You might be a Libertarian....Part Deux

I posted some of this back in 2010.  Here it is again with quite a few updates.  Enjoy!!

If you've ever waited at a stoplight and wondered how much more efficient it would be if stoplights were privatized, you might be a Libertarian. 

If you've ever wondered who told Papa Smurf that he could boss around all the other Smurfs, you might just be a Libertarian.

If you know how to pronounce the name "Ludwig Von Mises", you might be a Libertarian. 

If one of your buddies once "reluctantly called the Fire Department", he might be a Libertarian.

If your dogs know to run out of the room when someone on CNN says the word "stimulus", you might be a Libertarian.

If you think the funniest three words in the English language are "Small Government Republican", you might be a Libertarian.

If you've ever gone camping on Halloween, under a full moon, next to a cemetery, and waited til midnight to build a campfire so you and your buddies can sit around it and read Obama's Jobs Bill, you might be a Libertarian.

If you can't see a Broken Window without thinking of a dead French economist, you might be a Libertarian.

If you can explain why Ben Bernanke should be prosecuted as a counterfeiter, you're a Libertarian.

If you've ever stood behind a podium and boasted that "Our candidate broke 5 percent !", you might be a Libertarian. 

If the audience started applauding madly, they were all Libertarians. 

If you've ever had a dream where you were locked in a room with Alexander Hamilton, a rabid dog, one gun, and two bullets, and in your dream you shot Alexander Hamilton twice....you might be a Libertarian. 

If you win a celebrity lunch with someone named "Hayek" but are secretly disappointed that it is Selma and not Friederich, you're a Libertarian.

If your top three baby names under consideration are Cato, Dagny, and Atlas, you might be a Libertarian. 

If you've ever wondered why we're spending money to have our navy defend Japan and Taiwan from China, using money that we're borrowing from....China, you just might be a Libertarian.

If you root for certain sports teams because they don't play in publicly funded stadiums, you might be a Libertarian.

If you know how many ounces of silver any of your friends own, you might be a Libertarian.

If you've ever been to a Tea Party rally, a NORML meeting, a Gay Rights parade, a Peace Run, and helped staff a gun show all in the same month?  You're probably me.  And you're a Libertarian. 

If you've ever paid twice as much for a black leather jacket instead of a similar brown one, because black is what Nick Gillespie wears, you might be a Libertarian.

If you didn't have to hit the link in the previous joke, you're a Libertarian.

If you think that Barry Goldwater was too soft on Communism, you might be a Libertarian. 

If you think that Karl Marx's quote "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" is a great way to encourage people to hide their abilities and publicize their needs, well, you might be a Libertarian.  (I don't know where I first heard that.  Will give attribution if someone will tell me.)

If you've ever Googled the words "John Stossel DVD Boxed Set", you might be a Libertarian. 

If you think the phrase "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" should apply to almost everything, because after all it's nobody else's damn business as long as nobody else gets hurt, you might be a Libertarian.

If you've ever broken up with someone because she wouldn't say "Federal Reserve Note" instead of "Dollar", you might be a Libertarian. 

If you've ever spent an entire damn day going through damn job applications looking for a decent damn employee, and wondered why the damn public schools can't produce graduates who can write or spell, but the Catholic and other parochial schools don't have that damn problem???  You might be a pissed off Libertarian who wishes he didn't have to pay the damn schools to produce more damn illiterates.  Dammit.

If you've ever carried a pistol because policemen are just too damn heavy, you might be a Libertarian. 

If you not only believe that marijuana should be legalized, but that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion, well, if you go that far with it, you're probably a Libertarian. 

If you've ever gone into a singles bar thinking that The Nolan Chart would be a good conversation starter, you just might be a Libertarian. 

If you've ever officiated at a wedding, and began the ceremony by making fun of the marriage "license" concept, you might be a Libertarian.

If you followed that with a refusal to say "by the power vested in me by the state of Texas", you might be a Libertarian.

If everyone in the wedding party and congregations laughed like hell, they were all Libertarians.

If you own one of the rare Milton Friedman action figures, you might be a Libertarian.

And last, but not least, if you understood everything I just wrote, you might be a Libertarian. 

Go here to join the party ! !

Quotes from The Reality Based Community

Here are a few quotes from "The Reality Based Community".
Found it at Denny's site.

On Milton Friedman's Barking Cat

Let's start off with some vintage Milton Friedman:

 In a recent column (Newsweek Jan 8, 1973), I pointed out that approval of drugs by the Food and Drug Administration delays and prevents the introduction of useful as well as harmful drugs. After giving reasons why the adverse effects could be expected to be far more serious than the beneficial effects, I summarized a fascinating study by Prof. Sam Peltzman, of UCLA of experience before and after 1962, when standards were stiffened. His study decisively confirmed the expectation that the bad effects would much outweigh the good.    The column evoked letters from a number of persons in pharmaceutical work offering tales of woe to confirm my allegation that the FDA was indeed "Frustrating Drug Advancement," as I titled the column. But most also said something like, "In contrast to your opinion, I do not believe that the FDA should be abolished, but I do believe that its power should be" changed in such and such a way - to quote from a typical letter.    I replied as follows: "What would you think of someone who said, " I would like to have a cat, provided it barked"? Yet your statement that you favor an FDA provided it behaves as you believe desirable is precisely equivalent. The biological laws that specify the characteristics of cats are no more rigid than the political laws that specify the behavior of governmental agencies once they are established. The way the FDA now behaves, and the adverse consequences are not an accident, not a result of some easily corrected human mistake, but a consequence of its constitution in precisely the same way that a meow is related to the constitution of a cat. As a natural scientist, you recognize that you cannot assign characteristics at will to chemical and biological entities, cannot demand that cats bark or water burn. Why do you suppose that the situation is different in the "social sciences?"

In other words, to wish for an efficient, non-corrupt, economical government service is to wish for a "barking cat".  

Now let's go to something more recent, from the UK's Mail Online.  Britain's dreaded National Health Service has killed something like 1,200 people through sheer godawful neglect, and the government flunkies have responded by (pick one) simply 1) firing those responsible 2) privatizing their system 3) vowing to keep government out of citizens' lives, or 4) paying whistleblowers to shut the hell up.  

Hit the link.  Check out the comments.  A good number of the Brits are saying sensible things, but far too many are wishing for a barking cat.  And there's no such thing as a barking cat, no matter how you design it, or what was intended.  Sad.

If these idiots spent the money on 750 nurses, they probably won't need to gag any one !

