The Gerrymanders where the west begins

Fort Worth, Texas is known as the place "where the west begins".   This post is about the Fort Worth Gerrymanders - the name I'm going to give a pro sports team if I'm ever rich enough to buy one. 

Gerrymandering is the dark art of fashioning voter districts to give one party or candidate an edge over another.  The term goes back to 1812, when Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry shaped some districts into the shape of something looking like a salamander.  A rival looked at the new map, agreed, and then quipped (for the ages) "It looks more like a Gerrymander". 

Here's a contemporary cartoon. 

In the USA, we have a census every 10 years.  Political districts are then re-drawn by whichever party is in power.  This is why American politicians make such a big deal of controlling Congress in the cycle after a census. 

Congress (and state legislatures) draw maps for new districts.  The party out of power always takes the issue to court, and is usually able to prove that a minority group doesn't have a proper set-aside district. 

(I once read on some typically nasty British website that the USA has two racial groups - "Black" and "Not Black".  I hate that idea, but I cannot argue with it.  To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever fought a court battle to give Asians, Scandinavians, French, Germans, etc., proper representation in government.) 

The courts then mess with it, and we wind up with districts that make Ellbridge's Gerrymander look as simple as Colorado. 

I'm Chairman of the Tarrant County Libertarian Party.  Please enjoy these maps of the Tarrant districts where I'm trying to recruit candidates for the 2014 elections.  In some races, the candidate must live in the district at the time of the election (or for some time earlier).  In others, he must commit to moving there if he wins.  All in all, candidates face a tough battle if they haven't lived in the (ahem) district for quite some time. 

Texas has its own House Of Representatives and its own Senate.  Here are the TX House districts that fall within Tarrant county.  All of these districts sensibly end at the county lines.  All of the money is in 97 and 96.  The military-industrial complex is in 99.  I think 93 is some kind of Hispanic carve-out.  To the best of my knowledge, 98 has a lot of cows.  92 is suburban sprawl.  90 is black.  95 is dark black. 
Please note 90 and 95.  What possible combination of tribalism, racism and paternalism could possibly motivate a court to draw districts like those?   

Here are the Tarrant county Texas Senate districts.  (There are 150 members of the House, but only 31 in the Senate.  Therefore, most of the Senate districts cross county lines.)

Enjoy the cartographic majesty of District 9.  It looks like there's one place in the northeast where the district is less than a block wide.  Bear in mind, this is the same county as shown above!

Here's the map for the U.S. Congressional Districts, the guys who get to go to D.C. and bring home the really big bucks.  On this map, I've shown some of the surrounding counties (Wise, Denton, Dallas, Parker and Johnson) since Congressional districts are much, much larger. 
Whoever drew District 33 sees the world through racist glasses.  He or she might love racial minorities, but no color-blind judge would've ever drawn that godawful mess on a map. 

My little tribe of liberty-lovers is doing well with candidate recruiting. 
Just wanted to post these maps so people in other countries could see the bizarre mess we're up against. 
What's sad about this process is that Black Americans often get their own "safe"district/ghetto, so there is one area, however strangely defined, where someone cares about them and their votes. 
But if these race-based districts were carved up and blended in with the rest?  There would be dozens of areas where politicians had to care about them and their votes. 
Good job, racists. 
 

The U.S. Government's Employment Verification Website Is Down !!

The E-Verify website is closed because of the Federal government shutdown.  
 

Employers in the U.S. are forced to use this system when hiring, mostly to ensure that people are "legal". 

Why does it matter so much where someone's Mom was located when her water broke? The older I get, the more I see this vile website as an instrument of racism. Or am I mistaken in not believing that the lines of latitude and longitude beneath a uterus should define a person for life?  

(And check out these politically correct contortions from the site: "This diverse workforce contributes greatly to the vibrancy and strength of our economy, but that same strength also attracts unauthorized employment.") 

Any bureaucratic drone who is proud of stopping "unauthorized employment" should be laid off permanently. And then sent to Iraq or Afghanistan, to live out the rest of his life as an "unauthorized" non-person in one of the countries that his co-workers have screwed up. 

End of rant. 

You just THOUGHT you were having a tax holiday

About two months ago, we had a workplace visit from the good people at Homeland Security. 

In addition to keeping you safe from the people pissed off by 60 years of disastrous American foreign policy decisions, military bases, and armies of occupation, the Homeland Security folks are responsible for monitoring and regulating all the import tariffs and quotas. 

The U.S. tariff and import quotas are determined by the same mechanism as most legislation: through bribes. 

The Homeland Security munchkins (3 of them, one was actually flown in from California) were looking at our aluminum products.  If our aluminum extrusions (price tag holders) came in to the country attached to a shelf, we paid one tariff rate.  But if they were not attached to the shelf, we paid a different tariff rate. 

Yeah.  They flew someone from California to Texas to help clear up this matter of national security. 

Here's another example of the system.  Go here to see the FedEx spreadsheet for importing clocks.  Nobody remembers why clocks are imported according to certain rules.  Nobody cares.  The rules are there, and they create jobs for bureaucrats, and these bureaucrats make good donors and foot-soldiers during elections. 

Here's something about the assorted import taxes on your kids' clothing and school supplies.  You could purchase the stuff for less, but you have to support unnecessary bureaucrats instead of supporting the companies, services and friends that you would otherwise choose. 

The people who enforce this have to be paid.  The companies who bring stuff into our collective cage have to pay other people to keep the bureaucrats happy.  Totally wasteful. 

Think of the economic boost of bringing in EVERYTHING at 4%.  It would be amazing. 

If Barack Obama Were To Enter My Department Store

It looks like it's going to be "All Trayvon, All The Time" through the November 2014 elections.  We're going to be overlooking the tragedy, and the easily preventable causes, of thousands of black kids murdered by other black kids every year (see previous post) and concentrate on the one black kid who was murdered by a Hispanic guy who was also partly black and part white.  I think. 

I'm so sick and freakin' tired of political hacks dividing us into Hutu's and Tutsi's.  But if you had Obama's track record to defend, you'd talk Trayvon too. 

Therefore, it's time to start ridiculing every statement that the President Of The United States makes on the subject of race.  He gave a shameful speech the other day, in which he identified with the black kid who had the Hispanic guy on the ground, pounding his head into the curb.  There was no indication that this shooting was a "hate crime", but that's the direction that Obama, going off-teleprompter, chose to take it. 

There are very few African-American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me.

Oh, sweet mantle of victimhood !! 

Barack, if you think people were following you around before you were president, wait until you see what happens afterwards.....

The actor James Woods recently tweeted that they only reason they've ever followed you was to make sure you wouldn't raise their taxes. 

