By Nathan Barton
Every day, we see government and businesses – particularly big business – and academia (usually a branch of government) lie more and more. Much of this lying relates directly to ignoring or hiding or denying truths that people want to pretend aren’t true. Stories today illustrate that sad fact.
A half dozen truths few people want to admit:
The best anti-poverty tool is jobs, according to Economics 21. Their research indicates that those who find a job after losing one experience reduced earnings for up to two decades afterwards.
Mama’s Note: I never took a new job that paid less than the last one, and I changed jobs fairly frequently in the early days of my career. There was always a “nursing shortage,” of course, so that had a lot to do with it, but I was also mostly debt free and did not have expensive tastes. Seems to me that changing jobs is the least of the problem, so don’t understand this reference. I sure do wish I had been able to save or invest all of the money I earned, but which was instead stolen in one way or another by taxes and other unnecessary expenses such as licensing.
The amount of federally “owned” acres leased for oil and gas exploration (drilling) has dropped 24 percent since 2008. While the U.S. leased 131 million federal acres in 1984, it leased only 36 million acres last year. Real Clear Energy talks about needing to increase this amount significantly, in light of the shale oil bonanza.
Heritage foundation points out that half of all doctors won’t accept new Medicaid patients, And that despite the problems that Medicaid patients already have accessing doctors, one of the biggest ways that Obamacare expands health care coverage is through the Medicaid program. This means that as time goes on, fewer and fewer people will be able to get any routine medical care, unless they can pay for it out of their own pocket – and if they could, they wouldn’t be on Medicaid. Supposedly…
Mama’s Note: Oh brother… what a crock. Doctors are increasingly refusing to accept Medicaid (and Medicare) patients because they will go out of business if they don’t. The amounts paid by these government programs do not cover their expenses (paperwork, extra employees, delayed or denied payment), let along let them make a living. Not to mention the fact that the government then makes the medical decisions and destroys whatever is left of the patient/doctor relationship. Most people don’t even need “routine medical care,” and would be far better off taking care of most things themselves, seeking a doctor only for truly life threatening problems. Then they’d have real incentive to take care of their bodies, for one thing.
Who will pay for highway funding? So asks the Wall Street Journal. They point out that a total of 1,001,874 miles of roads in the United States receive federal funding. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the highway trust fund is on track to drop to $2 billion by September 30, and its mass-transit account will drop to just $1 billion. It is a good question, but NOT the only question that needs to be raised. First, why should the FedGov provide 50-95% of funding for more than a MILLION miles of roads? Shouldn’t those who use the roads pay for them directly? Like we do for power and water and communication service (or should, if there weren’t all these government welfare programs?)? And why is 1/3 of highway money going for the boondoggle of public transit? Again, shouldn’t those who use it pay for it? Actually, historically, the federal excise tax on motor fuels (and the state taxes) going into a highway users trust fund made a wee bit of sense – those who drive on the roads pay for it by a tax on their fuel. But politics and government greed were in the way. The bureaucracy skims off an ever growing percentage of it, and then Congress (AND legislatures) also started skimming off a bigger and bigger chuck, for “art” and public transit and anything else they wanted (“needed”) to have money for. So now, with fuel efficiency getting better, the thing is going bust. And who has to pick up the tab? They get their way, it will be taxpayers now and in the future.
Heritage also talks about Free-Market principles for agricultural policy. They say (and I think that they are right) that farmers should be able to succeed on their own merits, not require subsidies in order to succeed. Ensuring that farmers are profitable is not the role of the government. And farmers are smart people: they can figure it out. But like all of us, many have been lazy for 80 years now: why work as hard or smart when someone else will pay to support you? The longer this goes on, the harder it is to get things back to how they should be: an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work. Of course, that also means getting rid of hundreds of thousands of other jobs living off the government gravy train, which is why the policy is so badly messed up today.
