Libertarian – Page 6 – Zombies Uncensored

War on Drugs Shenanigans: Free Drug Samples

FREE COCAINE SAMPLES!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvb6ae7eyWI

California Gang Gives Away Free Samples Of Cocaine

Police in California are on the hunt for members of a local gang after they say they’ve begun targeting teens in the area by offering them free samples of cocaine and teaching them how to smoke it.

La Crescenta and northern Glendale police say a Hollywood area gang is swarming the area with the product and providing freebies to eager teens to up their clientele. The News Press reports that after giving the children the substance, the gang which has not been identified, would reportedly give the kids free lessons.

I call shenanigans for these reasons:

Very similar to the “strawberry quick handed to kids in school yards” myth.
Or the Drug dealers handing out LSD-laced tattoos of cartoon characters myth.
Originally the story was heroin being given away for free.
The gang is not mentioned, probably because it does not exist.
The reporter states “its happening allegedly in the Glendale area,” so no effort has been made to confirm the police statement.

It’s not impossible that drug samples might be given away for free; it’s just highly unlikely.

Chris Rock put it best:

“Drug dealers don’t sell drugs. Drugs sell themselves. It’s crack. It’s not an encyclopedia. It’s not a f**king vacuum cleaner.

You don’t really gotta try to sell crack. Ok? I’ve never heard a crack dealer going, ‘Man, how am I gonna get rid of all this crack?!'”

Mandatory Purchases: New Lane on the Superhighway to Serfdom

Not enough fear mongering has been done about the mandatory purchase of health insurance. I know it’s a slippery slope argument, saying having mandatory health insurance will lead to government specifying mandatory purchases on everything. The slippery slope helped make mandatory health insurance purchase requirements possible, by virtue of mandatory auto insurance.

It’s not a stretch to assume at some point, something else will be added to the list of mandatory purchases. Health and auto insurance will be used as the justification for further governmental control of personal income. I can’t predict what the next mandatory purchase will be, or how many there will be. Once the government has been granted a new power, it inevitably discovers additional “need” for exercise of the new-found power.

To avoid abuses of such authority, the next logical step would seem to be to set limits on how far government can go in requiring mandatory purchases. This obviously won’t work, because the federal government has repeatedly shown itself to ignore limits. Case in point, the federal debt limit: each time the debt limit is reached, congress simply votes to raise the debt limit. Once a limit has been placed on power, they simply vote to extend the limits of the power.

There is the belief that as long as you have freedom of speech and religion, you still live in a free country, or that if you loose some of the ability to decide what to do with your own money but still have these basic rights, you are still free. The fallacy of this belief becomes clear as the percent of control the government has over income becomes closer to 100 percent than to zero percent.

Once the amount of taxes crosses fifty percent of income, people take notice and start to complain. They quickly come to realize the closer you get to being taxed at 100 percent, the closer you are to having zero freedom. If 100 percent of what you make is taken by government, then basically government owns you and the fruits of your labor. So government has to be careful not to go too far past the halfway point to enslavement.

The TEA Party protests indicate to me the government has pushed the boundary of taxation about as far as it safely can. While I’m sure there is still some room in there to squeeze in minor taxes, there is no room for large-scale tax increases–the type needed to fully fund health care coverage for all Americans. That’s why a new form of governmental control over income was needed. Enter mandatory purchases.

Allowing the federal government the ability to mandate purchases has opened up this new lane in The Superhighway to Serfdom. You’ll still have somewhere around half of your income in your hands, but the amount of your income you’ll have control over will gradually decrease through mandatory purchases.

Government needs to be careful not to load up this new lane of serfdom to quickly. Once people are heavily taxed and burdened with mandatory purchases, seeing they have little control over their lives, it sometimes produces consequences like the French Revolution. I hope a movement will form to undo this new dangerous power, and I hope it will be called the BABE Party, Bitten At Both Ends.

Social Security: Wildly Popular and a Godsend?

This Week / Governors on Health Care

Ed Rendell compares the passage of health care reform to the passage of Social Security and Medicare; both were demonized at first, and are now a “godsend” to seniors.