I can top that.....  If Barack Obama were to enter my department store, I'd have him followed to make sure he wasn't going to break my windows.  The "broken windows" parable of Frederic Bastiat really does appear to be his dominant economic misunderstanding. 

If Barack Obama were to enter my department store, I'd have him followed to make sure he didn't take what wasn't his.  I've never known a human who was so enthusiastic about taking money from Person A to give to Person B, but not before raking some off the top to give to his Washington flunkies in Group C. 

If Barack Obama were to enter my department store, yeah, I'd have him followed.  "You Didn't Build That" isn't that much of a leap from "You Don't Deserve That", followed closely by "I Know Some People Who Could Use That And They All Voted For Me".

If Barack Obama were to enter my department store, well, I gotta be honest.....  I'd ask him for a subsidy.  I'd point out my Green Energy Perpetual Motion Machines that are invisible to the naked eye, I'd show him the documentation that the entire store is heated and cooled by Compressed Green Fairy Flatulence, and I'd agree to change the name of my website to "The Greened Sepulchre".  And, like so many of his other green energy subsidy benefactors, I might get a buncha money that I could walk away with before letting the thing go bankrupt. 

If Barack Obama were to enter my department store, I'd ask him to simply buy it.  Then I'd watch him destroy it, the way we shamefully destroyed all those cars during the "Cash For Clunkers" debacle. 

If Barack Obama were to enter my department store, I wouldn't insist on a cash payment.  Hell, there's no telling how much more of the stuff was printed while his limo waited in the parking lot.  I wouldn't want a check.  All of his post-dated checks are going to be bouncing soon.  I would want his credit card.  Please dear God, I know that I'm a sinner, but let me get my hands on that damn fool's credit card.  Whatever he bought, I'd add $51,000.00 to the total charge.  That's the additional amount that he's put on mine. 

Let's Have A National Dialogue About Race

For the last week, we’ve been plagued by Talking Heads and politicians wanting to have “a national dialogue about race”.

That’s a great idea. We’ve got good people of all races in the U.S. I just finished putting in a long weekend’s work with a crew of mostly black guys who went at it so hard that I almost wept out of gratitude. So let’s start with this. Black folks are only 14% of our population in the U.S., but make up almost 40% of the prison population. The overwhelming majority of these incarcerations are because of the NixonObama Drug War. We could end this war tomorrow if we had the political will. But there are more than one million government employees and contractor employees who would lose their jobs if we were to do so.

Many of these people are behind bars because they consumed or sold marijuana. Have you ever seen the black street gangs who support themselves by selling Budweiser, Jim Beam or Coors Light? No? Well, neither has anyone else for the last 90 years. We ended Prohibition, and we ended the violence.

I know a lot of black guys who like to smoke weed. Unless they’re driving one of my forklifts, or semi-tractors, their habits are none of my business. Or your business. Or Barack’s or Boehner’s or Rick Perry’s. I do know that “stoned” drivers are safer than drunk drivers, but that’s beside the point. If someone isn’t hurting you, he should be left alone to live life as he pleases, and not hectored to death by a gaggle of Washington puritans and their prison contractors.

Let’s have a national dialogue about race.

Let’s talk about black education. Young black males, depending on who you talk to, are dropping out of school at a rate somewhere around 50%. This is not an act of despair on their part. In many cases, it’s a calm rational response to what they (and many others) perceive as a total waste of time. I often meet and hire high school graduates who can’t read a tape measure, can’t do long division, and can’t spell well enough to fill out their own job applications.

But why should someone put in “seat time” in an institution that is failing in its mission? (And “seat time” is how our government schools are ranked for funding.) If black families were given a choice in where their education dollars go, like we are currently given a choice in where our grocery dollars go, we would see a revolution in minority education and minority achievement. This is a solved problem. But can you imagine the wailing from the Department Of Education if, say, Texas were to institute a 100% school choice/school voucher system? Can you imagine how far that would go toward ending white flight from our cities and into the suburbs?

Let’s have a national dialogue about race.

Black teenage unemployment is at 50%, the highest it has been since World War II. Why? Because our government has priced black teenagers out of the market.

Arthur Laffer has written that “The minimum wage is the black teenage unemployment act. The guaranteed way of holding the poor, the minorities and the disenfranchised out of the mainstream is to price their services too high.” Our first minimum wage law, the Davis-Bacon Act, was written for the sole purpose of guaranteeing full white employment at the expense of blacks. It was openly debated in those terms in Congress. Here’s Walter Williams (a brilliant economist who just happens to be blacker than both Barack Obama and George Zimmerman combined) explaining why this law, unlike so many other social engineering schemes, has been uncommonly successful:

“Put yourself in the place of an employer and ask: If I must pay to whomever I hire $7.25 an hour, plus mandated fringes such as Social Security, vacation, health insurance, unemployment insurance, does it pay me to hire a worker who is so unfortunate so as to have a skill level that allows him to contribute only $5 worth of value an hour? Most employers would view hiring such a person a losing economic proposition.

Therefore, the primary effect of a minimum wage law is that of discrimination against the employment of low-skilled workers.

Teenagers tend to be low skilled. They lack the experience, knowledge and maturity of adults. That means they will be the primary victims of a minimum wage law. But why are black teens more heavily impacted than white teens? Black teens are far more likely to come from broken homes and attend some of the worst schools in the nation. Therefore, a law that discriminates against the employment of low-skilled workers will have a greater impact on black workers. Moreover, the minimum wage subsidizes racial discrimination. After all, if you must pay $7.25 an hour to whomever you hire, you might as well hire people you like the most, even if they are of identical skill.

The little bit of money a kid could earn after school and on the weekends is not nearly as important as the other benefits from early work experiences. Any kind of job, paying any wage, teaches a youngster that he must be on time, respect supervisors, develop good work habits, plus there's the self-esteem and pride that comes from being at least financially semi-independent. Early work experiences benefit any kid but are far more important for kids from broken homes, who reside in crime-ridden neighborhoods and attend rotten schools. If they are to learn anything that will make them a more valuable employee in the future, it will have to come from work; they won't learn it at home or in the schools. For Congress to enact higher and higher minimum wages, to benefit their union supporters, is shameful and cruel.”

Well said, sir. (BTW, Williams put that bit about the union supporters in there because many government labor contracts are expressed in multiples of the current minimum wage.)

So let’s have that national dialogue about race. Let’s talk about the incredibly destructive (but profitable for government employees) War On Drugs. Let’s talk about the dismal failures (with incredible pensions and job tenure) in our public schools. Let’s talk about the economic apartheid enforced by our government.

Yeah. Let’s have that national dialogue about race. But instead of watching politicians digest the news and shit platitudes, let’s really start talking about how to improve things.

