an INCREDIBLY important read.

It is important that we understand some of the basic motivations that the consumer faces when acting in the market place, and how current economic practices violate the rules governing those motivations to the detriment of everyone concerned, except for big business and the military industrial complex. 

Ludwig Von Mises wrote his treatise on Human Action, which brings to light some of this information, as well as provides a good basic understanding of economic practices, both good and bad.

I recommend it strongly, it is available to read for free at the above link

Thanks for staying informed!
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The Monopolization of the Economy

So, I was talking to someone today about the role that Government plays in the marketplace, and made the assertion that labor phenomena like forced union membership, minimum wage laws, and other 'pro-worker' legislation actually ends up hurting the employees and consumers in the overall market, rather than curbing the illegitimate or immoral behaviors of employers.  There are several good arguments that support this assertion, I think, but a couple points come to mind immediately.

'Big Labor':  The idea behind labor unions is an incredibly important one.  I fully support any group of individuals who want to get together and advocate for better pay, safer work environment, and good benefits from their employers.  We need to understand a couple of important concepts though, to realize that requiring union membership by law to work a given job is counter-productive, and ends up preventing these goals from being realized in the labor market as a whole.

First of all, employers and businesses almost ALWAYS pass on the costs associated with regulation to the customer via increased prices (we have seen this more and more recently, as prices continue to rise across the board). This means that when the government forces businesses to hire from union labor pools, at a wage that is fixed by that union (and thus protected by law), that business has to recoup those losses.  They will do this in several different ways.  

The first way is to lay off workers.  Unfortunately this doesn't defray the costs all that much because of the requirements for laying off union workers, such as having to pay unemployment at a wage much higher than they would pay a minimum wage worker to work.  A perfect example of this is the grocer's union in some areas.  Those who work in groceries and stock shelves can make up to 14 dollars an hour.  Unemployment pays a significant portion of their wage, up to 70% in some cases.  70% of 14 dollars is over 8.55 an hour (which is the minimum wage in my state).  Therefore, instead of the company being able to pay someone minimum wage to stock shelves(which is certainly a low skill job), that person places a burden on society of over minimum wage. 

Remember, we can't just look at the individual grocer and employee involved, we have to consider the labor market as a whole, across industries, and the grocery market as a whole, including things like the food manufacturing industry which is so closely tied to it.  As a result of these increased costs, both in keeping an overpaid workforce, and in laying off excess workforce, the prices of the goods and services that the business provides will necessarily increase.

 In the face of increasing prices or failing, obviously a business will try to increase prices first.  This has a cascading effect on the rest of society.  As prices increase, both on the prices the grocers have to pay and the prices the consumer has to pay, more workers have to be laid off, and prices continue to rise.  It's a never ending circle.  We are experiencing this phenomenon as I write this, in every arena from the cost of tickets to sporting events to the cost of airline tickets to the cost of something so basic as milk and eggs. 


This is an example of how forced union membership hurts businesses, who are required to only hire persons from unions at the union mandated wage, rather than hire from the entire labor pool for significantly below the mandated wage.


Obviously the relationship between legislative protection of unions and a decrease in price stability along with an increase in joblessness is not the only relationship we need to consider when examining how government regulation in the labor market cause the very problems the legislation allegedly tries to prevent. 

In the next installment we will examine how minimum wage laws destroy jobs and small businesses, and favor big business (especially those businesses with close ties to the government).

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New York City PD can shoot down planes, but should they?

The Christian Science Monitor published this story today in response to comments by NYPD police commissioner regarding the Police Department's capabilities with regards to anti-terrorism.  IT seems that the  NYPD can shoot down airliners in the event of a hostile takeover that puts them at risk, and the question raised is should the Police, Mayor, or Governor alone have the authority to make that decision?

People tend to cringe at this notion of local control of something so... scary.  However, it seems like the citizens of New York pay taxes to be protected by their police department.  If the resources exist for the NYPD to take care of these types of situation on their own, why call in the federal government at all?  This is a great example of the ability for local governments to care for themselves without the intervention of the federal government.  Why as citizens from California to pay for the protection of citizens in New York through federal funding, if citizens in New York can take care of themselves? 

In my effort to encourage decentralization of power, and return decision making abilities of all types to the individual, it seems like New York should have the authority to make decisions regarding their own safety, even if that decision rules out federal intervention, regardless of whether that decision is economic, social, or military.

