By Nathan Barton
Good morning, everyone.
Remember when all these municipal and other local governments were constantly pushing carpooling? You can still see signs encouraging it. But the larger American cities are being pressured by taxi companies (and unions) and other “concerned parties” to discourage or even outlaw carpooling, now that it is ridesharing with connections on internet to help. Farfetched? Never underestimate the power of unions and companies that enjoy a monopoly or near monopoly: that is exactly WHY we have licensing and franchises for things like taxis, hairdressing, and barbering.
Well, it seems Americans spend more on taxes than food, clothing and housing COMBINED. Which, according to the Tranzis, is the way it should be. And is incredibly stupid. Of course, there are those trying to fix this situation: new FDA and other FedGov rules are driving the price of food up quickly (together with some new pig virus and harsh winter weather), and I just read an article a few days ago whinging about how horrible it is that clothing only costs Americans 2-3% of their income and that this is evil on multiple levels, so we MUST start paying more.
China wants the FedGov to know that we (the USA) should think very carefully before we start messing with them. It has come to this, that our “enemies” are more worried about the stupid things “our” government (the FedGov) will do than we are.
Russia is agitating in Ukraine, seemingly doing their best to cause unrest throughout the nation, or so it is claimed: you can also interpret that as ethnic Russians doing this all on their own, without any prompting (but probably not any dissuasion either) from Moscow. Understandably, the FedGov and NATO are not happy with the way Russia is handling things… but Russia just doesn’t care. And why should they? They are completely unafraid that we will do anything worse than deprive them of Pepsi.
78% of the Fifty States have been cooler than normal since October 1st. Despite this, NOAA currently has (on their website, weather.gov) a piece of propaganda about how the spring thaw started on 21 March (gee, what an odd date) in the Arctic and that the ice coverage is at its lowest since 1979 FOR THIS DATE. Is it any wonder that more and more of us believe government less and less.
One of the Fuehrer’s minions, good old SecState John Kerry knows just how to win friends and influence people – so he’s blaming Israel for the failure of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, thus satisfying our “Arab friends.” This is the, what, the fifty-fifth failure of those talks in sixty-seven years? Compared to all of maybe ten “successes” and then a couple of years where everyone was too busy fighting to talk? Which brings up the next point about the Fuehrer and his underlings.
It’s been very, very funny watching the Fuehrer and his minions squirm as even the mainstream media begins noticing the hypocrisy in their double-talk. CBS noted the hypocrisy and that the administration was getting “roughed up” for it. CNN calls the administration’s stance on gender equality in pay a case of “do as I say not as I do.” Shucks, most of us just call it hypocrisy. And point out that it has been going on for at least five years with the Fuehrer, not to go back to earlier regimes.
More double-talk: The Fuehrer’s shill, Jay Carney says that Republicans can ‘Take politics out of it’ by passing the Democrats’ bill. Well, he is right. Abject surrender always simplifies things. “Our enemies,” thunders the dictator, “are the ones causing this war. They could end the fighting and the killing immediately by just surrendering.” How simple life can be!
There are a lot of different stories out today about Holder’s remarks on “gun bracelets” as people respond differently. One says: Holder: DOJ Considering Forcing Gun Owners to Wear Electronic Bracelets while another says: Holder: We want to explore gun tracking bracelets. I’ve looked at these and several other stories, and I think that the writers are reading in a whole lot more into Holder than they should be:. We HAVE to be very careful with anything this man does, but he is a criminal and a tyrant and liar, but NOT a fool. This is nothing new: he and others have been advocating “smart-guns” for a long time, and a couple of states actually had bills introduced to require that. (As stupid as the microstamping of bullets.) Holder’s comments here may be intended to do just what it has done, rile up a lot of people (and distract from other things). His demeanor in front of another congressional committee is obviously that of an arrogant thug who believes he can intimidate anyone he wants to, and fool everyone at least some of the time. But this bracelet idea is nothing new and should not distract us from other things he (and the other minions of the Fuehrer) are doing.
As Mama Liberty points out, even if this sort of stupidity becomes law, IT WILL NOT WORK: not to stop murders and homicides, AND not to stop Americans from being able to defend ourselves against abusive bureaucrats, politicians, and other criminals. She figures they couldn’t enforce it in the district of criminals, much less Wyoming or other western states.
On to some other news:
Veterans make up only 3% of Congressional staff–in offices that responded, which makes me feel proud of veterans; at least those who refuse to stomach joining the ranks of the minions of Congress, even if they are too often clientèle of Congress.
Americans on Medicaid exceed the population of the UK, which makes sense when you consider that the population of the Fifty States is five times that of the UK, and both the aging of the population AND the way the governments have been pushing people to join Medicaid. The advertising in the past several years is pure propaganda, and serves to increase the power and number of workers (and thus, power and money) administering the program. It is one of many things that have bankrupted the US, yet it is never enough for the Tranzis.
DeMint warns people that ‘Big Business is no friend of conservatism’ nor of any kind of Libertarianism, minarchist or anarchist. This SHOULD NOT come as news to anyone, but sadly, there are millions of people who confuse free markets and capitalism with Big Business and capitalist-dominated economies (and polities). Big Business has FAR more in common with Big Government than with either small business or private consumers and producers. This has been the case since the days of British and Dutch mercantilism, and has really changed very little in the last 400 years.