So where should we start?

How Not To Increase The Black Employment Rate

This morning on the way to work, I listened to NPR's Scott Simon interviewing Darrick Hamilton, an economist from "The New School".  (I often listen to NPR since I'm forced by the government's men with guns to help pay for it.)
The topic was the incredible disparity between black and white unemployment rates.  It's now a 2 to 1 ratio.

I interviewed black guys for about four hours yesterday, so I listened to the whole thing.  It took an ACT OF GOD to keep me from shoving my fist through the windshield. 

Go here to listen to the whole thing.  If you're a regular reader of this blog, stay away from glass and sharp objects. 

Perfesser Hamilton wants to have a Federal Job Guarantee.  Hit the link for the whole thing. 

By creating a National Investment Employment Corps (NIEC), states and municipalities could develop inventories of needed jobs for all who are able to work, matching skilled and unskilled alike with full employment opportunities. Jobs would address physical and human infrastructure needs, including building, repair and maintenance of bridges, damns, roads, parks, museums, mass transit systems, school facilities, health clinics, child care centers, even restoration of our damaged postal system. Pay would range from a minimum of $20,000 to a maximum of $80,000, each job also providing benefits, opportunities for advancement, on-the-job training and professional development.

Christ Almighty in a sidecar.  Wealth is created by moving assets from lower valued uses to higher valued uses.  Nobody becomes better off in the long run by hiring more government munchkins to train more and more black unemployed drug war victims in the skills needed to build museums, or the "restoration of our damaged postal system" LOL.  But enough about Perfesser Hamilton's FDR-era fantasies....

I interviewed 5 black guys yesterday.  One of my supervisors (who happens to be black) sat in with me.  We heard 5 depressingly similar stories. 

All 5 candidates had a criminal record related to the Nixon-Ford-Carter-Regan-Bush-Clinton/Rodham-Bush-Obama Drug War. 
All 5 candidates would have cheerfully taken $5.00 an hour.  It would be illegal for them to work for that amount, BTW.  I could hire all 5 at $5.00 an hour.  Barack Obama, in his wisdom, will only let me hire 3 of them at $8.00 an hour and stay within my semi-budget. 

A couple of these guys were really, really sharp.  They have absolutely no business coming to work for me, unloading shipping containers.  One of them was an honor student and captain of his high school basketball team, and had had a fairly good Air Force gig. 

When we didn't have a minimum wage, black folks sometimes had a higher employment rate than whites. 
When we didn't have a drug war going on, we weren't locking up so many black guys and totally ruining their employment prospects. 

The disparity between black and white unemployment is a solved problem.  Eliminate the minimum wage.  End the idiotic drug war.  We could do this tomorrow. 

But we're just too compassionate. 

Globalization - Whose Wife Will She Be In The Resurrection?

This is from the Gospel Of Luke, Chapter 20:27 

Now some Sadducees, who claim there is no resurrection, came to Jesus and asked him, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no child, the man should marry the widow and have children for his brother.  Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died childless.  Then the second.  And the third married her. In the same way, all seven died and left no children.  Finally, the woman died, too.  Now in the resurrection, whose wife will the woman be, since the seven had married her?”

It was during moments like these that Jesus would freak out and start throwing things and calling people "Sons Of Vipers" and "Whited Sepulchres".  He supposedly wanted to worry about the big questions.

Fast forward 2,000 years.   

If you are a U.S. citizen, you pay people to walk around the countryside, into our ports, ships, warehouses and trucks, and ask the following questions.....

Who made this?
Where was it made?
Who paid for it to be made? 
Did it ship assembled or unassembled?
What is it made of ?
For what purpose?

Billions of dollars are paid, or not paid, based on the answers to these questions.  There are tens of thousands of different import rates for different products and purposes.  It all depends on which lawmakers have been paid off, and if they've remained paid off.  (I'm working on an epic post about the tariff implications of X-Men Action Figures representing humans or non-humans.  True story.  It made hundreds of thousands of dollars' difference in the taxes/tariffs. Stay tuned....) 

Anyway, I work for a Texas company that hired a Cambodian to design this clothing fixture that was prototyped by a Serbian for an Italian clothing company and made in China under the oversight of a French manager for use in stores in Japan and Russia. 

It's called "Globalization".  I hope that you all are adjusting to it nicely.  Whatever you're using to read this rant, that device is affordable because of Globalization. 

When goods and services can cross national boundaries as easily as they currently cross zip codes, you will be able to knock another 10% off the price you pay for just about everything. 

So.... If you had to put a nationality on this clothing rack, what would it be?  Whose wife will it be in the Resurrection?  How long is a string?  How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?  And why does it still matter? 

On Racism

Libertarians, as a general rule, are all about protecting individual rights. 
There are no "group" rights. 
There are no "minority" rights that can't be more rationally applied to individuals. 
The smallest minority is the individual. 

Libertarians generally despise collectivism. 
The worst form of collectivism is that which lumps the individual in with others, based only on genetic, hereditary, or regional similarities. 
That would be racism. 

Our government employs legions of purity police, dividing their little kingdoms into Hutus and Tutsis, and ensuring that goodies and graft go to each "side". 

They do this because 1) it helps keep them in power, and 2) they see people through a race-based filter.  They know that tribalism is the best method of control.   

They are racists. 

Hope this helps. 

It wasn't the Rotary Club that segregated the public schools

Here are some goodies from Don Boudreaux on what would happen to Civil Rights and Civil Liberties without the heavy hand of government making us behave.

Remember: Jim Crow was legislation, not custom. PLEASE read the whole thing....

Letter to editor: Reacting to Rand Paul’s remarks about the 1964 Civil Rights Act, you say that his libertarian philosophy “is a theory of liberty with roots in America’s creation, but the succeeding centuries have shown how ineffective it was in promoting a civil society….  It was only government power that … abolished Jim Crow” (“Limits of Libertarianism,” May 22).

Don Boudreaux: You’ve got it backwards.  Jim Crow itself was government power.  Jim Crow was legislation that forced the segregation of blacks from whites.  Research shows that people acting in the free market that you apparently believe is prone to racial discrimination were remarkably reluctant to discriminate along racial lines.  It was this very reluctance – this capacity of free markets to make people colorblind – that obliged racists in the late 19th century to use government to achieve their loathsome goals.*
Had Mr. Paul’s libertarian philosophy been followed more consistently throughout American history, there would have been no need for one government statute (the Civil Rights Act) to upend earlier government statutes (Jim Crow) and the business practices that they facilitated.

Once again, hit the link up top to read the whole thing....

