Rand Paul and Ron Paul are questioned by Anderson Cooper about congress and compromise.
Ron Paul “they compromise on the welfare state, they compromise on the warfare state, they compromise endorsing the monetary system”
Rand Paul “we are compromising, but we are compromising for more spending”
Congress should be willing to compromise on what gets cut from the budget, but cutting the budget should not be compromised.
Stossel – On The Road To Serfdom Part 5 – This segment of the show focuses on fairness and equality in laws.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b4NRNB-ujAThe eye-opening part in the video is when it shows how the U.S. Justice department sued schools which allowed students to use the Kindle reading device, because the Kindle discriminates against students who are blind. The show gives examples of restrictions put on high achievers and special rules for people with disabilities to bring about equal opportunity.
Towards the end, Chandler Tuttle says, “Freedom is not just some theoretical means to an end; it’s an end unto itself. Freedom isn’t a strategy, it’s a goal.” I’m glad this was pointed out because in most political discussions, freedom isn’t brought up as something tangible and having real value. Liberty usually takes a backseat to national security, and often is a secondary issue in less pressing matters because it doesn’t have physical properties. When this concept is brought up, the people defending freedom are usually labeled as amoral, self-serving bastards for valuing freedom over fairness.
Is it fair that some people are blind? As long as no other person caused them to go blind, yes, it is fair. Contrary to popular belief, life is fair. Life doesn’t choose one person over another, and as long as there isn’t someone deciding who is blind or tall or short or blue eyed, life is fair. The luck of the draw applies equally and without bias. It takes a conscious decision to be unfair, such as when a government puts restrictions on some and gives advantages to others.
Fairness means an absence of bias. There aren’t any people free of bias, so any system with people deciding fairness will undoubtedly be unfair. When people are free to do whatever they want with their lives and don’t interfere with someone else’s freedom, what remains are the natural rules of life, and life is fair. The freedom vs. fairness argument is a false dilemma, because in reality freedom equals fairness.
Last week Jillette wrote an article on Obama’s ‘stupid’ jab at Vegas and discussed the President on Red Eye last night. Here is Penn Jillette defending Las Vegas in response to President Obama telling people not to spend money there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XPZwQpe9IMPresidential Obama seems to be unaware of the damage that can be done from the bully pulpit. Its a shame the insurance industry, police officers, overweight people, banking industry, Wall Street, talk radio, and doctors don’t have someone as funny and thoughtful as Penn Jillette to defend them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG-yhcSGGuo http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:southparkstudios.com:152474
And if I had just one wish, just one wish in the whole world…if I had one wish, it’d be for politics to change–that good ideas weren’t so easily dismissed by demanding impossible solutions.
In this episode of South Park, Kyle’s parents don’t want him to attend a concert, so they come up with an impossible task. They won’t allow him to go to the concert until he brings democracy to Cuba.
The health care debate brought this South Park episode to mind, because objections to purchasing health insurance across state lines are met with a similar response. Create a list of impossible goals to make the idea just go away.
Objections are raised to purchasing health insurance across state lines because it doesn’t do the following:
Purchasing health care across state lines won’t do any of the above, either. It also won’t bring peace to the middle east or democracy to Cuba or cure cancer. What it will do is lower the cost of health insurance, making the goals above easier to achieve.
The truth is there isn’t any plan that can do all the above and bring down costs at the same time. Its not going to happen, because it violates the laws of supply and demand. It’s a fantasy and has been from its inception.
Purchasing health insurance across state lines has these advantages:
We have choices in life insurance, car insurance, home insurance. They don’t have the problems suggested by all the fear, uncertainty and doubt arguments made by opponents.
Its time politicians stopped playing these parental mind games, and started looking at real world solutions to real problems.
The Republican Party had done enough damage by globing on to every TEA Party protest, and Sarah Palin comes along to bury what was left. What started out for some as honest revulsion to uncontrolled taxing and spending has been fully transformed into marketing endless wars.
Sarah Palin has done more damage to the TEA Party than all the media’s straw man attacks and FoxNews promotion combined. The lesson learned: any group that starts to threaten established political power will be attacked from all from all angles.
Here is a clip from A Face in the Crowd (1957) that sums up what Palin’s performance turned the TEA Party into.
Full version of A Face in the Crowd available on YouTube
“Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.” That saying sums up most federal programs and departments; whatever the intended goal, in the end they’ll achieve just the opposite.
Here are some examples of the Law of Opposites at work in government.
Ethanol fuel subsidies consuming more energy than the fuel produces.
Borrowing and spending to fix an economy wrecked by borrowing and spending.