Mama’s Note: That would also require the elimination of the taxes and regulations that prevent farmers and ranchers from making the best use of their land. The EPA alone has destroyed the ability of so many to be productive and self reliant. How many farms and ranches are lost every year to taxes and other takings, in spite of the subsidies? It’s insane.
These are not the only cases this week of where people want to ignore the truth and accept lies. Consider the next stories:
The “new” Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) is getting everyone nervous. A second patient/victim has shown up in the US and medical emergency planners are going ape over it. I am not saying it is not dangerous, but the fear is obscene. ” For the last two years, since the virus that kills one-third of those it infects first appeared on the other side of the world, on the Arabian Peninsula, U.S. epidemiologists have waited and prepared for the day it would appear in this country… Health officials have been keeping a close eye on the virus since scientists first discovered it in a 60-year-old Saudi man, who died in 2012 after suffering pneumonia and kidney failure. By June 2013, nearly 80 people in the region had been infected with MERS, and more than half had died. Saudi Arabia, which has been hit hardest by MERS, reported Wednesday that it had recorded 449 cases and that 121 of those infected had died.”
Proper care is unlikely to be found in Saudi Arabia, even for the elite gang-members that rule the nation. But the response is that of a police state, in Indiana, and now in Florida. Including secrecy. What really disturbs ME about these is that BOTH are “health care workers” – US citizens working in Saudi Arabia, and yet they waited hours or days to get treatment when they became ill. This kind of irresponsibility DOES kill people: are they infected by Arabian “Inshallah” (As God wills) as well as MERS? Were these people told lies in Saudi Arabia, or told TO lie? Is Saudi Arabia telling the truth?
Who do we believe? An article in Huffington Post claims that melting of ice on Antarctica has reached a massive tipping point and a glacier the size of Arizona and New Mexico combined is going to collapse, causing flooding of 4 to 12 feet higher ocean levels in 85 years or less. But at the same time, GOVERNMENT data shows that the ice sheet hit new records for the size, 124,000 square miles larger than the previous record, even though it is still Fall in the Southern Hemisphere. The global warming believers claim that there is a difference between land ice and sea ice, and we should ignore the new data. But we’ve heard THAT story from them again and again. People are being told to believe lies, even when the truth is out there. As in the next story.
This lie is more and more common: that by enjoying or adopting an aspect of some other culture: music, clothing, literature, even food, you are STEALING that culture from its “rightful owners” – always determined by blood quantum and appearance (color, etc.) Apparently, eating tacos in the Fifty States is racist, unless you are Mexican (or of Mexican origin) or so it is being claimed on college campuses. This eating of tacos actually extends to celebrating Cinco de Mayo, because then you are “stealing their cultural heritage.” On Stanford, a sorority was attacked for their Pi Phiesta taco-selling fund raiser for charity. So they changed it to deemphasize Cinco de Mayo. At Dartmouth, the sorority cancelled the event entirely. It seems that next on the agenda will be Taco John’s and Taco Bell and Del Taco: unless these firms can come up with a way to discriminate and prevent Anglos and Irish and Germans and AmerInd and Chinese and Black Americans from enjoying their food. What is next? Prohibiting anyone who is NOT able to whip out an Irish-issued blood quantum card from celebrating St. Patrick’s Day?
Mama’s Note: Oh dear… I’m afraid that ship sailed a LOOOONG time ago… Any superficial study of world genetic lines will demonstrate such thorough mixing of “races” that it’s far too late for most to suddenly claim purity, and groups of people have been exchanging and adulterating various “cultures” for so many centuries that untangling them now would be hopeless… even if people found it a good thing to do.
This is just more “politically correct” nonsense. The best thing to do is simply ignore it all. I’m Scottish, but you’ll have to pry my tacos out of my cold, dead hands.
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The Price of Liberty 
Libertarian Commentary on the News, #14-19D: Truths people pretend aren’t so
By Nathan Barton
Every day, we see government and businesses – particularly big business – and academia (usually a branch of government) lie more and more. Much of this lying relates directly to ignoring or hiding or denying truths that people want to pretend aren’t true. Stories today illustrate that sad fact.