Don't congratulate Big Boi Patton on the Obama victory

A NYC radio station runs a segment called "Everyday Racism".
The guest in this clip was Big Boi Patton of Outkast.
Don't congratulate Big Boi on the Obama victory just because they're both black.  The similarities end there.  Big Boi is smart and has some talent, and had sense enough to vote Libertarian. 



Here's a fun video.  My favorite Outkast song, prob'ly because it isn't rap, and I'm too old for the other stuff.  I don't care how old you are, this is good stuff:

On Olympics uniforms made in China

Here's Don Boudreaux of the Cafe Hayek blog, on purchasing Olympics uniforms from China:

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) – a leader of a party whose members publicly preen themselves on their alleged devotion to science and realism – throws a conniption fit because the uniforms to be worn by U.S. athletes at the 2012 Olympics were stitched together in China rather than in America (“Burn US Olympic uniforms because they’re made in China,” July 12).

Mr. Reid’s outburst reveals his ignorance of a foundational conclusion of economic science, namely, that people are enriched when they’re free to purchase from whomever they choose regardless of political boundaries. Yes, there are economists who emphasize (mostly purely theoretical) exceptions to the case for free trade – none of which are relevant here – and even a few fringe economists who reject that case altogether. But economists’ overwhelming, non-partisan, and research-based consensus today is, as it has been for years, that free trade (even when unilateral) is beneficial. Mr. Reid’s temper tantrum proves that he is either inexcusably dimwitted about matters on which he legislates, or interested, not in science and realism and truth, but in scoring political points by appealing to the uninformed emotions of constituents.

If Mr. Reid had announced that locating water in the Mojave is easily done with divining rods, that cancer is best cured with crystals, or that the Senate chamber is haunted by Daniel Webster’s ghost, he’d be laughed out of office. But let him make a similarly laughable remark about trade and he continues to be treated as if he and his opinions deserve respect.

Sad.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

Stephanie Cutter is a racist. There is no other explanation.

I got onto a bunch of mailing lists during the 2008 elections.   That's why this letter from a silly twit named Stephanie Cutter was in my inbox last week. 
She thinks she's attacking Mitt Romney (a worthy goal), but this drivel coulda been written by a Mississippi Klansman who struggled to finish the 8th grade. 

Lord have mercy, what a jingoistic woman. 
And The Teleprompter Jesus should be ashamed of himself for all this racket about The Yellow Peril. 
Here goes....

Whited --

The Washington Post reported this morning that "Mitt Romney's financial company, Bain Capital, invested in a series of firms that specialized in relocating jobs done by American workers to new facilities in low-wage countries like China and India."

This is the same guy that goes around the campaign trail talking a huge game about being able to protect American jobs by standing up to foreign countries like China. But now we know that Romney and his partners made millions while sending American jobs overseas.

Where to begin, where to begin.  The computer you're reading this on was made in a foreign country.  Some of the people who made it weren't event Baptists !!!!   They worship strange Gods !!!!  
Look, I've beaten the Free Trade horse to death more times than I care to remember or regurgitate.  Here's a Don Boudreaux argument:

In fact, the critical assumptions on which the economic case for free trade rests are highly descriptive of reality: (1) the ultimate justification for economic activity is to improve living standards for consumers; (2) producers facing competition serve consumers better than do monopolists; (3) each party to a voluntary trade is generally made better off by such trades; and – most importantly – (4) the first three assumptions aren’t nullified merely by putting a national political border between consumers and producers.

The lines of latitude and longitude of the factory don't matter to anyone but Statists collecting payoffs from Crony Capitalists.  Do you really want to ensure that your child has a factory job putting plastic cases on iPhones???  I don't.  And you don't. 

Are you willing to pay 50% more for a lawnmower made in your hometown?  Home state?  Nation?  Continent?  Hemisphere?  Who is going to make the rules for protecting your job?  Who are these angels who are going to ensure that your neighbor gets paid what you think he's worth? 

Ok, back to Stephanie Cutter's plea for racial protectionism.  (Sorry, but I've got to call it racism.  Read it a couple of times.  There's no other explanation that makes sense.)

This is a critical point, and we need to make sure everyone knows it. Check out this video I recorded today, and share it far and wide:



Romney's support of outsourcing didn't just happen in the private sector. As governor of Massachusetts, he vetoed legislation that would have banned companies from shipping state jobs overseas -- and he actually outsourced state jobs to a call center in India.

On shipping state jobs overseas.....If we can save .50 cents an hour on the money stolen from me to pay for "state jobs", we should send those jobs overseas.  Now.
If people were given a choice on their ballots, they would vote for the same thing.  Seriously.  If you could lower your tax bill by, say, 30% by sending all state activity overseas, would you do so? 
Hell yes, you would. 

In contrast, President Obama has a jobs plan that could put up to a million people back to work -- including teachers, cops, firefighters, construction workers, and veterans -- help small businesses create jobs right now, and help to put an end to American jobs being shipped overseas.

Here's the problem with putting American teachers, cops and firefighters back to work.  You have to pay them a ridiculous amount in retirement benefits.  Some who are barely older than me are already retiring.  
That ain't sustainable.  
And did you notice how Stephanie wants to help "small" businesses create jobs, but not McDonald's, IBM, or Amazon?  What's up with that?  

He's also fighting for tax breaks for companies that bring jobs back to America.

Who is going to define what is an American job? 

Mitt Romney is fighting for tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas -- the type of companies he ran in the private sector.

This isn't just a policy position for Romney, it's his economic philosophy -- and it's his record.

Read the article, watch the video, and share them both far and wide -- doesn't get a lot more important than this one.

Thanks,

Stephanie

I'm going to call in sick today so I can spend the morning praying for Stephanie Cutter to get a freakin' clue. 

On getting work done at the lowest possible price

Wal-Mart used to have a "Made In The USA" campaign.  They tried to fill their stores with nothing but U.S. manufactured products. 

The campaign folded. 

Why? 

Because you won't support it.  If you can save .75 cents on a water hose made in Taiwan instead of Tennessee, you're going to purchase the one in Taiwan.  I've sat back and watched you do it. 

But doesn't that hurt America? 

Here's a helpful chart showing the possessions of those living in poverty.  It's from the noted right-wing, conservative periodical The Atlantic Monthly:

And how long have the poor amongst us owned these riches that would make a Roman Emperor turn green with envy? 

