No Force, No Fraud

The perpetual motion legislative machine

2009-05-12T18:14:00.002-04:00

Has it ever occurred to you that elected officials must be insane?
Have you wondered why so many kooky ideas are introduced as legislation?

Here are just 3 reason why legislators get caught up with legislation that seems inane or just wrong.

1. the need to be doing SOMETHING

As any libertarian will tell you, most of what legislators do is simply unconstitutional... actions that the legislature has no business messing with in the first place... but there is literally NO control over that, and the actions of legislatures pay no attention whatever to constitutionality.

All that aside, most people who run for public office are looking to stay for a long time, so they need to have "accomplishments" to tout for their reelection campaigns. They introduce legislation because it is virtually "required", lest they be accused of doing nothing. In that environment, doing anything is better than doing nothing. Legislation about state symbols is a good example:

Minnesota has a state Bird (Loon), Butterfly (Monarch), Drink (Milk), Fish (Walleye), Flower (Pink and White Snowy Lady's Slipper), Fruit (Honeycrisp Apple), Grain (Wild Rice), Gemstone (Lake Superior Agate), Mushroom (Morel), Tree (Norway Pine), and Muffin (Blueberry). Oh, mustn't forget the state Photograph. Who could vote against an old man in prayer?

Not that legislating state symbols is easy... we still don't have a state Animal or Mammal, despite at least 8 times trying to name the White-Tailed Deer, 6 times the Eastern Timber Wolf, and a couple of shots with the 13-Lined Ground Squirrel. Many others have been proposed, such as naming the leech as the state Parasite.

In the category of "Are we really paying you to do this stuff?"... a bill that would require retailers to post notices that cocoa bean mulch can be dangerous to pets.

Because global warming is making fish spawn earlier, the legislature will consider a proposal to open the fishing season a week earlier. No, fishermen don't think so, records don't show it, and the DNR didn't ask for it, but somebody thought it must be true.

And... in the category of "We can do this since we don't have to live with the results"... some legislators want beer sold throughout the new Gophers football stadium -- from the cheap seats to the luxury boxes. No, the U doesn't want it.

On a more serious note, this year the DFL (that's Democrats to you foreigners) rammed through a massive tax bill... well, it maybe wasn't massive, because all the numbers were left BLANK.

2. the need to please supporters and contributors

Many pieces of legislation are actually written and pushed by non-legislators... lobbyists for one or more industries or organizations. Here's a good example:

Some of Minnesota's biggest unions and construction companies are pushing a plan to use state loan guarantees and tax breaks to kick-start a building industry that has been staggered by the recession. But... the list of projects involved is a secret, and may not EVER be released to the public.

3. the need to mend what one has already screwed up

Speed limit change will protect suburban kids. Seems that, in their omniscience, legislators restricted speed limits statewide in a way that has kept suburban areas from limiting speeds in new residential areas, so they'll fix it (maybe) with new legislation.

There are all kinds of problems created by the "short-term offender law", which has, for the past 6 years, required counties to house felons who have 180 days or less remaining to serve on their sentences. Hopefully, that will be fixed by still more legislation.

One of the primary reasons for governments being defined by constitutions is to LIMIT what government can stick their noses into... to protect the people from overweening officials who pad their resumes with silly, nuisance, and downright bad legislation. Clearly, having a constitution, and swearing to uphold it, does not even begin to keep legislators from doing any goofy thing they want. But WHY do they do such things? I think it's the same answer given by Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street... "Because I CAN".

Our minority President socks it to minorities

2009-04-16T20:47:00.002-04:00

We all heard this new populist President claim that he wouldn't increase taxes on anyone earning under $200,000. That means that anyone even close to being considered poor should have been able to look forward to no higher taxes. Obama has, from the beginning, declared that he will help the "poor" and "hard-working" Americans. He has been idolized because he's clearly a "minority" President, which might have caused one to expect him to respect the rights of minority groups. If that's what you expected, dream on, fool.

On April 1st, our federal government BLASTED one small, poor minority group almost beyond belief. Most of you are not in that minority group, so you'll have a tendency to either stop reading or to hem and haw, thinking up excuses for the liar that has taxed beyond even a dictator's imagination.

A 2000% increase in tax! Precisely, it was an increase of 2,252.7%. Yes, take the old tax and make it 22 and a half times larger. That's not an increase... it's a nuclear tax bomb!. Nothing else comes close. That increase means that this product is now taxed at OVER FIFTY PERCENT! The Federal tax is higher than the retail cost of the product itself, including product, packaging, marketing, distribution, etc. Everything that goes into putting the product out there for sale costs less than the Federal tax.

Have you guessed what the product is? What minority group could a "minority", "poor-favoring" President attack so viciously? Oh yes, the group is cigarette smokers, who were already paying grievous taxes, but this incredible tax increase REALLY targeted what is probably the poorest segment of cigarette smokers; those who buy loose tobacco and make their own cigarettes.

Those of us who have been making our own cigarettes (I've been doing it for most of the past 10 years) go to that trouble for one reason only; to save money. Making cigarettes is laborious and time-consuming. Nobody would do it if it weren't cheaper than buying ready-made cigarettes. So naturally, the poorest smokers are the the most likely to be buying loose tobacco. Based on 2006 figures, more than 36.5 percent of adult smokers had incomes of less than $25,000 annually, and I'll guarantee you that if you included only those who make their own, the poor percentage would be much higher.

Since 1998, federal, state and local governments have collected more than $284 BILLION in cigarette taxes and payments. That $284 BILLION came out of pockets of only 19.7% of our citizens. The U.S. population is about 304 million. Subtract out the kids who don't yet pay taxes, and you're left with, at most, about 240 million adults. 20% of that group is 48 million. That means that the average smoker paid aboutt $6,000 in taxes and payment since 1998.

Most of that $284 BILLION was spent, after all the normal government waste in handling it, for programs that had absolutely nothing to do with smoking, cigarettes, or the smokers who paid the taxes. Such obscene taxation is nothing other than ripping off a minority because the majority doesn't give a damn. In fact, we have a lot of people here in Minnesota who, at the same time they claim to fight for the rights of minorities, APPLAUD the soaking that smokers have taken. I have news for those so-called liberals... a high percentage of smokers are also RACIAL MINORITY FOLKS, so you're really blasting them. Another large segment of the population of smokers is VETERANS... you know, those of us who "served our country" and "put our lives on the line"? Unfortunately, my experience with liberals is that they don't in fact give a damn about minorities... they just want to APPEAR TO CARE about them... no more than politically-correct pompous, pretentious posturing.

The American Revolution was begun because of taxes, but the tax on tea and those of the Stamp Act were miniscule compared to the taxes on smokers. Another huge irony is that, without the introduction of tobacco as a crop, the American Colonies would have failed, and none of what we know as American History would have occurred. While our President and Congress are granting mammoth bailouts to large corporations, they are ripping off poor and hard-working Americans. These are the people you voted for? Is this the sort of "CHANGE" you thought they meant?

Iowa justices vote for justice!

2009-04-03T12:53:00.002-04:00

The justices of the Iowa Supreme Court voted unanimously that gay marriage is constitutional. Having been born and raised in Iowa, I am surprised and delighted... surprised because I suspect that decision is not the choice of the people of Iowa, and delighted because it is a victory of human rights over majority opinion. Perhaps I underestimate the sense of justice of Iowa citizens, but the issue of gay marriage should not be a matter of opinion, but must be, and has been, decided on the basis of equality of human rights.

Majority opinion must never be allowed to take precedence over constitutionally sound and equal rights for all citizens. For many years, I have, as have most libertarians, pressed the position that gay citizens deserve, without question, EQUAL rights... not special rights as gays have sometimes pushed for, but absolutely equal rights under the law. Conservatives who on one hand claim to be constitutionalists while pushing to exclude equality to gays with the other hand, are simply wrong; constituionally wrong, and morally wrong.

One of the bedrock functions of government is to protect minorities against persecution by a majority. As libertarians often remind, the United States is not a democracy, but a constitutional republic. A democracy means majority rule and minorities be damned... i.e. mob rule. The Founders of this nation despised democracy. Most of our immigrant ancestors came here to avoid persecution for their minority views. All too often, our vote-hungry major political parties cater to majority viewpoints at the expense of minorities and the Constitution.

Congressional representatives often claim that their votes reflect the wishes of their constituents, the voters of their state. They seem to be ignorant of the fact that their first duty, as sworn in their oath of office, is to first determine the consitutionality of an issue, before ever considering the wishes of the public.

I favor referendum as a way for the people to press their positions, but the fact remains that a majority of the people can be wrong, and can, out of ignorance or emotion, oppress those minorities they disagree with. It is the job of the courts to correct when and if that occurs, but it is also the job of our elected officials... each and every one of them.

I cannot fail to add that if government did not convey special privileges on "married couples", gay marriage would not be an issue to begin with. As an unmarried person, I, like gays, resent the inequality of government interference in a social activity that is none of their business in the first place.

That the Iowa Supreme Court justices, without exception, voted to equalize a set of rights, is a pure delight, and I sincerely commend them.

A government agency that works?

2009-03-17T23:31:00.002-04:00

A couple of years ago, I got myself enrolled for VA medical care, but never bothered to make an appointment. I was determined to make myself more healthy through diet and exercise, thus eliminating any need for more medical care. My plan worked great for 2 years, then I had another mild mini-stroke, spent most of a day in an emergency ward, and suddenly had numerous doctor and test appointments. To add to the confusion, I had another attack before all the tests were done for the first one.

It all sort of "hit the fan" when a neurologist prescribed Plavix to thin my blood, and I discovered that the prescription would cost me $150/month out of pocket. There is no way I could afford that, so I decided to see what I might be able to quickly accomplish at the VA hospital, and so made a phone call. I was told that I was in their system, but I needed to first update my means test. I asked if I could do that in person and was told I could, so I set out to approach the huge VA hospital.

I expected a typical governmental organization, with lots of sitting around waiting, reams of paperwork, and delayed results. The huge parking lot, full to the far reaches, was right in line with what I expected. I played musical parking places for about 10 minutes, then got lucky.

From the time I finally entered the big revolving doors, my experience changed, and it deserves description. First, a guy at the Information desk gave me precise directions to the Means Testing office. I asked a woman at a desk, and she told me to put my name on a clipboard and wait in the waiting room. Within 5 minutes, a woman called me, sat me down, helped me fill out a short income form, entered the info on the computer, and told me what my co-pays would be for the next year. I asked if I could make a doctor's appointment right away. She gave me a phone number and told I could call from a nearby lounge, which I did, and made an appointment for 11 days later.

Encouraged by such progress, I asked if there was any way I could get a prescription to replace the one for Plavix. With little explanation, I was told to go to the Urgent Care and see a pharmacist. A helpful woman at Urgent Care had me sign a clipboard outside the pharmacist's office, and wait. A few minutes later, the pharmacist came for me, listened to my explanation, questioned me, made some inquiries, made computer entries, and then she took me to a nurse who took my blood pressure and asked a few more questions... then back to the pharmacist, who said she had ordered a prescription for me to last until my doctor's appointment. She directed me to the pharmacy pickup.

Upon arriving at the pharmacy pickup, I noticed my name already on a video screen of prescriptions ready for pickup, got in line, waited a couple of minutes, and got the prescription... at no cost.

The reason I got so much accomplished so quickly was that every time I asked a question I got a good response, so I kept asking. Not at all what I expected. I found that VA employees "hold your hand" and know how to take whatever next step you ask about. They honestly seemed competent and eager to help at each step. I listened as the Urgent Care receptionist handled an elderly veteran in a wheelchair who was visiting from Chicago and needed help here. After gathering a bit of information, she called for a triage nurse, who quickly arrived and pushed the patient away.

Normally, when I've been in a medical facility for a couple of hours, I'm more than eager to escape, but this whole process went so smoothly and quickly that I wandered around the hospital for a while, checking out the cafeteria, snack shop, and store. I even stopped at the ER desk to ask if I could get emergency care even before I had seen a doctor. A man working at the ER desk offered help before I could ask, and told me that I certainly could check into the ER, even before my first doctor's appointment.

Like you, I had heard some negative reports about VA medical facilities. Frankly, one reason I didn't proceed two years earlier was that I supposed that they were pressed to handle Iraqi war injuries, and thought that I need not add to their problems. I underestimated them. In my defense, my experience with government facilities has always been negative, and anything military has usually been equally poor.

