Highway robbery? Or just desserts?

Posted on 2024-02-26 by TPOL Nathan

Well, it appears that yet another politician has jumped on the reparations for slavery bandwagon. Big time. While that comes as no surprise (standard modus operandi for politicians), it again raises some big questions about liberty, responsibility, and use of force.

The stakes are big, according to this guy: he wants all 44 million Americans who are “black” or “African American” to each receive $330,000 from the FedGov. (Presumably in addition to whatever certain States and cities are pushed to give.) Trillions of dollars – but in a time when the National Debt is 30 Trillion, that number isn’t so scary anymore. The guy isn’t quite crass enough to expect a finder’s fee for getting this money, but I’m sure he expects to reap big dividends in dollars and influence.

Some of us lovers of liberty (and engineers and accounting type folks) are crass enough to ask for and talk about details, however. Probably nothing new, but still of interest as we look for ways to convince people this is not a matter of assuaging the guilt they supposedly have over what their supposed ancestors supposedly did.

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In the old Roman tradition – privately-funded public works

Posted on 2024-02-24 by TPOL Nathan

From MSM comes this odd little story: a candidate for the 49th Congressional District in California has paid for buying and installing 400 feet of concertina (general purpose barbed tape obstacle GPBTO, commonly called “razor tape” by the idiots in the media) in the infamous San Judas Gap on the California – Baja California del Norte border. The Gap is a highly frequented place to smuggle not just border jumpers but drugs (good and bad), various other goods, and supposedly a wide variety of spies and stolen goods.

Set aside, for the moment, the idiocy of trying to prevent smuggling, the foolishness of border policies that make free trade and free and safe travel (basic G-d-given human rights) dangerous, expensive, and an excuse for all kinds of evil. Ditto for the stupidity and fatal consequences of drug prohibition and how banning or greatly restricting some drugs leads to creation of demand for other, more dangerous substances. Or how bans on buying and owning such things as guns finances and promotes the criminals who prey on others. (Though we do like to point out that good fences make good neighbors, and friendly folks don’t go into neighbor’s houses by climbing through the attic or breaking through the window.)

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Theft and corruption in American local governments

Posted on 2024-02-23 by TPOL Nathan

As we look at corruption – at government corruption, we must always remember that corruption is not limited to the White House, the Capitol in DC, and the Supreme Court. Nor to the fifty State Capitols.

No, local government is just as much infected with the corruption of both money and power. And growing worse. A century ago, no local government attempted to regulate the lives of its residents and the activities of the businesses in its jurisdiction to one-tenth the degree we find common in 2024.

Let’s look at a few examples:

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When has a State seceded? Who calls the shots?

Posted on 2024-02-21 by TPOL Nathan

Back in the 1860s, it was all very simple and clear-cut – at least looking back a century and a half. A State called a convention with delegates selected by voters, and if the convention voted to leave the Union, a declaration was published stating the fact and reasons. Good or bad, or both.

(By the way, that is called “representative democracy” and the States are sovereigns. Too bad the self-proclaimed “defenders of democracy” today (and then, at least in the North and West) can’t seem to understand that. Of course, these same so-called democracy-worshippers today don’t seem to trust The People” to vote right without some kind of vanguard telling them what to vote for.)

But today, we need to ask, when does a State de facto secede from the Union. (Well, what is left of the federal republic after 150 years of stealing power, money, and rights by DC.)

What do you, dear readers, think?

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Do we have to choose between capitalism and charity?

Posted on 2024-02-19 by TPOL Nathan

The entire question in the headline hit us here at The Price of Liberty as kind of strange. In our eyes, it isn’t like capitalism (free markets) and charity are mutually exclusive. We figure that without income from capitalistic enterprises (whether owned by us or us working for other people), we would not be able to be charitable. To give money, time, goods, and services, to worthy causes. Including people in need. Including both physical and spiritual family in need.

We assume that is the case with other lovers of liberty, whether they are people of faith or not.

But perhaps, we see that many people do not see matters that way. Why?

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Some things to think about on a winter’s evening

Posted on 2024-02-18 by TPOL Nathan

Ideas of liberty, freedom, and government (or lack thereof):

All too often, these are seen as opposing principles, but that is not necessarily the case. A few thoughts about each:

In economic terms, we have freedom if we have equality of opportunity and NOT equality of outcome. And no matter that we have people that are uber-wealthy: today in those nations with at least some liberty, we find that 95-99% of the people have wealth that just a century ago was denied to the top 1% of societies.