The original principle was beyond reproach but sadly I believe it has lost it's way, been allowed to get too big, and 'governed/controlled' by self serving idiotsIf the government was serious about tackling this abuse of power, they would declare all these gagging clauses null and void. Also they would take steps to ensure that the authoritarian, bullying managers who are responsible for this state of affairs, are sacked.

Revelation after revelation but what will be done ? NOTHING ! What will change ? NOTHING ! It never does. This would be bad enough if it was confined to the NHS but it isn't ! Every public sector departments are riddled with overpaid, 3rd rate middleweight, incompetent managers who are never held responsible for their failures as they would be in the private sector. They demand to be paid the going rate for a first class manager but none would last 5 minutes in the real world. There needs to be a complete pay and conditions restructuring from the top down in all departments not just the NHS. Without this things will only get worse !

Being open and honest and fully accountable about problems and accepting and recognising there is a problem is the first step to resolving the problem. Preventing legitimate organisational operational concerns and problems being discussed, resolved and publicly available lead to the same problems being repeated and cause serious problems for patient's blighted by hospital blunders and mistakes. Only by learning from previous mistakes and taking real decisive action to prevent repeating mistakes with a genuine will, can the preventable suffering of future patients be avoided. It does not take a consultant to work this out do why does continue to be the case inquiry after inquiry for decades? The culture of secrecy surrounding mistakes needs to stop now and the superiority culture of the medical hierarchy that say they are always right must end.

Sorry boys.  You can fire all the government managers, you can re-structure your government programs, and you can rant and moan and express your outrage in the comment fields of your newspapers all you want.   

You can't make a barking cat.  

One day, one year, the glass will be half-full

Marvel Variants stopped scamming comic book collectors long enough to send me this helpful chart. 
It shows the "recovery" projections done each year by the Congressional Budget Office. 

If we just keep pulling money out of the productive part of the economy and putting it into the unproductive part, the economy will eventually take off.....

Right? 

Anybody?  Yes?  Dr. Krugman? 

I think I'm going to "rebuke" Obamacare

The video is only 60 seconds long. Watch it. Then, everybody, on the count of three.... "I REBUKE THEE, I REBUKE THEE, I REBUKE THEE, OBAMACARE!!!"

Food For The Machine - Anger Management Edition

We worked last Saturday (yesterday) .
One of my temp employees asked if he could leave at 9:30 in the morning.  It seems that he has to go to a series of  court-ordered "Anger Management" sessions on Saturday mornings.

Any time the government mandates that someone do something for his own good, I'm automatically skeptical, so I asked the kid if the meetings were worthwhile.  Here's what he said:

Well, you have to pay this lady $15.00, and then we sit around and smoke for about the first 30 minutes because it never starts on time.  Then this dude comes in and we sit in a circle and bullshit for a while, then somebody tells about how he was in this bar a few days ago and somebody bumped him, and how before the meetings he woulda kicked that dude's ass, but now that he's going to the meetings he didn't.
And we'll all start clappin' and shit, and some other dudes will start crying, and the counselor dude says that's really good and how we all need to keep it up.
You don't have to talk or even be awake.  The main thing is giving that lady $15.00.  

This kid could've spent most of his morning building displays for grocery stores.  Instead, he had to give his time and money to a couple of government lifers.

The more I learn about our government, the greater the likelihood that I'll be going to the Anger-Management sessions.  Sheesh.

The Real Cost Of Shrinking Government

The New York Holy Times is having a conniption fit over the slight chance that government spending will be cut.
Most of this "sequester" spending cut is bullshit.  It's a cut from the rate of increase, not a "cut" in the sense that you use the word.
Here we go....

In less than two weeks, a cleaver known as the sequester will fall on some of the most important functions of the United States government. About $85 billion will be cut from discretionary spending over the next seven months, reducing defense programs by about 8 percent and domestic programs by about 5 percent. Only a few things will be spared, including some basic safety-net benefits like Social Security, as well as pay for enlisted military personnel.

Considering that we need to cut by about 50%, and then go further, this is a good thing.

The sequester will not stop to contemplate whether these are the right programs to cut; it is entirely indiscriminate, slashing programs whether they are bloated or essential. The military budget, for example, should be reduced substantially, but thoughtfully, considering the nation’s needs. Instead, every weapons system, good or bad, will be hurt, as will troop training and maintenance.

I've been through these types of cutbacks before with various companies.  It's fairly easy.  It hurts, but it's easy.  However, John Boehner has been confronted with a 3 billion dollar cut to an aircraft engine program in his district.  Defense Secretary Gates said we didn't need the engines.  Boehner said that the military did indeed need them.
That's why you'll never see "thoughtful" cuts.  We need slash and burn.  Your share of the debt (if you're a taxpayer) is more than 50K.

These cuts, which will cost the economy more than one million jobs over the next two years, are the direct result of the Republican demand in 2011 to shrink the government at any cost, under threat of a default on the nation’s debt. Many Republicans say they would still prefer the sequester to replacing half the cuts with tax revenue increases. But the government spending they disdain is not an abstract concept. In a few days, the cuts will begin affecting American life and security in significant ways.

Horseshit, horseshit, horseshit.  If Washington is putting their Corvette and caviar purchases on maxed-out credit cards over and over again, no sane economist would claim that their stopping would cost the economy more than one million jobs.
If taxpayers don't have to pay for pork projects, they'll use the money for other things - things that they choose, not what Washington and The New York Holy Times choose.  I'd like to buy another Ford F-150 instead of another F-16.  

While some departments may have exaggerated the dire effects of their reductions, Congressional budget experts say they have little doubt that the size and pervasive nature of the sequester will inflict widespread pain. Here are some examples from the government departments most affected:

They go on to list, department by department, the horrific outcomes we should expect from any cutbacks at all.  Most of these departments should've been privatized years ago.
Don't believe what they're selling.  They're partying their butts off on your dollars.
How long are you going to tolerate it?  

Samizdata's Quote Of The Day

I've long admired the Samizdata blog.
Every now and then, they admire this site.

Go here for their quote of the day.  Check out the comments, when time permits.

Thanks for all the traffic, Perry !!

Reaction Wordcloud to the State Of The Union speech

Go here. 
This is the worldcloud of responses to last night's State Of the Union address.  From USA Today. 

Does Barack Obama hate black people??

Here's the late senator Jacob Javitz on why he supported minimum wage legislation:

"I point out to Senators from industrial states like my own that a minimum wage increase would also give industry in our states some measure of protection, as we have too long suffered from the unfair competition based on substandard wages and other labor conditions in effect in certain areas of the country – primarily in the South.
....Although probably no northern senator today would dare admit it, many who vote for increases in the minimum wage understand that one consequence will be to destroy  jobs for the least skilled workers, a disproportionate number of whom are black.”