For my future treatment at the VA, I will have no co-pay for doctor visits, and a $5 co-pay for prescriptions. That's very close to free, and far better than Medicare. I've been paying $96/month for Medicare, without prescription coverage, and paying for a significant part of each medical treatment.

There is, of course, a downside. VA medical programs will cost $41.7 billion this year. Only about 6% of that cost will be paid by the patients, an average of $427 for each of 5.7 million patients. What patients pay is based on their income. The remaining 94% will, of course, be borne by taxpayers, most of whom are also paying far more for their own medical care. One more enormous expense of having a gigantic military force.

Nevertheless, my kudos to the award-winning Twin Cities Veterans Administration medical center. From my limited experience, it appears that they provide excellent service, and probably at a reasonable cost to the taxpayers.

Meanwhile, over in the BIG house...

2009-02-22T17:22:00.003-05:00

reprinted from 8/17/03

Continuing from yesterday's "Welfare - adding psychological insult to injury"... our nouveaux riche middle class saw no limits. Expectations grew as fast as ones imagination could work. Add in easy credit and a certain amount of justified guilt from the vets, and you develop a giant new ME generation that quickly assumed that the world was created for them. A sheltered suburban lifestyle, lots of gifts, attending college, buying a house after marriage... then 2 cars, 2 good jobs, etc.

Within one generation, people who used to live, work, and play side-by-side became the Haves righteously doling out favors to the Have-Nots, with a hug, while patting themselves on the back... and they're still doing it... with renewed righteousness... while trying to blame the problems on someone else.

The poor were staying poor, despite welfare, so benefits were raised, and raised... to the point where welfare became a "living wage", equivalent to, or greater than, the wages of many working people. It no longer made any sense for the poor to even attempt to become productive. Get a job and earn LESS?

For the hard-core welfare recipient, the value of the full range of welfare benefits substantially exceeded the amount the recipient could earn in an entry-level job. As a result, recipients were likely to choose welfare over work, thus increasing long-term dependence.

Offer a society only one practical way to survive, and they're likely to get good at it. That naturally evolved a culture of welfare expertise... how to get all you can (it's a "right" after all)... and that expertise transferred to the next generation... and the next. We produced the spectacle of multi-generational families where nobody could remember not relying on welfare. Because government is so pathetic at administration (even though 70% of welfare funds are spent on it) we also had a caste of people on welfare who were not even poor, while most poor people did not receive benefits.

The financial impact of WWII and the catastrophic aftermath of government growth and destruction can be seen in 3 numbers... the National Debt in 3 years:

1935 - 28.7 billion dollars
1945 - 258.7 billion dollars (9 times as high in 10 years)
2003 - 6.75 trillion dollars (26 times as high since the end of WWII)

… and that was while taxes were skyrocketing.

Was welfare necessary at all?

The Economic Report of the President in 1989 concluded that economic growth alone naturally raises more and more people out of poverty. Without welfare, economic growth would have produced a poverty rate about the same as, or a little lower than, the one we have today. If the value of volunteer labor is included, private sector contributions to charitable causes are approximately the same as the poverty budgets of federal, state and local governments combined.

The future?

Since the 70's, a variety of attempts have been made to move welfare recipients to employment, but welfare has become a way of life, and recipients severely handicapped in relation to the working world, so the problem is monumental. Again... it's similar to the problems slaves faced upon release, but at least the freed slaves were used to work and a poor lifestyle.

Some church organizations, working on a volunteer and local level, have had success in bringing such people into the workforce, but it requires a fierce desire from the former welfare recipient, and a lot of patient help from the volunteers. Experience should tell us that it's the only sort of solution that can actually work.

Is it so difficult to see the destructiveness of government programs... the economic manipulation of people through legislation... through FORCE? How long will do-gooders continue to believe that government programs are the solution, when in fact they are the source of the problems? More government programs won't help... more tax money won't help. Will our nation be brought to its knees before we all come to that simple realization?

If you resent hearing this from a libertarian, take it from a liberal's hero who, despite his early and correct definition of the problem, continued on to immensely compound the problems.

The lessons of history, confirmed by the evidence immediately before me, show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole our relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. The Federal Government must and shall quit this business of relief.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, State of the Union 1935

This is the conclusion to a 4-part series:
1. Being poor ain't what it used to be

2. Government and the godawful greatest generation

3. Welfare - adding psychological damage to injury

4. Meanwhile, over in the BIG house...

Welfare - adding psychological damage to injury

2009-02-20T08:52:00.001-05:00

reprinted from 8/16/2003

In "Government and the godawful greatest generation", I described the effects of the seemingly innocuous post-WWII veterans benefits... the massive suburban home building boom, which then drained cities of jobs and housing, trapping a large, mostly black, population of Americans. Many of us think of that boom period as the realization of the "American Dream", and for the privileged veterans, it certainly was.

It also created a chasm between the nouveau middle class and the stranded inner-city poor. For those not part of the boom, it removed any hope of working their way up, and it divided our nation racially and psychologically. While the new middle class could envision nothing but future prosperity, the poor lost hope.

The 50's were a time of "can do", of limitless growth... as long as you didn't look beneath the surface. Prior to WWII, Americans of all colors labored and lived together in cities. The effects of the privileged race to the suburbs effectively split black and white into cities vs. suburbs, and psychologically into "them" vs. "us". The inner-city black population was now an embarrassment, shameful by contrast.

The new America responded. Unfortunately, it responded from its new divided, paternalistic viewpoint. Those who had would help those who had not. Naturally, they would do it through government.

So, government welfare programs got a massive new dose of support. AFDC - Aid to Families with Dependent Children - was part of the original Social Security legislation of 1935. Here's a short summary of what happened:

By the end of 1940, 360,000 families were receiving AFDC.
In the 50's, AFDC grows by only 110,000 families.
In the 60's, AFDC grows by a much larger amount of 800,000 families as President Johnson's "War on Poverty" attempts to assist the poor.

AFDC was a major disaster. The "cure" was even worse than the "disease". In the AFDC program the requirements for eligibility essentially amount to:

low income,
very few assets,
dependent children and
no man in the household.

Anyone satisfying these requirements was entitled to benefits. And the word entitlement means "right" -- benefits cannot be withdrawn simply because recipients refuse to modify their behavior.

Direct Results?

Huge increases in out-of-wedlock births, especially by teenage girls.
Huge increases in single-mother "families"

People will do what you pay them to do, especially if they're desperate. It was exactly what should have been expected from AFDC. Naturally, these new families were virtually incapable of taking care of themselves. Young mothers, with little education, qualified for very few jobs, had the additional burden of children to care for, by themselves.

Fathers of children born as tickets to cash in on welfare were absent from parenting... by FORCE, and that gradually transformed young men who would have ordinarily been responsible fathers into absent sperm donors. Soon, as seen from the distant suburbs, we had a black underclass that appeared to have no morals. Not only were they not working and on the dole, they were breeding fast, and men were abandoning their families.

We had divided the nation with veteran's benefits, psychologically crushed the left-behinds with destructive welfare, and then insisted that they had a RIGHT to be "kept". Think about how similar that is to the treatment of slaves... except that the new slaves didn't have to work.

Tomorrow… Meanwhile, over in the big house...

Government and the godawful greatest generation

2009-02-18T11:37:00.001-05:00

reprinted from 8/15/2003

In "Being poor ain't what it used to be" I described a "caste of far-from-destitute but psychologically poor people" in America, and promised to examine why and how this mostly inner-city caste has developed.

Warning: For those of you who believe that government
programs are solutions, you may as well go read
something else. You're not going to like this.

In looking back over my lifetime, I can't see anything more tragic than what has happened to much of the American black population, and I'm going to lay that tragedy right on the doorstep of liberals... modern socialistic liberals who, working from their own usual comfy position, have very nearly destroyed the very people they thought they were helping.

Let me make it clear that this isn't about race except that it has happened primarily to American blacks. I suspect, but can't prove, that if the same conditions had existed when the Irish, Italian, or other immigrations occurred, we would have a different underclass with the same characteristics. Blacks happened to be the resident poor when this disaster began.

A quick overflight of U.S. history since World War II:

After WWII, our government's propaganda machine had been running hard out for years, and switched from "support the war" to "support our returning heroes". It was indeed a mania. In retrospect, it was not only unfair to all those who remained at home working long hours and doing without, it was unfair to veterans of all other wars, before and since.

"Greatest generation" indeed... "privileged generation", in fact. Returning vets were adored, and benefits heaped upon them. Within a short time, being elected to any political office was almost impossible for anyone but a veteran. Almost 60 years later, there are, incredibly, still a handful of WWII veterans in Congress.

Veteran's benefits, especially VA-guaranteed home loans with no down payment, and veteran's educational benefits, began the great population shift from the cities to the suburbs. With the prime workforce building new houses in the suburbs, businesses began moving there as well, and giving veterans job preference. Cities became poor, neglected, and naturally crime-ridden, causing even more people to move still further away, and we saw the gradual development of yet another ring of suburbs, the development of suburban shopping malls, and an explosion of auto transportation.

WWII and veteran's benefits reconfigured our landscape from top to bottom. The 50's was characterized by our new suburban middle class and "the American dream"... home ownership, a car in every garage, and a barbeque in the back yard. By the 60's, cities were desperate, so government came to the rescue. Veterans in office had seen their lives changed by government programs, so they did more of them. Between "urban renewal programs" and new highway construction, whole communities of remaining working poor were destroyed.

Veterans, in control now, had little use for their working class "roots"... they tried their damndest to "tidy up" America, virtually eliminating what was good about working class communities. That was the beginning of the "nanny state"... eliminating eyesores and embarrassing slums. Meanwhile, the veterans were out in the suburbs, creating a newly-privileged (read spoiled) baby-boom generation with a whole new set of expectations. Suddenly, being poor as I described it in "Being poor ain't what it used to be" was no longer fun... it wasn't even tolerable.

Those left in the cities were the poorest of the poor, and getting poorer. Factories had moved, and working-class jobs became scarce. Lots of inexpensive housing was bulldozed, and "standards" of construction were raised, eliminating future construction of low-cost housing through wonderful government measures such as building codes. We couldn't expect people to live in unsafe or unsanitary conditions, could we? The question never asked was, and still isn't... "what happens to those people who can't afford improved, more expensive lifestyles?" Blank out. That was when homelessness became a new problem.

Why wouldn't the baby-boomers believe in government programs? It created the good life for them, and they naturally wanted to "spread the wealth".

Tomorrow - Welfare, adding psychological insult to injury

Being poor ain't what it used to be

2009-02-12T22:21:00.001-05:00

reprinted from 8/14/2003

Within my lifetime, being poor has gone from an individual economic condition to an ingrained segment of our society. Being poor was once considered a temporary condition that could be escaped by a bit of luck, a helping hand from a relative or friend, or just plain hard work and frugality.

In my youth, the worst that could be said of another person was to call them "poor white trash". The clear meaning of that label was that they made no attempt to improve their economic condition, and that their poverty was so ingrained that they really didn't care. It usually referred to whole families, of several generations. There was a clear implication that the condition was simply the result of laziness.

For many years after the Great Depression, being poor was a common condition for many people. My recollection of the 40's is that "poor" was a relative term. The lifestyle that was most common, even "normal" then, would be looked down on now as deprivation. Children of poor families wore cheap (but clean) clothes, with one nice outfit reserved for very special occasions. Fashion was something for rich people. Gifts were few, and were usually clothes. Eating out was a rarity, and even then it was in neighborhood joints. Most blue-collar families didn't have a car. Many didn't have a phone. We working-class poor lived in our own parts of town, which meant that we associated with others in a similar economic condition. Residences were mixed together with small businesses, so there was no need to own a car. Everything needed for daily life was available within walking distance.

This "poorness" was not depressing, and it carried no shame... at least not as part of normal life. We were surrounded by people in the same condition, and everyone had a silent vision of "moving up". Even the visions were not grand... a little better furniture... some nicer clothes... maybe moving to a better apartment.

We weren't relatively poor... we were relatively normal. There was no great angst about conditions, but everyone did know exactly what it took to move up... frugality and consistent effort. Everyone had a saving account, and spending less than one earned was a goal. Credit was available only to those who had assets, so "stretching money" between paydays was essential. My mother purchased more significant items by putting them on layaway, paying for them over many weeks, then getting the goods after the last payment... and that was a moment of achievement and pride.

In a nutshell, we lived poor in order to save something for the future... and to protect against some inevitabilities, like job layoff or sickness. Any emergency borrowing that was needed was done from friends and relatives, and that was done with some shame, and as a last resort. The general attitude was "take no charity". My parents finally bought their first house after 25 years of marriage.