Here's something from The Austrian Economists.  I never tire of posting this chart, mostly because I'm old enough to remember most people doing without a lot of the following:

% Households with:	Poor 1984	Poor  1994	Poor 2003	Poor 2005	All 1971	All 2005
Washing machine	58.2	71.7	67.0	68.7	71.3	84.0
Clothes dryer	35.6	50.2	58.5	61.2	44.5	81.2
Dishwasher	13.6	19.6	33.9	36.7	18.8	64.0
Refrigerator	95.8	97.9	98.2	98.5	83.3	99.3
Freezer	29.2	28.6	25.4	25.1	32.2	36.6
Stove	95.2	97.7	97.1	97.0	87.0	98.8
Microwave	12.5	60.0	88.7	91.2	1.0	96.4
Color TV	70.3	92.5	96.8	97.4	43.3	98.9
VCR	3.4	59.7	75.4	83.6	0.0	92.2
Personal computer	2.9	7.4	36.0	42.4	0.0	67.1
Telephone	71.0	76.7	87.3	79.8	93.0	90.6
Air conditioner	42.5	49.6	77.7	78.8	31.8	85.7
Cellular Telephone			34.7	48.3	0.0	71.3
One or more cars	64.1	71.8	72.8 (2001)		79.5
source: http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/extended-05.html and prior years

So tell me this....  Do you look back fondly on the pre-globalization era? 

I don't. 

My employer, Jukt Micronics, had something like 300 employees in the U.S. before we started outsourcing like mad.  We now get something like 45% of our products from China, Taiwan and Japan. 

Now that we've sent all those jobs oversease, we have 500 employees in the U.S.  Go figure.  We do the hard stuff, China does the easy stuff. 

Here's something by Erika Johnsen that I wish was tattooed on the forearms of every racist, anti-globalization idjit on the planet:

....if everybody on planet earth could just get the following through their heads so we can all move on and lead more productive lives, that would be great: When businesses find ways to do business less expensively, consumers win. Whether the business can offer their product more cheaply and consumers can then stretch their dollars further, or if the business is able to then hire more workers and grow their operation — the economy is going to grow. Which, in turn, means that everybody wins. That’s the great thing about free trade: all transactions are voluntary and mutually beneficial. When businesses outsource, they cut costs, and people in other, poorer countries with fewer opportunities are able to find jobs and income.


Everything related to this whole “Buy America” fallacy is just awful — barring even greater costs such as threats to national security, why on earth would you do something more expensively than necessary? That’s not the way to help people — buying goods from where they are most cheaply and efficiently produced is the best way to make everyone wealthier. Prosperity is not a zero-sum game, and a busy, bustling global economic village is probably just about the only true route to world peace in existence.

This sort of populist rhetoric that perpetuates these types of economic myths sorely needs to end.

Amen. 

A Biblical Defense Of Slavery

I recently found an old seminary Bible Course Syllabus from 1885.  It was written by Dr. J.B. Shearer of Southwestern Presbyterian University in Clarksville Tennessee, "For the use of schools, colleges, and private bible classes" is the subtitle. 

This book makes me angry.  Stark raving nuts. 
I have no words to describe the human misery caused by the thinking in this book.

Please keep in mind that J.B. Shearer was an educated man with a Doctorate.  His book on the Old Testament is still in print, at least in a download edition, for those of you who are interested. 

Here's the section from Shearer's Bible Course on "The Scripture Doctrine Of Slavery".

Please stay with me. I'm going to go through Dr. J.B. Shearer's doctrine, point-by-point.  Shearer's bullet points are in bold type, scripture references are in italics, and my stuff looks like what you're reading now. 

Here's the syllabus used for part of Dr. Shearer's classwork.  

1)  I'll never be able to flesh out Shearer's first point, the one about slavery as a social institution vs. slavery as a sin.  Dr. Shearer's lectures are lost to history.  His later bullet-points reveal his sympathies, though. 

2)  Slavery has indeed existed in all ages.  It still exists.  Dr. Shearer is drifting into the "If God doesn't want it to be, then why does it happen?" argument. 

3)  "Jewish slavery antedates The Theocracy". 

You can go here to read the story in Genesis 14:13-16 of some of Abraham's relatives being captured by Sodomites (yeah, you in the back row, Sodomites) and carried away to be household slaves. 

If the Sodomites used military captives as slaves, then slavery was around before God set up his Theocracy of priests, prophets and such.  All political systems in place at that time were part of God's plan.  And God wouldn't have allowed slavery to exist if he didn't approve of it.  

4)  Dr. Shearer sees slavery as a "positive", but not a "moral" institution.  I don't own the other volumes of Dr. Shearer's syllabus that he refers to. 
I do have this picture, though.   

5) Abraham's slaveholding was recognized in the Abrahamic Covenant....(Genesis, Chapter 17)

12  He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring,
13  Both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant.
14  Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant."

So not only was God giving them the right to your labor and effort for the rest of your life, your owners also have the right, if not the responsibility, to cut off part of your reproductive organs.  Dr. Shearer helpfully points out that this is a universal covenant (or agreement).

Slavery was acknowleged and justified in the New Testament as well as the Old.  (Galatians, Chapter 3)

27  For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
29  And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

According to these verses, whether or not someone owns you and keeps you in a cage at gunpoint, you are now a child of Abraham/God/Jesus and will earn your heavenly reward.  But it's a heavenly reward, not to be given in this life.  We've still got a lot of cotton to pick.

6)  The master's right and authority are reconized in the fourth and tenth commandments.  Deuteronomy, Chapter 4.  (Here is the 4th Commandment.)

12  Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you.
13  Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
14  But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.

(And the 10th Commandment:)

21  'And you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. And you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.'

The statues of The Ten Commandments that Alabama judges want to put in their courtrooms are edited to simply state "Honor The Sabbath" and "Thou Shalt Not Covet".

A useful strategy to combat that lunacy is to insist that the uncensored commandments be posted in the courts.  Commandment advocates would then have to defend slavery or explain the omissions, and that would be fun.  

7)  Moses' law forbade permanent Jewish slavery, but encouraged Pagan slavery.  Exodus 21: 2-3.  Leviticus 25:40-46. 

I included a little more of the Exodus passage because it includes some helpful information on how to treat the daughters of your slaves:

Here's the Leviticus 25 passage.  Do you see why Damn Yankee Christians had such a hard time convincing their Southern counterparts that slavery was pure evil?

2 “If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything.
3 If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.

5 “But if the servant declares, ‘I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,’
6 then his master must take him before the judges.  He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life.
7 “If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as male servants do.
8 If she does not please the master who has selected her for himself, he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners, because he has broken faith with her.
9 If he selects her for his son, he must grant her the rights of a daughter.
10 If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights.
11 If he does not provide her with these three things, she is to go free, without any payment of money.

44 “‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves.
45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property.
46 You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

8)  Moses' law recognized, defined, limited and defended the rights of master and slave minutely.  Exodus 21:20-32 

The logic in this law, supposedly handed down by God, was clear:  Whip your slave too hard, you take a loss, and you get punished by the community.  But if the slave is back at work in a couple of days (with an improved attitude) the process is no different than tuning up an engine. 