And now, thanks to the good intentions of our government, we now have a black teen unemployment rate of  40%.

Here's a summary of the situation....  I can teach you how to play a piano, but if you pay me more than $7.00 an hour, you're getting ripped off.  I'm not much of a piano player, or teacher.  But if I had to, I could make some money teaching piano for $7.00 an hour.

My neighbor down the street is a really good piano teacher.  She gets $10.00 an hour.  One street over is another guy who gets $15.00 per hour.

If you raise the minimum wage for piano teachers to $12.00 an hour, who does it help?  Me or my neighbors?

It helps my neighbors.   I ain't worth $12.00 an hour as a piano teacher.  Nobody will ever pay me that, because I'm not worth it.  All it will do is guarantee full employment for my neighbors.

That's what happens to inexperienced and low-skilled labor when a Washington Messiah raises the minimum wage.  They get priced out of the market.  Just hide and watch what happens to the black teen minority unemployment rate if The Teleprompter Jesus gets his way with this proposal from his Union Of The Statists speech last night :

"Even with the tax relief we’ve put in place, a family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line. That’s wrong," Obama said. "Tonight, let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour. This single step would raise the incomes of millions of working families.

Never mind the question of WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING WITH TWO KIDS IF YOUR SKILLS AREN'T WORTH MORE THAN MINIMUM WAGE????
The real question is this....

Why does Barack Obama hate black people?

Don't get me wrong...I love the minimum wage, because I'm white.  My daughter is white, and also has established plenty of work experience.  She was offered jobs at more than 40K per year at the age of 20.  Minimum wage legislation will ensure that we're the last to be laid off.  We got skills!!!  

But does Barack Obama really hate black people?  Or is he just not very smart?

No live-blogging tonight. Check @Whited79 and #BarackIsMyBroker

I can't handle the thought of live-blogging, drunk-blogging, weed-writing, or even meth-typing another Barack Obama State Of The Union speech.
Give me a choice between listening to Yoko Ono screeching vs. Barry reading, and I'm probably going with Yoko.
But duty calls....
I've been enjoying the Twitter account, so I'm going to go that route tonight.  Follow along @Whited79   All the Tweets show up on Facebook, for those who go that route.

Since it's likely to be nothing but a laundry list of GOODIES FOR CONTRIBUTORS "investments", I'm going to see how many times I can use this hashtag:

#BarackIsMyBroker

Should be fun.
But Godalmighty, I dread listening to that man's voice for an hour.

The ObamaCare Poster Contest Winner

This one is beautiful, ain't it? 
Go here to see the other contestants. 
Go here to see what that photogenic idiot is likely to accomplish for medicine in California. 

On Obama's unnecessary trip to Chicago

Barack Obama is going to Chicago to talk about ending the gun violence.  Chicago has one of the nation's highest gun-crime rates.

This trip isn't necessary.  Chicago has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation.  They already have the signs in place.  Most of the potential victims are already disarmed.  

Economic Insanity From One Of Our Worst Presidents

Here's something from one of FDR's press conferences.  May 31st.  1935.
Anyone wondering why a recession was turned into The Great Depression need look no further than the economic goofiness of this Messiah On The Potomac.

1. And then finally you have a fifth great occupation of human life—the growing of crops. It evidently does not make any difference, after I grow my wheat, whether it is put in an elevator in a different State, perhaps to be commingled with other wheat and sold in Liverpool, or New York or Germany or in any other State of the Union-it does not make any difference. The fact is that the wheat was grown in one place, and therefore the growing of crops cannot be considered in any shape, manner or form as coming under the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution. Perhaps wheat actually in transit under this decision may come under it. But it could not if it were in storage, for example in a bin, because there it would be tied to a definite locality.
2. And so it does bring us up rather squarely as to the big issue in the country and as to how we are going to solve it. The big issue is this: Does this decision mean that the United States Government has no control over any national economic problem?
3. The simple example is crop adjustment. Are we going to take the hands of the Federal Government completely off any effort to adjust the growing of national crops, and go right straight back to the old principle that every farmer is a lord of his own farm and can do anything he wants, raise anything, any old time, in any quantity, and sell any time he wants? You and I know perfectly well that if we completely abandon crop control—I don't care whether it is the present method or, let us say, the McNary-Haugen method, because, after all, that is a Federal method, too—if we are to abandon Federal relationship to any national crop, we shall again have thirty-six-cent wheat. You can't stop it. Under present world conditions we will have five-cent cotton. That is obvious.

What FDR didn't realize is that cheap wheat and nickel cotton are good things.  It means that people all over the world are working to give us things at the absolute lowest price possible at the time.  

But it was more important to FDR to keep plantation owners fat and happy on their plantations, and wheat farmers rich and prosperous all over Kansas and Iowa.  To hell with everyone who could've profited and prospered from cheap bread and clothing.    

That was the message from Washington until the attack on Pearl Harbor.  The Japanese distracted him.  The Great Depression ended.  

We now have a president who claims to be working very, very hard to end our economic slump.  

Note to Japan:  I'll have a ring of lights around Carswell Air Force Base tonight.  No one will be hurt.  Please be loud.  

Also, I found this pic while looking for the Obamessiah/FDR button.  

This decision didn't help either....

John Mackey of Whole Foods Market on Capitalism

Go here for the video....

Capitalism is the greatest creation humanity has done for social cooperation. It has lifted humanity out of the dirt. In statistics we discovered when we researching the book, about 200 years ago when capitalism was created, 85% of the people alive lived on $1 a day. Toady, that number is 16%. Still too high, but capitalism is wiping out poverty across the world. 200 years ago illiteracy rates were 90%. Today, they are down to about 14%. 200 years ago the average lifespan was 30. Today it is 68 across the world, 78 in the States, almost 82 in Japan. This is due to business. This is due to capitalism. And it doesn’t get credit for it. Most of the time, business is portrayed by its enemies as selfish and greedy and exploitative, yet it’s the greatest value creator in the world.

If you buy what I'm selling, you get something worth more to you than your money.  If you give me your money, I get something worth more to me than what I'm selling. 

People prosper just a tiny bit more every time that happens. 
The purpose of the Statists is to ensure that it happens less and less and less. 

Why we no longer need ridges on the edges of our coins

Someone wrote in to the Big Site Of Amazing Facts, asking why some coins had ridges around the edges and others didn't.....