What some younger people might be surprised to learn was that this was a happy period of my life... the most interesting... the most exciting, and I know I'm far from unique in that attitude. People who grew up in even worse conditions often have the same feelings, even those who lived in conditions that simply aren't allowed to exist now. The destroyed river flat and hidden communities of the Twin Cities were examples, as was the vanished Rondo area.

How can being poor be a happy experience? It took me a lot of years to really understand why it's easier to be happy when you're poor than when you're not. People were forced to plan, to save, to skimp, and to be creative... to strive. Those are all creative, energetic challenges, and not one of them is at all demeaning. Rather, they are proud traits that give one a sense of achievement. They're activities that people with more money can avoid, but in doing so, they harm themselves.

Contrast my childhood experience with that of a typical suburban child now living in "the American Dream". I usually slept on a couch or a foldaway bed, while he has a well-furnished room of his own. I invented games, while he plays with games invented and manufactured by others. I built toys from junk and imagined them to be anything I wanted, while his toys are pre-created and hard to imagine being anything else.

I could watch the trains from my yard, and ships on the river behind that, while he watches TV or his computer. My realm was about 4 square blocks, so I knew everything possible about them. His realm is his room and anywhere he can ride in a car. My walk to school and back was an adventure while his is a bus ride. I can still remember the few presents I received, while he'll be lucky to remember those from the last occasion.

I'm not trying to glorify the "good old days", but I am trying to point out some characteristics Americans have largely lost during my lifetime, especially among the poor. I've said that I live in an area that has many recent immigrants. When I watch them I see the kind of poorness I remember from my youth. They view their situation as normal and hopefully temporary. For many of them, it's better than their life before they arrived here, so they're not even dissatisfied.

The American "poor" I see now are inner-city, and they're unique in my lifetime. They're poor and likely to stay that way. I'm generalizing, but if we compare their possessions with those of my childhood, we'll see some very disturbing differences. We'll find TV's, stereo systems, cellphones, expensive clothing, and often pretty nice cars. How can someone with such possessions be considered poor? I think most of us understand what makes them poor, but many of us may be unwilling to admit it.

For these Americans, poor does not carry the traditional meaning. For many, it has become a permanent way of life, that is likely to continue for generations. They think they're likely to remain at that level, and they resent it. Despite resenting it, they don't make much effort at trying to raise their standard of living. They get by, make no progress, and as long as they can keep their possessions up to date, they seem willing to remain right where they are. Willing may be unfair... what I sense is more like a hopeless acceptance.

Loss of hope, and feeling that one is trapped in a stagnant existence is poor in every sense of the word. I haven't experienced it myself, but I've seen enough to know that it's also destructive as hell. Tomorrow, I want to examine why this caste of far-from-destitute but psychologically poor people has developed in our country.

Save the life of someone who deserves it

2009-02-01T11:07:00.003-05:00

updated and reprinted from September 10, 2006

I'm an organ donor. For most of my life I wasn't. Why, I reasoned, should I sign up to allow doctors to remove my organs and give them to some anonymous persons about whom I could never know anything? Suppose they were people I didn't like, or even might hate? Suppose they were people that, could I know, I would consider not deserving of my help. When I found out that about half of the people who receive donated organs weren't even donors themselves, I had no doubt that they didn't deserve my donated organs.

Imagine this scenario... not probable, but a completely plausible worst case. My daughter and I are in an auto accident together. I die in the hospital, but my daughter lives, and is in need of an organ transplant in order to survive. I've given permission to take my organs, and one of those organs is just what she needs for survival, but... my organs cannot go to my daughter... I've bequeathed them into the organ and tissue donation and transplantation system, which will decide who gets my organs. There are already people waiting for my organs... people on the list before my daughter. My organs will be removed and transported to strangers in other places... while my own daughter can, at best, go on the list and wait her turn. There are over ~~92,000~~ 100,000 people on that list. She could easily become one of the 19 people who die every day while waiting for a suitable donated organ.

I called that example an improbable worst case. Of course, it isn't terribly improbable. Most of us travel with our relatives in groups. My daughter and I recently drove together for 3 days straight. A bad accident wasn't that improbable. Considering that the trip could have included a couple of other people, the odds for my original "worst case" get even worse. My organs could have been denied to everyone else in my traveling group, and instead given to someone who would always be a stranger to us.

Doesn't make much sense, does it? I donate potentially life-saving organs at my death, but I have absolutely no control over who gets them. I can't even give certain people, such as my children, grandchildren, or other relatives first choice if they happen to need them at that time. I can't even prevent people not willing to be donors themselves from receiving my organs. Who would put together such a scheme? Guess.

The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN), is the unified transplant network established by the United States Congress under the National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA) of 1984 (the same bill that made it illegal to sell your organs or tissue) to be operated by a private, non-profit organization under federal contract.

The OPTN does do a lot of good, matching donated organs with recipients, but it has an ever-increasing shortage of donors. There is no database of donors, but it should be safe to assume that only 20% of Americans have chosen to be donors, since we know that only 20% of organ recipients are donors. A life-saving organ donation costs nothing of the donor or his/her family, and doesn't prevent an open-casket funeral, but still only 20% of us opt into the program.

Why? One reason may be ignorance or misunderstanding of organ donation. Another may be that we tend to think that bad things only happen to other people. I believe one major reason is that organ donation is so bureaucratically impersonal. You give, somebody receives (probably several people), but there is no connection between you the donor and the recipient(s). Frankly, it's just like every other government program... some give, some receive, but with no personal connection. Nobody to be pleased about helping, and nobody to thank.

There is a way to make organ donation more personal, more sensible... a way to insure at least that those who have pledged to donate their organs can jump to the top of the list... ahead of those who aren't donors. At least you can know that the needy recipient was willing to donate their own organs.

The organization is called LifeSharers, founded by one dedicated man, Dave Undis, with the idea that DONORS should get first chance at organs, ahead of those who haven't even bothered to become donors. That idea means that there is an advantage... an incentive, to become a donor. That idea should increase the number of donors, and it has.

When I first wrote about LifeSharers, and joined myself, in June of 2003, it was just a year old and had 795 members. As of August 31st, LifeSharers has 5,863 members. (As I write, membership is at 12,261) I suspect that a lot of those members were like me - non-donors until LifeSharers gave them the additional incentive of being able to help those that deserve it most.

As a member of LifeSharers, and a donor, my organs would first go to any other LifeSharers members in need of an organ. If no LifeSharers member needed my organs, then they would be made available to others. To date, no LifeSharers member has died in circumstances that would have permitted recovery of their organs. Could that be good karma at work?

LifeSharers growth is just by word of mouth, and we all need to pass that word. (If you're on Facebook, join there too) Sign up to be a LifeSharers donor (it's free), and encourage your family members to do the same. In 2005, 20,000 transplantable organs were buried or cremated, while over 6,000 people died waiting for organs.

That's just a waste, and it's so easily solved. Become a donor and join LifeSharers. Everything else you might want to know is on the website.

Yet another coronation

2009-01-20T09:59:00.002-05:00

Today, January 20th, will see one more celebratory insanity that is called inauguration. Many millions of taxpayer dollars will be squandered on a set of pompous, hyped events that are to celebrate a political victory. I wrote much the same just 4 years ago about W's REelection inauguration, titled A Great and Ugly Farce. Oh yes... that was a huge celebration as well, put on by the winners of that election, and turned into a magnificent occurrence by a fawning media and all those people who had invested in that candidate's victory, plus those who thought that joining in might benefit them over the next four years.

This inauguration is even more insane. First, our nation is suffering a recession that makes taxpayer-funded political celebration criminal. Rather than understand that two equally-guilty parties have put us in this mess, we have again bought a bill of goods... that only they can save us from ourselves. Obama, like all previous first-time Presidents, is the Messiah who can lead us down the primrose path.

Sure, this one is a bit different. He looks black, and is called black, as if that should be significant. While we all say that race shouldn't be significant, those most emphatic in claiming so are now obsessing on the fact that Obama will be our first "Black American" President. I'm curious... is it because he looks black, or because he's half white? His color makes no difference to me; if it does to you, isn't that an indication of racial bias? Voting for Obama because he's black was as insane, and irrelevant as voting for someone else because he was white. If being black, or calling oneself black, is significant, why did Obama choose an old white man as a running mate? If his election signals some sort of racial breakthrough, shouldn't he have chosen a black running mate, or at least a mixed-race person? The choice was his to make.

I voted for a white man (Bob Barr) but I voted for the principles he stood for. He could have been purple and it wouldn't have changed my vote. Obama promised CHANGE. He was, like most politicians, extremely vague about what change, but he promised it with great style and charm, and a toothy smile that is hypnotic. He gave none of us any clear reason to oppose him, because he said nothing to object to. His was the most controlled pablum of any politician I can remember.

I don't know what Obama will do in office, but I do understand what it took for him to get where he is now, and that in itself is extremely discouraging. Much of the path to higher office lies in doing exactly what is expected by your party and supporters. You don't get there by rocking the boat, and you don't get there by implementing CHANGE, unless change means "even more of the same". That's what I expect from President Obama... even more of the same policies that have driven this nation into dire economic straits and made us an enemy of most of the world.

As with all newly-elected politicians, Obama and his party will bombard us with incessant propaganda that the media will parrot with glee, with the result that, irregardless of what he does as President, those who supported him will be able to find a way to excuse the results. Others will be blamed... Bush, the Congress, trouble-makers from around the world, greedy corporations, etc.

What I worry about over the next few years is full-scale economic depression and what that would mean politically. Economically, the U.S. can recover if the government allows us to do so, but continued manipulation in the form of bail-outs, increased spending, inflationary policies, and continued war could drive us right into the tank. There is good reason to expect all that from Obama, with pretense that those are necessary stopgap measures. Politically, Obama is more like FDR than any previous President (the Lincoln comparison is completely off-the-wall) and FDR used the Depression to huge political advantage, rewriting common history in the process.

I hope I can look back in 4 years and accuse myself of having been cynical in what I wrote today. Only time will tell, but my advice to all those who are today yearning for Obama as Savior is... enjoy your blinded faith today; reality will resume tomorrow.

Political tinkering with the economy

2008-10-15T18:41:00.002-04:00

I recently listened to a group of reasonably intelligent people each insisting that the federal government must do something about the “health care crisis”. Uninsured people, expensive plans, and pre-existing conditions all were mentioned. In a nutshell, their consensus was that the problem is big, that people are being hurt, and that government can fix it if it has the will to do so. Oh… and that voting for a “progressive” is the answer to getting it fixed.

After listening patiently for a while, I added some comments designed to make them think again… little things like the fact that, in less than a lifetime, group health insurance came into being and has become the center of this huge issue., creating an enormous group of workers who fear loss of group insurance coverage so much that they’re willing to work decades in jobs they hate.

It amazes me when people take for granted that government can fix anything, and that it is just a matter of “making it so”, but what really disturbs me is that few people have any appreciation for the opposite alternative… the incredible efficacy of a free market. What is most disturbing is that there are so many examples around of how a complex system works with little or no control, and even work in spite of controls.

One example that a lot of us interact with on a daily basis is rush-hour traffic. It sure isn’t fun, but it works astoundingly well much of the time. It’s an example of thousands of individuals each doing their best to get to their unique destination in a minimal amount of time. None of those drivers cares one whit about anyone else but themselves, and their own trip, yet there is cooperation in spades. Each driver knows all too well that any obtuse action on their part can foul up the works, so they drive hard but carefully. They also come to assume, and depend on, that most other rush-hour drivers have a similar attitude. The group traveling a particular route becomes coordinated, with no communication, and no reason to coordinate other than a realization that doing so will benefit all of them.

Now, toss in an occasional driver who is not part of that normal rush hour… who is not part of the coordinated group… and they, first of all, stand out like a weed in flowers. If they’re good drivers, they may blend in quickly. If they’re not, they can cause all sorts of problems. One bad driver can cause miles of stop-and-go traffic behind them, and it can take a long time to smooth out again.

For 40 years or so, pundits have been predicting gridlock on our highways. No matter how many highways there are, they typically get busier and busier. What happens then is another example of an unregulated system. People start making different choices. The most impatient people will act first. They take shortcuts, alternate routes, start traveling at a slightly different time, or even move to avoid that trip altogether. As more and more people make that impatient choice, the system stops getting more congested, and might even improve a bit. Those who chose an alternative route will check back to see if they should return to their original route. A complex system composed of individual choices never reaches gridlock. Because of the freedom to choose, it is a self-regulating system. It’s a good example of thousands of individuals each working in their own self-interest with a result that looks like it was coordinated. We all need to learn to understand how that can be, and to marvel at it. We also need to understand that nobody can control such a system, and to try to force it to behave in a certain way is sure to make it worse.