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The Modern Day Gladiators

Sports is an interesting phenomenon in this country.  The ties between sports and patriotism should be evident, and sports as a propaganda tool is extremely useful.  That being said, GO SEAHAWKS. 

This year is going to be tough on the Hawks, though, they have a particularly difficult schedule, especially considering the decision to bring on T-Jack as the starting QB.  It's too bad, I think, that we aren't seeing Whitehurst up there at least sharing the role, given his performance in the playoffs last year.  Regardless, I doubt we will be seeing much playoff action except for of course our division.  The division is still weak of course, and no one really respects the rams or the niners as a contender league wide, but given T-Jack's lack of familiarty with the Seahawks offense, it will probably still be a close run to the NFC West.

One can still be disgusted with American Politics and love sports.

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Monday Monday

It's monday for the rest of the world, Friday for me. 
Work is bad on monday.  For some reason no one wants to gamble. 
The nice part is monday night football though, we have a bigscreen in the break room, and T.V.s all over the casino.

I was watching Cspan2 last night at work and saw something on by this investigative journalist regarding a book she wrote, Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State, on the Afterwords program.

She was talking to the former undersecretary of defense about the necessity for protecting the process of exposing classified information, as the government couldn't necessarily be trusted.  He kept arguing against her, despite huge evidence to support her claims.

anyway, I'd advise taking a look at her book, at the link above, It seems like something good to know about, especially the role of the intelligence community in our every day lives, as well as the control they exert over political and police practices around the world.


Also, to get a little insight into some basic economic ideas, it's important to look at Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics, a really great introduction into sound money policy and some reasons to argue against over regulation of the economy in terms of wealth and prosperity production for the poor. 

At some point I'll start to talk about the problems that we can all agree on, whether we identify more with socialist ideas or capitalist ideas, and why what we have seen recently fits neither of those viewpoints.

I had to take my girlfriend to the hospital today for what we thought was a separated rib.  In reality it was inflamation of the outside of her lung wall rubbing against the inside of her body wall.  There's a medical term for it, but I've forgotten it now.

While we were there my tax dollars paid to airlift (for the second time this week) an alcoholic smoker who had had a stroke...  he was 75 and had been an alcoholic for a long time.  We could smell alcohol from the other side of the curtain. 

Yet alcohol is legal, despite the burden upon taxpayers and society and families, and other substances, far less damaging from a numbers standpoint are not.

*rage*


Happy Monday,
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Remembering September 11th

Two towers fell, full of people, killing over 3000 civilians, police, and firefighters in the great American city of New York, changing forever one of the most distinct skylines in the world, and the lives of millions of people around the world. 

What lessons should we take away? 

It seems we might say that the original causes of this tragedy might, on the surface, be as simple as the hatred of wealth and success.  The hatred of freedom and the pursuit of happiness by those outside our borders.  This belief is naive at best, and the height of arrogance and ignorance at worst.    We have to remember what happened before 9/11/2011.  We have to remember our role in the world as a whole before we draw conclusions.  It is important to examine all of the historical facts, and the entire causal history of those two hijacked planes. 

Osama bin-Laden, credited with leading Al-Qaeda, responsible for the attacks on our country on that day was not acting with his own money.  Where did he get the resources?  One explanation was that he got part of his resources from a tyrannical regime in Iraq.  This explanation led us to war, and the deaths of thousands of American soldiers, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians.  We know now, much after the fact, that there were no verifiable ties between the Iraq government under Saddam and Al-Qaeda.  There were also no weapons of mass destruction to be found inside those borders. 

Where, then, did these resources come from? 

Back during the cold war, Al-Qaeda received capital and training from, guess who, the United States Government, and were instrumental in driving the Soviet Communists out of Afghanistan.  They received weapons training, insurrection training, and most of the training they implement today in their camps was brought to them by our own government. 

We can say that, simply, it was a small group of individuals that caused the destruction of the Twin Towers.  We would be wrong.  Sometimes the hardest thing to do is accept personal responsibility for horrible occurrences.  This is one time when we have to look inside our borders, and hold those accountable for the role they played.  To do otherwise is a disservice to the families of those who have died in the wake of 9/11, both domestic and foreign.  It is a disservice to those who are now starving and jobless because of the economic effects of the war, as well as the direct effects of war.