As regards diplomacy, we think of the quote from Adolf Hitler: “When diplomacy ends, war begins.” Liberty requires that we be armed in order to be able to resolve issues by diplomacy and not through violence, as paradoxical as that seems. Peace with liberty is best served by being ready and prepared to defend ourselves violently.

Civility is much easier if a society is armed and has liberty and a respect for one another as individuals. But authority outside the family turns into tyranny even more quickly than in the family. Authority must be constrained by liberty if we are to enjoy the benefits of civilization. All liberty is civil in nature, even though we distinguish between personal and economic liberty.

Societal success is highly dependent on balancing tradition and progress. In both, there is good and evil: not in the traditions and progress themselves as much as how they are applied. Progress does not mean rejecting any and all traditions any more than tradition rejects any progress: a society needs a mixture of both to promote peace, prosperity and (in all things) liberty.

We shall know the truth, and the truth shall make us free.

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Corruption and immorality in government – a pictorial!

Posted on 2024-02-17 by TPOL Nathan

Try to smile! Liberty works. So does government, just not for you and me and the average person.

People have recognized this for a long, long time.

In 2016, New Atlas reported that 85% of the people of the world lived under corrupt governments. The publication called it “our rotten world.” Frankly, the estimate of 85% is low: it approaches unity, as Spencer stated. And the degree of corruption has grown in the past eight years.

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Government immorality explodes?

Posted on 2024-02-16 by TPOL Nathan

Or is it just more obvious today? The little soap opera in Georgia regarding attorneys seeking to imprison The Donald for life is just one of hundreds of examples. Especially here in the Fifty States.

John Adams stated, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” This thought is profound and holds great importance in understanding the foundation of the former American republic.

Especially since that foundation is virtually completely eroded away. It was once thought to be “a solid rock” but has proven more and more to be nothing but shifting sands. Again, we point to the Willis situation in Georgia: the facts and especially this lawyer’s testimony. Not only does it again confirm the reason that more and more of us distrust more and more lawyers. It is truly disgusting to hear what passes for acceptable relationships between people who are, officially at least, adults.

But we see it everywhere we look, especially in government. Politicians and elected officials who seek out and exploit loopholes (real or perceived) to enrich themselves, their families, and friends. Who not just twist the law but write the law in such a way to make it easier to cheat, steal, and take advantage of it. Who are willing (but don’t need) to wear blinders and rose-colored glasses when looking at some people, while demanding and getting the full force of the law used as a hammer on their political enemies and the less-powerful.

How can someone who steals campaign contributions or money from family and friends be trusted to wisely spend (and not steal) the public (taxpayer) money? Especially when the way that money comes under their control is itself immoral?

As one commentator noted today, we are indeed seeing the nations of North America burn to the ground. But the fuel load has been lovingly put together for decades. And the ignition sources have been ready to be applied.

Scientists, engineers, and firefighters recognize that there are four requirements for fire. The fire tetrahedron needs heat (the right temperature), oxygen (a supply of air), fuel (of many kinds), and a chemical reaction:

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North Dakota seeks monetary damages from FedGov

Posted on 2024-02-15 by TPOL Nathan

Longtime readers of TPOL may recall the nasty fuss over the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) in which thousands of Lakota and their allies launched massive protests in rural and frontier North Dakota (and adjacent parts of other States) to keep an oil pipeline from being built.

The Ludites had the full support of the Obummer regime, even though it was demonstrated that both the State of North Dakota and Fedgov agencies (including our own US Army Corps of Engineers) had done everything in accordance with the law, indeed going beyond legal requirements, and determined that the project would cause no significant negative environmental social, or economic impact on the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe (SRST) or anyone else. The FedGov failed to follow or enforce its own laws, and bent over backwards to support the lawbreaking protesters and their backers and evnablers.

Lawbreakers? Yes: destruction of private and public property, trespassing (on tribal, state, federal, and private land), perjury and more. In a tremendous insult to its own bureaucrats, DC stopped the project (already underway), costing private industry millions of dollars.

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Wyoming bonanza?

Posted on 2024-02-14 by TPOL Nathan

For more than a century, the State of Wyoming has been critical in the history and success of the economy and technology of the States – and possibly, the entire planet.

That critical nature may not be just a historical condition. Recent discoveries may continue this importance for decades or centuries more. In a story on MSN, of all places, the latest news about the discovery of massive amounts of rare earths is one of the major examples of the critical nature of, and need for, Wyoming by Americans and the world.

This is nothing new for Wyoming. It has always been a land of amazing and surprising discoveries and events, opportunities – and dangers.

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