Perhaps you noticed that United States dimes, quarters, half-dollars, and silver dollars have ridges, or grooves, around their edges. They were not put there for decoration, but had a very important purpose at one time in history.
During our country’s earlier years, all coins were made of gold or silver, and did not have ridges. Each coin’s value was based on the amount of gold or silver in it. For example, a $10 gold piece contained ten dollars worth of gold, and silver dimes contained ten cents worth of silver.
But some dishonest people sought to make an illegal profit from these coins. They filed off the edges and sold them for their value in gold or silver. The smaller-sized coin often went unnoticed, but this dishonest practice decreased the value of the original gold or silver coin.
To prevent this, the government began milling, or grooving, the edges so a coin could easily be identified if it was trimmed.

This is no longer necessary, since our coins are no longer made of gold and silver, but our government doesn't want to advertise that fact.

However, because Ben Bernanke is print money like it's wallpaper, the scrap value of a nickel is now 6.8 cents!  The junk metal in a nickel is now worth more than 1/20th of Bernanke's paper dollar!  One entrepreneurial guy has purchased about twenty million of them.
Think about it....As long as someone has to give you 20 of our five cent pieces of metal in exchange for a worthless $1.00 bill.....

Here's Zero Hedge:

He (Kyle Bass) still owned stacks of gold and platinum bars that had roughly doubled in value, but he remained on the lookout for hard stores of wealth as a hedge against what he assumed was the coming debasement of fiat currency. Nickels, for instance.

“The value of the metal in a nickel is worth six point eight cents,” he said. “Did you know that?”

I didn’t.

“I just bought a million dollars’ worth of them,” he said, and then, perhaps sensing I couldn’t do the math: “twenty million nickels.”

“You bought twenty million nickels?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How do you buy twenty million nickels?”

“Actually, it’s very difficult,” he said, and then explained that he had to call his bank and talk them into ordering him twenty million nickels. The bank had finally done it, but the Federal Reserve had its own questions. “The Fed apparently called my guy at the bank,” he says. “They asked him, ‘Why do you want all these nickels?’ So he called me and asked, ‘Why do you want all these nickels?’ And I said, ‘I just like nickels.’”

He pulled out a photograph of his nickels and handed it to me. There they were, piled up on giant wooden pallets in a Brink’s vault in downtown Dallas.

“I’m telling you, in the next two years they’ll change the content of the nickel,” he said. “You really ought to call your bank and buy some now.”

He's right.  Take a look at the dollars in your wallet.  Every one of them is made out of paper.  

Liberty Book Discussion Group - Economics In One Lesson with Dr. Doug Butler !!

The economy is creeping along, and there's a good chance of another recession.

Unemployment remains high.

The stimulus package was a flop, even by the standards of its advocates.

The national debt is approaching 17 trillion, and all that spending probably isn't showing up in your pocket, especially if you're under 30 years old.

All of this will be explained when Tarrant County's Liberty Book Discussion Group covers Henry Hazlitt's classic "Economics In One Lesson". We'll be getting together at the Barnes and Noble in University Park Village at 1612 South University Drive. Fort Worth, TX February 28th at 7:00 p.m.

Our discussion will be led by Dr. Doug Butler, of the TCU Department of Economics. Dr. Butler earned his Ph.D. from Auburn University and specializes in Public Finance and International Economics.

We won't claim that you can finish the book in one sitting, but two should cover it. This is one of the few economics page-turners!! Hazlitt was once the literary editor of "The Nation" magazine, back when it was a Classical Liberal (Libertarian) publication. He went on to write economics columns for "The American Mercury" and The New York Times. H.L. Mencken of "American Mercury" once wrote that Hazlitt was "one of the few economists in human history who could really write." Hazlitt was a staunch defender of free market economics, and this little volume is packed with examples of what happens when governments involve themselves in make-work, wages, increasing the money supply, and....economic stimulus.

Even better, you don't have to buy the book!!! Copy this link to download a PDF of the entire volume.

http://library.mises.org/books/Henry%20Hazlitt/Economics%20in%20One%20Lesson.pdf

If you suspect that there was no good reason for the recent "Fiscal Cliff" deal to include a huge giveaway for algae producers, NASCAR, and Hollywood productions filmed in "depressed" areas, but couldn't quite explain why, then this is the book for you. Hope to see you there!!

Why Police Officers Lie Under Oath

From The New York Holy Times, via Instapundit:

“In this era of mass incarceration, the police shouldn’t be trusted any more than any other witness, perhaps less so. That may sound harsh, but numerous law enforcement officials have put the matter more bluntly. . . . Police departments have been rewarded in recent years for the sheer numbers of stops, searches and arrests. In the war on drugs, federal grant programs like the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program have encouraged state and local law enforcement agencies to boost drug arrests in order to compete for millions of dollars in funding. Agencies receive cash rewards for arresting high numbers of people for drug offenses, no matter how minor the offenses or how weak the evidence. Law enforcement has increasingly become a numbers game. And as it has, police officers’ tendency to regard procedural rules as optional and to lie and distort the facts has grown as well. Numerous scandals involving police officers lying or planting drugs — in Tulia, Tex. and Oakland, Calif., for example — have been linked to federally funded drug task forces eager to keep the cash rolling in. . . . In 2010, a New York City police officer named Adil Polanco told a local ABC News reporter that ‘our primary job is not to help anybody, our primary job is not to assist anybody, our primary job is to get those numbers and come back with them.’ He continued: ‘At the end of the night you have to come back with something. You have to write somebody, you have to arrest somebody, even if the crime is not committed, the number’s there. So our choice is to come up with the number.’”

Hit the Times link to read the whole thing.  And VOTE TO CUT OFF THE FUNDING !!!

Obama shoots clay pigeons. Hilarity ensues.

The White House (i.e., "you") paid to have some pics put on the official WH website.  Pics of Obama shooting skeet.

They were accompanied with a schoolmarmish warning that the pics "may not be manipulated in any way".

Hilarity followed shortly afterwards.

Go here for other funnies.

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....

Socialism Does NOT Lead To Marxism

Socialism Does NOT Lead To Marxism.  Not all the time, anyway.  
But it does have a fairly consistent record of leading to cannibalism.  

I was doing some research on the total disaster known as North Korea.  Parents over there are eating their children.  Go here.  Parents are eating their children.  Parents are eating their children.  (On the upside, North Koreans have free healthcare, excellent gun control, and less of an income gap between rich and poor than the capitalist countries.)

I found this gem on Libertarian Reddit.  The blog from which it came has been taken down, but the horrors mentioned below are well-documented elsewhere.  

Freeze prices, take away the free market, eliminate incentives, eliminate property rights, all "for the common good" and for "fairness", and people will start eating each other.  It really is that simple.  