What do we do to prevent this from ever happening again?  Is perpetual war against 'Terror' really the answer to our problems?  It seems that war is terrorism, in many ways.  The invasion of foreign territories, the removal of families from their homes, the destruction of personal and public property, any of these things, were it my own home country, would cause me to fight back, why would we think that fighting terror will discourage terrorism rather than promote it? 

God forbid we engage in sound diplomacy, non-interventionism, and sound economic policies at home.  If we did that, our imperialist efforts would fail overseas.  Our wages at home would rise, joblessness would decrease, and overall violence around the world would drop immensely.  War doesn't stop terror, it causes terror.  Once, all we had to worry about were fanatics who had a grudge, either religiously or economically, against our country.  Now we have to worry about sons and husbands who have watched their families ruined picking up arms and fighting back. 
Despite promises to the contrary, military intervention overseas continues to be the norm, and not just in Iraq and Afghanistan. 
Unless the attitude ends, 9/11 will not be the last tragedy that we observe that occurs because of the American Imperialist ideals. 
Until we learn humility, and let others make decisions for themselves, both internationally and domestically, we will continue to suffer.

Judge not lest ye be Judged and found wanting.

I find us wanting. 

That said, my heartfelt condolences to the families that have suffered as a result of 9/11/2011.  Both on the day of, and in the years after.  They in no way deserved their fate, and were casualties in a perpetual war that was never fought in their best interest in the first place.  I can't imagine what it would be like to lose a brother or a father in such an event, but neither can I imagine what it would be like to lose a mother or a sister to an American missile or .223 round.  Neither tragedy is greater than the other, and any life is sacred.  War is horrendous, and helps none except the evil. 


In sadness,

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How to think about unemployment.

We often hear news about shifts in the unemployment rate.  What exactly does the unemployment rate measure?  Here is one pretty good summary:  http://useconomy.about.com/od/economicindicators/p/unemploy_rate.htm

The overall picture here is that not everyone who is jobless is counted in the unemployment rate.  For isntance, if you're not looking for work, haven't declared as unemployed, or have run out of benefits, you're not counted in the figures. 

So when we are told by the same Website that unemployment is at 9.1% as of the sept 6th article, we need a bit more information.  Real joblessness, when taking into consideration all of the individuals that are not measured by unemployment statistics published by the federal government, the estimates are anywhere between 16-22% of the population.  That's 1/5th of every working age individual that is currently without a job. 

So if only half or so of the people without jobs are receiving income from unemployment benefits, at best, what happens to the rest of the unemployed? 

Unemployment vs. Private Savings

So some people make the argument that people wouldn't save if it weren't for unemployment insurance.  While this may be true, it is sort of irrelevant for the reasons discussed below.  Further problems with unemployment insurance become apparent when we look at the difference between money in the marketplace and money in the unemployment fund.  Money in savings or investment portfolios has the opportunity to earn interest.  The reason it earns interest is that banks use the money in those funds to trade, effectively borrowing money from their customers to make what are hopefully profitable investments.  So they pay their customers interest on the money they are borrowing.  Theoretically one can live off the interest of a large enough bank account.  Consider next unemployment.  A worker at a bank loses their job, then starts collecting unemployment.  The unemployment they collect comes out of a fund theyve been paying into for however long they've been working.  During that time that money was not earning interest or being actively used in the market place.  In fact, that money COSTS money to keep track of.  Some of these costs include the statements that we receive once in a while letting us know how much we've accumulated, alot of those costs include paying people to watch over that money.  So instead of participating in the market place where it can grow wealth, it gets taken out of the market place, where it costs additional money to maintain.  Then, once the individual goes to take that money out, even MORE money is taken from their company to match some of those unemployment dollars.  So not only is the initial income taken out of the market at an overall loss to the marketplace (because the money spent maintaining it is being used for a loss-bearing service) but the money when 'paid back' to the individual takes even MORE money out of the marketplace as the company has to pay that unemployment, causing more job loss, because the company has to pay money to an individual that is not laboring for them.    So unemployment, even if only the original money the individual has put into it is paid out, along with the obligation of the company, is a huge negative against the marketplace as a whole.  Those dollars would have either been saved in a private interest-earning fund by the individual, in which case the banks would have traded the income around, or the money would be spent by the individual in the marketplace, driving down the cost of goods and increasing the rate of pay as companies earn more money. 

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from work

Unemployment is good....

So I talked to this individual last night while I was waiting for a ride home from work (my girlfriend and I share an old beater), and we got to talking about unemployment.  Apparently it was this individual's view that unemployment insurance was good for the economy because when people didn't have jobs they still had money to spend on goods, which helped the companies and thereby stimulated the economy even when people were losing work. 