20 “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result,
21 but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.  

9) Captives in war were divided by Divine direction.  And in the tithing, the Lord's portion was duly set apart.  Numbers 31:28-40.

This passage from the book of Numbers explains how the Israelites divided the slaves and loot after a battle.  When the author says that certain things were to be given to "the Lord", he means Eleazar and the priestly caste.  If we were to do this in our Middle East adventures, 1/500th of the oil would go to Jimmy Swaggart, the eleven Cardinals now representing the U.S. in the Roman Catholic Church, and Thomas S. Monson, now head of the Mormons in Salt Lake City:

28  From the soldiers who fought in the battle, set apart as tribute for the LORD one one of every five hundred, whether people, cattle, donkeys or sheep.
29  Take this tribute from their half share and give it to Eleazar the priest as the LORD’s part.
30  From the Israelites’ half, select one out of every fifty, whether people, cattle, donkeys, sheep or other animals. Give them to the Levites, who are responsible for the care of the LORD’s tabernacle.”
31  So Moses and Eleazar the priest did as the LORD commanded Moses.


32  The plunder remaining from the spoils that the soldiers took was 675,000 sheep,
33  72,000 cattle,
34  61,000 donkeys
35  and 32,000 women who had never slept with a man.
36  The half share of those who fought in the battle was: 337,500 sheep,
37  of which the tribute for the LORD was 675;
38  36,000 cattle, of which the tribute for the LORD was 72;
39  30,500 donkeys, of which the tribute for the LORD was 61;
40  16,000 people, of whom the tribute for the LORD was 32.

If you aren't disturbed by verse 35 up there, the one which explains who gets the young virgins, you should be.  

10)  Slavery was in its origin a merciful system.  "Servus Quia Servatus" (The servant is saved).  The weaker were protected in the family, first by the master's interest and then by his affection.  The freemen became citizens. 

Yeah.  Well, Dr. Shearer, no one saw your Presbyterian ass signing up for a few years of picking other people's cotton in this merciful system. 

I don't have the time or desire to go through the rest of J.B. Shearer's drivel point-by-point.  Here's the second page of his chapter on slavery.  Boil it down to basics, and Shearer proves that the God of the New Testament approved of slavery just as much as he did in the time of Abrham, Isaac and Jacob. 

According to the book that we now call "Bible", God approves of slavery.  You can look it up. 

Ephesians 6:5-9: "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men: Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him."

Colossians 4:1: "Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven."

1 Timothy 6:1-3 "Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort. If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness;"

Finally, there is the story of Onesimus, the runaway slave that Dr. Shearer mentions in bullet point #12.  Onesimus was a Christian.  Paul told him to return to his former masters.  Go here.  With the exception of "Buy Enron Stock" that's probably the worst advice in history. 

The collection loosely called "Bible" is just a book.  We don't know who wrote it.  Parts of it are interesting, parts of it are incredibly dull, and parts of it are downright evil.  It doesn't hold together very well.  If God really did inspire the book of Leviticus, then he is bat-shit crazy.  I defy you to read it and tell me otherwise.  Here's part of the leprosy cure from Leviticus 14:

Then the priest shall command to take for him who is cleansed two living and clean birds, cedar wood, scarlet, and hyssop. And the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running water. As for the living bird, he shall take it, the cedar wood and the scarlet and the hyssop, and dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water. And he shall sprinkle it seven times on him who is to be cleansed from the leprosy, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose in the open field. He who is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes, shave off all his hair, and wash himself in water, that he may be clean. After that he shall come into the camp, and shall stay outside his tent seven days.

For those who got lost, here's a paraphrase:

Get two birds. Kill one. Dip the live bird in the blood of the dead one. Sprinkle the blood on the leper seven times, and then let the blood-soaked bird fly away. Next find a lamb and kill it. Wipe some of its blood on the patient's right ear, thumb, and big toe. Sprinkle seven times with oil and wipe some of the oil on his right ear, thumb and big toe. Repeat. Finally find another pair of birds. Kill one and dip the live bird in the dead bird's blood. Wipe some blood on the patient's right ear, thumb, and big toe. Sprinkle the house with blood 7 times. That's all there is to it.

The Bible shouldn't be used as a manual for doctors.  The Bible shouldn't be used as a justification for opposition to gay marriage.  It shouldn't be used as an excuse to close restaurants or bars on the Muslim, Jewish, or Christian Sabbaths. 

It should have never been used as an excuse for using other humans as slaves. 

Perhaps some of you disagree.  If so, please remember some of us have more guns than you, and might have some cotton that needs picking.   

This Thursday night - The Liberty Speakers Series kicks off !!!

Thursday, May 17, 2012, 7:00 PM

Hampton Inn and Suites, 2700 Green Oaks Road (Interstate 30 and Green Oaks Road), Fort Worth, TX

This is going to be incredible.  An eye-opener. 

The Tarrant County Libertarian Party is kicking off its Liberty Speaker Series with a discussion of The New Jim Crow Laws - speakers will include Dr. Alan Bean of Friends Of Justice, Shaun McAlister of DFW NORML, and Suzanne Wills of the Texas Drug Policy Task Force. 

As the United States celebrates its “triumph over race” with the election of Barack Obama, the majority of black men in major urban areas are under correctional control or saddled with criminal records for life. Jim Crow laws were wiped off the books decades ago, but today an extraordinary percentage of the African American community is warehoused in prisons or trapped in a parallel social universe, denied basic civil and human rights— including the right to vote, the right to serve on juries, and the right to be free of legal discrimination in employment, housing, access to education and public benefits.

Today, it is no longer socially permissible to use race explicitly as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. Yet, as legal scholar Michelle Alexander has demonstrated, it is perfectly legal to discriminate against convicted criminals in nearly all the ways in which it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans. Once labeled a felon, even for a minor drug crime, the old forms of discrimination are suddenly legal again. In her words, “we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.”

Dr. Alan Bean is the Executive Director of Friends of Justice, a criminal justice reform organization that specializes in narrative intervention. Dr. Bean was serving a Methodist church as an interim pastor when 46 people were arrested in Tulia, Texas on the uncorroborated word of a corrupt undercover officer. Dr. Bean’s articulate public protest transformed him into an advocate for criminal justice reform. In 2006, Dr. Bean’s work led to the exoneration of a Louisiana family convicted of running a crack cocaine ring on the perjured testimony of convicted drug dealers. Dr. Bean researched the story of six juvenile defendants in Jena LA, bringing public scrutiny to Jena and creating the biggest civil rights protest since the March on Washington. He is now working on a murder case in Mississippi that has gone to trial six times.