Because government thinks that it can just “make it so”, it inevitably tinkers and cause unintended consequences. They try to force some kind of action. Trying to convince people to share rides by offering lanes only open to vehicles with more than one occupant is one example. Typically, the lanes are essentially wasted. So-called metering stoplights on entrance ramps are, I’m still convinced, do nothing but waste a lot of time and fuel.

Tinkering with our economy is very similar. Every action forced by government causes ripples that change the rules of the road for anyone who is part of the economy. A free economy… a free market system is much like rush-hour traffic. Everyone involved is operating in his or her own self-interest, yet such an economy works as if it had some imperial guiding hand. It is also marvelously and quickly self-correcting because each participant is getting constant feedback and making choices. Nobody can afford to make stupid choices for long, because they will suffer the natural consequences. Because it is free and unregulated, people are free to get extremely creative, and to take risks that others might think foolish. Because it is free, others are free to choose to compete in any area, and even to create new markets.

No, a free market is not perfect. Lots of mistakes are possible in such a complex system, and mistakes do affect others, but mistakes are corrected very quickly. A free market is constantly changing, as new participants enter, and new ideas are implemented. Consumer attitudes change often, and a free market quickly adapts. No need that could be a source of profit goes unfulfilled for long… unless there are forced restrictions to keep it from being filled.

No government, no matter how large or controlling, can “control” such a system. To even attempt to do so will first slow down the reaction time to changes. Every attempt to force some result will help some, harm others, and confuse the system. Every attempt to force some result will eliminate smaller participants… those who simply cannot comply and still make their small profit. As regulations and restrictions pile up, more and more participants fall out the bottom. It’s happened over and over, in industries where government has tried to control. Huge firms now dominate the health care industry because government tinkered and has made it increasingly difficult for individual doctors and small clinics and hospitals to cope with the complexity government strangled them with.

We have to learn to trust ourselves to work together in a free market, with no interference from government. That also means no “favors” from government… no bailouts, no subsidies, no business welfare, for those are all interference as well. People working together, with no control or incentive other than their own individual self-interests… it works. We do it all the time, but have little appreciation for how well it works. Government, on the other hand, cripples that free system constantly, forcing participants to work around the changes, and that causes everything
bought or sold to go up in price.

We have to learn to accept the simple fact that government tinkering, no matter how minor, is destructive. We can only imagine how destructive a trillion-dollar financial bailout will be, but I suspect we won’t have long to wonder. Meanwhile, we listen to major-party candidates promising how they will "change things" and solve problems. We need to understand that the winner will have the power to interfere in huge ways, but will not be able to solve anything... only make it worse in the long run. We've watched it happen for several lifetimes. Unless we wise up, we'll watch it once again.

We've had our chance, and muffed it

2008-10-06T12:37:00.002-04:00

For 10+ years, I've done what I could to wake up the American people, and so have a huge number of other writers and activists. We've warned that government was becoming far too intrusive and controlling, and that all those values Americans have traditionally held in high esteem were being beaten into the ground. We've warned that Republican and Democratic politicians take no responsibility for the decline, because they're concerned only with getting elected and re-elected, and with grabbing personal wealth and power while they have the chance.

A great many Americans have come to realize that what we've said is indeed true. Ten years ago, when I said I was a Libertarian, I got a lot of blank stares in response. That almost never happens any longer, and those I speak to seem to have a decent idea what "libertarian" means. That is as far as it goes. Progress, but not enough to make a difference.

When I say we've muffed our chance, I'm not referring to those who have been sounding alarms for many years, but instead to our listeners and readers... the bulk of the American public.

I've come to think of the American voting public as having the same mentality as a woman emotionally caught up in the role of "the other woman"... and I've known many of them. Americans tenaciously grasp onto the idea that politicians really mean what they say, and will do whatever it takes to create a happy ending. Like the married man, politicians may even mean what they say, but when push comes to shove, they are not going to bust up or even diminish what they've spent years establishing. The married man is not likely to dump his family, even for love, and the politician is not likely to do anything to jeopardize his family... the party that got him elected and holds the key to his reelection.

Both cases are a matter of vague promises, heard with hope and believed because to disbelieve is painful. The political "affair" is complicated by changing the man making the promises, which makes breaking the trap even more difficult. It's easy to believe that this one may be different. The new guy hasn't lied to me yet, but he's hitting all the same hot buttons.

The American voters have muffed their chance. Libertarians have worked very hard to give the voters a choice for 35 years, and have largely been ignored at the polls. Truth can be a hard sell when lies are so readily believed.

I used to ask people that if they had an election choice between Stalin and Hitler and some other candidate, would they still choose between the two powerful candidates. That often gets a chuckle, but the fact is that most people would choose Stalin to keep Hitler out, or vice versa, depending on whom they thought was the lesser of the two evils.

That's what American voters are like these days... they talk a lot, but most of the talk is to justify to themselves and others the bad choice they intend to make. Americans have become gullible, placid, take-it-in-the-shorts suckers. I'm now convinced that will not change. Americans of the past, with far less money, free time, and access to information, had far more guts and interest in elections. We've muffed it completely, and we deserve what is coming.

Property taxes have got to go

2008-08-26T18:49:00.002-04:00

The idea of taxing property based on it's market value no doubt once seemed like a "fair" solution, at least fair to those who believe that those who can afford it should pay more in taxes. Property taxes are a form of progressive taxation. Of course, progressive taxation is really an implementation of the Marxist tenet "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". Although such redistribution of wealth has never been successful, and has dragged down numerous societies, the "economic equality" myth persists and is perpetrated in our tax systems.

The primary reason forced redistribution doesn't work is that it benefits the incapable or lazy at the expense of the capable or hard-working. It rewards sloth and handicaps ambition. Those looking for benefit without earning it love the system and learn to "work it" to the max, and those who believed in working for what they get eventually become discouraged and reduce their effort. Enough harshly-enforced redistribution may indeed result in economic equalization, but at a much lower level, and, if it continues unchanged, it will eventually stagnate the whole economy.

Wherever progressive taxation is used, government has to simply waste a lot of the extracted monies in deciding how much should be taken from each taxpayer, and then in collecting and enforcing their decisions. Property taxation is no exception. In order to levy property taxes based on market values, the government uses an assessment process, triggered by building permits, to make sure that any improvements that are made to property are included to raise the valuation and assessment, and to establish a starting value on new constructions. Since assessment is a judgment call, they usually have to provide a means for property-owners to challenge their assessed value, and then presumably re-assess their assessment.

In addition to the normal challenge process, Minneapolis, for example, faces about 300 court cases/year based on challenges to the assessment. Most challenges want the assessment lowered, but, in this government-induced madness of a housing market, some actually want their assessment raised, in case they want to sell or increase the size of their mortgage. The shift away from rental property to condominiums has complicated the assessment process too, as each individual condo unit must be assessed individually, during construction and after they're finished. All told, the Minneapolis Assessor's annual budget is $3.8 million for a staff of 3 dozen. Since the housing bubble finally busted, and foreclosures and boarded houses are becoming common, the value of other properties around such failures is being depressed and triggering a new wave of assessments.

Unintended Consequence - Eminent Domain

Because government takes in more money if property values are higher, some perverse incentives are created. The monstrous abuse of eminent domain proceedings stems directly from property taxation based on value. Cities discovered that they could raise their revenue by declaring areas as "blighted", forcing the owners to sell, then do some "economic development" by arranging for higher-valued structures on the vacant properties. Single family homes have been destroyed and then replaced by large condos, big-box stores, malls, or mixed-use developments, which produce higher property tax revenue. Of course, doing economic development has resulted in much larger, more expensive government too.

Unintended Consequence - Loss of affordable housing

With governments pushing to increase the value of the properties within their jurisdiction, they have come to think of those properties not as properties owned by individual citizens, but as part of the city's "housing stock"... the inventory of houses the city has 'at their disposal'. As a result, there has been a continual effort to increase the cost of such housing, through zoning, and building regulations. Building regulations force the cost of a new home up 25-30%, beyond that which most buyers would choose. Even under pressure to allow in some formally affordable housing, most suburbs have fought it hard, because they want higher revenue, and because they do not want poorer citizens. City governments, especially suburbs, have twisted the idea of value-based property taxes into the support of monolithic, luxurious and virtually "gated" communities.

Unintended Consequence - Loss of liberty

Property tax has been described as 'paying rent to the government on property you own", and it feels like that. The city would point out all the services the city provides with revenue from property taxes. Education, police services, fire services, street maintenance, parks, programs, etc. In a modern city, the number of "services" on that list can seem endless. Are those services worth what you pay in property taxes? Ah, there's the rub... nobody asked you if you wanted those services or not.

Liberty is the right to say NO... I don't want to do that... I don't want to buy that... but cities don't give us those choices. They do what they choose and the charge us for it, through property taxation. They add programs or services, which require more city employees, facilities, and resources, and simply raise taxes to support it. With such contunial "upgrading", they need new government quarters. City halls were once modest little buildings; no longer... some suburban city halls now resemble office complexes, and may include a theatre, or even a health club, paid for by all residents, whether they want them or use them.

The overall effect of market-value-based property taxes is the widening of the gap between "haves" and "have-nots". It's a divisive effect that drives a wedge between those of differing income levels. It causes enormous waste. Houses are torn down before they need be, sometimes by eminent domain force, sometimes by driving the old owners out when they can't make property tax payments. When those old owners leave, those with money are likely to grab the property and build a new structure. Naturally, city governments love that result, since it "upgrades" their citizenry a bit and produces more tax revenue. Property tax creates strong incentives for cities to ignore and even harrass those with older property... to simply drive them out.

The other side of property tax evils are the building codes that, in the name of safety, drive up the cost of new construction and of improvements and repairs. The dirty downside of building codes is that it forces poorer citizens to forego repairs and improvements, or to try to make the changes themselves. Either "solution" reduces safety. People naturally find ways to get around the artificially high costs of housing, but when minimum standards are as locked in as city governments make them, low-income residents have to resort to breaking the law. A common way is by overcrowding a residence. Most governments have limits on the number of residents, especially in rental properties. Sometimes it is done behind the landlord's back, but some landlords will give in and allow overcrowding, but everyone does so at their own risk; not just increased safety risk, but risk of being caught. Overcrowding is the ONLY way some people can afford to live, short of living on the street. On occasion, it backfires dramatically, and the wrong people get blamed.

Taxation is force... it is theft, because the person being taxed has no choice. We all have many choices concerning what products and services we buy, but we don't get choices from government. We're forced to buy, even if we don't want the services or can't afford them. Government offers us ever-escalating costs with no chance to say No. It isn't right and it doesn't have to be that way. We wouldn't put up with it from any private business.

Protecting the visually-impaired from the rest of us

2008-08-20T16:41:00.002-04:00

I suppose somebody has to be the political "test kitchen", trying out new legislative recipes, and the California legislature seems to be determined to be the Betty Crocker of political ideas. Often though, they're more Crock than Crocker. Now the CA legislature has decreed that hybrid vehicles must make noise so that visually impaired people won't walk into them, and has created a committee to study the problem. Whatever "solution" they recommend, be prepared for national standards to make it mandatory nationwide. Even if that doesn't happen, auto makers generally cowtow to CA standards and inflict them on everyone for simplicity sake.

This idea belongs in the crock with the loud backup beepers required on commercial vehicles. The backup beepers are required on vehicles that are normally quite noisy. It's obviously not just the blind who are in danger. Clearly, we are all too stupid to avoid moving objects, and need to be protected.

I suspect most of us have been almost run down by a bicyclist, or a runner. If Segways gain in popularity, they too will be a threat. Police forces are adopting them, which makes them a compound threat. How about kids running free, skateboards, rollerbladers, or even the ever-increasing number of powered wheelchairs and scooters. Personally, I would like to include baby strollers, which, in a crowd, can reach your legs a full 4 feet before the adult pushing it. They're really like turning your kid into a snow plow, aren't they? Can you imagine what it must be like for a little kid in a stroller at, for example, the State Fair?

Clearly, we cannot have all of these stealthy moving objects endangering us. Surely it's only a matter of time before all objects moving at, say, greater than 2 mph, will have to make some sort of recognizable warning that they're approaching us.