Socialists are everywhere these days. They loosely model themselves after the hippy movement; they drink PBR, smoke from elaborate bongs, and pretentiously advocate a form of socialism that they can’t quite define. They are unapologetically anti-American, anti-West, and usually, they aren’t worth anyone’s time, but lately, it has become overwhelming, so I would just like them to know one thing: socialism (i.e. abandoning property rights), wherever it has been tried, in whatever form, on whatever scale, has resulted in starvation and cannibalism. I compiled just a few examples for you:

North Korea: “We started seeing cannibalism. When one is very hungry, one can go crazy. One woman in my town killed her 7-month-old baby, and ate the baby with another woman. That woman's son reported them both to the authorities. I can't condemn cannibalism. Not that I wanted to eat human meat, but we were so hungry. It was common that people went to a fresh grave and dug up a body to eat meat. I witnessed a woman being questioned for cannibalism. She said it tasted good.”

Ukraine: “Some went insane. They never did become completely still. One could tell from their eyes–because their eyes shone. These were the people who cut up and cooked corpses, who killed their own children and ate them. In them the beast rose to the top as the human being died. I saw one. She had been brought to the district center under convoy. Her face was human, but her eyes were those of a wolf. These are cannibals.”

Soviet Union: “It is now and only now, when in the regions afflicted by the famine there is cannibalism and the roads are littered with hundreds if not thousands of corpses, that we can (and therefore must) pursue the acquisition of [church] valuables with the most ferocious and merciless energy, stopping at nothing in suppressing all resistance.” –Lenin

China: “Most of the culprits on the list practiced necrophagy, either eating those who had passed away or exhuming and eating cadavers after burial. When a team of inspectors was sent to review the Quiatou commune in Shizhu county, Sichuan, in early 1961, they were startled by the extent of cannibalism. In some cases, only parts of a body were eaten Zemin’s heart, for instance, was scooped out. Some people covered the meat in hot peppers.” (p. 323)

Cambodia: “When I got to the spot, I hid in a thicket from which I could watch the “ceremony” without being seen. But I was so horrified by what I saw that I nearly fainted. The condemned man was tied to a tree, his chest bare and blindfold over his eyes. Ta Sok, the executioner, using a large knife made a cut in the stomach of the poor man. In pain, the man screamed like a wild beast. Even today his cires still ring in my ears. Blood rushed out everywhere, his insides were all laid bare, and Ta Sok cut out his liver and cooked it on a little stove that Ta Chea had just heated up. They divided up the liver among them and ate it hungrily.” Another witness reports, “They ate many human livers this way.”

Angola: "The commander gave Kakule his knife, told him to pare the skin from an arm, a leg. He told Kakule and his other assistant to build a fire. From their satchels, the soldiers brought cassava bread. They sat in a circle. The commander placed the dead man's head at the center. He forced the two loggers to sit with them, to eat with them the pieces of boiled limb. The grilled liver, tongue and genitals had already been parceled out among the commander and his troops."

Jamestown, VA:  (Yes, Jamestown was founded as a Socialist Paradise.  The failed experiment ended when their government said "every man for himself".  The settlement then prospered.  Hit the Thanksgiving label at the bottom of this post. - TWS)  “So great was our famine that a savage we slew and buried, the poorer sorte tooke him up againe and eat him; and so did divers one another boyled and stewed with roots and herbs. It were too vile to say and scarce to be believed, what we endured: but the occasion was our own, for want of providence, industrie and government, and not the barrennesse and defect of the Country, as is generally supposed.”

“Can you really find anyone who is guilty? Just go and ask, and they will all tell you that they did it for the sake of virtue, for everybody’s good. That’s why they drove mothers to cannibalism.” -Ukraine

Bill Maher on the sudden increase in disability payments

The Eleven Questions

I haven't linked to anything over at Counting Cats lately. 
A relatively new contributor called "Single Acts Of Tyranny" is asking various folks eleven questions about politics and liberty. 

The questions have a slight bent toward the U.K., but all still apply to the U.S.A.  To save "Single Acts Of Tyranny" the trouble of emailing me, I'm going to answer the eleven questions now, just for the good of The Republic. 

The Whited Sepulchre is a Fort Worth, TX blogger, shipping manager, inadequate guitarist, dachshund owner, and Chair of the Tarrant County Libertarian Party.  He often requires a helicopter pilot as a designated driver. 

1. Who was the greatest political leader in the Western world?

President Calvin Coolidge.  He grew the U.S. economy, retired a huge chunk of the national debt, was almost an isolationist, spoke out in favor of civil rights, and made no effort at all to be a great political "leader".  Therefore, the nation prospered.  The worst thing that can happen to a nation is for it to be afflicted with a great political leader, as presently defined.  May Coolidge and his tribe increase. 

2. If you could change, introduce or abolish one law, what would it be?

I would eliminate the "General Welfare Clause" from the U.S. Constitution, and tighten up the "Commerce Clause".  These have been slowly misinterpreted to mean that Congress can do whatever the hell it wants. 

3. What advice would you give to a sixteen year-old today?

The same advice that my mother gave me as I was going away to college.  "Don't wash anything in hot water, and watch out for wild women."  I might add: "Invest as much as you can in gold and silver".
 

4. Who do you most admire?

Almost any entrepreneur who has taken the risk of creating something that people will desire more than their money.  Also, my parents. 

5. Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of your country?

Incredibly pessimistic.  We're 17 trillion in debt, and are in the hands of Drug Warriors, Crony Capitalists, the Military Industrial Complex, and a machine politician from Chicago.   But I am looking forward to saying "I told you so!!"  

6. If you think voting for establishment parties changes little or nothing, what is the one thing we can do as individuals to cause real change?

Vote for the Libertarian Party.  We will slay the beast and replace it with a puppy.  

  

7. When will we finally say good-bye to the state?

We won't.  Mostly because no matter what Grandmother Stalin said, there really is such a thing as a bad, bad boy. 

8. Should free people have the right to keep and bear arms openly or covertly without government permission, sanction or registration?

Yep. 

9. What annoys you most about current politics?

Oh god....Ok, in spite of serious competition, it's the belief that if someone is opposed to Barack's education, healthcare, charity, relief, energy, and agriculture con games, then that person is opposed to all education, healthcare, charity, relief, energy, and agriculture. 

10. Gold standard or fiat currency and interest rate control?

That question presupposes a false dichotomy.  We could have a gold standard, and a currency issued by a neighborhood bank, and another currency issued by Wal-Mart, and dozens of others.  Let a thousand currencies bloom!!  Anyone foolish enough to want a fiat currency could continue trading with his fiat currency and saving his fiat currency.  But one day he would look in his wallet and realize that his dollars are made of paper. 