Shaun McAlister is the Executive Director of DFW NORML (National Organization For Reform Of Marijuana Laws). He is a graduate of the Art Institute of Dallas, and has worked in web design since 2004. Now employed by a full-service marketing firm, doing video and web design work, he enjoys applying that marketing skill set to his volunteer work with NORML. Mr. McAlister notes that his most difficult but satisfactory achievement has been to persuade businesses and corporations to openly support NORML and its mission.

Suzanne Wills is an active speaker for the Drug Policy Forum Of Texas.   She is a retired CPA.  She graduated from SMU and had her own practice in east Dallas for 16 years.  She is a board member and treasurer of DPFT and Drug Policy Chair of the League of Women Voters of Dallas.  Her talk is entitled “The Drug War: How We Got Into This Mess And The Special Interests That Keep Us There.”  Suzy is probably the most active anti-prohibition speaker in the DFW Metroplex.  (She's also an active member of Mensa !!)

Dr. Bean, our keynote speaker, will open our event with a description of the infamous Tulia, Texas drug raid, his role in the aftermath, and the formation of Friends Of Justice. Shaun and Suzanne will then speak about their organizations, their goals, and how individuals can make a difference. Allen Patterson, Tarrant County Libertarian Party Chair, will moderate a brief panel discussion, followed by questions from you.

If you've ever wondered why the U.S. has spent more than one trillion dollars on the Drug War, with nothing to show but increased drug use, then you don't want to miss this event.

If you think it's strange that we have only 6% of the world's population and 25% of its prisoners, you need to come listen to Dr. Alan Bean.

If you are distubed to know that more African American men are in prison or jail, on probation or parole than were enslaved in 1850, before the Civil War began, and you want to do something about it, this is the event for you.

Thursday night, May 17th, 7:00, Hampton Inn, Interstate-30 and Green Oaks.

 
I thought about cropping out the tag line on this poster, the blurb about "It is your chance - Vote the Straight Democratic Ticket".  Decided not to.  It doesn't matter who is in charge, Democrats or Republicans, the War On Drugs continues to kill more people than drugs. 

Also, Larry Talley isn't going to be with us because of a scheduling conflict.  He's sending an excellent replacement - Suzanne Wills is now filling his slot.   

Adrian Murray on Immigration

My friend Adrian Murray....

Tea Party Patriot....

9-12 leader....

and great, great guy....,

keeps knocking them out of the park, but only on Facebook.  That's why I can't just link to his stuff. 

Here he goes with something on immigration:

Line up a dozen Republican politicians seeking public office, ask them what their answer is to the 12 million or more illegal immigrants in America and in remarkable display of political courage, they’ll dodge the question. The answer is usually something along the lines of: “We can’t address that issue until we fix the border. Once the border is fixed/sealed/guarded/mined/booby-trapped we can work on solutions to those already here.” You may even be treated to the phrase, “Path to citizenship.”

We’ve been hearing this for fifty years. Likely, we’ll hear it for another fifty. Like so many issues, if we didn’t have an illegal immigrant problem, politicians would have to invent one. (This piece is not meant to unfairly single out Republicans. It’s just that the Democrats would gladly apologize to Gaia and hand the country back to the Seminoles and the Apaches, so there’s just no point in dragging their ideas into the mix.)

Fortunately for most of us, our ancestors came to America long before numbskulls ruled the roost. Can you imagine what it would have been like 100 or 150 years ago if the solutions to immigration being talked about now were official policy then? For much of America’s first century the borders were wide open. No one had identification or passports or had to undergo retina scans and full body cavity searches to get into the country. They either walked across the border or down a gangplank. Voila. New Americans.

But what if, when the great waves of migration began from Europe in the 19th century, the existing American population, descendant mainly from English and German stock, had the same mentality we have today? Would calls have gone out to seal the ports to protect American sovereignty? Would politicians demand that a navy be built to intercept passenger ships on the high seas and turn them back to their country of origin? Would candidates for office run on platforms of rounding up the new arrivals and shipping them back to Europe? “Just look at them, these wretches who inhabit the filthy tenements of Manhattan, with their strange languages and even stranger customs. They won’t even assimilate, choosing instead to stay with their own kind creating their own communities like Chinatown, Greek Town, Little Italy. Look at them: there are Poles and Slavs and Gypsies and Italians and Jews. Jews! They’re not even Christians, for the love of Pete. And have you seen what the filthy Irish have done to Boston? Completely overrun it they have, with their pale little redheaded children and their Catholic priests and nuns. But we can’t deal with the ones that are here until we find a way to seal off the Atlantic coast.”

Ah, to transport 21st century politicians back to 1880. And leave them there.

Of course, we do not have to guess what our forebears did in regards to new immigrants to America. It’s part of America’s history. To put it succinctly, they welcomed them. They embraced them. They made them citizens. By 1892 the waves of immigrants grew so intense the federal government opened Ellis Island in New York to process the new arrivals. Over the next 62 years, some 12 million new Americans passed through its doors and went on to build the greatest and most prosperous nation in the history of the world.

So what’s the problem today?

Answer that question by asking another one: Since the great migration today is by land from the south rather than by sea from the east, where is the Ellis Island of the southern border? Are these people welcome or not?

Wrap your mind around that for a while and you’ll see that we do not have a serious immigration policy in this country. We have a political football which both sides like to kick back and forth because it allows them to play their political bases like human yoyos. The problem will never get resolved until we cultivate politicians with some spine.

There’s a certain word that begins with “A” which no politician would dare propose concerning the millions of undocumented immigrants already here, even though it is precisely the same prescription used by our forebears who, when faced with a similar issue, used their heads and did what was right, not what was politically expedient.

They welcomed the new arrivals and created the means for them to become citizens.
 
(Go here to get a copy of Adrian's book "Common Ground America", and check out the political program he's trying to establish.  He's also got some good ideas about spreading the Texas holiday "Juneteenth" to the rest of the nation.)
 
For better or worse, Obama has almost made illegal immigration a non-issue.  Keeping illegal immigrants out of the United States is now about as difficult as keeping illegal immigrants out of North Korea.   
 

Ron Paul's Racist Past

First Mexican truck to enter U.S. interior sometime soon. I hope.

From The San Diego News, via a link from Radley Balko:

SAN DIEGO -- The first Mexican carrier is set to roll into the U.S. interior within days, but American trucking union leaders and two California congressmen haven't given up on stopping the cross-border trucking program that had been stalled for years by safety concerns and political wrangling.

The stall has had little to do with safety concerns.  It is about the political wrangling and protecting the constituents of some politicians that they've bought at auction prices. 