It reminded me how often opposing views towards the changes in America’s health care system were dismissed, by pointing out that Social Security was at first met with similar opposition and is now “wildly popular” or a godsend.

It’s true: when the government returns your money, it is wildly popular! Income tax return checks are wildly popular, too. Unemployment checks are extremely popular as well. I guess it is important to point out times when government is magnanimous enough to give you your own money back!

In any other part of society, when someone gives you your own money back it’s not considered a godsend–it’s considered theft or fraud when you don’t get your money back. It’s only a godsend to get money back from an entity who has the power to take away money at will, under no obligation to give it back. As in a bully that takes a kids lunch money and “generously” gives some of it back later on.

Rendell does have it correct in describing Social Security as a godsend, because the definition of godsend is “something wanted or needed that comes or happens unexpectedly.” Any time the bully that is our federal government gives money back to the people they took it from, that is is a godsend.

Government has Munchausen syndrome when it comes to Social Security; the government takes your money away, making it harder to save for retirement, then pats itself on the back for saving you. They can’t be content with helping only those in need, and instead make everyone ill and dependent on government for the cure.

Social Security: Wildly Popular and a Godsend?

This Week / Governors on Health Care

Ed Rendell compares the passage of health care reform to the passage of Social Security and Medicare; both were demonized at first, and are now a “godsend” to seniors.

Unintended Consequences of Listening to Ron Paul

What do the following radio and TV hosts have in common?

Rachel Maddow
Glenn Beck
Larry King
Tucker Carlson
Jim Cramer
Alex Jones
John Stewart
Andrew Napolitano
Neil Cavuto
Bill Maher
David Asman
Montel Williams
Ed Schultz
Joe Scarborough
Stephen Colbert

These are the people I tune into to find out their political views. Its a very diverse group. They don’t share the same views, and often attack each other. How did this happen? You’d have to be schizophrenic to listen or understand this group as a whole. I didn’t start out seeking a wide perspective for political views, it happened quite accidentally.

During the 2008 Presidential election, I was following Ron Paul. Whenever Paul was on TV I tuned in regardless of the network or host. I paid attention to how Paul was treated by the host. If the host let Paul speak and didn’t interrupt and interacted with Paul, I started tuning into their shows more often. The issue was not if the host agreed with the views of Ron Paul, but if they gave him a chance for his views to be fairly expressed.

There are some big names not on the list, like Keith Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly. Keith Olbermann I don’t listen to because Paul is basically nonexistent to Olbermann; O’Reilly kept interrupting Paul and not letting him finish a thought. Ron Paul is one of the most polite people in politics; it says a lot about someone who is rude to someone as humble and polite as Paul.

Ron Paul was the person in the news that came the closest to representing my views. If the host was showing politeness and respect to Ron Paul, then I felt they deserved the same politeness and respect from me. Ron Paul has often spoken of unintended consequences of government policy; one of the unintended consequences of following Ron Paul has been a much broader view of politics.

Judge Napolitano on Marijuana: People Bear Their own Responsibility

It’s Time To Legalize Marijuana. Judge Napolitano

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2GG2aM6UII

The judge, as always, makes strong and clear arguments.

FOX: We’ve had such a hard time convincing people not to drink and drive, I think a lot of people would be worried that you start making recreation use of marijuana legal, its gonna make that task to get people to stop from smoking and driving even more difficult.

Judge: The government should be more concerned about people making choices for themselves and about them bearing their own responsibility, than about trying to take care of them. You’re not buying this?

Judge Napolitano hit on the point of people bearing their own responsibility, but didn’t give examples, such as bearing responsibility for your own health and well being, and bearing responsibility for not harming others in public.

Texting, drinking alcohol, putting on makeup, or being sleep deprived are all areas where people should be held accountable for putting others at risk while driving. In the privacy of your own home it is the individual’s responsibility, and not the governments’ responsibility, to decide for themselves if and when they are putting themselves at risk.

Contrary to popular belief, Libertarians are not opposed to traffic regulations. Libertarians believe that you should be free to live your life as you choose, as long as you don’t interfere with someone else’s rights or cause them harm. Just because you might be able to drive on the wrong side of the road for some time and not hurt anyone does not mean there isn’t strong potential to do harm to others.