11. Do we have an obligation to help the poor?

No, but if you don't help the poor and disabled, you're probably an asshole.  I just wish that government anti-poverty programs left us with more money to help the poor.  Two years ago, the U.S. anti-poverty programs blew through $63,000.00 per poor family in the nation.  I don't think it went to the poor. 

Hope this has been entertaining, Cat Counters!! 

When Libertarians officiate at a wedding

The Tarrant County Libertarian Party Vice-Chair, Michael Coyne, recently asked me to officiate at his wedding. 
If this is your first visit to this site, I'm the Chair of the Tarrant County (Fort Worth) Libertarian Party.

(Yeah, I'm ordained.  I can also lead the singing at revivals, navigate duck hunts, train Labrador Retrievers, broker freight, do Tarot readings, and do about three card tricks.) 
Michael is a lapsed Catholic.  His lovely bride, Shayna, was raised Jew(-ish), meaning "not really".  They wanted a 100% secular ceremony.  An Anglican priest friend of Mike's had agreed to tie this particular wedding knot, but backed out, perhaps because of the secular nature of the ceremony that Mike and Shayna wanted. 

So I borrowed some ministerial vestments from my friend Dan Freemyer, the guy who feeds the homeless and helps the poor at Broadway Baptist Church. 

When you ask the Tarrant County Libertarian Chair to take on a ministerial/rabbinical/priestly role at your wedding, this is what you're gonna get: 

We are gathered here today to celebrate one of life’s greatest moments, to give recognition to the worth and beauty of love, and to hear the words which shall unite Michael and Shayna in marriage.

A few days ago, Michael and Shayna filled out a marriage “license”, issued by the state of Texas. In the eyes of the state, they are already married, and now have the right to sue each other.

That piece of bureaucratic paperwork has absolutely nothing to do with the sacred event that you will witness and participate in today.   The state of Texas is not ensuring the legitimacy and worth of this union. You are. Michael and Shayna have invited you, their families, friends and co-workers to join with them in their vows to remain faithful, loving and committed to each other.

The wedding party already knew what I was going to say in this Welcome/Greeting, and had signed off on it.  The families, friends, and co-workers liked it and laughed in the right places. 

Mike and Shayna are now married - just as married as if Billy Graham, Pope Benedict, Rabbi Ralph Mecklenburger, a ship's captain, a Justice Of The Peace, or a Supreme Court Justice had officiated at the wedding. 
Texas has given them a contract that says they can sue each other. 
Their friends, families, co-workers (and The Tarrant County Libertarian Party) watched these two wonderful people enter into a contract to love each other, care for each other, and provide for each other for the rest of their lives.  I think that's the one that matters.   

Email me if you want to get married.  I work cheap.  @Whited79

On Facebook Envy

Russian Joke, from Hedrick Smith's "The Russians", supposedly told by Russians about themselves:

An Englishman, a Frenchman and a Russian rescue a genie and the genie gives them one wish each. The Englishman wishes to be the richest man in the world–and “whoosh!” he is. The Frenchman wishes to be the world’s great lover – and “whoosh!” he is. The Russian thinks hard and says “Most of all I want my neighbour Ivan’s cow to die”.

For anyone who thinks he understands envy, wealth redistribution, or the motivations behind either, that joke is a real knee-slapper....

Here's something about envy from the Reuters News Service.  It's about Facebook and envy:

A study conducted jointly by two German universities found rampant envy on Facebook, the world's largest social network that now has over one billion users and has produced an unprecedented platform for social comparison.

The researchers found that one in three people felt worse after visiting the site and more dissatisfied with their lives, while people who browsed without contributing were affected the most.

"We were surprised by how many people have a negative experience from Facebook with envy leaving them feeling lonely, frustrated or angry," researcher Hanna Krasnova from the Institute of Information Systems at Berlin's Humboldt University told Reuters.

"From our observations some of these people will then leave Facebook or at least reduce their use of the site," said Krasnova, adding to speculation that Facebook could be reaching saturation point in some markets.

Researchers from Humboldt University and from Darmstadt's Technical University found vacation photos were the biggest cause of resentment with more than half of envy incidents triggered by holiday snaps on Facebook....


"Passive following triggers invidious emotions, with users mainly envying happiness of others, the way others spend their vacations and socialize," the researchers said in the report "Envy on Facebook: A Hidden Threat to Users' Life Satisfaction?" released on Tuesday.

"The spread and ubiquitous presence of envy on Social Networking Sites is shown to undermine users' life satisfaction."

They found people aged in their mid-30s were most likely to envy family happiness while women were more likely to envy physical attractiveness.

These feelings of envy were found to prompt some users to boast more about their achievements on the site run by Facebook Inc. to portray themselves in a better light.

Men were shown to post more self-promotional content on Facebook to let people know about their accomplishments while women stressed their good looks and social lives....

That's what I absolutely love and adore about my fellow Libertarians and libertarians.  They don't care how much stuff the other guy has, as long as he got it honestly.  They want everyone to have as much as the other guy has. 
I believe that most Libertarians are bewildered by Facebook Envy, and have little or no experience of the sensation.  They can look at someone else's vacation pics from Greece, and think "Good for him.  He's worked hard.  He's smart.  I hope that one day, everyone in the world can have vacations as cool as that one." 
May the tribe increase !!!
(Hit that Facebook tab to your right if you want to friend me on FB !!) 

It's not fair !!! (But we voted for it anyway)

Here's a young woman griping and moaning about the national debt being unfair to the younger generation. 
Well, of course it isn't fair. 




So why do so many kids fall for the Hope'n'Change bullshit? 

Because they think they're being unselfish by bankrupting the nation . 
Because we haven't done a good enough job of explaining that true selfishness resides in Lockheed, Monsanto, Green Energy Scams, and D.C. Lobbyists, instead of in the people who don't want to burdern them with a 17 trillion dollar debt. 
Because my generation hasn't had to pay for anything yet, and these kids think they'll be able to pass on the mess just like we did. 
Because John Maynard Keynes didn't die in his crib as an infant, and billions of people around the world now believe that governments should try to control economies.  (Yeah, kinda harsh, I know, but I'm in a hurry and couldn't think of a better way to phrase it.) 
Because government schools promote government policies. 
Because the Republican Party's stance on most social issues is repugnant to many people under 30. 
Because the Republican Party, the primary opponent of the Hope'n'Change bullshit, is the party of big spending.
Because they truly believe, despite centuries of evidence to the contrary, that government can provide services more cheaply than the private sector. 
Because those of us who see through the Hope'n'Change bullshit don't always make the best evangelists.  We're too pissed about it, if such a thing is possible. 

