |
| | Saturday, July 4th, 2009 | 12:28 pm
[fandantium]
|
Children and Taxes
Was thinking the other day about the concept of “No Taxation Without Representation” Ya know the thing we fought and won a war over. On the premise that we pay taxes because we have elected representatives that we choose for ourselves… Why are children required to pay sales tax. Certainly they do not vote. The British told us that we did have representation in England. What we objected to was having no vote in their choosing. Children have no say at all in the choosing of their representatives either. Under these foundational principals of taxation and representation… why do children pay sales tax? | | Friday, July 3rd, 2009 | 12:10 pm
[musicman474747]
|
Sarah Palin not running for re-election in Alaska
I just heard on the news that Sarah Palin is going to announce shortly that she won't run for re-election as Governor of Alaska. What do you guys think of Palin in terms of issues important to libertarians? I was much more liberal during the election campaign and while I heard a good thing here and there about her (living in WA State whom has a governor that communicates with neighboring governors on certain issues) prior to her becoming the VP nominee for the Republicans, I was largely unimpressed with her being the potential successor to a President John McCain...besides the obvious ideological differences. I'm wondering if she's quitting to give greater focus to a Presidential run (the next election for Governor is in 2010 and she'll serve until Dec. 2010, two years before the Presidential Election). If she ran for President, do you think you'd support her? Oh and I hope everyone has a happy 4th of July tomorrow! :) EDIT AT 12:30PM PDT: Whoa...Sarah Palin is actually saying she's gonna RESIGN as Governor in a month...huh? | | Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 | 11:30 am
[musicman474747]
 |
What a mess
Editorial
IOUs? Yes, you owe us
As the governor and Legislature continue their fuss-budgeting, California enters its new fiscal year with no cash in hand.
10:23 AM PDT, July 1, 2009 (LA Times)The message of the failed May 19 special election appears to have been received by pretty much no one in Sacramento. Fuss-budgeting went on, deadlines notwithstanding, as if it were still August or December 2008. The result: California enters its new fiscal year today with no cash in hand and a growing multibillion-dollar deficit. Democratic Assembly Speaker Karen Bass of Los Angeles and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento ran through their drills, insisting on voting, and voting again, on deficit-closing plans they knew Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would veto. We shrugged at the first vote; after all, the plan included tobacco and oil taxes that this page supported. But it quickly became clear that those taxes would go nowhere, so additional votes on doomed packages were simply part of what the governor is fond of calling "the kabuki." So Schwarzenegger was being the grown-up? Hardly. He, too, played a tired Sacramento game: deadline policymaking. As the state government was counting down the final hours of budget dickering before running out of cash and preparing to issue costly IOUs in lieu of actual legal tender, and as California's budget hole was about to get $3 billion deeper (because missing the deadline meant a new school-funding mandate kicked in), he tossed this little nugget toward the Legislature: I'll sign a budget and put the state back on track if you ... uh, let me think ... I've got it -- if you reform the pension system. Here's the thing: It's a badly needed reform, but in trotting it out as a brand-new, never-before-proposed ultimatum in the waning hours of the fiscal year, the governor didn't simply thumb his nose at Democrats. He thumbed his nose at the entire notion of public lawmaking. It's the exact same process that makes a mockery of democracy at the end of each session, when bills are gutted and new laws, which never were heard in committee or discussed in public, slink their way onto the books. But, some veteran Sacramento-watchers object, even though this leads to throwing away money and blaming the other side for it, it is the only way to actually get things done. That's another way of saying that abusing Californians is the only way to serve them. Democrats and the governor, and the Republican lawmakers who take pride in never voting in favor of any budget, are siblings in this dysfunction. They have set us on a road toward two possible cataclysms they seem to believe will never take place: A popular revolt that will further diminish the power of government as we know it; and ruinous default that keeps the recession alive for another decade and plunges Californians, and perhaps all Americans, into nearly unimaginable misery. Sacramento players should check their rearview mirrors. Both objects are closer than they appear. |
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