The problem the judge ran into is there is no quick sound-bite to sum up that when you are in public, regardless of your condition or circumstances, you are responsible for not harming others. It does not matter how one impairs their driving ability, but it does matter that people take responsibility when putting others at risk.

Morality = Constitutionality?

From reading arguments about the constitutionality of health care reform, I’ve come to the conclusion that people equate morality with constitutionality. The legal arguments they make are really justifications following their own moral compass. When someone says they believe something is unconstitutional, often they mean immoral.

I don’t mean this as a criticism, but perhaps an insight into explaining what people accept or believe to be constitutional or unconstitutional. Often it seems to me that people cherry-pick what they believe is unconstitutional, and I scratch my head trying to figure out the underlying dynamic in their decision process.

Weigh these three issues separately, and ask yourself which ones are constitutional or unconstitutional.

Forced to buy health care insurance, or pay a fine, or go to jail.
Forced to buy firearms or pay a fine.
Forced to buy electricity or move out of your home. (An Arizona woman lived in her car after her home was condemned for lack of electricity.)
Forced to buy clothes to wear in public, pay a fine, or go to jail.

My point is it’s rare when someone see all these as equally constitutional or unconstitutional. A lot of the thought process of deciding the constitutionality of something is based upon a personal moral compass. Most people would say its constitutional to force people to buy clothes, but would probably object to being forced to buy at least one of the other items on the list.

These are just examples of equating moral views with constitutionality. It doesn’t mean there aren’t other valid reasons to find health care reform constitutional/unconstitutional, or that people are incapable of awareness of their own moral objections.

Listening to the debate on health care using constitutional grounds is more akin to playing the board game Monopoly. We might just as well be arguing the house rules for what happens when you land on “free parking,” because the official rules become irrelevant when arguing your own moral values. It might be less confusing if the core moral value behind the positions were debated as opposed to trying to make legal arguments.

I’m not a constitutional scholar and wouldn’t pretend to be able to argue these issues constitutionality. I’m just as guilty in wanting the constitution to match my own morality. My own moral compass wants the constitution to protect the minority from having to buy what the majority is selling, even if it’s not specifically spelled out in the constitution.

Obese with Power: No More Toys with Happy Meals

From (MecuryNews.com) Santa Clara County Supervisor Ken Yeager wants to stop restaurants from offering toys with food.

If Santa Clara County Supervisor Ken Yeager gets his way, there may be no more dolls, race cars or toys of any sort to entice kids like Jena — and their parents — to feast on fried, fatty fast-food. The supervisor wants to stop — or at least limit — restaurants from offering toys that encourage children to eat fatty, sugary, high-calorie and generally unhealthful meals that can lead to childhood obesity. “They want the toy and have no idea what’s in the food,” Yeager said Monday. “You can’t expect a 3-year-old to say there are too many calories in that hamburger.”

Where I draw the line on these types of proposals is when it’s clear the regulation is aimed at modifying behavior and not at protecting consumers from harmful products. Yeager makes it sound like the legislation is aimed at protecting 3-year-olds, but 3-year-olds can’t buy happy meals on their own. Parents–nature’s own child protection–are the ones buying the meals, and this law is aimed at regulating parents’ behavior.

Happy meals have food that is safe to eat, and toys that are safe play with. The legislation is not intended to protect consumers from food poisoning or lead poisoning with the toys. Restaurants are not defrauding their customers, by selling a toy along with food. Governments role in protecting consumers is to protect from harmful and fraudulent products, and not to protect people from their own behavior.

Whenever the subject comes up as to when any government regulation is needed to protect consumers, remember to ask, “Is the product safe?” Fatty, sugary, high-calorie foods are unhealthy when eaten in excess, as basically anything you consume is unhealthy if you ingest too much. It’s strange but true: even drinking too much water can kill you and people have died because of it. If the product can be used safely, then odds are there is another agenda that has nothing to do with safety.

Governments that regulate individuals’ behavior are to be feared for becoming overweight and obese with power. The concern here should be about liberty, and the toy that should be taken away is the power of government to protect us from our own behavior.