Anyway, those are just a few reasons why I think the kids went for Hope'n'Change on their own credit cards.  I'm sure there are other reasons. 

The ULTIMATE Chain Letter and The Invisible Hand

I found this old Russ Roberts essay while looking for something else.  It's pure, undiluted greatness. 
It's about who you trust with your stuff.....

To read more old Russ Roberts stuff, hit the Cafe Hayek and Russ Roberts labels at the bottom of this post.  And if my favorite current Troll, Mr. Invisible Backhand, shows up, I'm sure he can tell us all about the virtues of the U.S. Postal Service. 

Here's Mr. Roberts:

 The other day I had to get some important tax receipts to my accountant. He’s in St. Louis, it was getting close to April 15, and it was very important that the papers didn’t get lost. To give my accountant plenty of time, I wanted the papers to arrive the next morning.


So what did I do? My first choice was to get on a plane and deliver the letter myself. Too expensive. Too much time.

So I did the next best thing. I went down to the airport and found someone headed to St. Louis. I told her how important it was for my accountant to have my receipts by the next day. Fortunately, she seemed really nice. She said she’d be happy to help me out. I sealed up the envelope, and she promised not to open it after I left.

I guess I’m naive. I know it was foolish to trust a stranger with something so important, but she seemed very honest. She smiled a lot, but I suppose a good thief could learn to do that.

I got a little nervous when she confessed she wouldn’t be able to actually deliver the letter herself. She had a business commitment that kept her tied up the next morning. But she promised to find some other people to make the delivery. I may be naive, but I’m not a fool. That scared me. I wouldn’t be able to meet the other people who’d be helping me out. How would I know whether they were as honest as she seemed to be? Maybe I could at least talk to them on the phone?

No dice, she said, but not to worry. She’d make sure they were good people like her—people who wouldn’t open my envelope. People who wouldn’t steal my credit card numbers off the receipts. People who wouldn’t throw the package away just to avoid the hassle of delivering it. Really, it would turn out fine. Besides, she wasn’t sure in advance who would be available to help so I would just have to hope for the best.

It seemed nuts, but by now it was getting late. I had to trust her. There was no other way to get the job done. I didn’t have any other options.

I gave her some money. She didn’t object. Maybe she had done this before.

I slept like a rock that night. I’ve always thought people are basically good.

How about you? How would you have felt that night, knowing that your crucial package was in the hands of strangers, strangers you would never see and whose honesty and unreliability were unknowable?

Maybe I should have worried more. How much did I give her? A lot less than it would have cost to get the package there myself—19 bucks. That’s all she asked for. Besides, if she pulled it off and got the package to my accountant, I’d have a story I could tell for the rest of my life.

Truth is, I never gave it a second thought. I trusted that strange woman at the airport. I’d never seen her before in my life, and I’d never see her again. But I felt somehow she’d come through for me.

And she did. I called my accountant the next day, and sure enough, he had received my letter a few minutes before 10 o’clock.

A miracle? A lucky break for me? Or maybe a dangerous lesson that might cause me to rely naively on strangers in the future?

None of the above. My trust wasn’t a miracle or a lucky break. And I’m a little less naive than you might think.

That stranger I entrusted with my financial secrets was standing behind a FedEx counter wearing a FedEx uniform.

It changes everything doesn’t it? You go into a FedEx, give a stranger $19, and you can walk out without a worry in the world, knowing that your package is going to get there by 10 the next morning.

I never worried that the woman behind the counter might open the package after I left the office to see what I was sending or enjoy its contents. I didn’t worry that the man or woman who would touch the package next might open the package to see what was in it. I didn’t worry that the myriad of people who might come into contact with my package would check it out to see if there was anything in it worth stealing.

I also never worried for an instant that one of the people who would come into contact with my package might just decide it was too much trouble to deal with and throw it away.

Total strangers I would never see. What word best describes my lack of worry? Was it trust? Faith? Confidence? And what was the source of my contentment as I left my package behind?

It wasn’t trust. The chain of people who interacted with my package was long, and there was no way to interview each of them to explore if they were reliable. So how could I trust them? Never saw them. Never would. The woman behind the counter seemed like a decent enough soul. I trusted her in some sense. But it’s certainly the wrong word to describe her coworkers who brought my package safely to St. Louis. I can’t say I trusted them. I knew nothing about them.

Faith? Seems too open-ended. Faith comes from having used FedEx before and knowing that it always gets the job done. There’s a little of that. But I wasn’t even worried the first time I used FedEx.

Confidence seems like the right word. Confidence born of an understanding of how the division of labor works in a modern economy. What Hayek called the extended order of human cooperation.

You can see the miracle of the modern economy if you contrast FedEx with a different system, one where I actually find a real stranger, who seems honest, down at the gate at the airport on the way to St. Louis. Here, I say. Take this money and this package. And don’t worry if you need some help taking the package the last few miles. Take it part of the way, and give the package and some of the money to the next person on the promise that each person will keep the chain unbroken.

Who could be confident that such a gambit would succeed?

So what’s different about FedEx? On the surface, there’s no difference. I’m expecting somehow that a lot of strangers are going to come through for me and keep their promises. Yet everything is different.

When I use FedEx there are consequences of failure if the strangers let me down. There are feedback loops that reward excellence and punish dishonesty or failure. These feedback loops create accountability.

FedEx tries to hire honest, pleasant people who smile when you talk to them. They fire rude people who consistently lose packages or steal them. It honors and rewards people who do their job well. And why does FedEx try so hard? Part of the answer is reputation. But why does FedEx try so hard to keep its reputation intact? Competition is part of the answer. But there is more to it as well.

Even those feedback loops that keep the FedEx employees honest work best when people feel guilty about being thieves and slugs. Does capitalism work best when people are basically honest, or does capitalism help create the virtues that make it work well? Probably both.

The system works so well that we hardly notice it or appreciate the marvel of it. The smiling FedEx employee is always behind the desk waiting to take my package onto St. Louis. A stranger delivers my paper every morning to my driveway. I don’t even know what he or she looks like. Strangers built my car, wove my clothes, and filled the prescription for the antibiotic that cured my wife’s pneumonia this past winter. A myriad of strangers working together in some research lab in a location unknown to me discovered that antibiotic.

We think nothing of it. It has become natural to us to rely on those we do not see and cannot examine for their honesty, reliability, or excellence. Yet, most of the time, this extended order of human cooperation fulfills our expectations that the products and services we want will be waiting for us when we want them.

We understand the role of competition in sustaining this system. Having alternatives helps create accountability and raises the costs of failing to meet our expectations. But we often fail to understand or notice the resulting cooperation among strangers whose coordinated actions within and across companies serve us.