A half dozen truths few people want to admit:
The best anti-poverty tool is jobs, according to Economics 21. Their research indicates that those who find a job after losing one experience reduced earnings for up to two decades afterwards.
Mama’s Note: I never took a new job that paid less than the last one, and I changed jobs fairly frequently in the early days of my career. There was always a “nursing shortage,” of course, so that had a lot to do with it, but I was also mostly debt free and did not have expensive tastes. Seems to me that changing jobs is the least of the problem, so don’t understand this reference. I sure do wish I had been able to save or invest all of the money I earned, but which was instead stolen in one way or another by taxes and other unnecessary expenses such as licensing.
The amount of federally “owned” acres leased for oil and gas exploration (drilling) has dropped 24 percent since 2008. While the U.S. leased 131 million federal acres in 1984, it leased only 36 million acres last year. Real Clear Energy talks about needing to increase this amount significantly, in light of the shale oil bonanza.
Heritage foundation points out that half of all doctors won’t accept new Medicaid patients, And that despite the problems that Medicaid patients already have accessing doctors, one of the biggest ways that Obamacare expands health care coverage is through the Medicaid program. This means that as time goes on, fewer and fewer people will be able to get any routine medical care, unless they can pay for it out of their own pocket – and if they could, they wouldn’t be on Medicaid. Supposedly…
Mama’s Note: Oh brother… what a crock. Doctors are increasingly refusing to accept Medicaid (and Medicare) patients because they will go out of business if they don’t. The amounts paid by these government programs do not cover their expenses (paperwork, extra employees, delayed or denied payment), let along let them make a living. Not to mention the fact that the government then makes the medical decisions and destroys whatever is left of the patient/doctor relationship. Most people don’t even need “routine medical care,” and would be far better off taking care of most things themselves, seeking a doctor only for truly life threatening problems. Then they’d have real incentive to take care of their bodies, for one thing.
Who will pay for highway funding? So asks the Wall Street Journal. They point out that a total of 1,001,874 miles of roads in the United States receive federal funding. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the highway trust fund is on track to drop to $2 billion by September 30, and its mass-transit account will drop to just $1 billion. It is a good question, but NOT the only question that needs to be raised. First, why should the FedGov provide 50-95% of funding for more than a MILLION miles of roads? Shouldn’t those who use the roads pay for them directly? Like we do for power and water and communication service (or should, if there weren’t all these government welfare programs?)? And why is 1/3 of highway money going for the boondoggle of public transit? Again, shouldn’t those who use it pay for it? Actually, historically, the federal excise tax on motor fuels (and the state taxes) going into a highway users trust fund made a wee bit of sense – those who drive on the roads pay for it by a tax on their fuel. But politics and government greed were in the way. The bureaucracy skims off an ever growing percentage of it, and then Congress (AND legislatures) also started skimming off a bigger and bigger chuck, for “art” and public transit and anything else they wanted (“needed”) to have money for. So now, with fuel efficiency getting better, the thing is going bust. And who has to pick up the tab? They get their way, it will be taxpayers now and in the future.
Heritage also talks about Free-Market principles for agricultural policy. They say (and I think that they are right) that farmers should be able to succeed on their own merits, not require subsidies in order to succeed. Ensuring that farmers are profitable is not the role of the government. And farmers are smart people: they can figure it out. But like all of us, many have been lazy for 80 years now: why work as hard or smart when someone else will pay to support you? The longer this goes on, the harder it is to get things back to how they should be: an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work. Of course, that also means getting rid of hundreds of thousands of other jobs living off the government gravy train, which is why the policy is so badly messed up today.
Mama’s Note: That would also require the elimination of the taxes and regulations that prevent farmers and ranchers from making the best use of their land. The EPA alone has destroyed the ability of so many to be productive and self reliant. How many farms and ranches are lost every year to taxes and other takings, in spite of the subsidies? It’s insane.