It is disheartening to see such evident misunderstanding of basic economic principles. 
Here is why this reasoning is faulty, at best.

First of all, people have to pay into unemployment when they do have jobs.  Part of the individuals argument was that people wouldn't save if we didn't force them to by law.  Whether or not that's true, let's grant it for the sake of the argument.  If people wouldn't save for the times when they don't have jobs, then it stands to reason that they would be spending that money in the economy.  Instead of the money they would be paying into unemployment, there would be money they were injecting back into the economy.  In addition, companies wouldn't have to pay out unemployment benefits either, meaning they could invest more in their corporation initially, or raise wages, or do any other number of useful things with that money.  So not only would the money from unemployment, if people wouldn't save on their own, be used BEFORE there was an economic crisis, the companies (whichever ones they are) would have more capital to work with BEFORE the economic crisis as well.  So, there would be twofold protection against joblessness, it would be cheaper to employ people, driving down the cost of goods, and people would have more money to spend initially, further stimulating the economy and preventing hardship in the frist place.

Prevention of problems is almost always better than elimination of symptoms. 

More to come on unemployment...

Back to the grind

Back to wage slavery.  Well, not slavery, that's probably a bit insulting to those individuals who are actually in that position, but something similar.  Anyway, I got a job as a casino dealer, which is a great job, as the wage work goes, and something I've done before.  20 minute breaks every fourty minutes, and I get paid to gamble (though not with my own money, and as the house).  The bad part though, as ever, is taxes.  Out of an 1100 dollar paycheck, I see about 900.   *stabs eyes*   I could really use that 200 dollars.  I found out we spent something like 20 billion dollars on air conditioning in Iraq for soldiers this last year.  I don't disagree with keeping them cool, I just disagree with them being there...  I'm thinking we could do a little bit of repair to our own internal issues with that 20 billion dollars from air conditioning alone, not to mention all the other direct and indirect costs of keeping people overseas.  I also saw brief outtakes from the september 7th GOP debate, in which Ron Paul thoroughly rocked the house, despite the attempted sabatoge by those who questioned him and his opponents.  It's exciting to see his popularity rise.  I'm at work now, on one of my frequent breaks.  I've learned to deal roulette this week, which just adds another feather to my cap, sortof.  Now if i can just get proficient at craps I might be able to stop living paycheck to (barely) paycheck sometime in the next 20 years (assuming there are such things as paychecks in 20 years).  

Relevant links: 

Sweet.

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House Comments, April 15th

At around 5 minutes into the Congressional Clerk's recording of the April 15th Session, one minute speeches start. I hadn't really looked at these before, but it was interesting nonetheless. The chosen topics and comments of speeches leave me further astounded at what happens in our halls of government.

See the Full 6+ hours here

Campaign for Libery Action Bomb

The Campaign for Liberty and their front runner, Ron Paul, are requesting a donation bomb to pay for advertising to press congress to Audit the Fed.  It seems appropriate to throw FRNs (Federal Reserve Notes, U.S. Dollars) at this issue.  Or buy gold.

Why you should buy precious metals

1. According to Ben Bernanke, recent inflation problems can be attributed mostly to poor weather conditions and the war in the Middle East.
2. The war in the middle east is probably a perpetual situation.
3. Weather is probably a perpetual situation
4. If 1, 2 and 3 then 5
5. Recent inflation problems are probably a perpetual situation.
6. As the dollar inflates, Gold and Silver become more valuable relative to the dollar.
7. If 5 and 6 then 8
8. Gold and Silver will continue to become more valuable relative to the dollar, in perpetuity.
9. If 8 then 10
10. you should buy Gold and Silver with dollars.

Additionally the Fed admits to believing that inflation has to be maintained at about 2 percent or so, meaning that at the very LEAST Gold and Silver will continue to gain at 2% even if all the "transient" reasons for inflation disappear.

This is all aside from the industrial value of Gold and Silver that will continue to drive the value up independently of the Federal Reserve being retarded.

The Weather effect

We should see a nice rise in gold and silver prices, and a nice increase in inflation, according to the Bankster, since the weather in the Midwest and the south is so terrible.

As an aside, it is incredibly tragic that so many people got so devastated by the Tornadoes ripping through Alabama, no sarcasm whatever.