U.S. Reps. Duncan Hunter and Bob Filner said they'll take a bipartisan stand at the border Wednesday in San Diego to voice concerns about the bilateral pilot project that will allow approved Mexican trucks to come deep into the United States. Hunter is a San Diego-area Republican, while Filner is a Democrat whose district includes California's border with Mexico.

They will join Teamsters union President James Hoffa and Todd Spencer, the owner-operator of the Independent Drivers Association, in a last-ditch effort to block Mexican trucks from being granted full access to U.S. highways.

The trucks are crossing a river, a river that has symbolic meaning because of a war we had with Mexico.  This river became known as a "boundary". 
Boundary (noun) (bound*a*ry) 1. In the geographic sense, an arbritrary listing of lines of latitude and longitude to be filled in on maps with different colors.  2.  In the political sense, the far edges of your cage.

Allowing Mexican trucking companies to deliver the goods rather than transfer them onto U.S. haulers at the border will put American jobs and highway safety at risk, the union leaders say.

Horseshit.  According to Marc Levinson, author of "The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger" the ancestors of these same union parasites once tried to unload and reload each shipping container as it entered U.S. "boundaries".  They didn't understand that the entire point of the shipping container was to load the thing at Point A and not have the load touched by thieving little Jimmy Hoffa hands until it was unloaded by the customer at Point B.  The unions insisted that they had a right to "strip and stuff" every shipping container, even if the load was going to be placed right back in the same shipping container.
All Jimmy Hoffa wants is to get his hands on the load.   

Washington on Friday approved the first Mexican trucking company, Transportes Olympic, nearly two decades after the hotly contested provision of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement set off lawsuits and a costly trade dispute between the neighboring countries.

If I want to hire Transportes Olympic to haul a load from Juarez to Fort Worth, it really isn't Jimmy Hoffa's business.  It is the U.S. government's business, unfortunately.  They own the roads.  But they've also established that it is illegal to discriminate against people for racial reasons, and that's the only angle these clowns have to fight with. 

Transportes Olympic employees were busy Wednesday finishing the preparations for its historic, maiden trip.

The long-haul truck will cross the border Friday at Laredo, Texas, and head about 450 miles north to Garland, Texas, to deliver industrial equipment, said Guillermo Perez, the transport manager at the firm in the industrial Monterrey suburb of Apodaca, about two hours south of Laredo.

The company was also the first approved under the 2009 pilot program before President Barack Obama's administration cancelled it. Mexico retaliated by placing tariffs on 99 agricultural products worth more than $2 billion annually.

As well the should have.  It's called NAFTA.  It is a free-trade agreement, kinda.  We've been in violation of the law for about 20 years. 

Mexico cut the tariffs in half this summer after Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon approved an inspection and monitoring program for the companies that had been approved in 2009. The Mexican government has vowed to lift the rest once the truck heads out of the border zone Friday.

"We're really excited," Perez said in a telephone interview Wednesday with The Associated Press. "Now we can provide door-to-door service so it's about a 15 percent savings for companies."

Eliminating and lowering idiotic trade barriers like this one helps you to afford the computer on which you're reading this rant.  It's how you got the clothes that I hope you are now wearing. 

Opponents say the fight isn't over.

Hunter has co-authored a bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., that would require the pilot program to be ceased in three years and Congress to vote on the issue again.

"There's absolutely no upside to the program," said Joe Kasper, a spokesman for Hunter's office.

Yes there is an upside, you flak-catching hack.  If I want to hire these people to haul a load, then I get to have my way. 
That's always an upside. 
Plus, I won't have to hire Hoffa goons.  (Remember Jimmy Hoffa?  The guy who said "let's take out those sons-of-bitches", in reference to The Tea Party?)  
And I get to save money, which means that in the long run, you get to save money.

 "It's a good example of foreign interests overtaking American interests, at the expense of jobs, security and safety. The program was a bad idea when it was created under NAFTA and it's a bad idea now. It should be stopped right away."

At the expense of jobs?  If it's about saving jobs or creating more jobs, let's just mandate that loads can only cross The Rio Grande on wheelbarrows and that they can only move up Interstate 35 on hand carts pulled by the less fortunate of our society. 
If it's about security, let's end the idiotic drug war.  Safety will increase 100-fold on both sides of the river that we  currently use as a boundary, just like safety increased when we ended our alcohol war with Canada at the end of Prohibition. 
If it's about safety, take a look at one of the trucks that Transportes Olympic will use on these loads and then compare them to the rigs that haul the U.S. Mail.  Case dismissed.  There will be no comparison. 

Criminal activity has been a problem for years even within the U.S. government's strictest trusted carrier programs. Drug trafficking organizations have smuggled tons of drugs inside trucks driven by approved truckers coming from inspected and certified facilities inside Mexico.

And they do this because there is a fortune to be made in doing so.  End the monopolies that we've granted to the Mexican Drug Lords and their U.S. Enablers, and the smuggling will end.  No one ever got rich by smuggling coals into Newcastle.  Or by smuggling more bullshit into a political protectionist argument. 

"The beneficiaries of opening borders will be few and the casualties will be plenty," Spencer told The Associated Press on Wednesday. His organization represents small independent trucking businesses.

He doesn't represent all of the small independent trucking businesses, as the article implies.  He doesn't represent mine.  (I'm the General Manager of one.)
Trade runs both ways.  The outfit that I work for sells stuff in the U.S., and we sell stuff outside of Jimmy Hoffa's boundaries.  We also purchase stuff from overseas and sell it inside the Hoffa enclosure in which most of you folks live.  I don't need Hoffa and his Washington puppets in the way.  
Anything is good as long as it helps weaken the cage so jealously guarded by  U.S. Reps. Duncan Hunter and Bob Filner and union boss Jimmy Hoffa.   

Proponents say especially strict safeguards are in place: The U.S. government is paying for electronic monitoring devices to be installed in all Mexican trucks used in the program.

Mexican trucking companies had to fill out an application, pay a fee and then submit the names of any drivers who will participate so they can undergo national security and criminal background checks by the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security.

Inspectors will check out the trucks for safety violations, verify the drivers' qualifications and administer oral English-proficiency exams.

The program's long delay has cost companies in both countries millions and hurt bilateral relations, proponents say.

"We certainly hoped that it cannot be stopped," said James Clark, director of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce's Mexico Business Center. "The U.S. has been in violation of the NAFTA agreement ever since the beginning of the trucking issue. Mexican trucks have every right to come into the U.S. under NAFTA as long as the trucks are fully inspected to U.S. standards and the drivers speak English."

About 70 percent of goods from the $4 billion trade between the two nations is transported by land to its destinations according to the Mexican government.

And all of that stuff is currently being unloaded at the border and reloaded onto another trailer.  That's a total waste. 
End of rant. 
Thanks for listening.