Can you hear the babel of all those now-silent moving objects warning of their presence?

I think this California problem can be nipped in the bud. There are about 600,000 blind or visually-impaired folks in CA. For every one of them there are 59 sighted Californians. Why make a change that will negatively impact 59 to help 1? Why not make a change at the relatively small source of the problem?

I propose the creation of a protective device for blind people... perhaps a sort of exoskeleton they can don when out navigating the hubub of human and vehicular traffic. It would provide protection from a great variety of dangers they face regularly. I can only try to imagine what being blind must be like, and I keep coming up with FEAR of all those things I can't see coming. Many animals have developed exoskeletons to protect themselves... crustaceans, turtles, insects, to name a few. It's a sensible adaptation when a creature composed of soft tissue has to face a world inhabited by danger. A blind human moving in an urban area certainly fits that criteria.

California has more than its share of far-out designers who could surely create exoskeletons that would not only be protective but have many other advantages as well, such as interfacing the many electronic devices modern folk carry, or foiling police facial recognition software. They could certainly become fashionable. They could provide secure storage. It's possible that they could be equipped with radar-type sensors that would warn when solid objects are approaching. I doubt that only blind people would be attracted to them.

Government naturally tends to produce brute-force, one-size-fits-all "solutions" to anything perceived by anyone as a problem. When they do that, they drive up the cost of products we use, and inconvenience everyone to protect a few. Child-proofing continues unabated. I mistakenly bought some bottled water with caps that cannot be removed... you can only squirt the water in your mouth. Caps might be swallowed by children (as might anything else in sight). Cigarette lighters are child-proofed so we don't have to teach kids not to mess with them. Medicine bottles are child-proofed to the extent that elderly people can't get them open either, then skip their medication or pry them open with dangerous knives or other tools.

When government tries to force safety on us, they fail; they inevitably make life even riskier for poor people who can't afford the added cost of the new dictated protective measures. There are innumerable examples of people injured and killed by using old, worn-out devices because the newer, safer ones are just too expensive.

There is no way we can remove risk from living... no way at all, but the best way for all of us to live safe lives is to allow the market to produce solutions at all levels... from extremely safe to risky, and let the consumers choose their own level of protection.

Socialism campaigning in disguise

2008-08-03T12:41:00.004-04:00

It was just a quiet knock on the door. I opened it to see a lovely young woman in a bright red t-shirt with WORKING AMERICA across the front. She was carrying a clipboard, gathering signatures, and quickly rattled off some meaningless phrases about affordable health care. I didn’t ask her how she got into our security building. I quickly learned that WORKING AMERICA is affiliated with the AFL-CIO, but I was unable to learn anything more than they wanted my signature and mailing information, and that it was, of course, to benefit all of us. She did make it clear that it wasn’t part of the AFL-CIO, but was just "affiliated". I declined signing without more information, so the young woman gave me some printed material that pointed me to their website.

WORKING AMERICA, self-described as a community affiliate of the AFL-CIO, has a subtitle of Building a Better Future for Working Families. Their BIG BULLET POINTS are GOOD JOBS, HEALTH CARE, RETIREMENT, and EDUCATION.

Well… who doesn’t want those things? Naturally, I wondered “how can WORKING AMERICA, maybe with my help, produce those good results? ” OK, I didn’t really wonder that, but that’s what I was supposed to be wondering. I know too much about the history of the AFL-CIO to be that naïve. I was justifiably suspicious.

Certainly, my participation in WORKING AMERICA would be accepted, even though I’m not working, have never belonged to a union, and have never been considered a “working man”. I’ve always worked as a “professional” and the only time I’ve ever even been approached by the idea of unionizing was by some total idiot that thought that free-lance illustrators should unionize. I suspect that if I had always lived off welfare, or even listed my occupation as "thief", my participation would still be welcome.

Of course, Americans already have GOOD JOBS, HEALTH CARE, RETIREMENT, and EDUCATION, so WORKING AMERICA must be looking to produce better jobs, cheaper health care, longer retirement, and better education. No problem there, I’m as greedy as anyone else… I want more of everything. Maybe WORKING AMERICA has some big answers to contribute?

Well… it quickly becomes apparent from the website, once one digs through the meaningless pablum, that WORKING AMERICA wants all of these improvements from government… more and better government is their answer. In fact, socialism is what they strive for. They want all-of-us to help all-of-us with government as the go-between and enforcer. Naturally, GOOD JOBS is first on their list, because unions want to be seen as being in “the jobs business”.

Unions have lost most of their influence in the U.S., thanks to their internal corruptions and unreasonable demands, and the AFL-CIO has been among the biggest and baddest. So, they’re making another side run, through WORKING AMERICA.

Their huge website is a masterpiece of deception and political finagling. In one massive deceptive move, they point out, with charts, that American productivity has risen steadily and much faster than wages. The conclusion we’re expected and coaxed into reaching is that BIG BUSINESS is ripping off workers, who are working harder and better than ever, and not being paid enough.

How many people will question the “productivity” graph? How many will assume, as the website hopes, that it means each worker is just doing a much better job, or is working his hands to the bones to produce more? In general, productivity indicates how much is being produced. Labor done by humans is only part of productivity. There are a thousands ways a business can increase productivity, and most of them have little to do with the effort or skill of workers. Increasing productivity is what businesses always strive for… doing more with less. Less productivity means failure soon… which also means loss of jobs, doesn’t it? I'm not belittling the effort workers put into their work, but the environment they work in and the tools they use have a lot more to do with productivity than does their effort. I doubt that any worker would claim that he or she works harder than their grandparents did. Unions have long viewed business as their opponents, and so many times have pushed that opposition to the point of actually destroying a business... and the jobs.

Take a look at the WORKING AMERICA website political section and it will be abundantly clear that it is a thinly disguised political website… showing what they like about Obama and what they hate about McCain. It’s as one-sided as if the Democratic National Committee had created it. [Interestingly, since I first looked at the WORKING AMERICA website, the political sections have been removed... now no mention of either Obama or McCain. Believe me, that was a major revision!]

The AFL-CIO seeks to renew its former power and influence, while refusing to admit that one of the reasons it lost it is that it did not represent the political views of its members. It has always sought to increase its own organizational power through government, by means of force, and WORKING AMERICA is not new… just a sort of sidestep to try to sneak up on people wearing a lovely mask in a red t-shirt.

A free-market lesson from the art world

2008-07-21T23:39:00.000-04:00

All my life, I've loved the arts. As a child, I drew incessantly. Eventually I put myself into a well-respected college arts program. There began my disillusionment with fine arts as we know it. My painting professor won a significant award for his solid black oil painting. Comparing such "art", and so many other "modern" works, with paintings of the "masters", I could find no similarity, no comparable level of skill or talent, no similarity of effort, and no similarity of thought. I read commentary by others who claimed to find great significance in such works; commentary that employed a whole other language because their intent was to impress rather than communicate. Being able to praise modern art while really communicating nothing became a skill that was needed just to become part of that modern art fraternity. Once established, artists found they could produce almost anything and be praised by those who spoke the language. It progressed to the point that the more vapid the work was, the more praise it elicited, because it challenged the writer to new esoteric levels. Non-art became art.

Irregardless of my opinions, we are free to like or dislike as we choose. I have no problem with those who can convince others into paying outrageous prices for "art" that might have been produced by a chimpanzee. I have no problem with those who buy and resell such works at even higher prices. I just choose to not be part of that world.

What I do have a problem with, though, is the role governments have played in the art world. Government support of "the arts" has caused severe distortions. Government loves to produce showcases... big impressive buildings. Consider the similarity between the architectural projects of Hitler's Third Reich and today's government subsidized buildings, or governments' own buildings. They are meant to impress... to overwhelm visitors... to make the visitor feel like a serf permitted to visit the Lord's castle.

Understand that almost everything in a museum was produced by individuals, and the presumed intent of an artist is to communicate something to other individuals. When government plays a role in a museum, though, that communication is actually stifled by the vastness of presentation. Works of art become small examples of ART for the masses... a gigantic smorgasbord to be nibbled at until one is tired. Such venues overpower efforts to enjoy individual works of art. The museums are impressive, but what's in them becomes subjugated to and overwhelmed by the scale and emotional coldness of the buildings.

Less than a mile from here is an art museum very different from the several huge museums our city is known for. It's small, housed in what was once a modest church. Its annual budget is small by comparison with the competition. It is a private museum, receiving no government subsidization. The museum staff must raise money in order to stay in business. It relies heavily on volunteer help, and I am happy to be one of those volunteers.

This museum, The Museum of Russian Art is a striking example of the value of being constrained by earning ones own way, rather than feeding at the public tax-money trough. To those who have visited TMORA, it is considered a "gem" of a museum, and an experience that makes people realize what viewing art should be like. The scale of the building makes the art become part of a personal experience; it's human-scale, not monument-scale. The limited space means that visitors have time to savor each work of art. One is not in any way overwhelmed. The individual experience of a visitor is quite different from visiting a large museum. I delight in working at the reception desk because visitors stop on the way out to tell us how much they enjoyed the experience. Coming from laid-back Midwesterners, such volunteered praise is most notable. It's also not unusual for visitors to volunteer how much more they enjoyed it than they have the larger museums. TMORA's reputation has spread quickly, by word of mouth. A recent exhibit was named best of the year in the Twin Cities, beating out several big-name exhibits that had expensive marketing campaigns.

TMORA has to be financially sound. Expenditures are not made lightly, and staff members work hard to be creative and frugal. There is an excitement, though, that one will not find in the better-endowed museums... an excitement about the art itself, because the art itself is the center of attention, and every person, visitor, staff member, or volunteer becomes personally involved in the art.

Simply put, TMORA is what an art museum should be, and it is that way because it stands alone and self-supporting, undistorted by government involvement. It has to be good, and that's an incentive that government support often destroys.

A Real Choice

2008-07-03T19:45:00.002-04:00

Well, America... here's another great opportunity to put your money where your mouth is.

According to polls and to those I talk with, we are all FED UP with our government and equally FED UP with McCain and Obama as candidates for the parties that not only got us into this mess, but who intend to KEEP US THERE.

How long are we going to put up with it? How long are we going to be suckered into choosing between whatever abominable programs the R's and D's offer us? How long are we going to settle for the LESSER OF TWO EVILS?

It's within our power to put an end to this insanity. Libertarians all over the country are already working to give you another choice on your ballot, but we cannot do it without your participation.

Are our children and grandchildren going to look back in anger and wonder how we could have been so dissatisfied and not done anything about it?

Be careful who you help

2008-06-06T07:45:00.000-04:00

I saved the article almost a month ago, and, even though it concerned just one man being fined by his government, I just couldn’t get the story out of my craw. It angered me when I read it, and it angers me still. I’m aware that there are thousands of instances every day of citizens being “tagged” by silly government laws, regulations, codes, and ordnances, but this one stands out.

The story concerns “Miami-Dade County's Consumer Services Department”. Consumer Services sounds like a group that might make life easier or safer, doesn’t it? Well, anything but.

Take a quick read of the short article.

So… a man goes to the grocery store, minding his own business, and is approached by a woman asking if he could give her a ride home. She asks if he “does a service”, and he says he doesn’t. She persists. He agrees to give her a ride if she’s still there when he’s ready to leave after shopping. She was waiting, so he gave her a ride as he promised.

She offered to give him some money, and tried to get him to name a price. He said “Anything you give me”.

Is there anything about that story to indicate that the 78-year-old man wanted to haul that woman for pay? He tried to avoid it, and then gave in to her insistence. Yet, the undercover operative charged the man for running an illegal taxi service. His vehicle was impounded and fines of $2,000 were levied on him.

It seems clear that this man did nothing that most of us would consider wrong in any way; quite the opposite, he was being a good, somewhat reluctant, Samaritan.

I understand why taxi companies push for licensing of operators. It’s a way for them to force all of us to use their services whenever we need a ride, and to prevent new competitors from entering the business. Taxi companies can wish and push all they want, with little effect, until they convince government officials to enforce their wishes. Once they convince government to license taxi operators, unlicensed operators naturally become illegal. As it develops in most cities, the government gets revenue from license sales, which are usually limited in numbers, which drives up the cost of licenses, often to many thousands of dollars, which results in fewer taxis, high prices, and poorer service. When the government then takes the step of stopping unlicensed taxi operators, they financially handicap all of us, but when they “go the extra mile” as in this Florida case, and entrap innocent citizens just giving a ride as a favor, they take the damage to a whole new level.