What is additionally tragic is that the lost property will incur cost nationwide, both in the immediate sense as businesses and industry are disrupted, and in a long term sense as already non-existent government funds will be used to alleviate the suffering.

Imagine how much more help we could offer those suffering with the massive amounts of money we spend on screwing up the economy and shooting people overseas....

Oh well, the lesson is still the same, really. Buy gold, buy silver, buy ammo, buy property, and put yourself in a position to help the people around you. It's not the Governments job to do our charity for us, that takes all the charity out of it.

Here's some footage of a newscast on one of the record setting twisters in Tuscaloosa

Ron Paul responds to Ben

Poor Ben, he just can't seem to satisfy this guy.

The Bankster lays it out for us.

Ben 'The Bankster' Bernanke, in an unprecedented move by the Federal Reserve, decided to meet with the press in a friendly little get together.  This is what he had to say:





Now for those of you that don't feel like watching the whole damned thing (which isn't really worth it anyway), the short story is, current inflation projections are higher than normal because of..... Libya and the Weather. 

Excellent.  As soon as the situation in the middle east stabilizes and oil production meets (ever increasing) global demand in the emerging markets (which are growing rapidly), gas prices will fall, easing the burden on households, who will then spend that money on more crap they don't need.   Since the War on Terror seems to be occurring primarily in the middle east, and global demand for oil will increase exponentially as second and third world markets become first and second world markets, it is unclear just exactly how or when this light at the end of the tunnel will turn on.   On the bright side though, he said it all with a smile!

Later, something happy, hopefully.

Ron Paul on The View

Oh Man, this is excellent.

Ron Paul talks on The View.  Media attention what?  Is that applause I hear?  Is that Whoopi Goldberg getting angry with her crowd?  I think it is.

Really? Gaddafi and M.J.

The second link down for my Google news search for Muammar al-Gaddafi leads to the following headline:

Did Muammar Gaddafi Influence Michael Jackson's Sense of Style?


The second link down. 

As the West, under the guise of NATO and the U.N., continues to help 'liberate' the people of Libya from the rule of the Tyrant (but former good buddy) Gaddafi, the most prolific search engine on the face of the earth chooses to return this story as the second most relevant return on my query. 
I have little more to say on the matter, other than it is probably as apparent that the be-robed monks of any given order are my inspiration for wearing a bathrobe as I write this. 

Further down the page, and upon further in depth search of news topics relating to the new enemy of Freedom in the middle east, we see relatively unimportant headlines, such as Libyan rebel's story shows links to Taliban, Al Qaeda, NATO, reported by the L.A. Times, along with Ex-CIA chief: Kadhafi was good partner (in Counter Terrorist efforts), reported by AFP. 

What in the hell are we doing?  It's interesting that we sold/gave the very assistance to Gaddafi, Kadhafi, Qaddafi, or however the name is spelled in your part of the world, that we are giving to his opposition, who happen to also be associated with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, who we previously supported during the cold war to fight the USSR in Afghanistan.  It's like we're just passing weapons around like prostitutes, and the STDS we get as a result are suffered on civilian populations and military personnel.

I love my country, but this blatant profiteering and flip-flopping is abhorrent, and I'm not even gaining anything from it.  Oil isn't cheaper, the dollar isn't (significantly) stronger, and my beer isn't any colder.  What the hell?  If we're going to use my tax dollars to turn the Middle East into a game of Extreme Chess: Conquest Edition, I feel like I should get something out of it besides nausea and death counts.  Maybe a collectors edition shell casing or something. 

Normally I couldn't give a damn less how the rest of the world views the United States, much as I'm sure people in Norway could give a damn less about how the United States views them, but I'd like some semblance of consistency.  Maybe I'm missing some larger picture.  It's like the greater good argument for the existence of God, but for Government Action instead.    At least God is omniscient. 

"Oh it's ok, it doesn't matter if we understand it, they know what they're doing, and I'm sure glad I don't have to make those tough decisions, hell, they even teach my kids for me these days!  I'm sure glad I pay 20-33% of my income for all these great services."

Right?

Right.  The overall picture is they're taking your money, paying for bullets and bombs, and killing people with them.  In fact, the amount of money you pay in taxes isn't anywhere NEAR enough to pay for it all, so they take out loans too.  On your behalf.  Congratulations.