These are not the only cases this week of where people want to ignore the truth and accept lies. Consider the next stories:
The “new” Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) is getting everyone nervous. A second patient/victim has shown up in the US and medical emergency planners are going ape over it. I am not saying it is not dangerous, but the fear is obscene. ” For the last two years, since the virus that kills one-third of those it infects first appeared on the other side of the world, on the Arabian Peninsula, U.S. epidemiologists have waited and prepared for the day it would appear in this country… Health officials have been keeping a close eye on the virus since scientists first discovered it in a 60-year-old Saudi man, who died in 2012 after suffering pneumonia and kidney failure. By June 2013, nearly 80 people in the region had been infected with MERS, and more than half had died. Saudi Arabia, which has been hit hardest by MERS, reported Wednesday that it had recorded 449 cases and that 121 of those infected had died.”
Proper care is unlikely to be found in Saudi Arabia, even for the elite gang-members that rule the nation. But the response is that of a police state, in Indiana, and now in Florida. Including secrecy. What really disturbs ME about these is that BOTH are “health care workers” – US citizens working in Saudi Arabia, and yet they waited hours or days to get treatment when they became ill. This kind of irresponsibility DOES kill people: are they infected by Arabian “Inshallah” (As God wills) as well as MERS? Were these people told lies in Saudi Arabia, or told TO lie? Is Saudi Arabia telling the truth?
Who do we believe? An article in Huffington Post claims that melting of ice on Antarctica has reached a massive tipping point and a glacier the size of Arizona and New Mexico combined is going to collapse, causing flooding of 4 to 12 feet higher ocean levels in 85 years or less. But at the same time, GOVERNMENT data shows that the ice sheet hit new records for the size, 124,000 square miles larger than the previous record, even though it is still Fall in the Southern Hemisphere. The global warming believers claim that there is a difference between land ice and sea ice, and we should ignore the new data. But we’ve heard THAT story from them again and again. People are being told to believe lies, even when the truth is out there. As in the next story.
This lie is more and more common: that by enjoying or adopting an aspect of some other culture: music, clothing, literature, even food, you are STEALING that culture from its “rightful owners” – always determined by blood quantum and appearance (color, etc.) Apparently, eating tacos in the Fifty States is racist, unless you are Mexican (or of Mexican origin) or so it is being claimed on college campuses. This eating of tacos actually extends to celebrating Cinco de Mayo, because then you are “stealing their cultural heritage.” On Stanford, a sorority was attacked for their Pi Phiesta taco-selling fund raiser for charity. So they changed it to deemphasize Cinco de Mayo. At Dartmouth, the sorority cancelled the event entirely. It seems that next on the agenda will be Taco John’s and Taco Bell and Del Taco: unless these firms can come up with a way to discriminate and prevent Anglos and Irish and Germans and AmerInd and Chinese and Black Americans from enjoying their food. What is next? Prohibiting anyone who is NOT able to whip out an Irish-issued blood quantum card from celebrating St. Patrick’s Day?
Mama’s Note: Oh dear… I’m afraid that ship sailed a LOOOONG time ago… Any superficial study of world genetic lines will demonstrate such thorough mixing of “races” that it’s far too late for most to suddenly claim purity, and groups of people have been exchanging and adulterating various “cultures” for so many centuries that untangling them now would be hopeless… even if people found it a good thing to do.
This is just more “politically correct” nonsense. The best thing to do is simply ignore it all. I’m Scottish, but you’ll have to pry my tacos out of my cold, dead hands.
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About TPOL Nathan
Follower of Christ Jesus (a christian), Pahasapan (resident of the Black Hills), Westerner, Lover of Liberty, Free-Market Anarchist, Engineer, Army Officer, Husband, Father, Historian, Writer, Evangelist. Successor to Lady Susan (Mama Liberty) at TPOL.