Libertarian commentary on the news, #14-14E: Soviet-style FedGov control
By Nathan Barton
Good morning, and welcome to the end of the week. Fun and games in DC, while lack of self-defense results in more and more injuries under very odd circumstances, and polls that show our modern political problems are NOT just a 21st Century phenomenon, but go back decades (as if we didn’t know that already).
On to news commentary:
The FedGov and the state governments seem to have learned a “valuable” lesson from the Soviet Union of the 1940s-1980s: the use of “mental illness” and related problems as an excuse to control and imprison people – even before they become “dissidents.” While there are several ways the FedGov is using this, perhaps the most hideous is the “epidemic” of ADD and ADHD in American school children. It seems to be, indeed, a effort to eradicate masculinity; and what is worse, it seems to be succeeding. The Centers for Disease Control first attempted to tally ADHD cases in 1997 and found that about 3 percent of American schoolchildren had received the diagnosis, a number that seemed roughly in line with past estimates. But after that year, the number of diagnosed cases began to increase by at least 3 percent every year. Then, between 2003 and 2007, cases increased at a rate of 5.5 percent each year. In 2013, the CDC released data revealing that 11 percent of American schoolchildren had been diagnosed with ADHD, which amounts to 6.4 million children between the ages of four and seventeen—a 16 percent increase since 2007 and a 42 percent increase since 2003. Boys are more than twice as likely to be diagnosed as girls—15.1 percent to 6.7 percent. By high school, even more boys are diagnosed—nearly one in five. It appears that it is a disease to be a boy, to be masculine, and thus tendencies to be that way MUST be rooted out and banished by use of drugs and other punishment. This fits right in with “he’s making gun motions” and finger guns and eating Poptarts to look like guns and being charged with sexual harassment for pulling a girl’s pigtails or (shocking) kissing her. Or telling a teacher she looks pretty (now, a boy telling a male teacher he looks pretty is apparently okay). So, do we add “war on male childhood” to “war on some drugs” and “war on those who don’t believe in evolution” and “war on those who don’t believe in global warming” and all the others?
A similar technique of controlling the masses (or rather, those who try to do go) is found in Alabama, where a new law intended to protect brick-and-mortar food service places (restaurants, cafes, imbisses, kiosks, etc. against the evils of mobile food vendors and push-cart types is keeping Good Samaritans from providing food to the needy and homeless. The fixed food places decided that the only way that they could “compete” with the mobile places is to cheat and have government be bullies. And now a lot more people suffer. Supposedly this is an unintended consequence, but I wonder (as do several of the people commenting on it).
I’ve been watching as the rhetoric ramped up on both sides on the latest standoff in extreme southeastern Nevada. A cattleman is challenging what he describes as an overbearing federal government… and the government, claiming that they have been patient for twenty years with his trespassing and lawbreaking, has responded by sending out a small army to deal with him. Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy is watching his cattle being rounded up and sold (all supposed to be paid for by him from prison, apparently). Some onlookers are worried that they may be watching another Ruby Ridge, and actually encouraging hundreds of “militia” to show up to face off with the BLM and other agencies. Senator Dean Heller (R-NV) and Governor Brian Sandoval (R-NV) have both been very critical of what they say has been an overreaching federal government. The Clark County Sheriff seems to be siding with the feds. Name calling and worse, including insanely stupid “First Amendment Zone” actions, seem to be riling everyone still more, and the claims of a “new American revolution” are bouncing around. I’m watching and listening.
In the government-run, tax-funded “public schools” the threats keep ramping up, as 22 (or more) people were injured in a Chinese-style mass stabbing rampage in Murraysville, Pennsylvania (near Pittsburgh) yesterday. The same day, another man went wild with a knife in gun-safe Toronto, Ontario. I’ve been told that already, at least one prominent Tranzi black leader has called for a ban on knives, but couldn’t find this reported. Certainly we can expect even MORE panic over the occasional forgotten pocket knife or multi-tool, even though this “blank-faced” boy was using kitchen knives. The fact that not even the school “police resource officer” was armed once again shows the horrors of gun-free zones: there appear to have been several heroes during the horror, but none armed and able to do anything more than the disarmed soldiers at Fort Hood did a few days ago.
These folks weren’t the only ones disarmed, apparently: protesters at a speech by Mrs. Clinton in Las Vegas at a metal recycling conference had only a shoe to throw at the would-be tyrant. The woman was arrested and charged; clearly not a Muslim. I want to know why the recycling industry is wasting money paying Clinton to speak. Of course, she usually demonstrates a lot of brass, so maybe they are hoping…
Investors Business Daily has released an interesting poll that shows that single women are much more liberal than married women. Meanwhile the WaPo tells us that a new study reports that US policy has slanted in the direction of liberalism for the last 70 years, with only 10 percent of the major government policy shifts being “conservative.” Is it safe to say in the last CENTURY that nearly 100 percent of major government policy decisions have been opposed to personal freedom and liberty? (I can’t think of any that are really on the side of liberty, even things like the Heller decision or all the “civil rights” legislation. Maybe readers can?)
In DC, the long-raucous dispute over the IRS targeting of Republican and “conservative” political groups took a new turn, with Congressman Elijah Cummings (who last summer sought release of documents to “prove” that there was no IRS conspiracy) being accused of conspiring with the IRS against specific groups, while Holder (“Don’t go there, buddy.”) was also involved: yet the GOP thinks that Holder is willing to prosecute the former IRS chief?