Affirmative action laws which discriminate to fight discrimination.
The scene in Ghostbusters, where Con Edison is ordered by the EPA to turn off the power to the ghost containment grid.
The list goes on and on. The law of opposites doesn’t apply to everything in government; it is a cynical view, but it often turns out to be true. Cynicism aside, it is pragmatic to question actions of government to see if they are achieving their goals and if taxes are being spent wisely.
One of the biggest examples of big government solutions achieving the opposite result has been the war on terror. This video shows a gas tanker stolen by the Taliban, which then gets stuck and latter bombed. Some of the people present were lured by the possibility of getting free gasoline.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcfEibh8oWcThis video might be a worst case example in fighting the war on terror, and isn’t meant to imply every terrorist’s death carries a matching number of civilian deaths. The video is an example of the rules and procedures of a bureaucracy becoming the primary focus, and the original goals become secondary.
After 9/11, enlistment went up in the U.S. armed forces. Americans were willing contribute their time, and lives if necessary, to fight terrorism. Imagine if the people in this video had been Americans, the U.S. armed forces would see another spike in enlistment. When this video was shown on Al Jazeera, it probably caused a spike in enlistment in terrorist organizations.
It’s another example of out of control government: hundreds of billions borrowed and spent to fight terrorism, which results in growing the ranks of terrorists. It is throwing money at a problem to make it go away. And when the problem doesn’t go away, the answer is always the same–throw more money.
Questions about the war on terror achieving its goals are immediately met with accusations of hating America, being isolationists, appeasing terrorists, and waving the white flag. To those who are defending this version of a big government solution and throwing money at a problem, is this the good kind of big government solution?
When U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Toyota owners should stop driving their cars, questions immediately emerged about LaHood’s motivations. There is no way to prove of disprove his motives; only LaHood knows for sure what motivated the statement. The perception that our government doesn’t have pure motivations is real, and this view will continue as long as they are tied to GM and Chrysler.
One question to bring up is why Toyota didn’t address the defect sooner; was it because they didn’t want to turn over damaging information to one of their competitors? Toyota could claim they were worried about the severity of the problem being exaggerated by U.S. officials, and can point to LaHood’s statement to back up those concerns.
If new regulations are put into place to protect consumers from the defects found in Toyota’s cars, Japan could start accusing the United States of regulatory misconduct and unfair trade practices. There is no guarantee a trade war will erupt from the recall, but it is a possible unintended consequence.
There might be calls for a congressional investigation of the transportation department to make sure nothing fishy has been going on. As much as I like keeping congress busy with innocuous distractions, an investigation will just be a waste of time and money because it is so difficult to prove pure or impure motivations.
The longer government motors is in existence the more the problem will grow. When GM or Chrysler wins a contract with the government, the conflict of interest problem will be brought up again. Ford will be able to claim the government is showing favoritism each time they don’t win a contract.
This story is another example of what can go wrong when one institution of society becomes too entwined with another. Hybrids work well in cars, but government and industry hybrids are accidents waiting to happen. The government should have stayed focused on its role of governing and not subsidizing industry. Staying focused on protecting liberty it is the best way to govern and avoid conflict of interests and the resulting unintended consequences.
Rachel Maddow questioned why Republicans are considered the “natural party of fiscal responsibility” when they don’t have a history of fiscal responsibility. Now I’m questioning why the Democratic Party is considered the natural party of being socially liberal for the same reason.
Are they really socially liberal, as in permitting freedom of action, or are they trying to shape society to what suits them?
The health care legislation is far from liberal, it is very authoritarian because it is mandatory. The only liberal part of health care bill is allowing an exemption for the Amish faith. Liberty-minded people object to the health care bill on moral principles too; maybe if we formed a religious organization we could get an exemption.
The President and many other Democrats recently denounced the Supreme Courts decision on free speech. Now Congresswoman (D) Donna Edwards is introducing a Constitutional Amendment to undo the Supreme Courts ruling.
‘‘SECTION 1. The sovereign right of the people to govern being essential to a free democracy, Congress and the States may regulate the expenditure of funds for political speech by any corporation, limited liability company, or other corporate entity.
‘‘SECTION 2. Nothing contained in this Article shall be construed to abridge the freedom of the press.’’
Media corporations will have freedom of speech. I guess all other groups will have to become part of the press to be able to speak on political issues.
Democrats are now defending huge amounts of deficit spending. Selling future generations into slavery is a far cry from defending freedom. Deficit spending in reality is a poverty tax, because poor people don’t buy up treasury bills but have to pay them back.