This is government at its worst, and an illustration of why government power of any kind always has bad consequences. Those who first implemented taxi licensing no doubt claimed that they were protecting consumers from fraudulent or unsafe taxi operators. Once licensing is in place, enforcement is required. To not enforce it puts government employees at risk of not doing their job, so they “put some teeth” into enforcement. I have no doubt that the undercover consumer services employee in this case was just “doing her job”, which was to be suspicious of anyone who might be running an illegal taxi service. It’s a small step from finding someone “guilty” to luring someone into “becoming guilty”. It’s a natural result of government having the power to license, which is essentially the power to decide who can do what under which circumstances.

Although I despise the undercover agent’s entrapment of the man, I am disturbed about what that single event could mean to the rest of us. I enjoy helping others. In most cases, the cost to me is minor, but my help can be quite significant. We all have times in which a small helping hand from someone can make a big difference, and hitching a ride with someone is one of the most common. We all recognize that having a car, maintaining it, insuring it, licensing it, and taking the risk of driving is a not-insignificant expense. When we pool rides, we trade off. When we share a ride with someone, we typically pay for the convenience by covering parking, buying gas, or even contributing a few dollars. In those cases where we don’t, we normally remember that we owe that driver a free ride next time.

I doubt that the man entrapped by the undercover “consumer services” operative is likely to ever give a ride to anyone again. Anyone who knows of his story may reach the same conclusion. The fact that doing such a small favor can have such destructive results will naturally lead people to not take the chance. Whenever one of those people refuses to help in a similar situation, the person being refused will naturally be confused and disgusted… and may well conclude that people just aren’t as helpful as they once were. Being refused a small assist is likely to change their own attitude about helping others, and that attitude can gradually, silently snowball.

That action taken to stop “illegal taxi services” is an alienation of an important aspect of society – helping each other. It tends to drive us apart, to make each of us feel like we’re “in it alone”, and to create suspicion of each other.

Government power is the power to choose to favor someone and penalize someone else. Economically, licensing is anti-competitive, creating one group with privilege they buy, at the expense of everyone else. The state of Minnesota is so into licensing that they've pulled together a website called License Minnesota. From this site you can access licensing information on over 500 licenses administered by over 40 state agencies. It displays the many kinds of work you cannot legally do without first jumping through hoops and paying to become one of the privileged.

The false gods of politics

2008-05-17T10:44:00.000-04:00

reprinted from December 19, 2003

It's an idea that is so very mistaken, yet is widely prevalent. So many Americans seem to believe that because the Republican and Democratic parties are powerful, that their candidates are knowledgeable and wise, and will serve honorably. Their candidates are usually attractive, polished, and skilled at presenting themselves to the public. Their candidates have often held a series of lower-level elected offices. To the voting public, they can really look like elite citizens. They look good, they sound good, and they seem qualified... at least from a shallow look.

Another way to view R & D candidates is that they are chosen and groomed specifically to become politicians. Most have been active in their party for years, working their way up the ladder, paying the price to gain the endorsements and the money needed to seek ever-higher office.

That still doesn't sound so bad, does it?
Isn't that a good way to create government officials?

What that system actually creates is a special class of people, career politicians... individuals who are capable of being elected, over and over again, to a series of offices. When such an individual has risen as high as is likely, they're expected to retain that position as long as possible.

Still doesn't sound bad?

The original expectation of the founders of our nation was that elected officials would be "citizen legislators", not career politicians. To them, the idea of someone making a career of politics would have been repulsive, because they understood that leaders must first be citizens, meaning that they must have real connections to the citizenry. They would have been suspicious of any man who actively sought to abandon "normal" life and stay in office for an extended time.

They understood what should be obvious to all of us... that a leader must have been, and must remain, one of the people. In order to effectively represent us, a leader should understand the problems, and hopes of "ordinary" people. If they don't, they will continually produce legislation without really understanding the impact it will have on the people they represent. How can they represent people they don't understand? They can't.

Our two large political parties have subverted those ideas, substituting for the citizen legislator with the slick professional career politician or the rich, connected individual. We have the common spectacle of legislators who have never held any non-political position... have never had a job, never been laid off, never been financially strapped. Their career is politics.

We have the bizarre condition represented by Bill Clinton, George Bush, Al Gore, and thousands more in national and state politics who have never had any of the experiences that most of us share. Here in Minnesota, we have Senator Mark Dayton, whose claim to fame is inherited wealth, $8 million of which he spent to get elected. What do such people know about the people they supposedly represent? Virtually nothing.

We've been sold the idea that elected offices are some sort of specialized positions that require having political experience. It's certainly true that a novice elected to a state legislature or to Congress will have an enormous learning experience. Unfortunately, what he or she will be learning is "politics"... trying to make sense out of the intricate political complexity... learning to understand that what is said is not what is meant... and learning how rhetoric disguises motive. If that novice is an R or D, they will discover, if they weren't already aware, that their first loyalty is to their party, not to their constituents.

The two major parties have so much control, so much power, and so much money at their disposal, that they can quickly twist a newly elected official into a pretzel and literally force voting along party lines. After all, politics is about getting elected and then re-elected. A legislator who wants to vote against his party's preference knows that he may well lose the support of that party for the next election. He also knows that loyal party members are not likely to support any legislation he introduces. The pressure to "fall in line" is great.

The rewards are also high for career politicians. They've voted a great set of jobs for themselves and those who will follow in their path. They'll become very well known, make valuable connections, be fawned over, and draw truly luxurious retirement benefits. Even after retirement, their name recognition and political credentials will give them access to still more money by selling their name in support to organizations, large honorariums as speakers, or using their specialized insider political know-how as lobbyists. Career politicians have, at our expense, created a great demand for more career politicians... from the major parties only.

The power of elected officials, and the fawning respect they receive because of position and power does indeed corrupt... it twists minds. Becoming accustomed to cutting deals and trading votes removes politicians from the world the rest of us live in, and they can quickly come to represent groups that lobby with the most force, ignoring the rest of us.

Big-party politicians do not think of us as individuals... they think in terms of groups... in abstract terms. Thus, they seem to have no regard at all for how their legislation affects individuals. They deal in generalities and in mass popularity, writing legislation that will destroy some people's lives in order to try to benefit others. They cater to majorities, at the expense of minority groups, with little regard to whether their legislation is good or bad, helpful or harmful, right or wrong, moral or immoral, constitutional or not. They write legislation they know is unconstitutional... no, they're not ignorant of the Constitution; it's just too binding for their needs, so they ignore it.

You know who takes a beating from such politicians, don't you? Those of us who are not represented by power groups. All the groups who lobby Congress each take a bite out of you and me... and they don't care. They're representing their constituents. Problem is... our elected officials are supposed to represent all of us, and they don't even come close.

One disastrous result of our pandering legislatures is that, by favoring some at the expense of others, they DIVIDE us... they turn groups of citizens into adversaries... competitors for favoritism. When one group receives favored treatment, opposition groups must come back and try to re-level their playing field. Truly enormous amounts of money are wasted trying to influence politicians; money that could be put to far better uses, but we're trapped into contending for their influence... and they play it to their maximum advantage, bartering their support for votes and contributions.

Our government has been building its own power over us, through corrupted partisan politics. Our nation was founded with a Constitution designed specifically to limit the power of government... to charge it with only a few, limited responsibilities, so that power brokering would never be a possibility. That intent has been completely subverted.

When was the last time you heard a politician say that some task was not the responsibility of government... or say that government should keep its nose out of that issue? On the contrary, politicians instead like to assume that they have jurisdiction over everything. They like to delude themselves that they can control our economy, that they can influence our habits, control our thinking and our actions, and even dictate our morality. There is literally no escape from them.

If we allow politicians to continue to dictate every aspect of our lives, we will soon have a totalitarian government. With over 2 million people in prison, police that resemble storm troopers more each year, crippling taxation, massive debt, and constant military intervention around the globe, we are not that far from it now. Our representatives are squeezing our economic health and our civil liberties more each day.

There is only ONE reason they can do that... because we continue to fall for their lies and tricks during each election. We continue to send back incumbents, and elect still more R's and D's, who then assume that they have carte blanche for more years of even more disastrous results. Until we all stand up and prove that we're not going to be suckered any longer, our nation will continue to degrade and decay. Will 2004 be the year the U.S. voters fight back? I can only hope... it's up to each of us to take a stand.

Smoking is important?

2008-05-02T10:38:00.000-04:00

Recently, I was a bit taken aback when someone commented to me that smoking seemed really important to me. The comment was from someone who would much rather pretend that smoking doesn't exist, or at least wouldn't invade her life. Later, it occurred to me that it's actually an interesting question; smoking is important to me. It wasn't always. Most of my adult life, smoking was of little significance... just one of life's little personal habits, like eating, drinking, driving, etc. What has changed is that smoking has been made important by others, those who propel, profit from, and buy into the unending anti-smoking campaign.

When smoking was a minor expense, and I could do it almost anywhere, it wasn't "important"... no more than one small and routine part of daily life. Now that I have to always be aware of where I cannot smoke, and the price of cigarette taxes has pushed me into making my own, it has become more important. Being confronted with continual lies and deception about smoking, smokers, and the supposed damage we're doing to all parts of society also makes the issue of smoking more important.

I've watched, and smoked, as many of the people around me have become less healthy and robust over time, fraught with allergies and overweight. I've watched, and smoked, as the War against Smoking has turned many people into judgmental, self-righteous, politically correct and outspoken bigots of personal behavior. It has made it acceptable to discriminate against others in ways that would never be acceptable if applied to any other human behavior. "No Negroes allowed" became "No Smoking allowed". Poll taxes went away and exorbitant cigarette taxes came into play. The discrimination and persecution allowed against smoking is morphing into other areas as well, like anything remotely associated with "the environment".

The success of the War against Smoking has taught us all that, unless we wish to be harassed and shunned, we had better conform to societal standards, and power-seeking governments are all too glad to enforce, and tax, to those standards. Millions of small businesses are now even more under the thumb of government, required to conform in new ways. Private clubs must comply, even when their management and members don't want to. Anti-smokers were not satisfied with having the choice of going to non-smoking or smoking-allowed businesses... they wanted to force their preference on everyone... and they largely have.

Yes, smoking has become important to me, out of necessity. I must admit to some little pride in refusing to just cave in to the pressures of a completely unscientific campaign of fear and deception. The War against Smoking has cost all of us a lot in lost freedom and is serving as a model for fanatics to inflict their ideas in many other areas.

Still, I find it quite ironic that those who rattle on about smoking being unhealthy, and of public smoking being a gross violation of "public health" often have personal habits that I know to be far unhealthier than smoking. American's obsession with eating has long baffled me. It has become, like not smoking, an ingrained obsession, to the point where not conversing about what you ate or where you ate it, or who you ate it with just leaves me out of a lot of conversations. I've taken to watching the Food Channel so that I at least know some of the terminology that others are obsessing about.

Eating is a necessity, but most Americans eat far more than they need, and they spend an exorbitant amount of time and money doing it. Cooking for an hour to eat for half an hour and to then spend another half an hour cleaning up has never made sense to me, and doing it several times a day makes it seem even sillier. Cooking shows abound, cooking books proliferate, and people pass recipes and restaurant tips continually. There is even competition, often quite serious, among eaters... who has been to the newest restaurant, who has tried the latest food fad... who has had food from countries most people couldn't locate on a globe or otherwise give a whit about. Everyone seems to have a favorite food they just "can't live without". It really goes on and on.

I know... you're responding that you enjoy it, and it's an activity that people gather to enjoy together.

Guess what... the same is true of smoking. Smokers enjoy smoking. They get pleasure from it, and smokers do still gather to enjoy it together, when they have a chance. It's a mild habit compared to the food obsession most Americans have.

Miniscule monarchs of Metropolitan mortals

2008-04-19T11:05:00.000-04:00

What conclusion should one draw from the fact that a major city is doing something that 90.34% of their citizens oppose? That percentage is from the St. Paul Pioneer Press poll, and the question is:

Should St. Paul relax its on-site CPR rules to allow small fitness centers like Anytime Fitness and Snap 24-7 Fitness to stay open around the clock?

That a public poll on any question can reach 90% should tell us that the question is a total head-slapper... so obvious that the question shouldn't even be needed.