Surprisingly, relying on strangers beats relying on friends. We don’t have enough of the latter if we want to enjoy the standard of living with all of its material and nonmaterial satisfactions. Relying on friends or relying only on our family would lower our standard of living back to the level of subsistence. Self-sufficiency is the road to poverty.

Relying on strangers also frees up our friends to specialize in being friends and do what friends do best. I don’t want to buy a shoulder to cry on from the low-cost seller behind a counter. I want friends and families to give that out of love. But my friends and family have more time for comfort and delight because the extended order of human cooperation out in the marketplace means I’m not expecting them to sew my clothes or forge a car for me.

Relying on strangers creates the extraordinary web of cooperation that is the modern economy. A world where the division of labor and specialization—the fruits of trade and trust enforced by the feedback loops of price, profit, and competition—can let me send a package from Washington to St. Louis for about an hour’s worth of work for the average American worker.

What a lot of confidence can be bought for only $19. And this marvel of cooperation works even though most of us are oblivious to it and know not how it works. But appreciating the marvel may help us remember the value of the system of prices and profits that holds it together.

Billie Holiday on the evils of Occupational Licensing

If you've read Les Miserables (or seen the recent film of the musical) you know that Jean ValJean had a heck of a time getting a job.  Something to do with having the word "Convict" stamped on his papers. 

On a related note, here's Billie Holiday, courtesy of Bryan Kaplan, talking about the evils of Occupational Licensing.  This is from her autobiography: 

Before you can work in a joint where liquor is sold you have to have a permit from the police department and the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board. This is a life-and-death matter. According to the law, which must be a hangover from the days of prohibition, nobody who has a police record can hold a liquor license...

When I got out of jail they threw the book at me. My application for a cabaret card was turned down flat. Without a card no one would hire me, and there was no place I could work in New York - not if they sold juice there.

I could play in theaters and sing to an audience of kids in their teens who couldn't get in any bar. I could appear on radio or TV... But if I opened my mouth in the crummiest bar in town, I was violating the law...

That's how screwy the setup is. The right to work everybody screams about doesn't mean a damn. If I had been a booster or a petty thief I'd have the parole board helping me to get a job so I could go straight and keep straight. But as a singer, the parole board couldn't do a thing for me. It was out of their hands.

Sometime in the next few weeks, I have to attend a Drug'n'Alcohol Awareness Seminar for work.  The cheapest one is $100.00 and the more expensive ones are $200.00.  This is so I can tell if a truck driver is drunk or stoned.  The instructor will have little or no idea what he's talking about.  But someone, somewhere, convinced a congressman once started an Awareness School and convinced a bureaucrat to make his school a requirement for Freight Brokers and Dispatchers.  (I promise you, the Congressman responsible didn't have the idea himself.) 

The same thing happens with interior designers, hairdressers, food-handlers, and coffin-makers. 
Here's a handy chart, broken down by state, of the funnier ones. :

Occupation	State(s)
Athletic Trainer	Most
Auctioneer	Several
Barber, Cosmetologist	All
Beekeeper	Maine
Casket Seller	Several
Chimney Sweep	Vermont
Dietician	Most
Elevator Operator	Massachusetts
Florist	Louisiana
Fortune Teller	Maryland
Hairbraider	Several
Hearing Aid Dispenser/Fitter	All
Interior Designer	Several
Interpreter for the Deaf	Illinois, Texas
Jai Alai Athlete, Umpire, Vendor, Ball Maker, Ticket Seller	Rhode Island
Junkyard Dealer	Ohio
Lightning Rod Installer	Vermont
Lobster Seller	Rhode Island
Manure Applicator	Iowa
Maple Dealer	Vermont
Motion Picture Projectionist	Massachusetts
Mussel Dealer	Illinois
Photographer (Itinerant)	Vermont
Prospector	Maine
Quilted Clothing Manufacturer	Utah
Rainmaker	Arizona

If I'm going to hire an Arizona Rainmaker, I want to have the confidence that John McCain has approved his license.  Sheesh....

When time permits, hit the 2nd link in the Bryan Kaplan piece.  It's an outstanding PDF about what all this licensing does to the economy, and how it harms entrepreneurs.  Even Interior Designers and Lightning Rod Installers....

Here's some Billie Holiday. 

I don't care who you are, this is funny !!

They Passed A Law !!

@Whited79

I've got a 60-hour a week job. 
I'm chair of the Tarrant County Libertarian Party. 
I've got a daughter at Texas A&M who costs more than The Hundred Years' War. 
I'm setting up Libertarian Meetups, Speaker Series, Book Discussion Groups, and Barroom Gripe'n' Moan sessions.
I've got a pile of books on my bedside table, another in my truck, and three shelves at work - all of books that I've been meaning to get to. 
I'm working on an e-book. 
I've started interviewing people at work about a libertarian-ish business book about the value they bring to our company. 
I've got scraps of about ten songs that I need to finish writing. 
I've got a very busy bar schedule. 
I think I've been inside a church four times in three years. 
I don't really know how many dachshunds are in my back yard, and I may have forgotten some of their names. 
Any given week, more people on Facebook invite me to more events than Paris Hilton actually attends in a month. 

What's missing? 

A Twitter feed !!!!  

If you are so inclined, you can follow me on Twitter.  Allen Patterson  @Whited79  

(Whited, for the name of this blog.  '79 for the year I was released from high school.) 

This should be fun. 

Fascism: 3 Definitions And 1 Example

From The Library Of Economics And Liberty:

"Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace." 

From Lew Rockwell, director of the Ludwig Von Mises Institute:

Everyone knows that the term fascist is a pejorative, often used to describe any political position a speaker doesn’t like. There isn’t anyone around who is willing to stand up and say: "I’m a fascist; I think fascism is a great social and economic system."

But I submit that if they were honest, the vast majority of politicians, intellectuals, and political activists would have to say just that.
Fascism is the system of government that cartelizes the private sector, centrally plans the economy to subsidize producers, exalts the police State as the source of order, denies fundamental rights and liberties to individuals, and makes the executive State the unlimited master of society.

From Whole Foods Market founder John Mackey:

The CEO of Whole Foods Market said President Obama's healthcare law is more like "fascism" than "socialism," a parallel he drew in 2009, to some backlash.

John Mackey made the remark in an interview Wednesday with NPR.

"Technically speaking, it's more like fascism," Mackey said of the Affordable Care Act. "Socialism is where the government owns the means of production. In fascism, the government doesn't own the means of production, but they do control it, and that's what's happening with our healthcare programs and these reforms."

 

Damn.....

Looks like the NRA has settled on a strategy....