Instead of defending free speech they are advocating restricting free speech and have become the party of censorship. Some Democratic party legislators are interested in bringing back the Fairness Doctrine and others have proposed hate speech legislation.
In the past they would defend the minority view and now in power they defend majority rule, as in the majority of people voted for health care reform so its OK to force the minority who do not wish to participate to buy health insurance.
So tell my why again they consider themselves the natural party of being socially liberal?
Each time the economy slows down, it leads to micromanagement at work. When a company is making money, the people at the top are either taking it easy or looking for new ways to make money. When the money isn’t coming in as fast as they’d like, they start looking inside their company for savings and efficiency. It turns into a living hell for the people at the bottom because everything they do ends up being micromanaged.
Many workers are hoping and praying for the economy to turn around just because they are tired of explaining how and why they do some of the simplest tasks. A slow economy leads to the annoying time-sheets detailing every minute of the day. Pointing out the loss of productivity to management caused by keeping track of work rather than doing work falls on deaf ears. Workers catch on to being micromanaged and learn to fake time-sheets so they can get back to being productive.
In some work situations, the micromanaging turns into having a supervisor watching over the shoulder of workers. Having someone watching everything you do doesn’t mean you are going to do it any faster, because it’s a distraction from doing the job at hand. Pointing out the loss of productivity from excessive monitoring will once again fall on deaf ears. Workers also learn how to play this game by finding things to keep their managers busy. Workers start complaining about how other departments are run and how much the “defective” departments are making their jobs more difficult. With any luck, the managers will all be busy in meetings fighting with one another so you can get back to work.
The same workplace dynamic of the people at the top needing to do something is taking place in Washington DC. Just as workplace management can’t acknowledge the harm they do by interfering with the job at hand, the government can’t see the harm they are doing to the economy. Reforming health care and new regulations for business are examples of the government micromanaging the economy, and when the loss of productivity is pointing out, it falls on deaf ears.
Politicians have no qualms distracting the public so we aren’t focused on the job they are doing, so I have no guilt in suggesting we distract the government so we can do our jobs. The Obama administration is starting to look at the Bowl Championship Series and that’s a good thing; as long as you aren’t part of the BCS. We need to come up with more innocuous distractions like college bowl games to keep them busy. I’m calling on my fellow American’s that when they are involved in any polling to pick the least intrusive option. If asked which of the following is most important – the economy – heath care – sexting by teenagers, for the sake of our future please pick “sexting.”
Businesses can’t use the same tactics workers use with faking their time-sheets. Faking time-sheets might get a worker fired, faking the governments time-sheets can lead to big fines or prison terms. Businesses can fight back by lobbying congress with useful distractions such as, coming up with a way to keep copiers from copying genitalia or convincing congress businesses would be more productive if congress could tell them the absolute value of pi.
If we all put our heads together we can come up with some new distractions for Washington DC. Here are a few ideas–not exactly good ideas, but something to get the creative juices flowing:
Demand all of congress visit every site in the world impacted by global warming before taking any action. It’s expensive, but trust me–it’s worth it.
If enough people film street lights and email them to their representative, we can convince congress there is an imminent alien invasion.
Protest anything from France.
Start a rumor terrorists are secretly sending commands to operatives through 4chan.
Ask congress to find out how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood (stressing how important woodchucks are to the economy).
The number of sex scandals by elected officials is destroying our faith in government and should be investigated by congress.
To break the hold of the US vs. Them mentality in politics, we’ve got to be able to spot the tactics used in political speech. Adjectives used in political speech are rarely used to offer insight into an issue, the intent usually being to promote an opinion.
It’s just simple marketing. Attach positive words with what you are promoting and repeat as often as possible. With enough positive or negative marketing , you’ll have others using similar adjectives to describe the products. The better the put-down, the more likely it will become a headline. Headlines are repeated without being read, and over time the opinion can turn into reality.
Political opinions are a mixture of marketing issues and parties at the same time.
Politicians X plan is intelligent, and its going to work. (agree with positive adjective – same team)
Politicians X plan is shockingly accurate, and its going to work. (agree with negative adjective – opposing team)
Politicians X plan is well-intentioned, and its not going to work. (disagree with positive adjective- same team)
Politicians X plan is extremist, and its not going to work. (disagree with negative adjective – opposing team)
None of the above statements are intended to sway the listener with supporting arguments or facts. The person isn’t trying to persuade with reason, but instead with simple positive and negative associations.
Another advantage to paying attention to the marketing adjectives is most people don’t come right out and announce their political affiliation, but the adjectives used offer insight into the political positions held by the speaker in relation to the subject.