St. Paul has an ordinance requiring fitness clubs to have a CPR-trained person "on duty" at all times, which they interpret as on the premises. The ordinance is a 1980's ordinance aimed at sex clubs, now being applied to fitness centers having nothing to do with sex (unless you consider sweat and bouncing flesh as sexy). The original ordinance was of course not concerned with public health but with harassing and hoping to eliminate sex clubs.

The whole point of fitness centers like Anytime and Snap is open hours and lower price. I've been working out at a Snap center for about a year, and it isn't unusual for me to be there alone, because I can and do choose my workout times to avoid crowds. Certainly, the thought has occurred to me that my strenuous activity could lead to a medical problem, but that thought occurs to me at home too, and I'm alone there much more. In fact, I started working out because I had a mini-stroke at home alone, and had to drive myself to the hospital.

The city issued a $500 fine against two fitness centers and when they were taken to court, Minnesota Administrative Law Judge Beverly Jones Heydinger, astonishingly to me, sided with the city.

In what fantasy world are these people living? Are they even cognizant of the idea of individual freedom? Customers of these fitness centers know before they sign up that there will be no attendant on duty. For some customers, that is precisely why they signed up. They want to work out alone, or at least in an uncrowded gym, for various reasons. One nationally known bodybuilder, who would be welcomed at any gym, chose a small 24/7 fitness center precisely because he wouldn't be bothered there by adoring fans. Others make the same choice because they don't want to display their current physical condition to others (solving the old dilemma of having to get in good shape before appearing at a busy "public" gym).

I've been impressed by the obese people working hard in a quiet gym, and I understand that they wouldn't be caught dead in a big gym. For them, the quiet little fitness center may be the difference between exercise and no exercise, between life and death. They should have that right... the freedom to make that choice when it is available.

As I've pointed out many times, laws, ordinances, and regulations almost always impact the poorer members of society more, and this is but one more proof. If CPR-trained attendants are required at these smaller fitness centers, their costs will go up substantially, driving the poorer of their customers back home without convenient, affordable exercise.

Not surprisingly, St. Paul City Council Member Dave Thune is one of those defending the ordinance. Thune is St. Paul's resident nanny... he simply knows what is better for each of us than we do. Thune said. "If they want to fight on this thing, I will get neighborhood groups and district councils who have suffered at the hands of adult bookstores to fight back."

Adult bookstores? Sex clubs? How can a rational adult equate those businesses to fitness centers? For those of you who don't remember, Thune was instrumental in bringing a smoking ban to St. Paul. If you blessed him for that, comprehend that your support then simply encouraged him to be convinced that he has the right to ban or control any activity he doesn't personally deem proper.

Could there be corruption behind the enforcement of this off-the-wall ordinance being applied to unattended fitness centers? I have no evidence of corruption, but the smaller centers being harassed have become very popular, taking business away from larger fitness clubs, who would love to see the ordinance applied to their upstart competitors. One might also find pressure from those who provide training in CPR. When there is a big financial advantage to be gained by larger businesses (the smoke), then there is very often political pressure brought to bear (the fire). Is it just a coincidence that as unattended, lower-cost fitness centers have become popular that an ordinance would be found to stop them in their tracks? I really doubt it.

I don't live in St. Paul, but their ignoble ordinance requiring CPR-trained attendants will have an adverse effect outside their borders. Such nanny ordinances often spread to other city governments, just as anti-competitive, cost-increasing licensing regulations do. City officials tend to jump on the nanny bandwagon, claiming "public safety" as their justification for abolishing freedom. They also tend to respond to the wishes of the wealthy to the detriment of the poor. This seemingly idiotic ordinance, not supported by the public, could well spread to your city, and be yet one more stifling, expensive restriction on our rights.

This should be a gimme-a-break non-issue... the ordinance should be repealed or modified so that it covers only it's real original intent. The idea that the city can inflict such an onerous, ridiculous requirement is ludicrous. The whole point of working out is to push your body hard enough to make it stronger and healthier. Working out at a fitness center is hardly the only place that people work up a sweat or increase their cardio rate. Will the city require CPR-trained medical workers to follow hikers around? Should mountain-climbers have attendants? Should every bus stop have a helper for those who run to chase buses? Will they have them standing by in all our homes in case we engage in strenuous sex? Will they be required on all job sites where physical labor takes place?

The only honest excitement in Presidential politics

2008-04-15T12:40:00.001-04:00

The 2008 presidential election is shaping up strangely. The candidates of the two major parties are eating each other alive, and they all have much to be gnawed on. The threesome of McCain, Clinton, and Obama remaining at this point are a pathetic group, certainly adding to my hypothesis that major party candidates have steadily gotten worse over the past few decades.

Meanwhile, action within the Libertarian Party is building and looking more dynamic every day. With no shortage of candidates early on, the past couple of weeks have built that list of candidates dramatically.

As a long-time admirer of Dr. Mary Ruwart, I am delighted that she has thrown her hat into the LP ring as a candidate for the nomination. Although the public will know little about her to begin with, I will tell you that there is no single person I would trust more than Ruwart to lead our nation out of the deep, dark hole in which the two major parties have buried us.

Add in two other recent announcements for the LP nomination… Mike Gravel, congressman, resigning from the Democratic Party to seek our nomination, and announcement of an exploratory campaign by Bob Barr, formerly a GOP congressman. Both Gravel and Barr are well known within their old parties.

Our choice, within the Libertarian Party, is getting tough. Who will get the nomination at our convention in May? I honestly don’t know. Among Libertarians, Ruwart is extremely well known, respected and trusted. Barr and Gravel, while better known to the general public, will have to convince Libertarians that they can and will represent libertarian ideals effectively. I cannot ignore several other candidates who have been running hard for that nomination for many months… Christine Smith, George Phillies, Steve Kubby, Wayne Allyn Root, Michael Jingozian, Daniel Imperato, Alden Link, and certainly more. That makes a baker’s dozen… people who want to represent the LP as its candidate for president.

We might well ask why. Why are these people seeking to campaign as the nominee of a party that is, in this age of “lesser of two evils” voting, is usually given little chance of winning? Why do they want to sacrifice their personal lives to campaign in a grueling uphill battle not only to garner votes but even to gain modest media recognition? Libertarian candidates have to work harder than their opposition from the major parties. They have to first hope that they can successfully get on the ballot in each state, and that effort typically takes much of the campaign financing they will be able to raise. Former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura recently said that he too would run for president - if he could get ballot access. The Libertarian nominee will have to face off with reporters who will waste much time simply questioning what effect their candidacy will have on the two major candidates. While media cow-tows and tosses softballs at major party candidates, they tend to ask distorting questions of other candidates, and often cut their answers short.

Given such obstacles, why would these people voluntarily seek to abuse themselves? They cannot be seeking power, for, even if they were to win the nomination and the election, they would be in a small minority in Washington, still facing two domineering political parties on a daily basis.

There is an answer that explains the willingness to subject oneself to such a strenuous effort, and it’s an answer that the American public should ponder at length. The answer is… a personal commitment to saving our nation from the disastrous policies and actions of the two major parties. For these people, running is, without any question, a personal sacrifice with a desperate hope that this nation can yet be turned around from the calamitous actions heaped upon us by greedy and power-hungry members of the two corrupted major parties.

Can the public be brought to understand and appreciate the colossal difference between the candidacies of McCain, Obama, and Clinton and the Libertarians seeking the same office? Can the public come to understand that Libertarian candidates are not allowed (nor do they desire) to talk in platitudes, circle around issues, or simply tell each audience what they think the audience wants to hear? Can the public understand that libertarian positions are long-standing, deeply considered, and cater to no hidden agenda?

Can the public appreciate that when Libertarians choose someone to represent their party that they do it based primarily on that person’s willingness and ability to present the libertarian ideology honestly and coherently? The 2004 LP convention made that clear when Michael Badnarik prevailed over two better-known, more public candidates.

Most Libertarians are uncompromising about principles, and there’s a good reason why that’s true. Most came into the party as frustrated Republicans or Democrats; frustrated because they watched their old parties discard principles time after time until they essentially stood for nothing in particular. In the LP, they discovered a party that takes pride in not compromising principles. Ask a Libertarian whether his views on issues have changed since joining the LP, and you’ll hear that they have. Most new converts come to the LP with a few positions that are inconsistent with the Libertarian ideology, and come to change those few ideas over time… myself included. At some point, the integrated Libertarian ideology becomes apparent… it makes sense. From that point on, realization of the importance of a consistent ideology becomes apparent, and positions fit together smoothly. For me, coming from 30 years as a Republican, the War on Drugs was my big sticking point with Libertarians. It took some time in the LP for me to accept that one can be opposed to drug use without trying to force others away from them, and that force simply doesn’t produce the desired results.

My point is that anyone seeking the Libertarian Party nomination had better be prepared for challenging inquiry about the consistency and integration of their positions. They had better be prepared to not only to promote sensible positions, but to truly understand and be able to defend those positions. Any sign of glossing over, waffling, or talking around the issue will be easily detected and shunned by Libertarians.

A quick historical example here: After Jesse Ventura was elected Minnesota governor, with a campaign that sounded very libertarian; he made a speech at a Cato Institute luncheon, to a libertarian audience. He was naturally feeling like he could do no wrong, having scored a huge upset victory over two entrenched major-party politicians. Ventura took that venue, in his blustery, self-assured manner, to try to promote light rail transit, a project he came to think of as his legacy to Minnesota. He was loudly rejected by Minnesota Libertarians (including me). Ventura recognized his opposition, and responded with personal attacks. He probably still hasn’t forgiven us for daring to oppose his pet idea, although, if he really understood the libertarian ideology, he wouldn’t have been silly enough to try to push it to a libertarian audience. “Mostly libertarian” is just not good enough when the issue is billions in tax dollars to force an outdated technology on the public.

If you’re looking for excitement in politics… if you long for candidates who say what they mean and mean what they say, c’mon over to the LP. If you’re sick of hearing throngs of people cheer automatically for words that sound good and mean nothing, c’mon over to the LP. And… if you’re sick of hearing grand plans that you know will simply dig the hole deeper, c’mon over to the LP and listen to real solutions.

Can you feel us swirling around the bowl?

2008-04-05T09:09:00.002-04:00

It may be an inevitable tendency, as one grows older, to look back and try to make sense of changes that have occurred. Rather than evaluating my own life and choices, I'm more often considering what has happened to the nation I was born into. Perhaps that shift is due to my own life being clearly finite, and that the path of our nation could continue for a much longer time. I am more concerned about how our national and local context will affect the lives of my children. Those thoughts are severely depressing, because I feel that we have failed our children... failed to provide them with a context at least as good as the one my generation grew up in. What our children face is daunting, and getting worse every day. Yes, I know that they're coping, and even having some fun, making some progress, and building their lives. What they may not be fully aware of, as they work through life, is how constricted their choices are becoming, and how precarious their successes are.

Our children are faced with hugely expanded government at all levels... government that has gradually increased its control over every aspect of our lives, and become far more intrusive and judgmental... and in the process become enormously expensive. We each pay for unending war that is completely without justification. Even if war were to stop, we will still pay for a gigantic military industry establishment that President Eisenhower warned us about 47 years ago. Every segment of government has developed an "establishment"... corporations and organizations whose success depends on government contracts and favorable legislation. Those corporations and organizations spend large sums of money lobbying government because they gain financial advantages that far outweigh their expense.

They buy legislation and regulation that will benefit themselves at the expense of the rest of us, and they have enough profit to produce media campaigns to convince the public that we should have enjoyed being raped. They lie, deceive, contort the truth, and bribe to benefit themselves. They do it because they can... because it works, and it works because our governments have become so corrupted that they lay out the financial feast in plain view, waiting for them to take advantage of it.

It's a massive national publicity scam. Simply put, one can go to legislators with a grandiose, bafflingly-elaborate scam, accompanied by the promise of great publicity for the results, which will reflect back splendidly on the legislators in their next election campaign. They will be able to point to results with perhaps real but grossly inflated results that will impress voters. The voters, busy with their increasingly complex personal lives, will fail to understand the many downsides to the scam, and will believe the publicity. Over time, such scams have become so prevalent that those corporations who don't lobby for privilege are gradually withering away.

More and more of us become direct or indirect employees of government... we become part of the problem. Once inside the system, it becomes to our own advantage to see the system continue and expand. I check the local job market often. I look for jobs that won't involve me in working for government or in a business that is dependent on government. That eliminates most jobs. Most amazing to me is that the majority of jobs available now are in the healthcare industry. That is a direct result of government involvement in health care... Medicare, Medicaid, health regulations, insurance regulations, etc. As part of that huge change, most jobs are now from giant corporations. The larger the corporation, the more profitable they can be at "working the government system". Thus, in Minnesota, for example, we have a state moratorium on building hospitals, which means we're all driven to those ever-expanding conglomerate hospital organizations already in existence.