It's ok though, because we're good people.  We rock that nine to five (or six to ten if you're a good, hardworking American), walk in the door, and do whatever it is that the government watches us do behind closed doors.  And today's memorial to Michael Jackson?  You stole your look from Muammar Gaddafi, bro, what the hell. 


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Upcoming Posts:

I wanted to write a short something about my intentions for upcoming posts.  One of the things I hope to do is something of a dream journal.  Whenever I have a particularly memorable dream I will do my best to put it up  here, this will probably not happen incredibly often, but will be neat when it does.  Another thing I hope to do is pick a particular political news story from one of the big media conglomerates, like AP, or a Ted Turner company, or some other such propaganda machine, and write a little bit about the implicit and explicit purposes for those 'news' stories.  And then, once in a while, I will write some nonsense, some poetry or some inconsequential happenings.  The news will happen, I hope, daily; the dreams as often as they happen; and the frivolous as often as the urge comes upon me. 

Thanks
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The 'Work Week'

So instead of delving wholeheartedly into this blog when I first started it, I let other 'important' things distract me.  At the time I was a student at a local university, where I had been attending off and on since the fall of 2003.  I've taken breaks and gotten work, signed up for classes 'full time' and then dropped them, but the short story is, my formal academic career has finally reached a semi-permanent conclusion.  I didn't do what I needed to do winter quarter, and finally they kicked me out.   I'm quite surprised they didn't do so much sooner.  My difficulties with anxiety and test taking and processing information that I am uninterested in (like low-level Mathematics) led me to not quite make it through.

As disappointing as this was, it was in many ways incredibly liberating.  For some reason I felt as if I could finally move on with my life.  I have this problem, see, with the way things are being done in Washington.  Both the city and the state.  It is time to start accumulating resources and experience to do what I can to rectify these problems.  I have worked before, in the moving industry, the casino industry, and the telecommunications industry, and now I've hit the street again to find work.


My Girlfriend recently started receiving unemployment (finally) after being out of work for almost a year.  I was considerably frustrated with her lack of effort to both do the modicum of work required to apply for unemployment or get a damned job.  I should step in here and say that I have various means of earning income, which I am not at liberty to discuss here, currently, and have been, basically, solely supporting us (with the help of family and financial aid) since she lost her job.  This has caused feelings of resentment.  This resentment comes from fear, as do most negative emotions.  Fear of not being valued as a companion and life partner, as well as sincere feelings of disrespect as I watch the love of my life deteriorate both mentally and physically.  My happiness with her for completing the process and 'earning' income has helped, but I fear that unemployment income will not suffice for her own feelings of inadequacy, as it still doesn't require leaving the house.  Regardless, we are still in a state of financial distress. 


I'm no saint, don't get me wrong.  My passion for her, it seems, is directly related to her passion for herself.  She has indulged in extra curricular activities with other individuals (never in person, but isn't the internet a beautiful thing?) often enough that it has left me somewhat jaded, and I, in some respects, have attempted to protect myself by keeping to myself what I once gave freely without fear of being taken advantage of.  


In any case, after many goings on over the past five years that we've been together, both incredibly joyous and incredibly painful, I came to the conclusion after the last incredibly painful experience that there was little I could do to make her feel better about herself, and once again become the girl I fell in love with.  Instead, I could lead by example, and do my best to take care of myself, and hope it rubs off.   Great words, in theory, very difficult in practice. 


But I have come across a likely prospect for income, once again in the casino industry, an environment I know I can thrive in.  A good friend got me an audition, and I'm fairly confident I'll be hired (pending urinalysis, which is, quite frankly, going to be a sticking point that I will have to find some way around).  This prospect at earning income as I become more and more of an 'adult' is both exciting and depressing.


As I was unable to sleep last night, I thought about a few things.  One of the things i thought about is taxation.  Upon receiving 'legitimate' income, a portion of that income (a significant portion) will be taken from to help fund the government budget.  This means that I am paying for bullets that are killing people.  I don't like killing people.  I don't think War, as in governments throwing their citizens at each other, is very often justified.  In fact, I would consider only three of the conflicts our nation has been a part of wars that could even be considered justifiable (if any can be).  Of course, the revolutionary war is one of these, for obvious reasons.  I tend to agree with Thomas Jefferson (who I will henceforth refer to as my good buddy TJ), when he favors individual liberty over government, and I think the revolutionary war was important for this reason, to at least attempt to establish a state where personal freedom was paramount.  The second war that was perhaps justified was the Civil War.  My claim for why this war is justified is incredibly controversial, though.  Until Lincoln, the Statist fuck (one who believes that the power of the state is paramount, and the answer to all problems), states had the right to secede from the union. 