A look in almost any industry will undoubtedly reveal the same corrupt system, benefiting those who can afford to seek and gain government privilege at the expense of the rest of us. The results are all around us, and are terrible. Bigger corporations swallowing up their competition, fewer choices for all of us, higher prices for all of us, and the continuation and expansion of the corruption. Of course, once a corporation reaches a certain size, employing large numbers of people, they will actually have even more of a wedge in dealing with government. Even their financial failure would then result in large enough job loss that government will "come to their rescue" with more favorable legislation or even financial "bailout" help.

Each government concession to lobbying also serves as precedent for more. If one proposal is granted, others will appear, wanting their "fair share". Every purported success with government privilege, touted publicly and paid for with the spoils, will encourage even more help next year. Legislators point with seeming pride to their "accomplishments", many of which were simply giving in to lobbying and perpetrating the massive scam. They claim "job creation", disregarding the simple fact that the new government-subsidized jobs took workers from other employment. They point to splendid new government-subsidized structures, disregarding the homes and businesses that were taken and destroyed to make room for the new government teat-suckers.

Government itself has expanded enormously. Ten years ago, several major corporations were the largest employers in our state. Now, our state government is the largest employer in Minnesota, with nearly 50,000 full-time employees.

Power is concentrating in government, and in large corporations that thrive by taking advantage of government power. It has become a bitter joke that the closer one works to government, the higher the income, the greater the personal benefits, and the sloppier the work becomes. Government power eliminates free market competition and substitutes competitive lobbying. The potential revenue from working as part of or in close connection with government naturally leads to bloated, inefficient results. Projects involving government have become synonymous with over-budget, wasteful, and corrupted ends that would quickly cause failure in a truly free and competitive market. As one small current example, the city of St. Paul is seeking "forgiveness" on loans from the state of Minnesota, used to build the RiverCentre Convention Center and Xcel Energy Center. It appears that St. Paul will succeed in paying back only $6.5 million of the original $48 million loan. The rest of the state will suck up the loss on what was touted as a grand investment for the future. While Minnesota citizens are losing their homes at a shameful rate, the state government will simply bail out the city's mess, and pass on even more taxes and debt to the citizenry.

The more power concentrates in government, the worse the results will become, yet the response of our politicians to bad results is to first blame any private sector involvement and then to concentrate even more power, regulation, and resources on what has now become a bigger problem. It is the epitome of a vicious cycle... if it doesn't work well, do even more of the same.

Libertarian Party Presidential candidate Harry Browne wrote "Why Government Doesn't Work", but the tragic reality is that it does work very well... for those involved in it. Politicians and all those who cater to or suck benefit from close association with government do benefit on a grand scale. The almost $109 million in income since 2000 of Bill and Hillary Clinton is but one example.

The benefits gained by those who are part of that government/industrial complex come at the expense of everything that once made our nation the envy of the world. We are witness to the strangulation of the once-awesome spirit of America. We are being beaten in competition with other nations, falling in literacy and educational capability, and have lost respect around the globe. Our currency is diminishing in value, our debt is being bought up by other nations, and we continue down the same destructive paths.

The American people, in desperation for change, are watching as the two major political parties respond to these disastrous results. Their response is to again offer far more of the same... even greater government power. "More" is the only answer those parties have... more money, more control, more promises, more programs... more government... and more of the same.

Make no mistake... more government will benefit those who are in government or eating from its trough, but it will continue the disintegration of our nation. I'm sorry to say that I think we may see the complete and utter collapse of America in my lifetime. I'm even sorrier to say that I really doubt that anything can stop it, or even slow it. Any chance of preventing collapse depends on the remaining wit and will of the American people, and I am no longer optimistic about either. Americans are not dumb, but we can be blind, deaf, and unthinking, and too lazy or distracted to do anything about it. We will be faced with an election where most will choose between two of the most pathetic candidates in history... two who will, without any doubt, make our problems even worse by doing STILL MORE of what got us here.

I'm getting stimulated

2008-03-30T09:52:00.000-04:00

Last week, I mailed off my Federal tax return, sort of. It was an abbreviated 1040A, intended only to elicit my "Stimulus Payment" from our beneficent government. It marks the first time I've ever filed a tax return before the 2nd week of April. Since my income is paltry, I would not otherwise be required to file. Surprisingly, the IRS mailed a special packet to me just so I could make that filing. I'm impressed. I had checked online, and knew I had to file in order to receive the "stimulus", and was wavering whether it was worth the effort of a normal 1040A to receive $300. After spending untold weeks wrangling with my own income tax returns over a period of 40 years of so, being able to bypass that annual annoyance is one of the best benefits of living poor. April is now one of the best months of the year, the core month of glorious spring rather than the month of stressful, often painful, tax filing.

However, the special mailing from the IRS was, I'm amazed to have to admit, was not only convenient but understandable and easy. Would that filing was that easy for the rest of you. Like many of you, I became adept at filing taxes, and at minimizing payments or maximizing refunds. One year, long ago, I managed to get money back after having paid none in during the year. No, it wasn't supposed to work that way, but it did. It involved the Earned Income Credit. At the time, I had children at home and low self-employment income for the year. I did my usual first-try at calculating for my return, with no business deductions... just to see how bad it was going to be. Then I went through it again with some business deductions, and it came out costing me more! Whoa! How could that be? My curiosity seriously aroused, I analyzed the tax tables and the Earned Income Credit tables, and determined that the EIC table was strange... there was a maximum benefit, but NOT at the lowest taxable income, as one might expect. To reach the maximum EIC benefit, I had to RAISE my taxable income. By eliminating legitimate deductions, I maximized my use of the EIC, and got a "refund" of what I hadn't paid in.

Later, in a phone conversation with an IRS auditor, I explained that peculiar return. She was aware that it was possible, and legal, but told me that she thought it was still "wrong" to take advantage of it. I just smiled to myself.

So... presumably, I'll be receiving $300 from the IRS one day soon. Ah, but there's the rub, isn't it? The money isn't from the IRS, or even from the federal government. The truth is that my $300 (and yours) will undoubtedly just get added to the national debt. Wouldn't it be nice to try to use that same convoluted argument with our credit card companies... "I'm not paying my bill... I've used that money to patriotically stimulate the economy, so you really should just erase my debt from your records."

Sure, the stimulus payments are more government "magic money". They taketh, and sometimes they giveth some back. Will these payments stimulate the economy? No more than any debt will. Sure, more money will be spent, but the piper must be paid. The government will borrow more money without reducing any other spending. The Japanese, Chinese, and who knows who else, will buy up a little more of the U.S., and our dollar will degrade proportionally.

One of the few foreign currencies I've ever exchanged dollars for was long ago, in Japan. In 1960, one could get 360 Japanese yen for an American dollar. Today, the dollar is worth about 100 yen. Until recently, most people around the world still wanted American dollars. Today the preferred currency is the Euro. That preference is an indicator of confidence in the currency. All my life, Canadian money was worth less than ours. Today, it's worth slightly more than ours. Somewhere, I have a wooden nickel from some old centennial celebration. It may be worth more now than American currency.

A "stimulus" is something that "incites or rouses to action". Like almost all government actions, the Stimulus won't work to stimulate the economy, but it will make many people temporarily happy to have extra cash. Few will understand that it will be just one more economic boondoggle designed to distract us from many decades of government selling our nation down the river.

"Because you can" is a poor reason

2008-03-24T12:40:00.000-04:00

How foolish we can be when life seems easy. For some 20 years, I've watch friends and neighbors acting foolishly, feasting on the liberal mortgage market and a home market that seemed forever escalating in value. Easy credit and a housing-value bubble seemed to go on forever, sucking in more and more people who seemed to assume that the "boom" would last forever. Many are now faced with grim outlooks... homes that are decreasing in value while mortgages and income to pay them are not. Many simply overextended themselves by any standards, because easy mortgage credit made it possible.

I was fortunate to bail out of home ownership before the nosedive. I made personal choices that decreased my income severely, and sold my house, at a profit, and under threat of foreclosure. Probably dumb luck, but 20 years ago, after a costly divorce, I had such bad credit that I never expected to own another house anyway. Bailing out of a pension is all that made it possible. By the time I sold, the "bubble" was still inflated, my children were grown and I no longer had need of all the space.

Despite bad credit and a foreclosure in progress, I still could have refinanced to keep the house. That astonished me. I told a mortgage rep that "I wouldn't loan money to me"... but, mortgage companies would. I had enough sense to decline. Many others did not. A significant number of people are now forced to simply walk away from their homes, leaving them to the holder of their mortgage... because their mortgage(s) are higher than the deflated value of their home.

For most of my life, it just wasn't possible to get into such trouble. Credit was sensibly tight. The first house I bought was with zero down payment, but only because it was under the GI Bill. At the time, that was the only way to buy without a substantial down payment. People used to save for many, many years to accumulate a down payment. My parents didn't own a home until my father was past the age of 60. Since then, expectations of young people have skyrocketed, and home ownership has seemed available almost from the time they began earning an income, and so many simply dove into debt.

What changed? People loaning money didn't just get stupid. They were pushed and prodded, and lured, by government, into loosening credit and taking on riskier borrowers. Politicians, perhaps actually believing the farce that they could "control" our economy, encouraged bad risk and even lured lenders by buying mortgage debts and forcing interest rates down at the same time they were deflating the value of the dollar. Politicians campaigned against what they called "discriminatory lending" (which was actually common-sense risk assessment), demanding that lenders lower their standards and lend to prospects they would have once justifiably rejected.

That pressure lured in lenders and borrowers alike... it set aside financially reasonable evaluation. Easy credit did create a housing boom, but, in so doing, it may have set up our economy for serious destruction. The housing boom (bubble is more accurate) pulled in untold new developers and contractors to supply the houses for all the new buyers. Shoddy contractors found a ready and gullible market of younger and trusting buyers. Realty firms grew far larger to handle all the buying and selling (churning) that accompanied rapidly-escalating home prices. Remodeling even relatively new homes using 2nd mortgage money became common, giving rise to big-box do-it-yourself stores.

Government, meanwhile, became accustomed to being involved in housing matters, and cities began facilitating developments themselves, through TIFF financing, taking older homes and businesses via eminent domain, and pushing new and expensive housing construction. Along with their push for newer housing, cities made building codes more restrictive and expensive to follow, again helping to handicap older homes to the advantage of newer ones.

All of this government interference raised the cost of everything involved in home construction and maintenance. Taxes climbed, maintenance costs climbed, insurance costs climbed. Licensing of all kinds of contractors reduced competition, which raised prices.

Who is suffering as a result of all this government tinkering of housing? The answer to that is obvious... the poorest of those who got sucked into the housing bubble... the very ones government was pretending to give advantage to. I use the word "pretending" with intent, because any objective observer during this period of time knew what the downside to all that intervention had to be. Any politician who didn't know should never have had the power to interfere. Either we're electing people with no financial sense at all, or we're electing people who have their own ways of profiting from the inevitable suffering of the casualties of a government-induced catastrophe.

Government power always has destructive results, which is why libertarians push so hard for the reduction of government power. Government had no business interfering in the mortgage or building industries, and they have taken what was once a sensible part of our lives and turned it into a financial trap for the unsuspecting. Now they're tinkering more, in a feeble attempt to help some of those they've destroyed. We should all know that those new "efforts" are political in nature too, and will only make the damage worse.

Nothing works like the free market. No individual or company, without the influence of government, would have written the mortgages that are failing now. Most of those people now losing their homes wouldn't have been able to finance them, and wouldn't have been sucked into a busted housing bubble. Only government can create catastrophes of such proportions.

Government officials refuse to accept the title of this article. They believe that because they can do something that will sound good and even benefit some people, that they should do it. They are notorious for not looking into the future, because they know they will not be held accountable for future results, nor will the future losses affect them personally. Their natural tendency is to do whatever will please voters or contributors in the short run, at the expense of everyone else in the long run.

Politicians, of both major parties, have screwed our economy almost beyond recognition. What was an exciting, vibrant, and rapidly-expanding economy has turned so sour that it's in danger of causing recession around the globe. Despite that, Americans will no doubt go to the polls in November and return precisely more of the same into office. We do have a choice, but in order to choose it, we will all have to ignore all the money being spent to lure us once more into self-destruction.