Lincoln was one of the first presidents to go to such great lengths to adjust the constitution to current political goings on, and to further a particular controversial political agenda.  This agenda was not the freedom of the slaves, contrary to what we are taught in the public education system.  This agenda was the centralization of power in the federal government, and the supremacy of the federal government over the various states.  As such, the south was justified in going to war against this new King George named Lincoln.  History is always written by the winners.    Look at the civil rights crisis this country still faces, compared to other countries where slavery went away WITHOUT war.  Lincoln assuredly created the wage-slave class in this country.  In any event, the South was entirely justified in fighting their revolutionary war for exactly the same reasons that we were justified in fighting against the British in the 18th century.


The last war we were justified in entering was World War 2.  The ONLY reason we were justified in entering this war is because we were attacked by a NATION in an act of war by a NATION on our home soil.  This is the only time in history that another nation has attacked us on our home soil (though we attack ourselves daily).  I am no expert in military matters, as far as strategy, and what it takes to win a war of such magnitude, but we perhaps did more than we really needed to, and perhaps did less than we needed to at the same time. 


I should make a couple of things clear about foreign policy matters.  It is not our job to save Iraq or Iran or Afghanistan, or any other nation from its dictator, unless it is our job to save every other nation from their respective dictators as well (like all those assholes in south and central America and Africa, many of which caused FAR more chaos and suffering among their populations than did Hussein).  It is not our military's job to act as a police force in the guise of "national security".  While certainly some sort of minimal militia force would be necessary to enforce our borders, the leviathan that is today's military is nothing short of horrific in both its scope and its deeds.  Preemptive strike is tantamount to punishing someone before they've committed a crime (though we do that to our own citizens as well).  It is naive to think that our military actions across the world have more to do with ideology than they do with political and economic motivations, despite the ever-flowing propaganda that we are fed nightly on the various 'news' outlets, which have become, in reality, the fourth branch of government. 


So this is perhaps my biggest problem with earning 'on paper' income, rather than surviving off student loans and government handouts, which I have already previously paid for through taxation of various sorts.  As long as I have to pay for things that I don't want to pay for through taxation, I will eke every single drop of government assistance that I can, in hopes that some of those dollars I pay in taxation, and that my parents and family members pay, might not go to buy a bullet today to kill someone that doesn't deserve to die.  Or to pay for a penal system whose population is comprised mostly of 'minority' races.  It simply isn't the case that minorities commit that many more crimes per-capita than whites do, it is simply the case that they get convicted more often, because they are still slaves despite (or perhaps because of) Lincoln's best efforts to the contrary.  I am appalled that so much of my income has gone to support this continued subtle slavery. 


If I had the opportunity to opt out of taxation and not receive government services (yes, including roads and electricity and the 'protection' of the police) I certainly would.  I would use this new abundance of capital to provide those things to myself at a much cheaper rate (businesses simply charge less for goods than do governments, because they operate in the interest of profit and efficiency, rather than some controversial and ever-changing ideology). 


At the same time, my freedom from this system can only be bought with the resources that the system currently utilizes.  This means I have to bite the bullet for a while, earn some FRNs (federal reserve notes, conventionally referred to as 'money'), convert those FRNs to something that is actually worth something (like property of various sorts), and start affecting social change (or perhaps infecting social change).  Also, it would be nice to be caught up on bills for services I actually do use willingly and would use my tax dollars to pay for (and I'll leave discussion of the monopolies that are represented by utility companies, aka the Department of Energy, for another time.  I wonder how much electricity we could purchase with a 750 billion dollar defense bill, if it instead were spent on energy efficiency and improvement?  that works out to about 2100 dollars per person in a population of 350 million.  That's 10 months of electricity for me.   How much debt could we have gotten out of as individuals if TARP had paid out to every person with a social security number, instead of just the businesses, along with subsequent bail outs.   I don't know what the figures are, but I am WAY OVER thinking the government is acting in my best interest. 

I don't believe that our Government has been acting in our best interest for a very, very long time.  Why should we think so?  What evidence is there to support the claim that the Government is acting withing the legal confines of the constitution to ensure that it's populations has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?  Very Very Little.  Just go look at the congressional agenda for any given day, pick a bill, and read it.  See how much of it actually helps the population, then get back to me.